Where this piece separates pianists is the coda: Presto con fuoco, a minute or so of octaves and wide leaps, arriving right after the softest stretch of the music. The literary shadow over it is Mickiewicz's Konrad Wallenrod, a Lithuanian who ruins the order he leads in order to save his own people. Chopin never confirmed the link, Schumann reported it, and the shape of the piece fits well enough that nobody has dropped the story since. It works without the story too, but the story explains why the loud part sounds like a defeat rather than a triumph.