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Title: Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician
Volume 1-2, Complete
Author: Frederick Niecks
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4973]
Posting Date: December 12, 2009
Language: English
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FREDERICK CHOPIN AS A MAN AND MUSICIAN
By Frederick Niecks
Third Edition (1902)
VOLUME I.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1888)
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION (1890)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1902)
PROEM: POLAND AND THE POLES
CHAPTERS I-XIX
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
While the novelist has absolute freedom to follow his artistic instinct
and intelligence, the biographer is fettered by the subject-matter with
which he proposes to deal. The former may hopefully pursue an ideal, the
latter must rest satisfied with a compromise between the desirable and
the necessary. No doubt, it is possible to thoroughly digest all the
requisite material, and then present it in a perfect, beautiful form.
But this can only be done at a terrible loss, at a sacrifice of truth
and trustworthiness. My guiding principle has been to place before the
reader the facts collected by me as well as the conclusions at which I
arrived. This will enable him to see the subject in all its bearings,
with all its pros and cons, and to draw his own conclusions, should
mine not obtain his approval. Unless an author proceeds in this way,
the reader never knows how far he may trust him, how far the evidence
justifies his judgment. For--not to speak of cheats and fools--the
best informed are apt to make assertions unsupported or insufficiently
supported by facts, and the wisest cannot help seeing things through the
coloured spectacles of their individuality. The foregoing remarks are
intended to explain my method, not to excuse carelessness of literary
workmanship. Whatever the defects of the present volumes may be--and, no
doubt, they are both great and many--I have laboured to the full extent
of my humble abilities to group and present my material perspicuously,
and to avoid diffuseness and rhapsody, those besetting sins of writers
on music.
The first work of some length having Chopin for its subject was Liszt's
"Frederic Chopin," which, after appearing in 1851 in the Paris journal
"La France musicale," came out in book-form, still in French, in 1852
(Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hartel.--Translated into English by M. W. Cook,
and published by William Reeves, London, 1877). George Sand describes
it as "un peu exuberant de style, mais rempli de bonnes choses et de
tres-belles pages." These words, however, do in no way justice to the
book: for, on the one hand, the style is excessively, and not merely
a little, exuberant; and, on the other hand, the "good things" and
"beautiful pages" amount to a psychological study of Chopin, and an
aesthetical study of his works, which it is impossible to over-estimate.
Still, the book is no biography. It records few dates and events, and
these few are for the most part incorrect. When, in 1878, the second
edition of F. Chopin was passing through the press, Liszt remarked to
me:--
"I have been told that there are wrong dates and other mistakes in my
book, and that the dates and facts are correctly given in Karasowski's
biography of Chopin [which had in the meantime been published]. But,
though I often thought of reading it, I have not yet done so. I got my
information from Paris friends on whom I believed I might depend. The
Princess Wittgenstein [who then lived in Rome, but in 1850 at Weimar,
and is said to have had a share in the production of the book] wished me
to make some alterations in the new edition. I tried to please her, but,
when she was still dissatisfied, I told her to add and alter whatever
she liked."
From this statement it is clear that Liszt had not the stuff of a
biographer in him. And, whatever value we may put on the Princess
Wittgenstein's additions and alterations, they did not touch the vital
faults of the work, which, as a French critic remarked, was a symphonie
funebre rather than a biography. The next book we have to notice, M. A.
Szulc's Polish Fryderyk Chopin i Utwory jego Muzyczne (Posen, 1873), is
little more than a chaotic, unsifted collection of notices, criticisms,
anecdotes, &c., from Polish, German, and French books and magazines. In
1877 Moritz Karasowski, a native of Warsaw, and since 1864 a member of
the Dresden orchestra, published his Friedrich Chopin: sein Leben, seine
Werke und seine Briefe (Dresden: F. Ries.--Translated into English by
E. Hill, under the title Frederick Chopin: "His Life, Letters, and Work,"
and published by William Reeves, London, in 1879). This was the first
serious attempt at a biography of Chopin. The author reproduced in
the book what had been brought to light in Polish magazines and other
publications regarding Chopin's life by various countrymen of the
composer, among whom he himself was not the least notable. But the most
valuable ingredients are, no doubt, the Chopin letters which the author
obtained from the composer's relatives, with whom he was acquainted.
While gratefully acknowledging his achievements, I must not omit to
indicate his shortcomings--his unchecked partiality for, and boundless
admiration of his hero; his uncritical acceptance and fanciful
embellishments of anecdotes and hearsays; and the extreme paucity of his
information concerning the period of Chopin's life which begins with
his settlement in Paris. In 1878 appeared a second edition of the work,
distinguished from the first by a few additions and many judicious
omissions, the original two volumes being reduced to one. But of more
importance than the second German edition is the first Polish edition,
"Fryderyk Chopin: Zycie, Listy, Dziela," two volumes (Warsaw: Gebethner
and Wolff, 1882), which contains a series of, till then, unpublished
letters from Chopin to Fontana. Of Madame A. Audley's short and readable
"Frederic Chopin, sa vie et ses oeuvres" (Paris: E. Plon et Cie., 1880),
I need only say that for the most part it follows Karasowski, and where
it does not is not always correct. Count Wodzinski's "Les trois Romans
de Frederic Chopin" (Paris: Calmann Levy, 1886)--according to the title
treating only of the composer's love for Constantia Gladkowska, Maria
Wodzinska, and George Sand, but in reality having a wider scope--cannot
be altogether ignored, though it is more of the nature of a novel than
of a biography. Mr. Joseph Bennett, who based his "Frederic Chopin" (one
of Novello's Primers of Musical Biography) on Liszt's and Karasowski's
works, had in the parts dealing with Great Britain the advantage of
notes by Mr. A.J. Hipkins, who inspired also, to some extent at least,
Mr. Hueffer in his essay Chopin ("Fortnightly Review," September, 1877;
and reprinted in "Musical Studies"--Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1880).
This ends the list of biographies with any claims to originality. There
are, however, many interesting contributions to a biography of Chopin
to be found in works of various kinds. These shall be mentioned in
the course of my narrative; here I will point out only the two most
important ones--namely, George Sand's "Histoire de ma Vie," first
published in the Paris newspaper "La Presse" (1854) and subsequently in
book-form; and her six volumes of "Correspondance," 1812-1876 (Paris:
Calmann Levy, 1882-1884).
My researches had for their object the whole life of Chopin, and his
historical, political, artistical, social, and personal surroundings,
but they were chiefly directed to the least known and most interesting
period of his career--his life in France, and his visits to Germany and
Great Britain. My chief sources of information are divisible into two
classes--newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, correspondences, and books;
and conversations I held with, and letters I received from, Chopin's
pupils, friends, and acquaintances. Of his pupils, my warmest thanks are
due to Madame Dubois (nee Camille O'Meara), Madame Rubio (nee Vera de
Kologrivof), Mdlle. Gavard, Madame Streicher (nee Friederike Muller),
Adolph Gutmann, M. Georges Mathias, Brinley Richards, and Lindsay
Sloper; of friends and acquaintances, to Liszt, Ferdinand Hiller,
Franchomme, Charles Valentin Alkan, Stephen Heller, Edouard Wolff, Mr.
Charles Halle, Mr. G. A. Osborne, T. Kwiatkowski, Prof. A. Chodzko, M.
Leonard Niedzwiecki (gallice, Nedvetsky), Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt,
Mr. A. J. Hipkins, and Dr. and Mrs. Lyschinski. I am likewise greatly
indebted to Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel, Karl Gurckhaus (the late
proprietor of the firm of Friedrich Kistner), Julius Schuberth,
Friedrich Hofmeister, Edwin Ashdown, Richault & Cie, and others, for
information in connection with the publication of Chopin's works. It is
impossible to enumerate all my obligations--many of my informants and
many furtherers of my labours will be mentioned in the body of the book;
many, however, and by no means the least helpful, will remain unnamed.
To all of them I offer the assurance of my deep-felt gratitude. Not a
few of my kind helpers, alas! are no longer among the living; more than
ten years have gone by since I began my researches, and during that time
Death has been reaping a rich harvest.
The Chopin letters will, no doubt, be regarded as a special feature
of the present biography. They may, I think, be called numerous, if we
consider the master's dislike to letter-writing. Ferdinand Hiller--whose
almost unique collection of letters addressed to him by his famous
friends in art and literature is now, and will be for years to come,
under lock and key among the municipal archives at Cologne--allowed
me to copy two letters by Chopin, one of them written conjointly with
Liszt. Franchomme, too, granted me the privilege of copying his friend's
epistolary communications. Besides a number of letters that have here
and there been published, I include, further, a translation of Chopin's
letters to Fontana, which in Karasowski's book (i.e., the Polish
edition) lose much of their value, owing to his inability to assign
approximately correct dates to them.
The space which I give to George Sand is, I think, justified by the part
she plays in the life of Chopin. To meet the objections of those who
may regard my opinion of her as too harsh, I will confess that I
entered upon the study of her character with the impression that she had
suffered much undeserved abuse, and that it would be incumbent upon a
Chopin biographer to defend her against his predecessors and the friends
of the composer. How entirely I changed my mind, the sequel will show.
In conclusion, a few hints as to the pronunciation of Polish words,
which otherwise might puzzle the reader uninitiated in the mysteries
of that rarely-learned language. Aiming more at simplicity than at
accuracy, one may say that the vowels are pronounced somewhat like this:
a as in "arm," aL like the nasal French "on," e as in "tell," e/ with
an approach to the French "e/" (or to the German "u [umlaut]" and "o
[umlaut]"), eL like the nasal French "in," i as in "pick," o as in
"not," o/ with an approach to the French "ou," u like the French ou, and
y with an approach to the German "i" and "u." The following consonants
are pronounced as in English: b, d, f, g (always hard), h, k, I, m, n,
p, s, t, and z. The following single and double consonants differ from
the English pronunciation: c like "ts," c/ softer than c, j like "y,"
l/ like "ll" with the tongue pressed against the upper row of teeth,
n/ like "ny" (i.e., n softened by i), r sharper than in English, w like
"v," z/ softer than z, z. and rz like the French "j," ch like the German
guttural "ch" in "lachen" (similar to "ch" in the Scotch "loch"), cz
like "ch" in "cherry," and sz like "sh" in "sharp." Mr. W. R. Morfill
("A Simplified Grammar of the Polish Language") elucidates the
combination szcz, frequently to be met with, by the English expression
"smasht china," where the italicised letters give the pronunciation.
Lastly, family names terminating in take a instead of i when applied to
women.
April, 1888.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The second edition differs from the first by little more than the
correction of some misprints and a few additions. These latter are to
be found among the Appendices. The principal addition consists of
interesting communications from Madame Peruzzi, a friend of Chopin's
still living at Florence. Next in importance come Madame Schumann's
diary notes bearing on Chopin's first visit to Leipzig. The remaining
additions concern early Polish music, the first performances of Chopin's
works at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, his visit to Marienbad (remarks by
Rebecca Dirichlet), the tempo rubato, and his portraits. To the names
of Chopin's friends and acquaintances to whom I am indebted for valuable
assistance, those of Madame Peruzzi and Madame Schumann have, therefore,
to be added. My apologies as well as my thanks are due to Mr. Felix
Moscheles, who kindly permitted a fac-simile to be made from a
manuscript, in his possession, a kindness that ought to have been
acknowledged in the first edition. I am glad that a second edition
affords me an opportunity to repair this much regretted omission. The
manuscript in question is an "Etude" which Chopin wrote for the "Methode
des Methodes de Piano," by F. J. Fetis and I. Moscheles, the father of
Mr. Felix Moscheles. This concludes what I have to say about the second
edition, but I cannot lay down the pen without expressing my gratitude
to critics and public for the exceedingly favourable reception they have
given to my book.
October, 1890.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
BESIDES minor corrections, the present edition contains the correction
of the day and year of Frederick Francis Chopin's birth, which have been
discovered since the publication of the second edition of this work.
According to the baptismal entry in the register of the Brochow parish
church, he who became the great pianist and immortal composer was born
on February 22, 1810. This date has been generally accepted in
Poland, and is to be found on the medal struck on the occasion of the
semi-centenary celebration of the master's death. Owing to a misreading
of musicus for magnificus in the published copy of the document, its
trustworthiness has been doubted elsewhere, but, I believe, without
sufficient cause. The strongest argument that could be urged against
the acceptance of the date would be the long interval between birth and
baptism, which did not take place till late in April, and the consequent
possibility of an error in the registration. This, however, could only
affect the day, and perhaps the month, not the year. It is certainly
a very curious circumstance that Fontana, a friend of Chopin's in his
youth and manhood, Karasowski, at least an acquaintance, if not an
intimate friend, of the family (from whom he derived much information),
Fetis, a contemporary lexicographer, and apparently Chopin's family, and
even Chopin himself, did not know the date of the latter's birth.
Where the character of persons and works of art are concerned, nothing
is more natural than differences of opinion. Bias and inequality of
knowledge sufficiently account for them. For my reading of the character
of George Sand, I have been held up as a monster of moral depravity; for
my daring to question the exactitude of Liszt's biographical facts, I
have been severely sermonised; for my inability to regard Chopin as one
of the great composers of songs, and continue uninterruptedly in a state
of ecstatic admiration, I have been told that the publication of my
biography of the master is a much to be deplored calamity. Of course,
the moral monster and author of the calamity cannot pretend to be an
unbiassed judge in the case; but it seems to him that there may be some
exaggeration and perhaps even some misconception in these accusations.
As to George Sand, I have not merely made assertions, but have earnestly
laboured to prove the conclusions at which I reluctantly arrived. Are
George Sand's pretentions to self-sacrificing saintliness, and to purely
maternal feelings for Musset, Chopin, and others to be accepted in spite
of the fairy-tale nature of her "Histoire," and the misrepresentations
of her "Lettres d'un Voyageur" and her novels "Elle et lui" and
"Lucrezia Floriani"; in spite of the adverse indirect testimony of
some of her other novels, and the adverse direct testimony of her
"Correspondance"; and in spite of the experiences and firm beliefs of
her friends, Liszt included? Let us not overlook that charitableness
towards George Sand implies uncharitableness towards Chopin, place. Need
I say anything on the extraordinary charge made against me--namely, that
in some cases I have preferred the testimony of less famous men to
that of Liszt? Are genius, greatness, and fame the measures of
trustworthiness?
As to Chopin, the composer of songs, the case is very simple. His
pianoforte pieces are original tone-poems of exquisite beauty; his
songs, though always acceptable, and sometimes charming, are not. We
should know nothing of them and the composer, if of his works they alone
had been published. In not publishing them himself, Chopin gave us his
own opinion, an opinion confirmed by the singers in rarely performing
them and by the public in little caring for them. In short, Chopin's
songs add nothing to his fame. To mention them in one breath with those
of Schubert and Schumann, or even with those of Robert Franz and
Adolf Jensen, is the act of an hero-worshipping enthusiast, not of a
discriminating critic.
On two points, often commented upon by critics, I feel regret, although
not repentance--namely, on any "anecdotic iconoclasm" where fact
refuted fancy, and on my abstention from pronouncing judgments where the
evidence was inconclusive. But how can a conscientious biographer help
this ungraciousness and inaccommodativeness? Is it not his duty to tell
the truth, and nothing but the truth, in order that his subject may
stand out unobstructed and shine forth unclouded?
In conclusion, two instances of careless reading. One critic, after
attributing a remark of Chopin's to me, exclaims: "The author is fond
of such violent jumps to conclusions." And an author, most benevolently
inclined towards me, enjoyed the humour of my first "literally ratting"
George Sand, and then saying that I "abstained from pronouncing judgment
because the complete evidence did not warrant my doing so." The former
(in vol. i.) had to do with George Sand's character; the latter (in vol.
ii.) with the moral aspect of her connection with Chopin.
An enumeration of the more notable books dealing with Chopin, published
after the issue of the earlier editions of the present book will form an
appropriate coda to this preface--"Frederic Francois Chopin," by Charles
Willeby; "Chopin, and Other Musical Essays," by Henry T. Finck; "Studies
in Modern Music" (containing an essay on Chopin), by W. H. Hadow;
"Chopin's Greater Works," by Jean Kleczynski, translated by Natalie
Janotha; and "Chopin: the Man and his Music," by James Huneker.
Edinburgh, February, 1902.
PROEM.
POLAND AND THE POLES.
THE works of no composer of equal importance bear so striking a national
impress as those of Chopin. It would, however, be an error to attribute
this simply and solely to the superior force of the Polish musician's
patriotism. The same force of patriotism in an Italian, Frenchman,
German, or Englishman would not have produced a similar result.
Characteristics such as distinguish Chopin's music presuppose a nation
as peculiarly endowed, constituted, situated, and conditioned, as the
Polish--a nation with a history as brilliant and dark, as fair and
hideous, as romantic and tragic. The peculiarities of the peoples
of western Europe have been considerably modified, if not entirely
levelled, by centuries of international intercourse; the peoples of the
eastern part of the Continent, on the other hand, have, until recent
times, kept theirs almost intact, foreign influences penetrating to no
depth, affecting indeed no more than the aristocratic few, and them only
superficially. At any rate, the Slavonic races have not been moulded by
the Germanic and Romanic races as these latter have moulded each other:
east and west remain still apart--strangers, if not enemies. Seeing how
deeply rooted Chopin's music is in the national soil, and considering
how little is generally known about Poland and the Poles, the necessity
of paying in this case more attention to the land of the artist's birth
and the people to which he belongs than is usually done in biographies
of artists, will be admitted by all who wish to understand fully and
appreciate rightly the poet-musician and his works. But while taking
note of what is of national origin in Chopin's music, we must be careful
not to ascribe to this origin too much. Indeed, the fact that the
personal individuality of Chopin is as markedly differentiated, as
exclusively self-contained, as the national individuality of Poland,
is oftener overlooked than the master's national descent and its
significance with regard to his artistic production. And now, having
made the reader acquainted with the raison d'etre of this proem, I shall
plunge without further preliminaries in medias res.
The palmy days of Poland came to an end soon after the extinction of
the dynasty of the Jagellons in 1572. So early as 1661 King John Casimir
warned the nobles, whose insubordination and want of solidity, whose
love of outside glitter and tumult, he deplored, that, unless they
remedied the existing evils, reformed their pretended free elections,
and renounced their personal privileges, the noble kingdom would become
the prey of other nations. Nor was this the first warning. The Jesuit
Peter Skarga (1536--1612), an indefatigable denunciator of the vices of
the ruling classes, told them in 1605 that their dissensions would bring
them under the yoke of those who hated them, deprive them of king and
country, drive them into exile, and make them despised by those
who formerly feared and respected them. But these warnings remained
unheeded, and the prophecies were fulfilled to the letter. Elective
kingship, pacta conventa, [Footnote: Terms which a candidate for the
throne had to subscribe on his election. They were of course dictated by
the electors--i.e., by the selfish interest of one class, the szlachta
(nobility), or rather the most powerful of them.] liberum veto,
[Footnote: The right of any member to stop the proceedings of the Diet
by pronouncing the words "Nie pozwalam" (I do not permit), or others of
the same import.] degradation of the burgher class, enslavement of
the peasantry, and other devices of an ever-encroaching nobility,
transformed the once powerful and flourishing commonwealth into one
"lying as if broken-backed on the public highway; a nation anarchic
every fibre of it, and under the feet and hoofs of travelling
neighbours." [Footnote: Thomas Carlyle, Frederick the Great, vol.
viii., p. 105.] In the rottenness of the social organism, venality,
unprincipled ambition, and religious intolerance found a congenial soil;
and favoured by and favouring foreign intrigues and interferences, they
bore deadly fruit--confederations, civil wars, Russian occupation of the
country and dominion over king, council, and diet, and the beginning of
the end, the first partition (1772) by which Poland lost a third of her
territory with five millions of inhabitants. Even worse, however, was
to come. For the partitioning powers--Russia, Prussia, and Austria--knew
how by bribes and threats to induce the Diet not only to sanction the
spoliation, but also so to alter the constitution as to enable them to
have a permanent influence over the internal affairs of the Republic.
The Pole Francis Grzymala remarks truly that if instead of some thousand
individuals swaying the destinies of Poland, the whole nation had
enjoyed equal rights, and, instead of being plunged in darkness and
ignorance, the people had been free and consequently capable of feeling
and thinking, the national cause, imperilled by the indolence and
perversity of one part of the citizens, would have been saved by those
who now looked on without giving a sign of life. The "some thousands"
here spoken of are of course the nobles, who had grasped all the
political power and almost all the wealth of the nation, and, imitating
the proud language of Louis XIV, could, without exaggeration, have said:
"L'etat c'est nous." As for the king and the commonalty, the one had
been deprived of almost all his prerogatives, and the other had become
a rightless rabble of wretched peasants, impoverished burghers, and
chaffering Jews. Rousseau, in his Considerations sur le gouvernement
de Pologne, says pithily that the three orders of which the Republic
of Poland was composed were not, as had been so often and illogically
stated, the equestrian order, the senate, and the king, but the nobles
who were everything, the burghers who were nothing, and the peasants
who were less than nothing. The nobility of Poland differed from that of
Other countries not only in its supreme political and social position,
but also in its numerousness, character, and internal constitution.
[Footnote: The statistics concerning old Poland are provokingly
contradictory. One authority calculates that the nobility comprised
120,000 families, or one fourteenth of the population (which, before
the first partition, is variously estimated at from fifteen to twenty
millions); another counts only 100,000 families; and a third states
that between 1788 and 1792 (i.e., after the first partition) there were
38,314 families of nobles.]
All nobles were equal in rank, and as every French soldier was said to
carry a marshal's staff in his knapsack, so every Polish noble was born
a candidate for the throne. This equality, however, was rather de jure
than de facto; legal decrees could not fill the chasm which separated
families distinguished by wealth and fame--such as the Sapiehas,
Radziwills, Czartoryskis, Zamoyskis, Potockis, and Branickis--from
obscure noblemen whose possessions amount to no more than "a few acres
of land, a sword, and a pair of moustaches that extend from one ear to
the other," or perhaps amounted only to the last two items. With some
insignificant exceptions, the land not belonging to the state or the
church was in the hands of the nobles, a few of whom had estates of
the extent of principalities. Many of the poorer amongst the nobility
attached themselves to their better-situated brethren, becoming their
dependents and willing tools. The relation of the nobility to the
peasantry is well characterised in a passage of Mickiewicz's epic poem
Pan Tadeusz, where a peasant, on humbly suggesting that the nobility
suffered less from the measures of their foreign rulers than his own
class, is told by one of his betters that this is a silly remark, seeing
that peasants, like eels, are accustomed to being skinned, whereas the
well-born are accustomed to live in liberty.
Nothing illustrates so well the condition of a people as the way in
which justice is administered. In Poland a nobleman was on his
estate prosecutor as well as judge, and could be arrested only after
conviction, or, in the case of high-treason, murder, and robbery, if
taken in the act. And whilst the nobleman enjoyed these high privileges,
the peasant had, as the law terms it, no facultatem standi in judicio,
and his testimony went for nothing in the courts of justice. More than
a hundred laws in the statutes of Poland are said to have been
unfavourable to these poor wretches. In short, the peasant was quite
at the mercy of the privileged class, and his master could do with him
pretty much as he liked, whipping and selling not excepted, nor did
killing cost more than a fine of a few shillings. The peasants on the
state domains and of the clergy were, however, somewhat better off; and
the burghers, too, enjoyed some shreds of their old privileges with more
or less security. If we look for a true and striking description of
the comparative position of the principal classes of the population of
Poland, we find it in these words of a writer of the eighteenth century:
"Polonia coelum nobilium, paradisus clericorum, infernus rusticorum."
The vast plain of Poland, although in many places boggy and sandy, is on
the whole fertile, especially in the flat river valleys, and in the east
at the sources of the Dnieper; indeed, it is so much so that it has been
called the granary of Europe. But as the pleasure-loving gentlemen had
nobler pursuits to attend to, and the miserable peasants, with whom it
was a saying that only what they spent in drink was their own, were not
very anxious to work more and better than they could help, agriculture
was in a very neglected condition. With manufacture and commerce it
stood not a whit better. What little there was, was in the hands of the
Jews and foreigners, the nobles not being allowed to meddle with such
base matters, and the degraded descendants of the industrious and
enterprising ancient burghers having neither the means nor the spirit to
undertake anything of the sort. Hence the strong contrast of wealth and
poverty, luxury and distress, that in every part of Poland, in town and
country, struck so forcibly and painfully all foreign travellers. Of the
Polish provinces that in 1773 came under Prussian rule we read that--
the country people hardly knew such a thing as bread, many
had never in their life tasted such a delicacy; few villages
had an oven. A weaving-loom was rare; the spinning-wheel
unknown. The main article of furniture, in this bare scene of
squalor, was the crucifix and vessel of holy-water under
it....It was a desolate land without discipline, without law,
without a master. On 9,000 English square miles lived 500,000
souls: not 55 to the square mile. [Footnote: Carlyle.
Frederick the Great, vol. x., p. 40.]
And this poverty and squalor were not to be found only in one part of
Poland, they seem to have been general. Abbe de Mably when seeing, in
1771, the misery of the country (campagne) and the bad condition of the
roads, imagined himself in Tartary. William Coxe, the English historian
and writer of travels, who visited Poland after the first partition,
relates, in speaking of the district called Podlachia, that he visited
between Bjelsk and Woyszki villages in which there was nothing but the
bare walls, and he was told at the table of the ------ that knives,
forks, and spoons were conveniences unknown to the peasants. He says he
never saw--
a road so barren of interesting scenes as that from Cracow to
Warsaw--for the most part level, with little variation of
surface; chiefly overspread with tracts of thick forest;
where open, the distant horizon was always skirted with wood
(chiefly pines and firs, intermixed with beech, birch, and
small oaks). The occasional breaks presented some pasture-
ground, with here and there a few meagre crops of corn. The
natives were poorer, humbler, and more miserable than any
people we had yet observed in the course of our travels:
whenever we stopped they flocked around us in crowds; and,
asking for charity, used the most abject gestures....The
Polish peasants are cringing and servile in their expressions
of respect; they bowed down to the ground; took off their
hats or caps and held them in their hands till we were out of
sight; stopped their carts on the first glimpse of our
carriage; in short, their whole behaviour gave evident
symptoms of the abject servitude under which they groaned.
[FOOTNOTE: William Coxe, Travels in Poland, Russia, Sweden,
and Denmark (1784--90).]
The Jews, to whom I have already more than once alluded, are too
important an element in the population of Poland not to be particularly
noticed. They are a people within a people, differing in dress as well
as in language, which is a jargon of German-Hebrew. Their number before
the first partition has been variously estimated at from less than
two millions to fully two millions and a half in a population of from
fifteen to twenty millions, and in 1860 there were in Russian Poland
612,098 Jews in a population of 4,867,124.
[FOOTNOTE: According to Charles Forster (in Pologne, a volume of the
historical series entitled L'univers pittoresque, published by Firmin
Didot freres of Paris), who follows Stanislas Plater, the population of
Poland within the boundaries of 1772 amounted to 20,220,000 inhabitants,
and was composed of 6,770,000 Poles, 7,520,000 Russians (i.e., White and
Red Russians), 2,110,000 Jews, 1,900,000 Lithuanians, 1,640,000 Germans,
180,000 Muscovites (i.e., Great Russians), and 100,000 Wallachians.]
They monopolise [says Mr. Coxe] the commerce and trade of the
country, keep inns and taverns, are stewards to the nobility,
and seem to have so much influence that nothing can be bought
or sold without the intervention of a Jew.
Our never-failing informant was particularly struck with the number and
usefulness of the Jews in Lithuania when he visited that part of the
Polish Republic in 1781--
If you ask for an interpreter, they bring you a Jew; if you
want post-horses, a Jew procures them and a Jew drives them;
if you wish to purchase, a Jew is your agent; and this
perhaps is the only country in Europe where Jews cultivate
the ground; in passing through Lithuania, we frequently saw
them engaged in sowing, reaping, mowing, and other works of
husbandry.
Having considered the condition of the lower classes, we will now turn
our attention to that of the nobility. The very unequal distribution of
wealth among them has already been mentioned. Some idea of their mode of
life may be formed from the account of the Starost Krasinski's court in
the diary (year 1759) of his daughter, Frances Krasinska. [FOOTNOTE: A
starost (starosta) is the possessor of a starosty (starostwo)--i.e., a
castle and domains conferred on a nobleman for life by the crown.] Her
description of the household seems to justify her belief that there
were not many houses in Poland that surpassed theirs in magnificence.
In introducing to the reader the various ornaments and appendages of the
magnate's court, I shall mention first, giving precedence to the fair
sex, that there lived under the supervision of a French governess six
young ladies of noble families. The noblemen attached to the lord of the
castle were divided into three classes. In the first class were to be
found sons of wealthy, or, at least, well-to-do families who served
for honour, and came to the court to acquire good manners and as an
introduction to a civil or military career. The starost provided the
keep of their horses, and also paid weekly wages of two florins to their
grooms. Each of these noble-men had besides a groom another servant who
waited on his master at table, standing behind his chair and dining on
what he left on his plate. Those of the second class were paid for their
services and had fixed duties to perform. Their pay amounted to from
300 to 1,000 florins (a florin being about the value of sixpence), in
addition to which gratuities and presents were often given. Excepting
the chaplain, doctor, and secretary, they did not, like the preceding
class, have the honour of sitting with their master at table. With
regard to this privilege it is, however, worth noticing that those
courtiers who enjoyed it derived materially hardly any advantage from
it, for on week-days wine was served only to the family and their
guests, and the dishes of roast meat were arranged pyramidally, so
that fowl and venison went to those at the head of the table, and those
sitting farther down had to content themselves with the coarser kinds of
meat--with beef, pork, &c. The duties of the third class of followers,
a dozen young men from fifteen to twenty years of age, consisted
in accompanying the family on foot or on horseback, and doing their
messages, such as carrying presents and letters of invitation.
The second and third classes were under the jurisdiction of the
house-steward, who, in the case of the young gentlemen, was not sparing
in the application of the cat. A strict injunction was laid on all to
appear in good clothes. As to the other servants of the castle, the
authoress thought she would find it difficult to specify them; indeed,
did not know even the number of their musicians, cooks, Heyducs,
Cossacks, and serving maids and men. She knew, however, that every day
five tables were served, and that from morning to night two persons
were occupied in distributing the things necessary for the kitchen.
More impressive even than a circumstantial account like this are
briefly-stated facts such as the following: that the Palatine Stanislas
Jablonowski kept a retinue of 2,300 soldiers and 4,000 courtiers,
valets, armed attendants, huntsmen, falconers, fishers, musicians, and
actors; and that Janusz, Prince of Ostrog, left at his death a majorat
of eighty towns and boroughs, and 2,760 villages, without counting the
towns and villages of his starosties. The magnates who distinguished
themselves during the reign of Stanislas Augustus (1764--1795) by the
brilliance and magnificence of their courts were the Princes Czartoryski
and Radziwill, Count Potocki, and Bishop Soltyk of Cracovia. Our
often-quoted English traveller informs us that the revenue of Prince
Czartoryski amounted to nearly 100,000 pounds per annum, and that his
style of living corresponded with this income. The Prince kept an open
table at which there rarely sat down less than from twenty to thirty
persons. [FOOTNOTE: Another authority informs us that on great occasions
the Czartoryskis received at their table more than twenty thousand
persons.] The same informant has much to say about the elegance and
luxury of the Polish nobility in their houses and villas, in the
decoration and furniture of which he found the French and English styles
happily blended. He gives a glowing account of the fetes at which he
was present, and says that they were exquisitely refined and got up
regardless of expense.
Whatever changes the national character of the Poles has undergone in
the course of time, certain traits of it have remained unaltered, and
among these stands forth predominantly their chivalry. Polish bravery is
so universally recognised and admired that it is unnecessary to enlarge
upon it. For who has not heard at least of the victorious battle of
Czotzim, of the delivery of Vienna, of the no less glorious defeats of
Maciejowice and Ostrolenka, and of the brilliant deeds of Napoleon's
Polish Legion? And are not the names of Poland's most popular heroes,
Sobieski and Kosciuszko, household words all the world over? Moreover,
the Poles have proved their chivalry not only by their valour on the
battle-field, but also by their devotion to the fair sex. At banquets
in the good olden time it was no uncommon occurrence to see a Pole kneel
down before his lady, take off one of her shoes, and drink out of it.
But the women of Poland seem to be endowed with a peculiar power. Their
beauty, grace, and bewitching manner inflame the heart and imagination
of all that set their eyes on them. How often have they not conquered
the conquerors of their country? [FOOTNOTE: The Emperor Nicholas is
credited with the saying: "Je pourrais en finir des Polonais si je
venais a bout des Polonaises."] They remind Heine of the tenderest and
loveliest flowers that grow on the banks of the Ganges, and he calls for
the brush of Raphael, the melodies of Mozart, the language of Calderon,
so that he may conjure up before his readers an Aphrodite of the
Vistula. Liszt, bolder than Heine, makes the attempt to portray them,
and writes like an inspired poet. No Pole can speak on this subject
without being transported into a transcendental rapture that illumines
his countenance with a blissful radiance, and inspires him with a
glowing eloquence which, he thinks, is nevertheless beggared by the
matchless reality.
The French of the North--for thus the Poles have been called--are of a
very excitable nature; easily moved to anger, and easily appeased; soon
warmed into boundless enthusiasm, and soon also manifesting lack of
perseverance. They feel happiest in the turmoil of life and in the
bustle of society. Retirement and the study of books are little to
their taste. Yet, knowing how to make the most of their limited stock
of knowledge, they acquit themselves well in conversation. Indeed, they
have a natural aptitude for the social arts which insures their success
in society, where they move with ease and elegance. Their oriental
mellifluousness, hyperbolism, and obsequious politeness of speech have,
as well as the Asiatic appearance of their features and dress, been
noticed by all travellers in Poland. Love of show is another very
striking trait in the character of the Poles. It struggles to manifest
itself among the poor, causes the curious mixture of splendour and
shabbiness among the better-situated people, and gives rise to the
greatest extravagances among the wealthy. If we may believe the
chroniclers and poets, the entertainments of the Polish magnates must
have often vied with the marvellous feasts of imperial Rome. Of the
vastness of the households with which these grands seigneurs surrounded
themselves, enough has already been said. Perhaps the chief channel
through which this love of show vented itself was the decoration of man
and horse. The entrance of Polish ambassadors with their numerous
suites has more than once astonished the Parisians, who were certainly
accustomed to exhibitions of this kind. The mere description of some of
them is enough to dazzle one--the superb horses with their bridles and
stirrups of massive silver, and their caparisons and saddles embroidered
with golden flowers; and the not less superb men with their rich
garments of satin or gold cloth, adorned with rare furs, their bonnets
surmounted by bright plumes, and their weapons of artistic workmanship,
the silver scabbards inlaid with rubies. We hear also of ambassadors
riding through towns on horses loosely shod with gold or silver, so that
the horse-shoes lost on their passage might testify to their wealth
and grandeur. I shall quote some lines from a Polish poem in which the
author describes in detail the costume of an eminent nobleman in the
early part of this century:--
He was clad in the uniform of the palatinate: a doublet
embroidered with gold, an overcoat of Tours silk ornamented
with fringes, a belt of brocade from which hung a sword with
a hilt of morocco. At his neck glittered a clasp with
diamonds. His square white cap was surmounted by a
magnificent plume, composed of tufts of herons' feathers. It
is only on festive occasions that such a rich bouquet, of
which each feather costs a ducat, is put on.
The belt above mentioned was one of the most essential parts and the
chief ornament of the old Polish national dress, and those manufactured
at Sluck had especially a high reputation. A description of a belt of
Sluck, "with thick fringes like tufts," glows on another page of the
poem from which I took my last quotation:--
On one side it is of gold with purple flowers; on the other
it is of black silk with silver checks. Such a belt can be
worn on either side: the part woven with gold for festive
days; the reverse for days of mourning.
A vivid picture of the Polish character is to be found in Mickiewicz's
epic poem, Pan Tadeusz, from which the above quotations are taken.
[FOOTNOTE: I may mention here another interesting book illustrative
of Polish character and life, especially in the second half of the
eighteenth century, which has been of much use to me--namely, Count
Henry Rzewuski's Memoirs of Pan Severin Soplica, translated into German,
and furnished with an instructive preface by Philipp Lubenstein.]
He handles his pencil lovingly; proclaiming with just pride the virtues
of his countrymen, and revealing with a kindly smile their weaknesses.
In this truest, perhaps, of all the portraits that have ever been drawn
of the Poles, we see the gallantry and devotion, the generosity and
hospitality, the grace and liveliness in social intercourse, but also
the excitability and changefulness, the quickly inflamed enthusiasm and
sudden depression, the restlessness and turbulence, the love of outward
show and of the pleasures of society, the pompous pride, boastfulness,
and other little vanities, in short, all the qualities, good and
bad, that distinguish his countrymen. Heinrich Heine, not always a
trustworthy witness, but in this case so unusually serious that we
will take advantage of his acuteness and conciseness, characterises
the Polish nobleman by the following precious mosaic of adjectives:
"hospitable, proud, courageous, supple, false (this little yellow
stone must not be lacking), irritable, enthusiastic, given to gambling,
pleasure-loving, generous, and overbearing." Whether Heine was not
mistaken as to the presence of the little yellow stone is a question
that may have to be discussed in another part of this work. The observer
who, in enumerating the most striking qualities of the Polish character,
added "MISTRUSTFULNESS and SUSPICIOUSNESS engendered by many misfortunes
and often-disappointed hopes," came probably nearer the truth. And this
reminds me of a point which ought never to be left out of sight when
contemplating any one of these portraits--namely, the time at which it
was taken. This, of course, is always an important consideration; but it
is so in a higher degree in the case of a nation whose character, like
the Polish, has at different epochs of its existence assumed such varied
aspects. The first great change came over the national character on
the introduction of elective kingship: it was, at least so far as
the nobility was concerned, a change for the worse--from simplicity,
frugality, and patriotism, to pride, luxury, and selfishness; the second
great change was owing to the disasters that befell the nation in the
latter half of the last century: it was on the whole a change for the
better, purifying and ennobling, calling forth qualities that till then
had lain dormant. At the time the events I have to relate take us to
Poland, the nation is just at this last turning-point, but it has not
yet rounded it. To what an extent the bad qualities had overgrown
the good ones, corrupting and deadening them, may be gathered from
contemporary witnesses. George Forster, who was appointed professor
of natural history at Wilna in 1784, and remained in that position for
several years, says that he found in Poland "a medley of fanatical
and almost New Zealand barbarity and French super-refinement; a people
wholly ignorant and without taste, and nevertheless given to luxury,
gambling, fashion, and outward glitter."
Frederick II describes the Poles in language still more harsh; in his
opinion they are vain in fortune, cringing in misfortune, capable
of anything for the sake of money, spendthrifts, frivolous, without
judgment, always ready to join or abandon a party without cause. No
doubt there is much exaggeration in these statements; but that there
is also much truth in them, is proved by the accounts of many writers,
native and foreign, who cannot be accused of being prejudiced against
Poland. Rulhiere, and other more or less voluminous authorities, might
be quoted; but, not to try the patience of the reader too much, I shall
confine myself to transcribing a clenching remark of a Polish nobleman,
who told our old friend, the English traveller, that although the name
of Poland still remained, the nation no longer existed. "An universal
corruption and venality pervades all ranks of the people. Many of the
first nobility do not blush to receive pensions from foreign courts: one
professes himself publicly an Austrian, a second a Prussian, a third a
Frenchman, and a fourth a Russian."
CHAPTER I.
FREDERICK CHOPIN'S ANCESTORS.--HIS FATHER NICHOLAS CHOPIN'S BIRTH,
YOUTH, ARRIVAL AND EARLY VICISSITUDES IN POLAND, AND MARRIAGE.--BIRTH
AND EARLY INFANCY OF FREDERICK CHOPIN.--HIS PARENTS AND SISTERS.
GOETHE playfully describes himself as indebted to his father for
his frame and steady guidance of life, to his mother for his happy
disposition and love of story-telling, to his grandfather for his
devotion to the fair sex, to his grandmother for his love of finery.
Schopenhauer reduces the law of heredity to the simple formula that man
has his moral nature, his character, his inclinations, and his heart
from his father, and the quality and tendency of his intellect from his
mother. Buckle, on the other hand, questions hereditary transmission of
mental qualities altogether. Though little disposed to doubt with the
English historian, yet we may hesitate to assent to the proposition of
the German philosopher; the adoption of a more scientific doctrine,
one that recognises a process of compensation, neutralisation, and
accentuation, would probably bring us nearer the truth. But whatever the
complicated working of the law of heredity may be, there can be no doubt
that the tracing of a remarkable man's pedigree is always an interesting
and rarely an entirely idle occupation. Pursuing such an inquiry with
regard to Frederick Chopin, we find ourselves, however, soon at the end
of our tether. This is the more annoying, as there are circumstances
that particularly incite our curiosity. The "Journal de Rouen" of
December 1, 1849, contains an article, probably by Amedee de Mereaux, in
which it is stated that Frederick Chopin was descended from the French
family Chopin d'Arnouville, of which one member, a victim of the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had taken refuge in Poland.
[Footnote: In scanning the Moniteur of 1835, I came across several
prefects and sous-prefects of the name of Choppin d'Arnouville. (There
are two communes of the name of Arnouville, both are in the departement
of the Seine et Oise--the one in the arrondissement Mantes,
the other in the arrondissement Pontoise. This latter is called
Arnouville-les-Gonesse.) I noticed also a number of intimations
concerning plain Chopins and Choppins who served their country as maires
and army officers. Indeed, the name of Chopin is by no means uncommon in
France, and more than one individual of that name has illustrated it
by his achievements--to wit: The jurist Rene Chopin or Choppin
(1537--1606), the litterateur Chopin (born about 1800), and the poet
Charles-Auguste Chopin (1811--1844).] Although this confidently-advanced
statement is supported by the inscription on the composer's tombstone in
Pere Lachaise, which describes his father as a French refugee, both the
Catholicism of the latter and contradictory accounts of his extraction
caution us not to put too much faith in its authenticity. M. A. Szulc,
the author of a Polish book on Chopin and his works, has been told
that Nicholas Chopin, the father of Frederick, was the natural son of
a Polish nobleman, who, having come with King Stanislas Leszczynski to
Lorraine, adopted there the name of Chopin. From Karasowski we learn
nothing of Nicholas Chopin's parentage. But as he was a friend of the
Chopin family, and from them got much of his information, this silence
might with equal force be adduced for and against the correctness of
Szulc's story, which in itself is nowise improbable. The only point that
could strike one as strange is the change of name. But would not the
death of the Polish ruler and the consequent lapse of Lorraine to France
afford some inducement for the discarding of an unpronounceable foreign
name? It must, however, not be overlooked that this story is but a
hearsay, relegated to a modest foot-note, and put forward without
mention of the source whence it is derived. [FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski,
who leaves Nicholas Chopin's descent an open question, mentions a
variant of Szulc's story, saying that some biographers pretended that
Nicholas Chopin was descended from one of the name of Szop, a soldier,
valet, or heyduc (reitre, valet, ou heiduque) in the service of
Stanislas Leszczinski, whom he followed to Lorraine.] Indeed, until we
get possession of indisputable proofs, it will be advisable to disregard
these more or less fabulous reports altogether, and begin with the first
well-ascertained fact--namely, Nicholas Chopin's birth, which took place
at Nancy, in Lorraine, on the 17th of August, 1770. Of his youth nothing
is known except that, like other young men of his country, he conceived
a desire to visit Poland. Polish descent would furnish a satisfactory
explanation of Nicholas' sentiments in regard to Poland at this time
and subsequently, but an equally satisfactory explanation can be found
without having recourse to such a hazardous assumption.
In 1735 Stanislas Leszczynski, who had been King of Poland from 1704 to
1709, became Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and reigned over the Duchies till
1766, when an accident--some part of his dress taking fire--put an end
to his existence. As Stanislas was a wise, kind-hearted, and benevolent
prince, his subjects not only loved him as long as he lived, but also
cherished his memory after his death, when their country had been united
to France. The young, we may be sure, would often hear their elders
speak of the good times of Duke Stanislas, of the Duke (the philosophe
bienfaisant) himself, and of the strange land and people he came from.
But Stanislas, besides being an excellent prince, was also an amiable,
generous gentleman, who, whilst paying due attention to the well-being
of his new subjects, remained to the end of his days a true Pole. From
this circumstance it may be easily inferred that the Court of Stanislas
proved a great attraction to his countrymen, and that Nancy became a
chief halting-place of Polish travellers on their way to and from Paris.
Of course, not all the Poles that had settled in the Duchies during the
Duke's reign left the country after his demise, nor did their friends
from the fatherland altogether cease to visit them in their new home.
Thus a connection between the two countries was kept up, and the
interest taken by the people of the west in the fortunes of the people
in the east was not allowed to die. Moreover, were not the Academie de
Stanislas founded by the Duke, the monument erected to his memory, and
the square named after him, perpetual reminders to the inhabitants of
Nancy and the visitors to that town?
Nicholas Chopin came to Warsaw in or about the year 1787. Karasowski
relates in the first and the second German edition of his biography of
Frederick Chopin that the Staroscina [FOOTNOTE: The wife of a starosta
(vide p. 7.)] Laczynska made the acquaintance of the latter's father,
and engaged him as tutor to her children; but in the later Polish
edition he abandons this account in favour of one given by Count
Frederick Skarbek in his Pamietniki (Memoirs). According to this most
trustworthy of procurable witnesses (why he is the most trustworthy will
be seen presently), Nicholas Chopin's migration to Poland came about
in this way. A Frenchman had established in Warsaw a manufactory of
tobacco, which, as the taking of snuff was then becoming more and more
the fashion, began to flourish in so high a degree that he felt the
need of assistance. He proposed, therefore, to his countryman, Nicholas
Chopin, to come to him and take in hand the book-keeping, a proposal
which was readily accepted.
The first impression of the young Lorrainer on entering the land of
his dreams cannot have been altogether of a pleasant nature. For in the
summer of 1812, when, we are told, the condition of the people had been
infinitely ameliorated by the Prussian and Russian governments, M.
de Pradt, Napoleon's ambassador, found the nation in a state of
semi-barbarity, agriculture in its infancy, the soil parched like a
desert, the animals stunted, the people, although of good stature, in
a state of extreme poverty, the towns built of wood, the houses filled
with vermin, and the food revolting. This picture will not escape
the suspicion of being overdrawn. But J.G. Seume, who was by no means
over-squeamish, and whom experience had taught the meaning of "to rough
it," asserts, in speaking of Poland in 1805, that, Warsaw and a few
other places excepted, the dunghill was in most houses literally and
without exaggeration the cleanest spot, and the only one where one could
stand without loathing. But if the general aspect of things left much
to be desired from a utilitarian point of view, its strangeness and
picturesqueness would not fail to compensate an imaginative youth
for the want of order and comfort. The strong contrast of wealth and
poverty, of luxury and distress, that gave to the whole country so
melancholy an appearance, was, as it were, focussed in its capital.
Mr. Coxe, who visited Warsaw not long before Nicholas Chopin's arrival
there, says:--
The streets are spacious, but ill-paved; the churches and
public buildings large and magnificent, the palaces of the
nobility are numerous and splendid; but the greatest part of
the houses, especially the suburbs, are mean and ill-
constructed wooden hovels.
What, however, struck a stranger most, was the throngs of humanity that
enlivened the streets and squares of Warsaw, the capital of a nation
composed of a medley of Poles, Lithuanians, Red and White Russians,
Germans, Muscovites, Jews, and Wallachians, and the residence of a
numerous temporary and permanent foreign population. How our friend from
quiet Nancy--which long ago had been deserted by royalty and its train,
and where literary luminaries, such as Voltaire, Madame du Chatelet,
Saint Lambert, &c., had ceased to make their fitful appearances--must
have opened his eyes when this varied spectacle unfolded itself before
him.
The streets of stately breadth, formed of palaces in the
finest Italian taste and wooden huts which at every moment
threatened to tumble down on the heads of the inmates; in
these buildings Asiatic pomp and Greenland dirtin strange
union, an ever-bustling population, forming, like a
masked procession, the most striking contrasts. Long-bearded
Jews, and monks in all kinds of habits; nuns of the strictest
discipline, entirely veiled and wrapped in meditation; and in
the large squares troops of young Polesses in light-coloured
silk mantles engaged in conversation; venerable old Polish
gentlemen with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sword, and yellow
and red boots; and the new generation in the most incroyable
Parisian fashion. Turks, Greeks, Russians, Italians, and
French in an ever-changing throng; moreover, an exceedingly
tolerant police that interfered nowise with the popular
amusements, so that in squares and streets there moved about
incessantly Pulchinella theatres, dancing bears, camels, and
monkeys, before which the most elegant carriages as well as
porters stopped and stood gaping.
Thus pictures J. E. Hitzig, the biographer of E. Th. A. Hoffmann, and
himself a sojourner in Warsaw, the life of the Polish capital in 1807.
When Nicholas Chopin saw it first the spectacle in the streets was even
more stirring, varied, and brilliant; for then Warsaw was still the
capital of an independent state, and the pending and impending political
affairs brought to it magnates from all the principal courts of Europe,
who vied with each other in the splendour of their carriages and horses,
and in the number and equipment of their attendants.
In the introductory part of this work I have spoken of the misfortunes
that befel Poland and culminated in the first partition. But the
buoyancy of the Polish character helped the nation to recover sooner
from this severe blow than could have been expected. Before long
patriots began to hope that the national disaster might be turned into
a blessing. Many circumstances favoured the realisation of these hopes.
Prussia, on discovering that her interests no longer coincided with
those of her partners of 1772, changed sides, and by-and-by even went
the length of concluding a defensive and offensive alliance with the
Polish Republic. She, with England and other governments, backed Poland
against Russia and Austria. Russia, moreover, had to turn her attention
elsewhere. At the time of Nicholas Chopin's arrival, Poland was dreaming
of a renascence of her former greatness, and everyone was looking
forward with impatience to the assembly of the Diet which was to meet
the following year. Predisposed by sympathy, he was soon drawn into
the current of excitement and enthusiasm that was surging around him.
Indeed, what young soul possessed of any nobleness could look with
indifference on a nation struggling for liberty and independence. As he
took a great interest in the debates and transactions of the Diet, he
became more and more acquainted with the history, character, condition,
and needs of the country, and this stimulated him to apply himself
assiduously to the study of the national language, in order to increase,
by means of this faithful mirror and interpreter of a people's heart and
mind, his knowledge of these things. And now I must ask the reader to
bear patiently the infliction of a brief historical summary, which
I would most willingly spare him, were I not prevented by two strong
reasons. In the first place, the vicissitudes of Nicholas Chopin's
early life in Poland are so closely bound up with, or rather so much
influenced by, the political events, that an intelligible account of
the former cannot be given without referring to the latter; and in the
second place, those same political events are such important factors in
the moulding of the national character, that, if we wish to understand
it, they ought not to be overlooked.
The Diet which assembled at the end of 1788, in order to prevent the
use or rather abuse of the liberum veto, soon formed itself into a
confederation, abolished in 1789 the obnoxious Permanent Council,
and decreed in 1791, after much patriotic oratory and unpatriotic
obstruction, the famous constitution of the 3rd of May, regarded by the
Poles up to this day with loving pride, and admired and praised at the
time by sovereigns and statesmen, Fox and Burke among them. Although
confirming most of the privileges of the nobles, the constitution
nevertheless bore in it seeds of good promise. Thus, for instance, the
crown was to pass after the death of the reigning king to the Elector
of Saxony, and become thenceforth hereditary; greater power was given
to the king and ministers, confederations and the liberum veto were
declared illegal, the administration of justice was ameliorated, and
some attention was paid to the rights and wrongs of the third estate and
peasantry. But the patriots who already rejoiced in the prospect of a
renewal of Polish greatness and prosperity had counted without the proud
selfish aristocrats, without Russia, always ready to sow and nurture
discord. Hence new troubles--the confederation of Targowica, Russian
demands for the repeal of the constitution and unconditional submission
to the Empress Catharine II, betrayal by Prussia, invasion, war,
desertion of the national cause by their own king and his joining the
conspirators of Targowica, and then the second partition of Poland
(October 14, 1793), implying a further loss of territory and population.
Now, indeed, the events were hastening towards the end of the sad drama,
the finis poloniae. After much hypocritical verbiage and cruel coercion
and oppression by Russia and Prussia, more especially by the former,
outraged Poland rose to free itself from the galling yoke, and fought
under the noble Kosciuszko and other gallant generals with a bravery
that will for ever live in the memory of men. But however glorious the
attempt, it was vain. Having three such powers as Russia, Prussia,
and Austria against her, Poland, unsupported by allies and otherwise
hampered, was too weak to hold her own. Without inquiring into the
causes and the faults committed by her commanders, without dwelling on
or even enumerating the vicissitudes of the struggle, I shall pass on
to the terrible closing scene of the drama--the siege and fall of Praga,
the suburb of Warsaw, and the subsequent massacre. The third partition
(October 24, 1795), in which each of the three powers took her share,
followed as a natural consequence, and Poland ceased to exist as an
independent state. Not, however, for ever; for when in 1807 Napoleon,
after crushing Prussia and defeating Russia, recast at Tilsit to a great
extent the political conformation of Europe, bullying King Frederick
William III and flattering the Emperor Alexander, he created the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw, over which he placed as ruler the then King of Saxony.
Now let us see how Nicholas Chopin fared while these whirlwinds passed
over Poland. The threatening political situation and the consequent
general insecurity made themselves at once felt in trade, indeed soon
paralysed it. What more particularly told on the business in which the
young Lorrainer was engaged was the King's desertion of the national
cause, which induced the great and wealthy to leave Warsaw and betake
themselves for shelter to more retired and safer places. Indeed, so
disastrous was the effect of these occurrences on the Frenchman's
tobacco manufactory that it had to be closed. In these circumstances
Nicholas Chopin naturally thought of returning home, but sickness
detained him. When he had recovered his health, Poland was rising under
Kosciuszko. He then joined the national guard, in which he was before
long promoted to the rank of captain. On the 5th of November, 1794, he
was on duty at Praga, and had not his company been relieved a few hours
before the fall of the suburb, he would certainly have met there his
death. Seeing that all was lost he again turned his thoughts homewards,
when once more sickness prevented him from executing his intention.
For a time he tried to make a living by teaching French, but ere long
accepted an engagement as tutor in the family--then living in the
country--of the Staroscina Laczynska, who meeting him by chance had been
favourably impressed by his manners and accomplishments. In passing we
may note that among his four pupils (two girls and two boys) was one,
Mary, who afterwards became notorious by her connection with Napoleon
I., and by the son that sprang from this connection, Count Walewski,
the minister of Napoleon III. At the beginning of this century we find
Nicholas Chopin at Zelazowa Wola, near Sochaczew, in the house of the
Countess Skarbek, as tutor to her son Frederick. It was there that he
made the acquaintance of Justina Krzyzanowska, a young lady of noble but
poor family, whom he married in the year 1806, and who became the mother
of four children, three daughters and one son, the latter being no other
than Frederick Chopin, the subject of this biography. The position of
Nicholas Chopin in the house of the Countess must have been a pleasant
one, for ever after there seems to have existed a friendly relation
between the two families. His pupil, Count Frederick Skarbek, who
prosecuted his studies at Warsaw and Paris, distinguished himself
subsequently as a poet, man of science, professor at the University
of Warsaw, state official, philanthropist, and many-sided author--more
especially as a politico--economical writer. When in his Memoirs the
Count looks back on his youth, he remembers gratefully and with respect
his tutor, speaking of him in highly appreciative terms. In teaching,
Nicholas Chopin's chief aim was to form his pupils into useful,
patriotic citizens; nothing was farther from his mind than the desire or
unconscious tendency to turn them into Frenchmen. And now approaches the
time when the principal personage makes his appearance on the stage.
Frederick Chopin, the only son and the third of the four children of
Nicholas and Justina Chopin, was born on February 22, 1810,
[FOOTNOTE: See Preface, p. xii. In the earlier editions the date given
was March 1,1809, as in the biography by Karasowski, with whom agree
the earlier J. Fontana (Preface to Chopin's posthumous works.--1855),
C. Sowinski (Les musiciens polonais et slaves.--1857), and the writer
of the Chopin article in Mendel's Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon
(1872). According to M. A. Szulc (Fryderyk Chopin.--1873) and the
inscription on the memorial (erected in 1880) in the Holy Cross Church
at Warsaw, the composer was born on March 2, 1809. The monument in Pere
Lachaise, at Paris, bears the date of Chopin's death, but not that of
his birth. Felis, in his Biographie universelle des musiciens, differs
widely from these authorities. The first edition (1835--1844) has
only the year--1810; the second edition (1861--1865) adds month and
day--February 8.]
in a mean little house at Zelazowa Wola, a village about twenty-eight
English miles from Warsaw belonging to the Countess Skarbek.
[FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski, after indicating the general features of
Polish villages--the dwor (manor-house) surrounded by a "bouquet of
trees"; the barns and stables forming a square with a well in the
centre; the roads planted with poplars and bordered with thatched huts;
the rye, wheat, rape, and clover fields, &c.--describes the birthplace
of Frederick Chopin as follows: "I have seen there the same dwor
embosomed in trees, the same outhouses, the same huts, the same plains
where here and there a wild pear-tree throws its shadow. Some steps from
the mansion I stopped before a little cot with a slated roof, flanked
by a little wooden perron. Nothing has been changed for nearly a hundred
years. A dark passage traverses it. On the left, in a room illuminated
by the reddish flame of slowly-consumed logs, or by the uncertain
light of two candles placed at each extremity of the long table,
the maid-servants spin as in olden times, and relate to each other a
thousand marvellous legends. On the right, in a lodging of three rooms,
so low that one can touch the ceiling, a man of some thirty years,
brown, with vivacious eyes, the face closely shaven." This man was
of course Nicholas Chopin. I need hardly say that Count Wodzinski's
description is novelistically tricked out. His accuracy may be judged
by the fact that a few pages after the above passage he speaks of the
discoloured tiles of the roof which he told his readers before was of
slate.]
The son of the latter, Count Frederick Skarbek, Nicholas Chopin's pupil,
a young man of seventeen, stood godfather and gave his name to the
new-born offspring of his tutor. Little Frederick's residence at the
village cannot have been of long duration.
The establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 had ushered in a
time big with chances for a capable man, and we may be sure that a
young husband and father, no doubt already on the look-out for some more
lucrative and independent employment, was determined not to miss them.
Few peaceful revolutions, if any, can compare in thoroughness with the
one that then took place in Poland; a new sovereign ascended the throne,
two differently-constituted representative bodies superseded the old
Senate and Diet, the French code of laws was introduced, the army and
civil service underwent a complete re-organisation, public instruction
obtained a long-needed attention, and so forth. To give an idea of the
extent of the improvement effected in matters of education, it is enough
to mention that the number of schools rose from 140 to 634, and that
a commission was formed for the publication of suitable books of
instruction in the Polish language. Nicholas Chopin's hopes were not
frustrated; for on October 1, 1810, he was appointed professor of the
French language at the newly-founded Lyceum in Warsaw, and a little more
than a year after, on January 1, 1812, to a similar post at the School
of Artillery and Engineering.
The exact date when Nicholas Chopin and his family settled in Warsaw is
not known, nor is it of any consequence. We may, however, safely assume
that about this time little Frederick was an inhabitant of the Polish
metropolis. During the first years of his life the parents may
have lived in somewhat straitened circumstances. The salary of the
professorship, even if regularly paid, would hardly suffice for a family
to live comfortably, and the time was unfavourable for gaining much by
private tuition. M. de Pradt, describing Poland in 1812, says:--
Nothing could exceed the misery of all classes. The army was
not paid, the officers were in rags, the best houses were in
ruins, the greatest lords were compelled to leave Warsaw from
want of money to provide for their tables. No pleasures, no
society, no invitations as in Paris and in London. I even saw
princesses quit Warsaw from the most extreme distress. The
Princess Radziwill had brought two women from England and
France, she wished to send them back, but had to keep them
because she was unable to pay their salaries and travelling
expenses. I saw in Warsaw two French physicians who informed
me that they could not procure their fees even from the
greatest lords.
But whatever straits the parents may have been put to, the weak,
helpless infant would lack none of the necessaries of life, and enjoy
all the reasonable comforts of his age.
When in 1815 peace was restored and a period of quiet followed, the
family must have lived in easy circumstances; for besides holding
appointments as professor at some public schools (under the Russian
government he became also one of the staff of teachers at the Military
Preparatory School), Nicholas Chopin kept for a number of years a
boarding-school, which was patronised by the best families of the
country. The supposed poverty of Chopin's parents has given rise to all
sorts of misconceptions and misstatements. A writer in Larousse's
"Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siecle" even builds on it a
theory explanatory of the character of Chopin and his music: "Sa famille
d'origine francaise," he writes, "jouissait d'une mediocre fortune; de
la, peut-etre, certains froissements dans l'organisation nerveuse et
la vive sensibilite de l'enfant, sentiments qui devaient plus tard
se refleter dans ses oeuvres, empreintes generalement d'une profonde
melancolie." If the writer of the article in question had gone a little
farther back, he might have found a sounder basis for his theory in the
extremely delicate physical organisation of the man, whose sensitiveness
was so acute that in early infancy he could not hear music without
crying, and resisted almost all attempts at appeasing him.
The last-mentioned fact, curious and really noteworthy in itself,
acquires a certain preciousness by its being the only one transmitted
to us of that period of Chopin's existence. But this scantiness of
information need not cause us much regret. During the first years of a
man's life biography is chiefly concerned with his surroundings, with
the agencies that train his faculties and mould his character. A
man's acts and opinions are interesting in proportion to the degree of
consolidation attained by his individuality. Fortunately our material is
abundant enough to enable us to reconstruct in some measure the milieu
into which Chopin was born and in which he grew up. We will begin with
that first circle which surrounds the child--his family. The negative
advantages which our Frederick found there--the absence of the
privations and hardships of poverty, with their depressing and often
demoralising influence--have already been adverted to; now I must say a
few words about the positive advantages with which he was favoured.
And it may be at once stated that they cannot be estimated too highly.
Frederick enjoyed the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon
mortal man--viz., that of being born into a virtuous and well-educated
family united by the ties of love. I call it the greatest of blessings,
because neither catechism and sermons nor schools and colleges can take
the place,, or compensate for the want, of this education that does not
stop at the outside, but by its subtle, continuous action penetrates to
the very heart's core and pervades the whole being. The atmosphere in
which Frederick lived was not only moral and social, but also distinctly
intellectual.
The father, Nicholas Chopin, seems to have been a man of worth and
culture, honest of purpose, charitable in judgment, attentive to duty,
and endowed with a good share of prudence and commonsense. In support of
this characterisation may be advanced that among his friends he counted
many men of distinction in literature, science, and art; that between
him and the parents of his pupils as well as the pupils themselves there
existed a friendly relation; that he was on intimate terms with several
of his colleagues; and that his children not only loved, but also
respected him. No one who reads his son's letters, which indeed give us
some striking glimpses of the man, can fail to notice this last point.
On one occasion, when confessing that he had gone to a certain dinner
two hours later than he had been asked, Frederick foresees his father's
anger at the disregard for what is owing to others, and especially
to one's elders; and on another occasion he makes excuses for his
indifference to non-musical matters, which, he thinks, his father will
blame. And mark, these letters were written after Chopin had attained
manhood. What testifies to Nicholas Chopin's, abilities as a teacher and
steadiness as a man, is the unshaken confidence of the government: he
continued in his position at the Lyceumtill after the revolution in
1831, when this institution, like many others, was closed; he was then
appointed a member of the board for the examination of candidates for
situations as schoolmasters, and somewhat later he became professor of
the French language at the Academy of the Roman Catholic Clergy.
It is more difficult, or rather it is impossible, to form anything like
a clear picture of his wife, Justina Chopin. None of those of her son's
letters that are preserved is addressed to her, and in those addressed
to the members of the family conjointly, or to friends, nothing occurs
that brings her nearer to us, or gives a clue to her character. George
Sand said that she was Chopin's only passion. Karasowski describes
her as "particularly tender-hearted and rich in all the truly womanly
virtues.....For her quietness and homeliness were the greatest
happiness." K. W. Wojcicki, in "Cmentarz Powazkowski" (Powazki
Cemetery), expresses, himself in the same strain. A Scotch lady, who had
seen Justina Chopin in her old age, and conversed with her in French,
told me that she was then "a neat, quiet, intelligent old lady, whose
activeness contrasted strongly with the languor of her son, who had
not a shadow of energy in him." With regard to the latter part of this
account, we must not overlook the fact that my informant knew Chopin
only in the last year of his life--i.e., when he was in a very suffering
state of mind and body. This is all the information I have been able to
collect regarding the character of Chopin's mother. Moreover, Karasowski
is not an altogether trustworthy informant; as a friend of the Chopin
family he sees in its members so many paragons of intellectual and moral
perfection. He proceeds on the de mortuis nil nisi bonum principle,
which I venture to suggest is a very bad principle. Let us apply this
loving tenderness to our living neighbours, and judge the dead according
to their merits. Thus the living will be doubly benefited, and no harm
be done to the dead. Still, the evidence before us--including that
exclamation about his "best of mothers" in one of Chopin's letters,
written from Vienna, soon after the outbreak of the Polish
insurrection in 1830: "How glad my mamma will be that I did not come
back!"--justifies us, I think, in inferring that Justina Chopin was a
woman of the most lovable type, one in whom the central principle of
existence was the maternal instinct, that bright ray of light which,
dispersed in its action, displays itself in the most varied and lovely
colours. That this principle, although often all-absorbing, is not
incompatible with the wider and higher social and intellectual interests
is a proposition that does not stand in need of proof. But who could
describe that wondrous blending of loving strength and lovable weakness
of a true woman's character? You feel its beauty and sublimity, and if
you attempt to give words to your feeling you produce a caricature.
The three sisters of Frederick all manifested more or less a taste
for literature. The two elder sisters, Louisa (who married Professor
Jedrzejewicz, and died in 1855) and Isabella (who married Anton
Barcinski--first inspector of schools, and subsequently director of
steam navigation on the Vistula--and died in 1881), wrote together for
the improvement of the working classes. The former contributed now and
then, also after her marriage, articles to periodicals on the education
of the young. Emilia, the youngest sister, who died at the early age of
fourteen (in 1827), translated, conjointly with her sister Isabella,
the educational tales of the German author Salzmann, and her poetical
efforts held out much promise for the future.
CHAPTER II
FREDERICK'S FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUCTION AND MUSIC-MASTER, ADALBERT
ZYWNY.--HIS DEBUT AND SUCCESS AS A PIANIST.--HIS EARLY INTRODUCTION INTO
ARISTOCRATIC SOCIETY AND CONSTANT INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARISTOCRACY.--HIS
FIRST COMPOSITIONS.--HIS STUDIES AND MASTER IN HARMONY, COUNTERPOINT,
AND COMPOSITION, JOSEPH ELSNER.
OUR little friend, who, as we have seen, at first took up a hostile
attitude towards music--for his passionate utterances, albeit
inarticulate, cannot well be interpreted as expressions of satisfaction
or approval--came before long under her mighty sway. The pianoforte
threw a spell over him, and, attracting him more and more, inspired
him with such a fondness as to induce his parents to provide him,
notwithstanding his tender age, with an instructor. To lessen the
awfulness of the proceeding, it was arranged that one of the elder
sisters should join him in his lessons. The first and only pianoforte
teacher of him who in the course of time became one of the greatest and
most original masters of this instrument, deserves some attention from
us. Adalbert Zywny [FOOTNOTE: This is the usual spelling of the name,
which, as the reader will see further on, its possessor wrote Ziwny.
Liszt calls him Zywna.], a native of Bohemia, born in 1756, came to
Poland, according to Albert Sowinski (Les musiciens polonais et slaves),
during the reign of Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski (1764--1795), and
after staying for some time as pianist at the court of Prince Casimir
Sapieha, settled in Warsaw as a teacher of music, and soon got into good
practice, "giving his lessons at three florins (eighteen pence) per hour
very regularly, and making a fortune." And thus teaching and composing
(he is said to have composed much for the pianoforte, but he never
published anything), he lived a long and useful life, dying in 1842 at
the age of 86 (Karasowski says in 1840). The punctual and, no doubt,
also somewhat pedantic music-master who acquired the esteem and goodwill
of his patrons, the best families of Warsaw, and a fortune at the same
time, is a pleasant figure to contemplate. The honest orderliness and
dignified calmness of his life, as I read it, are quite refreshing in
this time of rush and gush. Having seen a letter of his, I can imagine
the heaps of original MSS., clearly and neatly penned with a firm
hand, lying carefully packed up in spacious drawers, or piled up on
well-dusted shelves. Of the man Zywny and his relation to the Chopin
family we get some glimpses in Frederick's letters. In one of the year
1828, addressed to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, he writes: "With us
things are as they used to be; the honest Zywny is the soul of all our
amusements." Sowinski informs us that Zywny taught his pupil according
to the classical German method--whatever that may mean--at that time in
use in Poland. Liszt, who calls him "an enthusiastic student of Bach,"
speaks likewise of "les errements d'une ecole entierement classique."
Now imagine my astonishment when on asking the well-known pianoforte
player and composer Edouard Wolff, a native of Warsaw, [Fooynote: He
died at Paris on October 16, 1880.] what kind of pianist Zywny was,
I received the answer that he was a violinist and not a pianist.
That Wolff and Zywny knew each other is proved beyond doubt by the
above-mentioned letter of Zywny's, introducing the former to Chopin,
then resident in Paris. The solution of the riddle is probably this.
Zywny, whether violinist or not, was not a pianoforte virtuoso--at
least, was not heard in public in his old age. The mention of a single
name, that of Wenzel W. Wurfel, certainly shows that he was not the best
pianist in Warsaw. But against any such depreciatory remarks we have
to set Chopin's high opinion of Zywny's teaching capability. Zywny's
letter, already twice alluded to, is worth quoting. It still further
illustrates the relation in which master and pupil stood to each other,
and by bringing us in close contact with the former makes us better
acquainted with his character. A particularly curious fact about the
letter--considering the nationality of the persons concerned--is its
being written in German. Only a fac-simile of the original, with its
clear, firm, though (owing to the writer's old age) cramped penmanship,
and its quaint spelling and capricious use of capital and small
initials, could fully reveal the expressiveness of this document.
However, even in the translation there may be found some of the man's
characteristic old-fashioned formality, grave benevolence, and quiet
homeliness. The outside of the sheet on which the letter is written
bears the words, "From the old music-master Adalbert Ziwny [at least
this I take to be the meaning of the seven letters followed by dots],
kindly to be transmitted to my best friend, Mr. Frederick Chopin, in
Paris." The letter itself runs as follows:--
DEAREST MR. F. CHOPIN,--Wishing you perfect health I have the
honour to write to you through Mr. Eduard Wolf. [FOOTNOTE:
The language of the first sentence is neither logical nor
otherwise precise. I shall keep throughout as close as
possible to the original, and also retain the peculiar
spelling of proper names.] I recommend him to your esteemed
friendship. Your whole family and I had also the pleasure of
hearing at his concert the Adagio and Rondo from your
Concerto, which called up in our minds the most agreeable
remembrance of you. May God give you every prosperity! We are
all well, and wish so much to see you again. Meanwhile I send
you through Mr. Wolf my heartiest kiss, and recommending
myself to your esteemed friendship, I remain your faithful
friend,
ADALBERT ZIWNY.
Warsaw, the 12th of June, 1835.
N.B.--Mr. Kirkow, the merchant, and his son George, who was
at Mr. Reinschmid's at your farewell party, recommend
themselves to you, and wish you good health. Adieu.
Julius Fontana, the friend and companion of Frederick, after stating (in
his preface to Chopin's posthumous works) that Chopin had never another
pianoforte teacher than Zywny, observes that the latter taught his
pupil only the first principles. "The progress of the child was so
extraordinary that his parents and his professor thought they could do
no better than abandon him at the age of 12 to his own instincts, and
follow instead of directing him." The progress of Frederick must indeed
have been considerable, for in Clementina Tanska-Hofmanowa's Pamiatka po
dobrej matce (Memorial of a good Mother) [FOOTNOTE: Published in 1819.]
the writer relates that she was at a soiree at Gr----'s, where she found
a numerous party assembled, and heard in the course of the evening young
Chopin play the piano--"a child not yet eight years old, who, in the
opinion of the connoisseurs of the art, promises to replace Mozart."
Before the boy had completed his ninth year his talents were already so
favourably known that he was invited to take part in a concert which was
got up by several persons of high rank for the benefit of the poor. The
bearer of the invitation was no less a person than Ursin Niemcewicz, the
publicist, poet, dramatist, and statesman, one of the most remarkable
and influential men of the Poland of that day. At this concert, which
took place on February 24, 1818, the young virtuoso played a concerto
by Adalbert Gyrowetz, a composer once celebrated, but now ignominiously
shelved--sic transit gloria mundi--and one of Riehl's "divine
Philistines." An anecdote shows that at that time Frederick was neither
an intellectual prodigy nor a conceited puppy, but a naive, modest child
that played the pianoforte, as birds sing, with unconscious art. When
he came home after the concert, for which of course he had been arrayed
most splendidly and to his own great satisfaction, his mother said to
him: "Well, Fred, what did the public like best?"--"Oh, mamma," replied
the little innocent, "everybody was looking at my collar."
The debut was a complete success, and our Frederick--Chopinek
(diminutive of Chopin) they called him--became more than ever the pet of
the aristocracy of Warsaw. He was invited to the houses of the Princes
Czartoryski, Sapieha, Czetwertynski, Lubecki, Radziwill, the Counts
Skarbek, Wolicki, Pruszak, Hussarzewski, Lempicki, and others. By the
Princess Czetwertynska, who, says Liszt, cultivated music with a true
feeling of its beauties, and whose salon was one of the most brilliant
and select of Warsaw, Frederick was introduced to the Princess Lowicka,
the beautiful Polish wife of the Grand Duke Constantine, who, as
Countess Johanna Antonia Grudzinska, had so charmed the latter that,
in order to obtain the Emperor's consent to his marriage with her, he
abdicated his right of succession to the throne. The way in which
she exerted her influence over her brutal, eccentric, if not insane,
husband, who at once loved and maltreated the Poles, gained her the
title of "guardian angel of Poland." In her salon Frederick came of
course also in contact with the dreaded Grand Duke, the Napoleon of
Belvedere (thus he was nicknamed by Niemcewicz, from the palace where
he resided in Warsaw), who on one occasion when the boy was improvising
with his eyes turned to the ceiling, as was his wont, asked him why he
looked in that direction, if he saw notes up there. With the exalted
occupants of Belvedere Frederick had a good deal of intercourse, for
little Paul, a boy of his own age, a son or adopted son of the Grand
Duke, enjoyed his company, and sometimes came with his tutor, Count de
Moriolles, to his house to take him for a drive. On these occasions
the neighbours of the Chopin family wondered not a little what business
brought the Grand Duke's carriage, drawn by four splendid horses, yoked
in the Russian fashion--i.e., all abreast--to their quarter.
