In ten
years--so rapid is the technical standard advancing--they will be
used in the curriculum of students. Whether he has treated Chopin
with reverence I leave my betters to determine. What has
reverence to do with the case, anyhow? Plato is parsed in the
schoolroom, and Beethoven taught in conservatories! Therefore why
worry over the question of Godowsky's attitude! Besides, he is
writing for the next generation--presumably a generation of
Rosenthals.
And now, having passed over the salt and stubbly domain of
pedagogics, what is the dominant impression gleaned from the
twenty-seven Chopin studies? Is it not one of admiration, tinged
with wonder at such a prodigal display of thematic and technical
invention? Their variety is great, the aesthetic side is nowhere
neglected for the purely mechanical, and in the most poetic of
them stuff may be found for delicate fingers. Astounding,
canorous, enchanting, alembicated and dramatic, the Chopin
studies are exemplary essays in emotion and manner. In them is
mirrored all of Chopin, the planetary as well as the secular
Chopin.
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