It has all the characteristics of a concerto, and is
indeed a truncated one--much more so than Schumann's F minor
Sonata, called Concert Sans Orchestre. There are tutti in the
Chopin work, the solo part not really beginning until the eighty-
seventh bar. But it must not be supposed that these long
introductory passages are ineffective for the player. The Allegro
is one of Chopin's most difficult works. It abounds in risky
skips, ambuscades of dangerous double notes, and the principal
themes are bold and expressive. The color note is strikingly
adapted for public performance, and perhaps Schumann was correct
in believing that Chopin had originally sketched this for piano
and orchestra. Niecks asks if this is not the fragment of a
concerto for two pianos, which Chopin, in a letter written at
Vienna, December 21, 1830, said he would play in public with his
friend Nidecki, if he succeeded in writing it to his
satisfaction. And is there any significance in the fact that
Chopin, when sending this manuscript to Fontana, probably in the
summer of 1841, calls it a concerto?
While it adds little to Chopin's reputation, it has the
potentialities of a powerful and more manly composition than
either of the two concertos.
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