Chopin's early introduction into aristocratic society and constant
intercourse with the aristocracy is an item of his education which must
not be considered as of subordinate importance. More than almost any
other of his early disciplines, it formed his tastes, or at least
strongly assisted in developing certain inborn traits of his nature, and
in doing this influenced his entire moral and artistic character. In the
proem I mentioned an English traveller's encomiums on the elegance in
the houses, and the exquisite refinement in the entertainments, of the
wealthy nobles in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. We may be
sure that in these respects the present century was not eclipsed by
its predecessors, at least not in the third decade, when the salons of
Warsaw shone at their brightest. The influence of French thought and
manners, for the importation and spreading of which King Stanislas
Leszczinski was so solicitous that he sent at his own expense many young
gentlemen to Paris for their education, was subsequently strengthened by
literary taste, national sympathies, and the political connection during
the first Empire. But although foreign notions and customs caused
much of the old barbarous extravagance and also much of the old
homely simplicity to disappear, they did not annihilate the national
distinctiveness of the class that was affected by them. Suffused with
the Slavonic spirit and its tincture of Orientalism, the importation
assumed a character of its own. Liszt, who did not speak merely from
hearsay, emphasises, in giving expression to his admiration of the
elegant and refined manners of the Polish aristocracy, the absence of
formalism and stiff artificiality:--
In these salons [he writes] the rigorously observed
proprieties were not a kind of ingeniously-constructed
corsets that served to hide deformed hearts; they only
necessitated the spiritualisation of all contacts, the
elevation of all rapports, the aristocratisation of all
impressions.
But enough of this for the present.
A surer proof of Frederick's ability than the applause and favour of the
aristocracy was the impression he made on the celebrated Catalani, who,
in January, 1820, gave four concerts in the town-hall of Warsaw, the
charge for admission to each of which was, as we may note in passing, no
less than thirty Polish florins (fifteen shillings). Hearing much of the
musically-gifted boy, she expressed the wish to have him presented to
her. On this being done, she was so pleased with him and his playing
that she made him a present of a watch, on which were engraved the
words: "Donne par Madame Catalani a Frederic Chopin, age de dix ans."
As yet I have said nothing of the boy's first attempts at composition.
Little Frederick began to compose soon after the commencement of his
pianoforte lessons and before he could handle the pen. His master had
to write down what the pupil played, after which the youthful maestro,
often dissatisfied with his first conception, would set to work with the
critical file, and try to improve it. He composed mazurkas, polonaises,
waltzes, &c. At the age of ten he dedicated a march to the Grand Duke
Constantine, who had it scored for a military band and played on parade
(subsequently it was also published, but without the composer's name),
and these productions gave such evident proof of talent that his father
deemed it desirable to get his friend Elsner to instruct him in
harmony and counterpoint. At this time, however, it was not as yet in
contemplation that Frederick should become a professional musician; on
the contrary, he was made to understand that his musical studies must
not interfere with his other studies, as he was then preparing for his
entrance into the Warsaw Lyceum. As we know that this event took place
in 1824, we know also the approximate time of the commencement of
Elsner's lessons. Fontana says that Chopin began these studies when he
was already remarkable as a pianist. Seeing how very little is known
concerning the nature and extent of Chopin's studies in composition, it
may be as well to exhaust the subject at once. But before I do so I must
make the reader acquainted with the musician who, as Zyvny was Chopin's
only pianoforte teacher, was his only teacher of composition.
Joseph Elsner, the son of a cabinet and musical instrument maker at
Grottkau, in Silesia, was born on June 1, 1769. As his father intended
him for the medical profession, he was sent in 1781 to the Latin school
at Breslau, and some years later to the University at Vienna. Having
already been encouraged by the rector in Grottkau to cultivate his
beautiful voice, he became in Breslau a chorister in one of the
churches, and after some time was often employed as violinist and singer
at the theatre. Here, where he got, if not regular instruction, at least
some hints regarding harmony and kindred matters (the authorities are
hopelessly at variance on this and on many other points), he made his
first attempts at composition, writing dances, songs, duets, trios, nay,
venturing even on larger works for chorus and orchestra. The musical
studies commenced in Breslau were continued in Vienna; preferring
musical scores to medical books, the conversations of musicians to
the lectures of professors, he first neglected and at last altogether
abandoned the study of the healing art. A. Boguslawski, who wrote a
biography of Elsner, tells the story differently and more poetically.
When, after a long illness during his sojourn in Breslau, thus runs his
version, Elsner went, on the day of the Holy Trinity in the year 1789,
for the first time to church, he was so deeply moved by the sounds of
the organ that he fainted. On recovering he felt his whole being filled
with such ineffable comfort and happiness that he thought he saw in this
occurrence the hand of destiny. He, therefore, set out for Vienna,
in order that he might draw as it were at the fountain-head the great
principles of his art. Be this as it may, in 1791 we hear of Elsner
as violinist in Brunn, in 1792 as musical conductor at a theatre in
Lemberg--where he is busy composing dramatic and other works--and near
the end of the last century as occupant of the same post at the National
Theatre in Warsaw, which town became his home for the rest of his life.
There was the principal field of his labours; there he died, after a
sojourn of sixty-two years in Poland, on April 18, 1854, leaving
behind him one of the most honoured names in the history of his adopted
country. Of the journeys he undertook, the longest and most important
was, no doubt, that to Paris in 1805. On the occasion of this visit
some of his compositions were performed, and when Chopin arrived there
twenty-five years afterwards, Elsner was still remembered by Lesueur,
who said: "Et que fait notre bon Elsner? Racontez-moi de ses nouvelles."
Elsner was a very productive composer: besides symphonies, quartets,
cantatas, masses, an oratorio, &c., he composed twenty-seven Polish
operas. Many of these works were published, some in Warsaw, some in
various German towns, some even in Paris. But his activity as a teacher,
conductor, and organiser was perhaps even more beneficial to the
development of the musical art in Poland than that as a composer. After
founding and conducting several musical societies, he became in 1821
director of the then opened Conservatorium, at the head of which he
continued to the end of its existence in 1830. To complete the idea of
the man, we must not omit to mention his essay In how far is the Polish
language suitable for music? As few of his compositions have been heard
outside of Poland, and these few long ago, rarely, and in few places, it
is difficult to form a satisfactory opinion with regard to his position
as a composer. Most accounts, however, agree in stating that he wrote in
the style of the modern Italians, that is to say, what were called the
modern Italians in the later part of the last and the earlier part of
this century. Elsner tried his strength and ability in all genres, from
oratorio, opera, and symphony, down to pianoforte variations, rondos,
and dances, and in none of them did he fail to be pleasing and
intelligible, not even where, as especially in his sacred music, he
made use--a sparing use--of contrapuntal devices, imitations, and fugal
treatment. The naturalness, fluency, effectiveness, and practicableness
which distinguish his writing for voices and instruments show that he
possessed a thorough knowledge of their nature and capability. It was,
therefore, not an empty rhetorical phrase to speak of him initiating
his pupils "a la science du contre-point et aux effets d'une savante
instrumentation."
[FOOTNOTE: "The productions of Elsner," says Fetis, "are in the style of
Paer and Mayer's music. In his church music there is a little too much
of modern and dramatic forms; one finds in them facility and a natural
manner of making the parts sing, but little originality and variety in
his ideas. Elsner writes with sufficient purity, although he shows in
his fugues that his studies have not been severe."]
For the pupils of the Conservatorium he wrote vocal pieces in from one
to ten parts, and he composed also a number of canons in four and five
parts, which fact seems to demonstrate that he had no ill-will against
the scholastic forms. And now I shall quote a passage from an apparently
well-informed writer [FOOTNOTE: The writer of the article Elsner in
Schilling's Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst] (to whom I am, moreover,
otherwise indebted in this sketch), wherein Elsner is blamed for certain
shortcomings with which Chopin has been often reproached in a less
charitable spirit. The italics, which are mine, will point out the words
in question:--
One forgives him readily [in consideration of the general
excellence of his style] THE OFFENCES AGAINST THE LAW OF
HARMONIC CONNECTION THAT OCCUR HERE AND THERE, AND THE
FACILITY WITH WHICH HE SOMETIMES DISREGARDS THE FIXED RULES
OF STRICT PART-WRITING, especially in the dramatic works,
where he makes effect apparently the ultimate aim of his
indefatigable endeavours.
The wealth of melody and technical mastery displayed in "The Passion
of our Lord Jesus Christ" incline Karasowski to think that it is the
composer's best work. When the people at Breslau praised Elsner's
"Echo Variations" for orchestra, Chopin exclaimed: "You must hear his
Coronation Mass, then only can you judge of him as a composer." To
characterise Elsner in a few words, he was a man of considerable musical
aptitude and capacity, full of nobleness of purpose, learning, industry,
perseverance, in short, possessing all qualities implied by talent, but
lacking those implied by genius.
A musician travelling in 1841 in Poland sent at the time to the Neue
Zeitschrift fur Musik a series of "Reiseblatter" (Notes of Travel),
which contain so charming and vivid a description of this interesting
personality that I cannot resist the temptation to translate and insert
it here almost without any abridgment. Two noteworthy opinions of the
writer may be fitly prefixed to this quotation--namely, that Elsner was
a Pole with all his heart and soul, indeed, a better one than thousands
that are natives of the country, and that, like Haydn, he possessed the
quality of writing better the older he grew:--
The first musical person of the town [Warsaw] is still the
old, youthful Joseph Elsner, a veteran master of our art, who
is as amiable as he is truly estimable. In our day one hardly
meets with a notable Polish musician who has not studied
composition under Pan [i.e., Mr.] Elsner; and he loves all
his pupils, and all speak of him with enthusiasm, and,
according to the Polish fashion, kiss the old master's
shoulder, whereupon he never forgets to kiss them heartily on
both cheeks. Even Charles Kurpinski, the pensioned
Capelhneister of the Polish National Theatre, whose hair is
already grey, is, if I am not very much misinformed, also a
pupil of Joseph Elsner's. One is often mistaken with regard
to the outward appearance of a celebrated man; I mean, one
forms often a false idea of him before one has seen him and
knows a portrait of him. I found Elsner almost exactly as I
had imagined him. Wisocki, the pianist, also a pupil of his,
took me to him. Pan Elsner lives in the Dom Pyarow [House of
Piarists]. One has to start early if one wishes to find him
at home; for soon after breakfast he goes out, and rarely
returns to his cell before evening. He inhabits, like a
genuine church composer, two cells of the old Piarist
Monastery in Jesuit Street, and in the dark passages which
lead to his rooms one sees here and there faded laid-aside
pictures of saints lying about, and old church banners
hanging down. The old gentleman was still in bed when we
arrived, and sent his servant to ask us to wait a little in
the anteroom, promising to be with us immediately. All the
walls of this room, or rather cell, were hung to the ceiling
with portraits of musicians, among them some very rare names
and faces. Mr. Elsner has continued this collection down to
the present time; also the portraits of Liszt, Thalberg,
Chopin, and Clara Wieck shine down from the old monastic
walls. I had scarcely looked about me in this large company
for a few minutes, when the door of the adjoining room
opened, and a man of medium height (not to say little),
somewhat stout, with a round, friendly countenance, grey
hair, but very lively eyes, enveloped in a warm fur dressing-
gown, stepped up to us, comfortably but quickly, and bade us
welcome. Wisocki kissed him, according to the Polish fashion,
as a token of respect, on the right shoulder, and introduced
me to him, whereupon the old friendly gentleman shook hands
with me and said some kindly words.
This, then, was Pan Joseph Elsner, the ancestor of modern
Polish music, the teacher of Chopin, the fine connoisseur and
cautious guide of original talents. For he does not do as is
done only too often by other teachers in the arts, who insist
on screwing all pupils to the same turning-lathe on which
they themselves were formed, who always do their utmost to
ingraft their own I on the pupil, so that he may become as
excellent a man as they imagine themselves to be. Joseph
Elsner did not proceed thus. When all the people of Warsaw
thought Frederick Chopin was entering on a wrong path, that
his was not music at all, that he must keep to Himmel and
Hummel, otherwise he would never do anything decent--the
clever Pan Elsner had already very clearly perceived what a
poetic kernel there was in the pale young dreamer, had long
before felt very clearly that he had before him the founder
of a new epoch of pianoforte-playing, and was far from laying
upon him a cavesson, knowing well that such a noble
thoroughbred may indeed be cautiously led, but must not be
trained and fettered in the usual way if he is to conquer.
Of Chopin's studies under this master we do not know much more than
of his studies under Zywny. Both Fontana and Sowinski say that he went
through a complete course of counterpoint and composition. Elsner, in a
letter written to Chopin in 1834, speaks of himself as "your teacher
of harmony and counterpoint, of little merit, but fortunate." Liszt
writes:--
Joseph Elsner taught Chopin those things that are most
difficult to learn and most rarely known: to be exacting
to one's self, and to value the advantages that are only
obtained by dint of patience and labour.
What other accounts of the matter under discussion I have got from books
and conversations are as general and vague as the foregoing. I therefore
shall not weary the reader with them. What Elsner's view of teaching was
may be gathered from one of his letters to his pupil. The gist of his
remarks lies in this sentence:--
That with which the artist (who learns continually from his
surroundings) astonishes his contemporaries, he can only
attain by himself and through himself.
Elsner had insight and self-negation (a rare quality with teachers)
enough to act up to his theory, and give free play to the natural
tendencies of his pupil's powers. That this was really the case is seen
from his reply to one who blamed Frederick's disregard of rules and
custom:--
Leave him in peace [he said], his is an uncommon way because
his gifts are uncommon. He does not strictly adhere to the
customary method, but he has one of his own, and he will
reveal in his works an originality which in such a degree has
not been found in anyone.
The letters of master and pupil testify to their unceasing mutual esteem
and love. Those of the master are full of fatherly affection and advice,
those of the pupil full of filial devotion and reverence. Allusions to
and messages for Elsner are very frequent in Chopin's letters. He seems
always anxious that his old master should know how he fared, especially
hear of his success. His sentiments regarding Elsner reveal themselves
perhaps nowhere more strikingly than in an incidental remark which
escapes him when writing to his friend Woyciechowski. Speaking of a new
acquaintance he has made, he says, "He is a great friend of Elsner's,
which in my estimation means much." No doubt Chopin looked up with more
respect and thought himself more indebted to Elsner than to Zywny; but
that he had a good opinion of both his masters is evident from his pithy
reply to the Viennese gentleman who told him that people were astonished
at his having learned all he knew at Warsaw: "From Messrs. Zywny and
Elsner even the greatest ass must learn something."
CHAPTER III
FREDERICK ENTERS THE WARSAW LYCEUM.--VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL
INFLUENCES.--HIS FATHER'S FRIENDS.--RISE OF ROMANTICISM IN POLISH
LITERATURE.--FREDERICK'S STAY AT SZAFARNIA DURING HIS FIRST SCHOOL
HOLIDAYS.--HIS TALENT FOR IMPROVISATION.--HIS DEVELOPMENT AS A COMPOSER
AND PIANIST.--HIS PUBLIC PERFORMANCES.--PUBLICATION OF OP. I.--EARLY
COMPOSITIONS.--HIS PIANOFORTE STYLE.
FREDERICK, who up to the age of fifteen was taught at home along with
his father's boarders, became in 1824 a pupil of the Warsaw Lyceum, a
kind of high-school, the curriculum of which comprised Latin, Greek,
modern languages, mathematics, history, &c. His education was so
far advanced that he could at once enter the fourth class, and the
liveliness of his parts, combined with application to work, enabled him
to distinguish himself in the following years as a student and to carry
off twice a prize. Polish history and literature are said to have been
his favourite studies.
Liszt relates that Chopin was placed at an early age in one of the first
colleges of Warsaw, "thanks to the generous and intelligent protection
which Prince Anton Radziwill always bestowed upon the arts and upon
young men of talent." This statement, however, has met with a direct
denial on the part of the Chopin family, and may, therefore, be
considered as disposed of. But even without such a denial the statement
would appear suspicious to all but those unacquainted with Nicholas
Chopin's position. Surely he must have been able to pay for his son's
schooling! Moreover, one would think that, as a professor at the Lyceum,
he might even have got it gratis. As to Frederick's musical education
in Warsaw, it cannot have cost much. And then, how improbable that the
Prince should have paid the comparatively trifling school-fees and left
the young man when he went abroad dependent upon the support of his
parents! The letters from Vienna (1831) show unmistakably that Chopin
applied to his father repeatedly for money, and regretted being such a
burden to him. Further, Chopin's correspondence, which throws much light
on his relation to Prince Radziwili, contains nothing which would lead
one to infer any such indebtedness as Liszt mentions. But in order that
the reader may be in possession of the whole evidence and able to judge
for himself, I shall place before him Liszt's curiously circumstantial
account in its entirety:--
The Prince bestowed upon him the inappreciable gift of a good
education, no part of which remained neglected. His elevated
mind enabling him to understand the exigencies of an artist's
career, he, from the time of his protege's entering the
college to the entire completion of his studies, paid the
pension through the agency of a friend, M. Antoine
Korzuchowski, [FOOTNOTE: Liszt should have called this
gentleman Adam Kozuchowski.] who always maintained cordial
relations and a constant friendship with Chopin.
Liszt's informant was no doubt Chopin's Paris friend Albert Grzymala,
[FOOTNOTE: M. Karasowski calls this Grzymala erroneously Francis. More
information about this gentleman will be given in a subsequent chapter.]
who seems to have had no connection with the Chopin family in Poland.
Karasowski thinks that the only foundation of the story is a letter and
present from Prince Radziwill--acknowledgments of the dedication to him
of the Trio, Op. 8--which Adam Kozuchowski brought to Chopin in 1833.
[FOOTNOTE: M. Karasowski, Fryderyk Chopin, vol. i., p. 65.]
Frederick was much liked by his school-fellows, which, as his manners
and disposition were of a nature thoroughly appreciated by boys, is
not at all to be wondered at. One of the most striking features in
the character of young Chopin was his sprightliness, a sparkling
effervescence that manifested itself by all sorts of fun and mischief.
He was never weary of playing pranks on his sisters, his comrades,
and even on older people, and indulged to the utmost his fondness for
caricaturing by pictorial and personal imitations. In the course of a
lecture the worthy rector of the Lyceum discovered the scapegrace making
free with the face and figure of no less a person than his own rectorial
self. Nevertheless the irreverent pupil got off easily, for the master,
with as much magnanimity as wisdom, abstained from punishing the
culprit, and, in a subscript which he added to the caricature, even
praised the execution of it. A German Protestant pastor at Warsaw, who
made always sad havoc of the Polish language, in which he had every
Sunday to preach one of his sermons, was the prototype of one of the
imitations with which Frederick frequently amused his friends. Our
hero's talent for changing the expression of his face, of which
George Sand, Liszt, Balzac, Hiller, Moscheles, and other personal
acquaintances, speak with admiration, seems already at this time to have
been extraordinary. Of the theatricals which the young folks were wont
to get up at the paternal house, especially on the name-days of their
parents and friends, Frederick was the soul and mainstay. With a good
delivery he combined a presence of mind that enabled him to be always
ready with an improvisation when another player forgot his part. A
clever Polish actor, Albert Piasecki, who was stage-manager on these
occasions, gave it as his opinion that the lad was born to be a great
actor. In after years two distinguished members of the profession in
France, M. Bocage and Mdme. Dorval, expressed similar opinions. For
their father's name-day in 1824, Frederick and his sister Emilia wrote
conjointly a one-act comedy in verse, entitled THE MISTAKE; OR, THE
PRETENDED ROGUE, which was acted by a juvenile company. According to
Karasowski, the play showed that the authors had a not inconsiderable
command of language, but in other respects could not be called a very
brilliant achievement. Seeing that fine comedies are not often written
at the ages of fifteen and eleven, nobody will be in the least surprised
at the result.
These domestic amusements naturally lead us to inquire who were the
visitors that frequented the house. Among them there was Dr. Samuel
Bogumil Linde, rector of the Lyceum and first librarian of the National
Library, a distinguished philologist, who, assisted by the best Slavonic
scholars, wrote a valuable and voluminous "Dictionary of the Polish
Language," and published many other works on the Slavonic languages.
After this oldest of Nicholas Chopin's friends I shall mention Waclaw
Alexander Maciejowski, who, like Linde, received his university
education in Germany, taught then for a short time at the Lyceum,
and became in 1819 a professor at the University of Warsaw. His
contributions to various branches of Slavonic history (law, literature,
&c.) are very numerous. However, one of the most widely known of those
who were occasionally seen at Chopin's home was Casimir Brodzinski, the
poet, critic, and champion of romanticism, a prominent figure in Polish
literary history, who lived in Warsaw from about 1815 to 1822, in which
year he went as professor of literature to the University of Cracow.
Nicholas Chopin's pupil, Count Frederick Skarbek, must not be forgotten;
he had now become a man of note, being professor of political economy at
the university, and author of several books that treat of that science.
Besides Elsner and Zywny, who have already been noticed at some
length, a third musician has to be numbered among friends of the Chopin
family--namely, Joseph Javurek, the esteemed composer and professor at
the Conservatorium; further, I must yet make mention of Anton Barcinski,
professor at the Polytechnic School, teacher at Nicholas Chopin's
institution, and by-and-by his son-in-law; Dr. Jarocki, the zoologist;
Julius Kolberg, the engineer; and Brodowski, the painter. These and
others, although to us only names, or little more, are nevertheless not
without their significance. We may liken them to the supernumeraries on
the stage, who, dumb as they are, help to set off and show the position
of the principal figure or figures.
The love of literature which we have noticed in the young Chopins, more
particularly in the sisters, implanted by an excellent education and
fostered by the taste, habits, and encouragement of their father, cannot
but have been greatly influenced and strengthened by the characters and
conversation of such visitors. And let it not be overlooked that
this was the time of Poland's intellectual renascence--a time when the
influence of man over man is greater than at other times, he being, as
it were, charged with a kind of vivifying electricity. The
misfortunes that had passed over Poland had purified and fortified the
nation--breathed into it a new and healthier life. The change which the
country underwent from the middle of the eighteenth to the earlier
part of the nineteenth century was indeed immense. Then Poland, to
use Carlyle's drastic phraseology, had ripened into a condition
of "beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap"; now, with an improved
agriculture, reviving commerce, and rising industry, it was more
prosperous than it had been for centuries. As regards intellectual
matters, the comparison with the past was even more favourable to
the present. The government that took the helm in 1815 followed the
direction taken by its predecessors, and schools and universities
flourished; but a most hopeful sign was this, that whilst the epoch of
Stanislas Augustus was, as Mickiewicz remarked (in Les Slaves), little
Slavonic and not even national, now the national spirit pervaded the
whole intellectual atmosphere, and incited workers in all branches of
science and art to unprecedented efforts. To confine ourselves to one
department, we find that the study of the history and literature of
Poland had received a vigorous impulse, folk-songs were zealously
collected, and a new school of poetry, romanticism, rose victoriously
over the fading splendour of an effete classicism. The literature of
the time of Stanislas was a court and salon literature, and under the
influence of France and ancient Rome. The literature that began to
bud about 1815, and whose germs are to be sought for in the preceding
revolutionary time, was more of a people's literature, and under the
influence of Germany, England, and Russia. The one was a hot-house
plant, the other a garden flower, or even a wild flower. The classics
swore by the precepts of Horace and Boileau, and held that among
the works of Shakespeare there was not one veritable tragedy. The
romanticists, on the other hand, showed by their criticisms and works
that their sympathies were with Schiller, Goethe, Burger, Byron,
Shukovski, &c. Wilna was the chief centre from which this movement
issued, and Brodziriski one of the foremost defenders of the new
principles and the precursor of Mickiewicz, the appearance of whose
ballads, romances, "Dziady" and "Grazyna" (1822), decided the war in
favour of romanticism. The names of Anton Malczewski, Bogdan Zaleski,
Severyn Goszczynski, and others, ought to be cited along with that of
the more illustrious Mickiewicz, but I will not weary the reader either
with a long disquisition or with a dry enumeration. I have said above
that Polish poetry had become more of a people's poetry. This, however,
must not be understood in the sense of democratic poetry.
The Polish poets [says C. Courriere, to whose "Histoire de la
litterature chez les Slaves" I am much indebted] ransacked with avidity
the past of their country, which appeared to them so much the more
brilliant because it presented a unique spectacle in the history of
nations. Instead of breaking with the historic traditions they respected
them, and gave them a new lustre, a new life, by representing them under
a more beautiful, more animated, and more striking form. In short, if
Polish romanticism was an evolution of poetry in the national sense, it
did not depart from the tendencies of its elder sister, for it saw
in the past only the nobility; it was and remained, except in a few
instances, aristocratic.
Now let us keep in mind that this contest of classicism and romanticism,
this turning away from a dead formalism to living ideals, was taking
place at that period of Frederick Chopin's life when the human mind is
most open to new impressions, and most disposed to entertain bold and
noble ideas. And, further, let us not undervalue the circumstance that
he must have come in close contact with one of the chief actors in this
unbloody revolution.
Frederick spent his first school holidays at Szafarnia, in Mazovia, the
property of the Dziewanowski family. In a letter written on August
19, 1824, he gives his friend and school-fellow William Kolberg, some
account of his doings there--of his strolls and runs in the garden, his
walks and drives to the forest, and above all of his horsemanship. He
tells his dear Willie that he manages to keep his seat, but would
not like to be asked how. Indeed, he confesses that, his equestrian
accomplishments amount to no more than to letting the horse go slowly
where it lists, and sitting on it, like a monkey, with fear. If he had
not yet met with an accident, it was because the horse had so far not
felt any inclination to throw him off. In connection with his drives--in
britzka and in coach--he does not forget to mention that he is always
honoured with a back-seat. Still, life at Szafarnia was not unmixed
happiness, although our hero bore the ills with admirable stoicism:--
Very often [he writes] the flies sit on my prominent nose--
this, however, is of no consequence, it is the habit of these
little animals. The mosquitoes bite me--this too, however, is
of no consequence, for they don't bite me in the nose.
The reader sees from this specimen of epistolary writing that Frederick
is still a boy, and if I had given the letter in extenso, the boyishness
would have been even more apparent, in the loose and careless style as
well as in the frolicsome matter.
His letters to his people at home took on this occasion the form of a
manuscript newspaper, called, in imitation of the "Kuryer Warszawski"
("Warsaw Courier"), "Kuryer Szafarski" ("Szafarnia Courier"), which the
editor, in imitation of the then obtaining press regulation, did not
send off until it had been seen and approved of by the censor, Miss
Dziewanowska. One of the numbers of the paper contains among other news
the report of a musical gathering of "some persons and demi-persons"
at which, on July 15, 1824, Mr. Pichon (anagram of Chopin) played a
Concerto of Kalkbrenner's and a little song, the latter being received
by the youthful audience with more applause than the former.
Two anecdotes that relate to this stay at Szafarnia further exemplify
what has already been said of Frederick's love of fun and mischief.
Having on one of his visits to the village of Oberow met some Jews
who had come to buy grain, he invited them to his room, and there
entertained them with music, playing to them "Majufes."
[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski describes "Majufes" as a kind of Jewish wedding
march. Ph. Lobenstein says that it means "the beautiful, the pleasing
one." With this word opened a Hebrew song which dates from the time of
the sojourn of the Jews in Spain, and which the orthodox Polish Jews
sing on Saturdays after dinner, and whose often-heard melody the Poles
imitate as a parody of Jewish singing.]
His guests were delighted--they began to dance, told him that he played
like a born Jew, and urged him to come to the next Jewish wedding and
play to them there. The other anecdote would be a very ugly story were
it not for the redeeming conclusion. Again we meet with one of the
numerous, but by no means well-loved, class of Polish citizens.
Frederick, having heard that a certain Jew had bought grain from
Mr. Romecki, the proprietor of Oberow, sent this gentleman a letter
purporting to be written by the grain-dealer in question, in which he
informed him that after reconsidering the matter he would rather not
take the grain. The imitation of the jargon in use among the Polish Jews
was so good, and the spelling and writing so bad, that Mr. Romecki was
taken in. Indeed, he flew at once into such a passion that he sent for
the Jew with the intention of administering to him a sound thrashing.
Only Frederick's timely confession saved the poor fellow from his
undeserved punishment. But enough of Szafarnia, where the young
scapegrace paid so long a holiday visit (from his letter to William
Kolberg we learn that he would not see his friend for four weeks more),
and where, judging from what has already been told, and also from a
remark in the same letter, he must have "enjoyed himself pretty well."
And now we will return to Warsaw, to Nicholas Chopin's boarding-school.
To take away any bad impression that may be left by the last anecdote, I
shall tell another of a more pleasing character, which, indeed, has had
the honour of being made the subject of a picture. It was often told,
says Karasowski, by Casimir Wodzinski, a boarder of Nicholas Chopin's.
One day when the latter was out, Barcinski, the assistant master,
could not manage the noisy boys. Seeing this, Frederick, who just then
happened to come into the room, said to them that he would improvise a
pretty story if they would sit down and be quiet. This quickly restored
silence. He thereupon had the lights extinguished, took his seat at the
piano, and began as follows:--
Robbers set out to plunder a house. They come nearer and
nearer. Then they halt, and put up the ladders they have
brought with them. But just when they are about to enter
through the windows, they hear a noise within. This gives
them a fright. They run away to the woods. There, amidst the
stillness and darkness of the night, they lie down and
before long fall fast asleep.
When Frederick had got to this part of the story he began to play softer
and softer, and ever softer, till his auditors, like the robbers, were
fast asleep. Noticing this he stole out of the room, called in the other
inmates of the house, who came carrying lights with them, and then
with a tremendous, crashing chord disturbed the sweet slumbers of the
evil-doers.
Here we have an instance of "la richesse de son improvisation," by
which, as Fontana tells us, Chopin, from his earliest youth, astonished
all who had the good fortune to hear him. Those who think that there
is no salvation outside the pale of absolute music, will no doubt be
horror-stricken at the heretical tendency manifested on this occasion by
an otherwise so promising musician. Nay, even the less orthodox, those
who do not altogether deny the admissibility of programme-music if it
conforms to certain conditions and keeps within certain limits, will
shake their heads sadly. The duty of an enthusiastic biographer, it
would seem, is unmistakable; he ought to justify, or, at least, excuse
his hero--if nothing else availed, plead his youth and inexperience.
My leaving the poor suspected heretic in the lurch under these
circumstances will draw upon me the reproach of remissness; but, as
I have what I consider more important business on hand, I must not be
deterred from proceeding to it by the fear of censure.
The year 1825 was, in many respects, a memorable one in the life of
Chopin. On May 27 and June 10 Joseph Javurek, whom I mentioned a few
pages back among the friends of the Chopin family, gave two concerts for
charitable purposes in the large hall of the Conservatorium. At one of
these Frederick appeared again in public. A Warsaw correspondent of the
"Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" says in the course of one of
his letters:--
The Academist Chopin performed the first Allegro of
Moscheles' Pianoforte Concerto in F [G?] minor, and an
improvisation on the aeolopantaleon. This instrument,
invented by the cabinet-maker Dlugosz, of this town, combines
the aeolomelodicon [FOOTNOTE: An instrument of the organ
species, invented by Professor Hoffmann, and constructed by
the mechanician Brunner, of Warsaw.] with the piano-
forte....Young Chopin distinguished himself in his
improvisation by wealth of musical ideas, and under his hands
this instrument, of which he is a thorough master, made a
great impression.
Unfortunately we learn nothing of Chopin's rendering of the movement
from Moscheles' Concerto. Still, this meagre notice, written by a
contemporary--an ear-witness, who wrote down his impressions soon after
the performance--is very precious, indeed more precious than the
most complete and elaborate criticism written fifty years after the
occurrence would be. I cannot help thinking that Karasowski somewhat
exaggerates when he says that Chopin's pianoforte playing transported
the audience into a state of enthusiasm, and that no concert had a
brilliant success unless he took part in it. The biographer seems either
to trust too much to the fancy-coloured recollections of his informants,
or to allow himself to be carried away by his zeal for the exaltation of
his hero. At any rate, the tenor of the above-quoted notice, laudatory
as it is, and the absence of Chopin's name from other Warsaw letters,
do not remove the doubts which such eulogistic superlatives raise in the
mind of an unbiassed inquirer. But that Chopin, as a pianist and as
a musician generally, had attained a proficiency far beyond his years
becomes evident if we examine his compositions of that time, to which I
shall presently advert. And that he had risen into notoriety and saw his
talents appreciated cannot be doubted for a moment after what has been
said. Were further proof needed, we should find it in the fact that he
was selected to display the excellences of the aeolomelodicon when the
Emperor Alexander I, during his sojourn in Warsaw in 1825, [FOOTNOTE:
The Emperor Alexander opened the Diet at Warsaw on May 13, 1825, and
closed it on June 13.] expressed the wish to hear this instrument.
Chopin's performance is said to have pleased the august auditor, who, at
all events, rewarded the young musician with a diamond ring.
A greater event than either the concert or the performance before the
Emperor, in fact, THE event of the year 1825, was the publication of
Chopin's Opus 1. Only he who has experienced the delicious sensation of
seeing himself for the first time in print can realise what our young
author felt on this occasion. Before we examine this work, we will
give a passing glance at some less important early compositions of the
maestro which were published posthumously.
There is first of all a Polonaise in G sharp minor, said to be of
the year 1822, [FOOTNOTE: See No. 15 of the Posthumous Works in the
Breitkopf and Hartel edition.] but which, on account of the savoir-faire
and invention exhibited in it, I hold to be of a considerably later
time. Chopin's individuality, it is true, is here still in a rudimentary
state, chiefly manifested in the light-winged figuration; the thoughts
and the expression, however, are natural and even graceful, bearing
thus the divine impress. The echoes of Weber should be noted. Of
two mazurkas, in G and B flat major, of the year 1825, the first is,
especially in its last part, rather commonplace; the second is more
interesting, because more suggestive of better things, which the first
is only to an inconsiderable extent. In No. 2 we meet already with
harmonic piquancies which charmed musicians and lovers of music so
much in the later mazurkas. Critics and students will not overlook the
octaves between, treble and bass in the second bar of part two in No.
1. A. Polonaise in B flat minor, superscribed "Farewell to William
Kolberg," of the year 1826, has not less naturalness and grace than the
Polonaise of 1822, but in addition to these qualities, it has also at
least one thought (part 1) which contains something of the sweet ring of
Chopinian melancholy. The trio of the Polonaise is headed by the words:
"Au revoir! after an aria from 'Gazza ladra'." Two foot-notes accompany
this composition in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition (No. 16 of the
Posthumous Works). The first says that the Polonaise was composed "at
Chopin's departure from [should be 'for'] Reinerz"; and the second, in
connection with the trio, that "some days before Chopin's departure the
two friends had been present at a performance of Rossini's opera."
There is one other early posthumously-published work of Chopin's, whose
status, however, differs from the above-mentioned ones in this, that
the composer seems to have intended to publish it. The composition in
question is the Variations sur un air national allemand.
Szulc says that Oskar Kolberg related that he had still in his
possession these Variations on the theme of Der Schweizerbub, which
Chopin composed between his twelfth and seventeenth years at the house
of General Sowinski's wife in the course of "a few quarter-hours."
The Variations sur un air national allemand were published after the
composer's death along with his Sonata, Op. 4, by Haslinger, of Vienna,
in 1851. They are, no doubt, the identical composition of which Chopin
in a letter from Vienna (December 1, 1830) writes: "Haslinger received
me very kindly, but nevertheless would publish neither the Sonata nor
the Second Variations." The First Variations were those on La ci darem,
Op. 2, the first of his compositions that was published in Germany.
Without inquiring too curiously into the exact time of its production
and into the exact meaning of "a few quarter-hours," also leaving it
an open question whether the composer did or did not revise his first
conception of the Variations before sending them to Vienna, I shall
regard this unnumbered work--which, by the way, in the Breitkopf and
Hartel edition is dated 1824--on account of its greater simplicity and
inferior interest, as an earlier composition than the Premier Rondeau
(C minor), Op. 1, dedicated to Mdme. de Linde (the wife of his father's
friend and colleague, the rector Dr. Linde), a lady with whom Frederick
often played duets. What strikes one at once in both of them is
the almost total absence of awkwardness and the presence of a
rarely-disturbed ease. They have a natural air which is alike free from
affected profundity and insipid childishness. And the hand that wrote
them betrays so little inexperience in the treatment of the instrument
that they can hold their ground without difficulty and honourably among
the better class of light drawing-room pieces. Of course, there are
weak points: the introduction to the Variations with those interminable
sequences of dominant and tonic chords accompanying a stereotyped run,
and the want of cohesiveness in the Rondo, the different subjects of
which are too loosely strung together, may be instanced. But, although
these two compositions leave behind them a pleasurable impression,
they can lay only a small claim to originality. Still, there are slight
indications of it in the tempo di valse, the concluding portion of the
Variations, and more distinct ones in the Rondo, in which it is
possible to discover the embryos of forms--chromatic and serpentining
progressions, &c.--which subequently develop most exuberantly. But if on
the one hand we must admit that the composer's individuality is as yet
weak, on the other hand we cannot accuse him of being the imitator of
any one master--such a dominant influence is not perceptible.
[FOOTNOTE: Schumann, who in 1831 became acquainted with Chopin's Op.
2, and conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the composer, must have
made inquiries after his Op. 1, and succeeded in getting it. For on
January 1832, he wrote to Frederick Wieck: "Chopin's first work (I
believe firmly that it is his tenth) is in my hands: a lady would
say that it was very pretty, very piquant, almost Moschelesque. But
I believe you will make Clara [Wieck's daughter, afterwards Mdme.
Schumann] study it; for there is plenty of Geist in it and few
difficulties. But I humbly venture to assert that there are between this
composition and Op. 2 two years and twenty works"]
All this, however, is changed in another composition, the Rondeau a
la Mazur, Op. 5, dedicated to the Comtesse Alexandrine de Moriolles (a
daughter of the Comte de Moriolles mentioned in Chapter II), which, like
the Rondo, Op. 1, was first published in Warsaw, and made its appearance
in Germany some years later. I do not know the exact time of its
composition, but I presume it was a year or two after that of the
previously mentioned works. Schumann, who reviewed it in 1836, thought
it had perhaps been written in the eighteenth year of the composer, but
he found in it, some confused passages excepted, no indications of the
author's youth. In this Rondeau a la Mazur the individuality of Chopin
and with it his nationality begin to reveal themselves unmistakably. Who
could fail to recognise him in the peculiar sweet and persuasive flows
of sound, and the serpent-like winding of the melodic outline, the
wide-spread chords, the chromatic progressions, the dissolving of the
harmonies and the linking of their constituent parts! And, as I have
said elsewhere in speaking of this work: "The harmonies are often novel,
and the matter is more homogeneous and better welded into oneness."
Chopin's pianoforte lessons, as has already been stated, came to an end
when he was twelve years old, and thenceforth he was left to his own
resources.
The school of that time [remarks Fontana] could no longer
suffice him, he aimed higher, and felt himself impelled
towards an ideal which, at first vague, before long grew into
greater distinctness. It was then that, in trying his
strength, he acquired that touch and style, so different from
those of his predecessors, and that he succeeded in creating
at last that execution which since then has been the
admiration of the artistic world.
The first stages of the development of his peculiar style may be traced
in the compositions we have just now discussed. In the variations and
first Rondo which Chopin wrote at or before the age of fifteen, the
treatment of the instrument not only proves that he was already as much
in his element on the pianoforte as a fish in the water, but also shows
that an as yet vaguely-perceived ideal began to beckon him onward.
Karasowski, informed by witnesses of the boy's studies in pianoforte
playing, relates that Frederick, being struck with the fine effect of
a chord in extended harmony, and unable, on account of the smallness of
his hands, to strike the notes simultaneously, set about thinking how
this physical obstacle could be overcome. The result of his cogitations
was the invention of a contrivance which he put between his fingers and
kept there even during the night, by this means endeavouring to increase
the extensibility and flexibility of his hands. Who, in reading of this
incident in Chopin's life, is not reminded of Schumann and his attempt
to strengthen his fingers, an attempt that ended so fatally for his
prospects as a virtuoso! And the question, an idle one I admit, suggests
itself: Had Chopin been less fortunate than he was, and lost, like
Schumann, the command of one of his hands before he had formed his
pianoforte style, would he, as a composer, have risen to a higher
position than we know him to have attained, or would he have achieved
less than he actually did? From the place and wording of Karasowski's
account it would appear that this experiment of Chopin's took place at
or near the age of ten. Of course it does not matter much whether we
know or do not know the year or day of the adoption of the practice,
what is really interesting is the fact itself. I may, however, remark
that Chopin's love of wide-spread chords and skips, if marked at all,
is not strongly marked in the Variations on the German air and the first
Rondo. Let the curious examine with regard to this matter the Tempo di
Valse of the former work, and bars 38-43 of the Piu lento of the latter.
In the Rondeau a la Mazur, the next work in chronological order, this
peculiarity begins to show itself distinctly, and it continues to grow
in the works that follow. It is not my intention to weary the reader
with microscopical criticism, but I thought the first manifestations of
Chopin's individuality ought not to be passed over in silence. As to his
style, it will be more fully discussed in a subsequent chapter, where
also the seeds from which it sprang will be pointed out.
CHAPTER IV.
FREDERICK WORKS TOO HARD.--PASSES PART OF HIS HOLIDAYS (1826)
IN REINERZ.--STAYS ALSO AT STRZYZEWO, AND PAYS A VISIT TO PRINCE
RADZIWILL.--HE TERMINATES HIS STUDIES AT THE LYCEUM (1827). ADOPTION
OF MUSIC AS HIS PROFESSION.--EXCURSIONS.--FOLK-MUSIC AND THE POLISH
PEASANTRY.--SOME MORE COMPOSITIONS.--PROJECTED TRAVELS FOR HIS
IMPROVEMENT.--HIS OUTWARD APPEARANCE AND STATE OF HEALTH.
THE art which had attracted the child took every day a stronger hold of
the youth. Frederick was not always in that sportive humour in which
we have seen him repeatedly. At times he would wander about silent and
solitary, wrapped in his musical meditations. He would sit up late, busy
with his beloved music, and often, after lying down, rise from his bed
in the middle of the night in order, to strike a few chords or try a
short phrase--to the horror of the servants, whose first thought was of
ghosts, the second that their dear young master was not quite right in
his mind. Indeed, what with his school-work and his musical studies,
our young friend exerted himself more than was good for him. When,
therefore, in the holidays of 1826 his youngest sister, Emilia, was
ordered by the physicians to go to Reinerz, a watering-place in
Prussian Silesia, the parents thought it advisable that the too diligent
Frederick should accompany her, and drink whey for the benefit of his
health. The travelling party consisted of the mother, two sisters,
and himself. A letter which he wrote on August 28, 1826, to his friend
William Kolberg, furnishes some information about his doings there. It
contains, as letters from watering-places usually do, criticisms of the
society and accounts of promenadings, excursions, regular meals, and
early hours in going to bed and in rising. As the greater part of the
contents can be of no interest to us, I shall confine myself to picking
up what seems to me worth preserving. He had been drinking whey and the
waters for a fortnight and found he was getting somewhat stouter and at
the same time lazy. People said he began to look better. He enjoyed
the sight of the valleys from the hills which surround Reinerz, but
the climbing fatigued him, and he had sometimes to drag himself down
on all-fours. One mountain, the rocky Heuscheuer, he and other delicate
persons were forbidden to ascend, as the doctor was afraid that the
sharp air at the top would do his patients harm. Of course, Frederick
tried to make fun of everything and everyone--for instance, of the
wretched wind-band, which consisted of about a dozen "caricatures,"
among whom a lean bassoon-player with a snuffy hook-nose was the most
notable. To the manners of the country, which in some respects seem to
have displeased him, he got gradually accustomed.
At first I was astonished that in Silesia the women work
generally more than the men, but as I am doing nothing myself
just now I have no difficulty in falling in with this
arrangement.
During his stay at Reinerz he gave also a concert on behalf of two
orphans who had come with their sick mother to this watering-place, and
at her death were left so poor as to be unable even to pay the funeral
expenses and to return home with the servant who took care of them.
From Reinerz Frederick went to Strzyzewo, the property of Madame
Wiesiolowska, his godmother, and sister of his godfather, Count
Frederick Skarbek. While he was spending here the rest of his holidays,
he took advantage of an invitation he had received from Prince Radziwill
(governor of the grand duchy of Posen, and, through his wife, a daughter
of Prince Ferdinand, related to the royal family of Prussia) to visit
him at his country-seat Antonin, which was not very far from Strzyzewo.
The Prince, who had many relations in Poland, and paid frequent visits
to that country, must on these occasions have heard of and met with the
musical prodigy that was the pet of the aristocracy. Moreover, it is
on record that he was present at the concert at Warsaw in 1825 at
which Frederick played. We have already considered and disposed of the
question whether the Prince, as has been averred by Liszt, paid for
young Chopin's education. As a dilettante Prince Radziwill occupied a
no less exalted position in art and science than as a citizen and
functionary in the body politic. To confine ourselves to music, he was
not only a good singer and violoncellist, but also a composer; and in
composition he did not confine himself to songs, duets, part-songs, and
the like, but undertook the ambitious and arduous task of writing music
to the first part of Goethe's Faust. By desire of the Court the Berlin
Singakademie used to bring this work to a hearing once every year, and
they gave a performance of it even as late as 1879. An enthusiastic
critic once pronounced it to be among modern works one of those that
evince most genius. The vox populi seems to have repealed this judgment,
or rather never to have taken cognisance of the case, for outside Berlin
the work has not often been heard. Dr. Langhans wrote to me after the
Berlin performance in 1879:--
I heard yesterday Radziwill's Faust for the first time, and,
I may add, with much satisfaction; for the old-fashioned
things to be found in it (for instance, the utilisation of
Mozart's C minor Quartet fugue as overture, the strictly
polyphonous treatment of the choruses, &c.) are abundantly
compensated for by numerous traits of genius, and by the
thorough knowledge and the earnest intention with which the
work is conceived and executed. He dares incredible things in
the way of combining speech and song. That this combination
is an inartistic one, on that point we are no doubt at one,
but what he has effected by this means is nevertheless in the
highest degree remarkable....
By-and-by Chopin will pay the Prince a longer visit, and then we shall
learn what he thought of Faust, and how he enjoyed himself at this
nobleman's house.
Chopin's studies at the Lyceum terminated in the year 1827. Through his
final examination, however, he did not pass so brilliantly as through
his previous ones; this time he carried off no prize. The cause of this
falling-off is not far to seek; indeed, has already been hinted at.
Frederick's inclination and his successes as a pianist and composer,
and the persuasions of Elsner and other musical friends, could not
but lessen and at last altogether dispel any doubts and misgivings the
parents may at first have harboured. And whilst in consequence of this
change of attitude they became less exacting with their son in the
matter of school-work, the latter, feeling the slackening of the reins,
would more and more follow his natural bent. The final examination was
to him, no doubt, a kind of manumission which freed him from the last
remnant of an oppressive bondage. Henceforth, then, Chopin could,
unhindered by disagreeable tasks or other obstacles, devote his whole
time and strength to the cultivation of his chosen art. First, however,
he spent now, as in the preceding year, some weeks with his friends
in Strzyzewo, and afterwards travelled to Danzig, where he visited
Superintendent von Linde, a brother of the rector of the Warsaw Lyceum.
Chopin was fond of listening to the singing and fiddling of the country
people; and everyone acquainted with the national music of Poland as
well as with the composer's works knows that he is indebted to it
for some of the most piquant rhythmic, melodic, and even harmonic
peculiarities of his style. These longer stays in the country would
offer him better opportunities for the enjoyment and study of this land
of music than the short excursions which he occasionally made with his
father into the neighbourhood of Warsaw. His wonder always was who
could have composed the quaint and beautiful strains of those mazurkas,
polonaises, and krakowiaks, and who had taught these simple men and
women to play and sing so truly in tune. The conditions then existing
in Poland were very favourable to the study of folk-lore of any kind.
Art-music had not yet corrupted folk-music; indeed, it could hardly be
said that civilisation had affected the lower strata of society at
all. Notwithstanding the emancipation of the peasants in 1807, and the
confirmation of this law in 1815--a law which seems to have remained
for a long time and in a great measure a dead letter--the writer of an
anonymous book, published at Boston in 1834, found that the freedom of
the wretched serfs in Russian Poland was much the same as that of their
cattle, they being brought up with as little of human cultivation; nay,
that the Polish peasant, poor in every part of the country, was of all
the living creatures he had met with in this world or seen described
in books, the most wretched. From another publication we learn that the
improvements in public instruction, however much it may have benefited
the upper classes, did not affect the lowest ones: the parish schools
were insufficient, and the village schools not numerous enough. But the
peasants, although steeped in superstition and ignorance, and too much
addicted to brandy-drinking with its consequences--quarrelsomeness and
revengefulness--had not altogether lost the happier features of their
original character--hospitality, patriotism, good-naturedness, and,
above all, cheerfulness and love of song and dance. It has been said
that a simple Slavonic peasant can be enticed by his national songs
from one end of the world to the other. The delight which the Slavonic
nations take in dancing seems to be equally great. No other nation,
it has been asserted, can compare with them in ardent devotion to
this amusement. Moreover, it is noteworthy that song and dance were in
Poland--as they were of course originally everywhere--intimately
united. Heine gives a pretty description of the character of the Polish
peasant:--
It cannot be denied [he writes] that the Polish peasant has
often more head and heart than the German peasant in some
districts. Not infrequently did I find in the meanest Pole
that original wit (not Gemuthswitz, humour) which on every
occasion bubbles forth with wonderful iridescence, and that
dreamy sentimental trait, that brilliant flashing of an
Ossianic feeling for nature whose sudden outbreaks on
passionate occasions are as involuntary as the rising of the
blood into the face.
The student of human nature and its reflex in art will not call these
remarks a digression; at least, not one deserving of censure.
We may suppose that Chopin, after his return to Warsaw and during the
following winter, and the spring and summer of 1828, continued his
studies with undiminished and, had this been possible, with redoubled
ardour. Some of his compositions that came into existence at this time
were published after his death by his friend Julius Fontana, who was a
daily visitor at his parents' house. We have a Polonaise (D minor) and a
Nocturne (E minor) of 1827, and another Polonaise (B flat) and the Rondo
for two pianos of 1828. The Sonata, Op. 4, and La ci darem la mano,
varie for pianoforte, with orchestral accompaniments, belong also to
this time. The Trio (Op. 8), although not finished till 1829, was begun
and considerably advanced in 1828. Several of the above compositions are
referred to in a letter written by him on September 9, 1828, to one
of his most intimate friends, Titus Woyciechowski. The Rondo in C had
originally a different form and was recast by him for two pianos at
Strzyzewo, where he passed the whole summer of 1828. He tried it
with Ernemann, a musician living in Warsaw, at the warehouse of the
pianoforte-manufacturer Buchholtz, and was pretty well pleased with his
work.
We intend to play it some day at the Ressource. As to my new
compositions, I have nothing to show except the as yet
unfinished Trio (G minor), which I began after your
departure. The first Allegro I have already tried with
accompaniment. It appears to me that this trio will have the
same fate as my sonata and the variations. Both works are now
in Vienna; the first I have, as a pupil of Elsner's,
dedicated to him, and on the second I have placed (perhaps
too boldly) your name. I followed in this the impulse of my
heart and you will not take it unkindly.
The opportunities which Warsaw offered being considered insufficient for
the completion of his artistic education, ways and means were discussed
as to how his wants could be best provided for. The upshot of the
discussions was the project of excursions to Berlin and Vienna. As,
however, this plan was not realised till the autumn of 1828, and
no noteworthy incidents or interesting particulars concerning the
intervening period of his life have become known, I shall utilise this
break in the narrative by trying my hand at a slight sketch of that
terra incognita, the history of music in Poland, more particularly the
history of the musical life in Warsaw, shortly before and in Chopin's
time. I am induced to undertake this task by the consideration that a
knowledge of the means of culture within the reach of Chopin during his
residence in the Polish capital is indispensable if we wish to form a
clear and complete idea of the artist's development, and that such
a knowledge will at the same time help us to understand better the
contents of some of the subsequent portions of this work. Before,
however, I begin a new chapter and with it the above-mentioned sketch, I
should like to advert to a few other matters.
The reader may perhaps already have asked the question--What was Chopin
like in his outward appearance? As I have seen a daguerreotype from a
picture painted when he was seventeen, I can give some sort of answer to
this question. Chopin's face was clearly and finely cut, especially
the nose with its wide nostrils; the forehead was high, the eyebrows
delicate, the lips thin, and the lower one somewhat protruding. For
those who know A. Bovy's medallion I may add that the early portrait is
very like it; only, in the latter, the line formed by the lower jawbone
that runs from the chin towards the ear is more rounded, and the whole
has a more youthful appearance. As to the expression, it is not only
meditative but even melancholy. This last point leads me naturally to
another question. The delicate build of Chopin's body, his early death
preceded by many years of ill-health, and the character of his music,
have led people into the belief that from childhood he was always sickly
in body, and for the most part also melancholy in disposition. But as
the poverty and melancholy, so also disappears on closer investigation
the sickliness of the child and youth. To jump, however, from this to
the other extreme, and assert that he enjoyed vigorous health, would be
as great a mistake. Karasowski, in his eagerness to controvert Liszt,
although not going quite this length, nevertheless overshoots the mark.
Besides it is a misrepresentation of Liszt not to say that the passage
excerpted from his book, and condemned as not being in accordance with
the facts of the case, is a quotation from G. Sand's novel Lucrezia
Floriani (of which more will be said by-and-by), in which the authoress
is supposed, although this was denied by her, to have portrayed Chopin.
Liszt is a poet, not a chronicler; he must be read as such, and not
be taken au pied de la lettre. However, even Karasowski, in whom one
notices a perhaps unconscious anxiety to keep out of sight anything
which might throw doubt on the health and strength of his hero, is
obliged to admit that Chopin was "delicate," although he hastens to
add, "but nevertheless healthy and pretty strong." It seems to me
that Karasowski makes too much of the statement of a friend of
Chopin's--namely, that the latter was, up to manhood, only once ill, and
then with nothing worse than a cold. Indeed, in Karasowski's narrative
there are not wanting indications that the health of Chopin cannot have
been very vigorous; nor his strength have amounted to much; for in one
place we read that the youth was no friend of long excursions on foot,
and preferred to lie down and dream under beautiful trees; in another
place, that his parents sent him to Reinerz and some years afterwards
to Vienna, because they thought his studies had affected his health,
and that rest and change of air and scene would restore his strength.
Further, we are told that his mother and sisters never tired of
recommending him to wrap up carefully in cold and wet weather, and
that, like a good son and brother, he followed their advice. Lastly,
he objected to smoking. Some of the items of this evidence are very
trivial, but taken collectively they have considerable force. Of greater
significance are the following additional items. Chopin's sister Emilia
was carried off at the age of fourteen by pulmonary disease, and his
father, as a physician informed me, died of a heart and chest complaint.
Stephen Heller, who saw Chopin in 1830 in Warsaw, told me that the
latter was then in delicate health, thin and with sunken cheeks, and
that the people of Warsaw said that he could not live long, but would,
like so many geniuses, die young. The real state of the matter seems
to me to have been this. Although Chopin in his youth was at no time
troubled with any serious illness, he enjoyed but fragile health, and if
his frame did not alreadv contain the seeds of the disease to which he
later fell a prey, it was a favourable soil for their reception.
How easily was an organisation so delicately framed over-excited and
disarranged! Indeed, being vivacious, active, and hard-working, as he
was, he lived on his capital. The fire of youth overcame much, not,
however, without a dangerous waste of strength, the lamentable results
of which we shall see before we have gone much farther. This statement
of the case we find, I think, confirmed by Chopin's correspondence--the
letter written at Reinerz is in this respect noteworthy.
CHAPTER V.
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS IN POLAND BEFORE AND IN CHOPIN'S TIME.
THE golden age of Polish music, which coincides with that of Polish
literature, is the sixteenth century, the century of the Sigismonds. The
most remarkable musician of that time, and probably the greatest that
Poland produced previous to the present century, was Nicolas Gomolka,
who studied music in Italy, perhaps under Palestrina, in whose style
he wrote. Born in or about the beginning of the second half of the
sixteenth century, he died on March 5, 1609. During the reigns of the
kings of the house of Saxony (1697-1763) instrumental music is said
to have made much progress. Be this as it may, there was no lack of
opportunities to study good examples. Augustus the Strong (I. of
Saxony and II of Poland) established a special Polish band, called,
in contradistinction to the Grosse Kammermusik (Great Chamber-band) in
Dresden, Kleine Kammermusik (Little Chamber-band), whose business it was
to be in attendance when his majesty went to Poland. These visits took
place usually once a year, and lasted from, August to December, but
sometimes were more frequent, and shorter or longer, just as occasion
might call for. Among the members of the Polish band--which consisted
of a leader (Premier), four violins, one oboe, two French horns, three
bassoons, and one double bass--we meet with such well-known men as
Johann Joachim Quanz and Franz Benda. Their conductor was Alberto
Ristori, who at the same time held the post of composer to the Italian
actors, a company that, besides plays, performed also little operas,
serenades, intermezzi, &c. The usual retinue of the King on his visits
to Poland included also a part of the French ballet and comedy. These
travels of the artistic forces must have been rich in tragic, comic, and
tragi-comic incidents, and would furnish splendid material for the pen
of a novelist. But such a journey from the Saxon capital to Warsaw,
which took about eight days, and cost on an average from 3,000 to
3,500 thalers (450 to 525 pounds), was a mere nothing compared with the
migration of a Parisian operatic company in May, 1700. The ninety-three
members of which it was composed set out in carriages and drove by
Strasburg to Ulm, there they embarked and sailed to Cracow, whence the
journey was continued on rafts. [FOOTNOTE: M. Furstenau, Zur Geschichte
der Music und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden.] So much for artistic
tours at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Frederick Augustus (II
of Saxony and III of Poland, 1733-1763) dissolved the Polish band, and
organised a similar body which was destined solely for Poland, and was
to be resident there. It consisted in 1753 of an organist, two singers,
twenty instrumentalists (almost all Germans), and a band-servant, their
salary amounting to 5,383 thalers, 10 groschen (a little more than 805
pounds). Notwithstanding this new arrangement, the great Dresden band
sometimes accompanied the King to Poland, and when it did not, some of
its members at least had to be in attendance for the performance of the
solos at the chamber concerts and in the operas. Also such singers, male
and female, as were required for the operas proposed for representation
had to take to the road. Hasse and his wife Faustina came several times
to Poland. That the constellation of the Dresden musical establishment,
in its vocal as well as instrumental department, was one of the most
brilliant imaginable is sufficiently proved by a glance at the names
which we meet with in 1719: Lotti, Heinichen, Veracini, Volumier,
Senesino, Tesi, Santa Stella Lotti, Durastanti, &c. Rousseau, writing in
1754, calls the Dresden orchestra the first in Europe. And Burney says
in 1772 that the instrumental performers had been some time previously
of the first class. No wonder, then, if the visits of such artists
improved the instrumental music of Poland.
From Sowinski's Les Musiciens Polonais we learn that on great occasions
the King's band was reinforced by those of Prince Czartoryski and Count
Wielhorski, thus forming a body of 100 executants. This shows that
outside the King's band good musicians were to be found in Poland.
Indeed, to keep in their service private bands of native and foreign
singers and players was an ancient custom among the Polish magnates; it
obtained for a long time, and had not yet died out at the beginning of
this century. From this circumstance, however, we must not too rashly
conclude that these wealthy noblemen were all animated by artistic
enthusiasm. Ostentatiousness had, I am afraid, more to do with it than
love of art for art's sake. Music was simply one of the indispensable
departments of their establishments, in the splendour and vastness of
which they tried to outdo each other and vie with sovereign rulers. The
promiscuous enumeration of musicians, cooks, footmen, &c., in the lady's
description of a nobleman's court which I referred to in the proem,
is in this respect very characteristic. Towards the middle of the last
century Prince Sanguszko, who lived at Dubno, in Volhynia, had in his
service no less than two bands, to which was sometimes joined a third
belonging to Prince Lubomirski. But, it will be asked, what music did
they play? An author of Memoirs of the reign of Augustus III tells us
that, according to the Polish fashion, they had during meal-times
to play national airs, polonaises, mazurkas, &c., arranged for
wind-instruments, with or without violins. For special occasions the
Prince got a new kind of music, then much in favour--viz., a band of
mountaineers playing on flutes and drums. And while the guests were
sitting at the banquet, horns, trumpets, and fifes sounded fanfares.
Besides the ordinary and extraordinary bands, this exalted personage
had among his musical retainers a drummer who performed solos on his
instrument. One is glad to learn that when the Prince was alone or had
little company, he took delight in listening to trios for two violins
and bass, it being then the fashion to play such ensemble pieces. Count
Ilinski, the father of the composer John Stanislas Ilinski, engaged for
his private theatre two companies, one from Germany and one from Italy.
The persons employed in the musical department of his household numbered
124. The principal band, conducted by Dobrzyrnski pere, a good violinist
and conductor, consisted of four violins, one viola, one violoncello,
one double bass, one flute, one oboe, one clarinet, and one bassoon.
Villagers were trained by these players to assist them. Then there
was yet another band, one of wind instruments, under the direction of
Karelli, a pupil of the Russian composer Bartnianski [Footnote: The
Russian Palestrina, whose name is oftener met with in the forms of
Bortnianski and Bortniansky]. The chorus was composed of twenty four
voices, picked from the young people on Count Ilinski's estates. However
questionable the taste of many of these noble art patrons may have been,
there were not wanting some who cultivated music with a purer spirit.
Some of the best bands were those of the Princes D. Radziwill, Adam
Czartoryski, F. Sulkowski, Michael Lubomirski, Counts Ilinski, Oginski,
and Wielhorski. Our inquiry into the cultivation of music at the courts
of the Polish magnates has carried us beyond the point we had reached in
our historical survey. Let us now retrace our steps.
The progress of music above spoken of was arrested by the anarchy and
the civil and other wars that began to rage in Poland with such fury in
the middle of the last century. King Stanislas Poniatowski (1764-1795)
is credited with having exercised great influence on the music of
Poland; at any rate, he patronised the arts and sciences right royally.
The Italian opera at Warsaw cannot have been of mean standing, seeing
that artists such as the composers Paisiello and Cimarosa, and the great
violinist, composer, and conductor Pugnani, with his pupil Viotti (the
latter playing second violin in the orchestra), were members of the
company. And the King's band of foreign and native players has been
called one of the best in Europe. Still, all this was but the hothouse
bloom of exotics. To bring about a natural harvest of home produce
something else was wanted than royal patronage, and this something
sprang from the series of disasters that befell the nation in the latter
half of the last century, and by shaking it to its very heart's core
stirred up its nobler self. As in literature, so in music, the national
element came now more and more into action and prominence.
Up to 1778 there had been heard in Poland only Italian and French
operas; in this year, for the first time, a Polish opera was put on
the stage. It is true the beginning was very modest. The early attempts
contained few ensemble pieces, no choruses, and no complex finales. But
a new art does not rise from the mind of a nation as Minerva is said to
have risen from the head of Jupiter. Nay, even the fact that the first
three composers of Polish operas (Kamienski, Weynert, and Kajetani) were
not Poles, but foreigners endeavouring to write in the Polish style,
does not destroy the significance of the movement. The following
statistics will, no doubt, take the reader by surprise:--From the
foundation of the national Polish opera in 1778 till April 20, 1859,
5,917 performances of 285 different operas with Polish words took place
in Poland. Of these 92 were national Polish operas, the remaining 193 by
Italian, French, and German composers; 1,075 representations being given
of the former, 4,842 of the latter. The libretti of 41 of the 92 Polish
operas were originals, the other 51 were translations. And, lastly, the
majority of the 16 musicians who composed the 92 Polish operas were not
native Poles, but Czechs, Hungarians, and Germans [FOOTNOTE: Ladislas
von Trocki, Die Entwickelung der Oper in Polen. (Leipzig, 1867.)]
A step hardly less important than the foundation of a national opera was
the formation, in 1805, of a Musical Society, which had for its object
the improvement as well as the amusement of its members. The idea, which
originated in the head of one of the Prussian officials then in Warsaw,
finding approval, and the pecuniary supplies flowing in abundantly, the
Oginski Palace was rented and fitted up, two masters were engaged for
the teaching of solo and choral singing, and a number of successful
concerts were given. The chief promoters seem to have been Count
Krasinski and the two Prussian officials Mosqua and E. Th. A. Hoffmann.
In the last named the reader will recognise the famous author of
fantastic tales and of no less fantastic musical criticisms, the
conductor and composer of operas and other works, &c. According to his
biographer, J. E. Hitzig, Hoffmann did not take much interest in the
proceedings of the Musical Ressource (that was the name of the society)
till it bought the Mniszech Palace, a large building, which, having been
damaged by fire, had to undergo extensive repairs. Then, indeed, he
set to work with a will, planned the arrangement and fitting-up of the
rooms, designed and partly painted the decorations--not without freely
indulging his disposition for caricature--and when all was ready, on
August 3, 1806 (the King of Prussia's birthday), conducted the first
concert in the splendid new hall. The activity of the society was great,
and must have been beneficial; for we read that they had every Sunday
performances of quartets and other kinds of chamber music, that ladies
frequently came forward with pianoforte sonatas, and that when the
celebrated violinist Moser, of Berlin, visited Warsaw, he made them
acquainted with the finest quartets of Mozart and Haydn. Still, I should
not have dwelt so long on the doings of the Musical Ressource were it
not that it was the germ of, or at least gave the impulse to, even more
influential associations and institutions that were subsequently founded
with a view to the wider diffusion and better cultivation of the musical
art in Poland. After the battle of Jena the French were not long in
making their appearance in Warsaw, whereby an end was put to Prussia's
rule there, and her officials were sent about, or rather sent out of,
their business. Thus the Musical Ressource lost many of its members,
Hoffmann and Mosqua among others. Still, it survived, and was
reconstructed with more national elements. In Frederick Augustus of
Saxony's reign it is said to have been transformed into a school of
singing.
The year 1815 brought into existence two musical institutions that
deserve to be noticed--society for the cultivation of church music,
which met at the College of the Pianists, and had at its head Count
Zabiello as president and Elsner as conductor; and an association,
organised by the last-named musician, and presided over by the Princess
Sophia Zamoyska, which aimed at the advancement of the musical art in
Poland, and provided for the education of music teachers for schools,
organists for churches, and singers for the stage. Although I try to
do my best with the unsatisfactory and often contradictory newspaper
reports and dictionary articles from which I have to draw my data, I
cannot vouch for the literal correctness of my notes. In making use of
Sowinski's work I am constantly reminded of Voltaire's definition of
dictionaries: "Immenses archives de mensonges et d'un peu de verite."
Happy he who need not consult them! In 1816 Elsner was entrusted by the
minister Staszyc with the direction of a school of dramatic singing and
recitation; and in 1821, to crown all previous efforts, a conservatorium
was opened, the programme of which might almost have satisfied a
Berlioz. The department of instrumental music not only comprised
sections for the usual keyed, stringed, and wind instruments, but also
one for instruments of percussion. Solo and choral singing were to be
taught with special regard to dramatic expression. Besides these and the
theoretical branches of music, the curriculum included dancing, Polish
literature, French, and Italian. After reading the programme it is
superfluous to be informed that the institution was chiefly intended for
the training of dramatic artists. Elsner, who was appointed director,
selected the teaching staff, with one exception, however, that of the
first singing-master, for which post the Government engaged the composer
Carlo Evasio Soliva, a pupil of Asioli and Frederici.
The musical taste and culture prevailing in Poland about 1819 is pretty
accurately described by a German resident at Cracow. So far as music was
concerned Poland had hitherto been ignored by the rest of Europe, and
indeed could lay no claim to universal notice in this respect. But the
improved culture and greater insight which some had acquired in foreign
lands were good seeds that began to bear fruit. As yet, however, the
greater part of the public took little or no interest in the better
class of music, and was easily pleased and satisfied with polonaises,
mazurkas, and other trivial things. In fact, the music in Cracow,
notwithstanding the many professional musicians and amateurs living
there, was decidedly bad, and not comparable to the music in many a
small German town. In Warsaw, where the resources were more plentiful,
the state of music was of course also more prosperous. Still, as late
as 1815 we meet with the complaint that what was chiefly aimed at in
concerts was the display of virtuosity, and that grand, serious works
were neglected, and complete symphonies rarely performed. To remedy this
evil, therefore, 150 amateurs combined and organised in 1818 a concert
institution. Their concerts took place once a week, and at every meeting
a new and entire symphony, an overture, a concerto, an aria, and
a finale, were performed. The names of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart,
Cherubini, Spohr, Mehul, Romberg, &c., were to be found on their
programmes. Strange to say, there were no less than seven conductors:
Lessel, Lentz, Wurfel, Haase, Javurek, Stolpe, and Peschke, all good
musicians. The orchestra consisted in part of amateurs, who were
most numerous among the violins, tenors, and violoncellos. The solo
department seems to have been well stocked. To confine ourselves to one
instrument, they could pride themselves on having four excellent
lady pianists, one of whom distinguished herself particularly by
the wonderful dexterity with which she played the most difficult
compositions of Beethoven, Field, Ries, and Dussek. Another good sign
of the improving taste was a series of twenty-four matinees given
on Sundays from twelve to two during the winter of 1818-1819 by Carl
Arnold, and much patronised by the highest nobility. The concert-giver,
a clever pianist and composer, who enjoyed in his day a good reputation
in Germany, Russia, and Poland, produced at every matinee a new
pianoforte concerto by one of the best composers--sometimes one of
his own--and was assisted by the quartet party of Bielawski, a good
violinist, leader in the orchestra, and professor at the Conservatorium.
Although Arnold's stay was not of long duration, his departure did not
leave the town without good pianists. Indeed, it is a mistake to suppose
that Warsaw was badly off with regard to musicians. This will be evident
to the reader as soon as I have named some of those living there in
the time of Chopin. Wenzel W. Wurfel, one of the professors at the
Conservatorium, who stayed in Warsaw from 1815 to 1824, and afterwards
went to Vienna, where he became conductor at the Karnthnerthor Theater,
was an esteemed pianist and composer, and frequently gave concerts, at
one of which he played Field's Concerto in C.
[FOOTNOTE: Wenzel Wilhelm Wurfel, in most dictionaries called Wilhelm
Wurfel (exceptions are: E. Bernsdorf's "Neues Universal-Lexikon
der Tonkunst", and Dr. Hugo Riemann's "Opern-Handbuch"). A Warsaw
correspondent of a German musical paper called him Waclaw Wurfel. In
Whistling's "Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur" his Christian names
are only indicated by initials--W. W.]
If we scan the list of professors at the Conservatorium we find other
musicians whose reputation was not confined to the narrow limits of
Warsaw or even Poland. There was, for instance, the pianist and
composer Franz Lessel, the favourite pupil of Haydn; and, further, that
interesting character Heinrich Gerhard Lentz, who, born and educated at
Cologne, went in 1784 to Paris, played with success his first concerto
at the Concert Spirituel, published some of his compositions and taught
in the best families, arrived in London in 1791, lived in friendly
intercourse with Clementi and Haydn, and had compositions of his
performed at Solomon's concerts, returned to Germany in 1795, stayed
with Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia till Dussek supplanted him, and
so, wandering about, reached Warsaw, where he gave lessons, founded
a pianoforte manufactory, became professor of the organ at the
Conservatorium, married twice, and died in 1839. The only other
professor at the Conservatorium about whom I shall say a few words is C.
E. Soliva, whose name and masters I have already mentioned. Of his works
the opera "La testa di bronzo" is the best known. I should have said
"was," for nobody now knows anything of his. That loud, shallow talker
Count Stendhal, or, to give him his real name, Marie Henry Beyle, heard
it at Milan in 1816, when it was first produced. He had at first some
difficulty in deciding whether Soliva showed himself in that opera a
plagiarist of Mozart or a genius. Finally he came to the conclusion
that--
there is in it a warmth, a dramatic life, and a strength in
all its effects, which are decidedly not in the style of
Mozart. But Soliva, who is a young man and full of the
warmest admiration for Mozart, has imbibed certain tints of
his colouring.
The rest is too outrageously ridiculous to be quoted. Whatever Beyle's
purely literary merits and his achievements in fiction may be, I quite
agree with Berlioz, who remarks, a propos of this gentleman's Vie de
Rossini, that he writes "les plus irritantes stupidites sur la musique,
dont il croyait avoir le secret." To which cutting dictum may be added
a no less cutting one of M. Lavoix fils, who, although calling Beyle
an "ecrivain d'esprit," applies to him the appellation of "fanfaron
d'ignorance en musique." I would go a step farther than either of these
writers. Beyle is an ignorant braggart, not only in music, but in art
generally, and such esprit as his art criticisms exhibit would be even
more common than it unfortunately now is, if he were oftener equalled
in conceit and arrogance. The pillorying of a humbug is so laudable an
object that the reader will excuse the digression, which, moreover, may
show what miserable instruments a poor biographer has sometimes to
make use of. Another informant, unknown to fame, but apparently more
trustworthy, furnishes us with an account of Soliva in Warsaw. The
writer in question disapproves of the Italian master's drill-method in
teaching singing, and says that as a composer his power of invention
was inferior to his power of construction; and, further, that he was
acquainted with the scores of the best musicians of all times, and an
expert in accompanying on the pianoforte. As Elsner, Zywny, and the
pianist and composer Javurek have already been introduced to the reader,
I shall advert only to one other of the older Warsaw musicians--namely,
Charles Kurpinski, the most talented and influential native composer
then living in Poland. To him and Elsner is chiefly due the progress
which Polish music made in the first thirty years of this century.
Kurpinski came to Warsaw in 1810, was appointed second conductor at
the National Opera-house, afterwards rose to the position of first
conductor, was nominated maitre de chapelle de la cour de Varsovie, was
made a Knight of the St. Stanislas Order, &c. He is said to have learnt
composition by diligently studying Mozart's scores, and in 1811 began to
supply the theatre with dramatic works. Besides masses, symphonies,
&c., he composed twenty-four operas, and published also some theoretical
works and a sketch of the history of the Polish opera. Kurpinski was
by nature endowed with fine musical qualities, uniting sensibility and
energy with easy productivity. Chopin did homage to his distinguished
countryman in introducing into his Grande Fantaisie sur des airs
polonais, Op. 13, a theme of Kurpinski's. Two younger men, both born in
1800, must yet be mentioned to compete the picture. One of them, Moritz
Ernemann, a pupil of Mendelssohn's pianoforte-master, L. Berger,
played with success in Poland and Germany, and has been described by
contemporaries as a finished and expressive, but not brilliant, pianist.
