Franz Liszt told
Vladimir de Pachmann the programme of the Fantaisie, as related
to him by Chopin. At the close of one desperate, immemorial day,
the pianist was crooning at the piano, his spirits vastly
depressed. Suddenly came a knocking at his door, a Poe-like,
sinister tapping, which he at once rhythmically echoed upon the
keyboard, his phono-motor centre being unusually sensitive. The
first two bars of the Fantaisie describe these rappings, just as
the third and fourth stand for Chopin's musical invitation,
entrez, entrez! This is all repeated until the doors wide open
swinging admit Liszt, George Sand, Madame Camille Pleyel nee
Mock, and others. To the solemn measures of the march they enter,
and range themselves about Chopin, who after the agitated
triplets begins his complaint in the mysterious song in F minor.
But Sand, with whom he has quarrelled, falls before him on her
knees and pleads for pardon. Straightway the chant merges into
the appealing A flat section--this sends skyward my theory of its
interpretation--and from C minor the current becomes more
tempestuous until the climax is reached and to the second march
the intruders rapidly vanish.
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