Etude Op. 25, No. 6 (mm. 33-end) - 9 (mm. 1-24)

For the times, they are a changing.

I was reading more of Bidou tonight when I happened upon an interesting few passages about George Sand.  Sand, despite her masculine pseudonym, was a female writer.  She and Chopin go on to have a bit of a romance together before the composers death.  Interestingly, Bidou chooses to include a few passages from letters composed by various people in regards to Sands character:

Chopin is quoted in a letter from Hiller to Liszt: "How repellent that woman Sand is!  Is she really a woman?  I could almost doubt it..."

Balzac wrote: "I found our friend George Sand in her dressing-gown smoking a cigar after dinner at the fireside in a great lonely room. [...] So much for the moral side.  As for the physical, she has got a chin as double as a cannon's."

Balzac also wrote: "She is not lovable and consequently she will only be loved with great difficulty.  She is a bachelor, an artist, she is great, generous, devoted, chaste;  she has a man's features: ergo, she is not a woman.  In fine, she is a man, and all the more so since she wishes to be one, since she has gone outside the position of a woman, and is not a woman.  Women attract; she repels, and as I am very much of a man, if she produces that effect upon me, she must produce it upon men like me; she will always be unhappy."

Wow, times were different. I think Balzac deserves a slap, she's a nice lady!  Despite Chopin's initial repulsion they find a love for each other.

Finally, almost finished with these etudes.  Etude seven begins with a beautiful almost atonal melody presented in the left hand.  For the rest of the piece the melody switches between the left and right hands.  Also found in the piece is the technique of having moving notes in the left hand that do not fit metrically, matching beats, with the right hand.  This teaches the hands to become completely separate entities.

Etude eight is comprised completely of triplet eighth notes with the melody found in the upper note of the right hand.  It is to be played vivace, making the jumps and chorded arpeggiations in the left hand difficult.

Total time spent sight reading: 50 minutes
Total time spent writing: 30 minutes