..Very few of the Preludes present this
character of ennui, and that which is the most marked, the second
one, must have been written, according to Count Tarnowski, a long
time before he went to Majorca. ... What is there to say
concerning the other Preludes, full of good humor and gaiety--No.
18, in E flat; No. 21, in B flat; No. 23, in F, or the last, in D
minor? Is it not strong and energetic, concluding, as it does,
with three cannon shots?"
Willeby in his "Frederic Francois Chopin" considers at length the
Preludes. He agrees in the main with Niecks, that certain of
these compositions were written at Valdemosa--Nos. 4, 6, 9, 13,
20 and 21--and that "Chopin, having sketches of others with him,
completed the whole there, and published them under one opus
number. ... The atmosphere of those I have named is morbid and
azotic; to them there clings a faint flavor of disease, a
something which is overripe in its lusciousness and febrile in
its passion. This in itself inclines me to believe they were
written at the time named."
This is all very well, but Chopin was faint and febrile in his
music before he went to Majorca, and the plain facts adduced by
Gutmann and Niecks cannot be passed over.
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