In treating of the present book of Etudes, Robert Schumann, after comparing Chopin to a strange star seen at midnight, wrote as follows:  “Whither his path lies and leads, or how long, how brilliant its course is yet to be, who can say?  As often, however, as it shows itself, there is ever seen the same deep dark glow, the same starry light and the same austerity, so that even a child could not fail to recognize it.  But besides this, I have had the advantage of hearing most of these Etudes played by Chopin himself, and quite a la Chopin did he play them!”

Of the first one especially he writes:  “Imagine that an aeolian harp possessed all the musical scales, and that the hand of an artist were to cause them all to intermingle in all sorts of fantastic embellishments, yet in such a way as to leave everywhere audible a deep fundamental tone and a soft continuously-singing upper voice, and you will get the right idea of his playing.  But it would be an error to think that Chopin permitted every one of the small notes to be distinctly heard.  It was rather an undulation of the A flat major chord, here and there thrown aloft anew by the pedal.  Throughout all the harmonies one always heard in great tones a wondrous melody, while once only, in the middle of the piece, besides that chief song, a tenor voice became prominent in the midst of chords.  After the Etude a feeling came over one as of having seen in a dream a beatific picture which when half awake one would gladly recall.”

After these words there can be no doubt as to the mode of delivery.  No commentary is required to show that the melodic and other important tones indicated by means of large notes must emerge from within the sweetly whispering waves, and that the upper tones must be combined so as to form a real melody with the finest and most thoughtful shadings.

The twenty-fourth bar of this study in A major is so Lisztian that Liszt must have benefited by its harmonies.

“And then he played the second in the book, in F minor, one in which his individuality displays itself in a manner never to be forgotten.  How charming, how dreamy it was!  Soft as the song of a sleeping child.”  Schumann wrote this about the wonderful study in F minor, which whispers, not of baleful deeds in a dream, as does the last movement of the B flat minor sonata, but is—­“the song of a sleeping child.”  No comparison could be prettier, for there is a sweet, delicate drone that sometimes issues from childish lips, having a charm for ears not attuned to grosser things.