legatissimo

The chord passages and all similar ones must be executed discreetly and legatissimo.

Chopin : the Man and His Music James Huneker 1890

Those who heard Schumann play say that he used the pedal persistently, sometimes twice in the same bar to avoid harmonic confusion; and the same is true of Chopin, concerning whose playing an English amateur says, after referring to his _legatissimo_ touch: "The wide arpeggios in the left hand, _maintained in a continuous stream of tone_ by the strict legato and fine and constant use of the damper pedal, formed an harmonious substructure for a wonderfully poetic _cantabile_."

Chopin and Other Musical Essays Henry Theophilus Finck 1890

Von Bulow makes this statement: "As the peculiar fingering adopted by Chopin for chromatic scales in thirds appears to us to render their performance in legatissimo utterly unattainable on our modern instruments, we have exchanged it, where necessary, for the older method of Hummel.

Chopin : the Man and His Music James Huneker 1890