His works are almost wholly for the piano and in dance-forms or song-forms. They include (a) over 50 mazurkas, 15 waltzes, nearly as many polonaises (one with 'cello), 4 scherzos, the Marche funèbre, a bolero, a tarentelle; (b) 19 nocturnes, 25 preludes, 27 études, 4 ballades, 5 rondos (one with orchestra and one for two pianos), 3 impromptus, a berceuse, a barcarolle, 3 fantasias (two with orchestra), 3 variations; (c) 4 sonatas (one for 'cello), 2 piano-concertos, a trio for piano and strings. He also left a small group of Polish songs.
To pianism proper Chopin contributed a wealth of delicate
embellishments and refinements, including original melodic and
accompaniment figures, with important dynamic and rhythmic
devices (such as a fresh use of the 'tempo rubato'), which much
increased the resources of expressive effect. He discarded the
rigidity or quiescence of the hand and arm in favor of absolute
elasticity. Beauty of tone and shading he exalted above dexterity,
though his filigree-passages call for extreme fluency.
The ingenious use of the pedals now becomes an important
factor in artistic impression.
Here may well be mentioned the names of a number of pianists who either
were Poles or worked long at Warsaw, viz:—the Bohemian Wilhelm Würfel
(d. 1852), in 1815-26 teacher in Elsner's school and later at Vienna; Maria (Wolowska) Szymanowska (d. 1832), one of Field's pupils who, while living
at Warsaw, was court-pianist at St. Petersburg and well known in Germany;
Albert Sowinsky (d. 1880), trained at Vienna and from 1830 a teacher and
player at Paris; Jozef Nowakowski (d. 1865), Chopin's fellow-student and
finally, after tours, a teacher at Warsaw, with about 60 piano and orchestral
works; Ignacy Félix Dobrzynski (d. 1867), another comrade of Chopin's
both in Warsaw and in Paris, who also returned to Warsaw as an opera-conductor,
with many strongly national piano-pieces and songs, some chamber
music, a symphony, 2 operas, etc.; Édouard Wolff (d. 1880), still a third
close friend and imitator of Chopin, settled from 1835 at Paris, with numerous
piano works, many of them valuable, nearly 40 striking duos for piano and
violin (written with De Bériot and Vieuxtemps), a concerto—about 350 in
all; Antoine de Kontski (d. 1899), an effective and indefatigable virtuoso,
whose headquarters were successively Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, London
and Buffalo, N.Y.—the brother of the violinist Apollinaire de Kontski (d.
1879). who, after tours and service at St. Petersburg, founded a school at
Warsaw; Aloys Tausig (d. 1885), a pupil of Thalberg, from about 1840 a
favorite teacher at Warsaw (where his son Karl was born in 1841), later going
to Dresden; not to speak of many later teachers at the conservatory, like
Ferdinand Quentin Dulcken (d. 1902), the brilliant Alexander Zarzycki (d.
1895), head of the conservatory from 1879, the able Joseph Wieniawski,
working here about 1870, and the now famous Ignace Jan Paderewski, first a
pupil and in 1878-83 a teacher. With these should be grouped Karl Mikuli