His pleasing compositions are of an instructive and mildly-entertaining
character. The other of the two was Joseph Christoph Kessler, a musician
of very different mettle. After studying philosophy in Vienna, and
composing at the house of Count Potocki in Lemberg his celebrated
Etudes, Op. 20 (published at Vienna, reprinted at Paris, recommended
by Kalkbrenner in his Methode, quoted by Fetis and Moscheles in their
Methode des Methodes, and played in part by Liszt at his concerts),
he tried in 1829 his luck in Warsaw. Schumann thought (in 1835) that
Kessler had the stuff in him to do something great, and always looked
forward with expectation to what he would yet accomplish. Kessler's
studies might be dry, but he was assuredly a "Mann von Geist und sogar
poetischem Geist." He dedicated his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 31, to
Chopin, and Chopin his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28, to him--that is to
say, the German edition.
By this time the reader must have found out that Warsaw was not such a
musical desert as he may at first have imagined. Perfect renderings
of great orchestral works, it is true, seem to have been as yet
unattainable, and the performances of operas failed likewise to satisfy
a pure and trained taste. Nay, in 1822 it was even said that the opera
was getting worse. But when the fruits of the Conservatorium had had
time to ripen and could be gathered in, things would assume a more
promising aspect. Church music, which like other things had much
deteriorated, received a share of the attention which in this century
was given to the art. The best singing was in the Piarist and University
churches. In the former the bulk of the performers consisted of
amateurs, who, however, were assisted by members of the opera. They sang
Haydn's masses best and oftenest. In the other church the executants
were students and professors, Elsner being the conductor. Besides these
choirs there existed a number of musical associations in connection with
different churches in Warsaw. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that great
progress was made in the first thirty years of this century, and had
it not been for the unfortunate insurrection of 1830, Poland would
have succeeded in producing a national art and taking up an honourable
position among the great musical powers of Europe, whereas now it can
boast only of individual artists of more or less skill and originality.
The musical events to which the death of the Emperor Alexander I.
gave occasion in 1826, show to some extent the musical capabilities
of Warsaw. On one day a Requiem by Kozlowski (a Polish composer, then
living in St. Petersburg; b. 1757, d. 1831), with interpolations of
pieces by other composers, was performed in the Cathedral by two hundred
singers and players under Soliva. On another day Mozart's Requiem,
with additional accompaniments by Kurpinski (piccolos, flutes, oboes,
clarinets, and horns to the Dies irae and Sanctus; harps to the Hostias
and Benedictus; and a military brass-band to the closing chorus!!!), was
given in the same place by two hundred and fifty executants under
the last-mentioned musician. And in the Lutheran church took place a
performance of Elsner's Requiem for male voices, violoncellos, bassoons,
horns, trumpets, trombones, and drums.
Having made the reader acquainted with the musical sphere in which
Chopin moved, I shall take up the thread of the narrative where I left
it, and the reader may follow without fear of being again detained by so
long an interruption.
CHAPTER VI
Fourteen days in Berlin (From September 14 to 28, 1828).--Return by
Posen (Prince Radziwill) and Zullichau (anecdotes) to Warsaw.--Chopin's
doings there in the following winter and spring.--his home-life,
companions, and preparations for a journey to Vienna.
Chopin, leaving his apprenticeship behind him, was now entering on that
period of his life which we may call his Wanderjahre (years of travel).
This change in his position and circumstances demands a simultaneous
change in the manner of the biographical treatment. Hitherto we have
been much occupied with the agencies that made and moulded the man,
henceforth we shall fix our main attention on his experiences, actions,
and utterances. The materials at our disposal become now more abundant
and more trustworthy. Foremost in importance among them, up to Chopin's
arrival in Paris, are the letters he wrote at that time, the publication
of which we owe to Karasowski. As they are, however, valuable only
as chronicles of the writer's doings and feelings, and not, like
Mendelssohn's and Berlioz's, also as literary productions, I shall,
whilst fully availing myself of the information they contain, confine my
quotations from them to the characteristic passages.
Chopin's long-projected and much-desired visit to Berlin came about in
this way. In 1828 Frederick William III of Prussia requested the Berlin
University to invite the most eminent natural philosophers to take part
in a congress to be held in that city under the presidency of Alexander
von Humboldt. Nicholas Chopin's friend Dr. Jarocki, the zoologist and
professor at the Warsaw University, who had studied and obtained his
degree at Berlin, was one of those who were honoured with an invitation.
The favourable opportunity which thus presented itself to the
young musician of visiting in good company one of the centres of
civilisation--for the professor intended to comply with the invitation,
and was willing to take his friend's son under his wing--was not allowed
to slip by, on the contrary, was seized eagerly. With what feelings,
with what an infinitude of youthful hopes and expectations, Chopin
looked forward to this journey may be gathered from some expressions in
a letter of his (September 9, 1828) addressed to Titus Woyciechowski,
where he describes himself as being at the time of writing "like a
madman," and accounts for his madness by the announcement: "For I am
going to-day to Berlin." To appear in public as a pianist or composer
was not one of the objects he had in view. His dearest wishes were to
make the acquaintance of the musical celebrities of Berlin, and to
hear some really good music. From a promised performance of Spontini's
Ferdinand Cortez he anticipated great things.
Professor Jarocki and Chopin left Warsaw on the 9th of September, 1828,
and after five days' posting arrived in Berlin, where they put up at
the Kronprinz. Among the conveniences of this hotel our friend had the
pleasant surprise of finding a good grand piano. He played on it every
day, and was rewarded for his pains not only by the pleasure it gave
him, but also by the admiration of the landlord. Through his travelling
companion's friend and teacher, M. H. K. Lichtenstein, professor of
zoology and director of the Zoological Museum, who was a member of
the Singakademie and on good terms with Zelter, the conductor of that
society, he hoped to be made acquainted with the most distinguished
musicians of the Prussian capital, and looked to Prince Radziwill for
an introduction to the musical autocrat Spontini, with whom Lichtenstein
was not on a friendly footing. In these hopes, however, Chopin was
disappointed, and had to content himself with looking at the stars from
afar. Speaking of a performance of the Singakademie at which he was
present, he says:--
Spontini, Zelter, and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy were also
there; but I spoke to none of these gentlemen, as I did not
think it becoming to introduce myself.
It is not difficult to discover the circumstances that in this respect
caused matters to turn out so little in accordance with the young man's
wishes. Prince Radziwill was not in Berlin when Chopin arrived, and,
although he was expected, perhaps never came, or came too late to be
of any use. As to Lichtenstein, his time was too much taken up by his
duties as secretary to the congress. Had this not been so, the professor
could not only have brought the young artist in contact with many of
the musical celebrities in Berlin, but also have told him much about his
intimate friend Carl Maria von Weber, who had died little more than
two years before. Lichtenstein's connection with Weber was probably
the cause of his disagreement with Spontini, alluded to by Chopin.
The latter relates in an off-hand way that he was introduced to and
exchanged a few words with the editor of the Berliner Musikzeitung,
without mentioning that this was Marx. The great theorist had of course
then still to make his reputation.
One cannot help wondering at the absence from Chopin's Berlin letters
of the name of Ludwig Berger, who, no doubt, like Bernhard Klein,
Rungenhagen, the brothers Ganz, and many another composer and virtuoso
in Berlin, was included in the collective expression "distinguished
musicians." But one would have thought that the personality of the pupil
of Clementi, the companion of A. Klengel, the friend of Steibelt, Field,
and Crotch, and the teacher of Mendelssohn and Taubert, would have
particularly interested a young pianist. Berger's compositions cannot
have been unknown to Chopin, who, moreover, must have heard of him from
his Warsaw acquaintance Ernemann. However, be this as it may, our friend
was more fortunate as regards hearing good music, which certainly was a
more important business than interviewing celebrities, often, alas,
so refrigerating in its effect on enthusiastic natures. Before his
departure from Warsaw Chopin wrote:--"It is much to hear a really good
opera, were it only once; it enables one to form an idea of what a
perfect performance is like." Although the most famous singers were
on leave of absence, he greatly enjoyed the performances of Spontini's
"Ferdinand Cortez", Cimarosa's "Die heimliche Eke" ("Il Matrimonio
segreto"), Onslow's "Der Hausirer" ("Le colporteur"), and Winter's "Das
unterbrochene Opferfest." Still, they gave rise to some "buts," which
he thought would be wholly silenced only in Paris; nay, one of the two
singers he liked best, Fraulein von Schatzel (Signora Tibaldi was
the other), reminded him by her omissions of chromatic scales even of
Warsaw. What, however, affected him more than anything else was Handel's
"Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," which he heard at the Singakademie; it came
nearest, he said, to the ideal of sublime music which he harboured in
his soul. A propos of another musical event he writes:--
To-morrow the "Freischutz" will be performed; this is the
fulfilment of my most ardent wish. When I hear it I shall be
able to make a comparison between the singers here and our
own.
The "Freischutz" made its first appearance on the Warsaw stage in 1826,
and therefore was known to Chopin; whereas the other operas were either
unknown to him or were not considered decisive tests.
Music and things connected with music, such as music-shops and
pianoforte-manufactories, took up Chopin's attention almost exclusively.
He declines with thanks the offer of a ticket for the meetings of the
congress:--
I should gain little or nothing for my mind from these
discussions, because I am too little of a savant; and,
moreover, the professional gentlemen might perhaps look at
me, the layman, and think: "How comes Saul among the
prophets?"
Of the Royal Library, to which he went with Professor Jarocki, he has
no more to say than that "it is very large, but contains few musical
works"; and when he visits the Zoological Museum, he thinks all the time
what a bore it is, and how he would rather be at Schlesinger's, the best
music-shop in the town, and an enterprising publishing house. That
he neglects many things which educated men generally prize, he feels
himself, and expresses the fear that his father will reproach him with
one-sidedness. In his excuse he says:--
I have come to Berlin for my musical education, and the
library of Schlesinger, consisting of the most interesting
works of the composers of all countries and times, must
interest me more than any other collections.
The words, he adds, add nothing to the strength of his argument.
It is a comfort to think that I, too, shall yet come to
Schlesinger's, and that it is always good for a young man to
see much, as from everything something may be learnt.
According to Karasowski, who reports, no doubt faithfully, what he has
heard, Chopin was so well versed in all the branches of science, which
he cultivated at the Lyceum, that all who knew him were astonished at
his attainments, and prognosticated for him a brilliant future. I am
afraid the only authorities for this statement were the parents, the
sisters, and other equally indiscriminately-admiring connections, who
often discover genius where it is hidden from the cold, unfeeling world
outside this sympathetic circle. Not that I would blame an amiable
weakness without which love, friendship, in short, happiness were
well-nigh impossible. Only a biographer who wishes to represent a man as
he really was, and not as he appeared to be to one or more individuals,
has to be on his guard against it. Let us grant at once that Chopin made
a good figure at the Lyceum--indeed, a quick-witted boy who found
help and encouragement at home (the secret of almost all successful
education) could hardly do otherwise. But from this to a master of all
the arts, to an admirable Crichton, is a great step. Where there is
genius there is inclination. Now, however well Chopin acquitted himself
of his school-tasks--and even therein you will remember a falling-off
was noticeable when outward pressure ceased--science and kindred
subjects were subsequently treated by him with indifference. The
thorough training which he received in general knowledge entirely failed
to implant in him the dispositions of a scholar or thinker. His nature
was perhaps a soil unfavourable to such growths, and certainly already
preoccupied by a vegetation the luxuriance of which excluded, dwarfed,
or crushed everything else. The truth of these remarks is proved
by Chopin's letters and his friends' accounts of his tastes and
conversation. In connection with this I may quote a passage from a
letter which Chopin wrote immediately before starting on his Berlin
trip. Jedrzejewicz, a gentleman who by-and-by became Chopin's
brother-in-law, and was just then staying in Paris, made there the
acquaintance of the Polish musician Sowinski. The latter hearing thus of
his talented countryman in Warsaw, and being co-editor with Fetis of the
"Revue musicale" (so at least we read in the letter in question, but
it is more likely that Sowinski was simply a contributor to the paper),
applied to him for a description of the state of music in Poland, and
biographical notes on the most celebrated executants and composers. Now
let us see what Chopin says in reference to this request.
All these are things with which I have no intention to
meddle. I shall write to him from Berlin that this affair is
not in my line, and that, moreover, I cannot yet form a
judgment such as would be worthy of a Parisian journal, which
must contain only mature and competent opinions, &c.
How much of this is self-knowledge, modesty, or disinclination, I leave
the reader to decide, who, no doubt, will smile at the young man's
innocence in imagining that Parisian, or, indeed, any journals
distinguish themselves generally by maturity and competence of judgment.
At the time of the Berlin visit Chopin was a lively, well-educated, and
well-mannered youth, who walked through life pleased and amused with
its motley garb, but as yet unconscious of the deeper truths, and the
immensities of joy and sadness, of love and hate, that lie beneath.
Although the extreme youthfulness, nay boyishness, of the letters
written by him at that time, and for some time after, makes him appear
younger than he really was, the criticisms and witticisms on what is
going on around which they contain, show incontestably that he had
more than the usual share of clear and quick-sightedness. His power of
observation, however, was directed rather to dress, manners, and the
peculiarities and eccentricities of outward appearance generally, than
to the essentials which are not always indicated and are often hidden
by them. As to his wit, it had a decided tendency towards satire and
caricature. He notices the pleasing orderliness and cleanliness of the
otherwise not well-favoured surroundings of Berlin as he approaches,
considers the city itself too much extended for the number of its
inhabitants, of whom it could hold twice as many, is favourably
impressed by the fine large palace, the spacious well-built streets,
the picturesque bridges, and congratulates himself that he and his
fellow-traveller did not take lodgings in the broad but rather too
quiet Franzosische Strasse. Yes, our friend is fond of life and society.
Whether he thought man the proper study of mankind or not, as Pope
held, he certainly found it the most attractive. The passengers in the
stage-coach were to him so many personages of a comedy. There was an
advocate who tried to shine with his dull jokes, an agriculturist to
whom travelling had given a certain varnish of civilisation, and a
German Sappho who poured forth a stream of pretentious and at the same
time ludicrous complaints. The play unwittingly performed by these
unpaid actors was enjoyed by our friend with all the zest the feeling
of superiority can give. What a tragi-comical arrangement it is that
in this world of ours everybody is laughing at everybody else! The
scientists of the congress afforded Chopin an almost unlimited scope for
the exercise of his wit. Among them he found so many curious and various
specimens that he was induced not only to draw but also to classify
them. Having already previously sent home some sketches, he concludes
one of his letters with the words "the number of caricatures is
increasing." Indeed, there seems to have been only one among these
learned gentlemen who impressed him with a feeling of respect and
admiration--namely, Alexander von Humboldt. As Chopin's remarks on him
are the best part of his three Berlin letters, I shall quote them in
full. On seeing Von Humboldt at Lichtenstein's he writes:--
He is not above middle height, and his countenance cannot be
called beautiful; but the somewhat protruding, broad, and
well-moulded forehead, and the deep inquiring eye, announce
the all-embracing mind which animates this humane as well as
much-travelled savant. Humboldt spoke French, and as well as
his mother-tongue.
One of the chief events of Chopin's visit to Berlin was, according to
his own account, his second dinner with the natural philosophers, which
took place the day before the close of the congress, and was very lively
and entertaining:--
Many appropriate songs were sung in which every one joined with more
or less energy. Zelter conducted; he had standing before him on a red
pedestal as a sign of his exalted musical dignity a large gilt goblet,
which seemed to give him much pleasure. On this day the food was much
better than usual. People say the natural philosophers had at their
meetings been specially occupied with the amelioration of roasts,
sauces, soups, and the like.
"The Berliners are such an impertinent race," says Goethe, "that to keep
one's self above water one must have Haare auf den Zahnen, and at times
be rude." Such a judgment prepares one for much, but not for what Chopin
dares to say:--
Marylski [one of his Warsaw friends] has not the faintest
shadow of taste if he asserts that the ladies of Berlin dress
prettily. They deck themselves out, it is true; but it is a
pity for the fine stuffs which are cut up for such puppets!
What blasphemy!
After a fortnight's stay in the Prussian capital Professor Jarocki and
Chopin turned homeward on September 28, 1828. They did not, however,
go straight to Warsaw, but broke their journey at Posen, where they
remained two days "in gratiam of an invitation from Archbishop Wolicki."
A great part of the time he was at Posen he spent at the house of Prince
Radziwill, improvising and playing sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven, and
Hummel, either alone or with Capellmeister Klingohr. On October 6 the
travellers arrived in Warsaw, which Chopin was so impatient to reach
that the professor was prevailed upon to take post-horses from Lowicz.
Before I have done with this trip to Berlin I must relate an incident
which occurred at a stage between Frankfort on the Oder and Posen.
On arriving at Zullichau our travellers were informed by the postmaster
that they would have to wait an hour for horses. This announcement
opened up an anything but pleasing prospect. The professor and
his companion did the best that could be done in these distressing
circumstances--namely, took a stroll through the small town, although
the latter had no amenities to boast of, and the fact of a battle having
been fought there between the Russians and Prussians in 1759 would
hardly fire their enthusiasm. Matters, however, became desperate when
on their return there was still neither sign nor sound of horses. Dr.
Jarocki comforted himself with meat and drink, but Chopin began to look
uneasily about him for something to while away the weariness of waiting.
His search was not in vain, for in an adjoining room he discovered an
old piano of unpromising appearance, which, on being opened and tried,
not only turned out to be better than it looked, but even in tune. Of
course our artist did not bethink himself long, but sat down at once,
and launched out into an improvisation on a Polish air. One of his
fellow-passengers, a German, and an inveterate smoker, attracted by the
music, stepped in, and was soon so wrapped up in it that he forgot even
his pipe. The other passengers, the postmaster, his buxom wife, and
their pretty daughters, came dropping in, one after the other. But when
this peaceful conventicle had for some time been listening silently,
devoutly, and admiringly, lo, they were startled by a stentorian voice
bawling into the room the words:--"Gentlemen, the horses are put in."
The postmaster, who was indignant at this untimely interruption, begged
the musician to continue. But Chopin said that they had already
waited too long, it was time to depart. Upon this there was a general
commotion; the mistress of the house solicited and cajoled, the young
ladies bashfully entreated with their eyes, and all pressed around the
artist and supported the request, the postmaster even offering extra
horses if Chopin would go on with his playing. Who could resist? Chopin
sat down again, and resumed his fantasia. When he had ended, a servant
brought in wine, the postmaster proposed as a toast "the favourite of
Polyhymnia," and one of the audience, an old musician, gave voice to his
feelings by telling the hero that, "if Mozart had heard you, he would
have shaken hands with you and exclaimed 'Bravo!' An insignificant
man like me dare not do that." After Chopin had played a mazurka as a
wind-up, the tall postmaster took him in his arms, carried him to the
coach--the pockets of which the ladies had already filled with wine and
eatables--and, bidding him farewell, said that as long as he lived he
would think with enthusiasm of Frederick Chopin.
We can have no difficulty in believing the statement that in after-life
our artist recalled with pleasure this incident at the post-house of
Zullichau, and that his success among these unsophisticated people was
dearer to him than many a more brilliant one in the great world of art
and fashion. But, it may be asked, did all this happen in exactly the
same way in which it is told here? Gentle reader, let us not inquire too
curiously into this matter. Of course you have heard of myth-making and
legend-making. Well, anecdote-making is a process of a similar nature, a
process of accumulation and development. The only difference between the
process in the first two cases and that in the third is, that the former
is carried on by races, the latter by individuals. A seed-corn of fact
falls on the generous soil of the poetic imagination, and forthwith it
begins to expand, to sprout, and to grow into flower, shrub, or tree.
But there are well and ill-shapen plants, and monstrosities too. The
above anecdote is a specimen of the first kind. As a specimen of the
last kind may be instanced an undated anecdote told by Sikorski and
others. It is likewise illustrative of Chopin's power and love of
improvisation. The seed-corn of fact in the case seems to be that
one Sunday, when playing during divine service in the Wizytek Church,
Chopin, taking for his subjects some motives of the part of the Mass
that had just been performed, got so absorbed in his improvisation that
he entirely forgot all his surroundings, and turned a deaf ear to the
priest at the altar, who had already for the second time chanted 'Per
omnia saecula saeculurum.' This is a characteristic as well as a pretty
artist-story, which, however, is marred, I think, by the additions of a
choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like
him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to
remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently
waiting priest and acolyte, &c. Men willingly allow themselves to
be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not
overtaxed. For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as
the German poet says:--"So fuehrt man Absicht und man ist verstimmt."
On the 6th of October, as has already been said, Chopin returned to
Warsaw. Judging from a letter written by him at the end of the year
(December 27, 1828) to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, he was busy
composing and going to parties. The "Rondeau a la Krakowiak," Op. 14,
was now finished, and the Trio, Op. 8, was nearly so. A day on which he
had not been musically productive seems to have been regarded by him as
a lost day. The opening phrase of the following quotation reminds one of
the famous exclamation of the Emperor Titus:--
During the last week I have composed nothing worthy either of
God or of man. I run from Ananias to Caiaphas; to-night I
shall be at Madame Wizegerod's, from there I shall drive to a
musical soiree at Miss Kicka's. You know how pleasant it is
to be forced to improvise when one is tired! I have not often
such happy thoughts as come sometimes under my fingers when I
am with you. And then the miserable instruments!
In the same letter he relates that his parents are preparing a small
room for him:--
A staircase leads from the entrance directly into it; there I
shall have an old writing-desk, and this nook will be my
retreat.
This remark calls up a passage in a letter written two years later from
Vienna to his friend John Matuszynski:--
When your former colleagues, for instance, Rostkowski,
Schuch, Freyer, Kyjewski, Hube, &c., are holding merry
converse in my room, then think that I am laughing and
enjoying myself with you.
A charming little genre picture of Chopin's home-life is to be found in
one of his letters from Vienna (December 1, 1830) Having received news
from Warsaw, he writes:--
The joy was general, for Titus also had letters from home. I
thank Celinski lor the enclosed note; it brought vividly back
to me the time when I was still amongst you: it seemed to me
as if I were sitting at the piano and Celinski standing
opposite me looking at Mr. Zywny, who just then treated
Linowski to a pinch of snuff. Only Matuszynski was wanting to
make the group complete.
Several names in the above extract remind me that I ought to say a few
words about the young men with whom Chopin at that time associated. Many
of them were no doubt companions in the noblest sense of the word.
Of this class may have been Celinski, Hube, Eustachius Marylski, and
Francis Maciejowski (a nephew of the previously-mentioned Professor
Waclaw Maciejowski), who are more or less frequently mentioned in
Chopin's correspondence, but concerning whom I have no information to
give. I am as badly informed about Dziewanowski, whom a letter quoted
by Karasowski shows to have been a friend of Chopin's. Of two other
friends, Stanislas Kozmian and William Kolberg, we know at least that
the one was a few years ago still living at Posen and occupied the post
of President of the Society of the Friends of Science, and that the
other, to whom the earliest letters of Chopin that have come down to
us are addressed, became, not to mention lesser offices and titles, a
Councillor of State, and died on June 4,1877. Whatever the influence of
the friends I have thus far named may have been on the man Chopin, one
cannot but feel inclined to think that Stephen Witwicki and Dominic
Magnuszewski, especially the former, must have had a greater influence
on the artist. At any rate, these two poets, who made their mark in
Polish literature, brought the musician in closest contact with the
strivings of the literary romanticism of those days. In later years
Chopin set several of Witwicki's songs to music. Both Magnuszewski and
Witwicki lived afterwards, like Chopin, in Paris, where they continued
to associate with him. Of the musical acquaintances we have to notice
first and foremost Julius Fontana, who himself said that he was a daily
visitor at Chopin's house. The latter writes in the above-mentioned
letter (December 27, 1828) to Titus Woyciechowski:--
The Rondo for two pianos, this orphan child, has found a step-
father in Fontana (you may perhaps have seen him at our
house, he attends the university); he studied it for more
than a month, but then he did learn it, and not long ago we
tried how it would sound at Buchholtz's.
Alexander Rembielinski, described as a brilliant pianist and a composer
in the style of Fesca, who returned from Paris to Warsaw and died
young, is said to have been a friend of Chopin's. Better musicians than
Fontana, although less generally known in the western part of Europe,
are Joseph Nowakowski and Thomas Nidecki. Chopin, by some years their
junior, had intercourse with them during his residence in Poland as
well as afterwards abroad. It does not appear that Chopin had what can
rightly be called intimate friends among the young Polish musicians. If
we may believe the writer of an article in Sowinski's Dictionary, there
was one exception. He tells us that the talented Ignaz Felix Dobrzynski
was a fellow-pupil of Chopin's, taking like him private lessons from
Elsner. Dobrzynski came to Warsaw in 1825, and took altogether thirty
lessons.
Working together under the same master, having the same
manner of seeing and feeling, Frederick Chopin and I.F.
Dobrzynski became united in a close friendship. The same
aims, the same artistic tendency to seek the UNKNOWN,
characterised their efforts. They communicated to each other
their ideas and impressions, followed different routes to
arrive at the same goal.
This unison of kindred minds is so beautiful that one cannot but wish
it to have been a fact. Still, I must not hide the circumstance that
neither Liszt nor Karasowski mentions Dobrzynski as one of Chopin's
friends, and the even more significant circumstance that he is only
mentioned twice and en passant in Chopin's letters. All this, however,
does not necessarily nullify the lexicographer's statements, and until
contradictory evidence is forthcoming we may hold fast by so pleasing
and ennobling a creed.
The most intimate of Chopin's early friends, indeed, of all
his friends--perhaps the only ones that can be called his bosom
friends--have still to be named, Titus Woyciechowski and John
Matuszynski. It was to them that Chopin wrote his most interesting and
self-revealing letters. We shall meet them and hear of them often in
the course of this narrative, for their friendship with the musician was
severed only by death. It will therefore suffice to say here that Titus
Woyciechowski, who had been Chopin's school-fellow, lived, at the period
of the latter's life we have now reached, on his family estates, and
that John Matuszynski was then studying medicine in Warsaw.
In his letter of December 27, 1828, Chopin makes some allusions to the
Warsaw theatres. The French company had played Rataplan, and at the
National Theatre they had performed a comedy of Fredro's, Weber's
Preciosa, and Auber's Macon. A musical event whichmust have interested
Chopin much more than the performances of the two last-mentioned
works took place in the first half of the year 1829--namely, Hummel's
appearance in Warsaw. He and Field were, no doubt, those pianists who
through the style of their compositions most influenced Chopin. For
Hummel's works Chopin had indeed a life-long admiration and love. It is
therefore to be regretted that he left in his letters no record of
the impression which Hummel, one of the four most distinguished
representatives of pianoforte-playing of that time, made upon him. It
is hardly necessary to say that the other three representatives--of
different generations and schools let it be understood--were Field,
Kalkbrenner, and Moscheles. The only thing we learn about this visit of
Hummel's to Warsaw is that he and the young Polish pianist made a good
impression upon each other. As far as the latter is concerned this is a
mere surmise, or rather an inference from indirect proofs, for, strange
to say, although Chopin mentions Hummel frequently in his letters, he
does not write a syllable that gives a clue to his sentiments regarding
him. The older master, on the other hand, shows by his inquiries after
his younger brother in art and the visits he pays him that he had a real
regard and affection for him.
It is also to be regretted that Chopin says in his letters nothing of
Paganini's appearance in Warsaw. The great Italian violinist, who made
so deep an impression on, and exercised so great an influence over,
Liszt, cannot have passed by without producing some effect on Chopin.
That the latter had a high opinion of Paganini may be gathered from
later utterances, but what one would like is a description of his
feelings and thoughts when he first heard him. Paganini came to Warsaw
in 1829, after his visit to Berlin. In the Polish capital he was
worshipped with the same ardour as elsewhere, and also received the
customary tributes of applause, gold, and gifts. From Oreste Bruni's
Niccolo Paganini, celebre violinista Genovese, we learn that his
Warsaw worshippers presented him with a gold snuff-box, which bore the
following inscription:--Al Cav. Niccolo Paganini. Gli ammiratori del suo
talento. Varsovia 19 Luglio 1829.
Some months after this break in what he, no doubt, considered the
monotonous routine of Warsaw life, our friend made another excursion,
one of far greater importance in more than one respect than that to
Berlin. Vienna had long attracted him like a powerful magnet, the
obstacles to his going thither were now removed, and he was to see that
glorious art-city in which Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,
and many lesser but still illustrious men had lived and worked.
CHAPTER VII
CHOPIN JOURNEYS TO VIENNA BY WAY OF CRACOW AND OJCOW.--STAYS THERE
FOR SOME WEEKS, PLAYING TWICE IN PUBLIC.--RETURNS TO WARSAW BY WAY OF
PRAGUE, DRESDEN, AND BRESLAU.
IT was about the middle of July, 1829, that Chopin, accompanied by his
friends Celinski, Hube, and Francis Maciejowski, set out on his journey
to Vienna. They made a week's halt at the ancient capital of the Polish
Republic, the many-towered Cracow, which rises picturesquely in a
landscape of great loveliness. There they explored the town and its
neighbourhood, both of which are rich in secular and ecclesiastical
buildings, venerable by age and historical associations, not a few of
them remarkable also as fine specimens of architecture. Although we have
no detailed account of Chopin's proceedings, we may be sure that
our patriotic friend did not neglect to look for and contemplate the
vestiges of his nation's past power and greatness: the noble royal
palace, degraded, alas, into barracks for the Austrian soldiery; the
grand, impressive cathedral, in which the tombs of the kings present
an epitome of Polish history; the town-hall, a building of the 14th
century; the turreted St. Florian's gate; and the monumental hillock,
erected on the mountain Bronislawa in memory of Kosciuszko by the
hands of his grateful countrymen, of which a Frenchman said:--"Void une
eloquence touts nouvelle: un peuple qui ne peut s'exprimer par la
parole ou par les livres, et qui parle par des montagnes." On a Sunday
afternoon, probably on the 24th of July, the friends left Cracow, and in
a rustic vehicle drove briskly to Ojcow. They were going to put up not
in the place itself, but at a house much patronised by tourists, lying
some miles distant from it and the highway. This circumstance led to
something like a romantic incident, for as the driver was unacquainted
with the bye-roads, they got into a small brook, "as clear and silvery
bright as brooks in fairytales," and having walls of rock on the
right and left, they were unable to extricate themselves "from this
labyrinth." Fortunately they met towards nine o'clock in the evening two
peasants who conducted them to their destination, the inn of Mr. Indyk,
in which also the Polish authoress Clementina Tanska, who has described
this district in one of her works, had lodged--a fact duly reported by
Chopin to his sister Isabella and friend Titus. Arriving not only tired
but also wet to above the knees, his first business was to guard against
taking a cold. He bought a Cracow double-woven woollen night-cap, which
he cut in two pieces and wrapped round his feet. Then he sat down by the
fire, drank a glass of red wine, and, after talking for a little while
longer, betook himself to bed, and slept the sleep of the just. Thus
ended the adventure of that day, and, to all appearance, without the
dreaded consequences of a cold. The natural beauties of the part of
the country where Chopin now was have gained for it the name of Polish
Switzerland. The principal sights are the Black Cave, in which during
the bloody wars with the Turks and Tartars the women and children used
to hide themselves; the Royal Cave, in which, about the year 1300,
King Wladyslaw Lokietek sought refuge when he was hardly pressed by
the usurper Wenceslas of Bohemia; and the beautifully-situated ruins
of Ojcow Castle, once embowered in thick forests. Having enjoyed to the
full the beauties of Polish Switzerland, Chopin continued his journey
merrily and in favourable weather through the picturesque countries of
Galicia, Upper Silesia, and Moravia, arriving in Vienna on July 31.
Chopin's letters tell us very little of his sight-seeing in the Austrian
capital, but a great deal of matters that interest us far more deeply.
He brought, of course, a number of letters of introduction with him.
Among the first which he delivered was one from Elsner to the publisher
Hashnger, to whom Chopin had sent a considerable time before some of his
compositions, which, however, still remained in manuscript. Haslinger
treated Elsner's pupil with an almost embarrassing politeness, and,
without being reminded of the MSS. in question, informed his visitor
that one of them, the variations on La ci darem la mano, would before
long appear in the Odeon series. "A great honour for me, is it not?"
writes the happy composer to his friend Titus. The amiable publisher,
however, thought that Chopin would do well to show the people of Vienna
what his difficult and by no means easily comprehensible composition was
like. But the composer was not readily persuaded. The thought of playing
in the city where Mozart and Beethoven had been heard frightened him,
and then he had not touched a piano for a whole fortnight. Not even
when Count Gallenberg entered and Haslinger presented Chopin to him as
a coward who dare not play in public was the young virtuoso put on his
mettle. In fact, he even declined with thanks the theatre which was
placed at his disposal by Count Gallenberg, who was then lessee of the
Karnthnerthor Theatre, and in whom the reader has no doubt recognised
the once celebrated composer of ballets, or at least the husband of
Beethoven's passionately-loved Countess Giulia Guicciardi. Haslinger and
Gallenberg were not the only persons who urged him to give the Viennese
an opportunity to hear him. Dining at the house of Count Hussarzewski,
a worthy old gentleman who admired his young countryman's playing very
much, Chopin was advised by everybody present--and the guests belonged
to the best society of Vienna--to give a concert. The journalist
Blahetka, best known as the father of his daughter, was not sparing in
words of encouragement; and Capellmeister Wurfel, who had been kind
to Chopin in Warsaw, told him plainly that it would be a disgrace to
himself, his parents, and his teachers not to make a public appearance,
which, he added, was, moreover, a politic move for this reason, that
no one who has composed anything new and wishes to make a noise in the
world can do so unless he performs his works himself. In fact, everybody
with whom he got acquainted was of the same opinion, and assured him
that the newspapers would say nothing but what was flattering. At last
Chopin allowed himself to be persuaded, Wurfel took upon him the care
of making the necessary arrangements, and already the next morning the
bills announced the coming event to the public of Vienna. In a long
postscript of a long and confused letter to his people he writes: "I
have made up my mind. Blahetka asserts that I shall create a furore,
'being,' as he expressed it, 'an artist of the first rank, and occupying
an honourable place by the side of Moscheles, Herz, and Kalkbrenner.'"
To all appearance our friend was not disposed to question the
correctness of this opinion; indeed, we shall see that although he had
his moments of doubting, he was perfectly conscious of his worth.
No blame, however, attaches to him on this account; self-respect
and self-confidence are not only irreprehensible but even
indispensable--that is, indispensable for the successful exercise of any
talent. That our friend had his little weaknesses shall not be denied
nor concealed. I am afraid he cannot escape the suspicion of having
possessed a considerable share of harmless vanity. "All journalists," he
writes to his parents and sisters, "open their eyes wide at me, and the
members of the orchestra greet me deferentially because I
walk with the director of the Italian opera arm-in-arm." Two
pianoforte-manufacturers--in one place Chopin says three--offered to
send him instruments, but he declined, partly because he had not room
enough, partly because he did not think it worth while to begin to
practise two days before the concert. Both Stein and Graff were very
obliging; as, however, he preferred the latter's instruments, he chose
one of this maker's for the concert, and tried to prevent the other from
taking offence by speaking him fair.
Chopin made his first public appearance in Vienna at the Karnthnerthor
Theatre on August 11, 1829. The programme comprised the following items:
Beethoven's Overture to Prometheus; arias of Rossini's and Vaccaj's,
sung by Mdlle. Veltheim, singer to the Saxon Court; Chopin's variations
on La ci darem la mano and Krakowiak, rondeau de concert (both for
pianoforte and orchestra), for the latter of which the composer
substituted an improvisation; and a short ballet. Chopin, in a letter to
his people dated August 12, 1829, describes the proceedings thus:--
Yesterday--i.e., Tuesday, at 7 p.m., I made my debut in the
Imperial Opera-house before the public of Vienna. These
evening concerts in the theatre are called here "musical
academies." As I claimed no honorarium, Count Gallenberg
hastened on my appearance.
In a letter to Titus Woyciechowski, dated September 12, 1829, he says:--
The sight of the Viennese public did not at all excite me,
and I sat down, pale as I was, at a wonderful instrument of
Graff's, at the time perhaps the best in Vienna. Beside me I
had a painted young man, who turned the leaves for me in the
Variations, and who prided himself on having rendered the
same service to Moscheles, Hummel, and Herz. Believe me when
I say that I played in a desperate mood; nevertheless, the
Variations produced so much effect that I was called back
several times. Mdlle. Veltheim sang very beautifully. Of my
improvisation I know only that it was followed by stormy
applause and many recalls.
To the cause of the paleness and the desperate mood I shall advert anon.
Chopin was satisfied, nay, delighted with his success; he had a friendly
greeting of "Bravo!" on entering, and this "pleasant word" the audience
repeated after each Variation so impetuously that he could not hear
the tuttis of the orchestra. At the end of the piece he was called back
twice. The improvisation on a theme from La Dame blanche and the Polish
tune Chmiel, which he substituted for the Krakowiak, although it did
not satisfy himself, pleased, or as Chopin has it, "electrified"
the audience. Count Gallenberg commended his compositions, and Count
Dietrichstein, who was much with the Emperor, came to him on the stage,
conversed with him a long time in French, complimented him on his
performance, and asked him to prolong his stay in Vienna. The only
adverse criticism which his friends, who had posted themselves in
different parts of the theatre, heard, was that of a lady who remarked,
"Pity the lad has not a better tournure." However, the affair did not
pass off altogether without unpleasant incidents:--
The members of the orchestra [Chopin writes to his friend
Titus Woyciechowski] showed me sour faces at the rehearsal;
what vexed them most was that I wished to make my debut with
a new composition. I began with the Variations which are
dedicated to you; they were to be followed by the Rondo
Krakowiak. We got through the Variations well, the Rondo, on
the other hand, went so badly that we had to begin twice from
the beginning; the cause of this was said to be the bad
writing. I ought to have placed the figures above and not
below the rests (that being the way to which the Viennese
musicians are accustomed). Enough, these gentlemen made such
faces that I already felt inclined to send word in the
evening that I was ill. Demar, the manager, noticed the bad
disposition of the members of the orchestra, who also don't
like Wurfel. The latter wished to conduct himself, but the
orchestra refused (I don't know for what reason) to play
under his direction. Mr. Demar advised me to improvise, at
which proposal the orchestra looked surprised. I was so
irritated by what had happened that in my desperation I
agreed to it; and who knows if my bad humour and strange mood
were not the causes of the great success which my playing
obtained.
Although Chopin passes off lightly the grumbling and grimacing of the
members of the orchestra respecting the bad writing of his music, they
seem to have had more serious reasons for complaint than he alleges
in the above quotation. Indeed, he relates himself that after the
occurrence his countryman Nidecki, who was very friendly to him and
rejoiced at his success, looked over the orchestral parts of the Rondo
and corrected them. The correction of MSS. was at no time of his life
a strong point of Chopin's. That the orchestra was not hostile to him
appears from another allusion of his to this affair:--
The orchestra cursed my badly-written music, and was not at
all favourably inclined towards me until I began the
improvisation; but then it joined in the applause of the
public. From this I saw that it had a good opinion of me.
Whether the other artists had so too I did not know as yet;
but why should they be against me? They must see that I do
not play for the sake of material advantages.
After such a success nothing was more natural than that Chopin should
allow himself to be easily persuaded to play again--il n'y a que le
premier pas qui coute--but he said he would not play a third time.
Accordingly, on August 18, he appeared once more on the stage of the
Karnthnerthor Theatre. Also this time he received no payment, but played
to oblige Count Gallenberg, who, indeed, was in anything but flourishing
circumstances. On this occasion Chopin succeeded in producing the
Krakowiak, and repeated, by desire of the ladies, the Variations.
Two other items of the programme were Lindpaintner's Overture to Der
Bergkonig and a polonaise of Mayseder's played by the violinist Joseph
Khayl, a very young pupil of Jansa's.
The rendering of the Rondo especially [Chopin writes] gave me
pleasure, because Gyrowetz, Lachner, and other masters, nay,
even the orchestra, were so charmed--excuse the expression--
that they called me back twice.
In another letter he is more loquacious on the subject:--
If the public received me kindly on my first appearance, it
was yesterday still more hearty. When I appeared on the stage
I was greeted with a twice-repeated, long-sustained "Bravo!"
The public had gathered in greater numbers than at the first
concert. The financier of the theatre, Baron--I do not
remember his name--thanked me for the recette and said that
if the attendance was great, it was not on account of the
ballet, which had already been often performed. With my Rondo
I have won the good opinion of all professional musicians--
from Capellmeister Lachner to the pianoforte-tuner, all
praise my composition.
The press showed itself not less favourable than the public. The fullest
account of our artist's playing and compositions, and the impression
they produced on this occasion, I found on looking over the pages of the
Wiener Theaterzeitung. Chopin refers to it prospectively in a letter to
his parents, written on August 19. He had called on Bauerle, the editor
of the paper, and had been told that a critique of the concert would
soon appear. To satisfy his own curiosity and to show his people that he
had said no more than what was the truth in speaking of his success,
he became a subscriber to the Wiener Theaterzeitung, and had it sent to
Warsaw. The criticism is somewhat long, but as this first step into the
great world of art was an event of superlative importance to Chopin,
and is one of more than ordinary interest to us, I do not hesitate to
transcribe it in full so far as it relates to our artist. Well, what we
read in the Wiener Theaterzeitung of August 20, 1829, is this:--
[Chopin] surprised people, because they discovered in him not
only a fine, but a really very eminent talent; on account of
the originality of his playing and compositions one might
almost attribute to him already some genius, at least, in so
far as unconventional forms and pronounced individuality are
concerned. His playing, like his compositions--of which we
heard on this occasion only variations--has a certain
character of modesty which seems to indicate that to shine is
not the aim of this young man, although his execution
conquered difficulties the overcoming of which even here, in
the home of pianoforte virtuosos, could not fail to cause
astonishment; nay, with almost ironical naivete he takes it
into his head to entertain a large audience with music as
music. And lo, he succeeded in this. The unprejudiced public
rewarded him with lavish applause. His touch, although neat
and sure, has little of that brilliance by which our
virtuosos announce themselves as such in the first bars; he
emphasised but little, like one conversing in a company of
clever people, not with that rhetorical aplomb which is
considered by virtuosos as indispensable. He plays very
quietly, without the daring elan which generally at once
distinguishes the artist from the amateur. Nevertheless, our
fine-feeling and acute-judging public recognised at once in
this youth, who is a stranger and as yet unknown to fame, a
true artist; and this evening afforded the unprejudiced
observer the pleasing spectacle of a public which, considered
as a moral person, showed itself a true connoisseur and a
virtuoso in the comprehension and appreciation of an artistic
performance which, in no wise grandiose, was nevertheless
gratifying.
There were defects noticeable in the young man's playing,
among which are perhaps especially to be mentioned the non-
observance of the indication by accent of the commencement of
musical phrases. Nevertheless, he was recognised as an artist
of whom the best may be expected as soon as he has heard
more....As in his playing he was like a beautiful young tree
that stands free and full of fragrant blossoms and ripening
fruits, so he manifested as much estimable individuality in
his compositions, where new figures, new passages, new forms
unfolded themselves in the introduction, in the first,
second, and fourth Variations, and in the concluding
metamorphosis of Mozart's theme into a polacca.
Such is the ingenuousness of the young virtuoso that he
undertook to come forward at the close of the concert with a
free fantasia before a public in whose eyes few improvisers,
with the exception of Beethoven and Hummel, have as yet found
favour. If the young man by a manifold change of his themes
aimed especially at amusement, the calm flow of his thoughts
and their firm connection and chaste development were
nevertheless a sufficient proof of his capability as regards
this rare gift. Mr. Chopin gave to-day so much pleasure to a
small audience that one cannot help wishing he may at another
performance play before a larger one....
Although the critic of the Wiener Theaterzeitung is more succinct in
his report (September 1, 1829) of the second concert, he is not less
complimentary. Chopin as a composer as well as an executant justified on
this occasion the opinion previously expressed about him.
He is a young man who goes his own way, and knows how to
please in this way, although his style of playing and writing
differs greatly from that of other virtuosos; and, indeed
chiefly in this, that the desire to make good music
predominates noticeably in his case over the desire to
please. Also to-day Mr. Chopin gave general satisfaction.
These expressions of praise are so enthusiastic that a suspicion might
possibly arise as to their trustworthiness. But this is not the only
laudatory account to be found in the Vienna papers. Der Sammler, for
instance, remarked: "In Mr. Chopin we made the acquaintance of one of
the most excellent pianists, full of delicacy and deepest feeling."
The Wiener Zeitschrift fur Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode, too, had
appreciative notices of the concerts.
He executes the greatest difficulties with accuracy and
precision, and renders all passages with neatness. The
tribute of applause which the public paid to this clever
artist was very great; the concert-piece with orchestra (the
Variations) especially pleased.
This was written after the first concert, and printed on August 22,
1829. From the criticism on the second concert, which appeared in the
same paper a week later (August 29), I cull the following sentences:--
Chopin performed a new Rondo for pianoforte and orchestra of
his own composition. This piece is written throughout in the
chromatic style, rarely rises to geniality, but has passages
which are distinguished by depth and thoughtful working-out.
On the whole, however, he seems to be somewhat lacking in
variety. The master showed in it his dexterity as a pianist
to perfection, and conquered the greatest difficulties with
felicity. A longer stay in Vienna might be to the advantage
of his touch as well as of his ensemble playing with the
orchestra. He received much applause, and was repeatedly
called back....At the close Mr. Chopin played to-day the
Variations on a theme of Mozart's, which he had already
performed with so much bravura and felicity at his first
concert. The pleasing and yet substantial variety of this
composition as well as the fine, successful playing obtained
also to-day loud applause for the pianist. Connoisseurs and
amateurs manifested joyously and loudly their recognition of
his clever playing. This young man...shows in his
compositions a serious striving to interweave by interesting
combinations the orchestra with the pianoforte.
In conclusion, let me quote one other journal, this time a purely
musical one--namely, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (No. 46,
November 18, 1829). The notice, probably written by that debauched
genius F.A. Kanne, runs thus:--
Mr. Chopin, a pianist from Warsaw, according to report a
pupil of Wurfel's [which report was of course baseless], came
before us a master of the first rank. The exquisite delicacy
of his touch, his indescribable mechanical dexterity, his
finished shading and portamento, which reflect the deepest
feeling; the lucidity of his interpretation, and his
compositions, which bear the stamp of great genius--
variazioni di bravura, rondo, free fantasia--reveal a
virtuoso most liberally endowed by nature, who, without
previous blasts of trumpets, appears on the horizon like one
of the most brilliant meteors.
Still, the sweets of success were not altogether without some admixture
of bitterness, as we may perceive from the following remarks of
Chopin's:--
I know that I have pleased the ladies and the musicians.
Gyrowetz, who sat beside Celinski, made a terrible noise, and
shouted "Bravo." Only the out-and-out Germans seem not to
have been quite satisfied.
And this, after having a few days before attributed the applause to
the Germans, who "could appreciate improvisations." Tantae animis
coelestibus irae? But what was the reason of this indignation?
Simply this: a gentleman, who after the second concert came into the
coffee-room of the hotel where Chopin was staying, on being asked by
some of the guests how he liked the performance, answered laconically,
"the ballet was very pretty"; and, although they put some further
questions, he would say no more, having no doubt noticed a certain
person. And hinc illae lacrimae. Our sensitive friend was indeed so much
ruffled at this that he left the room in a pet and went to bed, so
as not to hinder, as he explains, the outpouring of the gentleman's
feelings. The principal stricture passed on the virtuoso was that he
played too softly, or, rather, too delicately. Chopin himself says that
on that point all were unanimous. But the touchy artist, in true artist
fashion-- or shall we be quite just and say "in true human fashion"?
adds:--
They are accustomed to the drumming of the native pianoforte
virtuosos. I fear that the newspapers will reproach me with
the same thing, especially as the daughter of an editor is
said to drum frightfully. However, it does not matter; as
this cannot be helped, I would rather that people say I play
too delicately than too roughly.
When Count Moritz Lichnowski, to whom Chopin was introduced by Wurfel,
learned after the first concert that the young virtuoso was going to
play again, he offered to lend him his own piano for the occasion, for
he thought Chopin's feebleness of tone was owing to the instrument he
had used. But Chopin knew perfectly the real state of the matter: "This
is my manner of playing, which pleases the ladies so very much." Chopin
was already then, and remained all his life, nay, even became more and
more, the ladies' pianist par excellence. By which, however, I do not
mean that he did not please the men, but only that no other pianist was
equally successful in touching the most tender and intimate chords of
the female heart. Indeed, a high degree of refinement in thought and
feeling combined with a poetic disposition are indispensable requisites
for an adequate appreciation of Chopin's compositions and style of
playing. His remark, therefore, that he had captivated the learned and
the poetic natures, was no doubt strictly correct with regard to
his success in Vienna; but at the same time it may be accepted as a
significant foreshadowing of his whole artistic career. Enough has now
been said of these performances, and, indeed, too much, were it not that
to ascertain the stage of development reached by an original master,
and the effect which his efforts produced on his artistically-cultivated
contemporaries, are objects not undeserving a few pages of discussion.
During the twenty days which Chopin spent in Vienna he displayed great
activity. He was always busy, and had not a moment to spare. His own
public performances did not make him neglect those of others. He heard
the violinist Mayseder twice, and went to representations of Boieldieu's
"La Dame blanche," Rossini's "Cenerentola," Meyerbeer's "Crociato in
Egitto," and other operas. He also visited the picture gallery and
the museum of antiquities, delivered letters of introduction, made
acquaintances, dined and drank tea with counts and countesses, &c.
Wherever Chopin goes we are sure to see him soon in aristocratic and in
Polish society.
Everybody says that I have pleased the nobility here
exceedingly The Schwarzenbergs, Wrbnas, &c., were quite
enraptured by the delicacy and elegance of my playing. As a
further proof I may mention the visit which Count
Dietrichstein paid me on the stage.
Chopin called repeatedly on the "worthy old gentleman" Count
Hussarzewski and his "worthy lady," with whom he dined once, and who
wished him to stay for dinner when he made his farewell call. With the
Countess Lichnowska and her daughter he took tea two days after the
first concert. They were inexpressibly delighted to hear that he was
going to give a second, asked him to visit them on his way through
Vienna to Paris, and promised him a letter of introduction to a sister
of the Count's. This Count Lichnowski was Count Moritz Lichnowski, the
friend of Beethoven, to whom the great master dedicated the Variations,
Op. 35, and the Sonata, Op. 90, in which are depicted the woes and
joys of the Count's love for the singer Mdlle. Strammer, who afterwards
became his wife, and, in fact, was the Countess Lichnowska with whom
Chopin became acquainted.
[Footnote: Count Moritz Lichnowski must not be confounded with his elder
brother Prince Carl Lichnowski, the pupil and friend of Mozart, and the
friend and patron of Beethoven, to whom the latter dedicated his Op. 1,
and who died in 1814.]
Among the letters of introduction which Chopin brought with him
there was also one for Schuppanzigh, whose name is in musical history
indissolubly connected with those of Beethoven and Lichnowski. The
eminent quartet leader, although his quartet evenings were over, held
out to Chopin hopes of getting up another during his visitor's stay in
Vienna--he would do so, he said, if possible. To no one, however, either
professional or amateur, was Chopin so much indebted for guidance and
furtherance as to his old obliging friend Wurfel, who introduced him not
only to Count Gallenberg, Count Lichnowski, and Capellmeister Seyfried,
but to every one of his acquaintances who either was a man of influence
or took an interest in musical matters. Musicians whose personal
acquaintance Chopin said he was glad to make were: Gyrowetz, the author
of the concerto with which little Frederick made his debut in Warsaw at
the age of nine, an estimable artist, as already stated, who had the sad
misfortune to outlive his popularity; Capellmeister Seyfried, a prolific
but qualitatively poor composer, best known to our generation as the
editor of Albrechtsberger's theoretical works and Beethoven's studies;
Conradin Kreutzer, who had already distinguished himself as a virtuoso
on the clarinet and pianoforte, and as a conductor and composer, but had
not yet produced his "Nachtlager"; Franz Lachner, the friend of Franz
Schubert, then a young active conductor and rising composer, now one
of the most honoured veterans of his art. With Schuppanzigh's pupil
Mayseder, the prince of the Viennese violinists of that day, and indeed
one of the neatest, most graceful, and elegant, although somewhat cold,
players of his instrument, Chopin had a long conversation. The only
critical comments to be found in Chopin's letters on the musicians he
came in contact with in the Austrian capital refer to Czerny, with whom
he got well acquainted and often played duets for two pianos. Of him the
young Polish musician said, "He is a good man, but nothing more." And
after having bidden him farewell, he says, "Czerny was warmer than
all his compositions." However, it must not be supposed that Chopin's
musical acquaintances were confined to the male sex; among them there
was at least one belonging to the better and fairer half of humanity--a
pianist-composer, a maiden still in her teens, and clever and pretty
to boot, who reciprocated the interest he took in her. According to our
friend's rather conceited statement I ought to have said--but it would
have been very ungallant to do so--he reciprocated the interest she took
in him. The reader has no doubt already guessed that I am speaking of
Leopoldine Blahetka.
On the whole, Chopin passed his time in Vienna both pleasantly and
profitably, as is well shown by his exclamation on the last day of his
stay: "It goes crescendo with my popularity here, and this gives me much
pleasure." The preceding day Schuppanzigh had said to him that as he
left so soon he ought not to be long in coming back. And when Chopin
replied that he would like to return to perfect himself, the by-standers
told him he need not come for that purpose as he had no longer
anything to learn. Although the young musician remarks that these were
compliments, he cannot help confessing that he likes to hear them; and
of course one who likes to hear them does not wholly disbelieve them,
but considers them something more than a mere flatus vocis. "Nobody
here," Chopin writes exultingly, "will regard me as a pupil." Indeed,
such was the reception he met with that it took him by surprise. "People
wonder at me," he remarked soon after his arrival in Vienna, "and I
wonder at them for wondering at me." It was incomprehensible to him that
the artists and amateurs of the famous musical city should consider it a
loss if he departed without giving a concert. The unexpected compliments
and applause that everywhere fell upon his ear, together with the many
events, experiences, and thoughts that came crowding upon him, would
have caused giddiness in any young artist; Chopin they made drunk with
excitement and pleasure. The day after the second concert he writes
home: "I really intended to have written about something else, but I
can't get yesterday out of my head." His head was indeed brimful, or
rather full to overflowing, of whirling memories and expectations which
he poured into the news--budgets destined for his parents, regardless
of logical sequence, just as they came uppermost. The clear, succinct
accounts of his visit which he gives to his friend Titus after his
return to Warsaw contrast curiously with the confused interminable
letters of shreds and patches he writes from Vienna. These latter,
however, have a value of their own; they present one with a striking
picture of the state of his mind at that time. The reader may consider
this part of the biography as an annotated digest of Chopin's letters,
of those addressed to his parents as well as of those to his friend
Woyciechowski.
At last came the 19th of August, the day of our travelling-party's
departure. Chopin passed the whole forenoon in making valedictory
visits, and when in the afternoon he had done packing and writing, he
called once more on Haslinger--who promised to publish the Variations in
about five weeks--and then went to the cafe opposite the theatre, where
he was to meet Gyrowetz, Lachner, Kreutzer, and others. The rest shall
be told in Chopin's own words:--
After a touching parting--it was really a touching parting
when Miss Blahetka gave me as a souvenir her compositions
bearing her own signature, and her father sent his
compliments to you [Chopin's father] and dear mother,
congratulating you on having such a son; when young Stein
[one of the well-known family of pianoforte-manufacturers and
musicians] wept, and Schuppanzigh, Gyrowetz, in one word, all
the other artists, were much moved--well then, after this
touching parting and having promised to return soon, I
stepped into the stage-coach.
This was at nine o'clock in the evening, and Chopin and his
fellow-travellers, accompanied for half-an-hour by Nidecki and some
other Poles, leaving behind Vienna and Vienna friends, proceeded on
their way to Bohemia.
Prague was reached by our travellers on August 21. The interesting old
town did not display its beauties in vain, for Chopin writes admiringly
of the fine views from the castle hill, of the castle itself, of "the
majestic cathedral with a silver statue of St. John, the beautiful
chapel of St. Wenceslas, inlaid with amethysts and other precious
stones," and promises to give a fuller and more detailed description of
what he has seen by word of mouth. His friend Maciejowski had a
letter of introduction to Waclaw Hanka, the celebrated philologist and
librarian of the National Museum, to whom Chopin introduced himself as
the godson of Count Skarbek. On visiting the museum they were asked,
like all on whom the librarian bestowed his special attention, to write
their names in the visitors' book. Maciejowski wrote also four mazurka
strophes eulogising Hanka's scientific achievements, and Chopin set
them to music. The latter brought with him from Vienna six letters
of introduction--one from Blahetka and five from Wurfel--which were
respectively addressed to Pixis, to the manager of the theatre, and to
other musical big-wigs. The distinguished violin-virtuoso, professor
at the Conservatorium, and conductor at the theatre, Frederick Pixis
(1786--1842), received Chopin very kindly, gave up some lessons that he
might keep him longer and talk with him, and invited him to come again
in the afternoon, when he would meet August Alexander Klengel, of
Dresden, whose card Chopin had noticed on the table. For this esteemed
pianist and famous contrapuntist he had also a letter of introduction,
and he was glad to meet him in Prague, as he otherwise would have missed
seeing him, Klengel being on his way to Vienna and Italy. They made each
other's acquaintance on the stairs leading to Pixis' apartments.
I heard him play his fugues for two hours; I did not play, as
they did not ask me to do so. Klengel's rendering pleased me,
but I must confess I had expected something better (but I beg
of you not to mention this remark of mine to others).
Elsewhere he writes:--
Of all the artists whose acquaintance I have made, Klengel
pleased me most. He played me his fugues (one may say that
they are a continuation of those of Bach. There are forty-
eight of them, and the same number of canons). What a
difference between him and Czerny!
Klengel's opus magnum, the "Canons et Fugues dans tons les tons majeurs
et mineurs pour le piano, en deux parties," did not appear till 1854,
two years after his death, although it had been completed some decades
previously. He carried it about with him on all his travels, unceasingly
improving and perfecting it, and may be said to have worked at it for
the space of half his life. The two artists who met at Pixis' house
got on well together, unlike as they were in their characters and aims.
Chopin called on Klengel before the latter's departure from Prague, and
spent two hours with him in conversation, neither of them being for
a moment at a loss for material to talk about. Klengel gave Chopin
a letter of introduction to Morlacchi, the address of which ran: Al
ornatissimo Signore Cavaliere Morlacchi, primo maestro della capella
Reale, and in which he asked this gentleman to make the bearer
acquainted with the musical life of Dresden. How favourably Klengel
had impressed his younger brother in art may be gathered from the
above-quoted and the following remarks: "He was to me a very agreeable
acquaintance, whom I esteem more highly than Czerny, but of this also
don't speak, my beloved ones."
[FOOTNOTE: Their disparity of character would have revealed itself
unpleasantly to both parties if the grand seigneur Chopin had,
like Moritz Hauptmann, been the travelling-companion of the meanly
parsimonious Klengel, who to save a few bajocchi left the hotels with
uncleaned boots, and calculated the worth of the few things he cared
for by scudi.--See Moritz Hauptmann's account of his "canonic"
travelling-companion's ways and procedures in the letters to Franz
Hauser, vol. i., p. 64, and passim.]
The reader will no doubt notice and admire the caution of our young
friend. Remembering that not even Paganini had escaped being censured in
Prague, Chopin felt no inclination to give a concert, as he was advised
to do. A letter in which he describes his Prague experiences reveals to
us one of his weaknesses--one, however, which he has in common with many
men of genius. A propos of his bursting into a wrong bedroom he says: "I
am absent-minded, you know."
After three pleasant days at Prague the quatrefoil of friends betook
themselves again to the road, and wended their way to Teplitz, where
they arrived the same evening, and stopped two nights and one day. Here
they fell in with many Poles, by one of whom, Louis Lempicki, Chopin was
introduced to Prince Clary and his family, in whose castle he spent an
evening in very aristocratic society. Among the guests were an Austrian
prince, an Austrian and a Saxon general, a captain of the English navy,
and several dandies whom Chopin suspected to be Austrian princes or
counts. After tea he was asked by the mother of the Princess Clary,
Countess Chotek, to play something. Chopin at once went to the piano,
and invited those present to give him a theme to improvise upon.
Hereupon [he relates] I heard the ladies, who had taken seats
near a table, whisper to each other: "Un theme, un theme."
Three young princesses consulted together and at last turned
to Mr. Fritsche, the tutor of Prince Clary's only son, who,
with the approbation of all present, said to me: "The
principal theme of Rossini's 'Moses'." I improvised, and, it
appears, very successfully, for General Leiser [this was the
Saxon general] afterwards conversed with me for a long time,
and when he heard that I intended to go to Dresden he wrote
at once to Baron von Friesen as follows: "Monsieur Frederic
Chopin est recommande de la part du General Leiser a Monsieur
le Baron de Friesen, Maitre de Ceremonie de S.M. le Roi de
Saxe, pour lui etre utile pendant son sejour a Dresde et de
lui procurer la connaissance de plusieurs de nos artistes."
And he added, in German: "Herr Chopin is himself one of the
most excellent pianists whom I know."
In short, Chopin was made much of; had to play four times, received an
invitation to dine at the castle the following day, &c., &c. That our
friend, in spite of all these charming prospects, leaving behind
him three lovely princesses, and who knows what other aristocratic
amenities, rolled off the very next morning at five o'clock in a vehicle
hired at the low price of two thalers--i.e., six shillings--must be
called either a feat of superhuman heroism or an instance of barbarous
insensibility--let the reader decide which. Chopin's visit to Teplitz
was not part of his original plan, but the state of his finances was
so good that he could allow himself some extravagances. Everything
delighted him at Teplitz, and, short as his stay was, he did the
sight-seeing thoroughly--we have his own word for it that he saw
everything worth seeing, among the rest Dux, the castle of the
Waldsteins, with relics of their ancestor Albrecht Waldstein, or
Wallenstein.
Leaving Teplitz on the morning of August 26, he arrived in the evening
of the same day in Dresden in good health and good humour. About this
visit to Dresden little is to be said. Chopin had no intention of
playing in public, and did nothing but look about him, admiring nature
in Saxon Switzerland, and art in the "magnificent" gallery. He went to
the theatre where Goethe's Faust (the first part), adapted by Tieck, was
for the first time produced on the stage, Carl Devrient impersonating
the principal part. "An awful but grand imagination! In the entr'actes
portions from Spohr's opera "Faust" were performed. They celebrated
today Goethe's eightieth birthday." It must be admitted that the
master-work is dealt with rather laconically, but Chopin never indulges
in long aesthetical discussions. On the following Saturday Meyerbeer's
"Il Crociato" was to be performed by the Italian Opera--for at that time
there was still an Italian Opera in Dresden. Chopin, however, did not
stay long enough to hear it, nor did he very much regret missing it,
having heard the work already in Vienna. Although Baron von Friesen
received our friend most politely, he seems to have been of no
assistance to him. Chopin fared better with his letter of introduction
to Capellmeister Morlacchi, who returned the visit paid him and made
himself serviceable. And now mark this touch of boyish vanity: "Tomorrow
morning I expect Morlacchi, and I shall go with him to Miss Pechwell's.
That is to say, I do not go to him, but he comes to me. Yes, yes,
yes!" Miss Pechwell was a pupil of Klengel's, and the latter had asked
Morlacchi to introduce Chopin to her. She seems to have been not only a
technically skilful, fine-feeling, and thoughtful musician, but also in
other respects a highly-cultivated person. Klengel called her the best
pianist in Dresden. She died young, at the age of 35, having some time
previously changed her maiden name for that of Madame Pesadori. We shall
meet her again in the course of this biography.
Of the rest of Chopin's journey nothing is known except that it led him
to Breslau, but when he reached and left it, and what he did there,
are open questions, and not worth troubling about. So much, however, is
certain, that on September 12, 1829, he was settled again in his native
city, as is proved by a letter bearing that date.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WORKS OF CHOPIN'S FIRST PERIOD.
The only works of Chopin we have as yet discussed are--if we leave out
of account the compositions which the master neither published himself
nor wished to be published by anybody else--the "Premier Rondeau," Op.
1, the "Rondeau a la Mazur," Op. 5, and "Variations sur un air allemand"
(see Chapter III). We must retrace our steps as far back as 1827, and
briefly survey the composer's achievements up to the spring of 1829,
when a new element enters into his life and influences his artistic
work. It will be best to begin with a chronological enumeration of those
of Chopin's compositions of the time indicated that have come down to
us. In 1827 came into existence or were finished: a Mazurka (Op. 68, No.
2), a Polonaise (Op. 71, No. 1), and a Nocturne (Op. 72); in 1828, "La
ci darem la mano, varie" for piano and orchestra (Op. 2), a Polonaise
(Op. 71, No. 2), a Rondo for two pianos (Op. 73), a Sonata (Op. 4), a
Fantasia on Polish airs for piano and orchestra (Op. 13), a Krakowiak,
"Grand Rondeau de Concert," likewise for piano and orchestra (Op.
14), and a Trio for piano, violin, and violoncello (Op. 8); in 1829, a
Polonaise (Op. 71, No. 3), a Waltz (Op. 69, No. 2), another Waltz (in E
major, without opus number), and a Funeral March (Op. 726). I will
not too confidently assert that every one of the last four works was
composed in the spring or early summer of 1829; but whether they were or
were not, they may be properly ranged with those previously mentioned
of 1827 and 1828. The works that bear a higher opus number than 65 were
published after the composer's death by Fontana. The Waltz without opus
number and the Sonata, Op. 4, are likewise posthumous publications.
The works enumerated above may be divided into three groups, the first
of which comprises the Sonata, the Trio, and the Rondo for two pianos.
The Sonata (in C minor) for piano, Op. 4, of which Chopin wrote as early
as September 9, 1828, that it had been for some time in the hands of
Haslinger at Vienna, was kept by this publisher in manuscript till after
the composer's death, being published only in July, 1851. "As a pupil
of his I dedicated it to Elsner," says Chopin. It is indeed a pupil's
work--an exercise, and not a very successful one. The exigencies of the
form overburdened the composer and crushed all individuality out of him.
Nowhere is Chopin so little himself, we may even say so unlike himself.
The distribution of keys and the character of the themes show that the
importance of contrast in the construction of larger works was
still unsuspected by him. The two middle movements, a Menuetto and a
Larghetto--although in the latter the self-imposed fetters of the 5-4
time prevent the composer from feeling quite at his ease--are more
attractive than the rest. In them are discernible an approach to freedom
and something like a breath of life, whereas in the first and the last
movement there is almost nothing but painful labour and dull monotony.
The most curious thing, however, about this work is the lumbering
passage-writing of our graceful, light-winged Chopin.
Infinitely superior to the Sonata is the Trio for piano, violin, and
violoncello, Op. 8, dedicated to Prince Anton Radziwill, which was
published in March, 1833. It was begun early in 1828, was "not yet
finished" on September 9, and "not yet quite finished" on December 27 of
that year. Chopin tried the first movement in the summer of 1828, and we
may assume that, a few details and improvements excepted, the whole
was completed at the beginning of 1829. A considerable time, however,
elapsed before the composer declared it ready for the press. On August
31, 1830, he writes:--
I tried the Trio last Sunday and was satisfied with it,
perhaps because I had not heard it for a long time. I suppose
you will say, "What a happy man!" Something occurred to me on
hearing it--namely, that it would be better to employ a viola
instead of the violin, for with the violin the E string
dominates most, whilst in my Trio it is hardly ever used. The
viola would stand in a more proper relation to the
violoncello. Then the Trio will be ready for the press.
The composer did not make the intended alteration, and in this he was
well advised. For his remarks betray little insight; what preciousness
they possess they owe for the most part to the scarcity of similar
discussions of craftsmanship in his letters. From the above dates we see
that the composer bestowed much time, care, and thought upon the work.
Indeed, there can be no doubt that as regards conventional handling of
the sonata-form Chopin has in no instance been more successful. Were we
to look upon this work as an exercise, we should have to pronounce it a
most excellent one. But the ideal content, which is always estimable
and often truly beautiful as well as original, raises it high above the
status of an exercise. The fundamental fault of the Trio lies in this,
that the composer tried to fill a given form with ideas, and to some
extent failed to do so--the working-out sections especially testify to
the correctness of this opinion. That the notion of regarding form as
a vessel--a notion oftener acted upon than openly professed--is a
mischievous one will hardly be denied, and if it were denied, we could
not here discuss so wide a question as that of "What is form?" The
comparatively ineffective treatment of the violin and violoncello also
lays the composer open to censure. Notwithstanding its weaknesses
the work was received with favour by the critics, the most pronounced
conservatives not excepted. That the latter gave more praise to it than
to Chopin's previously-published compositions is a significant fact, and
may be easily accounted for by the less vigorous originality and less
exclusive individuality of the Trio, which, although superior in these
respects to the Sonata, Op. 4, does not equal the composer's works
written in simpler forms. Even the most hostile of Chopin's critics,
Rellstab, the editor of the Berlin musical journal Iris, admits--after
censuring the composer's excessive striving after originality, and the
unnecessarily difficult pianoforte passages with their progressions of
intervals alike repellent to hand and ear--that this is "on the whole
a praiseworthy work, which, in spite of some excursions into deviating
bye-paths, strikes out in a better direction than the usual productions
of the modern composers" (1833, No. 21). The editor of the Leipzig
"Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung," a journal which Schumann
characterises as "a sleepy place," is as eulogistic as the most rabid
Chopin admirer could wish. Having spoken of the "talented young man"
as being on the one hand under the influence of Field, and on the other
under that of Beethoven, he remarks:--
In the Trio everything is new: the school, which is the neo-
romantic; the art of pianoforte-playing, the individuality,
the originality, or rather the genius--which, in the
expression of a passion, unites, mingles, and alternates so
strangely with that amiable tenderness [Innigkeit] that the
shifting image of the passion hardly leaves the draughtsman
time to seize it firmly and securely, as he would fain do;
even the position of the phrases is unusual. All this,
however, would be ambiguous praise did not the spirit, which
is both old and new, breathe through the new form and give it
a soul.
I place these criticisms before the reader as historical documents, not
as final decisions and examples of judicial wisdom. In fact, I accept
neither the strictures of the one nor the sublimifications of the other,
although the confident self-assertion of the former and the mystic
vagueness of the latter ought, according to use and wont, to carry
the weight of authority with them. Schumann, the Chopin champion par
excellence, saw clearer, and, writing three years later (1836), said
that the Trio belonged to Chopin's earlier period when the composer
still allowed the virtuoso some privileges. Although I cannot go so far
as this too admiring and too indulgent critic, and describe the work as
being "as noble as possible, more full of enthusiasm than the work
of any other poet [so schwarmerisch wie noch kein Dichter gesungen],
original in its smallest details, and, as a whole, every note music and
life," I think that it has enough of nobility, enthusiasm, originality,
music, and life, to deserve more attention than it has hitherto
obtained.
Few classifications can at one and the same time lay claim to
the highest possible degree of convenience--the raison d'etre of
classifications--and strict accuracy. The third item of my first group,
for instance, might more properly be said to stand somewhere between
this and the second group, partaking somewhat of the nature of both. The
Rondo, Op. 73, was not originally written for two pianos. Chopin wrote
on September 9, 1828, that he had thus rearranged it during a stay at
Strzyzewo in the summer of that year. At that time he was pretty well
pleased with the piece, and a month afterwards talked of playing it with
his friend Fontana at the Ressource. Subsequently he must have changed
his opinion, for the Rondo did not become known to the world at large
till it was published posthumously. Granting certain prettinesses, an
unusual dash and vigour, and some points of interest in the working-out,
there remains the fact that the stunted melodies signify little and the
too luxuriant passage-work signifies less, neither the former nor the
latter possessing much of the charm that distinguishes them in the
composer's later works. The original in this piece is confined to the
passage-work, and has not yet got out of the rudimentary stage. Hence,
although the Rondo may not be unworthy of finding occasionally a place
in a programme of a social gathering with musical accompaniments and
even of a non-classical concert, it will disappoint those who come to it
with their expectations raised by Chopin's chefs-d'oeuvre, where all is
poetry and exquisiteness of style.
The second group contains Chopin's concert-pieces, all of which have
orchestral accompaniments. They are: (1) "La ci darem la mano, varie
pour le piano," Op. 2; (2) "Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais," Op.
13; (3) "Krakowiak, Grande Rondeau de Concert," Op. 14. Of these three
the first, which is dedicated to Titus Woyciechowski, has become the
most famous, not, however, on account of its greater intrinsic value,
but partly because the orchestral accompaniments can be most easily
dispensed with, and more especially because Schumann has immortalised
it by--what shall I call it?--a poetic prose rhapsody. As previously
stated, the work had already in September, 1828, been for some time at
Vienna in the hands of Haslinger; it was probably commenced as far
back as 1827, but it did not appear in print till 1830. [FOOTNOTE: It
appeared in a serial publication entitled Odeon, which was described
on the title-page as: Ausgewahlte grosse Concertstucke fur verschiedene
Instrumente (Selected Grand Concert-Pieces for different instruments).]
On April 10 of that year Chopin writes that he expects it impatiently.
