And this first study in C is heroic. Theodore
Kullak writes of it: "Above a ground bass proudly and boldly
striding along, flow mighty waves of sound. The etude--whose
technical end is the rapid execution of widely extended chord
figurations exceeding the span of an octave--is to be played on
the basis of forte throughout. With sharply dissonant harmonies
the forte is to be increased to fortissimo, diminishing again
with consonant ones. Pithy accents! Their effect is enhanced when
combined with an elastic recoil of the hand."
The irregular, black, ascending and descending staircases of
notes strike the neophyte with terror. Like Piranesi's marvellous
aerial architectural dreams, these dizzy acclivities and descents
of Chopin exercise a charm, hypnotic, if you will, for eye as
well as ear. Here is the new technique in all its nakedness, new
in the sense of figure, design, pattern, web, new in a harmonic
way. The old order was horrified at the modulatory harshness, the
young sprigs of the new, fascinated and a little frightened. A
man who could explode a mine that assailed the stars must be
reckoned with.
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