During his Parisian career, Chopin composed three Sonatas, op. 35 and op. 58, for piano, and op. 65, for piano and violoncello. This last, a most unequal work, has provoked more of adverse criticism than any other bearing his name.
Chopin's chief defect, one almost always apparent, originated in his somewhat narrow sympathies, which, though deep, did yet by no means fathom the joys underlying and destined to outlast the waves of sorrow, which, to his circumscribed vision, were sufficient for the engulfing of the world. What, we ask, was the partition, the virtual obliteration of Poland, to that universal freedom, which, since the Napoleonic days, was known as a blessing yet to be? As already said, Chopin allowed these earth-clouds of sorrow to darken greatly the radiance of his ideal world. The pessimist could not sink himself in the deeper and wider optimist. We suspect his predilection for the gay and thoughtless dwellers on the surface of life, to be but desire to rid himself of a weight of sadness engendered by solitary musings.
The Sonata should be the outpouring of a heart attuned to every chord of life; a heart capable of universal sympathies. Nevertheless, the supreme expression of that heart is joy, a prophecy hopeful as a Christmas greeting to the world. Let us turn to a consideration of op. 35 in B flat minor, for there, as nowhere else, Chopin betrays the defects of his qualities.
The four vague introductory measures, «Grave,» attempt the expression of unutterable woe whose painful fullness is yet relieved by this anguished cry. During the next four measures the soul, still overburdened, meditates a more adequate expression, and, at the Agitato, again attempts its story in what proves but an interrupted and broken eloquence of grief whose poignancy soon softens to tender, sweet regret. This presently swells to passionate longing as for some far-off good. But alas for expectance! Alas for every looked-for happiness gilded by the sunlight of a day that shall not be! This last mood, so characteristic of Chopin, ends the first section of the first movement, and then suddenly but inevitably come back the old brooding and the tearful, sob-choked utterance. And now a calmer moment for, as from the Sun of all being, a ray of heaven-born cheer finds the darkened chambers of the heart; but whatsoever of hope is there enkindled, is, by sorrow's unstayable fountain, soon made cold again.