the fascinating interplay of rushing, roaring, murmuring, rumbling, flowing, climbing, jumping, crashing, falling, all this without a single point of rest. The expression of a restless fierce, almost savage, grim raging: The image of tossed up ocean waves breaking on a rocky coast, thundering and foaming, their spray splashing upwards, licking the rocks and quickly flowing down again. Accentuation fiery!' Leichtentritt calls the piece a 'magnificent tone-painting' and 'elemental sound experience' : Like in the first two études of Op. 10, a rough copy autograph reads cut time (alla breve), further supported by the metronome mark = 88 referring to half notes (rather than = 176 referring to quarter notes).Īmerican music critic James Huneker (1857–1921) believes that 'despite its dark key color', this étude 'bubbles with life and spurts flame.' German pianist and composer Theodor Kullak (1818–1882) calls it a 'bravura study for velocity and lightness in both hands. Another remarkable trait is the upbeat character of the motif likewise permeating the entire piece. In Hummel though the purpose of the semiquaver figure is to 'decorate a chromatic sequence' whereas in Chopin the figure 'embodies a motivic structure that permeates the entire composition' and reaches a 'dramatic apotheosis' in the Coda. 85 in A minor (bars 434 -436)Ĭhopin scholar Simon Finlow observes that a very similar passage occurs a decade before Chopin in the rondo of Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 85.

Excerpt from the Rondo of Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto No.

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