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Updated: May 18, 2025
In his notes to the F major study Theodor Kullak expatiates at length upon his favorite idea that Chopin must not be played according to his metronomic markings. The original autograph gives 96 to the half, the Tellefsen edition 88, Klindworth 80, Von Bulow 89, Mikuli 88, and Riemann the same.
The first theme has never been excelled by Chopin for a species of veiled melancholy. It is a fascinating, lyrical sorrow, and what Kullak calls the psychologic motivation of the first theme in the curving figure of the second does not relax the spell. A space of clearer skies, warmer, more consoling winds are in the D flat interlude, but the spirit of unrest, ennui returns.
The same authority recommends slow staccato practice, with the lid of the piano closed. Then the hurly-burly of tone will not intoxicate the player and submerge his critical faculty. Each editor has his notion of the phrasing of the initial sixteenths. Klindworth fingers this passage more ingeniously, but phrases it about the same, omitting the sextolet mark. Kullak retains it.
It is simply unapproachable, and has no equal for lucidity, brevity and polish among the works of Chopin, except the Scherzo in C sharp minor; but there is less irony, more muscularity, and more native sweetness in this E flat minor Scherzo. I like the way Kullak marks the first B flat octave. It is a pregnant beginning.
Great in outline, pride, force and velocity, it never relaxes its grim grip from the first shrill dissonance to the overwhelming chordal close. This end rings out like the crack of creation. It is elemental. Kullak calls it a "bravura study of the very highest order for the left hand.
He also fingers what Von Bulow calls the "chromatic meanderings," in an unusual manner, both on the first page and the last. Mikuli places a legato bow over the first three octaves so does Kullak Von Bulow only over the last two, which gives a slightly different effect, while Klindworth does the same as Kullak. The heavy dynamic accents employed by Riemann are unmistakable.
Marie Wieck, Clara Schumann's younger sister, has composed a few excellent piano pieces and a number of songs. Sophie, Countess of Baudissin, has published variations, études, nocturnes, and other piano works. Josephine Amann is another German piano composer. More familiar to the American public is Adele Aus Der Ohe, a pupil of Liszt and Kullak, who has established her reputation as a pianist.
It takes prodigious power and endurance to play this work, prodigious power, passion and no little poetry. It is open air music, storm music, and at times moves in processional splendor. Small souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should avoid it. The prime technical difficulty is the management of the thumb. Kullak has made a variant at the end for concert performance. It is effective.
On the fourth line and in the first bar of the Kullak version, there is a chord of the dominant seventh in dispersed position that does not occur in any other edition. Yet it must be Chopin or one of his disciples, for this autograph is in the Royal Library at Berlin.
The episodes of this Ballade are so attenuated of any grosser elements that none but psychical meanings should be read into them. The disputed passage is on the fifth page of the Kullak edition, after the trills. A measure is missing in Kullak, who, like Klindworth, gives it in a footnote. To my mind this repetition adds emphasis, although it is a formal blur.
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