The appearance of these Variations, the first work of Chopin published
outside his own country, created a sensation. Of the impression which
he produced with it on the Viennese in 1829 enough has been said in the
preceding chapter. The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung received no less
than three reviews of it, two of them--that of Schumann and one by "an
old musician"--were accepted and inserted in the same number of the
paper (1831, Vol. xxxiii., No. 49); the third, by Friedrich Wieck,
which was rejected, found its way in the following year into the musical
journal Caecilia. Schumann's enthusiastic effusion was a prophecy rather
than a criticism. But although we may fail to distinguish in Chopin's
composition the flirting of the grandee Don Juan with the peasant-girl
Zerlina, the curses of the duped lover Masetto, and the jeers and
laughter of the knavish attendant Leporello, which Schumann thought
he recognised, we all obey most readily and reverently his injunction,
"Hats off, gentlemen: a genius!" In these words lies, indeed, the merit
of Schumann's review as a criticism. Wieck felt and expressed nearly
the same, only he felt it less passionately and expressed it in the
customary critical style. The "old musician," on the other hand, is
pedantically censorious, and the redoubtable Rellstab (in the Iris)
mercilessly condemnatory. Still, these two conservative critics, blinded
as they were by the force of habit to the excellences of the rising
star, saw what their progressive brethren overlooked in the ardour
of their admiration--namely, the super-abundance of ornament and
figuration. There is a grain of truth in the rather strong statement
of Rellstab that the composer "runs down the theme with roulades, and
throttles and hangs it with chains of shakes." What, however, Rellstab
and the "old musician"--for he, too, exclaims, "nothing but bravura and
figuration!"--did not see, but what must be patent to every candid and
unprejudiced observer, are the originality, piquancy, and grace of these
fioriture, roulades, &c., which, indeed, are unlike anything that
was ever heard or seen before Chopin's time. I say "seen," for the
configurations in the notation of this piece are so different from those
of the works of any other composer that even an unmusical person could
distinguish them from all the rest; and there is none of the timid
groping, the awkward stumbling of the tyro. On the contrary, the
composer presents himself with an ease and boldness which cannot but
command admiration. The reader will remember what the Viennese critic
said about Chopin's "aim"; that it was not to dazzle by the superficial
means of the virtuoso, but to impress by the more legitimate ones of the
genuine musician. This is true if we compare the Chopin of that day with
his fellow-virtuosos Kalkbrenner, Herz, &c.; but if we compare him with
his later self, or with Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, &c.,
the case is different. Indeed, there can be no doubt but that in
this and the other pieces of this group, Chopin's aim was that of the
virtuoso, only his nature was too rich, too noble, to sink into the
inanity of an insipid, conventional brilliancy. Moreover, whilst
maintaining that in the works specified language outruns in youthful
exuberance thought and emotion, I hasten to add that there are
premonitory signs--for instance, in the Op. 2 under discussion, more
especially in the introduction, the fifth variation, and the Finale--of
what as yet lies latent in the master's undeveloped creative power.
The Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais (A major) for the pianoforte
and orchestra, Op. 13, dedicated to J. P. Pixis, and published in April,
1834, and the Krakowiak, Grand Rondeau de Concert (F major) for the
pianoforte and orchestra, Op. 14, dedicated to the Princesse Adam
Czartoryska, and published in June, 1834, are the most overtly Polish
works of Chopin. Of the composition of the former, which, according
to Karasowski, was sketched in 1828, the composer's letters give no
information; but they contain some remarks concerning the latter. We
learn that the score of the Krakowiak was finished by December 27, 1828,
and find the introduction described as having "as funny an appearance
as himself in his pilot-cloth overcoat." In the Fantasia the composer
introduces and variates a Polish popular song (Juz miesiac zaszedl), and
an air by the Polish composer Kurpinski, and concludes with a Kujawiak,
a dance of the mazurka species, in 3-4 time, which derives its name from
the district called Kujawia. In connection with this composition I must
not omit to mention that the first variation on the Polish popular song
contains the germ of the charming Berceuse (Op. 57). The Rondo, Op. 14,
has the character of a Krakowiak, a dance in 2-4 time which originated
in Cracovia. In no other compositions of the master do the national
elements show themselves in the same degree of crudity; indeed, after
this he never incorporates national airs and imitates so closely
national dances. Chopin remains a true Pole to the end of his days, and
his love of and attachment to everything Polish increase with the
time of absence from his native country. But as the composer grows
in maturity, he subjects the raw material to a more and more thorough
process of refinement and development before he considers it fit for
artistic purposes; the popular dances are spiritualised, the national
characteristics and their corresponding musical idioms are subtilised
and individualised. I do not agree with those critics who think it is
owing to the strongly-marked, exclusive Polish national character that
these two works have gained so little sympathy in the musical world;
there are artistic reasons that account for the neglect, which is indeed
so great that I do not remember having heard or read of any virtuoso
performing either of these pieces in public till a few years ago, when
Chopin's talented countrywoman Mdlle. Janotha ventured on a revival
of the Fantasia, without, however, receiving, in spite of her finished
rendering, much encouragement. The works, as wholes, are not altogether
satisfactory in the matter of form, and appear somewhat patchy. This is
especially the case in the Fantasia, where the connection of parts is
anything but masterly. Then the arabesk-element predominates again quite
unduly. Rellstab discusses the Fantasia with his usual obtuseness, but
points out correctly that Chopin gives only here and there a few bars of
melody, and never a longer melodic strain. The best parts of the works,
those that contain the greatest amount of music, are certainly the
exceedingly spirited Kujawiak and Krakowiak. The unrestrained merriment
that reigns in the latter justifies, or, if it does not justify,
disposes us to forgive much. Indeed, the Rondo may be said to overflow
with joyousness; now the notes run at random hither and thither, now
tumble about head over heels, now surge in bold arpeggios, now skip
from octave to octave, now trip along in chromatics, now vent their
gamesomeness in the most extravagant capers.
The orchestral accompaniments, which in the Variations, Op. 2, are of
very little account, show in every one of the three works of this group
an inaptitude in writing for any other instrument than the piano that is
quite surprising considering the great musical endowments of Chopin in
other respects. I shall not dwell on this subject now, as we shall have
to consider it when we come to the composer's concertos.
The fundamental characteristics of Chopin's style--the loose-textured,
wide-meshed chords and arpeggios, the serpentine movements, the
bold leaps--are exaggerated in the works of this group, and in their
exaggeration become grotesque, and not unfrequently ineffective. These
works show us, indeed, the composer's style in a state of fermentation;
it has still to pass through a clearing process, in which some of its
elements will be secreted and others undergo a greater or less
change. We, who judge Chopin by his best works, are apt to condemn too
precipitately the adverse critics of his early compositions. But the
consideration of the luxuriance and extravagance of the passage-work
which distinguish them from the master's maturer creations ought to
caution us and moderate our wrath. Nay more, it may even lead us to
acknowledge, however reluctantly, that amidst the loud braying of
Rellstab there occurred occasionally utterances that were by no means
devoid of articulation and sense. Take, for instance, this--I do
not remember just now a propos of which composition, but it is very
appropriate to those we are now discussing:--"The whole striving of the
composer must be regarded as an aberration, based on decided talent,
we admit, but nevertheless an aberration." You see the most hostile of
Chopin's critics does not deny his talent; indeed, Rellstab sometimes,
especially subsequently, speaks quite patronisingly about him. I shall
take this opportunity to contradict the current notion that Chopin had
just cause to complain of backwardness in the recognition of his genius,
and even of malicious attacks on his rising reputation. The truth of
this is already partly disproved by the foregoing, and it will be fully
so by the sequel.
The pieces which I have formed into a third group show us the composer
free from the fetters that ambition and other preoccupations impose.
Besides Chopin's peculiar handling we find in them more of his
peculiar sentiment. If the works of the first group were interesting as
illustrating the development of the student, those of the second group
that of the virtuoso, and those of both that of the craftsman, the works
of the third group furnish us most valuable documents for the history of
the man and poet. The foremost in importance of the pieces comprised in
this group are no doubt the three polonaises, composed respectively
in the years 1827, 1828, and 1829. The bravura character is still
prominent, but, instead of ruling supreme, it becomes in every
successive work more and more subordinate to thought and emotion. These
polonaises, although thoroughly Chopinesque, nevertheless differ
very much from his later ones, those published by himself, which are
generally more compact and fuller of poetry. Moreover, I imagine I can
see in several passages the influence of Weber, whose Polonaise in E
flat minor, Polacca in E major, Sonata in A flat major, and Invitation
a la Valse (to mention a few apposite instances), respectively published
in 1810, 1819, 1816, and 1821, may be supposed to have been known to
Chopin. These reminiscences, if such they are, do not detract much from
the originality of the compositions; indeed, that a youth of eighteen
should have attained such a strongly-developed individuality as the D
minor Polonaise exhibits, is truly wonderful.
The Nocturne of the year 1827 (Op. 72, No. 1, E minor) is probably the
poorest of the early compositions, but excites one's curiosity as the
first specimen of the kind by the incomparable composer of nocturnes. Do
not misunderstand me, however, and imagine that I wish to exalt Chopin
at the expense of another great musician. Field has the glory not only
of having originated the genre, but also of having produced examples
that have as yet lost nothing, or very little, of their vitality. His
nocturnes are, indeed, a rich treasure, which, undeservedly neglected
by the present generation, cannot be superseded by those of his
illustrious, and now favoured successor. On the other hand, although
Field's priority and influence on Chopin must be admitted, the
unprejudiced cannot but perceive that the latter is no imitator. Even
where, as for instance in Op. 9, Nos. 1 and 2, the mejody or the form
of the accompaniment shows a distinct reminiscence of Field, such is
the case only for a few notes, and the next moment Chopin is what nobody
else could be. To watch a great man's growth, to trace a master's noble
achievements from their humble beginnings, has a charm for most minds.
I, therefore, need not fear the reader's displeasure if I direct his
attention to some points, notable on this account--in this case to
the wide-meshed chords and light-winged flights of notes, and the
foreshadowing of the Coda of Op. 9.
Of 1827 we have also a Mazurka in A minor, Op. 68, No. 2. It is simple
and rustic, and at the same time graceful. The trio (poco piu mosso),
the more original portion of the Mazurka, reappears in a slightly
altered form in later mazurkas. It is these foreshadowings of
future beauties, that make these early works so interesting. The
above-mentioned three polonaises are full of phrases, harmonic,
progressions, &c., which are subsequently reutilised in a. purer, more
emphatic, more developed, more epigrammatic, or otherwise more perfect
form. We notice the same in the waltzes which remain yet to be discussed
here.
Whether these Waltzes (in B minor, Op. 69, No. 2; and in E major,
without opus number) were really written in the early part of 1829, or
later on in the year, need not be too curiously inquired into. As I
have already remarked, they may certainly be classed along with the
above-discussed works. The first is the more interesting of them. In
both we meet with passages that point to more perfect specimens of the
kind--for instance, certain rhythmical motives, melodic inflections, and
harmonic progressions, to the familiar Waltzes in E flat major (Op.
18) and in A flat major (Op. 34, No. 1); and the D major portion of the
Waltz in B minor, to the C major part of the Waltz in A minor (Op. 34,
No. 2). This concludes our survey of the compositions of Chopin's first
period.
In the legacy of a less rich man, the Funeral March in C minor, Op. 72b,
composed (according to Fontana) in 1829, [FOOTNOTE: In Breitkopf and
Hartel's Gesammtausgabe of Chopin's works will be found 1826 instead of
1829. This, however, is a misprint, not a correction.]would be a notable
item; in that of Chopin it counts for little. Whatever the shortcomings
of this composition are, the quiet simplicity and sweet melancholy which
pervade it must touch the hearer. But the master stands in his own.
light; the famous Funeral March in B flat minor, from the Sonata in B
flat minor, Op. 35, composed about ten years later, eclipses the more
modest one in C minor. Beside the former, with its sublime force and
fervency of passion and imposing mastery of the resources of the art,
the latter sinks into weak insignificance, indeed, appears a mere
puerility. Let us note in the earlier work the anticipation, (bar 12) of
a motive of the chef-d'ceuvre (bar 7), and reminiscences of the Funeral
March from Beethoven's. Sonata in A flat major, Op. 26.
CHAPTER IX.
CHOPIN'S FIRST LOVE.--FRIENDSHIP WITH TITUS WOYCIECHOWSKI.--LIFE IN
WARSAW AFTER RETURNING FROM VIENNA.--VISIT TO PRINCE RADZIWILL AT
ANTONIN (OCTOBER, 1829).--NEW COMPOSITIONS.--GIVES TWO CONCERTS.
IN the preceding chapter I alluded to a new element that entered into
the life of Chopin and influenced his artistic work. The following
words, addressed by the young composer on October 3, 1829, to his friend
Titus Woyciechowski, will explain what kind of element it was and when
it began to make itself felt:--
Do not imagine that [when I speak of the advantages and
desirability of a stay in Vienua] I am thinking of Miss
Blahetka, of whom I have written to you; I have--perhaps to
my misfortune--already found my ideal, which I worship
faithfully and sincerely. Six months have elapsed, and I have
not yet exchanged a syllable with her of whom I dream every
night. Whilst my thoughts were with her I composed the Adagio
of my Concerto, and early this morning she inspired the Waltz
which I send along with this letter.
The influence of the tender passion on the development of heart and
mind cannot be rated too highly; it is in nine out of ten, if not in
ninety-nine out of a hundred cases that which transforms the rhymer into
a poet, the artificer into an artist. Chopin confesses his indebtedness
to Constantia, Schumann his to Clara. But who could recount all the
happy and hapless loves that have made poets? Countless is the number of
those recorded in histories, biographies, and anecdotes; greater still
the number of those buried in literature and art, the graves whence they
rise again as flowers, matchless in beauty, unfading, and of sweetest
perfume. Love is indeed the sun that by its warmth unfolds the
multitudinous possibilities that lie hidden, often unsuspected, in
the depths of the human soul. It was, then, according to Chopin, about
April, 1829, that the mighty power began to stir within him; and the
correspondence of the following two years shows us most strikingly how
it takes hold of him with an ever-increasing firmness of grasp, and
shakes the whole fabric of his delicate organisation with fearful
violence. The object of Chopin's passion, the being whom he worshipped
and in whom he saw the realisation of his ideal of womanhood, was
Constantia Gladkowska, a pupil at the Warsaw Conservatorium, of whom the
reader will learn more in the course of this and the next chapter.
What reveals perhaps more distinctly than anything else Chopin's
idiosyncrasy is his friendship for Titus Woyciechowski. At any rate, it
is no exaggeration to say that a knowledge of the nature of Chopin's two
passions, his love and his friendship--for this, too, was a passion
with him--gives into our hands a key that unlocks all the secrets of
his character, of his life, and of their outcome--his artistic work. Nay
more, with a full comprehension of, and insight into, these passions
we can foresee the sufferings and disappointments which he is fated to
endure. Chopin's friendship was not a common one; it was truly and in
the highest degree romantic. To the sturdy Briton and gay Frenchman it
must be incomprehensible, and the German of four or five generations ago
would have understood it better than his descendant of to-day is likely
to do. If we look for examples of such friendship in literature, we
find the type nowhere so perfect as in the works of Jean Paul Richter.
Indeed, there are many passages in the letters of the Polish composer
that read like extracts from the German author: they remind us of the
sentimental and other transcendentalisms of Siebenkas, Leibgeber, Walt,
Vult, and others. There was somethine in Chopin's warm, tender, effusive
friendship that may be best characterised by the word "feminine."
Moreover, it was so exacting, or rather so covetous and jealous, that
he had often occasion to chide, gently of course, the less caressing and
enthusiastic Titus. Let me give some instances.
December 27th, 1828.--If I scribble to-day again so much
nonsense, I do so only in order to remind you that you are as
much locked in my heart as ever, and that I am the same Fred
I was. You do not like to be kissed; but to-day you must
permit me to do so.
The question of kissing is frequently brought up.
September 12th, 1829.--I embrace you heartily, and kiss you
on your lips if you will permit me.
October 20th, 1829.--I embrace you heartily--many a one
writes this at the end ol his letter, but most people do so
with little thought of what they are writing. But you may
believe me, my dearest friend, that I do so sincerely, as
truly as my name is Fred.
September 4th, 1830.--Time passes, I must wash myself...do
not kiss me now...but you would not kiss me in any case--even
if I anointed myself with Byzantine oils--unless I forced you
to do so by magnetic means.
Did we not know the writer and the person addressed, one might imagine
that the two next extracts were written by a lover to his mistress or
vice versa.
November 14th, 1829.--You, my dearest one, do not require my
portrait. Believe me I am always with you, and shall not
forget you till the end of my life.
May 15th, 1830.--You have no idea how much I love you! If I
only could prove it to you! What would I not give if I could
once again right heartily embrace you!
One day he expresses the wish that he and his friend should travel
together. But this was too commonplace a sentiment not to be refined
upon. Accordingly we read in a subsequent letter as follows:--
September 18th, 1830.--I should not like to travel with you,
for I look forward with the greatest delight to the moment
when we shall meet abroad and embrace each other; it will be
worth more than a thousand monotonous days passed with you on
the journey.
From another passage in one of these letters we get a good idea of the
influence Titus Woyciechowski exercised on his friend.
April 10, 1830.--Your advice is good. I have already refused
some invitations for the evening, as if I had had a
presentiment of it--for I think of you in almost everything I
undertake. I do not know whether it comes from my having
learned from you how to feel and perceive; but when I compose
anything I should much like to know whether it pleases you;
and I believe that my second Concerto (E minor) will have no
value for me until you have heard it and approved of it.
I quoted the above passage to show how Chopin felt that this friendship
had been a kind of education to him, and how he valued his friend's
opinion of his compositions--he is always anxious to make Titus
acquainted with anything new he may have composed. But in this passage
there is another very characteristic touch, and it may easily be
overlooked, or at least may not receive the attention which it
deserves--I allude to what Chopin says of having had "a presentiment."
In superstitiousness he is a true child of his country, and all the
enlightenment of France did not succeed in weaning him from his belief
in dreams, presentiments, good and evil days, lucky and unlucky numbers,
&c. This is another romantic feature in the character of the composer;
a dangerous one in the pursuit of science, but advantageous rather than
otherwise in the pursuit of art. Later on I shall have to return to
this subject and relate some anecdotes, here I shall confine myself to
quoting a short passage from one of his early letters.
April 17, 1830.--If you are in Warsaw during the sitting of
the Diet, you will come to my concert--I have something like
a presentiment, and when I also dream it, I shall firmly
believe it.
And now, after these introductory explanations, we will begin the
chapter in right earnest by taking up the thread of the story where we
left it. On his return to Warsaw Chopin was kept in a state of mental
excitement by the criticisms on his Vienna performances that appeared
in German papers. He does not weary of telling his friend about them,
transcribing portions of them, and complaining of Polish papers which
had misrepresented the drift and mistranslated the words of them. I do
not wonder at the incorrectness of the Polish reports, for some of these
criticisms are written in as uncouth, confused, and vague German as I
ever had the misfortune to turn into English. One cannot help thinking,
in reading what Chopin says with regard to these matters, that he showed
far too much concern about the utterances of the press, and far too much
sensitiveness under the infliction of even the slightest strictures.
That, however, the young composer was soon engaged on new works may be
gathered from the passage (Oct. 3, 1829), quoted at the commencement
of this chapter, in which he speaks of the Adagio of a concerto, and
a waltz, written whilst his thoughts were with his ideal. These
compositions were the second movement of the F minor Concerto and the
Waltz, Op. 70, No. 3. But more of this when we come to discuss the works
which Chopin produced in the years 1829 and 1830.
One of the most important of the items which made up our friend's
musical life at this time was the weekly musical meetings at the house
of Kessler, the pianist-composer characterised in Chapter X. There all
the best artists of Warsaw assembled, and the executants had to play
prima vista whatever was placed before them. Of works performed at
two of these Friday evening meetings, we find mentioned Spohr's Octet,
described by Chopin as "a wonderful work"; Ries's Concerto in C sharp
minor (played with quartet accompaniment), Hummel's Trio in E major,
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia's Quartet, and Beethoven's last Trio,
which, Chopin says, he could not but admire for its magnificence and
grandeur. To Brzezina's music-shop he paid a visit every day, without
finding there, however, anything new, except a Concerto by Pixis, which
made no great impression upon him. That Chopin was little satisfied with
his situation may be gathered from the following remarks of his:--
You cannot imagine how sad Warsaw is to me; if I did not feel
happy in my home circle I should not like to live here. Oh,
how bitter it is to have no one with whom one can share joy
and sorrow; oh, how dreadful to feel one's heart oppressed
and to be unable to express one's complaints to any human
soul! You know full well what I mean. How often do I tell my
piano all that I should like to impart to you!
Of course the reader, who is in the secret, knows as well as Titus knew,
to whom the letter was addressed, that Chopin alludes to his love. Let
us mark the words in the concluding sentence about the conversations
with his piano. Chopin was continually occupied with plans for going
abroad. In October, 1829, he writes that, wherever fate may lead him, he
is determined not to spend the winter in Warsaw. Nevertheless, more
than a year passed away before he said farewell to his native city. He
himself wished to go to Vienna, his father seems to have been in favour
of Berlin. Prince Radziwill and his wife had kindly invited him to come
to the Prussian capital, and offered him apartments in their palais. But
Chopin was unable to see what advantages he could derive from a stay in
Berlin. Moreover, unlike his father, he believed that this invitation
was no more than "de belles paroles." By the way, these remarks of
Chopin's furnish a strong proof that the Prince was not his patron and
benefactor, as Liszt and others have maintained. While speaking of his
fixed intention to go somewhere, and of the Prince's invitation,
Chopin suddenly exclaims with truly Chopinesque indecision and
capriciousness:--
But what is the good of it all? Seeing that I have begun so
many new works, perhaps the wisest thing I can do is to stay
here.
Leaving this question undecided, he undertook in October, 1829, a
journey to Posen, starting on the 20th of that month. An invitation from
Prince Radziwill was the inducement that led him to quit the paternal
roof so soon after his return to it. His intention was to remain only a
fortnight from home, and to visit his friends, the Wiesiolowskis, on the
way to Antonin. Chopin enjoyed himself greatly at the latter place. The
wife of the Prince, a courteous and kindly lady, who did not gauge a
man's merits by his descent, found the way to the heart of the composer
by wishing to hear every day and to possess as soon as possible
his Polonaise in F minor (Op. 71, No. 3). The young Princesses, her
daughters, had charms besides those of their beauty. One of them played
the piano with genuine musical feeling.
I have written [reports Chopin to his friend Titus on
November 14, 1829] during my visit at Prince Radziwill's an
Alla Polacca with violoncello. It is nothing more than a
brilliant salon piece, such as pleases ladies. I would like
Princess Wanda to practise it, so that it might be said that
I had taught her. She is only seventeen years old and
beautiful; it would be delightful to have the privilege of
placing her pretty fingers on the keys. But, joking apart,
her soul is endowed with true musical feeling, and one does
not need to tell her whether she is to play crescendo, piano,
or pianissimo.
According to Liszt, Chopin fondly remembered his visits to Antonin, and
told many an anecdote in connection with them.
The Princess Elisa, one of the daughters of Prince Radziwill,
who died in the first bloom of her life, left him [Chopin]
the sweet image of an angel exiled for a short period here
below.
A passage in the letter of Chopin from which I last quoted throws also a
little light on his relation to her.
You wished one of my portraits; if I could only have pilfered
one of Princess Elisa's, I should certainly have sent it; for
she has two portraits of me in her album, and I am told that
these drawings are very good likenesses.
The musical Prince would naturally be attracted by, and take an interest
in, the rising genius. What the latter's opinion of his noble friend as
a composer was, he tells Titus Woyciechowski at some length. I may here
say, once for all, that all the letters from which extracts are given in
this chapter are addressed to this latter.
You know how the Prince loves music; he showed me his "Faust"
and I found in it some things that are really beautiful,
indeed, in part even grandly conceived. In confidence, I
should not at all have credited the Namiestnik [governor,
lord-lieutenant] with such music! Among other things I was
struck by a scene in which Mephistopheles allures Margaret to
the window by his singing and guitar-playing, while at the
same time a chorale is heard from the neighbouring church.
This is sure to produce a great effect at a performance. I
mention this only that you may form an idea of his musical
conceptions. He is a great admirer of Gluck. Theatrical music
has, in his opinion, significance only in so far as it
illustrates the situation and emotion; the overture,
therefore, has no close, and leads at once into the
introduction. The orchestra is placed behind the stage and is
always invisible, in order that the attention of the audience
may not be diverted by external, such as the movements of the
conductor and executants.
Chopin enjoyed himself so much at Antonin that if he had consulted only
his pleasure he would have stayed till turned out by his host. But,
although he was asked to prolong his visit, he left this "Paradise" and
the "two Eves" after a sojourn of eight days. It was his occupations,
more especially the F minor Concerto, "impatiently waiting for its
Finale," that induced him to practise this self-denial. When Chopin
had again taken possession of his study, he no doubt made it his first
business, or at least one of the first, to compose the wanting movement,
the Rondo, of his Concerto; as, however, there is an interval of more
than four months in his extant letters, we hear no more about it till
he plays it in public. Before his visit to Antonin (October 20, 1829) he
writes to his friend that he has composed "a study in his own manner,"
and after the visit he mentions having composed "some studies."
Chopin seems to have occasionally played at the Ressource. The reader
will remember the composer's intention of playing there with Fontana his
Rondo for two pianos. On November 14, 1829, Chopin informs his friend
Titus that on the preceding Saturday Kessler performed Hummel's E major
Concerto at the Ressource, and that on the following Saturday he himself
would perhaps play there, and in the case of his doing so choose for his
piece his Variations, Op. 2. Thus composing, playing, and all the time
suffering from a certain loneliness--"You cannot imagine how everywhere
in Warsaw I now find something wanting! I have nobody with whom I can
speak, were it only two words, nobody whom I can really trust"--the day
came when he gave his first concert in his native city. This great event
took place on March 17, 1830, and the programme contained the following
pieces:--
PART I
1. Overture to the Opera "Leszek Bialy," by Elsner.
2. Allegro from the Concerto in F minor, composed and played
by F. Chopin.
3. Divertissement for the French horn, composed and played by
Gorner.
4. Adagio and Rondo from the Concerto in F minor, composed
and played by Chopin.
PART II
1. Overture to the Opera "Cecylja Piaseczynska," by
Kurpinski.
2. Variations by Paer, sung by Madame Meier.
3. Pot-pourri on national airs, composed and played by
Chopin.
Three days before the concert, which took place in the theatre, neither
box nor reserved seat was to be had. But Chopin complains that on the
whole it did not make the impression he expected. Only the Adagio
and Rondo of his Concerto had a decided success. But let us see the
concert-giver's own account of the proceedings.
The first Allegro of the F minor Concerto (not intelligible
to all) received indeed the reward of a "Bravo," but I
believe this was given because the public wished to show that
it understands and knows how to appreciate serious music.
There are people enough in all countries who like to assume
the air of connoisseurs! The Adagio and Rondo produced a very
great effect. After these the applause and the "Bravos" came
really from the heart; but the Pot-pourri on Polish airs
missed its object entirely. There was indeed some applause,
but evidently only to show the player that the audience had
not been bored.
We now hear again the old complaint that Chopin's playing was too
delicate. The opinion of the pit was that he had not played loud enough,
whilst those who sat in the gallery or stood in the orchestra seem to
have been better satisfied. In one paper, where he got high praise, he
was advised to put forth more energy and power in the future; but Chopin
thought he knew where this power was to be found, and for the next
concert got a Vienna instrument instead of his own Warsaw one. Elsner,
too, attributed the indistinctness of the bass passages and the weakness
of tone generally to the instrument. The approval of some of the
musicians compensated Chopin to some extent for the want of appreciation
and intelligence shown by the public at large "Kurpinski thought he
discovered that evening new beauties in my Concerto, and Ernemann was
fully satisfied with it." Edouard Wolff told me that they had no idea in
Warsaw of the real greatness of Chopin. Indeed, how could they? He
was too original to be at once fully understood. There are people who
imagine that the difficulties of Chopin's music arise from its Polish
national characteristics, and that to the Poles themselves it is as
easy as their mother-tongue; this, however, is a mistake. In fact,
other countries had to teach Poland what is due to Chopin. That the
aristocracy of Paris, Polish and native, did not comprehend the whole
Chopin, although it may have appreciated and admired his sweetness,
elegance, and exquisiteness, has been remarked by Liszt, an eye and
ear-witness and an excellent judge. But his testimony is not needed to
convince one of the fact. A subtle poet, be he ever so national, has
thoughts and corresponding language beyond the ken of the vulgar, who
are to be found in all ranks, high and low. Chopin, imbued as he
was with the national spirit, did nevertheless not manifest it in
a popularly intelligible form, for in passing through his mind it
underwent a process of idealisation and individualisation. It has been
repeatedly said that the national predominates over the universal in
Chopin's music; it is a still less disputable truth that the individual
predominates therein over the national. There are artist-natures whose
tendency is to expand and to absorb; others again whose tendency is to
contract and to exclude. Chopin is one of the most typical instances of
the latter; hence, no wonder that he was not at once fully understood by
his countrymen. The great success which Chopin's subsequent concerts in
Warsaw obtained does not invalidate E. Wolff's statement, which indeed
is confirmed by the composer's own remarks on the taste of the public
and its reception of his compositions. Moreover, we shall see that those
pieces pleased most in which, as in the Fantasia and Krakowiak, the
national raw material was merely more or less artistically dressed up,
but not yet digested and assimilated; if the Fantasia left the audience
cold at the first concert, this was no doubt owing to the inadequacy of
the performance.
No sooner was the first concert over than, with his head still full of
it, Chopin set about making preparations for a second, which took place
within a week after the first. The programme was as follows:--
PART I
1. Symphony by Nowakowski.
2. Allegro from the Concerto in F minor, composed and played by Chopin.
3. Air Varie by De Beriot, played by Bielawski.
4. Adagio and Rondo from the Concerto in F minor, composed and played by
Chopin.
PART II
1. Rondo Krakowiak, composed and played by Chopin.
2. Aria from "Elena e Malvina" by Soliva, sung by Madame Meier.
3. Improvisation on national airs.
This time the audience, which Chopin describes as having been more
numerous than at any other concert, was satisfied. There was no end to
the applause, and when he came forward to bow his acknowledgments there
were calls of "Give another concert!" The Krakowiak produced an immense
effect, and was followed by four volleys of applause. His improvisation
on the Polish national air "W miescie dziwne obyczaje" pleased only the
people in the dress-circle, although he did not improvise in the way he
had intended to do, which would not have been suitable for the audience
that was present. From this and another remark, that few of the haute
volee had as yet heard him, it appears that the aristocracy, for the
most part living on their estates, was not largely represented at the
concert. Thinking as he did of the public, he was surprised that the
Adagio had found such general favour, and that he heard everywhere the
most flattering remarks. He was also told that "every note sounded like
a bell," and that he had "played much better on the second than on the
first instrument." But although Elsner held that Chopin could only be
judged after the second concert, and Kurpinski and others expressed
their regret that he did not play on the Viennese instrument at the
first one, he confesses that he would have preferred playing on his
own piano. The success of the concerts may be measured by the
following facts: A travelling virtuoso and former pupil of the Paris
Conservatoire, Dunst by name, offered in his enthusiasm to treat Chopin
with champagne; the day after the second concert a bouquet with a poem
was sent to him; his fellow-student Orlowski wrote mazurkas and waltzes
on the principal theme of the Concerto, and published them in spite of
the horrified composer's request that he should not do so; Brzezina, the
musicseller, asked him for his portrait, but, frightened at the prospect
of seeing his counterfeit used as a wrapper for butter and cheese,
Chopin declined to give it to him; the editor of the "Courier" inserted
in his paper a sonnet addressed to Chopin. Pecuniarily the concerts
were likewise a success, although the concert-giver was of a different
opinion. But then he seems to have had quite prima donna notions about
receipts, for he writes very coolly: "From the two concerts I had,
after deduction of all expenses, not as much as 5,000 florins (about 125
pounds)." Indeed, he treats this part of the business very cavalierly,
and declares that money was no object with him. On the utterances of the
papers, which, of course, had their say, Chopin makes some sensible and
modest comments.
After my concerts there appeared many criticisms; if in them
(especially in the "Kuryer Polski") abundant praise was
awarded to me, it was nevertheless not too extravagant. The
"Official Journal" has also devoted some columns to my
praise; one of its numbers contained, among other things,
such stupidities--well meant, no doubt--that I was quite
desperate till I had read the answer in the "Gazeta Polska,"
which justly takes away what the other papers had in their
exaggeration attributed to me. In this article it is said
that the Poles will one day be as proud of me as the Germans
are of Mozart, which is palpable nonsense. But that is not
all, the critic says further: "That if I had fallen into the
hands of a pedant or a Rossinist (what a stupid expression!)
I could not have become what I am." Now, although I am as yet
nothing, he is right in so far that my performance would be
still less than it actually is if I had not studied under
Elsner.
Gratifying as the praise of the press no doubt was to Chopin, it became
a matter of small account when he thought of his friend's approving
sympathy. "One look from you after the concert would have been worth
more to me than all the laudations of the critics here." The concerts,
however, brought with them annoyances as well as pleasures. While one
paper pointed out Chopin's strongly-marked originality, another advised
him to hear Rossini, but not to imitate him. Dobrzynski, who expected
that his Symphony would be placed on one of the programmes, was angry
with Chopin for not doing so; a lady acquaintance took it amiss that a
box had not been reserved for her, and so on. What troubled our friend
most of all, and put him quite out of spirits, was the publication of
the sonnet and of the mazurkas; he was afraid that his enemies would
not let this opportunity pass, and attack and ridicule him. "I will no
longer read what people may now write about me," he bursts out in a fit
of lachrymose querulousness. Although pressed from many sides to give
a third concert, Chopin decided to postpone it till shortly before
his departure, which, however, was farther off than he imagined.
Nevertheless, he had already made up his mind what to play--namely,
the new Concerto (some parts of which had yet to be composed) and, by
desire, the Fantasia and the Variations.
CHAPTER X.
1829-1830.
MUSIC IN THE WARSAW SALONS.--MORE ABOUT CHOPIN'S CAUTION.--MUSICAL
VISITORS TO THE POLISH CAPITAL: WORLITZER, MDLLE. DE BELLEVILLE, MDLLE.
SONTAG, &c.--SOME OF CHOPIN'S ARTISTIC AND OTHER DOINGS; VISIT
TO POTURZYN.--HIS LOVE FOR CONSTANTIA GLADKOWSKA.--INTENDED AND
FREQUENTLY-POSTPONED DEPARTURE FOR ABROAD; IRRESOLUTION.--THE E MINOR
CONCERTO AND HIS THIRD CONCERT IN WARSAW.--DEPARTS AT LAST.
After the turmoil and agitation of the concerts, Chopin resumed the even
tenor of his Warsaw life, that is to say, played, composed, and went
to parties. Of the latter we get some glimpses in his letters, and they
raise in us the suspicion that the salons of Warsaw were not overzealous
in the cultivation of the classics. First we have a grand musical
soiree at the house of General Filipeus, [F-ootnote: Or Philippeus] the
intendant of the Court of the Grand Duke Constantine. There the Swan
of Pesaro was evidently in the ascendant, at any rate, a duet from
"Semiramide" and a buffo duet from "Il Turco in Italia" (in this Soliva
took a part and Chopin accompanied) were the only items of the musical
menu thought worth mentioning by the reporter. A soiree at Lewicki's
offers matter of more interest. Chopin, who had drawn up the programme,
played Hummel's "La Sentinelle" and his Op. 3, the Polonaise for
piano and violoncello composed at Antonin with a subsequently-added
introduction; and Prince Galitzin was one of the executants of a quartet
of Rode's. Occasionally, however, better works were performed. Some
months later, for instance, at the celebration of a gentleman's
name-day, Spohr's Quintet for piano, flute, clarinet, horn, and bassoon
was played. Chopin's criticism on this work is as usual short:--
Wonderfully beautiful, but not quite suitable for the piano.
Everything Spohr has written for the piano is very difficult,
indeed, sometimes it is impossible to find any fingering for
his passages.
On Easter-day, the great feasting day of the Poles, Chopin was invited
to breakfast by the poet Minasowicz. On this occasion he expected to
meet Kurpinski; and as in the articles which had appeared in the papers
a propos of his concerts the latter and Elsner had been pitted against
each other, he wondered what would be the demeanour of his elder
fellow-countryman and fellow-composer towards him. Remembering Chopin's
repeated injunctions to his parents not to mention to others his remarks
on musicians, we may be sure that in this as in every other case
Chopin proceeded warily. Here is another striking example of this
characteristic and highly-developed cautiousness. After hearing the
young pianist Leskiewicz play at a concert he writes:--
It seems to me that he will become a better player than
Krogulski; but I have not yet dared to express this opinion,
although I have been often asked to do so.
In the first half of April, 1830, Chopin was so intent on finishing the
compositions he had begun that, greatly as he wished to pay his friend
Titus Woyciechowski a visit at his country-seat Poturzyn, he determined
to stick to his work. The Diet, which had not been convoked for five
years, was to meet on the 28th of May. That there would be a great
concourse of lords and lordlings and their families and retinues
followed as a matter of course. Here, then, was an excellent opportunity
for giving a concert. Chopin, who remembered that the haute voice had
not yet heard him, did not overlook it. But be it that the Concerto was
not finished in time, or that the circumstances proved less favourable
than he had expected, he did not carry out his plan. Perhaps the
virtuosos poured in too plentifully. In those days the age of artistic
vagrancy had not yet come to an end, and virtuosity concerts were still
flourishing most vigorously. Blahetka of Vienna, too, had a notion of
coming with his daughter to Warsaw and giving some concerts there during
the sitting of the Diet. He wrote to Chopin to this effect, and asked
his advice. The latter told him that many musicians and amateurs had
indeed often expressed a desire to hear Miss Blahetka, but that the
expenses of a concert and the many distinguished artists who had arrived
or were about to arrive made the enterprise rather hazardous.
Now [says Chopin, the cautious, to his friend] he [Blahetka]
cannot say that I have not sufficiently informed him of the
state of things here! It is not unlikely that he will come. I
should be glad to see them, and would do what I could to
procure a full house for his daughter. I should most
willingly play with her on two pianos, for you cannot imagine
how kindly an interest this German [Mr. Blahetka] took in me
at Vienna.
Among the artists who came to Warsaw were: the youthful Worlitzer, who,
although only sixteen years of age, was already pianist to the King of
Prussia; the clever pianist Mdlle. de Belleville, who afterwards became
Madame Oury; the great violinist Lipinski, the Polish Paganini; and the
celebrated Henrietta Sontag, one of the brightest stars of the time.
Chopin's intercourse with these artists and his remarks on them are
worth noting: they throw light on his character as a musician and man
as well as on theirs. He relates that Worlitzer, a youth of Jewish
extraction, and consequently by nature very talented, had called on him
and played to him several things famously, especially Moscheles'
"Marche d'Alexandre variée." Notwithstanding the admitted excellence of
Worlitzer's playing, Chopin adds--not, however, without a "this remains
between us two"--that he as yet lacks much to deserve the title of
Kammer-Virtuos. Chopin thought more highly of Mdlle. de Belleville, who,
he says, "plays the piano beautifully; very airily, very elegantly,
and ten times better than Worlitzer." What, we may be sure, in no wise
diminished his good opinion of the lady was that she had performed his
Variations in Vienna, and could play one of them by heart. To picture
the object of Chopin's artistic admiration a little more clearly, let me
recall to the reader's memory Schumann's characterisation of Mdlle. de
Belleville and Clara Wieck.
They should not be compared. They are different mistresses of
different schools. The playing of the Belleville is
technically the finer of the two; Clara's is more
impassioned. The tone of the Belleville caresses, but does
not penetrate beyond the ear; that of Clara reaches the
heart. The one is a poetess; the other is poetry itself.
Chopin's warmest admiration and longest comments were, however, reserved
for Mdlle. Sontag. Having a little more than a year before her visit
to Warsaw secretly married Count Rossi, she made at the time we are
speaking of her last artistic tour before retiring, at the zenith of her
fame and power, into private life. At least, she thought then it was her
last tour; but pecuniary losses and tempting offers induced her in 1849
to reappear in public. In Warsaw she gave a first series of five or six
concerts in the course of a week, went then by invitation of the King
of Prussia to Fischbach, and from there returned to Warsaw. Her concerts
were remarkable for their brevity. She usually sang at them four times,
and between her performances the orchestra played some pieces. She
dispensed altogether with the assistance of other virtuosos. But Chopin
remarks that so great was the impression she made as a vocalist and the
interest she inspired as an artist that one required some rest after her
singing. Here is what the composer writes to his friend about her (June
5, 1830):--
...It is impossible for me to describe to you how great a pleasure the
acquaintance with this "God-sent one" (as some
enthusiasts justly call her) has given me. Prince Radziwitt
introduced me to her, for which I feel greatly obliged to
him. Unfortunately, I profited little by her eight days' stay
with us, and I saw how she was bored by dull visits from
senators, woyewods, castellans, ministers, generals, and
adjutants, who only sat and stared at her while they were
talking about quite indifferent things. She receives them all
very kindly, for she is so very good-natured that she cannot
be unamiable to anyone. Yesterday, when she was going to put
on her bonnet previously to going to the rehearsal, she was
obliged to lock the door of her room, because the servant in
the ante-room could not keep back the large number of
callers. I should not have one to her if she had not sent for
me, Radziwill having asked me to write out a song which he
has arranged for her. This is an Ukraine popular song
("Dumka") with variations. The theme and finale are
beautiful, but the middle section does not please me (and it
pleases Mdlle. Sontag even less than me). I have indeed made
some alterations, but it is still good for nothing. I am glad
she leaves after to-day's concert, because I shall pet rid of
this business, and when Radziwill comes at the close of the
Diet he may perhaps relinquish his variations.
Mdlle. Sontag is not beautiful, but in the highest degree
captivating; she enchants all with her voice, which indeed is
not very powerful, but magnificently cultivated. Her
diminuendo is the non plus ultra that can be heard; her
portamento wonderfully fine; her chromatic scales, especially
toward the upper part of her voice, unrivalled. She sang us
an aria by Mercadante, very, very beautifully; the variations
by Rode, especially the last roulades, more than excellently.
The variations on the Swiss theme pleased so much that, after
having several times bowed her acknowledgments for the
applause, she had to sing them da capo. The same thing
happened to her yesterday with the last of Rode's variations.
She has, moreover, performed the cavatina from "Il Barbiere",
as well as several arias from "La Gazza ladra" and from "Der
Freischutz". Well, you will hear for yourself what a
difference there is between her erformances and those we have
hitherto heard here. On one occasion was with her when Soliva
came with the Misses Gladkowska [the idea!] and Wolkaw, who
had to sing to her his duet which concludes with the words
"barbara sorte"--you may perhaps remember it. Miss Sontag
remarked to me, in confidence, that both voices were really
beautiful, but already somewhat worn, and that these ladies
must change their method of singing entirely if they did not
wish to run the risk of losing their voices within two years.
She said, in my presence, to Miss Wolkow that she possessed
much facility and taste, but had une voix trop aigue. She
invited both ladies in the most friendly manner to visit her
more frequently, promising to do all in her power to show and
teach them her own manner of singing. Is this not a quite
unusual politeness? Nay, I even believe it is coquetry so
great that it made upon me the impression of naturalness and
a certain naivete; for it is hardly to be believed that a
human being can be so natural unless it knows all the
resources of coquetry. In her neglige Miss Sontag is a
hundred times more beautiful and pleasing than in full
evening-dress. Nevertheless, those who have not seen her in
the morning are charmed with her appearance at the concert.
On her return she will give concerts up to the 22nd of the
month; then, as she herself told me, she intends to go to St.
Petersburg. Therefore, be quick, dear friend, and come at
once, so that you may not miss more than the five concerts
she has already given.
From the concluding sentence it would appear that Chopin had talked
himself out on the subject; this, however, is not the case, for after
imparting some other news he resumes thus:--
But I have not yet told you all about Miss Sontag. She has in
her rendering some entirely new broderies, with which she
produces great effect, but not in the same way as Paganini.
Perhaps the cause lies in this, that hers is a smaller genre.
She seems to exhale the perfume of a fresh bouquet of flowers
over the parterre, and, now caresses, now plays with her
voice; but she rarely moves to tears. Radziwill, on the other
hand, thinks that she sings and acts the last scene of
Desdemona in Othello in such a manner that nobody can refrain
from weeping. To-day I asked her if she would sing us
sometime this scene in costume (she is said to be an
excellent actress); she answered me that it was true that she
had often seen tears in the eyes of the audience, but that
acting excited her too much, and she had resolved to appear
as rarely as possible on the stage. You have but to come here
if you wish to rest from your rustic cares. Miss Sontag will
sing you something, and you will awake to life again and will
gather new strength for your labours.
Mdlle. Sontag was indeed a unique artist. In power and fulness of voice,
in impassioned expression, in dazzling virtuosity, and in grandeur of
style, she might be inferior to Malibran, Catalani, and Pasta; but in
clearness and sweetness of voice, in purity of intonation, in airiness,
neatness, and elegance of execution, and in exquisiteness of taste, she
was unsurpassed. Now, these were qualities particularly congenial to
Chopin; he admired them enthusiastically in the eminent vocalist,
and appreciated similar qualities in the pleasing pianist Mdlle. de
Belleville. Indeed, we shall see in the sequel that unless an artist
possessed these qualities Chopin had but little sympathy to bestow upon
him. He was, however, not slow to discover in these distinguished lady
artists a shortcoming in a direction where he himself was exceedingly
strong--namely, in subtlety and intensity of feeling. Chopin's
opinion of Mdlle. Sontag coincides on the whole with those of other
contemporaries; nevertheless, his account contributes some details which
add a page to her biography, and a few touches to her portraiture. It
is to be regretted that the arrival of Titus Woyciechowski in Warsaw
put for a time an end to Chopin's correspondence with him, otherwise we
should, no doubt, have got some more information about Mdlle. Sontag and
other artists.
While so many stars were shining, Chopin's light seems to have been
under an eclipse. Not only did he not give a concert, but he was even
passed over on the occasion of a soiree musicale at court to which
all the most distinguished artists then assembled at Warsaw were
invited--Mdlle. Sontag, Mdlle. de Belleville, Worlitzer, Kurpinski, &c.
"Many were astonished," writes Chopin, "that I was not invited to play,
but _I_ was not astonished." When the sittings of the Diet and the
entertainments that accompanied them came to a close Chopin paid a visit
to his friend Titus at Poturzyn, and on his return thence proceeded
with his parents to Zelazowa Wola to stay for some time at the Count
of Skarbek's. After leaving Poturzyn the picture of his friend's quiet
rural life continually rose up in Chopin's mind. A passage in one of his
letters which refers to his sojourn there seems to me characteristic of
the writer, suggestive of moods consonant with his nocturnes and many
cantilene in his other works:--
I must confess that I look back to it with great pleasure; I
feel always a certain longing for your beautiful country-
seat. The weeping-willow is always present to my mind; that
arbaleta! oh, I remember it so fondly! Well, you have teased
me so much about it that I am punished thereby for all my
sins.
And has he forgotten his ideal? Oh, no! On the contrary, his passion
grows stronger every day. This is proved by his frequent allusions to
her whom he never names, and by those words of restless yearning and
heart-rending despair that cannot be read without exciting a pitiful
sympathy. As before long we shall get better acquainted with the lady
and hear more of her--she being on the point of leaving the comparative
privacy of the Conservatorium for the boards that represent the
world--it may be as well to study the symptoms of our friend's
interesting malady.
The first mention of the ideal we find in the letter dated October 3,
1829, wherein he says that he has been dreaming of her every night for
the past six months, and nevertheless has not yet spoken to her. In
these circumstances he stood in need of one to whom he might confide his
joys and sorrows, and as no friend of flesh and blood was at hand, he
often addressed himself to the piano. And now let us proceed with our
investigation.
March 27, 1830.--At no time have I missed you so much as now.
I have nobody to whom I can open my heart.
April 17, 1830.--In my unbearable longing I feel better as
soon as I receive a letter from you. To-day this comfort was
more necessary than ever. I should like to chase away the
thoughts that poison my joyousness; but, in spite of all, it
is pleasant to play with them. I don't know myself what I
want; perhaps I shall be calmer after writing this letter.
Farther on in the same letter he says:--
How often do I take the night for the day, and the day for
the night! How often do I live in a dream and sleep during
the day, worse than if I slept, for I feel always the same;
and instead of finding refreshment in this stupor, as in
sleep, I vex and torment myself so that I cannot gain
strength.
It may be easily imagined with what interest one so far gone in love
watched the debut of Miss Gladkowska as Agnese in Paer's opera of the
same name. Of course he sends a full account of the event to his friend.
She looked better on the stage than in the salon; left nothing to be
desired in her tragic acting; managed her voice excellently up to the
high j sharp and g; shaded in a wonderful manner, and charmed her slave
when she sang an aria with harp accompaniment. The success of the lady,
however, was not merely in her lover's imagination, it was real; for at
the close of the opera the audience overwhelmed her with never-ending
applause. Another pupil of the Conservatorium, Miss Wolkow, made her
debut about the same time, discussions of the comparative merits of
the two ladies, on the choice of the parts in which they were going to
appear next, on the intrigues which had been set on foot for or against
them, &c., were the order of the day. Chopin discusses all these matters
with great earnestness and at considerable length; and, while not at
all stingy in his praise of Miss Wolkow, he takes good care that Miss
Gladkowska does not come off a loser:--
Ernemann is of our opinion [writes Chopin] that no singer can
easily be compared to Miss Gladkowska, especially as regards
just intonation and genuine warmth of feeling, which
manifests itself fully only on the stage, and carries away
the audience. Miss Wolkow made several times slight mistakes,
whereas Miss Gladkowska, although she has only been heard
twice in Agnese, did not allow the least doubtful note to
pass her lips.
The warmer applause given to Miss Wolkow did not disturb so staunch a
partisan; he put it to the account of Rossini's music which she sang.
When Chopin comes to the end of his account of Miss Gladkowska's first
appearance on the stage, he abruptly asks the question: "And what shall
I do now?" and answers forthwith: "I will leave next month; first,
however, I must rehearse my Concerto, for the Rondo is now finished."
But this resolve is a mere flash of energy, and before we have proceeded
far we shall come on words which contrast strangely with what we have
read just now. Chopin has been talking about his going abroad ever
so long, more especially since his return from Vienna, and will go on
talking about it for a long time yet. First he intends to leave Warsaw
in the winter of 1829-1830; next he makes up his mind to start in the
summer of 1830, the question being only whether he shall go to Berlin or
Vienna; then in May, 1830, Berlin is already given up, but the time of
his departure remains still to be fixed. After this he is induced by
the consideration that the Italian Opera season at Vienna does not begin
till September to stay at home during the hot summer months. How he
continues to put off the evil day of parting from home and friends we
shall see as we go on. I called Chopin's vigorously-expressed resolve a
flash of energy. Here is what he wrote not much more than a week after
(on August 31, 1830):--
I am still here; indeed, I do not feel inclined to go abroad.
Next month, however, I shall certainly go. Of course, only to
follow my vocation and reason, which latter would be in a
sorry plight if it were not strong enough to master every
other thing in my head.
But that his reason was in a sorry plight may be gathered from a letter
dated September 4, 1830, which, moreover, is noteworthy, as in the
confessions which it contains are discoverable the key-notes of the
principal parts that make up the symphony of his character.
I tell you my ideas become madder and madder every day. I am
still sitting here, and cannot make up my mind to fix
definitively the day of my departure. I have always a
presentiment that I shall leave Warsaw never to return to it;
I am convinced that I shall say farewell to my home for ever.
Oh, how sad it must be to die in any other place but where
one was born! What a great trial it would be to me to see
beside my death-bed an unconcerned physician and paid servant
instead of the dear faces of my relatives! Believe me, Titus,
I many a time should like to go to you and seek rest for my
oppressed heart; but as this is not possible, I often hurry,
without knowing why, into the street. But there also nothing
allays or diverts my longing. I return home to... long again
indescribably... I have not yet rehearsed my Concerto; in any
case I shall leave all my treasures behind me by Michaelmas.
In Vienna I shall be condemned to sigh and groan! This is the
consequence of having no longer a free heart! You who know
this indescribable power so well, explain to me the strange
feeling which makes men always expect from the following day
something better than the preceding day has bestowed upon
them? "Do not be so foolish!" That is all the answer I can
give myself; if you know a better, tell me, pray, pray....
After saying that his plan for the winter is to stay two months in
Vienna and pass the rest of the season in Milan, "if it cannot be
helped," he makes some remarks of no particular interest, and then comes
back to the old and ever new subject, the cud that humanity has been
chewing from the time of Adam and Eve, and will have to chew till the
extinction of the race, whether pessimism or optimism be the favoured
philosophy.
Since my return I have not yet visited her, and must tell you
openly that I often attribute the cause of my distress to
her; it seems to me as if people shared this view, and that
affords me a certain satisfaction. My father smiles at it;
but if he knew all, he would perhaps weep. Indeed, I am
seemingly quite contented, whilst my heart....
This is one of the occasions, which occur so frequently in Chopin's
letters, where he breaks suddenly off in the course of his emotional
outpourings, and subsides into effective silence. On such occasions one
would like to see him go to the piano and hear him finish the sentence
there. "All I can write to you now is indeed stupid stuff; only the
thought of leaving Warsaw..." Another musical opportunity! Where words
fail, there music begins.
Only wait, the day will come when you will not fare any
better. Man is not always happy; sometimes only a few moments
of happiness are granted to him in this life; therefore why
should we shun this rapture which cannot last long?
After this the darkness of sadness shades gradually into brighter
hues:--
As on the one hand I consider intercourse with the outer
world a sacred duty, so, on the other hand, I regard it as a
devilish invention, and it would be better if men... but I
have said enough!...
The reader knows already the rest of the letter; it is the passage in
which Chopin's love of fun gets the better of his melancholy, his joyous
spirits of his sad heart, and where he warns his friend, as it were with
a bright twinkle in his tearful eyes and a smile on his face, not to
kiss him at that moment, as he must wash himself. This joking about
his friend's dislike to osculation is not without an undercurrent of
seriousness; indeed, it is virtually a reproach, but a reproach cast in
the most delicate form and attired in feminine coquetry.
On September 18, 1830, Chopin is still in Warsaw. Why he is still there
he does not know; but he feels unspeakably happy where he is, and his
parents make no objections to this procrastination.
To-morrow I shall hold a rehearsal [of the E minor Concerto]
with quartet, and then drive to--whither? Indeed, I do not
feel inclined to go anywhere; but I shall on no account stay
in Warsaw. If you have, perhaps, a suspicion that something
dear to me retains me here, you are mistaken, like many
others. I assure you I should be ready to make any sacrifice
if only my own self were concerned, and I--although I am in
love--had yet to keep my unfortunate feelings concealed in my
bosom for some years to come.
Is it possible to imagine anything more inconsistent and self-delusive
than these ravings of our friend? Farther on in this very lengthy
epistle we come first of all once more to the pending question.
I was to start with the Cracow post for Vienna as early as
this day week, but finally I have given up that idea--you
will understand why. You may be quite sure that I am no
egoist, but, as I love you, am also willing to sacrifice
anything for the sake of others. For the sake of others, I
say, but not for the sake of outward appearance. For public
opinion, which is in high esteem among us, but which, you may
be sure, does not influence me, goes even so far as to call
it a misfortune if one wears a torn coat, a shabby hat, and
the like. If I should fail in my career, and have some day
nothing to eat, you must appoint me as clerk at Poturzyn.
There, in a room above the stables, I shall be as happy as I
was last summer in your castle. As long as I am in vigour and
health I shall willingly continue to work all my life. I have
often considered the question, whether I am really lazy or
whether I could work more without overexerting my strength.
Joking apart, I have convinced myself that I am not the worst
idler, and that I am able to work twice as much if necessity
demands it.
It often happens that he who wishes to better the opinion
which others have formed of him makes it worse; but, I think,
as regards you, I can make it neither better nor worse, even
if I occasionally praise myself. The sympathy which I have
for you forces your heart to have the same sympathetic
feelings for me. You are not master of your thoughts, but I
command mine; when I have once taken one into my head I do
not let it be taken from me, just as the trees do not let
themselves be robbed of their green garment which gives them
the charm of youth. With me it will be green in winter also,
that is, only in the head, but--God help me--in the heart the
greatest ardour, therefore, no one need wonder that the
vegetation is so luxuriant. Enough...yours for ever...Only
now I notice that I have talked too much nonsense. You see
yesterday's impression [he refers to the name-day festivity
already mentioned] has not yet quite passed away, I am still
sleepy and tired, because I danced too many mazurkas.
Around your letters I twine a little ribbon which my ideal
once gave me. I am glad the two lifeless things, the letters
and the ribbon, agree so well together, probably because,
although they do not know each other, they yet feel that they
both come from a hand dear to me.
Even the most courteous of mortals, unless he be wholly destitute of
veracity, will hesitate to deny the truth of Chopin's confession that
he has been talking nonsense. But apart from the vagueness and
illogicalness of several of the statements, the foregoing effusion is
curious as a whole: the thoughts turn up one does not know where, how,
or why--their course is quite unaccountable; and if they passed through
his mind in an unbroken connection, he fails to give the slightest
indication of it. Still, although Chopin's philosophy of life, poetical
rhapsodies, and meditations on love and friendship, may not afford us
much light, edification, or pleasure, they help us substantially to
realise their author's character, and particularly his temporary mood.
Great as was the magnetic power of the ideal over Chopin, great as was
the irresolution of the latter, the long delay of his departure must
not be attributed solely to these causes. The disturbed state of Europe
after the outbreak of the July revolution in Paris had also something to
do with this interminable procrastination. Passports could only be had
for Prussia and Austria, and even for these countries not by everyone.
In France the excitement had not yet subsided, in Italy it was nearing
the boiling point. Nor were Vienna, whither Chopin intended to go first,
and the Tyrol, through which he would have to pass on his way to Milan,
altogether quiet. Chopin's father himself, therefore, wished the journey
to be postponed for a short time. Nevertheless, our friend writes
on September 22 that he will start in a few weeks: his first goal is
Vienna, where, he says, they still remember him, and where he will forge
the iron as long as it is hot. But now to the climax of Chopin's amorous
fever.
I regret very much [he writes on September 22, 1830] that I
must write to you when, as to-day, I am unable to collect my
thoughts. When I reflect on myself I get into a sad mood, and
am in danger of losing my reason. When I am lost in my
thoughts--which is often the case with me--horses could
trample upon me, and yesterday this nearly happened in the
street without my noticing it. Struck in the church by a
glance of my ideal, I ran in a moment of pleasant stupor into
the street, and it was not till about a quarter of an hour
afterwards that I regained my full consciousness; I am
sometimes so mad that I am frightened at myself.
The melancholy cast of the letters cited in this chapter must not lead
us to think that despondence was the invariable state of Chopin's mind.
It is more probable that when his heart was saddest he was most disposed
to write to his friend his confessions and complaints, as by this means
he was enabled to relieve himself to some extent of the burden that
oppressed him. At any rate, the agitations of love did not prevent him
from cultivating his art, for even at the time when he felt the
tyranny of the passion most potently, he mentions having composed "some
insignificant pieces," as he modestly expresses himself, meaning, no
doubt, "short pieces." Meanwhile Chopin had also finished a
composition which by no means belongs to the category of "insignificant
pieces"--namely, the Concerto in E minor, the completion of which he
announces on August 21, 1830. A critical examination of this and other
works will be found in a special chapter, at present I shall speak only
of its performance and the circumstances connected with it.
On September 18, 1830, Chopin writes that a few days previously he
rehearsed the Concerto with quartet accompaniment, but that it does not
quite satisfy him:--
Those who were present at the rehearsal say that the Finale
is the most successful movement (probably because it is
easily intelligible). How it will sound with the orchestra I
cannot tell you till next Wednesday, when I shall play the
Concerto for the first time in this guise. To-morrow I shall
have another rehearsal with quartet.
To a rehearsal with full orchestra, except trumpets and drums (on
September 22, 1830), he invited Kurpinski, Soliva, and the select
musical world of Warsaw, in whose judgment, however, he professes to
have little confidence. Still, he is curious to know how--
the Capellmeister [Kurpinski] will look at the Italian
[Soliva], Czapek at Kessler, Filipeus at Dobrzynski, Molsdorf
at Kaczynski, Ledoux at Count Sohyk, and Mr. P. at us all. It
has never before occurred that all these gentlemen have been
assembled in one place; I alone shall succeed in this, and I
do it only out of curiosity!
The musicians in this company, among whom are Poles, Czechs, Germans,
Italians, &c., give us a good idea of the mixed character of the musical
world of Warsaw, which was not unlike what the musical world of London
is still in our day. From the above remark we see that Chopin had
neither much respect nor affection for his fellow-musicians; indeed,
there is not the slightest sign in his letters that an intimacy existed
between him and any one of them. The rehearsals of the Concerto keep
Chopin pretty busy, and his head is full of the composition. In the same
letter from which I quoted last we find the following passage:--
I heartily beg your pardon for my hasty letter of to-day; I
have still to run quickly to Elsner in order to make sure
that he will come to the rehearsal. Then I have also to
provide the desks and mutes, which I had yesterday totally
forgotten; without the latter the Adagio would be wholly
insignificant, and its success doubtful. The Rondo is
effective, the first Allegro vigorous. Cursed self-love! And
if it is anyone's fault that I am conceited it is yours,
egoist; he who associates with such a person becomes like
him. But in one point I am as yet unlike you. I can never
make up my mind quickly. But I have the firm will and the
secret intention actually to depart on Saturday week, without
pardon, and in spite of lamentations, tears, and complaints.
My music in the trunk, a certain ribbon on my heart, my soul
full of anxiety: thus into the post-chaise. To be sure,
everywhere in the town tears will flow in streams: from
Copernicus to the fountain, from the bank to the column of
King Sigismund; but I shall be cold and unfeeling as a stone,
and laugh at all those who wish to take such a heart-rending
farewell of me!
After the rehearsal of the Concerto with orchestra, which evidently made
a good impression upon the much-despised musical world of Warsaw, Chopin
resolved to give, or rather his friends resolved for him that he should
give, a concert in the theatre on October 11, 1830. Although he is
anxious to know what effect his Concerto will produce on the public,
he seems little disposed to play at any concert, which may be easily
understood if we remember the state of mind he is in.
You can hardly imagine [he writes] how everything here makes
me impatient, and bores me, in consequence of the commotion
within me against which I cannot struggle.
The third and last of his Warsaw concerts was to be of a more perfect
type than the two preceding ones; it was to be one "without those
unlucky clarinet and bassoon solos," at that time still so much in
vogue. To make up for this quantitative loss Chopin requested the Misses
Gladkowska and Wolkow to sing some arias, and obtained, not without much
trouble, the requisite permission for them from their master, Soliva,
and the Minister of Public Instruction, Mostowski. It was necessary to
ask the latter's permission, because the two young ladies were educated
as singers at the expense of the State.
The programme of the concert was as follows:--
PART I
1. Symphony by Gorner.
2. First Allegro from the Concerto in E minor, composed and
played by Chopin.
3. Aria with Chorus by Soliva, sung by Miss Wolkow.
4. Adagio and Rondo from the Concerto in E minor, composed
and played by Chopin.
PART II
1. Overture to "Guillaume Tell" by Rossini.
2. Cavatina from "La Donna del lago" by Rossini, sung by Miss
Gladkowska.
3. Fantasia on Polish airs, composed and played by Chopin.
The success of the concert made Chopin forget his sorrows. There is not
one complaint in the letter in which he gives an account of it; in fact,
he seems to have been enjoying real halcyon days. He had a full house,
but played with as little nervousness as if he had been playing at home.
The first Allegro of the Concerto went very smoothly, and the audience
rewarded him with thundering applause. Of the reception of the Adagio
and Rondo we learn nothing except that in the pause between the first
and second parts the connoisseurs and amateurs came on the stage, and
complimented him in the most flattering terms on his playing. The great
success, however, of the evening was his performance of the Fantasia on
Polish airs. "This time I understood myself, the orchestra understood
me, and the audience understood us." This is quite in the bulletin style
of conquerors; it has a ring of "veni, vidi, vici" about it. Especially
the mazurka at the end of the piece produced a great effect, and Chopin
was called back so enthusiastically that he was obliged to bow his
acknowledgments four times. Respecting the bowing he says: "I believe I
did it yesterday with a certain grace, for Brandt had taught me how to
do it properly." In short, the concert-giver was in the best of
spirits, one is every moment expecting him to exclaim: "Seid umschlungen
Millionen, diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt." He is pleased with himself and
Streicher's piano on which he had played; pleased with Soliva, who
kept both soloist and orchestra splendidly in order; pleased with
the impression the execution of the overture made; pleased with
the blue-robed, fay-like Miss Wolkow; pleased most of all with Miss
Gladkowska, who "wore a white dress and roses in her hair, and was
charmingly beautiful." He tells his friend that:
she never sang so well as on that evening (except the aria in
"Agnese"). You know "O! quante lagrime per te versai." The
tutto detesto down to the lower b came out so magnificently
that Zielinski declared this b alone was worth a thousand
ducats.
In Vienna the score and parts of the Krakowiak had been found to be full
of mistakes, it was the same with the Concerto in Warsaw. Chopin himself
says that if Soliva had not taken the score with him in order to correct
it, he (Chopin) did not know what might have become of the Concerto
on the evening of the concert. Carl Mikuli, who, as well as his
fellow-pupil Tellefsen, copied many of Chopin's MSS., says that they
were full of slips of the pen, such as wrong notes and signatures,
omissions of accidentals, dots, and intervals of chords, and incorrect
markings of slurs and 8va's.
Although Chopin wrote on October 5, 1830, that eight days after the
concert he would certainly be no longer in Warsaw, that his trunk
was bought, his whole outfit ready, the scores corrected, the
pocket-handkerchiefs hemmed, the new trousers and the new dress-coat
tried on, &c., that, in fact, nothing remained to be done but the worst
of all, the leave-taking, yet it was not till the 1st of November, 1830,
that he actually did take his departure. Elsner and a number of friends
accompanied him to Wola, the first village beyond Warsaw. There the
pupils of the Conservatorium awaited them, and sang a cantata composed
by Elsner for the occasion. After this the friends once more sat down
together to a banquet which had been prepared for them. In the course
of the repast a silver goblet filled with Polish earth was presented to
Chopin in the name of all.
May you never forget your country [said the speaker,
according to Karasowski], wherever you may wander or sojourn,
may you never cease to love it with a warm, faithful heart!
Remember Poland, remember your friends, who call you with
pride their fellow-countryman, who expect great things of
you, whose wishes and prayers accompany you!
How fully Chopin realised their wishes and expectations the sequel will
show: how much such loving words must have affected him the reader
of this chapter can have no difficulty in understanding. But now came
pitilessly the dread hour of parting. A last farewell is taken, the
carriage rolls away, and the traveller has left behind him all that
is dearest to him--parents, sisters, sweetheart, and friends. "I have
always a presentiment that I am leaving Warsaw never to return to it; I
am convinced that I shall say an eternal farewell to my native country."
Thus, indeed, destiny willed it. Chopin was never to tread again the
beloved soil of Poland, never to set eyes again on Warsaw and its
Conservatorium, the column of King Sigismund opposite, the neighbouring
church of the Bernardines (Constantia's place of worship), and all those
things and places associated in his mind with the sweet memories of his
youth and early manhood.
CHAPTER XI.
CHOPIN IS JOINED AT KALISZ BY TITUS WOYCIECHOWSKI.--FOUR DAYS AT
BRESLAU: HIS VISITS TO THE THEATRE; CAPELLMEISTER SCHNABEL; PLAYS AT
A CONCERT; ADOLF HESSE.--SECOND VISIT TO DRESDEN: MUSIC AT THEATRE
AND CHURCH; GERMAN AND POLISH SOCIETY; MORLACCHI, SIGNORA PALAZZESI,
RASTRELLI, ROLLA, DOTZAUER, KUMMER, KLENGEL, AND OTHER MUSICIANS; A
CONCERT TALKED ABOUT BUT NOT GIVEN; SIGHT-SEEING.--AFTER A WEEK, BY
PRAGUE TO VIENNA.--ARRIVES AT VIENNA TOWARDS THE END OF NOVEMBER, 1830.
Thanks to Chopin's extant letters to his family and friends it is not
difficult to give, with the help of some knowledge of the contemporary
artists and of the state of music in the towns he visited, a pretty
clear account of his experiences and mode of life during the nine or ten
months which intervene between his departure from Warsaw and his arrival
in Paris. Without the letters this would have been impossible, and for
two reasons: one of them is that, although already a notable man, Chopin
was not yet a noted man; and the other, that those with whom he then
associated have, like himself, passed away from among us.
Chopin, who, as the reader will remember, left Warsaw on November
1, 1830, was joined at Kalisz by Titus Woyciechowski. Thence the two
friends travelled together to Vienna. They made their first halt at
Breslau, which they reached on November 6. No sooner had Chopin put
up at the hotel Zur goldenen Gans, changed his dress, and taken some
refreshments, than he rushed off to the theatre. During his stay in
Breslau he was present at three performances--at Raimund's fantastical
comedy "Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind", Auber's "Maurer und
Schlosser (Le Macon)," and Winter's "Das unterbrochene Opferfest", a now
superannuated but then still popular opera. The players succeeded better
than the singers in gaining the approval of their fastidious auditor,
which indeed might have been expected. As both Chopin and Woyciechowski
were provided with letters of introduction, and the gentlemen to whom
they were addressed did all in their power to make their visitors'
sojourn as pleasant as possible, the friends spent in Breslau four happy
days. It is characteristic of the German musical life in those days that
in the Ressource, a society of that town, they had three weekly
concerts at which the greater number of the performers were amateurs.
Capellmeister Schnabel, an old acquaintance of Chopin's, had invited the
latter to come to a morning rehearsal. When Chopin entered, an amateur,
a young barrister, was going to rehearse Moscheles' E flat major
Concerto. Schnabel, on seeing the newcomer, asked him to try the
piano. Chopin sat down and played some variations which astonished and
delighted the Capellmeister, who had not heard him for four years, so
much that he overwhelmed him with expressions of admiration. As the poor
amateur began to feel nervous, Chopin was pressed on all sides to take
that gentleman's place in the evening. Although he had not practised
for some weeks he consented, drove to the hotel, fetched the requisite
music, rehearsed, and in the evening performed the Romanza and Rondo of
his E minor Concerto and an improvisation on a theme from Auber's "La
Muette" ("Masaniello"). At the rehearsal the "Germans" admired his
playing; some of them he heard whispering "What a light touch he has!"
but not a word was said about the composition. The amateurs did not know
whether it was good or bad. Titus Woyciechowski heard one of them say
"No doubt he can play, but he can't compose." There was, however, one
gentleman who praised the novelty of the form, and the composer naively
declares that this was the person who understood him best. Speaking of
the professional musicians, Chopin remarks that, with the exception of
Schnabel, "the Germans" were at a loss what to think of him. The Polish
peasants use the word "German" as an invective, believe that the devil
speaks German and dresses in the German fashion, and refuse to take
medicine because they hold it to be an invention of the Germans and,
consequently, unfit for Christians. Although Chopin does not go so
far, he is by no means free from this national antipathy. Let his
susceptibility be ruffled by Germans, and you may be sure he will
remember their nationality. Besides old Schnabel there was among the
persons whose acquaintance Chopin made at Breslau only one other who
interests us, and interests us more than that respectable composer
of church music; and this one was the organist and composer Adolph
Frederick Hesse, then a young man of Chopin's age. Before long the
latter became better acquainted with him. In his account of his stay and
playing in the Silesian capital, he says of him only that "the second
local connoisseur, Hesse, who has travelled through the whole of
Germany, paid me also compliments."
Chopin continued his journey on November 10, and on November 12 had
already plunged into Dresden life. Two features of this, in some
respects quite unique, life cannot but have been particularly attractive
to our traveller--namely, its Polish colony and the Italian opera. The
former owed its origin to the connection of the house of Saxony with
the crown of Poland; and the latter, which had been patronised by the
Electors and Kings for hundreds of years, was not disbanded till 1832.
In 1817, it is true, Weber, who had received a call for that purpose,
founded a German opera at Dresden, but the Italian opera retained the
favour of the Court and of a great part of the public, in fact, was the
spoiled child that looked down upon her younger sister, poor Cinderella.
Even a Weber had to fight hard to keep his own, indeed, sometimes
failed to do so, in the rivalry with the ornatissimo Signore Cavaliere
Morlacchi, primo maestro della capella Reale.
Chopin's first visit was to Miss Pechwell, through whom he got admission
to a soiree at the house of Dr. Kreyssig, where she was going to play
and the prima donna of the Italian opera to sing. Having carefully
dressed, Chopin made his way to Dr. Kreyssig's in a sedan-chair. Being
unaccustomed to this kind of conveyance he had a desire to kick out
the bottom of the "curious but comfortable box," a temptation which he,
however--to his honour be it recorded--resisted. On entering the salon
he found there a great number of ladies sitting round eight large
tables:--
No sparkling of diamonds met my eye, but the more modest
glitter of a host of steel knitting-needles, which moved
ceaselessly in the busy hands of these ladies. The number of
ladies and knitting-needles was so large that if the ladies
had planned an attack upon the gentlemen that were present,
the latter would have been in a sorry plight. Nothing would
have been left to them but to make use of their spectacles as
weapons, for there was as little lack of eye-glasses as of
bald heads.
The clicking of knitting-needles and the rattling of teacups were
suddenly interrupted by the overture to the opera "Fra Diavolo," which
was being played in an adjoining room. After the overture Signora
Palazzesi sang "with a bell-like, magnificent voice, and great bravura."
Chopin asked to be introduced to her. He made likewise the acquaintance
of the old composer and conductor Vincent Rastrelli, who introduced him
to a brother of the celebrated tenor Rubini.
At the Roman Catholic church, the Court Church, Chopin met Morlacchi,
and heard a mass by that excellent artist. The Neapolitan sopranists
Sassaroli and Tarquinio sang, and the "incomparable Rolla" played the
solo violin. On another occasion he heard a clever but dry mass by Baron
von Miltitz, which was performed under the direction of Morlacchi, and
in which the celebrated violoncello virtuosos Dotzauer and Kummer
played their solos beautifully, and the voices of Sassaroli, Muschetti,
Babnigg, and Zezi were heard to advantage. The theatre was, as usual,
assiduously frequented by Chopin. After the above-mentioned soiree
he hastened to hear at least the last act of "Die Stumme von Portici"
("Masaniello"). Of the performance of Rossini's "Tancredi," which he
witnessed on another evening, he praised only the wonderful violin
playing of Rolla and the singing of Mdlle. Hahnel, a lady from the
Vienna Court Theatre. Rossini's "La Donna del lago," in Italian,
is mentioned among the operas about to be performed. What a strange
anomaly, that in the year 1830 a state of matters such as is indicated
by these names and facts could still obtain in Dresden, one of the
capitals of musical Germany! It is emphatically a curiosity of history.
Chopin, who came to Rolla with a letter of introduction from Soliva,
was received by the Italian violinist with great friendliness. Indeed,
kindness was showered upon him from all sides. Rubini promised him
a letter of introduction to his brother in Milan, Rolla one to the
director of the opera there, and Princess Augusta, the daughter of the
late king, and Princess Maximiliana, the sister-in-law of the reigning
king, provided him with letters for the Queen of Naples, the Duchess of
Lucca, the Vice-Queen of Milan, and Princess Ulasino in Rome. He had
met the princesses and played to them at the house of the Countess
Dobrzycka, Oberhofmeisterin of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the
late king, Frederick Augustus.
