One cannot help but wonder why Chopin withheld from publication a work such as this, particularly since it has become such a war-horse on which the bravura of many a concert pianist rides.
"I suspect he missed in it, especially in the middle section, that degree of distinction and perfection of detail which alone satisfied his fastidious taste," thought Niecks.
It begins with a declamatory octave, struck by the left hand - Ciceronian - on the fifth degree of the scale, but to immediately touch ground with an undulating agitato in the tonic key of C# minor, out of which there arises a coloratura motif, a la Bellini, made up of trim 16th notes, allegro, lithe and lacey.
Modulating from C# minor to E major, the implication of a second theme has prompted in some the more pedantic view that within these measures there is suspended the shadowy form of a mini-sonata with a return to its primary theme, not unlike a recapitulation. Such analysis, extended in thought as it well may be, can only serve to borderland the fancies of one so flexible, whose mastery soared far beyond the fronteirs of accepted classical forms. So too has it been suggested that the trio, moderato cantabile, less servile than some performers would have us hear it, is a veiled homage to the Moonlight Sonata.
Dare I suggest it? The coda, so skillfully wrought, with the melody of the slow movement transferred to the bass 'neath a murmuring accompaniment, might well be Chopin himself chasing rainbows.
PHILLIP WILCHER
August 2002
