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Niecks, writing of the G major Nocturne, adjures us "not to tarry too long in the treacherous atmosphere of this Capua it bewitches and unmans." Kleczynski calls the one in G minor "homesickness," while the celebrated Nocturne in C minor "is the tale of a still greater grief told in an agitated recitando; celestial harps" ah!
But what others imparted to him in regard to it was supplemented by his fancy and his nationality." Chopin wrote fifteen Polonaises, the authenticity of one in G flat major being doubted by Niecks. This list includes the Polonaise for violoncello and piano, op. 3, and the Polonaise, op. 22, for piano and orchestra.
A major ending would have crushed this extraordinary tone-poem, written, Chopin admits, under the direct inspiration of Adam Mickiewicz's "Le Lac de Willis." Willeby accepts Schumann's dictum of the inferiority of this Ballade to its predecessor. Niecks does not. Niecks is quite justified in asking how "two such wholly dissimilar things can be compared and weighed in this fashion."
Niecks thinks Chopin might have learned of Kalkbrenner on the mechanical side. Chopin, in public, was modest about his attainments, looking upon himself as self-taught. "I cannot create a new school, because I do not even know the old," he said. It is this very absence of scholasticism that is both the power and weakness of his music. In reality his true technical ancestor was Hummel.
"Internal evidence seems to show," writes Niecks, "that these weakest of the master's studies which, however, are by no means uninteresting and certainly very characteristic may be regarded more than op. 25 as the outcome of a gleaning." The last decade has added much to the artistic stature of these three supplementary studies. They have something of the concision of the Preludes.
Niecks thinks it "superbly grand," and furthermore writes: "The composer seems fuming with rage; the left hand rushes impetuously along and the right hand strikes in with passionate ejaculations." Von Bulow said: "This C minor study must be considered a finished work of art in an even higher degree than the study in C sharp minor." All of which is pretty, but not enough to the point.
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.
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