Hadow, for example, thinks the A flat of this
opus the most beautiful of them all. In it he finds legitimately
used the repetition in various shapes of a single phrase. To me
this Mazurka seems but an amplification, an elaboration of the
lovely one in the same key, op. 50, No. 2. The double sixths and
more complicated phraseology do not render the later superior to
the early Mazurka, yet there is no gainsaying the fact that this
is a noble composition. But the next, in F sharp minor, despite
its rather saturnine gaze, is stronger in interest, if not in
workmanship. While it lacks Niecks' beautes sauvages, is it not
far loftier in conception and execution than op. 6, in F sharp
minor? The inevitable triplet appears in the third bar, and is a
hero throughout. Oh, here is charm for you! Read the close of the
section in F sharp major. In the major it ends, the triplet
fading away at last, a mere shadow, a turn on D sharp, but victor
to the last. Chopin is at the summit of his invention. Time and
tune, that wait for no man, are now his bond slaves.
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