track.  In taking up one of the works of Chopin you are entering, as it were, a fairyland untrodden by human footsteps—­a path hitherto unfrequented but by the great composer himself.

Gracious, even coquettish, is the first part of the B major Nocturne of this opus.  Well knit, the passionate intermezzo has the true dramatic Chopin ring.  It should be taken alla breve.  The ending is quite effective.

I do not care much for the F major Nocturne, op. 15, No.  I. The opus is dedicated to Ferdinand Hiller.  Ehlert speaks of “the ornament in triplets with which he brushes the theme as with the gentle wings of a butterfly,” and then discusses the artistic value of the ornament which may be so profitably studied in the Chopin music.  “From its nature, the ornament can only beautify the beautiful.”  Music like Chopin’s, “with its predominating elegance, could not forego ornament.  But he surely did not purchase it of a jeweller; he designed it himself, with a delicate hand.  He was the first to surround a note with diamond facets and to weave the rushing floods of his emotions with the silver beams of the moonlight.  In his nocturnes there is a glimmering as of distant stars.  From these dreamy, heavenly gems he has borrowed many a line.  The Chopin nocturne is a dramatized ornament.  And why may not Art speak for once in such symbols?  In the much admired F sharp major Nocturne the principal theme makes its appearance so richly decorated that one cannot avoid imagining that his fancy confined itself to the Arabesque form for the expression of its poetical sentiments.  Even the middle part borders upon what I should call the tragic style of ornament.  The ground thought is hidden behind a dense veil, but a veil, too, can be an ornament.”

In another place Ehlert thinks that the F sharp major Nocturne seems inseparable from champagne and truffles.  It is certainly more elegant and dramatic than the one in F major, which precedes it.  That, with the exception of the middle part in F minor, is weak, although rather pretty and confiding.  The F sharp Nocturne is popular.  The “doppio movemento” is extremely striking and the entire piece is saturated with young life, love and feelings of good will to men.  Read Kleczynski.  The third nocturne of the three is in G minor, and contains some fine, picturesque writing.  Kullak does not find in it aught of the fantastic.  The languid, earth-weary voice of the opening and the churchly refrain of the chorale, is not this fantastic contrast!  This nocturne contains in solution all that Chopin developed later in a nocturne of the same key.  But I think the first stronger—­its lines are simpler, more primitive, its coloring less complicated, yet quite as rich and gloomy.  Of it Chopin said:  “After Hamlet,” but changed his mind.  “Let them guess for themselves,” was his sensible conclusion.  Kullak’s programme has a conventional ring.  It is the lament for the beloved one, the lost Lenore, with the consolation