25, No. 2) or one of those
Mazurkas in which Chopin is more poignantly fantastic in substance, more
wild and whimsical in rhythm, than elsewhere in his music; and indeed,
as Pachmann played them, they were strange and lovely gambols of
unchristened elves. But in the Scherzo he mastered this great, violent,
heroic thing as he had mastered the little freakish things and the
trickling and whispering things. He gave meaning to every part of its
decoration, yet lost none of the splendour and wave-like motion of the
whole tossing and eager sea of sound.
Pachmann's art, like Chopin's, which it perpetuates, is of that
peculiarly modern kind which aims at giving the essence of things in
their fine shades: "la nuance encor!" Is there, it may be asked, any
essential thing left out in the process; do we have attenuation in what
is certainly a way of sharpening one's steel to a very fine point? The
sharpened steel gains in what is most vital in its purpose by this very
paring away of its substance; and why should not a form of art strike
deeper for the same reason? Our only answer to Whistler and Verlaine is
the existence of Rodin and Wagner.
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