This page is full of the
premonitions of decay. Too weak and faltering to be febrile,
Chopin is here a debile, prematurely exhausted young man. There
are a few accents of a forced gayety, but they are swallowed up
in the mists of dissolution--the dissolution of one of the most
sensitive brains ever wrought by nature. Here we may echo,
without any savor of Liszt's condescension or de Lenz's irony:
"Pauvre Frederic!"
Klindworth and Kullak have different ideas concerning the end of
this Mazurka. Both are correct. Kullak, Klindworth and Mikuli
include in their editions two Mazurkas in A minor. Neither is
impressive. One, the date of composition unknown, is dedicated "a
son ami Emile Gaillard;" the other first appeared in a musical
publication of Schotts' about 1842 or 1843--according to Niecks.
Of this set I prefer the former; it abounds in octaves and ends
with a long trill There is in the Klindworth edition a Mazurka,
the last in the set, in the key of F sharp. It is so un-Chopinish
and artificial that the doubts of the pianist Ernst Pauer were
aroused as to its authenticity.
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