But in every piece we find in his own hand,
'Frederic Chopin wrote it.' One recognizes him in his pauses, in
his impetuous respiration. He is the boldest, the proudest poet
soul of his time. To be sure the book also contains some morbid,
feverish, repellant traits; but let everyone look in it for
something that will enchant him. Philistines, however, must keep
away."
It was in these Preludes that Ignaz Moscheles first comprehended
Chopin and his methods of execution. The German pianist had found
his music harsh and dilettantish in modulation, but Chopin's
originality of performance--"he glides lightly over the keys in a
fairy-like way with his delicate fingers"--quite reconciled the
elder man to this strange music.
To Liszt the Preludes seem modestly named, but "are not the less
types of perfection in a mode created by himself, and stamped
like all his other works with the high impress of his poetic
genius. Written in the commencement of his career, they are
characterized by a youthful vigor not to be found in some of his
subsequent works, even when more elaborate, finished and richer
in combinations; a vigor which is entirely lost in his latest
productions, marked by an overexcited sensibility, a morbid
irritability, and giving painful intimations of his own state of
suffering and exhaustion.
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