The name of the Oberhofmeisterin brings us to the Polish society of
Dresden, into which Chopin seems to have found his way at once. Already
two days after his arrival he writes of a party of Poles with whom he
had dined. At the house of Mdme. Pruszak he made the acquaintance of no
less a person than General Kniaziewicz, who took part in the defence of
Warsaw, commanded the left wing in the battle of Maciejowice (1794),
and joined Napoleon's Polish legion in 1796. Chopin wrote home: "I have
pleased him very much; he said that no pianist had made so agreeable an
impression on him."
To judge from the tone of Chopin's letters, none of all the people he
came in contact with gained his affection in so high a degree as did
Klengel, whom he calls "my dear Klengel," and of whom he says that he
esteems him very highly, and loves him as if he had known him from his
earliest youth. "I like to converse with him, for from him something is
to be learned." The great contrapuntist seems to have reciprocated this
affection, at any rate he took a great interest in his young friend,
wished to see the scores of his concertos, went without Chopin's
knowledge to Morlacchi and to the intendant of the theatre to try if
a concert could not be arranged within four days, told him that his
playing reminded him of Field's, that his touch was of a peculiar kind,
and that he had not expected to find him such a virtuoso. Although
Chopin replied, when Klengel advised him to give a concert, that his
stay in Dresden was too short to admit of his doing so, and thought
himself that he could earn there neither much fame nor much money, he
nevertheless was not a little pleased that this excellent artist had
taken some trouble in attempting to smooth the way for a concert, and to
hear from him that this had been done not for Chopin's but for Dresden's
sake; our friend, be it noted, was by no means callous to flattery.
Klengel took him also to a soiree at the house of Madame Niesiolawska,
a Polish lady, and at supper proposed his health, which was drunk in
champagne.
There is a passage in one of Chopin's letters which I must quote; it
tells us something of his artistic taste outside his own art:--
The Green Vault I saw last time I was here, and once is
enough for me; but I revisited with great interest the
picture gallery. If I lived here I would go to it every week,
for there are pictures in it at the sight of which I imagine
I hear music.
Thus our friend spent a week right pleasantly and not altogether
unprofitably in the Saxon Athens, and spent it so busily that what with
visits, dinners, soirees, operas, and other amusements, he leaving his
hotel early in the morning and returning late at night, it passed away
he did not know how.
Chopin, who made also a short stay in Prague--of which visit, however,
we have no account--arrived in Vienna in the latter part of November,
1830. His intention was to give some concerts, and to proceed in a month
or two to Italy. How the execution of this plan was prevented by various
circumstances we shall see presently. Chopin flattered himself with the
belief that managers, publishers, artists, and the public in general
were impatiently awaiting his coming, and ready to receive him with
open arms. This, however, was an illusion. He overrated his success.
His playing at the two "Academies" in the dead season must have remained
unnoticed by many, and was probably forgotten by not a few who did
notice it. To talk, therefore, about forging the iron while it was hot
proved a misconception of the actual state of matters. It is true his
playing and compositions had made a certain impression, especially upon
some of the musicians who had heard him. But artists, even when
free from hostile jealousy, are far too much occupied with their own
interests to be helpful in pushing on their younger brethren. As to
publishers and managers, they care only for marketable articles, and
until an article has got a reputation its marketable value is very
small. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand judge by names and
not by intrinsic worth. Suppose a hitherto unknown statue of Phidias,
a painting of Raphael, a symphony of Beethoven, were discovered and
introduced to the public as the works of unknown living artists, do
you think they would receive the same universal admiration as the known
works of the immortal masters? Not at all! By a very large majority of
the connoisseurs and pretended connoisseurs they would be criticised,
depreciated, or ignored. Let, however, the real names of the authors
become known, and the whole world will forthwith be thrown into ecstasy,
and see in them even more beauties than they really possess. Well, the
first business of an artist, then, is to make himself a reputation, and
a reputation is not made by one or two successes. A first success, be it
ever so great, and achieved under ever so favourable circumstances, is
at best but the thin end of the wedge which has been got in, but which
has to be driven home with much vigour and perseverance before the work
is done. "Art is a fight, not a pleasure-trip," said the French
painter Millet, one who had learnt the lesson in the severe school of
experience. Unfortunately for Chopin, he had neither the stuff nor
the stomach for fighting. He shrank back at the slightest touch like a
sensitive plant. He could only thrive in the sunshine of prosperity and
protected against all those inimical influences and obstacles that cause
hardier natures to put forth their strength, and indeed are necessary
for the full unfolding of all their capabilities. Chopin and Titus
Woyciechowski put up at the hotel Stadt London, but, finding the charges
too high, they decamped and stayed at the hotel Goldenes Lamm till the
lodgings which they had taken were evacuated by the English admiral then
in possession of them. From Chopin's first letter after his arrival in
the Austrian capital his parents had the satisfaction of learning that
their son was in excellent spirits, and that his appetite left nothing
to be desired, especially when sharpened by good news from home. In his
perambulations he took particular note of the charming Viennese girls,
and at the Wilde Mann, where he was in the habit of dining, he enjoyed
immensely a dish of Strudeln. The only drawback to the blissfulness of
his then existence was a swollen nose, caused by the change of air, a
circumstance which interfered somewhat with his visiting operations. He
was generally well received by those on whom he called with letters
of introduction. In one of the two exceptional cases he let it be
understood that, having a letter of introduction from the Grand Duke
Constantine to the Russian Ambassador, he was not so insignificant a
person as to require the patronage of a banker; and in the other case
he comforted himself with the thought that a time would come when things
would be changed.
In the letter above alluded to (December 1, 1830) Chopin speaks of one
of the projected concerts as if it were to take place shortly; that is
to say, he is confident that, such being his pleasure, this will be
the natural course of events. His Warsaw acquaintance Orlowski, the
perpetrator of mazurkas on his concerto themes, was accompanying
the violinist Lafont on a concert-tour. Chopin does not envy him the
honour:--
Will the time come [he writes] when Lafont will accompany me?
Does this question sound arrogant? But, God willing, this may
come to pass some day.
Wurfel has conversations with him about the arrangements for a
concert, and Graff, the pianoforte-maker, advises him to give it in
the Landstandische Saal, the finest and most convenient hall in Vienna.
Chopin even asks his people which of his Concertos he should play, the
one in F or the one in E minor. But disappointments were not long in
coming. One of his first visits was to Haslinger, the publisher of the
Variations on "La ci darem la mano," to whom he had sent also a sonata
and another set of variations. Haslinger received him very kindly, but
would print neither the one nor the other work. No wonder the composer
thought the cunning publisher wished to induce him in a polite and
artful way to let him have his compositions gratis. For had not Wurfel
told him that his Concerto in F minor was better than Hummel's in A
flat, which Haslinger had just published, and had not Klengel at
Dresden been surprised to hear that he had received no payment for the
Variations? But Chopin will make Haslinger repent of it. "Perhaps he
thinks that if he treats my compositions somewhat en bagatelle, I shall
be glad if only he prints them; but henceforth nothing will be got from
me gratis; my motto will be 'Pay, animal!'" But evidently the animal
wouldn't pay, and in fact did not print the compositions till after
Chopin's death. So, unless the firm of Haslinger mentioned that he will
call on him as soon as he has a room wherein he can receive a visit in
return, the name of Lachner does not reappear in the correspondence.
In the management of the Karnthnerthor Theatre, Louis Duport had
succeeded, on September 1, 1830, Count Gallenberg, whom severe losses
obliged to relinquish a ten years' contract after the lapse of less than
two years. Chopin was introduced to the new manager by Hummel.
He (Duport) [writes Chopin on December 21 to his parents] was
formerly a celebrated dancer, and is said to be very
niggardly; however, he received me in an extremely polite
manner, for perhaps he thinks I shall play for him gratis. He
is mistaken there! We entered into a kind of negotiation, but
nothing definite was settled. If Mr. Duport offers me too
little, I shall give my concert in the large Redoutensaal.
But the niggardly manager offered him nothing at all, and Chopin did not
give a concert either in the Redoutensaal or elsewhere, at least not for
a long time. Chopin's last-quoted remark is difficult to reconcile with
what he tells his friend Matuszyriski four days later: "I have no longer
any thought of giving a concert." In a letter to Elsner, dated January
26, 1831, he writes:--
I meet now with obstacles on all sides. Not only does a
series of the most miserable pianoforte concerts totally ruin
all true music and make the public suspicious, but the
occurrences in Poland have also acted unfavourably upon my
position. Nevertheless, I intend to have during the carnival
a performance of my first Concerto, which has met with
Wurfel's full approval.
It would, however, be a great mistake to ascribe the failure of Chopin's
projects solely to the adverse circumstances pointed out by him.
The chief causes lay in himself. They were his want of energy and of
decision, constitutional defects which were of course intensified by the
disappointment of finding indifference and obstruction where he expected
enthusiasm and furtherance, and by the outbreak of the revolution in
Poland (November 30, 1830), which made him tremble for the safety of his
beloved ones and the future of his country. In the letter from which I
have last quoted Chopin, after remarking that he had postponed writing
till he should be able to report some definite arrangement, proceeds to
say:--
But from the day that I heard of the dreadful occurrences in
our fatherland, my thoughts have been occupied only with
anxiety and longing for it and my dear ones. Malfatti gives
himself useless trouble in trying to convince me that the
artist is, or ought to be, a cosmopolitan. And, supposing
this were really the case, as an artist I am still in the
cradle, but as a Pole already a man. I hope, therefore, that
you will not be offended with me for not yet having seriously
thought of making arrangements for a concert.
What affected Chopin most and made him feel lonely was the departure
of his friend Woyciechowski, who on the first news of the insurrection
returned to Poland and joined the insurgents. Chopin wished to do the
same, but his parents advised him to stay where he was, telling him
that he was not strong enough to bear the fatigues and hardships of
a soldier's life. Nevertheless, when Woyciechowski was gone an
irresistible home-sickness seized him, and, taking post-horses, he tried
to overtake his friend and go with him. But after following him for
some stages without making up to him, his resolution broke down, and he
returned to Vienna. Chopin's characteristic irresolution shows itself
again at this time very strikingly, indeed, his letters are full of
expressions indicating and even confessing it. On December 21, 1830, he
writes to his parents:--
I do not know whether I ought to go soon to Italy or wait a
little longer? Please, dearest papa, let me know your and the
best mother's will in this matter.
And four days afterwards he writes to Matuszynski:--
You know, of course, that 1 have letters from the Royal Court
of Saxony to the Vice-Queen in Milan, but what shall I do? My
parents leave me to choose; I wish they would give me
instructions. Shall I go to Paris? My acquaintances here
advise me to wait a little longer. Shall I return home? Shall
I stay here? Shall I kill myself? Shall I not write to you
any more?
Chopin's dearest wish was to be at home again. "How I should like to be
in Warsaw!" he writes. But the fulfilment of this wish was out of the
question, being against the desire of his parents, of whom especially
the mother seems to have been glad that he did not execute his project
of coming home.
I would not like to be a burden to my father; were it not for
this fear I should return home at once. I am often in such a
mood that I curse the moment of my departure from my sweet
home! You will understand my situation, and that since the
departure of Titus too much has fallen upon me all at once.
The question whether he should go to Italy or to France was soon decided
for him, for the suppressed but constantly-increasing commotion which
had agitated the former country ever since the July revolution at last
vented itself in a series of insurrections. Modena began on February
3,1831, Bologna, Ancona, Parma, and Rome followed. While the "where to
go" was thus settled, the "when to go" remained an open question for
many months to come. Meanwhile let us try to look a little deeper into
the inner and outer life which Chopin lived at Vienna.
The biographical details of this period of Chopin's life have to
be drawn almost wholly from his letters. These, however, must be
judiciously used. Those addressed to his parents, important as they are,
are only valuable with regard to the composer's outward life, and even
as vehicles of such facts they are not altogether trustworthy, for it
is always his endeavour to make his parents believe that he is well and
cheery. Thus he writes, for instance, to his friend Matuszyriski, after
pouring forth complaint after complaint:--"Tell my parents that I am
very happy, that I am in want of nothing, that I amuse myself famously,
and never feel lonely." Indeed, the Spectator's opinion that nothing
discovers the true temper of a person so much as his letters, requires
a good deal of limitation and qualification. Johnson's ideas on the same
subject may be recommended as a corrective. He held that there was
no transaction which offered stronger temptations to fallacy and
sophistication than epistolary intercourse:--
In the eagerness of conversation the first emotions of the
mind burst out before they are considered. In the tumult of
business, interest and passion have their genuine effect; but
a friendly letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the
cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no
man sits down by design to depreciate his own character.
Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom
can a man so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by
him whose kindness he desires to gain or keep?
These one-sided statements are open to much criticism, and would make an
excellent theme for an essay. Here, however, we must content ourselves
with simply pointing out that letters are not always calm and deliberate
performances, but exhibit often the eagerness of conversation and the
impulsiveness of passion. In Chopin's correspondence we find this not
unfrequently exemplified. But to see it we must not turn to the letters
addressed to his parents, to his master, and to his acquaintances--there
we find little of the real man and his deeper feelings--but to those
addressed to his bosom-friends, and among them there are none in which
he shows himself more openly than in the two which he wrote on December
25, 1830, and January 1, 1831, to John Matuszynski. These letters are,
indeed, such wonderful revelations of their writer's character that
I should fail in my duty as his biographer were I to neglect to place
before the reader copious extracts from them, in short, all those
passages which throw light on the inner working of this interesting
personality.
Dec. 25, 1830.--I longed indescribably for your letter; you
know why. How happy news of my angel of peace always makes
me! How I should like to touch all the strings which not only
call up stormy feelings, but also awaken again the songs
whose half-dying echo is still flitting on the banks of the
Danube-songs which the warriors of King John Sobieski sang!
You advised me to choose a poet. But you know I am an
undecided being, and succeeded only once in my life in making
a good choice.
The many dinners, soirees, concerts, and balls which I have
to go to only bore me. I am sad, and feel so lonely and
forsaken here. But I cannot live as I would! I must dress,
appear with a cheerful countenance in the salons; but when I
am again in my room I give vent to my feelings on the piano,
to which, as my best friend in Vienna, I disclose all my
sufferings. I have not a soul to whom I can fully unbosom
myself, and yet I must meet everyone like a friend. There
are, indeed, people here who seem to love me, take my
portrait, seek my society; but they do not make up for the
want of you [his friends and relations]. I lack inward peace,
I am at rest only when I read your [his friends' and
relations'] letters, and picture to myself the statue of King
Sigismund, or gaze at the ring [Constantia's], that dear
jewel. Forgive me, dear Johnnie, for complaining so much to
you; but my heart grows lighter when I speak to you thus. To
you I have indeed always told all that affected me. Did you
receive my little note the day before yesterday? Perhaps you
don't care much for my scribbling, for you are at home; but I
read and read your letters again and again.
Dr. Freyer has called on me several times; he had learned
from Schuch that I was in Vienna. He told me a great deal of
interesting news, and enjoyed your letter, which I read to
him up to a certain passage. This passage has made me very
sad. Is she really so much changed in appearance? Perhaps she
was ill? One could easily fancy her being so, as she has a
very sensitive disposition. Perhaps she only appeared so to
you, or was she afraid of anything? God forbid that she
should suffer in any way on my account. Set her mind at rest,
and tell her that as long as my heart beats I shall not cease
to adore her. Tell her that even after my death my ashes
shall be strewn under her feet. Still, all this is yet too
little, and you might tell her a great deal more.
I shall write to her myself; indeed, I would have done so
long ago to free myself from my torments; but if my letter
should fall into strange hands, might this not hurt her
reputation? Therefore, dear friend, be you the interpreter
of my feelings; speak for me, "et j'en conviendrai." These
French words of yours flashed through me like lightning. A
Viennese gentleman who walked beside me in the street when I
was reading your letter, seized me by the arm, and was hardly
able to hold me. He did not know what had happened to me. I
should have liked to embrace and kiss all the passers-by, and
I felt happier than I had done for a long time, for I had
received the first letter from you. Perhaps I weary you,
Johnnie, with my passionateness; but it is difficult for me
to conceal from you anything that moves my heart.
The day before yesterday I dined at Madame Beyer's, her name
is likewise Constantia. I like her society, her having that
indescribably dear Christian name is sufficient to account
for my partiality; it gives me even pleasure when one of her
pocket-handkerchiefs or napkins marked "Constantia" comes
into my hands.
I walked alone, and slowly, into St. Stephen's. The church
was as yet empty. To view the noble, magnificent edifice in a
truly devout spirit I leant against a pillar in the darkest
corner of this house of God. The grandeur of the arched roof
cannot be described, one must see St. Stephen's with one's
own eyes. Around me reigned the profoundest silence, which
was interrupted only by the echoing footsteps of the
sacristan who came to light the candles. Behind me was a
grave, before me a grave, only above me I saw none. At that
moment I felt my loneliness and isolation. When the lights
were burning and the Cathedral began to fill with people, I
wrapped myself up more closely in my cloak (you know the way
in which I used to walk through the suburb of Cracow), and
hastened to be present at the Mass in the Imperial Court
Chapel. Now, however, I walked no longer alone, but passed
through the beautiful streets of Vienna in merry company to
the Hofburg, where I heard three movements of a mass
performed by sleepy musicians. At one o'clock in the morning
I reached my lodgings. I dreamt of you, of her, and of my
dear children [his sisters].
The first thing I did to-day was to indulge myself in
melancholy fantasias on my piano.
Advise me what to do. Please ask the person who has always
exercised so powerful an influence over me in Warsaw, and let
me know her opinion; according to that I shall act.
Let me hear once more from you before you take the field.
Vienna, poste restante. Go and see my parents and Constantia.
Visit my sisters often, as long as you are still in Warsaw,
so that they may think that you are coming to me, and that I
am in the other room. Sit down beside them that they may
imagine I am there too; in one word, be my substitute in the
house of my parents.
I shall conclude, dear Johnnie, for now it is really time.
Embrace all my dear colleagues for me, and believe that I
shall not cease to love you until I cease to love those that
are dearest to me, my parents and her.
My dearest friend, do write me soon a few lines. You may even
show her this letter, if you think fit to do so.
My parents don't know that I write to you. You may tell them
of it, but must by no means show them the letter. I cannot
yet take leave of my Johnnie; but I shall be off presently,
you naughty one! If W...loves you as heartily as I love you,
then would Con...No, I cannot complete the name, my hand is
too unworthy. Ah! I could tear out my hair when I think that
I could be forgotten by her!
My portrait, of which only you and I are to know, is a very
good likeness; if you think it would give her pleasure, I
would send it to her through Schuch.
January 1, 1831.--There you have what you wanted! Have you
received the letter? Have you delivered any of the messages
it contained? To-day I still regret what I have done. I was
full of sweet hopes, and now am tormented by anxiety and
doubts. Perhaps she mocks at me--laughs at me? Perhaps--ah!
does she love me? This is what my passionate heart asks. You
wicked AEsculapius, you were at the theatre, you eyed her
incessantly with your opera-glass; if this is the case a
thunderbolt shall...Do not forfeit my confidence; oh, you! if
I write to you I do so only for my own sake, for you do not
deserve it.
Just now when I am writing I am in a strange state; I feel as
if I were with you [with his dear ones], and were only
dreaming what I see and hear here. The voices which I hear
around me, and to which my ear is not accustomed, make upon
me for the most part only an impression like the rattling of
carriages or any other indifferent noise. Only your voice or
that of Titus could to-day wake me out of my torpor. Life and
death are perfectly alike to me. Tell, however, my parents
that I am very happy, that I am in want of nothing, that I
amuse myself famously, and never feel lonely.
If she mocks at me, tell her the same; but if she inquires
kindly for me, shows some concern about me, whisper to her
that she may make her mind easy; but add also that away from
her I feel everywhere lonely and unhappy. I am unwell, but
this I do not write to my parents. Everybody asks what is the
matter with me. I should like to answer that I have lost my
good spirits. However, you know best what troubles me!
Although there is no lack of entertainment and diversion
here, I rarely feel inclined for amusement.
To-day is the first of January. Oh, how sadly this year
begins for me! I love you [his friends] above all things.
Write as soon as possible. Is she at Radom? Have you thrown
up redoubts? My poor parents! How are my friends faring?
I could die for you, for you all! Why am I doomed to be here
so lonely and forsaken? You can at least open your hearts to
each other and comfort each other. Your flute will have
enough to lament! How much more will my piano have to weep!
You write that you and your regiment are going to take the
field; how will you forward the note? Be sure you do not send
it by a messenger; be cautious! The parents might perhaps--
they might perhaps view the matter in a false light.
I embrace you once more. You are going to the war; return as
a colonel. May all pass off well! Why may I not at least be
your drummer?
Forgive the disorder in my letter, I write as if I were
intoxicated.
The disorder of the letters is indeed very striking; it is great in
the foregoing extracts, and of course ten times greater with the
interspersed descriptions, bits of news, and criticisms on music and
musicians. I preferred separating the fundamental and always-recurring
thoughts, the all-absorbing and predominating feelings, from the more
superficial and passing fancies and affections, and all those
matters which were to him, if not of total indifference, at least of
comparatively little moment; because such a separation enables us to
gain a clearer and fuller view of the inner man and to judge henceforth
his actions and works with some degree of certainty, even where his own
accounts and comments and those of trustworthy witnesses fail us. The
psychological student need not be told to take note of the disorder in
these two letters and of their length (written to the same person within
less than a week, they fill nearly twelve printed pages in Karasowski's
book), he will not be found neglecting such important indications of the
temporary mood and the character of which it is a manifestation. And now
let us take a glance at Chopin's outward life in Vienna.
I have already stated that Chopin and Woyciechowski lived together.
Their lodgings, for which they had to pay their landlady, a baroness,
fifty florins, were on the third story of a house in the Kohlmarkt, and
consisted of three elegant rooms. When his friend left, Chopin thought
the rent too high for his purse, and as an English family was willing
to pay as much as eighty florins, he sublet the rooms and removed to
the fourth story, where he found in the Baroness von Lachmanowicz an
agreeable young landlady, and had equally roomy apartments which cost
him only twenty florins and pleased him quite well. The house was
favourably situated, Mechetti being on the right, Artaria on the left,
and the opera behind; and as people were not deterred by the high stairs
from visiting him, not even old Count Hussarzewski, and a good profit
would accrue to him from those eighty florins, he could afford to laugh
at theprobable dismay of his friends picturing him as "a poor devil
living in a garret," and could do so the more heartily as there was in
reality another story between him and the roof. He gives his people a
very pretty description of his lodgings and mode of life:--
I live on the fourth story, in a fine street, but I have to
strain my eyes in looking out of the window when I wish to
see what is going on beneath. You will find my room in my new
album when I am at home again. Young Hummel [a son of the
composer] is so kind as to draw it for me. It is large and
has five windows; the bed is opposite to them. My wonderful
piano stands on the right, the sofa on the left; between the
windows there is a mirror, in the middle of the room a fine,
large, round mahogany table; the floor is polished. Hush!
"The gentleman does not receive visitors in the afternoon"--
hence I can be amongst you in my thoughts. Early in the
morning the unbearably-stupid servant wakes me; I rise, get
my coffee, and often drink it cold because I forget my
breakfast over my playing. Punctually at nine o'clock appears
my German master; then I generally write; and after that,
Hummel comes to work at my portrait, while Nidecki studies my
concerto. And all this time I remain in my comfortable
dressing-gown, which I do not take off till twelve o'clock.
At that hour a very worthy German makes his appearance, Herr
Leibenfrost, who works in the law-courts here. If the weather
is fine I take a walk with him on the Glacis, then we dine
together at a restaurant, Zur bohmischen Kochin, which is
frequented by all the university students; and finally we go
(as is the custom here) to one of the best coffee-houses.
After this I make calls, return home in the twilight, throw
myself into evening-dress, and must be off to some soiree: to-
day here, to-morrow there. About eleven or twelve (but never
later) I return home, play, laugh, read, lie down, put out
the light, sleep, and dream of you, my dear ones.
If is evident that there was no occasion to fear that Chopin would kill
himself with too hard work. Indeed, the number of friends, or, not to
misuse this sacred name, let us rather say acquaintances, he had, did
not allow him much time for study and composition. In his letters
from Vienna are mentioned more than forty names of families and single
individuals with whom he had personal intercourse. I need hardly add
that among them there was a considerable sprinkling of Poles. Indeed,
the majority of the houses where he was oftenest seen, and where he felt
most happy, were those of his countrymen, or those in which there was at
least some Polish member, or which had some Polish connection. Already
on December 1, 1830, he writes home that he had been several times at
Count Hussarzewski's, and purposes to pay a visit at Countess Rosalia
Rzewuska's, where he expects to meet Madame Cibbini, the daughter
of Leopold Kozeluch and a pupil of Clementi, known as a pianist and
composer, to whom Moscheles dedicated a sonata for four hands, and who
at that time was first lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Austria. Chopin
had likewise called twice at Madame Weyberheim's. This lady, who was a
sister of Madame Wolf and the wife of a rich banker, invited him to a
soiree "en petit cercle des amateurs," and some weeks later to a soiree
dansante, on which occasion he saw "many young people, beautiful, but
not antique [that is to say not of the Old Testament kind], "refused
to play, although the lady of the house and her beautiful daughters had
invited many musical personages, was forced to dance a cotillon, made
some rounds, and then went home. In the house of the family Beyer (where
the husband was a Pole of Odessa, and the wife, likewise Polish, bore
the fascinating Christian name Constantia--the reader will remember her)
Chopin felt soon at his ease. There he liked to dine, sup, lounge, chat,
play, dance mazurkas, &c. He often met there the violinist Slavik, and
the day before Christmas played with him all the morning and evening,
another day staying with him there till two o'clock in the morning. We
hear also of dinners at the house of his countrywoman Madame Elkan, and
at Madame Schaschek's, where (he writes in July, 1831) he usually met
several Polish ladies, who by their hearty hopeful words always cheered
him, and where he once made his appearance at four instead of the
appointed dinner hour, two o'clock. But one of his best friends was the
medical celebrity Dr. Malfatti, physician-in-ordinary to the Emperor
of Austria, better remembered by the musical reader as the friend of
Beethoven, whom he attended in his last illness, forgetting what causes
for complaint he might have against the too irritable master. Well,
this Dr. Malfatti received Chopin, of whom he had already heard from
Wladyslaw Ostrowski, "as heartily as if I had been a relation of his"
(Chopin uses here a very bold simile), running up to him and embracing
him as soon as he had got sight of his visiting-card. Chopin became a
frequent guest at the doctor's house; in his letters we come often on
the announcement that he has dined or is going to dine on such or such a
day at Dr. Malfatti's.
December 1, 1830.--On the whole things are going well with
me, and I hope with God's help, who sent Malfatti to my
assistance--oh, excellent Malfatti!--that they will go better
still.
December 25, 1830.--I went to dine at Malfatti's. This
excellent man thinks of everything; he is even so kind as to
set before us dishes prepared in the Polish fashion.
May 14, 1831.--I am very brisk, and feel that good health is
the best comfort in misfortune. Perhaps Malfatti's soups have
strengthened me so much that I feel better than I ever did.
If this is really the case, I must doubly regret that
Malfatti has gone with his family into the country. You have
no idea how beautiful the villa is in which he lives; this
day week I was there with Hummel. After this amiable
physician had taken us over his house he showed us also his
garden. When we stood at the top of the hill, from which we
had a splendid view, we did not wish to go down again. The
Court honours Malfatti every year with a visit. He has the
Duchess of Anhalt-Cothen as a neighbour; I should not wonder
if she envied him his garden. On one side one sees Vienna
lying at one's feet, and in such a way that one might believe
it was joined to Schoenbrunn; on the other side one sees high
mountains picturesquely dotted with convents and villages.
Gazing on this romantic panorama one entirely forgets the
noisy bustle and proximity of the capital.
This is one of the few descriptive passages to be found in Chopin's
letters--men and their ways interested him more than natural scenery.
But to return from the villa to its owner, Chopin characterises
his relation to the doctor unequivocally in the following
statement:--"Malfatti really loves me, and I am not a little proud of
it." Indeed, the doctor seems to have been a true friend, ready with act
and counsel. He aided him with his influence in various ways; thus,
for instance, we read that he promised to introduce him to Madame
Tatyszczew, the wife of the Russian Ambassador, and to Baron Dunoi,
the president of the musical society, whom Chopin thought a very useful
personage to know. At Malfatti's he made also the acquaintance of some
artists whom he would, perhaps, have had no opportunity of meeting
elsewhere. One of these was the celebrated tenor Wild. He came to
Malfatti's in the afternoon of Christmas-day, and Chopin, who had been
dining there, says: "I accompanied by heart the aria from Othello, which
he sang in a masterly style. Wild and Miss Heinefetter are the ornaments
of the Court Opera." Of a celebration of Malfatti's name-day Chopin
gives the following graphic account in a letter to his parents, dated
June 25, 1831:-- Mechetti, who wished to surprise him [Malfatti],
persuaded the Misses Emmering and Lutzer, and the Messrs. Wild,
Cicimara, and your Frederick to perform some music at the
honoured man's house; almost from beginning to end the
performance was deserving of the predicate "parfait." I never
heard the quartet from Moses better sung; but Miss Gladkowska
sang "O quante lagrime" at my farewell concert at Warsaw with
much more expression. Wild was in excellent voice, and I
acted in a way as Capellmeister.
To this he adds the note:--
Cicimara said there was nobody in Vienna who accompanied so
well as I. And I thought, "Of that I have been long
convinced." A considerable number of people stood on the
terrace of the house and listened to our concert. The moon
shone with wondrous beauty, the fountains rose like columns
of pearls, the air was filled with the fragrance of the
orangery; in short, it was an enchanting night, and the
surroundings were magnificent! And now I will describe to you
the drawing-room in which we were. High windows, open from
top to bottom, look out upon the terrace, from which one has
a splendid view of the whole of Vienna. The walls are hung
with large mirrors; the lights were faint: but so much the
greater was the effect of the moonlight which streamed
through the windows. The cabinet to the left of the drawing-
room and adjoining it gives, on account of its large
dimensions, an imposing aspect to the whole apartment. The
ingenuousness and courtesy of the host, the elegant and
genial society, the generally-prevailing joviality, and the
excellent supper, kept us long together.
Here Chopin is seen at his best as a letter writer; it would be
difficult to find other passages of equal excellence. For, although
we meet frequently enough with isolated pretty bits, there is not one
single letter which, from beginning to end, as a whole as well as in its
parts, has the perfection and charm of Mendelssohn's letters.
CHAPTER XII
VIENNA MUSICAL LIFE.--KARNTHNERTHOR THEATRE.--SABINE
HEINEFETTER.--CONCERTS: HESSE, THALBERG, DOHLER, HUMMEL, ALOYS SCHMITT,
CHARLES CZERNY, SLAVIK, MERK, BOCKLET, ABBE STABLER, KIESEWETTER,
KANDLER.--THE PUBLISHERS HASLINGER, DIABELLI, MECHETTI, AND JOSEPH
CZERNY.--LANNER AND STRAUSS.--CHOPIN PLAYS AT A CONCERT OF MADAME
GARZIA-VESTRIS AND GIVES ONE HIMSELF.--HIS STUDIES AND COMPOSITIONS
OF THAT TIME.--HIS STATE OF BODY AND MIND.--PREPARATIONS FOR
AND POSTPONEMENT OF HIS DEPARTURE.--SHORTNESS OF MONEY.--HIS
MELANCHOLY.--TWO EXCURSIONS.--LEAVES FOR MUNICH.--HIS CONCERT AT
MUNICH.--HIS STAY AT STUTTGART.--PROCEEDS TO PARIS.
The allusions to music and musicians lead us naturally to inquire
further after Chopin's musical experiences in Vienna.
January 26, 1831.--If I had not made [he writes] the
exceedingly interesting acquaintance of the most talented
artists of this place, such as Slavik, Merk, Bocklet, and so
forth [this "so forth" is tantalising], I should be very
little satisfied with my stay here. The Opera indeed is good:
Wild and Miss Heinefetter fascinate the Viennese; only it is
a pity that Duport brings forward so few new operas, and
thinks more of his pocket than of art.
What Chopin says here and elsewhere about Duport's stinginess tallies
with the contemporary newspaper accounts. No sooner had the new manager
taken possession of his post than he began to economise in such a manner
that he drove away men like Conradin Kreutzer, Weigl, and Mayseder.
During the earlier part of his sojourn in Vienna Chopin remarked that
excepting Heinefetter and Wild, the singers were not so excellent as he
had expected to find them at the Imperial Opera. Afterwards he seems to
have somewhat extended his sympathies, for he writes in July, 1831:--
Rossini's "Siege of Corinth" was lately very well performed
here, and I am glad that I had the opportunity of hearing
this opera. Miss Heinefetter and Messrs. Wild, Binder, and
Forti, in short, all the good singers in Vienna, appeared in
this opera and did their best.
Chopin's most considerable criticism of this time is one on Miss
Heinefetter in a letter written on December 25, 1830; it may serve as
a pendant to his criticism on Miss Sontag which I quoted in a preceding
chapter.
Miss Heinefetter has a voice such as one seldom hears; she
sings always in tune; her coloratura is like so many pearls;
in short, everything is faultless. She looks particularly
well when dressed as a man. But she is cold: I got my nose
almost frozen in the stalls. In "Othello" she delighted me
more than in the "Barber of Seville," where she represents a
finished coquette instead of a lively, witty girl. As Sextus
in "Titus" she looks really quite splendid. In a few days she
is to appear in the "Thieving Magpie" ["La Gazza ladra"]. I
am anxious to hear it. Miss Woikow pleased me better as
Rosina in the "Barber"; but, to be sure, she has not such a
delicious voice as the Heinefetter. I wish I had heard Pasta!
The opera at the Karnthnerthor Theatre with all its shortcomings
was nevertheless the most important and most satisfactory musical
institution of the city. What else, indeed, had Vienna to offer to the
earnest musician? Lanner and Strauss were the heroes of the day, and the
majority of other concerts than those given by them were exhibitions
of virtuosos. Imagine what a pass the musical world of Vienna must have
come to when Stadler, Kiesewetter, Mosel, and Seyfried could be called,
as Chopin did call them, its elite! Abbe Stadler might well say to
the stranger from Poland that Vienna was no longer what it used to be.
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert had shuffled off their mortal
coil, and compared with these suns their surviving contemporaries
and successors--Gyrowetz, Weigl, Stadler, Conradin Kreutzer, Lachner,
&c.--were but dim and uncertain lights.
With regard to choral and orchestral performances apart from the stage,
Vienna had till more recent times very little to boast of. In 1830-1831
the Spirituel-Concerte (Concerts Spirituels) were still in existence
under the conductorship of Lannoy; but since 1824 their number had
dwindled down from eighteen to four yearly concerts. The programmes were
made up of a symphony and some sacred choruses. Beethoven, Mozart,
and Haydn predominated among the symphonists; in the choral department
preference was given to the Austrian school of church music; but
Cherubim also was a great favourite, and choruses from Handel's
oratorios, with Mosel's additional accompaniments, were often performed.
The name of Beethoven was hardly ever absent from any of the programmes.
That the orchestra consisted chiefly of amateurs, and that the
performances took place without rehearsals (only difficult new works got
a rehearsal, and one only), are facts which speak for themselves.
Franz Lachner told Hanslick that the performances of new and in any way
difficult compositions were so bad that Schubert once left the hall
in the middle of one of his works, and he himself (Lachner) had felt
several times inclined to do the same. These are the concerts of which
Beethoven spoke as Winkelmusik, and the tickets of which he denominated
Abtrittskarten, a word which, as the expression of a man of genius, I do
not hesitate to quote, but which I could not venture to translate. Since
this damning criticism was uttered, matters had not improved, on the
contrary, had gone from bad to worse. Another society of note was the
still existing and flourishing Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. It, too,
gave four, or perhaps five yearly concerts, in each of which a symphony,
an overture, an aria or duet, an instrumental solo, and a chorus
were performed. This society was afflicted with the same evil as the
first-named institution. It was a
gladdening sight [we are told] to see counts and tradesmen,
superiors and subalterns, professors and students, noble
ladies and simple burghers' daughters side by side
harmoniously exerting themselves for the love of art.
As far as choral singing is concerned the example deserves to be
followed, but the matter stands differently with regard to instrumental
music, a branch of the art which demands not only longer and more
careful, but also constant, training. Although the early custom of
drawing lots, in order to determine who were to sing the solos, what
places the players were to occupy in the orchestra, and which of the
four conductors was to wield the baton, had already disappeared before
1831, yet in 1841 the performances of the symphonies were still so
little "in the spirit of the composers" (a delicate way of stating an
ugly fact) that a critic advised the society to imitate the foreign
conservatoriums, and reinforce the band with the best musicians of the
capital, who, constantly exercising their art, and conversant with the
works of the great masters, were better able to do justice to them than
amateurs who met only four times a year. What a boon it would be
to humanity, what an increase of happiness, if amateurs would allow
themselves to be taught by George Eliot, who never spoke truer and wiser
words than when she said:--"A little private imitation of what is good
is a sort of private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practise
art only in the light of private study--preparation to understand and
enjoy what the few can do for us." In addition to the above I shall yet
mention a third society, the Tonkunstler-Societat, which, as the name
implies, was an association of musicians. Its object was the getting-up
and keeping-up of a pension fund, and its artistic activity displayed
itself in four yearly concerts. Haydn's "Creation" and "Seasons" were
the stock pieces of the society's repertoire, but in 1830 and 1831
Handel's "Messiah" and "Solomon" and Lachner's "Die vier Menschenalter"
were also performed.
These historical notes will give us an idea of what Chopin may have
heard in the way of choral and orchestral music. I say "may have heard,"
because not a word is to be found in his extant letters about the
concerts of these societies. Without exposing ourselves to the reproach
of rashness, we may, however, assume that he was present at the concert
of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde on March 20, 1831, when among the
items of the programme were Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and the first
movement of a concerto composed and played by Thalberg. On seeing the
name of one of the most famous pianists contemporary with Chopin, the
reader has, no doubt, at once guessed the reason why I assumed the
latter's presence at the concert. These two remarkable, but in their
characters and aims so dissimilar, men had some friendly intercourse in
Vienna. Chopin mentions Thalberg twice in his letters, first on December
25, 1830, and again on May 28, 1831. On the latter occasion he
relates that he went with him to an organ recital given by Hesse, the
previously-mentioned Adolf Hesse of Breslau, of whom Chopin now remarked
that he had talent and knew how to treat his instrument. Hesse and
Chopin must have had some personal intercourse, for we learn that
the former left with the latter an album leaf. A propos of this
circumstance, Chopin confesses in a letter to his people that he is at
a loss what to write, that he lacks the requisite wit. But let us
return to the brilliant pianist, who, of course, was a more interesting
acquaintance in Chopin's, eyes than the great organist. Born in 1812,
and consequently three years younger than Chopin, Sigismund Thalberg had
already in his fifteenth year played with success in public, and at the
age of sixteen published Op. 1, 2, and 3. However, when Chopin made his
acquaintance, he had not yet begun to play only his own compositions
(about that time he played, for instance, Beethoven's C minor Concerto
at one of the Spirituel-Concerte, where since 1830 instrumental solos
were occasionally heard), nor had he attained that in its way
unique perfection of beauty of tone and elegance of execution which
distinguished him afterwards. Indeed, the palmy days of his career
cannot be dated farther back than the year 1835, when he and Chopin met
again in Paris; but then his success was so enormous that his fame in a
short time became universal, and as a virtuoso only one rival was left
him--Liszt, the unconquered. That Chopin and Thalberg entertained very
high opinions of each other cannot be asserted. Let the reader judge
for himself after reading what Chopin says in his letter of December 25,
1830:--
Thalberg plays famously, but he is not my man. He is younger
than I, pleases the ladies very much, makes pot-pourris on
"La Muette" ["Masaniello"], plays the forte and piano with
the pedal, but not with the hand, takes tenths as easily as I
do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds. Moscheles does not
at all astonish him; therefore it is no wonder that only the
tuttis of my concerto have pleased him. He, too, writes
concertos.
Chopin was endowed with a considerable power of sarcasm, and was fond of
cultivating and exercising it. This portraiture of his brother-artist is
not a bad specimen of its kind, although we shall meet with better ones.
Another, but as yet unfledged, celebrity was at that time living in
Vienna, prosecuting his studies under Czerny--namely, Theodor Dohler.
Chopin, who went to hear him play some compositions of his master's at
the theatre, does not allude to him again after the concert; but if
he foresaw what a position as a pianist and composer he himself was
destined to occupy, he could not suspect that this lad of seventeen
would some day be held up to the Parisian public by a hostile clique as
a rival equalling and even surpassing his peculiar excellences. By the
way, the notion of anyone playing compositions of Czerny's at a
concert cannot but strangely tickle the fancy of a musician who has the
privilege of living in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
Besides the young pianists with a great future before them Chopin came
also in contact with aging pianists with a great past behind them.
Hummel, accompanied by his son, called on him in the latter part of
December, 1830, and was extraordinarily polite. In April, 1831, the two
pianists, the setting and the rising star, were together at the villa
of Dr. Malfatti. Chopin informed his master, Elsner, for whose masses he
was in quest of a publisher, that Haslinger was publishing the last mass
of Hummel, and added:-- For he now lives only by and for Hummel.
It is rumoured that
the last compositions of Hummel do not sell well, and yet he
is said to have paid a high price for them. Therefore he now
lays all MSS. aside, and prints only Strauss's waltzes.
Unfortunately there is not a word which betrays Chopin's opinion of
Hummel's playing and compositions. We are more fortunate in the case of
another celebrity, one, however, of a much lower order. In one of the
prosaic intervals, of the sentimental rhapsody, indited on December 25,
1830, there occur the following remarks:--
The pianist Aloys Schmitt of Frankfort-on-the-Main, famous
for his excellent studies, is at present here; he is a man
above forty. I have made his acquaintance; he promised to
visit me. He intends to give a concert here, and one must
admit that he is a clever musician. I think we shall
understand each other with regard to music.
Having looked at this picture, let the reader look also at this other,
dashed off a month later in a letter to Elsner:--
The pianist Aloys Schmitt has been flipped on the nose by the
critics, although he is already over forty years old, and
composes eighty-years-old music.
From the contemporary journals we learn that, at the concert mentioned
by Chopin, Schmitt afforded the public of Vienna an opportunity of
hearing a number of his own compositions--which were by no means short
drawing-room pieces, but a symphony, overture, concerto, concertino,
&c.--and that he concluded his concert with an improvisation. One
critic, at least, described his style of playing as sound and
brilliant. The misfortune of Schmitt was to have come too late into the
world--respectable mediocrities like him always do that--he never had
any youth. The pianist on whom Chopin called first on arriving in Vienna
was Charles Czerny, and he
was, as he is always (and to everybody), very polite, and
asked, "Hat fleissig studirt?" [Have you studied diligently?]
He has again arranged an overture for eight pianos and
sixteen performers, and seems to be very happy over it.
Only in the sense of belonging rather to the outgoing than to the
incoming generation can Czerny be reckoned among the aged pianists, for
in 1831 he was not above forty years of age and had still an enormous
capacity for work in him--hundreds and hundreds of original and
transcribed compositions, thousands and thousands of lessons. His name
appears in a passage of one of Chopin's letters which deserves to be
quoted for various reasons: it shows the writer's dislike to the Jews,
his love of Polish music, and his contempt for a kind of composition
much cultivated by Czerny. Speaking of the violinist Herz, "an
Israelite," who was almost hissed when he made his debut in Warsaw, and
whom Chopin was going to hear again in Vienna, he says:--
At the close of the concert Herz will play his own Variations
on Polish airs. Poor Polish airs! You do not in the least
suspect how you will be interlarded with "majufes" [see page
49, foot-note], and that the title of "Polish music" is only
given you to entice the public. If one is so outspoken as to
discuss the respective merits of genuine Polish music and
this imitation of it, and to place the former above the
latter, people declare one to be mad, and do this so much the
more readily because Czerny, the oracle of Vienna, has
hitherto in the fabrication of his musical dainties never
produced Variations on a Polish air.
Chopin had not much sympathy with Czerny the musician, but seems to have
had some liking for the man, who indeed was gentle, kind, and courteous
in his disposition and deportment.
A much more congenial and intimate connection existed between Chopin,
Slavik, and Merk. [FOOTNOTE: Thus the name is spelt in Mendel's
Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon and by E. A. Melis, the Bohemian
writer on music. Chopin spells it Slawik. The more usual spelling,
however, is Slawjk; and in C.F. Whistling's Handbuch der musikalischen
Literatur (Leipzig, 1828) it is Slavjk.] Joseph Slavik had come to
Vienna in 1825 and had at once excited a great sensation. He was then
a young man of nineteen, but technically already superior to all the
violinists that had been heard in the Austrian capital. The celebrated
Mayseder called him a second Lipinski. Pixis, his master at the
Conservatorium in Prague, on seeing some of this extraordinary pupil's
compositions--a concerto, variations, &c.--had wondered how anyone could
write down such mad, unplayable stuff. But Slavik before leaving Prague
proved at a farewell concert that there was at least one who could play
the mad stuff. All this, however, was merely the prelude to what was yet
to come. The appearance of Paganini in 1828 revealed to him the,
till then, dimly-perceived ideal of his dreams, and the great Italian
violinist, who took an interest in this ardent admirer and gave him some
hints, became henceforth his model. Having saved a little money, he went
for his further improvement to Paris, studying especially under Baillot,
but soon returned to accept an engagement in the Imperial Band. When
after two years of hard practising he reappeared before the public
of Vienna, his style was altogether changed; he mastered the same
difficulties as Paganini, or even greater ones, not, however, with the
same unfailing certainty, nor with an always irreproachable intonation.
Still, there can be no doubt that had not a premature death (in 1833, at
the age of twenty-seven) cut short his career, he would have spread his
fame all over the world. Chopin, who met him first at Wurfel's, at once
felt a liking for him, and when on the following day he heard him play
after dinner at Beyer's, he was more pleased with his performance than
with that of any other violinist except Paganini. As Chopin's playing
was equally sympathetic to Slavik, they formed the project of writing
a duet for violin and piano. In a letter to his friend Matuszynski
(December 25, 1830) Chopin writes:--
I have just come from the excellent violinist Slavik. With
the exception of Paganini, I never heard a violin-player like
him. Ninety-six staccato notes in one bow! It is almost
incredible! When I heard him I felt inclined to return to my
lodgings and sketch variations on an Adagio [which they had
previously agreed to take for their theme] of Beethoven's.
The sight of the post-office and a letter from his Polish friends
put the variations out of his mind, and they seem never to have been
written, at least nothing has been heard of them. Some remarks on
Slavik in a letter addressed to his parents (May 28, 1831) show Chopin's
admiration of and affection for his friend still more distinctly:--
He is one of the Viennese artists with whom I keep up a
really friendly and intimate intercourse. He plays like a
second Paganini, but a rejuvenated one, who will perhaps in
time surpass the first. I should not believe it myself if I
had not heard him so often....Slavik fascinates the listener
and brings tears into his eyes.
Shortly after falling in with Slavik, Chopin met Merk, probably at the
house of the publisher Mechetti, and on January 1, 1831, he announces
to his friend in Warsaw with unmistakable pride that "Merk, the first
violoncellist in Vienna," has promised him a visit. Chopin desired very
much to become acquainted with him because he thought that Merk,
Slavik, and himself would form a capital trio. The violoncellist was
considerably older than either pianist or violinist, being born in 1795.
Merk began his musical career as a violinist, but being badly bitten
in the arm by a big dog, and disabled thereby to hold the violin in its
proper position (this is what Fetis relates), he devoted himself to the
violoncello, and with such success as to become the first solo player in
Vienna. At the time we are speaking of he was a member of the Imperial
Orchestra and a professor at the Conservatorium. He often gave concerts
with Mayseder, and was called the Mayseder of the violoncello. Chopin,
on hearing him at a soiree of the well-known autograph collector Fuchs,
writes home:--
Limmer, one of the better artists here in Vienna, produced
some of his compositions for four violoncelli. Merk, by his
expressive playing, made them, as usual, more beautiful than
they really are. People stayed again till midnight, for Merk
took a fancy to play with me his variations. He told me that
he liked to play with me, and it is always a great treat to
me to play with him. I think we look well together. He is the
first violoncellist whom I really admire.
Of Chopin's intercourse with the third of the "exceedingly interesting
acquaintances" whom he mentions by name, we get no particulars in his
letters. Still, Carl Maria von Bocklet, for whom Beethoven wrote three
letters of recommendation, who was an intimate friend of Schubert's, and
whose interpretations of classical works and power of improvisation gave
him one of the foremost places among the pianists of the day, cannot
have been without influence on Chopin. Bocklet, better than any other
pianist then living in Vienna, could bring the young Pole into closer
communication with the German masters of the preceding generation; he
could, as it were, transmit to him some of the spirit that animated
Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber. The absence of allusions to Bocklet in
Chopin's letters does not, however, prove that he never made any, for
the extant letters are only a small portion of those he actually wrote,
many of them having in the perturbed state of Poland never reached their
destination, others having been burnt by his parents for fear of
the Russian police, and some, no doubt, having been lost through
carelessness or indifference.
The list of Chopin's acquaintances is as yet far from being exhausted.
He had conversations with old Abbe Stadler, the friend of Haydn and
Mozart, whose Psalms, which he saw in MS., he admired. He also speaks
of one of the performances of old, sacred, and secular music which took
place at Kiesewetter's house as if he were going to it. But a musician
of Chopin's nature would not take a very lively interest in the
historical aspect of the art; nor would the learned investigator of the
music of the Netherlanders, of the music of the Arabs, of the life and
works of Guido d'Arezzo, &c., readily perceive the preciousness of the
modern composer's originality. At any rate, Chopin had more intercourse
with the musico-literary Franz Kandler, who wrote favourable criticisms
on his performances as a composer and player, and with whom he went on
one occasion to the Imperial Library, where the discovery of a certain
MS. surprised him even more than the magnitude and order of the
collection, which he could not imagine to be inferior to that of
Bologna--the manuscript in question being no other than his Op. 2, which
Haslinger had presented to the library. Chopin found another MS. of his,
that of the Rondo for two pianos, in Aloys Fuchs's famous collection of
autographs, which then comprised 400 numbers, but about the year 1840
had increased to 650 numbers, most of them complete works. He must have
understood how to ingratiate himself with the collector, otherwise he
would hardly have had the good fortune to be presented with an autograph
of Beethoven.
Chopin became also acquainted with almost all the principal publishers
in Vienna. Of Haslinger enough has already been said. By Czerny Chopin
was introduced to Diabelli, who invited him to an evening party of
musicians. With Mechetti he seems to have been on a friendly footing.
He dined at his house, met him at Dr. Malfatti's, handed over to him
for publication his Polonaise for piano and violoncello (Op. 3), and
described him as enterprising and probably persuadable to publish
Elsner's masses. Joseph Czerny, no relation of Charles's, was a mere
business acquaintance of Chopin's. Being reminded of his promise to
publish a quartet of Elsner's, he said he could not undertake to do so
just then (about January 26, 1831), as he was publishing the works of
Schubert, of which many were still in the press.
Therefore [writes Chopin to his master] I fear your MS. will
have to wait. Czerny, I have found out now, is not one of the
richest publishers here, and consequently cannot easily risk
the publication of a work which is not performed at the Sped
or at the Romische Kaiser. Waltzes are here called works; and
Lanner and Strauss, who lead the performances, Capellmeister.
In saying this, however, I do not mean that all people here
are of this opinion; on the contrary, there are many who
laugh at it. Still, it is almost only waltzes that are
published.
It is hardly possible for us to conceive the enthusiasm and ecstasy into
which the waltzes of the two dance composers transported Vienna, which
was divided into two camps:--
The Sperl and Volksgarten [says Hanslick] were on the Strauss
and Lanner days the favourite and most frequented "concert
localities." In the year 1839 Strauss and Lanner had already
each of them published more than too works. The journals were
thrown into ecstasy by every new set of waltzes; innumerable
articles appeared on Strauss, and Lanner, enthusiastic,
humorous, pathetic, and certainly longer than those that were
devoted to Beethoven and Mozart.
These glimpses of the notabilities and manners of a by-gone generation,
caught, as it were, through the chinks of the wall which time is
building up between the past and the present, are instructive as well as
amusing. It would be a great mistake to regard these details, apparently
very loosely connected with the life of Chopin, as superfluous
appendages to his biography. A man's sympathies and antipathies are
revelations of his nature, and an artist's surroundings make evident his
position and merit, the degree of his originality being undeterminable
without a knowledge of the time in which he lived. Moreover, let the
impatient reader remember that, Chopin's life being somewhat poor in
incidents, the narrative cannot be an even-paced march, but must be a
series of leaps and pauses, with here and there an intervening amble,
and one or two brisk canters.
Having described the social and artistic sphere, or rather spheres,
in which Chopin moved, pointed out the persons with whom he most
associated, and noted his opinions regarding men and things, almost all
that is worth telling of his life in the imperial city is told--almost
all, but not all. Indeed, of the latter half of his sojourn there some
events have yet to be recorded which in importance, if not in interest,
surpass anything that is to be found in the preceding and the foregoing
part of the present chapter. I have already indicated that the
disappointment of Chopin's hopes and the failure of his plans cannot
altogether be laid to the charge of unfavourable circumstances. His
parents must have thought so too, and taken him to task about his
remissness in the matter of giving a concert, for on May 14, 1831,
Chopin writes to them:--"My most fervent wish is to be able to fulfil
your wishes; till now, however, I found it impossible to give a
concert." But although he had not himself given a concert he had had an
opportunity of presenting himself in the best company to the public of
Vienna. In the "Theaterzeitung" of April 2, 1831, Madame Garzia-Vestris
announced a concert to be held in the Redoutensaal during the morning
hours of April 4, in which she was to be assisted by the Misses
Sabine and Clara Heinefetter, Messrs. Wild, Chopin, Bohm (violinist),
Hellmesberger (violinist, pupil of the former), Merk, and the brothers
Lewy (two horn-players). Chopin was distinguished from all the rest, as
a homo ignotus et novus, by the parenthetical "pianoforte-player" after
his name, no such information being thought necessary in the case of
the other artists. The times are changed, now most readers require
parenthetical elucidation after each name except that of Chopin. "He has
put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted them of low degree!"
The above-mentioned exhortation of his parents seems to have had the
desired effect, and induced Chopin to make an effort, although now the
circumstances were less favourable to his giving a concert than at the
time of his arrival. The musical season was over, and many people
had left the capital for their summer haunts; the struggle in Poland
continued with increasing fierceness, which was not likely to lessen
the backwardness of Austrians in patronising a Pole; and in addition to
this, cholera had visited the country and put to flight all who were not
obliged to stay. I have not been able to ascertain the date and other
particulars of this concert. Through Karasowski we learn that it was
thinly attended, and that the receipts did not cover the expenses.
The "Theaterzeitung," which had given such full criticisms of Chopin's
performances in 1829, says not a word either of the matinee or of the
concert, not even the advertisement of the latter has come under my
notice. No doubt Chopin alludes to criticisms on this concert when he
writes in the month of July:--
Louisa [his sister] informs me that Mr. Elsner was very much
pleased with the criticism; I wonder what he will say of the
others, he who was my teacher of composition?
Kandler, the Vienna correspondent of the "Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung," after discussing in that paper (September 21, 1831) the
performances of several artists, among others that of the clever Polish
violin-virtuoso Serwaczynski, turns to "Chopin, also from the Sarmatian
capital, who already during his visit last year proved himself a pianist
of the first rank," and remarks:--
The execution of his newest Concerto in E minor, a serious
composition, gave no cause to revoke our former judgment. One
who is so upright in his dealings with genuine art is
deserving our genuine esteem.
All things considered, I do not hesitate to accept Liszt's statement
that the young artist did not produce such a sensation as he had a right
to expect. In fact, notwithstanding the many pleasant social connections
he had, Chopin must have afterwards looked back with regret, probably
with bitterness, on his eight months' sojourn in Vienna. Not only did he
add nothing to his fame as a pianist and composer by successful concerts
and new publications, but he seems even to have been sluggish in his
studies and in the production of new works. How he leisurely whiled away
the mornings at his lodgings, and passed the rest of the day abroad and
in society, he himself has explicitly described. That this was his
usual mode of life at Vienna, receives further support from the
self-satisfaction with which he on one occasion mentions that he had
practised from early morning till two o'clock in the afternoon. In his
letters we read only twice of his having finished some new compositions.
On December 21, 1830, he writes:--
I wished to enclose my latest waltz, but the post is about to
depart, and I have no longer time to copy it, therefore I
shall send it another time. The mazurkas, too, I have first
to get copied, but they are not intended for dancing.
And in the month of July, 1831, "I have written a polonaise, which
I must leave here for Wurfel." There are two more remarks about
compositions, but of compositions which were never finished, perhaps
never begun. One of these remarks refers to the variations on a theme
of Beethoven's, which he intended to compose conjointly with Slavik, and
has already been quoted; the other refers to a grander project. Speaking
of Nidecki, who came every morning to his lodgings and practised his
(Chopin's) concerto, he says (December 21, 1830):--
If I succeed in writing a concerto for two pianos so as to
satisfy myself, we intend to appear at once with it in
public; first, however, I wish to play once alone.
What an interesting, but at the same time what a gigantic, subject to
write on the history of the unrealised plans of men of genius would be!
The above-mentioned waltz, polonaise, and mazurkas do not, of course,
represent the whole of Chopin's output as a composer during the time
of his stay in Vienna; but we may surmise with some degree of certainty
that few works of importance have to be added to it. Indeed, the
multiplicity of his social connections and engagements left him little
time for himself, and the condition of his fatherland kept him in a
constant state of restlessness. Poland and her struggle for independence
were always in his mind; now he laments in his letters the death of a
friend, now rejoices at a victory, now asks eagerly if such or such a
piece of good news that has reached him is true, now expresses the hope
that God will be propitious to their cause, now relates that he has
vented his patriotism by putting on the studs with the Polish eagles and
using the pocket-handkerchief with the Kosynier (scythe-man) depicted on
it.
What is going on at home? [he writes, on May 28, 1831.] I am
always dreaming of you. Is there still no end to the
bloodshed? I know your answer: "Patience!" I, too, always
comfort myself with that.
But good health, he finds, is the best comfort in misfortune, and if his
bulletins to his parents could be trusted he was in full enjoyment of
it.
Zacharkiewicz of Warsaw called on me; and when his wife saw
me at Szaszek's, she did not know how to sufficiently express
her astonishment at my having become such a sturdy fellow. I
have let my whiskers grow only on the right side, and they
are growing very well; on the left side they are not needed
at all, for one sits always with the right side turned to the
public.
Although his "ideal" is not there to retain him, yet he cannot make up
his mind to leave Vienna. On May 28, he writes:--
How quickly this dear time passes! It is already the end of
May, and I am still in Vienna. June will come, and I shall
probably be still here, for Kumelski fell ill and was obliged
to take to bed again.
It was not only June but past the middle of July before Chopin left, and
I am afraid he would not always have so good an excuse for prolonging
his stay as the sickness of his travelling-companion. On June 25,
however, we hear of active preparations being made for departure.
I am in good health, that is the only thing that cheers me,
for it seems as if my departure would never take place. You
all know how irresolute I am, and in addition to this I meet
with obstacles at every step. Day after day I am promised my
passport, and I run from Herod to Pontius Pilate, only to get
back what I deposited at the police office. To-day I heard
even more agreeable news--namely, that my passport has been
mislaid, and that they cannot find it; I have even to send in
an application for a new one. It is curious how now every
imaginable misfortune befalls us poor Poles. Although I am
ready to depart, I am unable to set out.
Chopin had been advised by Mr. Beyer to have London instead of Paris
put as a visa in his passport. The police complied with his request
that this should be done, but the Russian Ambassador, after keeping
the document for two days, gave him only permission to travel as far as
Munich. But Chopin did not care so long as he got the signature of the
French Ambassador. Although his passport contained the words "passant
par Paris a Londres," and he in after years in Paris sometimes remarked,
in allusion to these words, "I am here only in passing," he had no
intention of going to London. The fine sentiment, therefore, of which a
propos of this circumstance some writers have delivered themselves
was altogether misplaced. When the difficulty about the passport was
overcome, another arose: to enter Bavaria from cholera-stricken Austria
a passport of health was required. Thus Chopin had to begin another
series of applications, in fact, had to run about for half a day before
he obtained this additional document.
Chopin appears to have been rather short of money in the latter part of
his stay in Vienna--a state of matters with which the financial failure
of the concert may have had something to do. The preparations for his
departure brought the pecuniary question still more prominently forward.
On June 25, 1831, he writes to his parents:--
I live as economically as possible, and take as much care of
every kreuzer as of that ring in Warsaw [the one given him by
the Emperor Alexander]. You may sell it, I have already cost
you so much.
He must have talked about his shortness of money to some of his friends
in Vienna, for he mentions that the pianist-composer Czapek, who calls
on him every day and shows him much kindness, has offered him money
for the journey should he stand in need of it. One would hardly have
credited Chopin with proficiency in an art in which he nevertheless
greatly excelled--namely, in the art of writing begging letters. How
well he understood how to touch the springs of the parental feelings the
following application for funds will prove.
July, 1831.--But I must not forget to mention that I shall
probably be obliged to draw more money from the banker Peter
than my dear father has allowed me. I am very economical;
but, God knows, I cannot help it, for otherwise I should have
to leave with an almost empty purse. God preserve me from
sickness; were, however, anything to happen to me, you might
perhaps reproach me for not having taken more. Pardon me, but
consider that I have already lived on this money during May,
June, and July, and that I have now to pay more for my dinner
than I did in winter. I do not do this only because I myself
feel I ought to do so, but also in consequence of the good
advice of others. I am very sorry that I have to ask you for
it; my papa has already spent more than three groschen for
me; I know also very well how difficult it is to earn money.
Believe me, my dearest ones, it is harder for me to ask than
for you to give. God will not fail to assist us also in the
future, punctum!
Chopin was at this time very subject to melancholy, and did not
altogether hide the fact even from his parents. He was perhaps thinking
of the "lengthening chain" which he would have to drag at this new
remove. He often runs into the street to seek Titus Woyciechowski or
John Matuszynski. One day he imagines he sees the former walking before
him, but on coming up to the supposed friend is disgusted to find "a
d---- Prussian."
I lack nothing [he writes in July, 1831] except more life,
more spirit! I often feel unstrung, but sometimes as merry as
I used to be at home. When I am sad I go to Madame Szaszek's;
there I generally meet several amiable Polish ladies who with
their hearty, hopeful words always cheer me up, so that I
begin at once to imitate the generals here. This is a fresh
joke of mine; but those who saw it almost died with laughing.
But alas, there are days when not two words can be got out of
me, nor can anyone find out what is the matter with me; then,
to divert myself, I generally take a thirty-kreuzer drive to
Hietzing, or somewhere else in the neighbourhood of Vienna.
This is a valuable bit of autobiography; it sets forth clearly Chopin's
proneness to melancholy, which, however, easily gave way to his
sportiveness. That low spirits and scantiness of money did not prevent
Chopin from thoroughly enjoying himself may be gathered from many
indications in his letters; of these I shall select his descriptions of
two excursions in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which not only make
us better acquainted with the writer, but also are interesting in
themselves.
June 25, 1831.--The day before yesterday we were with
Kumelski and Czapek...on the Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. It
was a magnificent day; I have never had a finer walk. From
the Leopoldsberg one sees all Vienna, Wagram, Aspern,
Pressburg, even Kloster-Neuburg, the castle in which Richard
the Lion-hearted lived for a long time as a prisoner. Also
the whole of the upper part of the Danube lay before our
eyes. After breakfast we ascended the Kahlenberg, where King
John Sobieski pitched his camp and caused the rockets to be
fired which announced to Count Starhemberg, the commandant of
Vienna, the approach of the Polish army. There is the
Camaldolese Monastery in which the King knighted his son
James before the attack on the Turks and himself served as
acolyte at the Mass. I enclose for Isabella a little leaf
from that spot, which is now covered with plants. From there
we went in the evening to the Krapfenwald, a beautiful
valley, where we saw a comical boys' trick. The little
fellows had enveloped themselves from head to foot in leaves
and looked like walking bushes. In this costume they crept
from one visitor to another. Such a boy covered with leaves
and his head adorned with twigs is called a "Pfingstkonig"
[Whitsuntide-King]. This drollery is customary here at
Whitsuntide.
The second excursion is thus described:--
July, 1831.--The day before yesterday honest Wurfel called on
me; Czapek, Kumelski, and many others also came, and we drove
together to St. Veil--a beautiful place; I could not say the
same of Tivoli, where they have constructed a kind ol
caroitsscl, or rather a track with a sledge, which is called
Rutsch. It is a childish amusement, but a great number of
grown-up people have themselves rolled down the hill in this
carriage just for pastime. At first I did not feel inclined
to try it, but as there were eight of us, all good friends,
we began to vie with each other in sliding down. It was
folly, and yet we all laughed heartily. I myself joined in
the sport with much satisfaction until it struck me that
healthy and strong men could do something better--now, when
humanity calls to them for protection and defence. May the
devil take this frivolity!
In the same letter Chopin expresses the hope that his use of various,
not quite unobjectionable, words beginning with a "d" may not give his
parents a bad opinion of the culture he has acquired in Vienna, and
removes any possible disquietude on their part by assuring them that he
has adopted nothing that is Viennese in its nature, that, in fact, he
has not even learnt to play a Tanzwalzer (a dancing waltz). This, then,
is the sad result of his sojourn in Vienna.
On July 20, 1831, Chopin, accompanied by his friend Kumelski, left
Vienna and travelled by Linz and Salzburg to Munich, where he had to
wait some weeks for supplies from home. His stay in the capital of
Bavaria, however, was not lost time, for he made there the acquaintance
of several clever musicians, and they, charmed by his playing and
compositions, induced him to give a concert. Karasowski tells us that
Chopin played his E minor Concerto at one of the Philharmonic Society's
concerts--which is not quite correct, as we shall see presently--and
adds that
the audience, carried away by the beauty of the composition
and his excellent, poetic rendering, overwhelmed the young
virtuoso with loud applause and sincere admiration.
In writing this the biographer had probably in his mind the following
passage from Chopin's letter to Titus Woyciechowski, dated Paris,
December 16, 1831:--"I played [to Kalkbrenner, in Paris] the E minor
Concerto, which charmed the people of the Bavarian capital so much." The
two statements are not synonymous. What the biographer says may be true,
and if it is not, ought to be so; but I am afraid the existing documents
do not bear it out in its entirety. Among the many local and other
journals which I have consulted, I have found only one notice of
Chopin's appearance at Munich, and when I expectantly scanned a resume
of Munich musical life, from the spring to the end of the year 1831,
in the "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung," I found mention made of
Mendelssohn and Lafont, but not of Chopin. Thus, unless we assume that
Karasowski--true to his mission as a eulogising biographer, and most
vigorous when unfettered by definite data--indulged in exaggeration, we
must seek for a reconciliation of the enthusiasm of the audience with
the silence of the reporter in certain characteristics of the Munich
public. Mendelssohn says of it:--
The people here [in Munich] have an extraordinary receptivity
for music, which is much cultivated. But it appears to me
that everything makes an impression and that the impressions
do not last.
Speaking of Mendelssohn, it is curious to note how he and Chopin were
again and again on the point of meeting, and again and again failed to
meet. In Berlin Chopin was too bashful and modest to address his already
famous young brother-artist, who in 1830 left Vienna shortly before
Chopin arrived, and in 1831 arrived in Munich shortly after Chopin had
left. The only notice of Chopin's public appearance in Munich I have
been able to discover, I found in No. 87 (August 30, 1831) of the
periodical "Flora", which contains, under the heading "news," a pretty
full account of the "concert of Mr. Chopin of Warsaw." From this account
we learn that Chopin was assisted by the singers Madame Pellegrini and
Messrs. Bayer, Lenz, and Harm, the clarinet-player Barmann, jun., and
Capellmeister Stunz. The singers performed a four-part song, and Barmann
took part in a cavatina (sung by Bayer, the first tenor at the opera)
with clarinet and pianoforte accompaniment by Schubert (?). What the
writer of the account says about Chopin shall be quoted in full:--
On the 28th August, Mr. F. Chopin, of Warsaw, gave a morning
concert [Mittags Concert] in the hall of the Philharmonic
Society, which was attended by a very select audience. Mr.
Chopin performed on the pianoforte a Concerto in E minor of
his own composition, and showed an excellent virtuosity in
the treatment of his instrument; besides a developed
technique, one noticed especially a charming delicacy of
execution, and a beautiful and characteristic rendering of
the motives. The composition was, on the whole, brilliantly
and well written, without surprising, however, by
extraordinary novelty or a particular profundity, with the
exception of the Rondo, whose principal thought as well as
the florid middle sections, through an original combination
of a melancholy trait with a capriccio, evolved a peculiar
charm, on which account it particularly pleased. The concert-
giver performed in conclusion a fantasia on Polish national
songs. There is a something in the Slavonic songs which
almost never fails in its effect, the cause of which,
however, is difficult to trace and explain; for it is not
only the rhythm and the quick change from minor to major
which produce this charm. No one has probably understood
better how to combine the national character of such folk-
songs with a brilliant concert style than Bernhard Romberg
[Footnote: The famous violoncellist], who by his compositions
of this kind, put in a favourable light by his masterly
playing, knew how to exercise a peculiar fascination. Quite
of this style was the fantasia of Mr. Chopin, who gained
unanimous applause.
From Munich Chopin proceeded to Stuttgart, and during his stay there
learnt the sad news of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians (September
8, 1831). It is said that this event inspired him to compose the C minor
study (No. 12 of Op. 10), with its passionate surging and impetuous
ejaculations. Writing from Paris on December 16, 1831, Chopin remarks,
in allusion to the traeic denouement of the Polish revolution: "All this
has caused me much pain. Who could have foreseen it!"
With his visits to Stuttgart Chopin's artist-life in Germany came to a
close, for, although he afterwards repeatedly visited the country, he
never played in public or made a lengthened stay there. Now that Chopin
is nearing Paris, where, occasional sojourns elsewhere (most of them
of short duration) excepted, he will pass the rest of his life, it may
interest the reader to learn that this change of country brought with
it also a change of name, at least as far as popular pronunciation and
spelling went. We may be sure that the Germans did not always give to
the final syllable the appropriate nasal sound. And what the Polish
pronunciation was is sufficiently indicated by the spelling "Szopen,"
frequently to be met with. I found it in the Polish illustrated journal
"Kiosy," and it is also to be seen in Joseph Sikorski's "Wspomnienie
Szopena" ("Reminiscences of Chopin"). Szulc and Karasowski call their
books and hero "Fryderyk Chopin."
CHAPTER XIII
CHOPIN'S PRODUCTIONS FROM THE SPRING OF 1829 TO THEEND OF 1831.--THE
CHIEF INFLUENCES THAT HELPED TO FORM HIS STYLE OF COMPOSITION.
Let us pause for a little in our biographical inquiries and critically
examine what Chopin had achieved as a composer since the spring of 1829.
At the very first glance it becomes evident that the works of the last
two years (1829-1831) are decidedly superior to those he wrote before
that time. And this advance was not due merely to the increased power
derived from practice; it was real growth, which a Greek philosopher
describes as penetration of nourishment into empty places, the
nourishment being in Chopin's case experience of life's joys and
sorrows. In most of the works of what I call his first period, the
composer luxuriates, as it were, in language. He does not regard it
solely or chiefly as the interpreter of thoughts and feelings, he loves
it for its own sake, just as children, small and tall, prattle for no
other reason than the pleasure of prattling. I closed the first period
when a new element entered Chopin's life and influenced his artistic
work. This element was his first love, his passion for Constantia
Gtadkowska. Thenceforth Chopin's compositions had in them more of
humanity and poetry, and the improved subject-matter naturally, indeed
necessarily, chastened, ennobled, and enriched the means and ways
of expression. Of course no hard line can be drawn between the two
periods--the distinctive quality of the one period appears sometimes
in the work of the other: a work of the earlier period foreshadows the
character of the later; one of the later re-echoes that of the earlier.
The compositions which we know to have been written by Chopin between
1829 and 1831 are few in number. This may be partly because Chopin was
rather idle from the autumn of 1830 to the end of 1831, partly because
no account of the production of other works has come down to us. In
fact, I have no doubt that other short pieces besides those mentioned by
Chopin in his letters were composed during those years, and subsequently
published by him. The compositions oftenest and most explicitly
mentioned in the letters are also the most important ones--namely, the
concertos. As I wish to discuss them at some length, we will keep them
to the last, and see first what allusions to other compositions we can
find, and what observations these latter give rise to.
On October 3, 1829, Chopin sends his friend Titus Woyciechowski a waltz
which, he says, was, like the Adagio of the F minor Concerto, inspired
by his ideal, Constantia Gladkowska:--
Pay attention to the passage marked with a +; nobody, except
you, knows of this. How happy would I be if I could play my
newest compositions to you! In the fifth bar of the trio the
bass melody up to E flat dominates, which, however, I need
not tell you, as you are sure to feel it without being told.
The remark about the bass melody up to E flat in the trio gives us a
clue to which of Chopin's waltzes this is. It can be no other than the
one in D flat which Fontana published among his friend's posthumous
works as Op. 70, No. 3. Although by no means equal to any of the waltzes
published by Chopin himself, one may admit that it is pretty; but its
chief claim to our attention lies in the fact that it contains germs
which reappear as fully-developed flowers in other examples of this
class of the master's works--the first half of the first part reappears
in the opening (from the ninth bar onward) of Op. 42 (Waltz in A flat
major); and the third part, in the third part (without counting the
introductory bars) of Op. 34, No. 1 (Waltz in A flat major).
On October 20, 1829, Chopin writes:--"During my visit at Prince
Radziwill's [at Antonin] I wrote an Alla Polacca. It is nothing more
than a brilliant salon piece, such as pleases ladies"; and on April 10,
1830:--
I shall play [at a soiree at the house of Lewicki] Hummel's
"La Sentinelle," and at the close my Polonaise with
violoncello, for which I have composed an Adagio as an
introduction. I have already rehearsed it, and it does not
sound badly.
Prince Radziwill, the reader will remember, played the violoncello.
It was, however, not to him but to Merk that Chopin dedicated this
composition, which, before departing from Vienna to Paris, he left with
Mechetti, who eventually published it under the title of "Introduction
et Polonaise brillante pour piano et violoncelle," dediees a Mr. Joseph
Merk. On the whole we may accept Chopin's criticism of his Op. 3 as
correct. The Polonaise is nothing but a brilliant salon piece. Indeed,
there is very little in this composition--one or two pianoforte
passages, and a finesse here and there excepted--that distinguishes
it as Chopin's. The opening theme verges even dangerously to the
commonplace. More of the Chopinesque than in the Polonaise may be
discovered in the Introduction, which was less of a piece d'occasion.
What subdued the composer's individuality was no doubt the violoncello,
which, however, is well provided with grateful cantilene.
