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She trifled away half an hour at the piano; and played, in that time, selections from the Songs of Mendelssohn, the Mazurkas of Chopin, the Operas of Verdi, and the Sonatas of Mozart all of whom had combined together on this occasion and produced one immortal work, entitled "Frank." She closed the piano and went up to her room, to dream away the hours luxuriously in visions of her married future.
But I am not sure that the Etudes are not, in a very personal sense, what is most essential in Chopin, and I am not sure that Pachmann is not at his best in the playing of the Etudes. Other pianists think, perhaps, but Pachmann plays. As he plays he is like one hypnotised by the music; he sees it beckoning, smiles to it, lifts his finger on a pause that you may listen to the note which is coming.
There is a clumsiness about his harmonies in the midst of their affected strangeness, a sickliness about his melodies despite their evidently FORCED unlikeness to familiar phrases, an utter ignorance of design everywhere apparent in his lengthened works...The entire works of Chopin present a motley surface of ranting hyperbole and excruciating cacophony.
Through his peculiar style of performance, Chopin imparted this constant rocking with the most fascinating effect; thus making the melody undulate to and fro, like a skiff driven on over the bosom of tossing waves.
And this is not to be wondered at, if we consider the physical weakness under which he was then labouring. When Chopin went before these matinees to Broadwood's to try the pianoforte on which he was to play, he had each time to be carried up the flight of stairs which led to the piano-room.
Each succeeding biographer of the great composer has sought to tell us a little more about her yet little is known of her even now beyond the fact that she was very beautiful and so eager have we been for a glimpse of her face that we have accepted without reserve as an authentic presentment of her features the famous portrait of a Countess Potocka who, I find, died some seven or eight years before Delphine and Chopin met.
With growing interest Chopin came nearer and nearer the keyboard and listened to the fine, poetic playing of the young Bohemian; his pale features grew animated, and by mien and gesture he showed to all who were present his lively approbation. When Schulhoff had finished, Chopin held out his hand to him with the words: "Vous etes un vrai artiste, un collegue!"
Chopin at first refused, but wearied at last by continued persecution, assuming, to sharpen the sting of his words, a stifled and languid tone of voice, he exclaimed: "Ah, sir, I have scarcely dined!" Madame Sand Lelia Visit to Majorca Exclusive Ideals.
Chopin appropriated it as one of his most potent auxiliaries. In playing he emphasized the saying of Mozart: "Let your left hand be the orchestra conductor," while his right hand balanced and swayed the melody and its arabesques according to the natural pulsation of the emotions.
They remained throughout April at Marseilles, where Chopin, in the hands of a good doctor, became convalescent. From Marseilles they made a short tour in Italy, visiting Genoa and the neighborhood, and returning to France in May, Chopin apparently on the high road to complete recovery.
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