It is a revelation full of suggestive value for these to realize that he is a musical thinker, ripe with sixty years of labor and experience; that he represents the rarest and choicest fruits of modern culture, not only as musician, but as poet and philosopher; that he is one of the few examples in the history of the art where massive scholarship and the power of subtile analysis have been united, in a preeminent degree, with great creative genius.
"The Great German Composers"
George T. Ferris
I had never seen a king before in my life, and a foolish idea made me suppose that a king must be preeminent-a very rare being-by his beauty and the majesty of his appearance, and in everything superior to the rest of men.
"The Memoires of Casanova, Complete The Rare Unabridged London Edition Of 1894, plus An Unpublished Chapter of History, By Arthur Symons"
Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
But Schumann could have said something more than this, and added that Chopin was a musician of exceptional attainments, a virtuoso of the very highest order, a writer for the piano pure and simple preeminent beyond example, and a master of a unique and perfect style.
"Great Violinists And Pianists"
George T. Ferris