I yield to none in my
admiration for the first one of the two in G minor, for the
psychical despair in the C sharp minor nocturne, for that noble
drama called the C minor nocturne, for the B major, the Tuberose
nocturne; and for the E, D flat and G major nocturnes, it remains
unabated. But in the list there is no such picture painted, a
Corot if ever there was one, as this E flat study.
Its novel design, delicate arabesques--as if the guitar had been
dowered with a soul--and the richness and originality of its
harmonic scheme, gives us pause to ask if Chopin's invention is
not almost boundless. The melody itself is plaintive; a plaintive
grace informs the entire piece. The harmonization is far more
wonderful, but to us the chord of the tenth and more remote
intervals, seem no longer daring; modern composition has devilled
the musical alphabet into the very caverns of the grotesque, yet
there are harmonies in the last page of this study that still
excite wonder. The fifteenth bar from the end is one that Richard
Wagner might have made.
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