On two occasions Chopin writes of studies. On October 20, 1829: "I have
composed a study in my own manner"; and on November 14, 1829: "I have
written some studies; in your presence I would play them well." These
studies are probably among the twelve published in the summer of 1833,
they may, however, also be among those published in the autumn of 1837.
The twelfth of the first sheaf of studies (Op. 10) Chopin composed, as
already stated, at Stuttgart, when he was under the excitement caused by
the news of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians on September 8, 1831.
The words "I intend to write a Polonaise with orchestra," contained in a
letter dated September 18, 1830, give rise to the interesting question:
"Did Chopin realise his intention, and has the work come down to us?" I
think both questions can be answered in the affirmative. At any rate, I
hold that internal evidence seems to indicate that Op. 22, the "Grande
Polonaise brillante precedee d'un Andante spianato avec orchestre,"
which was published in the summer of 1836, is the work in question.
Whether the "Andante" was composed at the same time, and what, if any,
alterations were subsequently made in the Polonaise, I do not venture to
decide. But the Polonaise has so much of Chopin's early showy virtuosic
style and so little of his later noble emotional power that my
conjecture seems reasonable. Moreover, the fact that the orchestra is
employed speaks in favour of my theory, for after the works already
discussed in the tenth chapter, and the concertos with which we shall
concern ourselves presently, Chopin did not in any other composition
(i.e., after 1830) write for the orchestra. His experiences in Warsaw,
Vienna, and Paris convinced him, no doubt, that he was not made to
contend with masses, either as an executant or as a composer. Query: Is
the Polonaise, of which Chopin says in July, 1831, that he has to leave
it to Wurfel, Op. 22 or another work?
Two other projects of Chopin, however, seem to have remained
unrealised--a Concerto for two pianos which he intended to play in
public at Vienna with his countryman Nidecki (letter of December 21,
1830), and Variations for piano and violin on a theme of Beethoven's, to
be written conjointly by himself and Slavik (letters of December 21
and 25, 1830). Fragments of the former of these projected works may,
however, have been used in the "Allegro de Concert," Op. 46, published
in 1842.
In the letter of December 21, 1830, there is also an allusion to a waltz
and mazurkas just finished, but whether they are to be found among the
master's printed compositions is more than I can tell.
The three "Ecossaises" of the year 1830, which Fontana published as Op.
72, No. 3, are the least individual of Chopin's compositions, and almost
the only dances of his which may be described as dance music pure and
simple--rhythm and melody without poetry, matter with a minimum of soul.
The posthumous Mazurka (D major) of 1829-30 is unimportant. It contains
nothing notable, except perhaps the descending chromatic successions of
chords of the sixth. In fact, we can rejoice in its preservation only
because a comparison with a remodelling of 1832 allows us to trace a
step in Chopin's development.
And now we come to the concertos, the history of which, as far as it
is traceable in the composer's letters, I will here place before the
reader. If I repeat in this chapter passages already quoted in previous
chapters, it is for the sake of completeness and convenience.
October 3, 1829.--I have--perhaps to my misfortune--already
found my ideal, whom I worship faithfully and sincerely. Six
months have elapsed and I have not yet exchanged a syllable
with her of whom I dream every night. Whilst my thoughts were
with her I composed the Adagio of my Concerto.
The Adagio here mentioned is that of the F minor Concerto, Op. 21,
which he composed before but published after the F. minor Concerto,
Op. 11--the former appearing in print in April, 1836, the latter in
September, 1833. [Footnote: The slow movements of Chopin's concertos
are marked Larglietto, the composer uses here the word Adagio
generically--i.e., in the sense of slow movement generally.] Karasowski
says mistakingly that the movement referred to is the Adagio of the E
minor Concerto. He was perhaps misled by a mistranslation of his own. In
the German version of his Chopin biography he gives the concluding words
of the above quotation as "of my new Concerto," but there is no new
in the Polish text (na ktorego pamiatke skomponowalem Adagio do mojego
Koncertu).
October 20, 1829.--Elsner has praised the Adagio of the
Concerto. He says that there is something new in it. As to
the Rondo I do not wish yet to hear a judgment, for I am not
yet satisfied with it myself. I am curious whether I shall
finish this work when I return [from a visit to Prince
Radziwill].
November 14, 1829.--I received your last letter at Antonin at
Radziwill's. I was there a week; you cannot imagine how
quickly and pleasantly the time passed to me. I left by the
last coach, and had much trouble in getting away. As for me I
should have stayed till they had turned me out; but my
occupations and, above all things, my Concerto, which is
impatiently waiting for its Finale, have compelled me to take
leave of this Paradise.
On March 17, 1830, Chopin played the F minor Concerto at the first
concert he gave in Warsaw. How it was received by the public and the
critics on this occasion and on that of a second concert has been
related in the ninth chapter (p.131).
March 27, 1830.--I hope yet to finish before the holidays the
first Allegro of my second Concerto [i.e., the one in E
minor], and therefore I should in any case wait till after
the holidays [to give a third concert], although I am
convinced that I should have this time a still larger
audience than formerly; for the haute volee has not yet heard
me.
On April 10, 1830, Chopin writes that his Concerto is not yet finished;
and on May 15, 1830:--
The Rondo for my Concerto is not yet finished, because the
right inspired mood has always beep wanting. If I have only
the Allegro and the Adagio completely finished I shall be
without anxiety about the Finale. The Adagio is in E major,
and of a romantic, calm, and partly melancholy character. It
is intended to convey the impression which one receives when
the eye rests on a beloved landscape that calls up in one's
soul beautiful memories--for instance, on a fine, moonlit
spring night. I have written violins with mutes as an
accompaniment to it. I wonder if that will have a good
effect? Well, time will show.
August 21, 1830.--Next month I leave here; first, however, I
must rehearse my Concerto, for the Rondo is now finished.
For an account of the rehearsals of the Concerto and its first public
performance at Chopin's third Warsaw concert on October u, 1830, the
reader is referred to the tenth chapter (p. 150). [FOOTNOTE: In the
following remarks on the concertos I shall draw freely from the critical
commentary on the Pianoforte Works of Chopin, which I contributed some
years ago (1879) to the Monthly Musical Record.]
Chopin, says Liszt, wrote beautiful concertos and fine sonatas, but it
is not difficult to perceive in these productions "plus de volonte que
d'inspiration." As for his inspiration it was naturally "imperieuse,
fantasque, irreflechie; ses allures ne pouvaient etre que libres."
Indeed, Liszt believes that Chopin--
did violence to his genius every time he sought to fetter it
by rules, classifications, and an arrangement that was not
his own, and could not accord with the exigencies of his
spirit, which was one of those whose grace displays itself
when they seem to drift along [alter a la derive]....The
classical attempts of Chopin nevertheless shine by a rare
refinement of style. They contain passages of great interest,
parts of surprising grandeur.
With Chopin writing a concerto or a sonata was an effort, and the effort
was always inadequate for the attainment of the object--a perfect work
of its kind. He lacked the peculiar qualities, natural and acquired,
requisite for a successful cultivation of the larger forms. He could
not grasp and hold the threads of thought which he found flitting in his
mind, and weave them into a strong, complex web; he snatched them up one
by one, tied them together, and either knit them into light fabrics or
merely wound them into skeins. In short, Chopin was not a thinker, not
a logician--his propositions are generally good, but his arguments
are poor and the conclusions often wanting. Liszt speaks sometimes of
Chopin's science. In doing this, however, he misapplies the word. There
was nothing scientific in Chopin's mode of production, and there is
nothing scientific in his works. Substitute "ingenious" (in the sense
of quick-witted and possessed of genius, in the sense of the German
geistreich) for "scientific," and you come near to what Liszt really
meant. If the word is applicable at all to art, it can be applicable
only to works which manifest a sustained and dominating intellectual
power, such, for instance, as a fugue of Bach's, a symphony of
Beethoven's, that is, to works radically different from those of Chopin.
Strictly speaking, the word, however, is not applicable to art, for art
and science are not coextensive; nay, to some extent, are even
inimical to each other. Indeed, to call a work of art purely and simply
"scientific," is tantamount to saying that it is dry and uninspired by
the muse. In dwelling so long on this point my object was not so much to
elucidate Liszt's meaning as Chopin's character as a composer.
Notwithstanding their many shortcomings, the concertos may be said to be
the most satisfactory of Chopin's works in the larger forms, or at least
those that afford the greatest amount of enjoyment. In some respects the
concerto-form was more favourable than the sonata-form for the exercise
of Chopin's peculiar talent, in other respects it was less so. The
concerto-form admits of a far greater and freer display of the virtuosic
capabilities of the pianoforte than the sonata-form, and does not
necessitate the same strictness of logical structure, the same thorough
working-out of the subject-matter. But, on the other hand, it demands
aptitude in writing for the orchestra and appropriately solid material.
Now, Chopin lacked such aptitude entirely, and the nature of his
material accorded little with the size of the structure and the
orchestral frame. And, then, are not these confessions of intimate
experiences, these moonlight sentimentalities, these listless dreams,
&c., out of place in the gaslight glare of concert-rooms, crowded with
audiences brought together to a great extent rather by ennui, vanity,
and idle curiosity than by love of art?
The concerto is the least perfect species of the sonata genus;
practical, not ideal, reasons have determined its form, which owes its
distinctive features to the calculations of the virtuoso, not to the
inspiration of the creative artist. Romanticism does not take kindly to
it. Since Beethoven the form has been often modified, more especially
the long introductory tutti omitted or cut short. Chopin, however,
adhered to the orthodox form, taking unmistakably Hummel for his model.
Indeed, Hummel's concertos were Chopin's model not only as regards
structure, but also to a certain extent as regards the character of
the several movements. In the tutti's of the first movement, and in
the general complexion of the second (the slow) and the third (Rondo)
movement, this discipleship is most apparent. But while noting the
resemblance, let us not overlook the difference. If the bones are
Hummel's (which no doubt is an exaggeration of the fact), the flesh,
blood, and soul are Chopin's. In his case adherence to the orthodox
concerto-form was so much the more regrettable as writing for the
orchestra was one of his weakest points. Indeed, Chopin's originality
is gone as soon as he writes for another instrument than the pianoforte.
The commencement of the first solo is like the opening of a beautiful
vista after a long walk through dreary scenery, and every new entry
of the orchestra precipitates you from the delectable regions of
imagination to the joyless deserts of the actual. Chopin's inaptitude in
writing for the orchestra is, however, most conspicuous where he employs
it conjointly with the pianoforte. Carl Klindworth and Carl Tausig have
rescored the concertos: the former the one in F minor, the latter the
one in E minor. Klindworth wrote his arrangement of the F minor Concerto
in 1867-1868 in London, and published it ten years later at Moscow (P.
Jurgenson).[FOOTNOTE: The title runs: "Second Concerto de Chopin, Op.
21, avec un nouvel accompagnement d'orchestre d'apres la partition
originale par Karl Klindworth. Dedie a Franz Lizt." It is now the
property of the Berlin publishers Bote and Bock.] A short quotation from
the preface will charactise his work:--
The principal pianoforte part has, notwithstanding the entire
remodelling of the score, been retained almost unchanged.
Only in some passages, which the orchestra, in consequence of
a richer instrumentation, accompanies with greater fulness,
the pianoforte part had, on that account, to be made more
effective by an increase of brilliance. By these divergences
from the original, from the so perfect and beautifully
effectuating [effectuirenden] pianoforte style of Chopin,
either the unnecessary doubling of the melody already
pregnantly represented by the orchestra was avoided, or--in
keeping with the now fuller harmonic support of the
accompaniment--some figurations of the solo instrument
received a more brilliant form.
Of Tausig's labour [FOOTNOTE: "Grosses Concert in E moll. Op. 11."
Bearberet von Carl Tausig. Score, pianoforte, and orchestral parts.
Berlin: Ries and Erler.] I shall only say that his cutting-down and
patching-up of the introductory tutti, to mention only one thing, are
not well enough done to excuse the liberty taken with a great composer's
work. Moreover, your emendations cannot reach the vital fault, which
lies in the conceptions. A musician may have mastered the mechanical
trick of instrumentation, and yet his works may not be at heart
orchestral. Instrumentation ought to be more than something that at will
can be added or withheld; it ought to be the appropriate expression of
something that appertains to the thought. The fact is, Chopin could
not think for the orchestra, his thoughts took always the form of the
pianoforte language; his thinking became paralysed when he made use of
another medium of expression. Still, there have been critics who
thought differently. The Polish composer Sowinski declared without
circumlocution that Chopin "wrote admirably for the orchestra." Other
countrymen of his dwelt at greater length, and with no less enthusiasm,
on what is generally considered a weak point in the master's equipment.
A Paris correspondent of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (1834) remarked
a propos of the F minor Concerto that there was much delicacy in the
instrumentation. But what do the opinions of those critics, if they
deserve the name, amount to when weighed against that of the rest of the
world, nay, even against that of Berlioz alone, who held that "in the
compositions of Chopin all the interest is concentrated in the piano
part, the orchestra of his concertos is nothing but a cold and almost
useless accompaniment"?
All this and much more may be said against Chopin's concertos, yet such
is the charm, loveliness, delicacy, elegance, and brilliancy of
the details, that one again and again forgives and forgets their
shortcomings as wholes. But now let us look at these works a little more
closely.
The first-composed and last-published Concerto, the one in F minor,
Op. 21 (dedicated to Madame la Comtesse Delphine Potocka), opens with a
tutti of about seventy bars. When, after this, the pianoforte interrupts
the orchestra impatiently, and then takes up the first subject, it is
as if we were transported into another world and breathed a purer
atmosphere. First, there are some questions and expostulations, then the
composer unfolds a tale full of sweet melancholy in a strain of lovely,
tenderly-intertwined melody. With what inimitable grace he winds those
delicate garlands around the members of his melodic structure! How light
and airy the harmonic base on which it rests! But the contemplation of
his grief disturbs his equanimity more and more, and he begins to fret
and fume. In the second subject he seems to protest the truthfulness
and devotion of his heart, and concludes with a passage half upbraiding,
half beseeching, which is quite captivating, nay more, even bewitching
in its eloquent persuasiveness. Thus far, from the entrance of the
pianoforte, all was irreproachable. How charming if Chopin had allowed
himself to drift on the current of his fancy, and had left rules,
classifications, &c., to others! But no, he had resolved to write a
concerto, and must now put his hand to the rudder, and have done with
idle dreaming, at least for the present--unaware, alas, that the idle
dreamings of some people are worth more than their serious efforts.
Well, what is unpoetically called the working-out section--to call it
free fantasia in this instance would be mockery--reminds me of Goethe's
"Zauberlehrling," who said to himself in the absence of his master, "I
noted his words, works, and procedure, and, with strength of mind, I
also shall do wonders." How the apprentice conjured up the spirits, and
made them do his bidding; how, afterwards, he found he had forgotten the
formula with which to stop and banish them, and what were the consequent
sad results, the reader will, no doubt, remember. The customary
repetition of the first section of the movement calls for no remark.
Liszt cites the second movement (Larghetto, A flat major) of this work
as a specimen of the morceaux d'une surprenante grandeur to be found
in Chopin's concertos and sonatas, and mentions that the composer had
a marked predilection for it, delighting in frequently playing it. And
Schumann exclaims: "What are ten editorial crowns compared to one
such Adagio as that in the second concerto!" The beautiful deep-toned,
love-laden cantilena, which is profusely and exquisitely ornamented
in Chopin's characteristic style, is interrupted by a very impressive
recitative of some length, after which the cantilena is heard again.
But criticism had better be silent, and listen here attentively. And how
shall I describe the last movement (Allegro vivace F minor, 3-4)--its
feminine softness and rounded contours, its graceful, gyrating,
dance-like motions, its sprightliness and frolicsomeness? Unless I quote
every part and particle, I feel I cannot do justice to it. The exquisite
ease and grace, the subtle spirit that breathes through this movement,
defy description, and, more, defy the attempts of most performers to
reproduce the original. He who ventures to interpret Chopin ought to
have a soul strung with chords which the gentlest breath of feeling sets
in vibration, and a body of such a delicate and supple organisation as
to echo with equal readiness the music of the soul. As to the listener,
he is carried away in this movement from one lovely picture to another,
and no time is left him to reflect and make objections with reference to
the whole.
The Concerto in E minor, Op. 11, dedicated to Mr. Fred Kalkbrenner,
shows more of volonte and less of inspiration than the one in F minor.
One can almost read in it the words of the composer, "If I have only
the Allegro and the Adagio completely finished, I shall be in no
anxiety about the Finale." The elongated form of the first movement--the
introductory tutti alone extends to 138 bars--compares disadvantageously
with the greater compactness of the corresponding movement in the F
minor Concerto, and makes still more sensible the monotony resulting
from the key-relation of the constituent parts, the tonic being the same
in both subjects. The scheme is this:--First subject in E minor, second
subject in E major, working-out section in C major, leading through
various keys to the return of the first subject in E minor and of the
second subject in G major, followed by a close in E minor. The tonic
is not relieved till the commencement of the working-out section.
The re-entrance of the second subject brings, at last, something of a
contrast. How little Chopin understood the importance or the handling of
those powerful levers, key-relation and contrast, may also be observed
in the Sonata, Op. 4, where the last movement brings the first subject
in C minor and the second in G minor. Here the composer preserves the
same mode (minor), there the same tonic, the result being nearly the
same in both instances. But, it may be asked, was not this languid
monotony which results from the employment of these means just what
Chopin intended? The only reply that can be made to this otherwise
unanswerable objection is, so much the worse for the artist's art if
he had such intentions. Chopin's description of the Adagio quoted
above--remember the beloved landscape, the beautiful memories, the
moonlit spring night, and the muted violins--hits off its character
admirably. Although Chopin himself designates the first Allegro as
"vigorous"--which in some passages, at least from the composer's
standpoint, we may admit it to be--the fundamental mood of this movement
is one closely allied to that which he says he intended to express in
the Adagio. Look at the first movement, and judge whether there are not
in it more pale moonlight reveries than fresh morning thoughts. Indeed,
the latter, if not wholly absent, are confined to the introductory
bars of the first subject and some passage-work. Still, the movement
is certainly not without beauty, although the themes appear somewhat
bloodless, and the passages are less brilliant and piquant than those in
the F minor Concerto. Exquisite softness and tenderness distinguish
the melodious parts, and Chopin's peculiar coaxing tone is heard in the
semiquaver passage marked tranquillo of the first subject. The least
palatable portion of the movement is the working-out section. The
pianoforte part therein reminds one too much of a study, without having
the beauty of Chopin's compositions thus entitled; and the orchestra
amuses itself meanwhile with reminiscences of the principal motives.
Chopin's procedure in this and similar cases is pretty much the same (F
minor Concerto, Krakowiak, &c.), and recalls to my mind--may the manes
of the composer forgive me--a malicious remark of Rellstab's. Speaking
of the introduction to the Variations, Op. 2, he says: "The composer
pretends to be going to work out the theme." It is curious, and sad
at the same time, to behold with what distinction Chopin treats the
bassoon, and how he is repaid with mocking ingratitude. But enough of
the orchestral rabble. The Adagio is very fine in its way, but such is
its cloying sweetness that one longs for something bracing and active.
This desire the composer satisfies only partially in the last movement
(Rondo vivace, 2-4, E major). Nevertheless, he succeeds in putting us
in good humour by his gaiety, pretty ways, and tricksy surprises (for
instance, the modulations from E major to E flat major, and back again
to E major). We seem, however, rather to look on the play of fantoccini
than the doings of men; in short, we feel here what we have felt more or
less strongly throughout the whole work--there is less intensity of
life and consequently less of human interest in this than in the F minor
Concerto.
Almost all my remarks on the concertos run counter to those made by W.
von Lenz. The F minor Concerto he holds to be an uninteresting
work, immature and fragmentary in plan, and, excepting some delicate
ornamentation, without originality. Nay, he goes even so far as to say
that the passage-work is of the usual kind met with in the compositions
of Hummel and his successors, and that the cantilena in the larghetto
is in the jejune style of Hummel; the last movement also receives but
scanty and qualified praise. On the other hand, he raves about the E
minor Concerto, confining himself, however, to the first movement. The
second movement he calls a "tiresome nocturne," the Rondo "a Hummel."
A tincture of classical soberness and self-possession in the first
movement explains Lenz's admiration of this composition, but I fail to
understand the rest of his predilections and critical utterances.
In considering these concertos one cannot help exclaiming--What a pity
that Chopin should have set so many beautiful thoughts and fancies in
such a frame and thereby marred them! They contain passages which are
not surpassed in any of his most perfect compositions, yet among them
these concertos cannot be reckoned. It is difficult to determine their
rank in concerto literature. The loveliness, brilliancy, and piquancy
of the details bribe us to overlook, and by dazzling us even prevent
us from seeing, the formal shortcomings of the whole. But be their
shortcomings ever so great and many, who would dispense with these
works? Therefore, let us be thankful, and enjoy them without much
grumbling.
Schumann in writing of the concertos said that Chopin introduced
Beethoven spirit [Beethovenischen Geist] into the concert-room, dressing
the master's thoughts, as Hummel had done Mozart's, in brilliant,
flowing drapery; and also, that Chopin had instruction from the best,
from Beethoven, Schubert, and Field--that the first might be supposed to
have educated his mind to boldness, the second his heart to tenderness,
the third his fingers to dexterity. Although as a rule a wonderfully
acute observer, Schumann was not on this occasion very happy in the few
critical utterances which he vouchsafed in the course of the general
remarks of which his notice mainly consists. Without congeniality there
cannot be much influence, at least not in the case of so exclusive and
fastidious a nature as Chopin's. Now, what congeniality could there be
between the rugged German and the delicate Pole? All accounts agree
in that Chopin was far from being a thorough-going worshipper of
Beethoven--he objected to much in his matter and manner, and, moreover,
could not by any means boast an exhaustive acquaintance with his works.
That Chopin assimilated something of Beethoven is of course more likely
than not; but, if a fact, it is a latent one. As to Schubert, I think
Chopin knew too little of his music to be appreciably influenced by
him. At any rate, I fail to perceive how and where the influence reveals
itself. Of Field, on the other hand, traces are discoverable, and even
more distinct ones of Hummel. The idyllic serenity of the former and the
Mozartian sweetness of the latter were truly congenial to him; but no
less, if not more, so was Spohr's elegiac morbidezza. Chopin's affection
for Spohr is proved by several remarks in his letters: thus on one
occasion (October 3, 1829) he calls the master's Octet a wonderful work;
and on another occasion (September 18, 1830) he says that the Quintet
for pianoforte, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and horn (Op. 52) is a
wonderfully beautiful work, but not suitable for the pianoforte. How
the gliding cantilena in sixths and thirds of the minuet and
the serpentining chromatic passages in the last movement of the
last-mentioned work must have flattered his inmost soul! There can be no
doubt that Spohr was a composer who made a considerable impression
upon Chopin. In his music there is nothing to hurt the most fastidious
sensibility, and much to feed on for one who, like Jaques in "As you
like it", could "suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel eggs."
Many other composers, notably the supremely-loved and
enthusiastically-admired Mozart and Bach, must have had a share in
Chopin's development; but it cannot be said that they left a striking
mark on his music, with regard to which, however, it has to be
remembered that the degree of external resemblance does not always
accurately indicate the degree of internal indebtedness. Bach's
influence on Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, and others of their
contemporaries, and its various effects on their styles, is one of the
curiosities of nineteenth century musical history; a curiosity, however,
which is fully disclosed only by subtle analysis. Field and especially
Hummel are those musicians who--more, however, as pianists than as
composers (i.e., more by their pianoforte language than by their musical
thoughts)--set the most distinct impress on Chopin's early virtuosic
style, of which we see almost the last in the concertos, where it
appears in a chastened and spiritualised form very different from the
materialism of the Fantasia (Op. 13) and the Krakowiak (Op. 14). Indeed,
we may say of this style that the germ, and much more than the germ, of
almost every one of its peculiarities is to be found in the pianoforte
works of Hummel and Field; and this statement the concertos of these
masters, more especially those of the former, and their shorter pieces,
more especially the nocturnes of the latter, bear out in its entirety.
The wide-spread broken chords, great skips, wreaths of rhythmically
unmeasured ornamental notes, simultaneous combinations of unequal
numbers of notes (five or seven against four, for instance), &c.,
are all to be found in the compositions of the two above-named
pianist-composers. Chopin's style, then, was not original? Most
decidedly it was. But it is not so much new elements as the development
and the different commixture, in degree and kind, of known elements
which make an individual style--the absolutely new being, generally
speaking, insignificant compared with the acquired and evolved. The
opinion that individuality is a spontaneous generation is an error of
the same kind as that imagination has nothing to do with memory. Ex
nihilo nihil fit. Individuality should rather be regarded as a feminine
organisation which conceives and brings forth; or, better still, as
a growing thing which feeds on what is germane to it, a thing with
self-acting suctorial organs that operate whenever they come in contact
with suitable food. A nucleus is of course necessary for the development
of an individuality, and this nucleus is the physical and intellectual
constitution of the individual. Let us note in passing that the
development of the individuality of an artistic style presupposes the
development of the individuality of the man's character. But not only
natural dispositions, also acquired dexterities affect the development
of the individuality of an artistic style. Beethoven is orchestral
even in his pianoforte works. Weber rarely ceases to be operatic. Spohr
cannot help betraying the violinist, nor Schubert the song-composer. The
more Schumann got under his command the orchestral forces, the more he
impressed on them the style which he had formed previously by many years
of playing and writing for the pianoforte. Bach would have been another
Bach if he had not been an organist. Clementi was and remained all his
life a pianist. Like Clementi, so was also Chopin under the dominion
of his instrument. How the character of the man expressed itself in
the style of the artist will become evident when we examine Chopin's
masterpieces. Then will also be discussed the influence on his style of
the Polish national music.
CHAPTER XIV.
PARIS IN 1831.--LIFE IN THE STREETS.--ROMANTICISM AND
LIBERALISM.--ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE.--CHIEF LITERARY PUBLICATIONS OF
THE TIME.--THE PICTORIAL ARTS.--MUSIC AND MUSICIANS.--CHOPIN'S OPINION
OF THE GALAXY OF SINGERS THEN PERFORMING AT THE VARIOUS OPERA-HOUSES.
Chopin's sensations on plunging, after his long stay in the stagnant
pool of Vienna, into the boiling sea of Paris might have been easily
imagined, even if he had not left us a record of them. What newcomer
from a place less populous and inhabited by a less vivacious race could
help wondering at and being entertained by the vastness, variety, and
bustle that surrounded him there?
Paris offers anything you may wish [writes Chopin]. You can
amuse yourself, mope, laugh, weep, in short, do whatever you
like; no one notices it, because thousands do the same.
Everybody goes his own way....The Parisians are a peculiar
people. When evening sets in one hears nothing but the crying
of titles of little new books, which consist of from three to
four sheets of nonsense. The boys know so well how to
recommend their wares that in the end--willing or not--one
buys one for a sou. They bear titles such as these:--"L'art
de faire, des amours, et de les conserver ensuite"; "Les
amours des pretres"; "L'Archeveque de Paris avec Madame la
duchesse de Berry"; and a thousand similar absurdities which,
however, are often very wittily written. One cannot but be
astonished at the means people here make use of to earn a few
pence.
All this and much more may be seen in Paris every day, but in 1831 Paris
life was not an everyday life. It was then and there, if at any time and
anywhere, that the "roaring loom of Time" might be heard: a new garment
was being woven for an age that longed to throw off the wornout,
tattered, and ill-fitting one inherited from its predecessors; and
discontent and hopefulness were the impulses that set the shuttle so
busily flying hither and thither. This movement, a reaction against
the conventional formalism and barren, superficial scepticism of the
preceding age, had ever since the beginning of the century been growing
in strength and breadth. It pervaded all the departments of human
knowledge and activity--politics, philosophy, religion, literature, and
the arts. The doctrinaire school in politics and the eclectic school
in philosophy were as characteristic products of the movement as
the romantic school in poetry and art. We recognise the movement in
Lamennais' attack on religious indifference, and in the gospel of a
"New Christianity" revealed by Saint Simon and preached and developed
by Bazard and Enfantin, as well as in the teaching of Cousin, Villemain,
and Guizot, and in the works of V. Hugo, Delacroix, and others. Indeed,
unless we keep in view as far as possible all the branches into which
the broad stream divides itself, we shall not be able to understand the
movement aright either as a whole or in its parts. V. Hugo defines
the militant--i.e., negative side of romanticism as liberalism in
literature. The positive side of the liberalism of the time might, on
the other hand, not inaptly be described as romanticism in speculation
and practice. This, however, is matter rather for a history of
civilisation than for a biography of an artist. Therefore, without
further enlarging on it, I shall let Chopin depict the political aspect
of Paris in 1831 as he saw it, and then attempt myself a slight outline
sketch of the literary and artistic aspect of the French capital, which
signifies France.
Louis Philippe had been more than a year on the throne, but the
agitation of the country was as yet far from being allayed:--
There is now in Paris great want and little money in
circulation. One meets many shabby individuals with wild
physiognomies, and sometimes one hears an excited, menacing
discussion on Louis Philippe, who, as well as his ministers,
hangs only by a single hair. The populace is disgusted with
the Government, and would like to overthrow it, in order to
make an end of the misery; but the Government is too well on
its guard, and the least concourse of people is at once
dispersed by the mounted police.
Riots and attentats were still the order of the day, and no opportunity
for a demonstration was let slip by the parties hostile to the
Government. The return of General Ramorino from Poland, where he had
taken part in the insurrection, offered such an opportunity. This
adventurer, a natural son of Marshal Lannes, who began his military
career in the army of Napoleon, and, after fighting wherever fighting
was going on, ended it on the Piazza d'Armi at Turin, being condemned by
a Piedmontese court-martial to be shot for disobedience to orders, was
hardly a worthy recipient of the honours bestowed upon him during his
journey through Germany and France. But the personal merit of such
popular heroes of a day is a consideration of little moment; they are
mere counters, counters representative of ideas and transient whims.
The enthusiasm of the populace for our general is of course
known to you [writes Chopin to his friend Woyciechowski].
Paris would not be behind in this respect. [Footnote: The
Poles and everything Polish were at that time the rage in
Paris; thus, for instance, at one of the theatres where
dramas were generally played, they represented now the whole
history of the last Polish insurrection, and the house was
every night crammed with people who wished to see the combats
and national costumes.] The Ecole de Medecine and the jeune
France, who wear their beards and cravats according to a
certain pattern, intend to honour him with a great
demonstration. Every political party--I speak of course only
of the ultras--has its peculiar badge: the Carlists have
green waistcoats, the Republicans and Napoleonists (and these
form the jeune France) [red], [Footnote: Chopin has omitted
this word, which seems to be necessary to complete the
sentence; at least, it is neither in the Polish nor German
edition of Karasowski's book.] the Saint-Simonians who
profess a new religion, wear blue, and so forth. Nearly a
thousand of these young people marched with a tricolour
through the town in order to give Ramorino an ovation.
Although he was at home, and notwithstanding the shouting of
"Vive les Polonais!" he did not show himself, not wishing to
expose himself to any unpleasantness on the part of the
Government. His adjutant came out and said that the general
was sorry he could not receive them and begged them to return
some other day. But the next day he took other lodgings. When
some days afterwards an immense mass of people--not only young
men, but also rabble that had congregated near the
Pantheon--proceeded to the other side of the Seine to
Ramorino's house, the crowd increased like an avalanche till
it was dispersed by several charges of the mounted police who
had stationed themselves at the Pont Neuf. Although many were
wounded, new masses of people gathered on the Boulevards
under my windows in order to join those who were expected
from the other side of the Seine. The police was now
helpless, the crowd increased more and more, till at last a
body of infantry and a squadron of hussars advanced; the
commandant ordered the municipal guard and the troops to
clear the footpaths and street of the curious and riotous mob
and to arrest the ringleaders. (This is the free nation!) The
panic spread with the swiftness of lightning: the shops were
closed, the populace flocked together at all the corners of
the streets, and the orderlies who galloped through the
streets were hissed. All windows were crowded by spectators,
as on festive occasions with us at home, and the excitement
lasted from eleven o'clock in the morning till eleven o'clock
at night. I thought that the affair would have a bad end; but
towards midnight they sang "Allons enfants de la patrie!" and
went home. I am unable to describe to you the impression
which the horrid voices of this riotous, discontented mob
made upon me! Everyone was afraid that the riot would be
continued next morning, but that was not the case. Only
Grenoble has followed the example of Lyons; however, one
cannot tell what may yet come to pass in the world!
The length and nature of Chopin's account show what a lively interest he
took in the occurrences of which he was in part an eye and ear-witness,
for he lived on the fourth story of a house (No. 27) on the Boulevard
Poissonniere, opposite the Cite Bergere, where General Ramorino lodged.
But some of his remarks show also that the interest he felt was by no
means a pleasurable one, and probably from this day dates his fear
and horror of the mob. And now we will turn from politics, a theme so
distasteful to Chopin that he did not like to hear it discussed and
could not easily be induced to take part in its discussion, to a theme
more congenial, I doubt not, to all of us.
Literary romanticism, of which Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael were
the harbingers, owed its existence to a longing for a greater fulness of
thought, a greater intenseness of feeling, a greater appropriateness and
adequateness of expression, and, above all, a greater truth to life and
nature. It was felt that the degenerated classicists were "barren of
imagination and invention," offered in their insipid artificialities
nothing but "rhetoric, bombast, fleurs de college, and Latin-verse
poetry," clothed "borrowed ideas in trumpery imagery," and presented
themselves with a "conventional elegance and noblesse than which
there was nothing more common." On the other hand, the works of the
master-minds of England, Germany, Spain, and Italy, which were more and
more translated and read, opened new, undreamt-of vistas. The Bible,
Homer, and Shakespeare began now to be considered of all books the most
worthy to be studied. And thus it came to pass that in a short time a
most complete revolution was accomplished in literature, from abject
slavery to unlimited freedom.
There are neither rules nor models [says V. Hugo, the leader
of the school, in the preface to his Cromwell (1827)], or
rather there are no other rules than the general laws of
nature which encompass the whole art, and the special laws
which for every composition result from the conditions of
existence peculiar to each subject. The former are eternal,
internal, and remain; the latter variable, external, and
serve only once.
Hence theories, poetics, and systems were to be broken up, and the old
plastering which covered the fagade of art was to be pulled down.
From rules and theories the romanticists appealed to nature and truth,
without forgetting, however, that nature and art are two different
things, and that the truth of art can never be absolute reality. The
drama, for instance, must be "a concentrating mirror which, so far from
enfeebling, collects and condenses the colouring rays and transforms
a glimmer into a light, a light into a flame." To pass from form
to matter, the attention given by the romanticists to history
is particularly to be noted. Pierre Dubois, the director of the
philosophical and literary journal "Le Globe," the organ of romanticism
(1824-1832), contrasts the poverty of invention in the works of the
classicists with the inexhaustible wealth of reality, "the scenes of
disorder, of passion, of fanaticism, of hypocrisy, and of intrigue,"
recorded in history. What the dramatist has to do is to perform the
miracle "of reanimating the personages who appear dead on the pages of
a chronicle, of discovering by analysis all the shades of the passions
which caused these hearts to beat, of recreating their language and
costume." It is a significant fact that Sainte-Beuve opened the campaign
of romanticism in "Le Globe" with a "Tableau de la poesie francaise
au seizieme siecle," the century of the "Pleiade," and of Rabelais and
Montaigne. It is a still more significant fact that the members of
the "Cenacle," the circle of kindred minds that gathered around Victor
Hugo--Alfred de Vigny, Emile Deschamps, Sainte-Beuve, David
d'Angers, and others--"studied and felt the real Middle Ages in their
architecture, in their chronicles, and in their picturesque vivacity."
Nor should we overlook in connection with romanticism Cousin's aesthetic
teaching, according to which, God being the source of all beauty as well
as of all truth, religion, and morality, "the highest aim of art is to
awaken in its own way the feeling of the infinite." Like all reformers
the romanticists were stronger in destruction than in construction.
Their fundamental doctrines will hardly be questioned by anyone in our
day, but the works of art which they reared on them only too often
give just cause for objection and even rejection. However, it is not
surprising that, with the physical and spiritual world, with time and
eternity at their arbitrary disposal, they made themselves sometimes
guilty of misrule. To "extract the invariable laws from the general
order of things, and the special from the subject under treatment," is
no easy matter. V. Hugo tells us that it is only for a man of genius to
undertake such a task, but he himself is an example that even a man so
gifted is fallible. In a letter written in the French capital on January
14, 1832, Mendelssohn says of the "so-called romantic school" that it
has infected all the Parisians, and that on the stage they think of
nothing but the plague, the gallows, the devil, childbeds, and the like.
Nor were the romances less extravagant than the dramas. The lyrical
poetry, too, had its defects and blemishes. But if it had laid itself
open to the blame of being "very unequal and very mixed," it also called
for the praise of being "rich, richer than any lyrical poetry France
had known up to that time." And if the romanticists, as one of them,
Sainte-Beuve, remarked, "abandoned themselves without control and
without restraint to all the instincts of their nature, and also to all
the pretensions of their pride, or even to the silly tricks of
their vanity," they had, nevertheless, the supreme merit of having
resuscitated what was extinct, and even of having created what never
existed in their language. Although a discussion of romanticism without
a characterisation of its specific and individual differences is
incomplete, I must bring this part of my remarks to a close with a few
names and dates illustrative of the literary aspect of Paris in 1831.
I may, however, inform the reader that the subject of romanticism will
give rise to further discussion in subsequent chapters.
The most notable literary events of the year 1831 were the publication
of Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris," "Feuilles d'automne," and
"Marion Delorme"; Dumas' "Charles VII"; Balzac's "La peau de chagrin";
Eugene Sue's "Ata Gull"; and George Sand's first novel, "Rose et
Blanche," written conjointly with Sandeau. Alfred de Musset and
Theophile Gautier made their literary debuts in 1830, the one with
"Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie," the other with "Poesies." In the course
of the third decade of the century Lamartine had given to the world
"Meditations poetiques," "Nouvelles Meditations poetiques," and
"Harmonies poetiques et religieuses"; Victor Hugo, "Odes et Ballades,"
"Les Orientales," three novels, and the dramas "Cromwell" and "Hernani";
Dumas, "Henri III et sa Cour," and "Stockholm, Fontainebleau et Rome";
Alfred de Vigny, "Poemes antiques et modernes" and "Cinq-Mars"; Balzac,
"Scenes de la vie privee" and "Physiologie du Mariage." Besides the
authors just named there were at this time in full activity in one
or the other department of literature, Nodier, Beranger, Merimee,
Delavigne, Scribe, Sainte-Beuve, Villemain, Cousin, Michelet, Guizot,
Thiers, and many other men and women of distinction.
A glance at the Salon of 1831 will suffice to give us an idea of the
then state of the pictorial art in France. The pictures which attracted
the visitors most were: Delacroix's "Goddess of Liberty on the
barricades"; Delaroche's "Richelieu conveying Cinq-Mars and De Thou to
Lyons," "Mazarin on his death-bed," "The sons of Edward in the Tower,"
and "Cromwell beside the coffin of diaries I."; Ary Scheffer's "Faust
and Margaret," "Leonore," "Talleyrand," "Henri IV.," and "Louis
Philippe"; Robert's "Pifferari," "Burial," and "Mowers"; Horace Vernet's
"Judith," "Capture of the Princes Conde," "Conti, and Longueville,"
"Camille Desmoulins," and "Pius VIII" To enumerate only a few more of
the most important exhibitors I shall yet mention Decamps, Lessore,
Schnetz, Judin, and Isabey. The dry list will no doubt conjure up in
the minds of many of my readers vivid reproductions of the masterpieces
mentioned or suggested by the names of the artists.
Romanticism had not invaded music to the same extent as the literary and
pictorial arts. Berlioz is the only French composer who can be called in
the fullest sense of the word a romanticist, and whose genius entitles
him to a position in his art similar to those occupied by V. Hugo and
Delacroix in literature and painting. But in 1831 his works were as yet
few in number and little known. Having in the preceding year obtained
the prix de Rome, he was absent from Paris till the latter part of 1832,
when he began to draw upon himself the attention, if not the admiration,
of the public by the concerts in which he produced his startlingly
original works. Among the foreign musicians residing in the French
capital there were many who had adopted the principles of romanticism,
but none of them was so thoroughly imbued with its spirit as
Liszt--witness his subsequent publications. But although there were
few French composers who, strictly speaking, could be designated
romanticists, it would be difficult to find among the younger men one
who had not more or less been affected by the intellectual atmosphere.
An opera, "La Marquise de Brinvilliers," produced in 1831 at the
Opera-Comique, introduces to us no less than nine dramatic composers,
the libretto of Scribe and Castil-Blaze being set to music by Cherubini,
Auber, Batton, Berton, Boieldieu, Blangini, Carafa, Herold, and Paer.
[Footnote: Chopin makes a mistake, leaving out of account Boieldieu,
when he says in speaking of "La Marquise de Brinvilliers" that the opera
was composed by eight composers.] Cherubini, who towers above all of
them, was indeed the high-priest of the art, the grand-master of the
craft. Although the Nestor of composers, none equalled him in manly
vigour and perennial youth. When seventy-six years of age (in 1836) he
composed his fine Requiem in D minor for three-part male chorus, and
in the following year a string quartet and quintet. Of his younger
colleagues so favourable an account cannot be given. The youngest of
them, Batton, a grand prix, who wrote unsuccessful operas, then took to
the manufacturing of artificial flowers, and died as inspector at
the Conservatoire, need not detain us. Berton, Paer, Blangini, Carafa
(respectively born in 1767, 1771, 1781, and 1785), once composers who
enjoyed the public's favour, had lost or were losing their popularity at
the time we are speaking of; Rossini, Auber, and others having now
come into fashion. They present a saddening spectacle, these faded
reputations, these dethroned monarchs! What do we know of Blangini,
the "Musical Anacreon," and his twenty operas, one hundred and seventy
two-part "Notturni," thirty-four "Romances," &c.? Where are Paer's
oratorios, operas, and cantatas performed now? Attempts were made in
later years to revive some of Carafa's earlier works, but the result
was on each occasion a failure. And poor Berton? He could not bear the
public's neglect patiently, and vented his rage in two pamphlets, one of
them entitled "De la musique mecanique et de la musique philosophique,"
which neither converted nor harmed anyone. Boieldieu, too, had to
deplore the failure of his last opera, "Les deux nuits" (1829), but then
his "La Dame blanche," which had appeared in 1825, and his earlier "Jean
de Paris" were still as fresh as ever. Herold had only in this year
(1831) scored his greatest success with "Zampa." As to Auber, he was at
the zenith of his fame. Among the many operas he had already composed,
there were three of his best--"Le Macon," "La Muette," and "Fra
Diavolo"--and this inimitable master of the genre sautillant had still a
long series of charming works in petto. To exhaust the list of prominent
men in the dramatic department we have to add only a few names. Of the
younger masters I shall mention Halevy, whose most successful work,
"La Juive," did not come out till 1835, and Adam, whose best opera,
"Le postilion de Longjumeau," saw the foot-lights in 1836. Of the older
masters we must not overlook Lesueur, the composer of "Les Bardes,"
an opera which came out in 1812, and was admired by Napoleon. Lesueur,
distinguished as a composer of dramatic and sacred music, and a writer
on musical matters, had, however, given up all professional work with
the exception of teaching composition at the Conservatoire. In fact,
almost all the above-named old gentlemen, although out of fashion as
composers, occupied important positions in the musical commonwealth as
professors at that institution. Speaking of professors I must not
forget to mention old Reicha (born in 1770), the well-known theorist,
voluminous composer of instrumental music, and esteemed teacher of
counterpoint and composition.
But the young generation did not always look up to these venerable men
with the reverence due to their age and merit. Chopin, for instance,
writes:--
Reicha I know only by sight. You can imagine how curious I am
to make his personal acquaintance. I have already seen some
of his pupils, but from them I have not obtained a favourable
opinion of their teacher. He does not love music, never
frequents the concerts of the Conservatoire, will not speak
with anyone about music, and, when he gives lessons, looks
only at his watch. Cherubini behaves in a similar manner; he
is always speaking of cholera and the revolution. These
gentlemen are mummies; one must content one's self with
respectfully lookingat them from afar, and studying their
works for instruction.
In these remarks of Chopin the concerts of the Conservatoire are
made mention of; they were founded in 1828 by Habeneck and others
and intended for the cultivation of the symphonic works of the great
masters, more especially of Beethoven. Berlioz tells us in his Memoires,
with his usual vivacity and causticity, what impressions the works of
Beethoven made upon the old gentlemen above-named. Lesueur considered
instrumental music an inferior genre, and although the C minor Symphony
quite overwhelmed him, he gave it as his opinion that "one ought not to
write such music." Cherubini was profoundly irritated at the success of
a master who undermined his dearest theories, but he dared not discharge
the bile that was gathering within him. That, however, he had the
courage of his opinion may be gathered from what, according to
Mendelssohn, he said of Beethoven's later works: "Ca me fait eternuer."
Berton looked down with pity on the whole modern German school.
Boieldieu, who hardly knew what to think of the matter, manifested "a
childish surprise at the simplest harmonic combinations which departed
somewhat from the three chords which he had been using all his life."
Paer, a cunning Italian, was fond of letting people know that he had
known Beethoven, and of telling stories more or less unfavourable to the
great man, and flattering to the narrator. The critical young men of the
new generation were, however, not altogether fair in their judgments;
Cherubini, at least, and Boieldieu too, deserved better treatment at
their hands.
In 1830 Auber and Rossini (who, after his last opera "Guillaume Tell,"
was resting on his laurels) were the idols of the Parisians, and reigned
supreme on the operatic stage. But in 1831 Meyerbeer established himself
as a third power beside them, for it was in that year that "Robert le
Diable" was produced at the Academic Royale de Musique. Let us hear
what Chopin says of this event. Speaking of the difficulties with which
composers of operas have often to contend he remarks:--
Even Meyerbeer, who for ten years had been favourably known
in the musical world, waited, worked, and paid in Paris for
three years in vain before he succeeded in bringing about the
performance of his opera "Robert le Diable," which now causes
such a furore. Auber had got the start of Meyerbeer with his
works, which are very pleasing to the taste of the people,
and he did not readily make room for the foreigner at the
Grand Opera.
And again:--
If there was ever a brilliant mise en scene at the Opera-
Italien, I cannot believe that it equalled that of Robert le
Diable, the new five-act opera of Meyerbeer, who has also
written "Il Crociato." "Robert" is a masterpiece of the new
school, where the devils sing through speaking-trumpets and
the dead rise from their graves, but not as in "Szarlatan"
[an opera of Kurpinski's], only from fifty to sixty persons
all at once! The stage represents the interior of a convent
ruin illuminated by the clear light of the full moon whose
rays fall on the graves of the nuns. In the last act appear
in brilliant candle-light monks with ancense, and from behind
the scene are heard the solemn tones of the organ. Meyerbeer
has made himself immortal by this work; but he had to wait
more than three years before he could get it performed.
People say that he has spent more than 20,000 francs for the
organ and other things made use of in the opera.
[Footnote: This was the current belief at the time, which
Meyerbeer, however, declares to be false in a letter
addressed to Veron, the director of the Opera:--"L'orgue a
ete paye par vous, fourni par vous, comme toutes les choses
que reclamait la mise en scene de Robert, et je dois declarer
que loin de vous tenir au strict neccessaire, vous avez
depasse de bcaucoup les obligations ordinaires d'un directeur
envers les auteurs et le public."]
The creative musicians having received sufficient attention, let us now
turn for a moment to the executive ones. Of the pianists we shall hear
enough in the next chapter, and therefore will pass them by for the
present. Chopin thought that there were in no town more pianists than
in Paris, nor anywhere more asses and virtuosos. Of the many excellent
virtuosos on stringed and wind-instruments only a few of the most
distinguished shall be mentioned. Baillot, the veteran violinist;
Franchomme, the young violoncellist; Brod, the oboe-player; and Tulou,
the flutist. Beriot and Lafont, although not constant residents like
these, may yet be numbered among the Parisian artists. The French
capital could boast of at least three first-rate orchestras--that of
the Conservatoire, that of the Academic Royale, and that of the
Opera-Italien. Chopin, who probably had on December 14 not yet heard the
first of these, takes no notice of it, but calls the orchestra of the
theatre Feydeau (Opera-Comique) excellent. Cherubini seems to have
thought differently, for on being asked why he did not allow his operas
to be performed at that institution, he answered:--"Je ne fais pas
donner des operas sans choeur, sans orchestre, sans chanteurs, et
sans decorations." The Opera-Comique had indeed been suffering from
bankruptcy; still, whatever its shortcomings were, it was not altogether
without good singers, in proof of which assertion may be named the tenor
Chollet, Madame Casimir, and Mdlle. Prevost. But it was at the Italian
Opera that a constellation of vocal talent was to be found such as
has perhaps at no time been equalled: Malibran-Garcia, Pasta,
Schroder-Devrient, Rubini, Lablache, and Santini. Nor had the Academic,
with Nourrit, Levasseur, Derivis, Madame Damoreau-Cinti, and Madame
Dorus, to shrink from a comparison. Imagine the treat it must have been
to be present at the concert which took place at the Italian Opera on
December 25, 1831, and the performers at which comprised artists such
as Malibran, Rubini, Lablache, Santini, Madame Raimbaux, Madame
Schroder-Devrient, Madame Casadory, Herz, and De Beriot!
Chopin was so full of admiration for what he had heard at the three
operatic establishments that he wrote to his master Elsner:--
It is only here that one can learn what singing is. I believe
that not Pasta, but Malibran-Garcia is now the greatest
singer in Europe. Prince Valentin Radziwill is quite
enraptured by her, and we often wish you were here, for you
would be charmed with her singing.
The following extracts from a letter to his friend Woyciechowski contain
some more of Chopin's criticism:--
As regards the opera, I must tell you that I never heard so
fine a performance as I did last week, when the "Barber of
Seville" was given at the Italian Opera, with Lablache,
Rubini, and Malibran-Garcia in the principal parts. Of
"Othello" there is likewise an excellent rendering in
prospect, further also of "L'Italiana in Algeri." Paris has
in this respect never offered so much as now. You can have no
idea of Lablache. People say that Pasta's voice has somewhat
failed, but I never heard in all my life such heavenly
singing as hers. Malibran embraces with her wonderful voice a
compass of three octaves; her singing is quite unique in its
way, enchanting! Rubini, an excellent tenor, makes endless
roulades, often too many colorature, vibrates and trills
continually, for which he is rewarded with the greatest
applause. His mezza voce is incomparable. A Schroder-Devrient
is now making her appearance, but she does not produce such a
furore here as in Germany. Signora Malibran personated
Othello, Schroder-Devrient Desdemona. Malibran is little, the
German lady taller. One thought sometimes that Desdemona was
going to strangle Othello. It was a very expensive
performance; I paid twenty-four francs for my seat, and did
so because I wished to see Malibran play the part of the
Moor, which she did not do particularly well. The orchestra
was excellent, but the mise en scene in the Italian Opera is
nothing compared with that of the French Academie
Royale...Madame Damoreau-Cinti sings also very beautifully; I
prefer her singing to that of Malibran. The latter astonishes
one, but Cinti charms. She sings the chromatic scales and
colorature almost more perfectly than the famous flute-player
Tulou plays them. It is hardly possible to find a more
finished execution. In Nourrit, the first tenor of the Grand
Opera, [Footnote: It may perhaps not be superfluous to point
out that Academie Royale (Imperial, or Nationale, as the case
may be) de Musique, or simply Academie de Musique, and Grand
Opera, or simply Opera, are different names for one and the
same thing--namely, the principal opera-house in France, the
institution whose specialties are grand opera and ballet.]
one admires the warmth of feeling which speaks out of his
singing. Chollet, the first tenor of the Opera-Comique, the
best performer of Fra Diavolo, and excellent in the operas
"Zampa" and "Fiancee," has a manner of his own in conceiving
the parts. He captivates all with his beautiful voice, and is
the favourite of the public.
CHAPTER XV.
1831-1832.
ACQUAINTANCES AND FRIENDS: CHERUBINI, BAILLOT, FRANCHOMME, LISZT,
MILLER, OSBORNE, MENDELSSOHN.--CHOPIN AND KALKBRENNER.--CHOPIN'S AIMS AS
AN ARTIST.--KALKBRENNER'S CHARACTER AS A MAN AND ARTIST.--CHOPIN'S FIRST
PARIS CONCERT.--FETIS.--CHOPIN PLAYS AT A CONCERT GIVEN BY THE PRINCE
DE LA MOSKOWA.--HIS STATE OF MIND.--LOSS OF HIS POLISH
LETTERS.--TEMPORARILY STRAITENED CIRCUMSTANCES AND BRIGHTENING
PROSPECTS.--PATRONS AND WELL-WISHERS.--THE "IDEAL."--A LETTER TO HILLER.
Chopin brought only a few letters of introduction with him to Paris:
one from Dr. Malfatti to Paer, and some from others to music-publishers.
Through Paer he was made acquainted with Cherubini, Rossini, Baillot,
and Kalkbrenner. Although Chopin in one of his early Paris letters calls
Cherubini a mummy, he seems to have subsequently been more favourably
impressed by him. At any rate, Ferdinand Hiller--who may have
accompanied the new-comer, if he did not, as he thinks he did, introduce
him, which is not reconcilable with his friend's statement that Paer
made him acquainted with Cherubini--told me that Chopin conceived a
liking for the burbero maestro, of whom Mendelssohn remarked that he
composed everything with his head without the help of his heart.
The house of Cherubini [writes Veron in his "Memoires d'un
Bourgeois de Paris"] was open to artists, amateurs, and
people of good society; and every Monday a numerous assembly
thronged his salons. All foreign artists wished to be
presented to Cherubini. During these last years one met often
at his house Hummel, Liszt, Chopin, Moscheles, Madame
Grassini, and Mademoiselle Falcon, then young and brilliant
in talent and beauty; Auber and Halevy, the favourite pupils
of the master; and Meyerbeer and Rossini.
As evidence of the younger master's respect for the older one may
be adduced a copy made by Chopin of one of Cherubini's fugues. This
manuscript, which I saw in the possession of M. Franchomme, is a miracle
of penmanship, and surpasses in neatness and minuteness everything I
have seen of Chopin's writing, which is always microscopic.
From Dr. Hiller I learnt also that Chopin went frequently to Baillot's
house. It is very probable that he was present at the soirees which
Mendelssohn describes with his usual charming ease in his Paris letters.
Baillot, though a man of sixty, still knew how to win the admiration of
the best musicians by his fine, expressive violin-playing. Chopin writes
in a letter to Elsner that Baillot was very amiable towards him, and
had promised to take part with him in a quintet of Beethoven's at
his concert; and in another letter Chopin calls Baillot "the rival of
Paganini."
As far as I can learn there was not much intercourse between Chopin and
Rossini. Of Kalkbrenner I shall have presently to speak at some
length; first, however, I shall say a few words about some of the most
interesting young artists whose acquaintance Chopin made.
One of these young artists was the famous violoncellist Franchomme, who
told me that it was Hiller who first spoke to him of the young Pole and
his unique compositions and playing. Soon after this conversation, and
not long after the new-comer's arrival in Paris, Chopin, Liszt, Hiller,
and Franchomme dined together. When the party broke up, Chopin asked
Franchomme what he was going to do. Franchomme replied he had no
particular engagement. "Then," said Chopin, "come with me and spend an
hour or two at my lodgings." "Well," was the answer of Franchomme, "but
if I do you will have to play to me." Chopin had no objection, and the
two walked off together. Franchomme thought that Chopin was at that time
staying at an hotel in the Rue Bergere. Be this as it may, the young
Pole played as he had promised, and the young Frenchman understood him
at once. This first meeting was the beginning of a life-long friendship,
a friendship such as is rarely to be met with among the fashionable
musicians of populous cities.
Mendelssohn, who came to Paris early in December, 1831, and stayed there
till about the middle of April, 1832, associated a good deal with this
set of striving artists. The diminutive "Chopinetto," which he makes
use of in his letters to Hiller, indicates not only Chopin's delicate
constitution of body and mind and social amiability, but also
Mendelssohn's kindly feeling for him. [Footnote: Chopin is not mentioned
in any of Mendelssohn's Paris letters. But the following words may refer
to him; for although Mendelssohn did not play at Chopin's concert, there
may have been some talk of his doing so. January 14, 1832: "Next week
a Pole gives a concert; in it I have to play a piece for six performers
with Kalkbrenner, Hiller and Co." Osborne related in his "Reminiscences
of Frederick Chopin," a paper read before a meeting of the Musical
Association (April 5, 1880), that he, Chopin, Hiller, and Mendelssohn,
during the latter's stay in Paris, frequently dined together at a
restaurant. They ordered and paid the dinner in turn. One evening at
dessert they had a very animated conversation about authors and their
manuscripts. When they were ready to leave Osborne called the waiter,
but instead of asking for la note a payer, he said "Garcon, apportez-moi
votre manuscrit." This sally of the mercurial Irishman was received with
hearty laughter, Chopin especially being much tickled by the profanation
of the word so sacred to authors. From the same source we learn also
that Chopin took delight in repeating the criticisms on his performances
which he at one time or other had chanced to overhear.
Not the least interesting and significant incident in Chopin's life was
his first meeting and early connection with Kalkbrenner, who at that
time--when Liszt and Thalberg had not yet taken possession of the
commanding positions they afterwards occupied--enjoyed the most
brilliant reputation of all the pianists then living. On December 16,
1831, Chopin writes to his friend Woyciechowski:--
You may easily imagine how curious I was to hear Herz and
Hiller play; they are ciphers compared with Kalkbrenner.
Honestly speaking, I play as well as Herz, but I wish I could
play as well as Kalkbrenner. If Paganini is perfect, so also
is he, but in quite another way. His repose, his enchanting
touch, the smoothness of his playing, I cannot describe to
you, one recognises the master in every note--he is a giant
who throws all other artists into the shade. When I visited
him, he begged me to play him something. What was I to do? As
I had heard Herz, I took courage, seated myself at the
instrument, and played my E minor Concerto, which charmed the
people of the Bavarian capital so much. Kalkbrenner was
astonished, and asked me if I were a pupil of Field's. He
remarked that I had the style of Cramer, but the touch of
Field. It amused me that Kalkbrenner, when he played to me,
made a mistake and did not know how to go on; but it was
wonderful to hear how he found his way again. Since this
meeting we see each other daily, either he calls on me or I
on him. He proposed to teach me for three years and make a
great artist of me. I told him that I knew very well what I
still lacked; but I will not imitate him, and three years are
too much for me. He has convinced me that I play well only
when I am in the right mood for it, but less well when this
is not the case. This cannot be said of Kalkbrenner, his
playing is always the same. When he had watched me for a long
time, he came to the conclusion that I had no method; that I
was indeed on a very good path, but might easily go astray;
and that when he ceased to play, there would no longer be a
representative of the grand pianoforte school left. I cannot
create a new school, however much I may wish to do so,
because I do not even know the old one; but I know that my
tone-poems have some individuality in them, and that I always
strive to advance.
If you were here, you would say "Learn, young man, as long as
you have an opportunity to do so!" But many dissuade me from
taking lessons, are of opinion that I play as well as
Kalkbrenner, and that it is only vanity that makes him wish
to have me for his pupil. That is nonsense. Whoever knows
anything of music must think highly of Kalkbrenner's talent,
although he is disliked as a man because he will not
associate with everybody. But I assure you there is in him
something higher than in all the virtuosos whom I have as yet
heard. I have said this in a letter to my parents, who quite
understand it. Elsner, however, does not comprehend it, and
regards it as jealousy on Kalkbrenner's part that he not only
praises me, but also wishes that my playing were in some
respects different from what it is. In spite of all this I
may tell you confidentially that I have already a
distinguished name among the artists here.
Elsner expressed his astonishment that Kalkbrenner should require three
years to reveal to Chopin the secrets of his art, and advised his
former pupil not to confine the exercise of his musical talent to
pianoforte-playing and the composition of pianoforte music. Chopin
replies to this in a letter written on December 14, 1831, as follows:--
In the beginning of last year, although I knew what I yet
lacked, and how very far I still was from equalling the model
I have in you, I nevertheless ventured to think, "I will
approach him, and if I cannot produce, a Lokietek ["the
short," surname of a king of Poland; Elsner had composed an
opera of that name], I may perhaps give to the world a
Laskonogi ["the thin-legged," surname of another king of
Poland]." To-day all such hopes are annihilated; I am forced
to think of making my way in the world as a pianist. For some
time I must keep in the background the higher artistic aim of
which you wrote to me. In order to be a great composer one
must possess, in addition to creative power, experience and
the faculty of self-criticism, which, as you have taught me,
one obtains not only by listening to the works of others, but
still more by means of a careful critical examination of
one's own.
After describing the difficulties which lie in the way of the opera
composer, he proceeds:--
It is my conviction that he is the happier man who is able to
execute his compositions himself. I am known here and there
in Germany as a pianist; several musical journals have spoken
highly of my concerts, and expressed the hope of seeing me
soon take a prominent position among the first pianoforte-
virtuosos. I had to-day anopportunity or fulfilling the
promise I had made to myself. Why should I not embrace it?...
I should not like to learn pianoforte-playing in Germany, for
there no one could tell me precisely what it was that I
lacked. I, too, have not seen the beam in my eye. Three
years' study is far too much. Kalkbrenner, when he had heard
me repeatedly, came to see that himself. From this you may
see that a true meritorious virtuoso does not know the
feeling of envy. I would certainly make up my mind to study
for three years longer if I were certain that I should then
reach the aim which I have kept in view. So much is clear to
me, I shall never become a copy of Kalkbrenner; he will not
be able to break my perhaps bold but noble resolve--TO CREATE
A NEW ART-ERA. If I now continue my studies, I do so only in
order to stand at some future time on my own feet. It was not
difficult for Ries, who was then already recognised as a
celebrated pianist, to win laurels at Berlin, Frankfort-on-
the-Main, Dresden, &c., by his opera Die Rauberbraut. And how
long was Spohr known as an excellent violinist before he had
written Faust, Jessonda, and other works? I hope you will not
deny me your blessing when you see on what grounds and with
what intentions I struggle onwards.
This is one of the most important letters we have of Chopin; it brings
before us, not the sighing lover, the sentimental friend, but the
courageous artist. On no other occasion did he write so freely and fully
of his views and aims. What heroic self-confidence, noble resolves, vast
projects, flattering dreams! And how sad to think that most of them were
doomed to end in failure and disappointment! But few are the lives of
true artists that can really be called happy! Even the most successful
have, in view of the ideally conceived, to deplore the quantitative and
qualitative shortcomings of the actually accomplished. But to return to
Kalkbrenner. Of him Chopin said truly that he was not a popular man; at
any rate, he was not a popular man with the romanticists. Hiller tells
us in his "Recollections and Letters of Mendelssohn" how little grateful
he and his friends, Mendelssohn included, were for Kalkbrenner's
civilities, and what a wicked pleasure they took in worrying him.
Sitting one day in front of a cafe on the Boulevard des Italiens,
Hiller, Liszt, and Chopin saw the prim master advancing, and knowing
how disagreeable it would be to him to meet such a noisy company, they
surrounded him in the friendliest manner, and assailed him with such a
volley of talk that he was nearly driven to despair, which, adds
Hiller, "of course delighted us." It must be confessed that the great
Kalkbrenner, as M. Marmontel in his "Pianistes celebres" remarks, had
"certaines etroitesses de caractere," and these "narrownesses" were of
a kind that particularly provokes the ridicule of unconventional and
irreverent minds. Heine is never more biting than when he speaks of
Kalkbrenner. He calls him a mummy, and describes him as being dead long
ago and having lately also married. This, however, was some years after
the time we are speaking of. On another occasion Heine writes that
Kalkbrenner is envied
for his elegant manners, for his polish and sweetishness, and
for his whole marchpane-like appearance, in which, however,
ihe calm observer discovers a shabby admixture of involuntary
Berlinisms of the lowest class, so that Koreff could say of
the man as wittily as correctly: "He looks like a bon-bon
that has been in the mud."
A thorough belief in and an unlimited admiration of himself form the
centre of gravity upon which the other qualities of Kalkbrenner's
character balance themselves. He prided himself on being the pattern of
a fine gentleman, and took upon him to teach even his oldest friends
how to conduct themselves in society and at table. In his gait he was
dignified, in his manners ceremonious, and in his speech excessively
polite. He was addicted to boasting of honours offered him by the
King, and of his intimacy with the highest aristocracy. That he did not
despise popularity with the lower strata of society is evidenced by the
anecdote (which the virtuoso is credited with having told himself to his
guests) of the fish-wife who, on reading his card, timidly asks him to
accept as a homage to the great Kalkbrenner a splendid fish which he had
selected for his table. The artist was the counterpart of the man. He
considered every success as by right his due, and recognised merit only
in those who were formed on his method or at least acknowledged its
superiority. His artistic style was a chastened reflex of his social
demeanour.
It is difficult to understand how the Kalkbrenner-Chopin affair could
be so often misrepresented, especially since we are in possession of
Chopin's clear statements of the facts. [FOOTNOTE: Statements which
are by no means invalidated by the following statement of Lenz:--"On my
asking Chopin 'whether Kalkbrenner had understood much about it' [i.e.
the art of pianoforte-playing], followed the answer: 'It was at the
beginning of my stay in Paris.'"]. There are no grounds whatever to
justify the assumption that Kalkbrenner was actuated by jealousy,
artfulness, or the like, when he proposed that the wonderfully-gifted
and developed Chopin should become his pupil for three years. His
conceit of himself and his method account fully for the strangeness
of the proposal. Moreover, three years was the regulation time of
Kalkbrenner's course, and it was much that he was willing to shorten
it in the case of Chopin. Karasowski, speaking as if he had the gift
of reading the inmost thoughts of men, remarks: "Chopin did not suspect
what was passing in Kalkbrenner's mind when he was playing to him."
After all, I should like to ask, is there anything surprising in the
fact that the admired virtuoso and author of a "Methode pour apprendre
le Piano a l'aide du Guide-mains; contenant les principes de musique;
un systems complet de doigter; des regles sur l'expression," &c.,
found fault with Chopin's strange fingering and unconventional style?
Kalkbrenner could not imagine anything superior to his own method,
anything finer than his own style. And this inability to admit the
meritoriousness or even the legitimacy of anything that differed
from what he was accustomed to, was not at all peculiar to this great
pianist; we see it every day in men greatly his inferiors. Kalkbrenner's
lament that when he ceased to play there would be no representative left
of the grand pianoforte school ought to call forth our sympathy.
Surely we cannot blame him for wishing to perpetuate what he held to be
unsurpassable! According to Hiller, Chopin went a few times to the class
of advanced pupils which Kalkbrenner had advised him to attend, as he
wished to see what the thing was like. Mendelssohn, who had a great
opinion of Chopin and the reverse of Kalkbrenner, was furious when
he heard of this. But were Chopin's friends correct in saying that he
played better than Kalkbrenner, and could learn nothing from him? That
Chopin played better than Kalkbrenner was no doubt true, if we consider
the emotional and intellectual qualities of their playing. But I think
it was not correct to say that Chopin could learn nothing from the
older master. Chopin was not only a better judge of Kalkbrenner than his
friends, who had only sharp eyes for his short-comings, and overlooked
or undervalued his good qualities, but he was also a better judge of
himself and his own requirements. He had an ideal in his mind, and he
thought that Kalkbrenner's teaching would help him to realise it. Then
there is also this to be considered: unconnected with any school, at
no time guided by a great master of the instrument, and left to his own
devices at a very early age, Chopin found himself, as it were, floating
free in the air without a base to stand on, without a pillar to lean
against. The consequent feeling of isolation inspires at times even
the strongest and most independent self-taught man--and Chopin, as a
pianist, may almost be called one--with distrust in the adequacy of his
self-acquired attainments, and an exaggerated idea of the advantages of
a school education. "I cannot create a new school, because I do not even
know the old one." This may or may not be bad reasoning, but it shows
the attitude of Chopin's mind. It is also possible that he may have
felt the inadequacy and inappropriateness of his technique and style for
other than his own compositions. And many facts in the history of his
career as an executant would seem to confirm the correctness of such a
feeling. At any rate, after what we have read we cannot attribute his
intention of studying under Kalkbrenner to undue self-depreciation. For
did he not consider his own playing as good as that of Herz, and feel
that he had in him the stuff to found a new era in music? But what
was it then that attracted him to Kalkbrenner, and made him exalt this
pianist above all the pianists he had heard? If the reader will recall
to mind what I said in speaking of Mdlles. Sontag and Belleville of
Chopin's love of beauty of tone, elegance, and neatness, he cannot be
surprised at the young pianist's estimate of the virtuoso of whom
Riehl says: "The essence of his nature was what the philologists call
elegantia--he spoke the purest Ciceronian Latin on the piano." As a
knowledge of Kalkbrenner's artistic personality will help to further
our acquaintance with Chopin, and as our knowledge of it is for the
most part derived from the libels and caricatures of well-intentioned
critics, who in their zeal for a nobler and more glorious art overshoot
the mark of truth, it will be worth our while to make inquiries
regarding it.
Kalkbrenner may not inaptly be called the Delille of pianist-composers,
for his nature and fate remind us somewhat of the poet. As to his works,
although none of them possessed stamina enough to be long-lived, they
would have insured him a fairer reputation if he had not published so
many that were written merely for the market. Even Schumann confessed
to having in his younger days heard and played Kalkbrenner's music often
and with pleasure, and at a maturer age continued to acknowledge not
only the master's natural virtuoso amiability and clever manner of
writing effectively for fingers and hands, but also the genuinely
musical qualities of his better works, of which he held the Concerto in
D minor to be the "bloom," and remarks that it shows the "bright sides"
of Kalkbrenner's "pleasing talent." We are, however, here more concerned
with the pianist than with the composer. One of the best sketches of
Kalkbrenner as a pianist is to be found in a passage which I shall
presently quote from M. Marmontel's collection of "Silhouettes et
Medaillons" of "Les Pianistes celebres." The sketch is valuable on
account of its being written by one who is himself a master, one who
does not speak from mere hearsay, and who, whilst regarding Kalkbrenner
as an exceptional virtuoso, the continuator of Clementi, the
founder ("one of the founders" would be more correct) of modern
pianoforte-playing, and approving of the leading principle of his
method, which aims at the perfect independence of the fingers and their
preponderant action, does not hesitate to blame the exclusion of the
action of the wrist, forearm, and arm, of which the executant should
not deprive himself "dans les accents de legerete, d'expression et de
force." But here is what M. Marmontel says:--
The pianoforte assumed under his fingers a marvellous and
never harsh sonorousness, for he did not seek forced effects.
His playing, smooth, sustained, harmonious, and of a perfect
evenness, charmed even more than it astonished; moreover, a
faultless neatness in the most difficult passages, and a left
hand of unparalleled bravura, made Kalkbrenner an
extraordinary virtuoso. Let us add that the perfect
independence of the fingers, the absence of the in our day so
frequent movements of the arms, the tranquillity of the hands
and body, a perfect bearing--all these qualities combined,
and many others which we forget, left the auditor free to
enjoy the pleasure of listening without having his attention
diverted by fatiguing gymnastics. Kalkbrenner's manner of
phrasing was somewhat lacking in expression and communicative
warmth, but the style was always noble, true, and of the
grand school.
We now know what Chopin meant when he described Kalkbrenner as "perfect
and possessed of something that raised him above all other virtuosos";
we now know also that Chopin's admiration was characteristic and not
misplaced. Nevertheless, nobody will think for a moment of disagreeing
with those who advised Chopin not to become a pupil of this master, who
always exacted absolute submission to his precepts; for it was to
be feared that he would pay too dear for the gain of inferior
accomplishments with the loss of his invaluable originality. But, as
we have seen, the affair came to nothing, Chopin ceasing to attend the
classes after a few visits. What no doubt influenced his final decision
more than the advice of his friends was the success which his playing
and compositions met with at the concert of which I have now to tell the
history. Chopin's desertion as a pupil did not terminate the friendly
relation that existed between the two artists. When Chopin published
his E minor Concerto he dedicated it to Kalkbrenner, and the latter soon
after composed "Variations brillantes (Op. 120) pour le piano sur une
Mazourka de Chopin," and often improvised on his young brother-artist's
mazurkas. Chopin's friendship with Camille Pleyel helped no doubt to
keep up his intercourse with Kalkbrenner, who was a partner of the firm
of Pleyel & Co.
The arrangements for his concert gave Chopin much trouble, and had they
not been taken in hand by Paer, Kalkbrenner, and especially Norblin, he
would not have been able to do anything in Paris, where one required at
least two months to get up a concert. This is what Chopin tells Elsner
in the letter dated December 14, 1831. Notwithstanding such powerful
assistance he did not succeed in giving his concert on the 25th of
December, as he at first intended. The difficulty was to find a lady
vocalist. Rossini, the director of the Italian Opera, was willing to
help him, but Robert, the second director, refused to give permission
to any of the singers in his company to perform at the concert, fearing
that, if he did so once, there would be no end of applications. As
Veron, the director of the Academie Royale likewise refused Chopin's
request, the concert had to be put off till the 15th of January, 1832,
when, however, on account of Kalkbrenner's illness or for some other
reason, it had again to be postponed. At last it came off on February
26, 1832. Chopin writes on December 16, 1831, about the arrangements for
the concert:--
Baillot, the rival of Paganini, and Brod, the celebrated oboe-
player, will assist me with their talent. I intend to play my
F minor Concerto and the Variations in B flat...I shall play
not only the concerto and the variations, but also with
Kalkbrenner his duet "Marche suivie d'une Polonaise" for two
pianos, with the accompaniment of four others. Is this not an
altogether mad idea? One of the grand pianos is very large,
and is for Kalkbrenner; the other is small (a so-called mono-
chord), and is for me. On the other large ones, which are as
loud as an orchestra, Hiller, Osborne, Stamati, and Sowinski
are to play. Besides these performers, Norblin, Vidal, and
the celebrated viola-player Urban will take part in the
concert.
The singers of the evening were Mdlles. Isambert and Tomeoni, and
M. Boulanger. I have not been able to discover the programme of the
concert. Hiller says that Chopin played his E minor Concerto and some
of his mazurkas and nocturnes. Fetis, in the Revue musicale (March
3, 1832), mentions only in a general way that there were performed a
concerto by Chopin, a composition for six pianos by Kalkbrenner, some
vocal pieces, an oboe solo, and "a quintet for violin [sic], executed
with that energy of feeling and that variety of inspiration which
distinguish the talent of M. Baillot." The concert, which took place in
Pleyel's rooms, was financially a failure; the receipts did not cover
the expenses. The audience consisted chiefly of Poles, and most of
the French present had free tickets. Hiller says that all the musical
celebrities of Paris were there, and that Chopin's performances took
everybody by storm. "After this," he adds, "nothing more was heard
of want of technique, and Mendelssohn applauded triumphantly." Fetis
describes this soiree musicale as one of the most pleasant that had been
given that year. His criticism contains such interesting and, on the
whole, such excellent remarks that I cannot resist the temptation to
quote the more remarkable passages:--
Here is a young man who, abandoning himself to his natural
impressions and without taking a model, has found, if not a
complete renewal of pianoforte music, at least a part of what
has been sought in vain for a long time--namely, an abundance
of original ideas of which the type is to be found nowhere.
