Classical is its repression of feeling, its pure contour. The
echo effect is skilfully managed, monotony being artfully
avoided. Klindworth rightfully slurs the duple group of eighths;
Kullak tries for the same effect by different means. The duality
of the voices should be clearly expressed. The tempo, marked in
both editions, lento assai, is fast. To be precise, Klindworth
gives 66 to the quarter.
The plaintive little mazurka of two lines, the seventh prelude,
is a mere silhouette of the national dance. Yet in its measures
is compressed all Mazovia. Klindworth makes a variant in the
fourth bar from the last, a G sharp instead of an F sharp. It is
a more piquant climax, perhaps not admissible to the Chopin
purist. In the F sharp minor prelude No. 7, Chopin gives us a
taste of his grand manner. For Niecks the piece is jerky and
agitated, and doubtless suggests a mental condition bordering on
anxiety; but if frenzy there is, it is kept well in check by the
exemplary taste of the composer. The sadness is rather elegiac,
remote, and less poignant than in the E minor prelude.
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