" Von Bulow speaks rather
disdainfully of it as a Damen-Salon Etude. It is certainly
graceful, delicately witty, a trifle naughty, arch and roguish,
and it is delightfully invented. Technically, it requires smooth,
velvet-tipped fingers and a supple wrist. In the fourth bar,
third group, third note of group, Klindworth and Riemann print E
flat instead of D flat. Mikuli, Kullak and Von Bulow use the D
flat. Now, which is right? The D flat is preferable. There are
already two E flats in the bar. The change is an agreeable one.
Joseffy has made a concert variation for this study. The
metronome of the original is given at 116 to the quarter.
A dark, doleful nocturne is No. 6, in E flat minor. Niecks
praises it in company with the preceding one in E. It is
beautiful, if music so sad may be called beautiful, and the
melody is full of stifled sorrow. The study figure is ingenious,
but subordinated to the theme. In the E major section the piece
broadens to dramatic vigor. Chopin was not yet the slave of his
mood. There must be a psychical programme to this study, some
record of a youthful disillusion, but the expression of it is
kept well within chaste lines.
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