We do not mean by this that M. Chopin is endowed with a
powerful organisation like that of Beethoven, nor that there
are in his music such powerful conceptions as one remarks in
that of this great man. Beethoven has composed pianoforte
music, but I speak here of pianists' music, and it is by
comparison with the latter that I find in M. Chopin's
inspirations the indication of a renewal of forms which may
exercise in time much influence over this department of the
art.
Of Chopin's concerto Fetis remarks that it:--
equally astonished and surprised his audience, as much by the
novelty of the melodic ideas as by the figures, modulations,
and general disposition of the movements. There is soul in
these melodies, fancy in these figures, and originality in
everything. Too much luxuriance in the modulations, disorder
in the linking of the phrases, so that one seems sometimes to
hear an improvisation rather than written music, these are
the defects which are mixed with the qualities I have just
now pointed out. But these defects belong to the age of the
artist; they will disappear when experience comes. If the
subsequent works of M. Chopin correspond to his debut, there
can be no doubt but that he will acquire a brilliant and
merited reputation.
As an executant also the young artist deserves praise. His
playing is elegant, easy, graceful, and possesses brilliance
and neatness. He brings little tone out of the instrument,
and resembles in this respect the majority of German
pianists. But the study which he is making of this part of
his art, under the direction of M. Kalkbrenner, cannot fail
to give him an important quality on which the nerf of
execution depends, and without which the accents of the
instrument cannot be modified.
Of course dissentient voices made themselves heard who objected to this
and that; but an overwhelming majority, to which belonged the young
artists, pronounced in favour of Chopin. Liszt says that he remembers
his friend's debut:--
The most vigorous applause seemed not to suffice to our
enthusiasm in the presence of this talented musician, who
revealed a new phase of poetic sentiment combined with such
happy innovations in the form of his art.
The concluding remark of the above-quoted criticism furnishes an
additional proof that Chopin went for some time to Kalkbrenner's class.
As Fetis and Chopin were acquainted with each other, we may suppose that
the former was well informed on this point. In passing, we may take
note of Chopin's account of the famous historian and theorist's early
struggles:--
Fetis [Chopin writes on December 14, 1831], whom I know, and
from whom one can learn much, lives outside the town, and
comes to Paris only to give his lessons. They say he is
obliged to do this because his debts are greater than the
profits from his "Revue musicale." He is sometimes in danger
of making intimate acquaintance with the debtors' prison. You
must know that according to the law of the country a debtor
can only be arrested in his dwelling. Fetis has, therefore,
left the town and lives in the neighbourhood of Paris, nobody
knows where.
On May 20, 1832, less than three months after his first concert, Chopin
made his second public appearance in Paris, at a concert given by
the Prince de la Moskowa for the benefit of the poor. Among the works
performed was a mass composed by the Prince. Chopin played the first
movement of:--
the concerto, which had already been heard at Pleyel's rooms,
and had there obtained a brilliant success. On this occasion
it was not so well received, a fact which, no doubt, must be
attributed to the instrumentation, which is lacking in
lightness, and to the small volume of tone which M. Chopin
draws from the piano. However, it appears to us that the
music of this artist will gain in the public opinion when it
becomes better known. [FOOTNOTE: From the "Revue musicale."]
The great attraction of the evening was not Chopin, but Brod, who
"enraptured" the audience. Indeed, there were few virtuosos who were
as great favourites as this oboe-player; his name was absent from the
programme of hardly any concert of note.
In passing we will note some other musical events of interest which
occurred about the same time that Chopin made his debut. On March 18
Mendelssohn played Beethoven's G major Concerto with great success
at one of the Conservatoire concerts, [FOOTNOTE: It was the first
performance of this work in Paris.] the younger master's overture to the
"Midsummer Night's Dream" had been heard and well received at the same
institution in the preceding month, and somewhat later his "Reformation
Symphony" was rehearsed, but laid aside. In the middle of March
Paganini, who had lately arrived, gave the first of a series of
concerts, with what success it is unnecessary to say. Of Chopin's
intercourse with Zimmermann, the distinguished pianoforte-professor at
the Conservatoire, and his family we learn from M. Marmontel, who was
introduced to Chopin and Liszt, and heard them play in 1832 at one of
his master's brilliant musical fetes, and gives a charming description
of the more social and intimate parties at which Chopin seems to have
been occasionally present.
Madame Zimmermann and her daughters did the honours to a
great number of artists. Charades were acted; the forfeits
that were given, and the rebuses that were not guessed, had
to be redeemed by penances varying according to the nature of
the guilty ones. Gautier, Dumas, and Musset were condemned to
recite their last poem. Liszt or Chopin had to improvise on a
given theme, Mesdames Viardot, Falcon, and Euggnie Garcia had
also to discharge their melodic debts, and I myself remember
having paid many a forfeit.
The preceding chapter and the foregoing part of this chapter set forth
the most important facts of Chopin's social and artistic life in his
early Paris days. The following extract from a letter of his to Titus
Woyciechowski, dated December 25, 1831, reveals to us something of his
inward life, the gloom of which contrasts violently with the outward
brightness:--
Ah, how I should like to have you beside me!... You cannot
imagine how sad it is to have nobody to whom I can open my
troubled heart. You know how easily I make acquaintances, how
I love human society--such acquaintances I make in great
numbers--but with no one, no one can I sigh. My heart beats
as it were always "in syncopes," therefore I torment myself
and seek for a rest--for solitude, so that the whole day
nobody may look at me and speak to me. It is too annoying to
me when there is a pull at the bell, and a tedious visit is
announced while I am writing to you. At the moment when I was
going to describe to you the ball, at which a divine being
with a rose in her black hair enchanted me, arrives your
letter. All the romances of my brain disappear? my thoughts
carry me to you, I take your hand and weep...When shall we
see each other again?...Perhaps never, because, seriously, my
health is very bad. I appear indeed merry, especially when I
am among my fellow-countrymen; but inwardly something
torments me--a gloomy presentiment, unrest, bad dreams,
sleeplessness, yearning, indifference to everything, to the
desire to live and the desire to die. It seems to me often as
if my mind were benumbed, I feel a heavenly repose in my
heart, in my thoughts I see images from which I cannot tear
myself away, and this tortures me beyond all measure. In
short, it is a combination of feelings that are difficult to
describe...Pardon me, dear Titus, for telling you of all
this; but now I have said enough...I will dress now and go,
or rather drive, to the dinner which our countrymen give to-
day to Ramorino and Langermann...Your letter contained much
that was news to me; you have written me four pages and
thirty-seven lines--in all my life you have never been so
liberal to me, and I stood in need of something of the kind,
I stood indeed very much in need of it.
What you write about my artistic career is very true, and I
myself am convinced of it.
I drive in my own equipage, only the coachman is hired.
I shall close, because otherwise I should be too late for the
post, for I am everything in one person, master and servant.
Take pity on me and write as often as possible!--Yours unto
death,
FREDERICK.
In the postscript of this letter Chopin's light fancy gets the better of
his heavy heart; in it all is fun and gaiety. First he tells his friend
of a pretty neighbour whose husband is out all day and who often invites
him to visit and comfort her. But the blandishments of the fair one were
of no avail; he had no taste for adventures, and, moreover, was afraid
to be caught and beaten by the said husband. A second love-story is told
at greater length. The dramatis personae are Chopin, John Peter Pixis,
and Francilla Pixis, a beautiful girl of sixteen, a German orphan whom
the pianist-composer, then a man of about forty-three, had adopted, and
who afterwards became known as a much-admired singer. Chopin made their
acquaintance in Stuttgart, and remarks that Pixis said that he intended
to marry her. On his return to Paris Pixis invited Chopin to visit him;
the latter, who had by this time forgotten pretty Francilla, was in no
hurry to call. What follows must be given in Chopin's own words:--
Eight days after the second invitation I went to his house,
and accidentally met his pet on the stairs. She invited me to
come in, assuring me it did not matter that Mr. Pixis was not
at home; meanwhile I was to sit down, he would return soon,
and so on. A strange embarrassment seized both of us. I made
my excuses--for I knew the old man was very jealous--and said
I would rather return another time. While we were talking
familiarly and innocently on the staircase, Pixis came up,
looking over his spectacles in order to see who was speaking
above to his bella. He may not have recognised us at once,
quickened his steps, stopped before us, and said to her
harshly: "Qu'est-ce que vous faites ici?" and gave her a
severe lecture for receiving young men in his absence, and so
on. I addressed Pixis smilingly, and said to her that it was
somewhat imprudent to leave the room in so thin a silk dress.
At last the old man became calm--he took me by the arm and
led me into the drawing-room. He was in such a state of
excitement that he did not know what seat to offer me; for he
was afraid that, if he had offended me, I would make better
use of his absence another time. When I left he accompanied
me down stairs, and seeing me smile (for I could not help
doing so when I found I was thought capable of such a thing),
he went to the concierge and asked how long it was since I
had come. The concierge must have calmed his fears, for since
that time Pixis does not know how to praise my talent
sufficiently to all his acquaintances. What do you think of
this? I, a dangerous seducteur!
The letters which Chopin wrote to his parents from Paris passed, after
his mother's death, into the hands of his sister, who preserved them
till September 19, 1863. On that day the house in which she lived in
Warsaw--a shot having been fired and some bombs thrown from an upper
story of it when General Berg and his escort were passing--was sacked by
Russian soldiers, who burned or otherwise destroyed all they could lay
hands on, among the rest Chopin's letters, his portrait by Ary Scheffer,
the Buchholtz piano on which he had made his first studies, and other
relics. We have now also exhausted, at least very nearly exhausted,
Chopin's extant correspondence with his most intimate Polish friends,
Matuszynski and Woyciechowski, only two unimportant letters written in
1849 and addressed to the latter remaining yet to be mentioned. That the
confidential correspondence begins to fail us at this period (the last
letter is of December 25, 1831) is particularly inopportune; a series of
letters like those he wrote from Vienna would have furnished us with
the materials for a thoroughly trustworthy history of his settlement
in Paris, over which now hangs a mythical haze. Karasowski, who saw the
lost letters, says they were tinged with melancholy.
Besides the thought of his unhappy country, a thought constantly kept
alive by the Polish refugees with whom Paris was swarming, Chopin
had another more prosaic but not less potent cause of disquietude and
sadness. His pecuniary circumstances were by no means brilliant. Economy
cannot fill a slender purse, still less can a badly-attended concert do
so, and Chopin was loath to be a burden on his parents who, although in
easy circumstances, were not wealthy, and whose income must have been
considerably lessened by some of the consequences of the insurrection,
such as the closing of schools, general scarcity of money, and so forth.
Nor was Paris in 1831, when people were so busy with politics, El Dorado
for musicians. Of the latter, Mendelssohn wrote at the time that they
did not, like other people, wrangle about politics, but lamented over
them. "One has lost his place, another his title, and a third his money,
and they say this all proceeds from the 'juste milieu.'" As Chopin saw
no prospect of success in Paris he began to think, like others of his
countrymen, of going to America. His parents, however, were against this
project, and advised him either to stay where he was and wait for better
things, or to return to Warsaw. Although he might fear annoyances from
the Russian government on account of his not renewing his passport
before the expiration of the time for which it was granted, he chose
the latter alternative. Destiny, however, had decided the matter
otherwise.[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says that Liszt, Hiller, and Sowinski
dissuaded him from leaving Paris. Liszt and Hiller both told me, and
so did also Franchomme, that they knew nothing of Chopin having had any
such intention; and Sowinski does not mention the circumstance in his
Musiciens polonais.] One day, or, as some will have it, on the very day
when he was preparing for his departure, Chopin met in the street Prince
Valentine Radziwill, and, in the course of the conversation which the
latter opened, informed him of his intention of leaving Paris. The
Prince, thinking, no doubt, of the responsibility he would incur by
doing so, did not attempt to dissuade him, but engaged the artist to go
with him in the evening to Rothschild's. Chopin, who of course was asked
by the hostess to play something, charmed by his wonderful performance,
and no doubt also by his refined manners, the brilliant company
assembled there to such a degree that he carried off not only a
plentiful harvest of praise and compliments, but also some offers of
pupils. Supposing the story to be true, we could easily believe that
this soiree was the turning-point in Chopin's career, but nevertheless
might hesitate to assert that it changed his position "as if by
enchantment." I said "supposing the story to be true," because, although
it has been reported that Chopin was fond of alluding to this incident,
his best friends seem to know nothing of it: Liszt does not mention
it, Hiller and Franchomme told me they never heard of it, and
notwithstanding Karasowski's contrary statement there is nothing to be
found about it in Sowinski's Musiciens polonais. Still, the story may
have a substratum of truth, to arrive at which it has only to be shorn
of its poetical accessories and exaggerations, of which, however, there
is little in my version.
But to whatever extent, or whether to any extent at all, this or any
similar soiree may have served Chopin as a favourable introduction to
a wider circle of admirers and patrons, and as a stepping-stone to
success, his indebtedness to his countrymen, who from the very first
befriended and encouraged him, ought not to be forgotten or passed over
in silence for the sake of giving point to a pretty anecdote. The great
majority of the Polish refugees then living in Paris would of course
rather require than be able to afford help and furtherance, but there
was also a not inconsiderable minority of persons of noble birth and
great wealth whose patronage and influence could not but be of immense
advantage to a struggling artist. According to Liszt, Chopin was on
intimate terms with the inmates of the Hotel Lambert, where old Prince
Adam Czartoryski and his wife and daughter gathered around them "les
debris de la Pologne que la derniere guerre avait jetes au loin." Of the
family of Count Plater and other compatriots with whom the composer had
friendly intercourse we shall speak farther on. Chopin's friends were
not remiss in exerting themselves to procure him pupils and good fees at
the same time. They told all inquirers that he gave no lesson for less
than twenty francs, although he had expressed his willingness to be at
first satisfied with more modest terms. Chopin had neither to wait in
vain nor to wait long, for in about a year's time he could boast of a
goodly number of pupils.
The reader must have noticed with surprise the absence of any mention of
the "Ideal" from Chopin's letters to his friend Titus Woyciechowski,
to whom the love-sick artist was wont to write so voluminously on this
theme. How is this strange silence to be accounted for? Surely this
passionate lover could not have forgotten her beneath whose feet he
wished his ashes to be spread after his death? But perhaps in the end
of 1831 he had already learnt what was going to happen in the following
year. The sad fact has to be told: inconstant Constantia Gladkowska
married a merchant of the name of Joseph Grabowski, at Warsaw, in
1832; this at least is the information given in Sowinski's biographical
dictionary Les musiciens polonais et slaves.[FOOTNOTE: According to
Count Wodzinski she married a country gentleman, and subsequently became
blind.] As the circumstances of the case and the motives of the parties
are unknown to me, and as a biographer ought not to take the same
liberties as a novelist, I shall neither expatiate on the fickleness
and mercenariness of woman, nor attempt to describe the feelings of our
unfortunate hero robbed of his ideal, but leave the reader to make his
own reflections and draw his own moral.
On August 2, 1832, Chopin wrote a letter to Hiller, who had gone in
the spring of the year to Germany. What the young Pole thought of this
German brother-artist may be gathered from some remarks of his in the
letter to Titus Woyciechowski dated December 16, 1831:--
The concert of the good Hiller, who is a pupil of Hummel and
a youth of great talent, came off very successfully the day
before yesterday. A symphony of his was received with much
applause. He has taken Beethoven for his model, and his work
is full of poesy and inspiration.
Since then the two had become more intimate, seeing each other almost
every day, Chopin, as Osborne relates, being always in good spirits when
Hiller was with him. The bearer of the said letter was Mr. Johns, to
whom the five Mazurkas, Op. 7, are dedicated, and whom Chopin introduced
to Hiller as "a distinguished amateur of New Orleans." After warmly
recommending this gentleman, he excuses himself for not having
acknowledged the receipt of his friend's letter, which procured him the
pleasure of Paul Mendelssohn's acquaintance, and then proceeds:--
Your trios, my dear friend, have been finished for a long
time, and, true to my character of a glutton, I have gulped
down your manuscripts into my repertoire. Your concerto will
be performed this month by Adam's pupils at the examination
of the Conservatoire. Mdlle. Lyon plays it very well. La
Tentation, an opera-ballet by Halevy and Gide, has not
tempted any one of good taste, because it has just as little
interest as your German Diet harmony with the spirit of the
age. Maurice, who has returned from London, whither he had
gone for the mise en scene of Robert (which has not had a
very great success), has assured us that Moscheles and Field
will come to Paris for the winter. This is all the news I
have to give you. Osborne has been in London for the last two
months. Pixis is at Boulogne. Kalkbrenner is at Meudon,
Rossini at Bordeaux. All who know you await you with open
arms. Liszt will add a few words below. Farewell, dear
friend.
Yours most truly,
F. CHOPIN.
Paris, 2/8/32
CHAPTER XVI.
1832-1834.
CHOPIN'S SUCCESS IN SOCIETY AND AS A TEACHER.--VARIOUS CONCERTS AT
WHICH HE PLAYED.--A LETTER FROM CHOPIN AND LISZT TO HILLER.--SOME OF
HIS FRIENDS.--STRANGE BEHAVIOUR.--A LETTER TO
FRANCHOMME.--CHOPIN'S RESERVE.--SOME TRAITS OF THE POLISH
CHARACTER.--FIELD.--BERLIOZ.--NEO-ROMANTICISM AND CHOPIN'S RELATION TO
IT.--WHAT INFLUENCE HAD LISZT ON CHOPIN'S DEVELOPMENT--PUBLICATION OF
WORKS.--THE CRITICS.--INCREASING POPULARITY.--JOURNEY IN THE COMPANY OF
HILLER TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.--A DAY AT DUSSELDORF WITH MENDELSSOHN.
IN the season 1832-1833 Chopin took his place as one of the acknowledged
pianistic luminaries of the French capital, and began his activity as a
professor par excellence of the aristocracy. "His distinguished manners,
his exquisite politeness, his studied and somewhat affected refinement
in all things, made Chopin the model professor of the fashionable
nobility." Thus Chopin is described by a contemporary. Now he shall
describe himself. An undated letter addressed to his friend Dominic
Dziewanowski, which, judging from an allusion to the death of the
Princess Vaudemont, [FOOTNOTE: In a necrology contained in the Moniteur
of January 6, 1833, she is praised for the justesse de son esprit, and
described as naive et vraie comme une femme du peuple, genereuse comme
une grande dame. There we find it also recorded that she saved M.
de Vitrolles pendant les Cent-jours, et M. de Lavalette sous la
Restoration.] must have been written about the second week of January,
1833, gives much interesting information concerning the writer's tastes
and manners, the degree of success he had obtained, and the kind of life
he was leading. After some jocular remarks on his long silence--remarks
in which he alludes to recollections of Szafarnia and the sincerity of
their friendship, and which he concludes with the statement that he is
so much in demand on all sides as to betorn to pieces--Chopin proceeds
thus:--
I move in the highest society--among ambassadors, princes,
and ministers; and I don't know how I got there, for I did
not thrust myself forward at all. But for me this is at
present an absolute necessity, for thence comes, as it were,
good taste. You are at once credited with more talent if you
are heard at a soiree of the English or Austrian
Ambassador's. Your playing is finer if the Princess Vaudemont
patronises you. "Patronises" I cannot properly say, for the
good old woman died a week ago. She was a lady who reminded
me of the late Kasztelanowa Polaniecka, received at her house
the whole Court, was very charitable, and gave refuge to many
aristocrats in the days of terror of the first revolution.
She was the first who presented herself after the days of
July at the Court of Louis Philippe, although she belonged to
the Montmorency family (the elder branch), whose last
descendant she was. She had always a number of black and
white pet dogs, canaries, and parrots about her; and
possessed also a very droll little monkey, which was
permitted even to... bite countesses and princesses.
Among the Paris artists I enjoy general esteem and
friendship, although I have been here only a year. A proof of
this is that men of great reputation dedicate their
compositions to me, and do so even before I have paid them
the same compliment--for instance, Pixis his last Variations
for orchestra. He is now even composing variations on a theme
of mine. Kalkbrenner improvises frequently on my mazurkas.
Pupils of the Conservatoire, nay, even private pupils of
Moscheles, Herz, and Kalkbrenner (consequently clever
artists), still take lessons from me, and regard me as the
equal of Field. Really, if I were somewhat more silly than I
am, I might imagine myself already a finished artist;
nevertheless, I feel daily how much I have still to learn,
and become the more conscious of it through my intercourse
with the first artists here, and my perception of what every
one, even of them, is lacking in. But I am quite ashamed of
myself for what I have written just now, having praised
myself like a child. I would erase it, but I have no time to
write another letter. Moreover, you will remember my
character as it formerly was; indeed, I have remained quite
the same, only with this one difference, that I have now
whiskers on one side--unfortunately they won't grow at all on
the other side. To-day I have to give five lessons; you will
imagine that I must soon have made a fortune, but the
cabriolet and the white gloves eat the earnings almost up,
and without these things people would deny my bon ton. I love
the Carlists, hate the Philippists, and am myself a
revolutionist; therefore I don't care for money, but only for
friendship, for the preservation of which I earnestly entreat
you.
This letter, and still more the letters which I shall presently
transcribe, afford irrefragable evidence of the baselessness of the
often-heard statement that Chopin's intercourse was in the first years
of his settlement in Paris confined to the Polish salons. The simple
unexaggerated truth is that Chopin had always a predilection for, and
felt more at home among, his compatriots.
In the winter 1832-1833 Chopin was heard frequently in public. At a
concert of Killer's (December 15, 1832) he performed with Liszt and the
concert-giver a movement of Bach's Concerto for three pianos, the three
artists rendering the piece "avec une intelligence de son caractere et
une delicatesse parfaite." Soon after Chopin and Liszt played between
the acts of a dramatic performance got up for the benefit of Miss
Smithson, the English actress and bankrupt manager, Berlioz's flame,
heroine of his "Episode de la vie d'un artiste," and before long his
wife. On April 3, 1833, Chopin assisted at a concert given by the
brothers Herz, taking part along with them and Liszt in a quartet
for eight hands on two pianos. M. Marmontel, in his silhouette of the
pianist and critic Amedee de Mereaux, mentions that in 1832 this artist
twice played with Chopin a duo of his own on "Le Pre aux Clercs," but
leaves us in uncertainty as to whether they performed it at public
concerts or private parties. M. Franchomme told me that he remembered
something about a concert given by Chopin in 1833 at the house of one of
his aristocratic friends, perhaps at Madame la Marechale de Lannes's! In
summing up, as it were, Chopin's activity as a virtuoso, I may make use
of the words of the Paris correspondent of the "Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung," who reports in April, 1833, that "Chopin and Osborne, as well
as the other celebrated masters, delight the public frequently." In
short, Chopin was becoming more and more of a favourite, not, however,
of the democracy of large concert-halls, but of the aristocracy of
select salons.
The following letter addressed to Hiller, written by Chopin and Liszt,
and signed by them and Franchomme, brings together Chopin's most
intimate artist friends, and spreads out before us a vivid picture of
their good fellowship and the society in which they moved. I have put
the portions written by Liszt within brackets [within parentheses in
this e-text]. Thus the reader will see what belongs to each of the
two writers, and how they took the pen out of each other's hand in the
middle of a phrase and even of a word. With regard to this letter I have
further to remark that Hiller, who was again in Germany, had lately lost
his father:--
{This is at least the twentieth time that we have made
arrangements to meet, sometimes at my house, sometimes here,
[Footnote: At Chopin's lodgings mentioned farther on.] with
the intention of writing to you, and some visit, or other
unexpected hindrance, has always prevented us from doing
so!...I don't know whether Chopin will be able to make any
excuses to you; as regards myself it seems to me that we have
been so excessively rude and impertinent that excuses are no
longer either admissible or possible.
We have sympathised deeply with you in your sorrow, and
longed to be with you in order to alleviate as much as
possible the pangs of your heart.}
He has expressed himself so well that I have nothing to add
in excuse of my negligence or idleness, influenza or
distraction, or, or, or--you know I explain myself better in
person; and when I escort you home to your mother's house
this autumn, late at night along the boulevards, I shall try
to obtain your pardon. I write to you without knowing what my
pen is scribbling, because Liszt is at this moment playing my
studies and transports me out of my proper senses. I should
like to rob him of his way of rendering my own studies. As to
your friends who are in Paris, I have seen the Leo family and
their set [Footnote: Chopin's words are et qui s'en suit.' He
refers, no doubt, to the Valentin family, relations of the
Leos, who lived in the same house with them.] frequently this
winter and spring. There have been some soirees at the houses
of certain ambassadresses, and there was not one in which
mention was not made of some one who is at Frankfort. Madame
Eichthal sends you a thousand compliments. The whole Plater
family were much grieved at your departure, and asked me to
express to you their sympathy. (Madame d'Appony has quite a
grudge against me for not having taken you to her house
before your departure; she hopes that when you return you
will remember the promise you made me. I may say as much from
a certain lady who is not an ambassadress. [Footnote: This
certain lady was the Countess d'Agoult.]
Do you know Chopin's wonderful studies?) They are admirable--
and yet they will only last till the moment yours appear (a
little bit of authorial modesty!!!). A little bit of rudeness
on the part of the tutor--for, to explain the matter better
to you, he corrects my orthographical mistakes (after the
fashion of M. Marlet.
You will come back to us in the month of September, will you
not? Try to let us know the day as we have resolved to give
you a serenade (or charivari). The most distinguished artists
of the capital--M. Franchomme (present), Madame Petzold, and
the Abbe Bardin, the coryphees of the Rue d'Amboise (and my
neighbours), Maurice Schlesinger, uncles, aunts, nephews,
nieces, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, &c., &c.) en plan du
troisieme, &c. [Footnote: I give the last words in the
original French, because I am not sure of their meaning.
Hiller, to whom I applied for an explanation, was unable to
help me. Perhaps Chopin uses here the word plan in the
pictorial sense (premier plan, foreground; second plan,
middle distance).]
The responsible editors,
(F. LISZT.) F. CHOPIN. (Aug. FRANCHOMME.)
A Propos, I met Heine yesterday, who asked me to grussen you
herzlich und herzlich. [Footnote: To greet you heartily and
heartily.] A propos again, pardon me for all the "you's"--I
beg you to forgive me them. If you have a moment to spare let
us have news of you, which is very precious to us.
Paris: Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, No. 5.
At present I occupy Franck's lodgings--he has set out for
London and Berlin; I feel quite at home in the rooms which
were so often our place of meeting. Berlioz embraces you. As
to pere Baillot, he is in Switzerland, at Geneva, and so you
will understand why I cannot send you Bach's Concerto.
June 20, 1833.
Some of the names that appear in this letter will give occasion
for comment. Chopin, as Hiller informed me, went frequently to the
ambassadors Appony and Von Kilmannsegge, and still more frequently to
his compatriots, the Platers. At the house of the latter much good music
was performed, for the countess, the Pani Kasztelanowa (the wife of the
castellan), to whom Liszt devotes an eloquent encomium, "knew how to
welcome so as to encourage all the talents that then promised to take
their upward flight and form une lumineuse pleiade," being
in turn fairy, nurse, godmother, guardian angel, delicate
benefactress, knowing all that threatens, divining all that
saves, she was to each of us an amiable protectress, equally
beloved and respected, who enlightened, warmed, and elevated
his [Chopin's] inspiration, and left a blank in his life when
she was no more.
It was she who said one day to Chopin: "Si j'etais jeune et jolie, mon
petit Chopin, je te prendrais pour mari, Hiller pour ami, et Liszt
pour amant." And it was at her house that the interesting contention of
Chopin with Liszt and Hiller took place. The Hungarian and the German
having denied the assertion of the Pole that only he who was born and
bred in Poland, only he who had breathed the perfume of her fields and
woods, could fully comprehend with heart and mind Polish national music,
the three agreed to play in turn, by way of experiment, the mazurka
"Poland is not lost yet." Liszt began, Hiller followed, and Chopin came
last and carried off the palm, his rivals admitting that they had not
seized the true spirit of the music as he had done. Another anecdote,
told me by Hiller, shows how intimate the Polish artist was with this
family of compatriots, the Platers, and what strange whims he sometimes
gave way to. One day Chopin came into the salon acting the part of
Pierrot, and, after jumping and dancing about for an hour, left without
having spoken a single word.
Abbe Bardin was a great musical amateur, at whose weekly afternoon
gatherings the best artists might be seen and heard, Mendelssohn among
the rest when he was in Paris in 1832-1833. In one of the many obituary
notices of Chopin which appeared in French and other papers, and which
are in no wise distinguished by their trustworthiness, I found the
remark that the Abbe Bardin and M.M. Tilmant freres were the first to
recognise Chopin's genius. The notice in question is to be found in the
Chronique Musicale of November 3, 1849.
In Franck, whose lodgings Chopin had taken, the reader will recognise
the "clever [geistreiche], musical Dr. Hermann Franck," the friend of
many musical and other celebrities, the same with whom Mendelssohn used
to play at chess during his stay in Paris. From Hiller I learned
that Franck was very musical, and that his attainments in the natural
sciences were considerable; but that being well-to-do he was without
a profession. In the fifth decade of this century he edited for a year
Brockhaus's Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung.
In the following letter which Chopin wrote to Franchomme--the latter
thinks in the autumn of 1833--we meet with some new names. Dr. Hoffmann
was a good friend of the composer's, and was frequently found at his
rooms smoking. I take him to have been the well-known litterateur
Charles Alexander Hoffmann, [Footnote: This is the usual German, French,
and English spelling. The correct Polish spelling is Hofman. The forms
Hoffman and Hofmann occur likewise.] the husband of Clementina Tanska,
a Polish refugee who came to Paris in 1832 and continued to reside there
till 1848. Maurice is of course Schlesinger the publisher. Of Smitkowski
I know only that he was one of Chopin's Polish friends, whose list
is pretty long and comprised among others Prince Casimir Lubomirski,
Grzymala, Fontana, and Orda.
[Footnote: Of Grzymala and Fontana more will be heard in the sequel.
Prince Casimir Lubomirski was a passionate lover of music, and published
various compositions. Liszt writes that Orda, "who seemed to command a
future," was killed at the age of twenty in Algiers. Karasowski gives
the same information, omitting, however, the age. My inquiries about
Orda among French musicians and Poles have had no result. Although the
data do not tally with those of Liszt and Karasowski, one is tempted to
identify Chopin's friend with the Napoleon Orda mentioned in Sowinski's
Musiciens polonais et slaves--"A pianist-composer who had made himself
known since the events of 1831. One owes to him the publication of a
Polish Album devoted to the composers of this nation, published at Paris
in 1838. M. Orda is the author of several elegantly-written pianoforte
works." In a memoir prefixed to an edition of Chopin's mazurkas and
waltzes (Boosey & Co.), J.W. Davison mentions a M. Orda (the "M."
stands, I suppose, for Monsieur) and Charles Filtsch as pupils of
Chopin.]
It was well for Chopin that he was so abundantly provided with friends,
for, as Hiller told me, he could not do without company. But here is
Chopin's letter to Franchomme:--
Begun on Saturday, the 14th, and finished on Wednesday, the
18th.
DEAR FRIEND,--It would be useless to excuse myself for my
silence. If my thoughts could but go without paper to the
post-office! However, you know me too well not to know that
I, unfortunately, never do what I ought to do. I got here
very comfortably (except for a little disagreeable episode,
caused by an excessively odoriferous gentleman who went as
far as Chartres--he surprised me in the night-time). I have
found more occupation in Paris than I left behind me, which
will, without doubt, hinder me from visiting you at Coteau.
Coteau! oh Coteau! Say, my child, to the whole family at
Coteau that I shall never forget my stay in Touraine--that so
much kindness has made me for ever grateful. People think I
am stouter and look very well, and I feel wonderfully well,
thanks to the ladies that sat beside me at dinner, who
bestowed truly maternal attentions upon me. When I think of
all this the whole appears to me such an agreeable dream that
I should like to sleep again. And the peasant-girls of
Pormic! [FOOTNOTE: A village near the place where Chopin had
been staying.] and the flour! or rather your graceful nose
which you were obliged to plunge into it.
[FOOTNOTE: The remark about the "flour" and Franchomme's "nez
en forme gracieuse" is an allusion to some childish game in
which Chopin, thanks to his aquiline nose, got the better of
his friend, who as regards this feature was less liberally
endowed.]
A very interesting visit has interrupted my letter, which was
begun three days ago, and which I have not been able to
finish till to-day.
Hiller embraces you, Maurice, and everybody. I have delivered
your note to his brother, whom I did not find at home.
Paer, whom I saw a few days ago, spoke to me of your return.
Come back to us stout and in good health like me. Again a
thousand messages to the estimable Forest family. I have
neither words nor powers to express all I feel for them.
Excuse me. Shake hands with me--I pat you on the shoulder--I
hug you--I embrace you. My friend--au revoir.
Hoffmann, the stout Hoffmann, and the slim Smitkowski also,
embrace you.
[FOOTNOTE: The orthography of the French original is very
careless. Thus one finds frequent omissions and misplacements
of accents and numerous misspellings, such as trouvais
instead of trouve, engresse instead of engraisse, plonge
instead of plonger. Of course, these mistakes have to be
ascribed to negligence not to ignorance. I must mention yet
another point which the English translation does not bring
out--namely, that in addressing Franchomme Chopin makes use
of the familiar form of the second person singular.]
The last-quoted letter adds a few more touches to the portraiture
of Chopin which has been in progress in the preceding pages. The
insinuating affectionateness and winning playfulness had hitherto not
been brought out so distinctly. There was then, and there remained to
the end of his life, something of a woman and of a boy in this man. The
sentimental element is almost wholly absent from Chopin's letters to his
non-Polish friends. Even to Franchomme, the most intimate among these,
he shows not only less of his inmost feelings and thoughts than to Titus
Woyciechowski and John Matuszyriski, the friends of his youth, but also
less than to others of his countrymen whose acquaintance he made
later in life, and of whom Grzymala may be instanced. Ready to give
everything, says Liszt, Chopin did not give himself--
his most intimate acquaintances did not penetrate into the
sacred recess where, apart from the rest of his life, dwelt
the secret spring of his soul: a recess so well concealed
that one hardly suspected its existence.
Indeed, you could as little get hold of Chopin as, to use L. Enault's
expression, of the scaly back of a siren. Only after reading his letters
to the few confidants to whom he freely gave his whole self do we know
how little of himself he gave to the generality of his friends, whom he
pays off with affectionateness and playfulness, and who, perhaps, never
suspected, or only suspected, what lay beneath that smooth surface.
This kind of reserve is a feature of the Slavonic character, which in
Chopin's individuality was unusually developed.
The Slavonians [says Enault pithily] lend themselves, they do
not give themselves; and, as if Chopin had wished to make his
country-men pardon him the French origin of his family, he
showed himself more Polish than Poland.
Liszt makes some very interesting remarks on this point, and as they
throw much light on the character of the race, and on that of the
individual with whom we are especially concerned in this book, I shall
quote them:--
With the Slavonians, the loyalty and frankness, the
familiarity and captivating desinvoltura of their manners, do
not in the least imply trust and effusiveness. Their feelings
reveal and conceal themselves like the coils of a serpent
convoluted upon itself; it is only by a very attentive
examination that one discovers the connection of the rings.
It would be naive to take their complimentary politeness,
their pretended modesty literally. The forms of this
politeness and this modesty belong to their manners, which
bear distinct traces of their ancient relations with the
East. Without being in the least infected by Mussulmanic
taciturnity, the Slavonians have learned from it a defiant
reserve on all subjects which touch the intimate chords of
the heart. One may be almost certain that, in speaking of
themselves, they maintain with regard to their interlocutor
some reticence which assures them over him an advantage of
intelligence or of feeling, leaving him in ignorance of some
circumstance or some secret motive by which they would be the
most admired or the least esteemed; they delight in hiding
themselves behind a cunning interrogatory smile of
imperceptible mockery. Having on every occasion a taste for
the pleasure of mystification, from the most witty and droll
to the most bitter and lugubrious kinds, one would say that
they see in this mocking deceit a form of disdain for the
superiority which they inwardly adjudge to themselves, but
which they veil with the care and cunning of the oppressed.
And now we will turn our attention once more to musical matters. In the
letter to Hiller (August 2, 1832) Chopin mentioned the coming of Field
and Moscheles, to which, no doubt, he looked forward with curiosity.
They were the only eminent pianists whom he had not yet heard.
Moscheles, however, seems not to have gone this winter to Paris; at any
rate, his personal acquaintance with the Polish artist did not begin
till 1839. Chopin, whose playing had so often reminded people of
Field's, and who had again and again been called a pupil of his, would
naturally take a particular interest in this pianist. Moreover, he
esteemed him very highly as a composer. Mikuli tells us that Field's
A flat Concerto and nocturnes were among those compositions which he
delighted in playing (spielte mit Vorliebe). Kalkbrenner is reported
[FOOTNOTE: In the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of April 3, 1833.] to
have characterised Field's performances as quite novel and incredible;
and Fetis, who speaks of them in the highest terms, relates that on
hearing the pianist play a concerto of his own composition, the public
manifested an indescribable enthusiasm, a real delirium. Not all
accounts, however, are equally favourable.
[FOOTNOTE: In the Revue musicale of December 29, 1832. The criticism is
worth reproducing:--"Quiconque n'a point entendu ce grand pianiste ne
peut se faire d'idee du mecanisme admirable de ses doigts, mecanisme tel
que les plus grandes difficultes semblent etre des choses fort simples,
et que sa main n'a point l'air de se mouvoir. Il n'est d'ailleurs pas
mains etonnant dans l'art d'attaquer la note et de varier a l'infini
les diverses nuances de force, de douceur et d'accent. Un enthousiasme
impossible a decrire, un veritable delire s'est manifeste dans le public
a l'audition de ce concerto plein de charme rendu avec une perfection de
fini, de precision, de nettete et d'expression qu'il serait impossible
de surpasser et que bien peu de pianistes pourraient egaler." Of a MS.
concerto played by Field at his second concert, given on February 3,
1833, Fetis says that it is "diffus, peu riche en motifs heureux, peu
digne, en un mot, de la renommee de son auteur," but "la delicieuse
execution de M. Field nous a tres-heureusement servi de compensation"]
Indeed, the contradictory criticisms to be met with in books and
newspapers leave on the reader the impression that Field disappointed
the expectations raised by his fame. The fact that the second concert
he gave was less well attended than the first cannot but confirm this
impression. He was probably no longer what he had been; and the reigning
pianoforte style and musical taste were certainly no longer what they
had been. "His elegant playing and beautiful manner of singing on the
piano made people admire his talent," wrote Fetis at a later period (in
his "Biographie universelle des Musiciens"), "although his execution had
not the power of the pianists of the modern school." It is not at
all surprising that the general public and the younger generation of
artists, more especially the romanticists, were not unanimously moved
to unbounded enthusiasm by "the clear limpid flow" and "almost somnolent
tranquillity" of Field's playing, "the placid tenderness, graceful
candour, and charming ingenuousness of his melodious reveries." This
characterisation of Field's style is taken from Liszt's preface to the
nocturnes. Moscheles, with whom Field dined in London shortly before
the latter's visit to Paris, gives in his diary a by no means flattering
account of him. Of the man, the diarist says that he is good-natured but
not educated and rather droll, and that there cannot be a more glaring
contrast than that between Field's nocturnes and Field's manners, which
were often cynical. Of the artist, Moscheles remarks that while his
touch was admirable and his legato entrancing, his playing lacked spirit
and accent, light and shadow, and depth of feeling. M. Marmontel was
not far wrong when, before having heard Field, he regarded him as the
forerunner of Chopin, as a Chopin without his passion, sombre reveries,
heart-throes, and morbidity. The opinions which the two artists had of
each other and the degree of their mutual sympathy and antipathy may be
easily guessed. We are, however, not put to the trouble of guessing all.
Whoever has read anything about Chopin knows of course Field's criticism
of him--namely, that he was "un talent de chambre de malade," which,
by the by, reminds one of a remark of Auber's, who said that Chopin was
dying all his life (il se meurt tonte sa vie). It is a pity that we
have not, as a pendant to Field's criticism on Chopin, one of Chopin on
Field. But whatever impression Chopin may have received from the artist,
he cannot but have been repelled by the man. And yet the older artist's
natural disposition was congenial to that of the younger one, only
intemperate habits had vitiated it. Spohr saw Field in 1802-1803, and
describes him as a pale, overgrown youth, whose dreamy, melancholy
playing made people forget his awkward bearing and badly-fitting
clothes. One who knew Field at the time of his first successes portrays
him as a young man with blonde hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, and
pleasing features, expressive of the mood of the moment--of child-like
ingenuousness, modest good-nature, gentle roguishness, and artistic
aspiration. M. Marmontel, who made his acquaintance in 1832, represents
him as a worn-out, vulgar-looking man of fifty, whose outward appearance
contrasted painfully with his artistic performances, and whose heavy,
thick-set form in conjunction with the delicacy and dreaminess of his
musical thoughts and execution called to mind Rossini's saying of a
celebrated singer, "Elle a l'air d'un elephant qui aurait avale un
rossignol." One can easily imagine the surprise and disillusion of
the four pupils of Zimmermann--MM. Marmontel, Prudent, A. Petit, and
Chollet--who, provided with a letter of introduction by their master,
called on Field soon after his arrival in Paris and beheld the great
pianist--
in a room filled with tobacco smoke, sitting in an easy
chair, an enormous pipe in his mouth, surrounded by large and
small bottles of all sorts [entoure de chopes et bouteilles
de toutes provenances]. His rather large head, his highly-
coloured cheeks, his heavy features gave a Falstaff-like
appearance to his physiognomy.
Notwithstanding his tipsiness, he received the young gentlemen kindly,
and played to them two studies by Cramer and Clementi "with rare
perfection, admirable finish, marvellous agility, and exquisiteness
of touch." Many anecdotes might be told of Field's indolence and
nonchalance; for instance, how he often fell asleep while giving his
lessons, and on one occasion was asked whether he thought he was paid
twenty roubles for allowing himself to be played to sleep; or, how, when
his walking-stick had slipped out of his hand, he waited till some one
came and picked it up; or, how, on finding his dress-boots rather tight,
he put on slippers, and thus appeared in one of the first salons of
Paris and was led by the mistress of the house, the Duchess Decazes, to
the piano--but I have said enough of the artist who is so often named in
connection with Chopin.
From placid Field to volcanic Berlioz is an enormous distance, which,
however, we will clear at one leap, and do it too without hesitation or
difficulty. For is not leaping the mind's natural mode of locomotion,
and walking an artificially-acquired and rare accomplishment? Proceeding
step by step we move only with more or less awkwardness, but aided by
ever so slight an association of ideas we bound with the greatest ease
from any point to any other point of infinitude. Berlioz returned to
Paris in the latter part of 1832, and on the ninth of December of that
year gave a concert at which he produced among other works his "Episode
de la vie d'un artiste" (Part I.--"Symphonic fantastique," for the
second time; Part II--"Lelio, ou le retour a la vie," for the first
time), the subject of which is the history of his love for Miss
Smithson. Chopin, no doubt, made Berlioz's acquaintance through Liszt,
whose friendship with the great French symphonic composer dated from
before the latter's departure for Italy. The characters of Chopin and
Berlioz differed too much for a deep sympathy to exist between
them; their connection was indeed hardly more than a pleasant social
companionship. Liszt tells us that the constant intercourse with
Berlioz, Hiller, and other celebrities who were in the habit of saying
smart things, developed Chopin's natural talent for incisive remarks,
ironical answers, and ambiguous speeches. Berlioz. I think, had more
affection for Chopin than the latter for Berlioz.
But it is much more the artistic than the social attitude taken up by
Chopin towards Berlioz and romanticism which interests us. Has Liszt
correctly represented it? Let us see. It may be accepted as in the main
true that the nocturnes of Field, [Footnote: In connection with this,
however, Mikuli's remark has to be remembered.] the sonatas of
Dussek, and the "noisy virtuosities and decorative expressivities" of
Kalkbrenner were either insufficient for or antipathetic to Chopin; and
it is plainly evident that he was one of those who most perseveringly
endeavoured to free themselves from the servile formulas of the
conventional style and repudiated the charlatanisms that only replace
old abuses by new ones. On the other hand, it cannot be said that
he joined unreservedly those who, seeing the fire of talent devour
imperceptibly the old worm-eaten scaffolding, attached themselves to
the school of which Berlioz was the most gifted, valiant, and daring
representative, nor that, as long as the campaign of romanticism
lasted, he remained invariable in his predilections and repugnances.
The promptings of his genius taught Chopin that the practice of any one
author or set of authors, whatever their excellence might be, ought not
to be an obligatory rule for their successors. But while his individual
requirements led him to disregard use and wont, his individual taste set
up a very exclusive standard of his own. He adopted the maxims of the
romanticists, but disapproved of almost all the works of art in which
they were embodied. Or rather, he adopted their negative teaching, and
like them broke and threw off the trammels of dead formulas; but at the
same time he rejected their positive teaching, and walked apart from
them. Chopin's repugnance was not confined only to the frantic side and
the delirious excesses of romanticism as Liszt thinks. He presents to
us the strange spectacle of a thoroughly romantic and emphatically
unclassical composer who has no sympathy either with Berlioz and Liszt,
or with Schumann and other leaders of romanticism, and the object of
whose constant and ardent love and admiration was Mozart, the purest
type of classicism. But the romantic, which Jean Paul Richter defined
as "the beautiful without limitation, or the beautiful infinite" [das
Schone ohne Begrenzung, oder das schone Unendliche], affords more
scope for wide divergence, and allows greater freedom in the display of
individual and national differences, than the classical.
Chopin's and Berlioz's relative positions may be compared to those of
V. Hugo and Alfred de Musset, both of whom were undeniably romanticists,
and yet as unlike as two authors can be. For a time Chopin was carried
away by Liszt's and Killer's enthusiasm for Berlioz, but he soon retired
from his championship, as Musset from the Cenacle. Franchomme thought
this took place in 1833, but perhaps he antedated this change of
opinion. At any rate, Chopin told him that he had expected better things
from Berlioz, and declared that the latter's music justified any man
in breaking off all friendship with him. Some years afterwards, when
conversing with his pupil Gutmann about Berlioz, Chopin took up a pen,
bent back the point of it, and then let it rebound, saying: "This is the
way Berlioz composes--he sputters the ink over the pages of ruled paper,
and the result is as chance wills it." Chopin did not like the works of
Victor Hugo, because he felt them to be too coarse and violent. And this
may also have been his opinion of Berlioz's works. No doubt he spurned
Voltaire's maxim, "Le gout n'est autre chose pour la poesie que ce
qu'il est pour les ajustements des femmes," and embraced V. Hugo's
countermaxim, "Le gout c'est la raison du genie"; but his delicate,
beauty-loving nature could feel nothing but disgust at what has been
called the rehabilitation of the ugly, at such creations, for instance,
as Le Roi s'amuse and Lucrece Borgia, of which, according to their
author's own declaration, this is the essence:--
Take the most hideous, repulsive, and complete physical
deformity; place it where it stands out most prominently, in
the lowest, most subterraneous and despised story of the
social edifice; illuminate this miserable creature on all
sides by the sinister light of contrasts; and then give it a
soul, and place in that soul the purest feeling which is
bestowed on man, the paternal feeling. What will be the
result? This sublime feeling, intensified according to
certain conditions, will transform under your eyes the
degraded creature; the little being will become great; the
deformed being will become beautiful.--Take the most hideous,
repulsive, and complete moral deformity; place it where it
stands out most prominently, in the heart of a woman, with
all the conditions of physical beauty and royal grandeur
which give prominence to crime; and now mix with all this
moral deformity a pure feeling, the purest which woman can
feel, the maternal feeling; place a mother in your monster
and the monster will interest you, and the monster will make
you weep, and this creature which caused fear will cause
pity, and this deformed soul will become almost beautiful in
your eyes. Thus we have in Le Roi s'amuse paternity
sanctifying physical deformity; and in Lucrece Borgia
maternity purifying moral deformity. [FOOTNOTE: from Victor
Hugo's preface to "Lucrece Borgia."]
In fact, Chopin assimilated nothing or infinitely little of the ideas
that were surging around him. His ambition was, as he confided to his
friend Hiller, to become to his countrymen as a musician what Uhland was
to the Germans as a poet. Nevertheless, the intellectual activity of
the French capital and its tendencies had a considerable influence on
Chopin. They strengthened the spirit of independence in him, and were
potent impulses that helped to unfold his individuality in all its width
and depth. The intensification of thought and feeling, and the greater
fulness and compactness of his pianoforte style in his Parisian
compositions, cannot escape the attentive observer. The artist who
contributed the largest quotum of force to this impulse was probably
Liszt, whose fiery passions, indomitable energy, soaring enthusiasm,
universal tastes, and capacity of assimilation, mark him out as the very
opposite of Chopin. But, although the latter was undoubtedly stimulated
by Liszt's style of playing the piano and of writing for this
instrument, it is not so certain as Miss L. Ramann, Liszt's biographer,
thinks, that this master's influence can be discovered in many passages
of Chopin's music which are distinguished by a fiery and passionate
expression, and resemble rather a strong, swelling torrent than a
gently-gliding rivulet. She instances Nos. 9 and 12 of "Douze
Etudes," Op. 10; Nos. 11 and 12 of "Douze Etudes," Op. 25; No. 24 of
"Vingt-quatre Preludes," Op. 28; "Premier Scherzo," Op. 20; "Polonaise"
in A flat major, Op. 53; and the close of the "Nocturne" in A flat
major, Op. 32. All these compositions, we are told, exhibit Liszt's
style and mode of feeling. Now, the works composed by Chopin before he
came to Paris and got acquainted with Liszt comprise not only a sonata,
a trio, two concertos, variations, polonaises, waltzes, mazurkas, one
or more nocturnes, &c., but also--and this is for the question under
consideration of great importance--most of, if not all, the studies of
Op. 10, [FOOTNOTE: Sowinski says that Chopin brought with him to Paris
the MS. of the first book of his studies.] and some of Op. 25; and these
works prove decisively the inconclusiveness of the lady's argument. The
twelfth study of Op. 10 (composed in September, 1831) invalidates all
she says about fire, passion, and rushing torrents. In fact, no cogent
reason can be given why the works mentioned by her should not be the
outcome of unaided development.[FOONOTE: That is to say, development
not aided in the way indicated by Miss Ramann. Development can never
be absolutely unaided; it always presupposes conditions--external or
internal, physical or psychical, moral or intellectual--which induce
and promote it. What is here said may be compared with the remarks about
style and individuality on p. 214.] The first Scherzo alone might make
us pause and ask whether the new features that present themselves in
it ought not to be fathered on Liszt. But seeing that Chopin evolved so
much, why should he not also have evolved this? Moreover, we must keep
in mind that Liszt had, up to 1831, composed almost nothing of what in
after years was considered either by him or others of much moment,
and that his pianoforte style had first to pass through the state of
fermentation into which Paganini's, playing had precipitated it (in the
spring of 1831) before it was formed; on the other hand, Chopin arrived
in Paris with his portfolios full of masterpieces, and in possession of
a style of his own, as a player of his instrument as well as a writer
for it. That both learned from each other cannot be doubted; but the
exact gain of each is less easily determinable. Nevertheless, I think
I may venture to assert that whatever be the extent of Chopin's
indebtedness to Liszt, the latter's indebtedness to the former is
greater. The tracing of an influence in the works of a man of genius,
who, of course, neither slavishly imitates nor flagrantly appropriates,
is one of the most difficult tasks. If Miss Ramann had first noted
the works produced by the two composers in question before their
acquaintance began, and had carefully examined Chopin's early
productions with a view to ascertain his capability of growth, she
would have come to another conclusion, or, at least, have spoken less
confidently. [FOOTNOTE: Schumann, who in 1839 attempted to give a
history of Liszt's development (in the "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik"),
remarked that when Liszt, on the one hand, was brooding over the most
gloomy fancies, and indifferent, nay, even blase, and, on the other
hand, laughing and madly daring, indulged in the most extravagant
virtuoso tricks, "the sight of Chopin, it seems, first brought him again
to his senses."]
It was not till 1833 that Chopin became known to the musical world as
a composer. For up to that time the "Variations," Op. 2, published in
1830, was the only work in circulation; the compositions previously
published in Warsaw--the "Rondo," Op. 1, and the "Rondeau a la Mazur,"
Op. 5--may be left out of account, as they did not pass beyond the
frontier of Poland till several years afterwards, when they were
published elsewhere. After the publication, in December, 1832, of Op. 6,
"Quatre Mazurkas," dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse Pauline Plater, and
Op. 7, "Cinq Mazurkas," dedicated to Mr. Johns, Chopin's compositions
made their appearance in quick succession. In the year 1833 were
published: in January, Op. 9, "Trois Nocturnes," dedicated to Mdme.
Camille Pleyel; in March, Op. 8, "Premier Trio," dedicated to M. le
Prince Antoine Radziwill; in July, Op. 10, "Douze Grandes Etudes,"
dedicated to Mr. Fr. Liszt; and Op. 11, "Grand Concerto" (in E minor),
dedicated to Mr. Fr. Kalkbrenner; and in November, Op. 12, "Variations
brillantes" (in B flat major), dedicated to Mdlle. Emma Horsford. In
1834 were published: in January, Op. 15, "Trois Nocturnes," dedicated
to Mr. Ferd. Hiller; in March, Op. 16, "Rondeau" (in E flat major),
dedicated to Mdlle. Caroline Hartmann; in April, Op. 13, "Grande
Fantaisie sur des airs polonais," dedicated to Mr. J. P. Pixis; and in
May, Op. 17, "Quatre Mazurkas," dedicated to Mdme. Lina Freppa; in June,
Op. 14, "Krakowiak, grand Rondeau de Concert," dedicated to Mdme.
la Princesse Adam Czartoryska; and Op. 18, "Grande Valse brillante,"
dedicated to Mdlle. Laura Horsford; and in October, Op. 19, "Bolero" (in
C major), dedicated to Mdme. la Comtesse E. de Flahault. [FOOTNOTE: The
dates given are those when the pieces, as far as I could ascertain, were
first heard of as published. For further information see "List of Works"
at the end of the second volume, where my sources of information are
mentioned, and the divergences of the different original editions, as
regards time of publication, are indicated.]
The "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" notices several of Chopin's
compositions with great praise in the course of 1833; in the year after
the notices became more frequent. But the critic who follows Chopin's
publications with the greatest attention and discusses them most fully
is Rellstab, the editor of the Iris. Unfortunately, he is not at all
favourably inclined towards the composer. He occasionally doles out a
little praise, but usually shows himself a spendthrift in censure and
abuse. His most frequent complaints are that Chopin strives too much
after originality, and that his music is unnecessarily difficult for the
hands. A few specimens of Rellstab's criticism may not be out of place
here. Of the "Mazurkas," Op. 7, he says:--
In the dances before us the author satisfies the passion [of
writing affectedly and unnaturally] to a loathsome excess. He
is indefatigable, and I might say inexhaustible [sic], in his
search for ear-splitting discords, forced transitions, harsh
modulations, ugly distortions of melody and rhythm.
Everything it is possible to think of is raked up to produce
the effect of odd originality, but especially strange keys,
the most unnatural positions of chords, the most perverse
combinations with regard to fingering.
After some more discussion of the same nature, he concludes thus:-- If
Mr. Chopin had shown this composition to a master, the latter would,
it is to be hoped, have torn it and thrown it at his feet, which we
hereby do symbolically.
In his review of the "Trois Nocturnes," Op. 9, occurs the following
pretty passage:--
Where Field smiles, Chopin makes a grinning grimace: where
Field sighs, Chopin groans; where Field shrugs his shoulders,
Chopin twists his whole body; where Field puts some seasoning
into the food, Chopin empties a handful of Cayenne
pepper...In short, if one holds Field's charming romances
before a distorting concave mirror, so that every delicate
expression becomes coarse, one gets Chopin's work...We
implore Mr. Chopin to return to nature.
I shall quote one more sentence; it is from a notice of the "Douze
Etudes," Op. 10:--
Those who have distorted fingers may put them right by
practising these studies; but those who have not, should not
play them, at least, not without having a surgeon at hand.
[FOOTNOTE: In the number of the Iris in which this criticism
appeared (No. 5 of Vol. V., 1834 Rellstab inserts the
following letter, which he says he received from Leipzig:--
"P. P.
"You are really a very bad man, and not worthy that God's
earth either knows (sic) or bears you. The King of Prussia
should have imprisoned you in a fortress; in that case he
would have removed from the world a rebel, a disturber of the
peace, and an infamous enemy of humanity, who probably will
yet be choked in his own blood. I have noticed a great number
of enemies, not only in Berlin, but in all towns which I
visited last summer on my artistic tour, especially very many
here in Leipzig, where I inform you of this, in order--that
you may in future change your disposition, and not act so
uncharitably towards others. Another bad, bad trick, and you
are done for! Do you understand me, you little man, you
loveless and partial dog of a critic, you musical snarler
[Schnurrbart], you Berlin wit-cracker [Witzenmacher], &c.
"Your most obedient Servant,
"CHOPIN."
To this Rellstab adds: "Whether Mr. Chopin has written this
letter himself, I do not know, and will not assert it, but
print the document that he may recognise or repudiate it."
The letter was not repudiated, but I do not think that it was
written by Chopin. Had he written a letter, he surely would
have written a less childish one, although the German might
not have been much better than that of the above. But my
chief reasons for doubting its genuineness are that Chopin
made no artistic tour in Germany after 1831, and is not known
to have visited Leipzig either in 1833 or 1834.]
However, we should not be too hard upon Rellstab, seeing that one of the
greatest pianists and best musicians of the time made in the same year
(in 1833, and not in 1831, as we read in Karasowski's book) an entry
in his diary, which expresses an opinion not very unlike his. Moscheles
writes thus:--
I like to employ some free hours in the evening in making
myself acquainted with Chopin's studies and his other
compositions, and find much charm in the originality and
national colouring of their motivi; but my fingers always
stumble over certain hard, inartistic, and to me
incomprehensible modulations, and the whole is often too
sweetish for my taste, and appears too little worthy of a man
and a trained musician.
And again--
I am a sincere admirer of Chopin's originality; he has
furnished pianists with matter of the greatest novelty and
attractiveness. But personally I dislike the artificial,
often forced modulations; my fingers stumble and fall over
such passages; however much I may practise them, I cannot
execute them without tripping.
The first criticism on Chopin's publications which I met with in the
French musical papers is one on the "Variations," Op. 12. It appeared in
the "Revue musicale" of January 26, 1834. After this his new works are
pretty regularly noticed, and always favourably. From what has been said
it will be evident that Karasowski made a mistake when he wrote that
Chopin's compositions began to find a wide circulation as early as the
year 1832.
Much sympathy has been undeservedly bestowed on the composer by many,
because they were under the impression that he had had to contend with
more than the usual difficulties. Now just the reverse was the case.
Most of his critics were well-disposed towards him, and his fame spread
fast. In 1834 (August 13) a writer in the "Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung" remarks that Chopin had the good fortune to draw upon himself
sooner than others the attention not only of the pianists, although of
these particularly, but also of a number of the musicians generally. And
in 1836 even Rellstab, Chopin's most adverse critic, says: "We entertain
the hope of hearing a public performance of the Concerto [the second,
Op. 21] in the course of the winter, for now it is a point of honour for
every pianist to play Chopin." The composer, however, cannot be said to
have enjoyed popularity; his works were relished only by the few, not
by the many. Chopin's position as a pianist and composer at the point we
have reached in the history of his life (1833-1834) is well described by
a writer in the "Revue musicale" of May 15, 1834:--
Chopin [he says] has opened up for himself a new route, and
from the first moment of his appearance on the scene he has
taken so high a stand, both by his pianoforte-playing and by
his compositions for this instrument, that he is to the
multitude an inexplicable phenomenon which it looks on in
passing with astonishment, and which stupid egoism regards
with a smile of pity, while the small number of connoisseurs,
led by a sure judgment, rather by an instinct of progress
than by a reasoned sentiment of enjoyment, follow this artist
in his efforts and in his creations, if not closely, at least
at a distance, admiring him, learning from him, and trying to
imitate him. For this reason Chopin has not found a critic,
although his works are already known everywhere. They have
either excited equivocal smiles and have been disparaged, or
have provoked astonishment and an overflow of unlimited
praise; but nobody has as yet come forward to say in what
their peculiar character and merit consists, by what they are
distinguished from so many other compositions, what assigns
to them a superior rank, &c.
No important events are to be recorded of the season 1833-1834, but
that Chopin was making his way is shown by a passage from a letter which
Orlowski wrote to one of his friends in Poland:--
Chopin [he says] is well and strong; he turns the heads of
all the Frenchwomen, and makes the men jealous of him. He is
now the fashion, and the elegant world will soon wear gloves
a la Chopin, Only the yearning after his country consumes
him.
In the spring of 1834 Chopin took a trip to Aix-la-Chapelle, where
at Whitsuntide the Lower Rhenish Music Festival was held. Handel's
"Deborah," Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, and part of Beethoven's Ninth
were on the programme, and the baton was in the hand of Ferdinand Ries.
Hiller, who had written additional accompaniments to the oratorio and
translated the English words into German, had received an invitation
from the committee, and easily persuaded Chopin to accompany him.
But this plan very nearly came to naught. While they were making
preparations for the journey, news reached them that the festival was
postponed; and when a few days later they heard that it would take place
after all, poor Chopin was no longer able to go, having in the meantime
spent the money put aside for travelling expenses, probably given it
away to one of his needy countrymen, to whom, as Hiller says, his purse
was always open. But what was to be done now? Hiller did not like to
depart without his friend, and urged him to consider if he could not
contrive in one way or another to procure the requisite pecuniary
outfit. At last Chopin said he thought he could manage it, took the
manuscript of the Waltz in E flat (Op. 18), went with it to Pleyel, and
returned with 500 francs. [FOOTNOTE: I repeat Hiller's account without
vouching for its literal correctness, confining myself to the statement
that the work was in print on the 1st of June,1834, and published by
Schlesinger, of Paris, not by Pleyel.] Thus the barrier was removed, and
the friends set out for Aix-la-Chapelle. There Hiller was quartered in
the house of the burgomaster, and Chopin got a room close by. They
went without much delay to the rehearsal of "Deborah," where they met
Mendelssohn, who describes their meeting in a letter addressed to his
mother (Dusseldorf, May 23, 1834):--
On the first tier sat a man with a moustache reading the
score, and as he was coming downstairs after the rehearsal,
and I was going up, we met in the side-scenes, and Ferdinand
Hiller stumbled right into my arms, almost crushing me in his
joyful embrace. He had come from Paris to hear the oratorio,
and Chopin had left his pupils in the lurch and come with
him, and thus we met again. Now I had my full share of
pleasure in the musical festival, for we three now remained
together, got a box in the theatre (where the performances
are given) to ourselves, and as a matter of course betook
ourselves next morning to a piano, where I enjoyed myself
greatly. They have both still further developed their
execution, and Chopin is now one of the very first pianoforte-
players; he produces as novel effects as Paganini does on the
violin, and performs wonders which one would never have
imagined possible. Hiller, too, is an excellent player,
powerful and coquettish enough. Both are a little infected by
the Parisian mania for despondency and straining after
emotional vehemence [Verzweif-lungssucht und
Leidenschaftssucherei], and often lose sight of time and
repose and the really musical too much. I, on the other hand,
do so perhaps too little. Thus we made up for each other's
deficiencies, and all three, I think, learned something,
while I felt rather like a schoolmaster, and they like
mirliflores or incroyables.
After the festival the three musicians travelled together to Dusseldorf,
where since the preceding October Mendelssohn was settled as musical
director. They passed the morning of the day which Chopin and Hiller
spent in the town at Mendelssohn's piano, and in the afternoon took a
walk, at the end of which they had coffee and a game at skittles. In
this walk they were accompanied by F. W. Schadow, the director of the
Academy of Art and founder of the Dusseldorf School, and some of
his pupils, among whom may have been one or more of its brightest
stars--Lessing, Bendemann, Hildebrandt, Sohn, and Alfred Rethel. Hiller,
who furnishes us with some particulars of what Mendelssohn calls "a very
agreeable day passed in playing and discussing music," says that
Schadow and his pupils appeared to him like a prophet surrounded by
his disciples. But the dignified manner and eloquent discourse of the
prophet, the humble silence of the devoutly-listening disciples, seem to
have prevented Chopin from feeling quite at ease.
Chopin [writes Hiller], who was not known to any of them, and
extremely reserved, kept close to me during the walk,
observing everything and making remarks to me in a low, low
tone. For the later part of the evening we were invited to
the Schadows', who were never wanting in hospitality. We
found there some of the most eminent young painters. The
conversation soon became very animated, and all would have
been right if poor Chopin had not sat there so reserved--not
to say unnoticed. However, Mendelssohn and I knew that he
would have his revenge, and were secretly rejoicing at the
thought. At last the piano was opened; I began, Mendelssohn
followed; then we asked Chopin to play, and rather doubtful
looks were cast at him and us. But he had hardly played a few
bars when all present, especially Schadow, looked at him with
altogether different eyes. Nothing like it had ever been
heard. They were all in the greatest delight, and begged for
more and more. Count Almaviva had dropped his disguise, and
all were speechless.
The following day Chopin and Hiller set out per steamer for Coblenz, and
Mendelssohn, although Schadow had asked him what was to become of "St.
Paul," at which he was working, accompanied them as far as Cologne.
There, after a visit to the Apostles' church, they parted at the Rhine
bridge, and, as Mendelssohn wrote to his mother, "the pleasant episode
was over."
CHAPTER XVII
1834-1835.
MATUSZYNSKI SETTLES IN PARIS.--MORE ABOUT CHOPIN'S WAY OF LIFE.--OP.
25.--HE IS ADVISED TO WRITE AN OPERA.--HIS OWN IDEAS IN REGARD TO
THIS, AND A DISCUSSION OF THE QUESTION.--CHOPIN'S PUBLIC
APPEARANCES.--BERLIOZ'S CONCERT.--STOEPEL's CONCERT.--A CONCERT AT
PLEYEL'S ROOMS.--A CONCERT AT THE THEATRE-ITALIEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF
THE INDIGENT POLISH REFUGEES.--A CONCERT OF THE SOCIETE DES
CONCERTS.--CHOPIN AS A PUBLIC PERFORMER.--CHOUQUET, LISZT, ETC., ON THE
CHARACTER OF HIS PLAYING.--BELLINI AND HIS RELATION TO CHOPIN.--CHOPIN
GOES TO CARLSBAD.--AT DRESDEN.--HIS VISIT TO LEIPZIG: E. F. WENZEL'S
REMINISCENCES; MENDELSSOHN'S AND SCHUMANN'S REMARKS ON THE SAME
EVENT.--CHOPIN'S STAY AT HEIDELBERG AND RETURN TO PARIS.
The coming to Paris and settlement there of his friend Matuszynski must
have been very gratifying to Chopin, who felt so much the want of one
with whom he could sigh. Matuszynski, who, since we heard last of him,
had served as surgeon-major in the Polish insurrectionary army, and
taken his doctor's degree at Tubingen in 1834, proceeded in the
same year to Paris, where he was appointed professor at the Ecole
de Medecine. The latter circumstance testifies to his excellent
professional qualities, and Chopin's letters do not leave us in doubt
concerning the nature of his qualities as a friend. Indeed, what George
Sand says of his great influence over Chopin only confirms what these
letters lead one to think. In 1834 Matuszynski wrote in a letter
addressed to his brother-in-law:--
The first thing I did in Paris was to call on Chopin. I
cannot tell you how great our mutual happiness was on meeting
again after a separation of five years. He has grown strong
and tall; I hardly recognised him. Chopin is now the first
pianist here; he gives a great many lessons, but none under
twenty francs. He has composed much, and his works are in
great request. I live with him: Rue Chaussee d'Antin, No. 5.
This street is indeed rather far from the Ecole de Medecine
and the hospitals; but I have weighty reasons for staying
with him--he is my all! We spend the evenings at the theatre
or pay visits; if we do not do one or the other, we enjoy
ourselves quietly at home.
Less interesting than this letter of Matuszynski's, with its glimpses of
Chopin's condition and habits, are the reminiscences of a Mr. W., now or
till lately a music-teacher at Posen, who visited Paris in 1834, and
was introduced to Chopin by Dr. A. Hofman. [FOONOTE: See p. 257.] But,
although less interesting, they are by no means without significance,
for instance, with regard to the chronology of the composer's works.
Being asked to play something, Mr. W. chose Kalkbrenner's variations
on one of Chopin's mazurkas (the one in B major, Op. 7, No. 1). Chopin
generously repaid the treat which Kalkbrenner's variations and his
countryman's execution may have afforded him, by playing the studies
which he afterwards published as Op. 25.
Elsner, like all Chopin's friends, was pleased with the young artist's
success. The news he heard of his dear Frederick filled his heart
with joy, nevertheless he was not altogether satisfied. "Excuse my
sincerity," he writes, on September 14, 1834, "but what you have done
hitherto I do not yet consider enough." Elsner's wish was that Chopin
should compose an opera, if possible one with a Polish historical
subject; and this he wished, not so much for the increase of Chopin's
fame as for the advantage of the art. Knowing his pupil's talents and
acquirements he was sure that what a critic pointed out in Chopin's
mazurkas would be fully displayed and obtain a lasting value only in an
opera. The unnamed critic referred to must be the writer in the "Gazette
musicale," who on June 29, 1834, in speaking of the "Quatre Mazurkas,"
Op. 17, says--
Chopin has gained a quite special reputation by the clever
spirituelle and profoundly artistic manner in which he knows
how to treat the national music of Poland, a genre of music
which was to us as yet little known...here again he appears
poetical, tender, fantastic, always graceful, and always
charming, even in the moments when he abandons himself to the
most passionate inspiration.
Karasowski says that Elsner's letter made Chopin seriously think of
writing an opera, and that he even addressed himself to his friend
Stanislas Kozmian with the request to furnish him with a libretto, the
subject of which was to be taken from Polish history. I do not question
this statement. But if it is true, Chopin soon abandoned the idea. In
fact, he thoroughly made up his mind, and instead of endeavouring to
become a Shakespeare he contented himself with being an Uhland. The
following conversations will show that Chopin acquired the rarest
and most precious kind of knowledge, that is, self-knowledge. His
countryman, the painter Kwiatkowski, calling one day on Chopin found him
and Mickiewicz in the midst of a very excited discussion. The poet urged
the composer to undertake a great work, and not to fritter away his
power on trifles; the composer, on the other hand, maintained that he
was not in possession of the qualities requisite for what he was advised
to undertake. G. Mathias, who studied under Chopin from 1839 to 1844,
remembers a conversation between his master and M. le Comte de Perthuis,
one of Louis Philippe's aides-de-camp. The Count said--
"Chopin, how is it that you, who have such admirable ideas,
do not compose an opera?" [Chopin, avec vos idees admirables,
pourquoi ne nous faites-vous pas un opera?] "Ah, Count, let
me compose nothing but music for the pianoforte; I am not
learned enough to compose operas!" [Ah, Monsieur le Comte,
laissez-moi ne faire que de la musique de piano; pour faire
des operas je ne suis pas assez savant.]
Chopin, in fact, knew himself better than his friends and teacher knew
him, and it was well for him and it is well for us that he did, for
thereby he saved himself much heart-burning and disappointment, and us
the loss of a rich inheritance of charming and inimitable pianoforte
music. He was emphatically a Kleinmeister--i.e. a master of works of
small size and minute execution. His attempts in the sonata-form were
failures, although failures worth more--some of them at least--than
many a clever artist's most brilliant successes. Had he attempted the
dramatic form the result would in all probability have been still less
happy; for this form demands not only a vigorous constructive power,
but in addition to it a firm grasp of all the vocal and instrumental
resources--qualities, in short, in which Chopin was undeniably
deficient, owing not so much to inadequate training as to the nature
of his organisation. Moreover, he was too much given to express his
own emotions, too narrow in his sympathies, in short, too individual a
composer, to successfully express the emotions of others, to objectively
conceive and set forth the characters of men and women unlike himself.
Still, the master's confidence in his pupil, though unfounded in this
particular, is beautiful to contemplate; and so also is his affection
for him, which even the pedantic style of his letters cannot altogether
hide. Nor is it possible to admire in a less degree the reciprocation of
these sentiments by the great master's greater pupil:--
What a pity it is [are the concluding words of Elsner's
letter of September 14, 1834] that we can no longer see each
other and exchange our opinions! I have got so much to tell
you. I should like also to thank you for the present, which
is doubly precious to me. I wish I were a bird, so that I
might visit you in your Olympian dwelling, which the
Parisians take for a swallow's nest. Farewell, love me, as I
do you, for I shall always remain your sincere friend and
well-wisher.
In no musical season was Chopin heard so often in public as in that of
1834-35; but it was not only his busiest, it was also his last season
as a virtuoso. After it his public appearances ceased for several years
altogether, and the number of concerts at which he was subsequently
heard does not much exceed half-a-dozen. The reader will be best enabled
to understand the causes that led to this result if I mention those of
Chopin's public performances in this season which have come under
my notice. On December 7, 1834, at the third and last of a series
of concerts given by Berlioz at the Conservatoire, Chopin played an
"Andante" for the piano with orchestral accompaniments of his own
composition, which, placed as it was among the overtures to "Les
Francs-Juges" and "King Lear," the "Harold" Symphony, and other works of
Berlioz, no doubt sounded at the concert as strange as it looks on
the programme. The "Andante" played by Chopin was of course the middle
movement of one of his concertos. [Footnote: Probably the "Larghetto"
from the F minor Concerto. See Liszt's remark on p. 282.]
On December 25 of the same year, Dr. Francois Stoepel gave a matinee
musicale at Pleyel's rooms, for which he had secured a number of very
distinguished artists. But the reader will ask--"Who is Dr. Stoepel?"
An author of several theoretical works, instruction books, and musical
compositions, who came to Paris in 1829 and founded a school on
Logier's system, as he had done in Berlin and other towns, but was
as unsuccessful in the French capital as elsewhere. Disappointed
and consumptive he died in 1836 at the age of forty-two; his income,
although the proceeds of teaching were supplemented by the remuneration
for contributions to the "Gazette musicale," having from first to last
been scanty. Among the artists who took part in this matinee musicale
were Chopin, Liszt, the violinist Ernst, and the singers Mdlle.
