2, are of very little account, show in every one of the three works of this group an inaptitude in writing for any other instrument than the piano that is quite surprising considering the great musical endowments of Chopin in other respects.

I shall not dwell on this subject now, as we shall have to consider it when we come to the composer's concertos.
The fundamental characteristics of Chopin's style--the loose-textured, wide-meshed chords and arpeggios, the serpentine movements, the bold leaps--are exaggerated in the works of this group, and in their exaggeration become grotesque, and not unfrequently ineffective.

These works show us, indeed, the composer's style in a state of fermentation; it has still to pass through a clearing process, in which some of its elements will be secreted and others undergo a greater or less change.

We, who judge Chopin by his best works, are apt to condemn too precipitately the adverse critics of his early compositions.

But the consideration of the luxuriance and extravagance of the passage-work which distinguish them from the master's maturer creations ought to caution us and moderate our wrath.