"I look forward eagerly," Buelow wrote to a friend, "to your Chopin, that
immortal romanticist par excellence, whose mazurkas alone are a monument
more enduring than metal. Never will this great, deep, sincere, and at
the same time tender and passionate poet become antiquated. On the
contrary, as musical culture increases, he will appear in a much
brighter light than to-day, when only the popular Chopin is in vogue,
whereas the more aristocratic, manly Chopin, the poet of the last two
scherzi, the last two ballads, the barcarole, the polonaise-fantaisie,
the nocturnes, Op. 9, No. 3; Op. 48; Op. 55, No. 2, etc., still awaits
the interpreters who have entered into his spirit and among whom, if God
grants me life, I should like to have the pride of counting myself.
"You know from my introduction to the etudes how highly I esteem Chopin.
In his pieces we find Lenau, Byron, Musset, Lamartine, and at the same
time all sorts of heathen Apollo priests. You shall learn through me to
love him dearly.
"We must grant Chopin the great distinction of having in his works fixed
the boundaries between piano and orchestral music, which other
romanticists, notably Robert Schumann, confused, to the detriment of
both.
"There are two Chopins--one an aristocrat, the other democratic."
Concerning the mazurka, Op. 50, No. 1, he said: "In this mazurka there
is dancing, singing, gesticulating.
"Chopin's pupils issued in Paris an edition of his works. Chopin's
pupils are, however, as unreliable as the girls who pose as Liszt's
pupils. Use the Klindworth edition.
"Liszt's ballads and polonaises have proved most strikingly that it was
possible after Chopin to write ballads and polonaises. In the polonaises
in particular Liszt opened many new points of view for the widening
and spiritualising of that form, quite apart from the individual
peculiarities of his productions, which put in place of the national
Polish colour an entirely new element, thus making possible the filling
out of this form with new contents."
In one of his essays Buelow indignantly attacks the current notion that
Liszt's pieces are all unplayable except by concert pianists: "Some day
I shall make a list of all of Liszt's pieces for piano which most
amateurs will find much easier to master and digest than the chaff of
Thalberg or the wheat of Henselt or Chopin. But it seems that the name
of Liszt as composer for the piano has become associated inseparably
with the words 'inexecutable,' and making 'colossal demands.' It is a
harmless prejudice of the ignorant, like many others, but for all that
none the less objectionable.
"Liszt does not represent virtuosity as distinguished from music--very
far from it.
"The Liszt ballade in B minor is equal in poetic content to Chopin's
ballades."
Concerning Liszt's Irrlichter and Gnomenreigen, he said: "I wish the
inspired master had written more pieces like these, which are as perfect
as any song without words by Mendelssohn."