The remaining Rondo, posthumously published as op. 73, and
composed in 1828, was originally intended, so Chopin writes in
1828, for one piano. It is full of fire, but the ornamentation
runs mad, and no traces of the poetical Chopin are present. He is
preoccupied with the brilliant surfaces of the life about him.
His youthful expansiveness finds a fair field in these
variations, rondos and fantasias.
Schumann's enthusiasm over the variations on "La ci darem la
mano" seems to us a little overdone. Chopin had not much gift for
variation in the sense that we now understand variation.
Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms--one must include Mendelssohn's
Serious Variations--are masters of a form that is by no means
structurally simple or a reversion to mere spielerei, as Finck
fancies. Chopin plays with his themes prettily, but it is all
surface display, all heat lightning. He never smites, as does
Brahms with his Thor hammer, the subject full in the middle,
cleaving it to its core. Chopin is slightly effeminate in his
variations, and they are true specimens of spielerei, despite the
cleverness of design in the arabesques, their brilliancy and
euphony.
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