grattant

Updated: May 28, 2025

The movement is too sombre, its curves too full of half-suppressed meanings, its rush and sub-human growling too expressive of something that defies definition. Schumann compares it to a "sphinx with a mocking smile." To Henri Barbadette "C'est Lazare grattant de ses ongles la pierre de son tombeau," or, like Mendelssohn, one may abhor it, yet it cannot be ignored.

James Huneker - Chopin : the Man and His Music

Thus the sonata concludes, as it began, enigmatically, like a sphinx with a mocking smile. H. Barbedette remarks in his "Chopin," a criticism without insight and originality, of this finale, "C'est Lazare grattant de ses ongles la pierre de son tombeau et tombant epuise de fatigue, de faim et de desespoir."

Frederick Niecks - Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Volume 2