United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


On this point Riemann must without question be considered right. Likewise the feeling player will mark those notes that introduce the transition to another key. In the first bar we have the tonic chord of its major key as bass, and are thus not forced to any accent. Also in the fourth bar the B flat is Vorhalt to the B flat, and likewise requires an accent.

He pulls apart the brightly colored petals of the thematic flower and reveals the inner chemistry of this delicate growth. Four different voices are distinguished in the kernel. Kullak and Mikuli dot the C of the first bar. Klindworth and Von Bulow do not. As to phrasing and fingering I pin my faith to Riemann. His version is the most satisfactory. Here are the first bars.

Riemann writes of him, "From Bach he inherited the depth, from Haydn, the humor, from Mozart, the charm, from Beethoven, the strength, from Schubert, the intimateness of his art. Truly a wonderfully gifted nature that was able to absorb such a fulness of great gifts and still not lose the best of gifts the strong individuality which makes the master."

According to a theory of electricity which is making great progress in Germany, two electrical particles act on one another directly at a distance, but with a force which, according to Weber, depends on their relative velocity, and according to a theory hinted at by Gauss, and developed by Riemann, Lorenz, and Neumann, acts not instantaneously, but after a time depending on the distance.

There are useful dictionaries, too, notably the excellent 'Opern-Handbuch' of Dr Riemann, which gives the names and dates of production of every opera of any note; but the German scientist does not always condescend to the detailed narration of the stories, though he gives the sources from which they may have been derived.

In fact, those basses are the argument of the play; they must be granitic, ponderable and powerful. The same authority calls attention to a misprint C, which he makes B flat, the last note treble in the twenty-ninth bar. Von Bulow gives the Chopin metronomic marking. It remained for Riemann to make some radical changes.

It is certainly graceful, delicately witty, a trifle naughty, arch and roguish, and it is delightfully invented. Technically, it requires smooth, velvet-tipped fingers and a supple wrist. In the fourth bar, third group, third note of group, Klindworth and Riemann print E flat instead of D flat. Mikuli, Kullak and Von Bulow use the D flat. Now, which is right? The D flat is preferable.

Breitkopf & Hartel do not. Dr. Hugo Riemann, who has edited a few of the Preludes, phrases the first bars thus: Desperate and exasperating to the nerves is the second prelude in A minor. It is an asymmetric tune. Chopin seldom wrote ugly music, but is this not ugly, forlorn, despairing, almost grotesque, and discordant? It indicates the deepest depression in its sluggish, snake-like progression.