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Updated: June 27, 2025
Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry, where the brothers' gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with his religious name upon a board names full of legendary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, if you please, and even Moliere, to say nothing of innumerable fathers and a great variety of local and general historians.
Alexandre Dumas fils speaks in the "Affaire Clemenceau" of the "Berceuse" as None of Chopin's compositions surpass in masterliness of form and beauty and poetry of contents his ballades. In them he attains, I think, the acme of his power as an artist.
Charles d'Orleans, that captive and captivating prince, wrote thousands of rondeaux; even before his time a gallant company of gentlemen composed the Livre des Cent Ballades, one hundred ballades, practically unreadable by modern men.
Ah, well, your poet is dead . . . and I had no real enmity toward him. . . . He was your friend. He will write no more ballades, and rondeaux, and triolets; eh, Madame? . . . Well, in a moment," as if he heard a voice calling. He balanced himself with difficulty. Life returned to madame.
Because Chopin did not label his works with any but general titles, Ballades, Scherzi, Studies, Preludes and the like, his music sounds all the better: the listener is not pinned down to any precise mood, the music being allowed to work its particular charm without the aid of literary crutches for unimaginative minds. Dr.
Austin Dobson's "Proverbs in Porcelain" is also in demand among the curious. Nay, even I may say about the first edition of "Ballades in Blue China" , as Gibbon said of his "Essay on the Study of Literature:" "The primitive value of half a crown has risen to the fanciful price of a guinea or thirty shillings," or even more. I wish I had a copy myself, for old sake's sake.
Carter was down for a paper on Rabelais; King would have some of his amusing ballades and rondeaus; and above all there would be the first chapter of the serial, from which the members promised themselves much diversion. It was too late now to attempt anything on Danton and Robespierre; he picked up a volume of Belloc and sat cosily by the fire.
And yet there is an engaging frankness about these ballades which disarms criticism. You see Charles throwing himself head-foremost into the trap; you hear Burgundy, in his answers, begin to inspire him with his own prejudices, and draw melancholy pictures of the misgovernment of France.
Ostensibly cynical and a witty satirist of his more sentimental fellows, his desk was full of charming ballades and pieces d'amour, scratched off at white heat in odd moments. His infinite fund of full-flavoured jest had won him the nickname of Priapus.
It must be remembered that with the studies, while they completely exhibit the entire range of Chopin's genius, the play's the thing after all. The poetry, the passion of the Ballades and Scherzi wind throughout these technical problems like a flaming skein. With the modern avidity for exterior as well as interior analysis, Mikuli, Reinecke, Mertke and Scholtz evidence little sympathy.
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