Heinefetter, Madame Degli-Antoni, and M. Richelmi. The programme
comprised also an improvisation on the orgue expressif (harmonium) by
Madame de la Hye, a grand-niece of J.J. Rousseau's. Liszt and Chopin
opened the matinee with a performance of Moscheles' "Grand duo a quatre
mains," of which the reporter of the "Gazette musicale" writes as
follows:--
We consider it superfluous to say that this piece, one of the
masterworks of the composer, was executed with a rare
perfection of talent by the two greatest pianoforte-virtuosos
of our epoch. Brilliancy of execution combined with perfect
delicacy, sustained elevation, and the contrast of the most
spirited vivacity and calmest serenity, of the most graceful
lightness and gravest seriousness--the clever blending of all
the nuances can only be expected from two artists of the same
eminence and equally endowed with deep artistic feeling. The
most enthusiastic applause showed MM. Liszt and Chopin better
than we can do by our words how much they charmed the
audience, which they electrified a second time by a Duo for
two pianos composed by Liszt.
This work of Liszt's was no doubt the Duo for two pianos on a theme of
Mendelssohn's which, according to Miss Ramann, was composed in 1834 but
never published, and is now lost.
The "Menestrel" of March 22, 1835, contains a report of a concert at
Pleyel's rooms, without, however, mentioning the concert-giver, who was
probably the proprietor himself:--
The last concert at Pleyel's rooms was very brilliant. Men of
fashion, litterateurs, and artists had given each other
rendez-vous there to hear our musical celebrities--MM. Herz,
Chopin, Osborne, Hiller, Reicha, Mesdames Camille Lambert and
Leroy, and M. Hamati [read Stamati], a young pianist who had
not yet made a public appearance in our salons. These artists
performed various pieces which won the approval of all.
And now mark the dying fall of this vague report: "Kalkbrenner's
Variations on the cavatina 'Di tanti palpiti' were especially
applauded."
We come now to the so much talked-of concert at the Italian Opera, which
became so fateful in Chopin's career as a virtuoso. It is generally
spoken of as a concert given by Chopin, and Karasowski says it took
place in February, 1834. I have, however, been unable to find any trace
of a concert given by Chopin in 1834. On the other hand, Chopin played
on April 5, 1835, at a concert which in all particulars except that of
date answers to the description of the one mentioned by Karasowski. The
"Journal des Debats" of April 4, 1835, draws the public's attention to
it by the following short and curious article:--
The concert for the benefit of the indigent Poles [i.e.,
indigent Polish refugees] will take place to-morrow,
Saturday, at the Theatre-Italien, at eight o'clock in the
evening. Mdlle. Falcon and Nourrit, MM. Ernst, Dorus, Schopin
[sic], Litz [sic], and Pantaleoni, will do the honours of
this soiree, which will be brilliant. Among other things
there will be heard the overtures to "Oberon" and "Guillaume
Tell," the duet from the latter opera, sung by Mdlle. Falcon
and Nourrit, and romances by M. Schubert, sung by Nourrit and
accompanied by Litz, &c.
To this galaxy of artistic talent I have yet to add Habeneck, who
conducted the orchestra. Chopin played with the orchestra his E minor
Concerto and with Liszt a duet for two pianos by Hiller.
As you may suppose [says a writer of a notice in the "Gazette
musicale"] M. Chopin was not a stranger to the composition of
the programme of this soiree in behalf of his unhappy
countrymen. Accordingly the fete was brilliant.
In the same notice may also be read the following:--
Chopin's Concerto, so original, of so brilliant a style, so
full of ingenious details, so fresh in its melodies, obtained
a very great success. It is very difficult not to be
monotonous in a pianoforte concerto; and the amateurs could
not but thank Chopin for the pleasure he had procured them,
while the artists admired the talent which enabled him to do
so [i.e., to avoid monotony], and at the same time to
rejuvenate so antiquated a form.
The remark on the agedness of the concerto-form and the difficulty of
not being monotonous is naive and amusing enough to be quoted for its
own sake, but what concerns us here is the correctness of the report.
Although the expressions of praise contained in it are by no means
enthusiastic, nay, are not even straightforward, they do not tally
with what we learn from other accounts. This discrepancy may be thus
explained. Maurice Schlesinger, the founder and publisher of the
"Gazette musicale," was on friendly terms with Chopin and had already
published some of his compositions. What more natural, therefore, than
that, if the artist's feelings were hurt, he should take care that
they should not be further tortured by unpleasant remarks in his paper.
Indeed, in connection with all the Chopin notices and criticisms in
the "Gazette musicale" we must keep in mind the relations between the
publisher and composer, and the fact that several of the writers in
the paper were Chopin's intimate friends, and many of them were of the
clique, or party, to which he also belonged. Sowinski, a countryman
and acquaintance of Chopin's, says of this concert that the theatre
was crowded and all went well, but that Chopin's expectations were
disappointed, the E minor Concerto not producing the desired effect. The
account in Larousse's "Grand Dictionnaire" is so graphic that it
makes one's flesh creep. After remarking that Chopin obtained only a
demi-success, the writer of the article proceeds thus: "The bravos of
his friends and a few connoisseurs alone disturbed the cold and somewhat
bewildered attitude of the majority of the audience." According to
Sowinski and others Chopin's repugnance to play in public dates from
this concert; but this repugnance was not the outcome of one but of
many experiences. The concert at the Theatre-Italien may, however, have
brought it to the culminating point. Liszt told me that Chopin was
most deeply hurt by the cold reception he got at a concert at the
Conservatoire, where he played the Larghetto from the F minor Concerto.
This must have been at Berlioz's concert, which I mentioned on one of
the foregoing pages of this chapter.
Shortly after the concert at the Theatre-Italien, Chopin ventured once
more to face that terrible monster, the public. On Sunday, April 26,
1835, he played at a benefit concert of Habeneck's, which is notable as
the only concert of the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire in which
he took part. The programme was as follows:--1. The "Pastoral Symphony,"
by Beethoven; 2. "The Erl-King," by Schubert, sung by M. Ad. Nourrit;
3. Scherzo from the "Choral Symphony," by Beethoven; 4. "Polonaise
avec introduction" [i.e., "Polonaise brillante precedee d'un Andante
spianato"], composed and played by M. Chopin; 5. Scena, by Beethoven,
sung by Mdlle. Falcon; 6. Finale from the C minor Symphony, by
Beethoven. The writer of the article Chopin in Larousse's "Grand
Dictionnaire" says that Chopin had no reason to repent of having taken
part in the concert, and others confirm this statement. In Elwart's
"Histoire des Concerts du Conservatoire" we read:--"Le compositeur
reveur, l'elegiaque pianiste, produisit a ce concert un effet
delicieux." To the author of the "Histoire dramatique en France" and
late curator of the Musee du Conservatoire I am indebted for some
precious communications. M. Gustave Chouquet, who at the time we are
speaking of was a youth and still at the College, informed me in a
charming letter that he was present at this concert at which Chopin
played, and also at the preceding one (on Good Friday) at which Liszt
played Weber's "Concertstuck," and that he remembered very well "the
fiery playing of Liszt and the ineffable poetry of Chopin's style."
In another letter M. Chouquet gave a striking resume of the vivid
reminiscences of his first impressions:--
Liszt, in 1835 [he wrote], represented a merveilleux the
prototype of the virtuoso; while in my opinion Chopin
personified the poet. The first aimed at effect and posed as
the Paganini of the piano; Chopin, on the other hand, seemed
never to concern himself [se preuccuper] about the public,
and to listen only to the inner voices. He was unequal; but
when inspiration took hold of him [s'emparait de hit] he made
the keyboard sing in an ineffable manner. I owe him some
poetic hours which I shall never forget.
One of the facts safely deducible from the often doubtful and
contradictory testimonies relative to Chopin's public performances is,
that when he appeared before a large and mixed audience he failed to
call forth general enthusiasm. He who wishes to carry the multitude
away with him must have in him a force akin to the broad sweep of a
full river. Chopin, however, was not a Demosthenes, Cicero, Mirabeau, or
Pitt. Unless he addressed himself to select conventicles of sympathetic
minds, the best of his subtle art remained uncomprehended. How well
Chopin knew this may be gathered from what he said to Liszt:--
I am not at all fit for giving concerts, the crowd
intimidates me, its breath suffocates me, I feel paralysed by
its curious look, and the unknown faces make me dumb. But you
are destined for it, for when you do not win your public, you
have the power to overwhelm it.
Opposition and indifference, which stimulate more vigorous natures,
affected Chopin as touch does the mimosa pudica, the sensitive
plant--they made him shrink and wither. Liszt observes correctly that
the concerts did not so much fatigue Chopin's physical constitution
as provoke his irritability as a poet; that, in fact, his delicate
constitution was less a reason than a pretext for abstention, he wishing
to avoid being again and again made the subject of debate. But it is
more difficult for one in similar circumstances not to feel as Chopin
did than for a successful virtuoso like Liszt to say:--
If Chopin suffered on account of his not being able to take
part in those public and solemn jousts where popular
acclamation salutes the victor; if he felt depressed at
seeing himself excluded from them, it was because he did not
esteem highly enough what he had, to do gaily without what he
had not.
To be sure, the admiration of the best men of his time ought to have
consoled him for the indifference of the dull crowd. But do we not all
rather yearn for what we have not than enjoy what we have? Nay, do we
not even often bewail the unattainableness of vain bubbles when it would
be more seasonable to rejoice in the solid possessions with which we
are blessed? Chopin's discontent, however, was caused by the
unattainableness not of a vain bubble, but of a precious crown. There
are artists who pretend to despise the great public, but their abuse of
it when it withholds its applause shows their real feeling. No artist
can at heart be fully satisfied with the approval of a small minority;
Chopin, at any rate, was not such a one. Nature, who had richly endowed
him with the qualities that make a virtuoso, had denied him one, perhaps
the meanest of all, certainly the least dispensable, the want of which
balked him of the fulfilment of the promise with which the others had
flattered him, of the most brilliant reward of his striving. In the
lists where men much below his worth won laurels and gold in abundance
he failed to obtain a fair share of the popular acclamation. This
was one of the disappointments which, like malignant cancers, cruelly
tortured and slowly consumed his life.
The first performance of Bellini's "I Puritani" at the Theatre-Italien
(January 24, 1835), which as well as that of Halevy's "La Juive" at the
Academic (February 23, 1835), and of Auber's "Le cheval de bronze" at
the Opera-Comique (March 23, 1835), was one of the chief musico-dramatic
events of the season 1834-1835, reminds me that I ought to say a few
words about the relation which existed between the Italian and the
Polish composer. Most readers will have heard of Chopin's touching
request to be buried by the side of Bellini. Loath though I am to
discredit so charming a story, duty compels me to state that it is
wholly fictitious. Chopin's liking for Bellini and his music, how ever,
was true and real enough. Hiller relates that he rarely saw him so
deeply moved as at a performance of Norma, which they attended together,
and that in the finale of the second act, in which Rubini seemed to sing
tears, Chopin had tears in his eyes. A liking for the Italian operatic
music of the time, a liking which was not confined to Bellini's works,
but, as Franchomme, Wolff, and others informed me, included also those
of Rossini, appears at first sight rather strange in a musician of
Chopin's complexion; the prevalent musical taste at Warsaw, and a
kindred trait in the national characters of the Poles and Italians,
however, account for it. With regard to Bellini, Chopin's sympathy was
strengthened by the congeniality of their individual temperaments. Many
besides Leon Escudier may have found in the genius of Chopin points of
resemblance with Bellini as well as with Raphael--two artists who, it is
needless to say, were heaven-wide apart in the mastery of the craft of
their arts, and in the width, height, and depth of their conceptions.
The soft, rounded Italian contours and sweet sonorousness of some of
Chopin's cantilene cannot escape the notice of the observer. Indeed,
Chopin's Italicisms have often been pointed out. Let me remind the
reader here only of some remarks of Schumann's, made apropos of the
Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35:--
It is known that Bellini and Chopin were friends, and that
they, who often made each other acquainted with their
compositions, may perhaps have had some artistic influence on
each other. But, as has been said, there is [on the part of
Chopin] only a slight leaning to the southern manner; as soon
as the cantilena is at an end the Sarmatian flashes out
again.
To understand Chopin's sympathy we have but to picture to ourselves
Bellini's personality--the perfectly well-proportioned, slender figure,
the head with its high forehead and scanty blonde hair, the well-formed
nose, the honest, bright look, the expressive mouth; and within this
pleasing exterior, the amiable, modest disposition, the heart that felt
deeply, the mind that thought acutely. M. Charles Maurice relates a
characteristic conversation in his "Histoire anecdotique du Theatre."
Speaking to Bellini about "La Sonnambula," he had remarked that there
was soul in his music. This expression pleased the composer immensely.
"Oui, n'est-ce pas? De l'ame!" he exclaimed in his soft Italian manner
of speaking, "C'est ce que je veux...De L'ame! Oh! je suis sensible!
Merci!...C'est que l'ame, c'est toute la musique!" "And he pressed my
hands," says Charles Maurice, "as if I had discovered a new merit in his
rare talent." This specimen of Bellini's conversation is sufficient to
show that his linguistic accomplishments were very limited. Indeed, as
a good Sicilian he spoke Italian badly, and his French was according to
Heine worse than bad, it was frightful, apt to make people's hair stand
on end.
When one was in the same salon with him, his vicinity inspired one with
a certain anxiety mingled with the fascination of terror which repelled
and attracted at the same time. His puns were not always of an amusing
kind. Hiller also mentions Bellini's bad grammar and pronunciation, but
he adds that the contrast between what he said and the way he said
it gave to his gibberish a charm which is often absent from the
irreproachable language of trained orators. It is impossible to
conjecture what Bellini might have become as a musician if, instead
of dying before the completion of his thirty-third year (September 24,
1835), he had lived up to the age of fifty or sixty; thus much, however,
is certain, that there was still in him a vast amount of undeveloped
capability. Since his arrival in Paris he had watched attentively the
new musical phenomena that came there within his ken, and the "Puritani"
proves that he had not done so without profit. This sweet singer from
sensuous Italy was not insensible even to the depth and grandeur of
German music. After hearing Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, for instance,
he said to Hiller, his eyes glistening as if he had himself done a great
deed: "E bel comme la nature!" [Footnote: I give the words literally
as they are printed in Hiller's Kimmerleben. The mixture of Italian
and French was no doubt intended, but hardly the spelling.] In short,
Bellini was a true artist, and therefore a meet companion for a true
artist like Chopin, of whose music it can be said with greater force
than of that of most composers that "it is all soul." Chopin, who of
course met Bellini here and there in the salons of the aristocracy,
came also in closer contact with him amidst less fashionable but
more congenial surroundings. I shall now let Hiller, the pleasant
story-teller, speak, who, after remarking that Bellini took a great
interest in piano-forte music, even though it was not played by a
Chopin, proceeds thus:--
I can never forget some evenings which I spent with him
[Bellini] and Chopin and a few other guests at Madame
Freppa's. Madame Freppa, an accomplished and exceedingly
musical woman, born at Naples, but of French extraction, had,
in order to escape from painful family circumstances, settled
in Paris, where she taught singing in the most distinguished
circles. She had an exceedingly sonorous though not powerful
voice, and an excellent method, and by her rendering of
Italian folk-songs and other simple vocal compositions of the
older masters charmed even the spoiled frequenters of the
Italian Opera. We cordially esteemed her, and sometimes went
together to visit her at the extreme end of the Faubourg St.
Germain, where she lived with her mother on a troisieme au
dessus de l'entresol, high above all the noise and tumult of
the ever-bustling city. There music was discussed, sung, and
played, and then again discussed, played, and sung. Chopin
and Madame Freppa seated themselves by turns at the
pianoforte; I, too, did my best; Bellini made remarks, and
accompanied himself in one or other of his cantilene, rather
in illustration of what he had been saying than for the
purpose of giving a performance of them. He knew how to sing
better than any German composer whom I have met, and had a
voice less full of sound than of feeling. His pianoforte-
playing sufficed for the reproduction of his orchestra,
which, indeed, is not saying much. But he knew very well what
he wanted, and was far from being a kind of natural poet, as
some may imagine him to have been.
In the summer of 1835, towards the end of July, Chopin journeyed to
Carlsbad, whither his father had been sent by the Warsaw physicians. The
meeting of the parents and their now famous son after a separation of
nearly five years was no doubt a very joyous one; but as no accounts
have come down to us of Chopin's doings and feelings during his sojourn
in the Bohemian watering-place, I shall make no attempt to fill up the
gap by a gushing description of what may have been, evolved out of
the omniscience of my inner consciousness, although this would be an
insignificant feat compared with those of a recent biographer whose
imaginativeness enabled her to describe the appearance of the sky
and the state of the weather in the night when her hero became a free
citizen of this planet, and to analyse minutely the characters of
private individuals whose lives were passed in retirement, whom she had
never seen, and who had left neither works nor letters by which they
might be judged.
From Carlsbad Chopin went to Dresden. His doings there were of great
importance to him, and are of great interest to us. In fact, a
new love-romance was in progress. But the story had better be told
consecutively, for which reason I postpone my account of his stay in the
Saxon capital till the next chapter.
Frederick Wieck, the father and teacher of Clara, who a few years later
became the wife of Robert Schumann, sent the following budget of Leipzig
news to Nauenburg, a teacher of music in Halle, in the autumn of 1835:--
The first subscription concert will take place under the
direction of Mendelssohn on October 4, the second on October
4. To-morrow or the day after to-morrow Chopin will arrive
here from Dresden, but will probably not give a concert, for
he is very lazy. He could stay here for some time, if false
friends (especially a dog of a Pole) did not prevent him from
making himself acquainted with the musical side of Leipzig.
But Mendelssohn, who is a good friend of mine and Schumann's,
will oppose this. Chopin does not believe, judging from a
remark he made to a colleague in Dresden, that there is any
lady in Germany who can play his compositions--we will see
what Clara can do.
The Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, Schumann's paper, of September 29, 1835,
contained the following announcement:--
Leipzig will soon be able to show a Kalisz [Footnote: An
allusion to the encampment of Russian and Prussian troops and
friendly meeting of princes which took place there in 1835.]
as regards musical crowned heads. Herr Mendelssohn has
already arrived. Herr Moscheles comes this week; and besides
him there will be Chopin, and later, Pixis and Franzilla.
[Footnote: Franzilla (or Francilla) Pixis, the adopted
daughter of Peter Pixis, whose acquaintance the reader made
in one of the preceding chapters (p. 245).]
The details of the account of Chopin's visit to Leipzig which I am now
going to give, were communicated to me by Ernst Ferdinand Wenzel,
the well-known professor of pianoforte-playing at the Leipzig
Conservatorium, who died in 1880.
In the middle of the year 1835 the words "Chopin is coming" were passing
from mouth to mouth, and caused much stir in the musical circles of
Leipzig. Shortly after this my informant saw Mendelssohn in the street
walking arm in arm with a young man, and he knew at once that the Polish
musician had arrived, for this young man could be no other than Chopin.
From the direction in which the two friends were going, he guessed
whither their steps were tending. He, therefore, ran as fast as his legs
would carry him to his master Wieck, to tell him that Chopin would be
with him in another moment. The visit had been expected, and a little
party was assembled, every one of which was anxious to see and hear
the distinguished artist. Besides Wieck, his wife, daughter, and
sister-in-law, there were present Robert Schumann and Wieck's pupils
Wenzel, Louis Rakemann, and Ulex. But the irascible pedagogue, who felt
offended because Chopin had not come first to him, who had made such
efforts for the propagation of his music, would not stay and welcome
his visitor, but withdrew sulkily into the inner apartments. Wieck had
scarcely left the room when Mendelssohn and Chopin entered. The former,
who had some engagement, said, "Here is Chopin!" and then left, rightly
thinking this laconic introduction sufficient. Thus the three most
distinguished composers of their time were at least for a moment brought
together in the narrow space of a room. [Footnote: This dictum, like
all superlatives and sweeping assertions, will no doubt raise objectors;
but, I think, it may be maintained, and easily maintained with the
saving clause "apart from the stage."] Chopin was in figure not unlike
Mendelssohn, but the former was more lightly built and more graceful in
his movements. He spoke German fluently, although with a foreign accent.
The primary object of Chopin's visit was to make the acquaintance of
Clara Wieck, who had already acquired a high reputation as a pianist.
She played to him among other things the then new and not yet published
Sonata in F sharp minor (Op. 11) by Schumann, which she had lately been
studying. The gentlemen dared not ask Chopin to play because of the
piano, the touch of which was heavy and which consequently would not
suit him. But the ladies were bolder, and did not cease entreating him
till he sat down and played his Nocturne in E flat (Op. 9, No. 2). After
the lapse of forty-two years Wenzel was still in raptures about the
wonderful, fairy-like lightness and delicacy of Chopin's touch and
style. The conversation seems to have turned on Schubert, one of
Schumann's great favourites, for Chopin, in illustration of something he
said, played the commencement of Schubert's Alexander March. Meanwhile
Wieck was sorely tried by his curiosity when Chopin was playing, and
could not resist the temptation of listening in the adjoining room, and
even peeping through the door that stood slightly ajar. When the visit
came to a close; Schumann conducted Chopin to the house of his friend
Henrietta Voigt, a pupil of Louis Berger's, and Wenzel, who accompanied
them to the door, heard Schumann say to Chopin: "Let us go in here where
we shall find a thorough, intelligent pianist and a good piano." They
then entered the house, and Chopin played and also stayed for dinner.
No sooner had he left, than the lady, who up to that time had been
exceedingly orthodox in her musical opinions and tastes, sent to
Kistner's music-shop, and got all the compositions by Chopin which were
in stock.
The letter of Mendelssohn which I shall quote presently and an entry in
Henrietta Voigt's diary of the year 1836, which will be quoted in the
next chapter, throw some doubt on the latter part of Herr Wenzel's
reminiscences. Indeed, on being further questioned on the subject,
he modified his original information to this, that he showed Chopin,
unaccompanied by Schumann, the way to the lady's house, and left him at
the door. As to the general credibility of the above account, I may say
that I have added nothing to my informant's communications, and that in
my intercourse with him I found him to be a man of acute observation and
tenacious memory. What, however, I do not know, is the extent to which
the mythopoeic faculty was developed in him.
[Footnote: Richard Pohl gave incidentally a characterisation of this
exceedingly interesting personality in the Signale of September, 1886,
No. 48. Having been personally acquainted with Wenzel and many of his
friends and pupils, I can vouch for its truthfulness. He was "one of
the best and most amiable men I have known," writes R. Pohl, "full of
enthusiasm for all that is beautiful, obliging, unselfish, thoroughly
kind, and at the same time so clever, so cultured, and so many-sided
as--excuse me, gentlemen--I have rarely found a pianoforte-teacher.
He gave pianoforte lessons at the Conservatorium and in many private
houses; he worked day after day, year after year, from morning till
night, and with no other outcome as far as he himself was concerned
than that all his pupils--especially his female pupils--loved him
enthusiastically. He was a pupil of Friedrich Wieck and a friend of
Schumann."]
In a letter dated October 6, 1835, and addressed to his family,
Mendelssohn describes another part of Chopin's sojourn in Leipzig and
gives us his opinion of the Polish artist's compositions and playing:--
The day after I accompanied the Hensels to Delitzsch, Chopin
was here; he intended to remain only one day, so we spent
this entirely together and had a great deal of music. I
cannot deny, dear Fanny, that I have lately found that you do
not do him justice in your judgment [of his talents]; perhaps
he was not in a right humour for playing when you heard him,
which may not unfrequently be the case with him. But his
playing has enchanted me anew, and I am persuaded that if you
and my father had heard some of his better pieces played as
he played them to me, you would say the same. There is
something thoroughly original and at the same time so very
masterly in his piano-forte-playing that he may be called a
really perfect virtuoso; and as every kind of perfection is
welcome and gratifying to me, that day was a most pleasant
one, although so entirely different from the previous ones
spent with you Hensels.
I was glad to be once more with a thorough musician, not with
those half-virtuosos and half-classics who would gladly
combine in music les honneurs de la vertu et les plaisirs du
vice, but with one who has his perfect and well-defined genre
[Richtung]. To whatever extent it may differ from mine, I can
get on with it famously; but not with those half-men. The
Sunday evening was really curious when Chopin made me play
over my oratorio to him, while curious Leipzigers stole into
the room to see him, and how between the first and second
parts he dashed off his new Etudes and a new Concerto, to the
astonishment of the Leipzigers, and I afterwards resumed my
St. Paul, just as if a Cherokee and a Kaffir had met and
conversed. He has such a pretty new notturno, several parts
of which I have retained in my memory for the purpose of
playing it for Paul's amusement. Thus we passed the time
pleasantly together, and he promised seriously to return in
the course of the winter if I would compose a new symphony
and perform it in honour of him. We vowed these things in the
presence of three witnesses, and we shall see whether we both
keep our word. My works of Handel [Footnote: A present from
the Committee of the Cologne Musical Festival of 1835.]
arrived before Chopin's departure, and were a source of quite
childish delight to him; but they are really so beautiful
that I cannot sufficiently rejoice in their possession.
Although Mendelssohn never played any of Chopin's compositions in
public, he made his piano pupils practise some of them. Karasowski is
wrong in saying that Mendelssohn had no such pupils; he had not many, it
is true, but he had a few. A remark which Mendelssohn once made in his
peculiar naive manner is very characteristic of him and his opinion
of Chopin. What he said was this: "Sometimes one really does not know
whether Chopin's music is right or wrong." On the whole, however, if one
of the two had to complain of the other's judgment, it was not Chopin
but Mendelssohn, as we shall see farther on.
To learn what impression Chopin made on Schumann, we must once more turn
to the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, where we find the Polish artist's
visit to Leipzig twice mentioned:--
October 6, 1835. Chopin was here, but only for a few hours,
which he passed in private circles. He played just as he
composes, that is, uniquely.
The second mention is in the P.S. of a transcendental Schwarmerbrief
addressed by Eusebius (the personification of the gentle, dreamy side of
Schumann's character) to Chiara (Clara Wieck):--
October 20, 1835. Chopin was here. Florestan [the
personification of the strong, passionate side of Schumann's
character] rushed to him. I saw them arm in arm glide rather
than walk. I did not speak with him, was quite startled at
the thought.
On his way to Paris, Chopin stopped also at Heidelberg, where he visited
the father of his pupil Adolph Gutmann, who treated him, as one of his
daughters remarked, not like a prince or even a king, but like somebody
far superior to either. The children were taught to look up to Chopin as
one who had no equal in his line. And the daughter already referred to
wrote more than thirty years afterwards that Chopin still stood out in
her memory as the most poetical remembrance of her childhood and youth.
Chopin must have been back in Paris in the first half or about the
middle of October, for the Gazette musicale of the 18th of that month
contains the following paragraph:--
One of the most eminent pianists of our epoch, M. Chopin, has
returned to Paris, after having made a tour in Germany which
has been for him a real ovation. Everywhere his admirable
talent obtained the most flattering reception and excited
enthusiasm. It was, indeed, as if he had not left our capital
at all.
CHAPTER XVIII
1835--1837.
PUBLICATIONS IN 1835 AND 1836.--FIRST PERFORMANCE OF LES HUGUENOTS.--
GUSIKOW, LIPINSKI, THALBERG.--CHOPIN'S IMPRESSIONABLENESS AND FICKLENESS
IN REGARD TO THE FAIR SEX.--THE FAMILY WODZINSKI.--CHOPIN'S LOVE FOR
MARIA WODZINSKA (DRESDEN, 1835; MARIENBAD, 1836).--ANOTHER VISIT TO
LEIPZIG (1836).--CHARACTER OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN 1837.--MENTION OF
HIS FIRST MEETING WITH GEORGE SAND.--HIS VISIT TO LONDON.--NEWSPAPER
ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER VISIT TO MARIENBAD.--STATE OF HIS HEALTH IN
1837.
IF we leave out of account his playing in the salons, Chopin's artistic
activity during the period comprised in this chapter was confined to
teaching and composition. [Footnote: A Paris correspondent wrote in the
Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik of May 17, 1836, that Chopin had not been
heard at all that winter, meaning, of course, that he had not been
heard in public.] The publication of his works enables us to form an
approximate idea of how he was occupied as a creative musician. In the
year 1835 were published: in February, Op. 20, Premier Scherzo (in B
minor), dedicated to Mr. T. Albrecht, and in November, Op. 24, Quatre
Mazurkas, dedicated to M. le Comte de Perthuis. In 1836 appeared: in
April, Op. 21, Second Concerto (in F minor), dedicated to Madame la
Comtesse Delphine Potocka: in May, Op. 27, Deux Nocturnes (in C sharp
minor and D flat major), dedicated to Madame la Comtesse d'Appony;
in June, Op. 23, Ballade (in G minor), dedicated to M. le Baron de
Stockhausen; in July, Op. 22, Grande Polonaise brillante (E flat major)
precedee d'un Andante spianato for pianoforte and orchestra, dedicated
to Madame la Baronne d'Est; and Op. 26, Deux Polonaises (in C sharp
minor and E flat minor), dedicated to Mr. J. Dessauer. It is hardly
necessary to point out that the opus numbers do not indicate the order
of succession in which the works were composed. The Concerto belongs to
the year 1830; the above notes show that Op. 24 and 27 were sooner in
print than Op. 23 and 26; and Op. 25, although we hear of its being
played by the composer in 1834 and 1835, was not published till 1837.
The indubitably most important musical event of the season 1835-1836,
was the production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, which took place on
February 29, 1836, and had an extraordinary success. The concert-rooms,
however, concern us more than the opera-houses. This year brought to
Paris two Polish musicians: Lipinski, the violinist, and Gusikow, the
virtuoso on the Strohfiedel, [FOOTNOTE: "Straw-fiddle," Gigelira, or
Xylophone, an instrument consisting of a graduated series of bars of
wood that lie on cords of twisted straw and are struck with sticks.]
whom Mendelssohn called "a true genius," and another contemporary
pointed out as one of the three great stars (Paganini and Malibran were
the two others) at that time shining in the musical heavens. The story
goes that Lipinski asked Chopin to prepare the ground for him in Paris.
The latter promised to do all in his power if Lipinski would give a
concert for the benefit of the Polish refugees. The violinist at first
expressed his willingness to do so, but afterwards drew back, giving as
his reason that if he played for the Polish refugees he would spoil his
prospects in Russia, where he intended shortly to make an artistic tour.
Enraged at this refusal, Chopin declined to do anything to further
his countryman's plans in Paris. But whether the story is true or not,
Lipinski's concert at the Hotel de Ville, on March 3, was one of the
most brilliant and best-attended of the season. [FOOTNOTE: Revue et
Gazette musicale of March 13, 1836. Mainzer had a report to the same
effect in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik.]
The virtuoso, however, whose appearance caused the greatest sensation
was Thalberg. The Gazette musicale announced his arrival on November
8, 1835. He was first heard at M. Zimmermann's; Madame Viardot-Garcia,
Duprez, and De Beriot being the other artists that took active parts in
the soiree. The enthusiasm which Thalberg on this occasion as well as
subsequently excited was immense. The Menestrel expressed the all but
unanimous opinion when, on March 13, 1836, it said: "Thalberg is not
only the first pianist in the world, but he is also a most distinguished
composer." His novel effects astonished and delighted his hearers.
The pianists showed their appreciation by adopting their confrere's
manipulations and treatment of the piano as soon as these ceased to
puzzle them; the great majority of the rising Parisian pianists became
followers of Thalberg, nor were some of the older ones slow in profiting
by his example. The most taking of the effects which Thalberg brought
into vogue was the device of placing the melody in the middle--i.e.,
the most sonorous part of the instrument--and dividing it so between the
hands that they could at the same time accompany it with full chords
and brilliant figures. Even if he borrowed the idea from the harpist
Parish-Alvars, or from the pianist Francesco G. Pollini, there remains
to him the honour of having improved the invention of his forerunners
and applied it with superior ability. His greatness, however, does not
solely or even mainly rest on this or any other ingeniously-contrived
and cleverly-performed trick. The secret of his success lay in the
aristocratic nature of his artistic personality, in which exquisite
elegance and calm self-possession reigned supreme. In accordance with
this fundamental disposition were all the details of his style of
playing. His execution was polished to the highest degree; the evenness
of his scales and the clearness of his passages and embellishments could
not be surpassed. If sensuous beauty is the sole end of music, his touch
must be pronounced the ideal of perfection, for it extracted the essence
of beauty. Strange as the expression "unctuous sonorousness" may sound,
it describes felicitously a quality of a style of playing from which
roughness, harshness, turbulence, and impetuosity were altogether
absent. Thalberg has been accused of want of animation, passion, in
short, of soul; but as Ambros remarked with great acuteness--
Thalberg's compositions and playing had soul, a salon soul to
be sure, somewhat like that of a very elegant woman of the
world, who, nevertheless, has really a beautiful disposition
[Gemueth], which, however, is prevented from fully showing
itself by the superexquisiteness of her manners.
This simile reminds me of a remark of Heine's, who thought that Thalberg
distinguished himself favourably from other pianists by what he (Heine)
felt inclined to call "his musical conduct [Betragen]." Here are some
more of the poet-critic's remarks on the same subject:--
As in life so also in art, Thalberg manifests innate tact;
his execution is so gentlemanlike, so opulent, so decorous,
so entirely without grimace, so entirely without forced
affectation of genius [forcirtes Genialthun], so entirely
without that boastful boorishness which badly conceals the
inner pusillanimity...He enchants by balsamic euphony, by
sobriety and gentleness....There is only one I prefer. That
is Chopin.
As a curiosity I must quote a passage from a letter dated July 10,
1836, and addressed by George Sand to the Comtesse d'Agoult. Feelings
of friendship, and, in one case at least, of more than friendship, made
these ladies partial to another prince of the keyboard:--
I have heard Thalberg in Paris. He made on me the impression
of a good little child, very nice and very well-behaved.
There are hours when Franz [Liszt], while amusing himself,
trifles [badine], like him, on some notes in order to let the
furious elements afterwards loose on this gentle breeze.
Liszt, who was at the time of Thalberg's visit to Paris in Switzerland,
doubted the correctness of the accounts which reached him of this
virtuoso's achievements. Like Thomas he would trust only his own senses;
and as his curiosity left him no rest, he betook himself in March,
1836, to Paris. But, unfortunately, he arrived too late, Thalberg having
quitted the capital on the preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which
were everywhere the answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated
Liszt, and seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge
criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave two
private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both of which
were crowded, the latter being attended by more than four hundred
people. The result was a brilliant victory, and henceforth there were
two camps. The admiration and stupefaction of those who heard him were
extraordinary; for since his last appearance Liszt had again made such
enormous progress as to astonish even his most intimate friends. In
answer to those who had declared that with Thalberg a new era began,
Berlioz, pointing to Liszt's Fantasia on I Pirati and that on themes
from La Juive, now made the counter-declaration that "this was the new
school of pianoforte-playing." Indeed, Liszt was only now attaining to
the fulness of his power as a pianist and composer for his instrument;
and when after another sojourn in Switzerland he returned in December,
1836, to Paris, and in the course of the season entered the lists with
Thalberg, it was a spectacle for the gods. "Thalberg," writes Leon
Escudier, "est la grace, comme Liszt la force; le jeu de l'un est blond,
celui de l'autre est brun." A lady who heard the two pianists at a
concert for the Italian poor, given in the salons of the Princess
Belgiojoso, exclaimed: "Thalberg est le premier pianiste du monde."--"Et
Liszt?" asked the person to whom the words were addressed--"Liszt!
Liszt--c'est le seul!" was the reply. This is the spirit in which great
artists should be judged. It is oftener narrowness of sympathy than
acuteness of discrimination which makes people exalt one artist and
disparage another who differs from him. In the wide realm of art there
are to be found many kinds of excellence; one man cannot possess them
all and in the highest degree. Some of these excellences are indeed
irreconcilable and exclude each other; most of them can only be combined
by a compromise. Hence, of two artists who differ from each other, one
is not necessarily superior to the other; and he who is the greater on
the whole may in some respects be inferior to the lesser. Perhaps the
reader will say that these are truisms. To be sure they are. And yet if
he considers only the judgments which are every day pronounced, he may
easily be led to believe that these truisms are most recondite truths
now for the first time revealed. When Liszt after his first return
from Switzerland did not find Thalberg himself, he tried to satisfy his
curiosity by a careful examination of that pianist's compositions. The
conclusions he came to be set forth in a criticism of Thalberg's Grande
Fantaisie, Op. 22, and the Caprices, Op. 15 and 19, which in 1837 made
its appearance in the Gazette musicale, accompanied by an editorial
foot-note expressing dissent. I called Liszt's article a criticism, but
"lampoon" or "libel" would have been a more appropriate designation. In
the introductory part Liszt sneers at Thalberg's title of "Pianist to
His Majesty the Emperor of Austria," and alludes to his rival's distant
(i.e., illegitimate) relationship to a noble family, ascribing his
success to a great extent to these two circumstances. The personalities
and abusiveness of the criticism remind one somewhat of the manner
in which the scholars of earlier centuries, more especially of the
sixteenth and seventeenth, dealt critically with each other. Liszt
declares that love of truth, not jealousy, urged him to write; but he
deceived himself. Nor did his special knowledge and experience as a
musician and virtuoso qualify him, as he pretended, above others for the
task he had undertaken; he forgot that no man can be a good judge in his
own cause. No wonder, therefore, that Fetis, enraged at this unprovoked
attack of one artist on a brother-artist, took up his pen in defence of
the injured party. Unfortunately, his retort was a lengthy and pedantic
dissertation, which along with some true statements contained many
questionable, not to say silly, ones. In nothing, however, was he so far
off the mark as in his comparative estimate of Liszt and Thalberg.
The sentences in which he sums up the whole of his reasoning show this
clearly: "You are the pre-eminent man of the school which is effete and
which has nothing more to do, but you are not the man of a new school!
Thalberg is this man--herein lies the whole difference between you two."
Who can help smiling at this combination of pompous authoritativeness
and wretched short-sightedness? It has been truly observed by Ambros
that there is between Thalberg and Liszt all the difference that
exists between a man of talent and a man of genius; indeed, the former
introduced but a new fashion, whereas the latter founded really a new
school. The one originated a few new effects, the other revolutionised
the whole style of writing for the pianoforte. Thalberg was perfect
in his genre, but he cannot be compared to an artist of the breadth,
universality, and, above all, intellectual and emotional power of Liszt.
It is possible to describe the former, but the latter, Proteus-like, is
apt to elude the grasp of him who endeavours to catch hold of him. The
Thalberg controversy did not end with Fetis's article. Liszt wrote a
rejoinder in which he failed to justify himself, but succeeded in giving
the poor savant some hard hits. I do not think Liszt would have approved
of the republication of these literary escapades if he had taken the
trouble to re-read them. It is very instructive to compare his criticism
of Thalberg's compositions with what Schumann--who in this case is by no
means partial--said of them. In the opinion of the one the Fantaisie sur
Les Huguenots is not only one of the most empty and mediocre works, but
it is also so supremely monotonous that it produces extreme weariness.
In the opinion of the other the Fantaisie deserves the general
enthusiasm which it has called forth, because the composer proves
himself master of his language and thoughts, conducts himself like a man
of the world, binds and loosens the threads with so much ease that it
seems quite unintentional, and draws the audience with him wherever he
wishes without either over-exciting or wearying it. The truth, no
doubt, is rather with Schumann than with Liszt. Although Thalberg's
compositions cannot be ranked with the great works of ideal art, they
are superior to the morceaux of Czerny, Herz, and hoc genus omne, their
appearance marking indeed an improvement in the style of salon music.
But what did Chopin think of Thalberg? He shared the opinion of
Liszt, whose side he took. In fact, Edouard Wolff told me that Chopin
absolutely despised Thalberg. To M. Mathias I owe the following
communication, which throws much light on Chopin's attitude:--
I saw Chopin with George Sand at the house of Louis Viardot,
before the marriage of the latter with Pauline Garcia. I was
very young, being only twelve years old, but I remember it as
though it had been yesterday. Thalberg was there, and had
played his second fantasia on Don Giovanni (Op. 42), and upon
my word Chopin complimented him most highly and with great
gravity; nevertheless, God knows what Chopin thought of it in
his heart, for he had a horror of Thalberg's arrangements,
which I have seen and heard him parody in the most droll and
amusing manner, for Chopin had the sense of parody and
ridicule in a high degree.
Thalberg had not much intercourse with Chopin, nor did he exercise the
faintest shadow of an influence over him; but as one of the foremost
pianist-composers--indeed, one of the most characteristic phenomena
of the age--he could not be passed by in silence. Moreover, the noisy
careers of Liszt and Thalberg serve as a set-off to the noiseless one of
Chopin.
I suspect that Chopin was one of that race of artists and poets "qui
font de la passion un instrument de l'art et de la poesie, et dont
l'esprit n'a d'activite qu'autant qu'il est mis en mouvement par
les forces motrices du coeur." At any rate, the tender passion was a
necessary of his existence. That his disappointed first love did not
harden his heart and make him insensible to the charms of the fair sex
is apparent from some remarks of George Sand, who says that although
his heart was ardent and devoted, it was not continuously so to any one
person, but surrendered itself alternately to five or six affections,
each of which, as they struggled within it, got by turns the mastery
over all the others. He would passionately love three women in the
course of one evening party and forget them as soon as he had turned his
back, while each of them imagined that she had exclusively charmed him.
In short, Chopin was of a very impressionable nature: beauty and grace,
nay, even a mere smile, kindled his enthusiasm at first sight, and
an awkward word or equivocal glance was enough to disenchant him. But
although he was not at all exclusive in his own affections, he was so
in a high degree with regard to those which he demanded from others.
In illustration of how easily Chopin took a dislike to anyone, and how
little he measured what he accorded of his heart with what he exacted
from that of others, George Sand relates a story which she got from
himself. In order to avoid misrepresenting her, I shall translate her
own words:--
He had taken a great fancy to the granddaughter of a
celebrated master. He thought of asking her in marriage at
the same time that he entertained the idea of another
marriage in Poland--his loyalty being engaged nowhere, and
his fickle heart floating from one passion to the other. The
young Parisian received him very kindly, and all went as well
as could be till on going to visit her one day in company
with another musician, who was of more note in Paris than he
at that time, she offered a chair to this gentleman before
thinking of inviting Chopin to be seated. He never called on
her again, and forgot her immediately.
The same story was told me by other intimate friends of Chopin's, who
evidently believed in its genuineness; their version differed from that
of George Sand only in this, that there was no allusion to a lady-love
in Poland. Indeed, true as George Sand's observations are in the main,
we must make allowance for the novelist's habit of fashioning and
exaggerating, and the woman's endeavour to paint her dismissed and
aggrieved lover as black as possible. Chopin may have indulged in
innumerable amorous fancies, but the story of his life furnishes at
least one instance of his having loved faithfully as well as deeply.
Nor will it be denied that Chopin's love for Constantia Gladkowska was a
serious affair, whether the fatal end be attributable to him or her,
or both. And now I have to give an account of another love-affair which
deserves likewise the epithet "serious."
As a boy Chopin contracted a friendship with the brothers Wodzinski,
who were boarders at his father's establishment. With them he went
repeatedly to Sluzewo, the property of their father, and thus became
also acquainted with the rest of the family. The nature of the relation
in which Chopin and they stood to each other is shown by a letter
written by the former on July 18, 1834, to one of the brothers who with
his mother and other members of the family was at that time staying at
Geneva, whither they had gone after the Polish revolution of 1830-31, in
which the three brothers--Anthony, Casimir, and Felix--had taken part:--
My dear Felix,--Very likely you thought "Fred must be moping
that he does not answer my letter!" But you will remember
that it was always my habit to do everything too late. Thus I
went also too late to Miss Fanche, and consequently was
obliged to wait till honest Wolf had departed. Were it not
that I have only recently come back from the banks of the
Rhine and have an engagement from which I cannot free myself
just now, I would immediately set out for Geneva to thank
your esteemed mamma and at the same time accept her kind
invitation. But cruel fate--in one word, it cannot be done.
Your sister was so good as to send me her composition. It
gives me the greatest pleasure, and happening to improvise
the veryevening of its arrival in one of our salons, I took
for my subject the pretty theme by a certain Maria with whom
in times gone by I played at hide and seek in the house of
Mr. Pszenny...To-day! Je prends la liberte d'envoyer a mon
estimable collegue Mile Marie une petite valse que je viens
de publier. May it afford her a hundredth part of the
pleasure which I felt on receiving her variations. In
conclusion, I once more thank your mamma most sincerely for
kindly remembering her old and faithful servant in whose
veins also there run some drops of Cujavian blood.
[Footnote: Cujavia is the name of a Polish district.]
F. CHOPIN.
P.S.--Embrace Anthony, stifle Casimir with caresses if you
can; as for Miss Maria make her a graceful and respectful
bow. Be surprised and say in a whisper, "Dear me, how tall
she has grown!"
The Wodzinskis, with the exception of Anthony, returned in the summer of
1835 to Poland, making on their way thither a stay at Dresden. Anthony,
who was then in Paris and in constant intercourse with Chopin, kept the
latter informed of his people's movements and his people of Chopin's.
Thus it came about that they met at Dresden in September, 1835, whither
the composer went after his meeting with his parents at Carlsbad,
mentioned in the preceding chapter (p. 288). Count Wodzinski says in his
Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin that Chopin had spoken to his father
about his project of marrying Maria Wodzinska, and that this idea had
sprung up in his soul by the mere force of recollections. The young
lady was then nineteen years of age, and, according to the writer just
mentioned, tall and slender in figure, and light and graceful in gait.
The features, he tells us, were distinguished neither by regularity nor
classical beauty, but had an indefinable charm. Her black eyes were
full of sweetness, reverie, and restrained fire; a smile of ineffable
voluptuousness played around her lips; and her magnificent hair was as
dark as ebony and long enough to serve her as a mantle. Chopin and Maria
saw each other every evening at the house of her uncle, the Palatine
Wodzinski. The latter concluded from their frequent tete-a-tete at the
piano and in corners that some love-making was going on between them.
When he found that his monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on
his niece, he warned his sister-in-law. She, however, took the matter
lightly, saying that it was an amitie d'enfance, that Maria was fond of
music, and that, moreover, there would soon be an end to all this--their
ways lying in opposite directions, hers eastward to Poland, his westward
to France. And thus things were allowed to go on as they had begun,
Chopin passing all his evenings with the Wodzinskis and joining them
in all their walks. At last the time of parting came, the clock of the
Frauenkirche struck the hour of ten, the carriage was waiting at the
door, Maria gave Chopin a rose from a bouquet on the table, and he
improvised a waltz which he afterwards sent her from Paris, and which
she called L'Adieu. Whatever we may think of the details of this scene
of parting, the waltz composed for Maria at Dresden is an undeniable
fact. Facsimiles may be seen in Szulc's Fryderyk Chopin and Count
Wodziriski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin. The manuscript bears
the superscription: "Tempo de Valse" on the left, and "pour Mile.
Marie" on the right; and the subscription: "F. Chopin, Drezno [Dresden],
September, 1835." [FOOTNOTE: It is Op. 69, No. 1, one of the posthumous
works published by Julius Fontana.]
The two met again in the following summer, this time at Marienbad, where
he knew she and her mother were going. They resumed their walks, music,
and conversations. She drew also his portrait. And then one day Chopin
proposed. Her answer was that she could not run counter to her parents'
wishes, nor could she hope to be able to bend their will; but she would
always preserve for him in her heart a grateful remembrance.[FOOTNOTE:
Count Wodzinski relates on p. 255 of his book that at a subsequent
period of her life the lady confided to him the above-quoted answer.]
This happened in August, 1836; and two days after mother and daughter
left Marienbad. Maria Wodzinska married the next year a son of Chopin's
godfather, Count Frederick Skarbek. The marriage turned but an unhappy
one, and was dissolved. Subsequently the Countess married a Polish
gentleman of the name of Orpiszewski, who died some years ago in
Florence. She, I think, is still alive.
Karasowski relates the affair very differently. He says Chopin, who knew
the brothers Wodzinski in Poland, met them again in Paris, and through
them made the acquaintance of their sister Maria, whose beauty and
amiability inspired him at once with an interest which soon became
ardent love. But that Chopin had known her in Poland may be gathered
from the above letter to Felix Wodzinski, quite apart from the distinct
statements of the author of Les trois Romans that Chopin was a frequent
visitor at Sluzewo, and a great friend of Maria's. Further, Karasowski,
who does not mention at all the meeting of Chopin and the Wodzinskis at
Dresden in 1835, says that Chopin went in the middle of July, 1836, to
Marienbad, where he knew he would find Maria and her mother, and that
there he discovered that she whom he loved reciprocated his affection,
the consequence being an engagement approved of by her relations. When
the sojourn in Marienbad came to an end, the whole party betook itself
to Dresden, where they remained together for some weeks, which they
spent most pleasantly.
[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski relates that Chopin was at the zenith of
happiness. His good humour was irresistible. He imitated the most famous
pianists, and played his dreamy mazurkas in the manner much in
favour with Warsaw amateurs--i.e., strictly in time and with the
strongly-accented rhythm of common dance-tunes. And his friends reminded
him of the tricks which, as a boy, he had played on his visits to the
country, and how he took away his sisters' kid gloves when he was going
to an evening-party, and could not buy himself new ones, promising to
send them dozens as soon as he had gained a good position in Paris.
Count Wodzinski, too, bears witness to Chopin's good humour while in the
company of the Wodzinskis. In the course of his account of the sojourn
at Marienbad, this writer speaks of Chopin's polichinades: "He imitated
then this or that famous artist, the playing of certain pupils or
compatriots, belabouring the keyboard with extravagant gestures, a wild
[echevele] and romantic manner, which he called aller a la chasse aux
pigeons."]
Unless Chopin was twice with the Wodzinskis in Dresden, Karasowski must
be mistaken. That Chopin sojourned for some time at Dresden in 1835
is evidenced by Wieck's letter, quoted on p. 288, and by the
above-mentioned waltz. The latter seems also to confirm what Count
Wodzinski says about the presence of the Wodzinskis at Dresden in that
year. On the other hand, we have no such documents to prove the presence
at Dresden in 1836 either of Chopin or the Wodzinskis. According to
Karasowski, the engagement made at Marienbad remained in force till the
middle of 1837, when Chopin received at Paris the news that the lady
withdrew from it. [FOOTNOTE: In explanation of the breaking-off of this
supposed engagement, it has also been said that the latter was favoured
by the mother, but opposed by the father.] The same authority informs
us that before this catastrophe Chopin had thoughts of settling with his
future wife in the neighbourhood of Warsaw, near his beloved parents
and sisters. There he would cultivate his art in retirement, and found
schools for the people. How, without a fortune of his own, and with a
wife who, although belonging to a fairly wealthy family, would not come
into the possession of her portion till after the death of her parents,
he could have realised these dreams, I am at a loss to conjecture.
[FOONOTE: To enable his readers to measure the social distance that
separated Chopin from his beloved one, Count Wodzinski mentions among
other details that her father possessed a domain of about 50,000
acres (20,000 hectares). It is hardly necessary to add that this large
acreage, which we will suppose to be correctly stated, is much less a
measure of the possessor's wealth than of his social rank.]
Chopin's letters, which testify so conclusively to the cordial
friendship existing between him and the Wodzinskis, unfortunately
contain nothing which throws light on his connection with the young
lady, although her name occurs in them several times. On April 2, 1837,
Chopin wrote to Madame Wodzinska as follows:--
I take advantage of Madame Nakwaska's permission and enclose
a few words. I expect news from Anthony's own hand, and shall
send you a letter even more full of details than the one
which contained Vincent's enclosure. I beg of you to keep
your mind easy about him. As yet all are in the town. I am
not in possession of any details, because the correspondents
only give accounts of themselves. My letter of the same date
must certainly be in Sluzewo; and, as far as is possible, it
will set your mind at rest with regard to this Spaniard who
must, must write me a few words. I am not going to use many
words in expressing the sorrow I felt on learning the news of
your mother's death--not for her sake whom I did not know,
but for your sake whom I do know. (This is a matter of
course!) I have to confess, Madam, that I have had an attack
like the one I had in Marienbad; I sit before Miss Maria's
book, and were I to sit a hundred years I should be unable to
write anything in it. For there are days when I am out of
sorts. To-day I would prefer being in Sluzewo to writing to
Sluzewo. Then would I tell you more than I have now written.
My respects to Mr. Wodzinski and my kind regards to Miss
Maria, Casimir, Theresa, and Felix.
The object of another letter, dated May 14, 1837, is likewise to give
news of Anthony Wodzinski, who was fighting in Spain. Miss Maria is
mentioned in the P.S. and urged to write a few words to her brother.
After a careful weighing of the evidence before us, it appears to me
that--notwithstanding the novelistic tricking-out of Les trois Romans de
Frederic Chopin--we cannot but accept as the true account the author's
statement as to Chopin's proposal of marriage and Miss Wodzinska's
rejection at Marienbad in 1836. The testimony of a relation with direct
information from one of the two chief actors in the drama deserves more
credit than that of a stranger with, at best, second-hand information;
unless we prefer to believe that the lady misrepresented the facts
in order to show herself to the world in a more dignified and amiable
character than that of a jilt. The letters can hardly be quoted in
support of the engagement, for the rejection would still admit of the
continuation of the old friendship, and their tone does not indicate the
greater intimacy of a closer relationship.
Subsequent to his stay at Marienbad Chopin again visited Leipzig. But
the promises which Mendelssohn and Chopin had so solemnly made to each
other in the preceding year had not been kept; the latter did not go
in the course of the winter to Leipzig, and if he had gone, the former
could not have performed a new symphony of his in honour of the guest.
Several passages in letters written by Schumann in the early part
of 1836 show, however, that Chopin was not forgotten by his Leipzig
friends, with whom he seems to have been in correspondence. On March 8,
1836, Schumann wrote to Moscheles:--
Mendelssohn sends you his hearty greetings. He has finished
his oratorio, and will conduct it himself at the Dusseldorf
Musical Festival. Perhaps I shall go there too, perhaps also
Chopin, to whom we shall write about it.
The first performance of Mendelssohn's St. Paul took place at Dusseldorf
on May 22, and was a great success. But neither Schumann nor Chopin
was there. The latter was, no doubt, already planning his excursion to
Marienbad, and could not allow himself the luxury of two holidays within
so short a time.
Here is another scrap from a letter of Schumann's, dated August
28, 1836, and addressed to his brother Edward and his sister-in-law
Theresa:--
I have just written to Chopin, who is said to be in
Marienbad, in order to learn whether he is really there. In
any case, I should visit you again in autumn. But if Chopin
answers my letter at once, I shall start sooner, and go to
Marienbad by way of Carlsbad. Theresa, what do you think! you
must come with me! Read first Chopin's answer, and then we
will fully discuss the rest.
Chopin either had left or was about to leave Marienbad when he received
Schumann's letter. Had he received it sooner, his answer would not have
been very encouraging. For in his circumstances he could not but have
felt even the most highly-esteemed confrere, the most charming of
companions, in the way.[FOOTNOTE: Mendelscohn's sister, Rebecka
Dirichlet, found him completely absorbed in his Polish Countess. (See
The Mendelssohn Family, Vol. II, p. 15.)] But although the two musicians
did not meet at Marienbad, they saw each other at Leipzig. How much one
of them enjoyed the visit may be seen in the following extract from a
letter which Schumann wrote to Heinrich Dorn on September 14, 1836:--
The day before yesterday, just after I had received your
letter and was going to answer it, who should enter?--Chopin.
This was a great pleasure. We passed a very happy day
together, in honour of which I made yesterday a holiday...I
have a new ballade by Chopin. It appears to me his
genialischstes (not genialstes) work; and I told him that I
liked it best of all.
[FOOTNOTE: "Sein genialischstes (nicht genialstes) Werk." I
take Schumann to mean that the ballade in question (the one
in G minor) is Chopin's most spirited, most daring work, but
not his most genial--i.e., the one fullest of genius.
Schumann's remark, in a criticism of Op. 37, 38, and 42, that
this ballade is the "wildest and most original" of Chopin's
compositions, confirms my conjecture.]
After a long meditative pause he said with great emphasis: "I
am glad of that, it is the one which I too like best." He
played besides a number of new etudes, nocturnes, and
mazurkas--everything incomparable. You would like him very
much. But Clara [Wieck] is greater as a virtuoso, and gives
almost more meaning to his compositions than he himself.
Imagine the perfection, a mastery which seems to be quite
unconscious of itself!
Besides the announcement of September 16, 1836, that Chopin had been
a day in Leipzig, that he had brought with him among other things new
"heavenly" etudes, nocturnes, mazurkas, and a new ballade, and that he
played much and "very incomparably," there occur in Schumann's writings
in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik unmistakable reminiscences of this
visit of the Polish musician. Thus, for instance, in a review of
dance-music, which appeared in the following year, and to which he
gave the fantastic form of a "Report to Jeanquirit in Augsburg of
the editor's last artistico-historical ball," the writer relates a
conversation he had with his partner Beda:--
I turned the conversation adroitly on Chopin. Scarcely had
she heard the name than she for the first time fully looked
at me with her large, kindly eyes. "And you know him?" I
answered in the affirmative. "And you have heard him?" Her
form became more and more sublime. "And have heard him
speak?" And when I told her that it was a never-to-be-
forgotten picture to see him sitting at the piano like a
dreaming seer, and how in listening to his playing one seemed
to one's self like the dream he created, and how he had the
dreadful habit of passing, at the end of each piece, one
finger quickly over the whizzing keyboard, as if to get rid
of his dream by force, and how he had to take care of his
delicate health--she clung to me with ever-increasing
timorous delight, and wished to know more and more about him.
Very interesting is Schumann's description of how Chopin played some
etudes from his Op. 25; it is to be found in another criticism of the
same year (1837):--
As regards these etudes, I have the advantage of having heard
most of them played by Chopin himself, and, as Florestan
whispered in my ear at the time, "He plays them very much a
la Chopin." Imagine an AEolian harp that had all the scales,
and that these were jumbled together by the hand of an artist
into all sorts of fantastic ornaments, but in such a manner
that a deeper fundamental tone and a softly-singing higher
part were always audible, and you have an approximate idea of
his playing. No wonder that we have become fondest of those
pieces which we heard him play himself, and therefore we
shall mention first of all the first one in A flat, which is
rather a poem than an etude. It would be a mistake, however,
to suppose that he brought out every one of the little notes
with distinctness; it was more like a billowing of the A flat
major chord, swelled anew here and there by means of the
pedal; but through the harmonies were heard the sustained
tones of a wondrous melody, and only in the middle of it did
a tenor part once come into greater prominence amid the
chords along with that principal cantilena. After listening
to the study one feels as one does after a blissful vision,
seen in a dream, which, already half awake, one would fain
bring back. He soon came to the one in F minor, the second in
the book, likewise one which impresses one indelibly with his
originality; it is so charming, dreamy, and soft, somewhat
like the singing of a child in its sleep. Beautiful also,
although less new in character than in the figure, was the
following one in F major; here the object was more to exhibit
bravura, the most charming bravura, and we could not but
praise the master highly for it....But of what use are
descriptive words?
This time we cannot cite a letter of Mendelssohn's; he was elsewhere
similarly occupied as Chopin in Marienbad. After falling in love with
a Frankfort lady, Miss Jeanrenaud, he had gone to Scheweningen to
see whether his love would stand the test of absence from the beloved
object. It stood the test admirably, and on September 9, a few days
before Chopin's arrival in Leipzig, Mendelssohn's engagement to the lady
who became his wife on March 28, 1837, took place.
But another person who has been mentioned in connection with Chopin's
first visit to Leipzig, Henrietta Voigt, [FOOTNOTE: The editor of "Acht
Briefe und ein Facsimile van Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" speaks of her
as "the artistic wife of a Leipzig merchant, whose house stood open
to musicians living in and passing through Leipzig."] has left us
an account of the impression made upon her. An entry in her diary on
September 13, 1836, runs thus:--
Yesterday Chopin was here and played an hour on my piano--a
fantasia and new etude of his--interesting man and still more
interesting playing; he moved me strangely. The over-
excitement of his fantastic manner is imparted to the keen-
eared; it made me hold my breath. Wonderful is the ease with
which his velvet fingers glide, I might almost say fly, over
the keys. He has enraptured me--I cannot deny it--in a way
which hitherto had been unknown to me. What delighted me was
the childlike, natural manner which he showed in his
demeanour and in his playing.
After this short break of his journey at Leipzig, which he did not leave
without placing a wreath of flowers on the monument of Prince Joseph
Poniatowski, who in 1812 met here with an early death, being drowned
in the river Elster, Chopin proceeded on his homeward journey, that is
toward Paris, probably tarrying again for a day or two at Heidelberg.
The non-artistic events of this period are of a more stirring nature
than the artistic ones. First in time and importance comes Chopin's
meeting with George Sand, which more than any other event marks an epoch
in the composer's life. But as this subject has to be discussed fully
and at some length we shall leave it for another chapter, and conclude
this with an account of some other matters.
Mendelssohn, who arrived in London on August 24, 1837, wrote on
September 1 to Hiller:--
Chopin is said to have suddenly turned up here a fortnight
ago; but he visited nobody and made no acquaintances. He
played one evening most beautifully at Broadwood's, and then
hurried away again. I hear he is still suffering very much.
Chopin accompanied by Camille Pleyel and Stanislas Kozmian, the elder,
came to London on the 11th of July and stayed till the 22nd. Pleyel
introduced him under the name of M. Fritz to his friend James Broadwood,
who invited them to dine with him at his house in Bryanston Square. The
incognito, however, could only be preserved as long as Chopin kept his
hands off the piano. When after dinner he sat down to play, the ladies
of the family suspected, and, suspicion being aroused, soon extracted a
confession of the truth.
Moscheles in alluding in his diary to this visit to London adds an item
or two to its history:--
Chopin, who passed a few days in London, was the only one of
the foreign artists who visited nobody and also did not wish
to be visited, as every conversation aggravates his chest-
complaint. He went to some concerts and disappeared.
Particularly interesting are the reminiscences of the writer of an
enthusiastic review [Footnote: Probably J. W. Davison.]of some of
Chopin's nocturnes and a scherzo in the "Musical World" of February 23,
1838:--
Were he [Chopin] not the most retiring and unambitious of all
living musicians, he would before this time have been
celebrated as the inventor of a new style, or school, of
pianoforte composition. During his short visit to the
metropolis last season, but few had the high gratification of
hearing his extemporaneous performance. Those who experienced
this will not readily lose its remembrance. He is, perhaps,
par eminence, the most delightful of pianists in the drawing-
room. The animation of his style is so subdued, its
tenderness so refined, its melancholy so gentle, its niceties
so studied and systematic, the tout-ensemble so perfect, and
evidently the result of an accurate judgment and most
finished taste, that when exhibited in the large concert-
room, or the thronged saloon, it fails to impress itself on
the mass. The "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik" of September 8,
1837, brought the piece of news that Chopin was then at a
Bohemian watering-place. I doubt the correctness of this
statement; at any rate, no other information to that effect
has come to my knowledge, and the ascertained facts do not
favour the assumption of its truth.
Never robust, Chopin had yet hitherto been free from any serious
illness. Now, however, the time of his troubles begins. In a letter,
undated, but very probably written in the summer of 1837, which he
addressed to Anthony Wodzinski, who had been wounded in Spain, where
civil war was then raging, occur remarks confirmatory of Mendelssohn's
and Moscheles' statements:--
My dearest life! Wounded! Far from us--and I can send you
nothing....Your friends are thinking only of you. For mercy's
sake recover as soon as possible and return. The newspaper
accounts say that your legion is completely annihilated.
Don't enter the Spanish army....Remember that your blood may
serve a better purpose....Titus [Woyciechowski] wrote to ask
me if I could not meet him somewhere in Germany. During the
winter I was again ill with influenza. They wanted to send me
to Ems. Up to the present, however, I have no thought of
going, as I am unable to move. I write and prepare
manuscript. I think far more of you than you imagine, and
love you as much as ever.
F. C.
Believe me, you and Titus are enshrined in my memory.
On the margin, Chopin writes--
I may perhaps go for a few days to George Sand's, but keep
your mind easy, this will not interfere with the forwarding
of your money, for I shall leave instructions with Johnnie
[Matuszynski].
With regard to this and to the two preceding letters to members of the
Wodzinski family, I have yet to state that I found them in M. A. Szulc's
"Fryderyk Chopin."
CHAPTER XIX.
GEORGE SAND: HER EARLY LIFE (1804--1836); AND HER CHARACTER AS A WOMAN,
THINKER, AND LITERARY ARTIST.
It is now necessary that the reader should be made acquainted with
Madame Dudevant, better known by her literary name, George Sand, whose
coming on the scene has already been announced in the preceding chapter.
The character of this lady is so much a matter of controversy, and a
correct estimate of it so essential for the right understanding of the
important part she plays in the remaining portion of Chopin's life, that
this long chapter--an intermezzo, a biography in a biography--will not
be regarded as out of place or too lengthy. If I begin far off, as it
were before the beginning, I do so because the pedigree has in this case
a peculiar significance.
The mother of George Sand's father was the daughter of the Marschal de
Saxe (Count Maurice of Saxony, natural son of August the Strong, King
of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and the Countess Maria Aurora von
Konigsmark) and the dame de l'opera, Mdlle. de Verrieres, whose real
name was Madame de la Riviere, nee Marie Rinteau. This daughter, Marie
Aurore, married at the age of fifteen Comte de Home, a natural son of
Louis XV., who died soon after; and fifteen years later she condescended
to accept the hand of M. Dupin de Francueil, receveur general, who,
although of an old and well-connected family, did not belong to the
high nobility. The curious may read about Mdlle. de Verrieres in the
"Memoires" of Marmontel, who was one of her many lovers, and about
M. Dupin, his father, mother-in-law, first wife &c., in Rousseau's
"Confessions," where, however, he is always called De Francueil.
Notwithstanding the disparity of age, the husband being twice as old as
his wife, the marriage of M. Dupin and the Comtesse de Home proved to be
a very happy one. They had one child, a son, Maurice Francois Elisabeth
Dupin. He entered the army in 1798, and two years later, in the course
of the Italian campaign, became first lieutenant and then aide-de-camp
to General Dupont.
In Italy and about the same time Maurice Dupin saw and fell in love
with Sophie Victoire Antoinette Delaborde, the daughter of a Paris
bird-seller, who had been a supernumerary at some small theatre, and
whose youth, as George Sand delicately expresses it, "had by the
force of circumstances been exposed to the most frightful hazards."
Sacrificing all the advantages she was then enjoying, she followed
Maurice Dupin to France. From this liaison sprang several children, all
of whom, however, except one, died very young. A month before the
birth of her in whom our interest centres, Maurice Dupin married Sophie
Delaborde. The marriage was a civil one and contracted without the
knowledge of his mother, who was opposed to this union less on account
of Sophie's plebeian origin than of her doubtful antecedents.
It was on July 5, 1804, that Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, who under the
name of George Sand became famous all the world over, saw for the first
time the light of day. The baby, which by a stratagem was placed in the
arms of her grandmother, mollified the feelings of the old lady, whom
the clandestine marriage had put in a great rage, so effectually that
she forgave her son, received his wife, and tried to accommodate herself
to the irremediable. After the Spanish campaign, during which he acted
as aide-de-camp to Murat, Maurice Dupin and his family came to Nohant,
his mother's chateau in Berry. There little Aurora lost her father when
she was only four years old. Returning home one evening from La Chatre,
a neighbouring town, he was thrown off his horse, and died almost
instantly.
This was an event that seriously affected the future of the child,
for only the deceased could keep in check the antagonism of two such
dissimilar characters as those of Aurora's mother and grandmother.
The mother was "dark-complexioned, pale, ardent, awkward and timid in
fashionable society, but always ready to explode when the storm
was growling too strongly within"; her temperament was that "of a
Spaniard--jealous, passionate, choleric, and weak, perverse and kindly
at the same time." Abbe Beaumont (a natural son of Mdlle. de Verrieres
and the Prince de Turenne, Duke de Bouillon, and consequently
grand-uncle of Aurora) said of her that she had a bad head but a good
heart. She was quite uneducated, but had good natural parts, sang
charmingly, and was clever with her hands. The grandmother, on the other
hand, was "light-complexioned, blonde, grave, calm, and dignified in
her manners, a veritable Saxon of noble race, with an imposing demeanour
full of ease and patronising goodness." She had been an assiduous
student of the eighteenth century philosophers, and on the whole was
a lady of considerable culture. For about two years these two women
managed to live together, not, however, without a feeling of discord
which was not always successfully suppressed, and sometimes broke out
into open dissension. At last they came to an arrangement according to
which the child was to be left in the keeping of the grandmother, who
promised her daughter-in-law a yearly allowance which would enable her
to take up her abode in Paris. This arrangement had the advantage for
the younger Madame Dupin that she could henceforth devote herself to
the bringing-up of another daughter, born before her acquaintance with
Aurora's father.
From her mother Aurora received her first instruction in reading and
writing. The taste for literary composition seems to have been innate in
her, for already at the age of five she wrote letters to her grandmother
and half-brother (a natural son of her father's). When she was seven,
Deschartres, her grandmother's steward, who had been Maurice Dupin's
tutor, began to teach her French grammar and versification, Latin,
arithmetic, botany, and a little Greek. But she had no liking for any
of these studies. The dry classifications of plants and words were
distasteful to her; arithmetic she could not get into her head; and
poetry was not her language. History, on the other hand, was a source
of great enjoyment to her; but she read it like a romance, and did not
trouble herself about dates and other unpleasant details. She was also
fond of music; at least she was so as long as her grandmother taught
her, for the mechanical drilling she got from the organist of La Chatre
turned her fondness into indifference. That subject of education,
however, which is generally regarded as the foundation of all
education--I mean religion--was never even mentioned to her. The Holy
Scriptures were, indeed, given into the child's hands, but she was left
to believe or reject whatever she liked. Her grandmother, who was a
deist, hated not only the pious, but piety itself, and, above all, Roman
Catholicism. Christ was in her opinion an estimable man, the gospel
an excellent philosophy, but she regretted that truth was enveloped in
ridiculous fables. The little of religion which the girl imbibed she
owed to her mother, by whose side she was made to kneel and say her
prayers. "My mother," writes George Sand in her "Histoire de ma Vie,"
from which these details are taken, "carried poetry into her religious
feeling, and I stood in need of poetry." Aurora's craving for religion
and poetry was not to remain unallayed. One night there appeared to her
in a dream a phantom, Corambe by name. The dream-created being took hold
of her waking imagination, and became the divinity of her religion
and the title and central figure of her childish, unwritten romance.
Corambe, who was of no sex, or rather of either sex just as occasion
might require--for it underwent numberless metamorphoses--had "all the
attributes of physical and moral beauty, the gift of eloquence, and
the all-powerful charm of the arts, especially the magic of musical
improvisation," being in fact an abstract of all the sacred and secular
histories with which she had got acquainted.
The jarrings between her mother and grandmother continued; for of
course their intercourse did not entirely cease. The former visited her
relations at Nohant, and the latter and her grandchildren occasionally
passed some weeks in Paris. Aurora, who loved both, her mother even
passionately, was much harassed by their jealousy, which vented itself
in complaints, taunts, and reproaches. Once she determined to go to
Paris and live with her mother, and was only deterred from doing so by
the most cruel means imaginable--namely, by her grandmother telling
her of the dissolute life which her mother had led before marrying her
father.
I owe my first socialistic and democratic instincts to the
singularity of my position, to my birth a cheval so to speak
on two classes--to my love for my mother thwarted and broken
by prejudices which made me suffer before I could comprehend
them. I owe them also to my education, which was by turns
philosophical and religious, and to all the contrasts which
my own life has presented to me from my earliest years.
At the age of thirteen Aurora was sent to the convent of English
Augustines in Paris, the only surviving one of the three or four
institutions of the kind that were founded during the time of Cromwell.
There she remained for the next three years. Her knowledge when she
entered this educational as well as religious establishment was not of
the sort that enables its possessor to pass examinations; consequently
she was placed in the lowest class, although in discussion she could
have held her own even against her teachers. Much learning could not be
acquired in the convent, but the intercourse with other children, many
of them belonging, like the nuns, to English-speaking nations, was not
without effect on the development of her character. There were three
classes of pupils, the diables, betes, and devotes (the devils,
blockheads, and devout). Aurora soon joined the first, and became one of
their ringleaders. But all of a sudden a change came over her. From one
extreme she fell into the other. From being the wildest of the wild she
became the most devout of the devout: "There was nothing strong in me
but passion, and when that of religion began to break out, it devoured
everything in my heart; and nothing in my brain opposed it." The
acuteness of this attack of religious mania gradually diminished; still
she harboured for some time the project of taking the veil, and perhaps
would have done so if she had been left to herself.
After her return-to Nohant her half-brother Hippolyte, who had recently
entered the army, gave her riding lessons, and already at the end of a
week she and her mare Colette might be seen leaping ditches and hedges,
crossing deep waters, and climbing steep inclines. "And I, the eau
dormante of the convent, had become rather more daring than a hussar and
more robust than a peasant." The languor which had weighed upon her
so long had all of once given way to boisterous activity. When she was
seventeen she also began seriously to think of self-improvement; and as
her grandmother was now paralytic and mentally much weakened, Aurora
had almost no other guidance than that of chance and her own instinct.
Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation of Christ," which had been her guide since
her religious awakening, was now superseded, not, however, without some
struggles, by Chateaubriand's "Le Genie du Christianisme." The book was
lent her by her confessor with a view to the strengthening of her faith,
but it produced quite the reverse effect, detaching her from it for
ever. After reading and enjoying Chateaubriand's book she set to work
on the philosophers and essayists Mably, Locke, Condillac, Montesquieu,
Bacon, Bossuet, Aristotle, Leibnitz, Pascal, Montaigne, and then turned
to the poets and moralists La Bruyere, Pope, Milton, Dante, Virgil,
Shakespeare, &c. But she was not a metaphysician; the tendencies of her
mind did not impel her to seek for scientific solutions of the great
mysteries. "J'etais," she says, "un etre de sentiment, et le sentiment
seul tranchait pour moi les questions a man usage, qui toute experience
faite, devinrent bientot les seules questions a ma, portee." This
"le sentiment seul tranchait pour moi les questions" is another
self-revelation, or instance of self-knowledge, which it will be useful
to remember. What more natural than that this "being of sentiment"
should prefer the poets to the philosophers, and be attracted, not by
the cold reasoners, but by Rousseau, "the man of passion and sentiment."
It is impossible to describe here the various experiences and doings of
Aurora. Without enlarging on the effects produced upon her by Byron's
poetry, Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and Chateaubriand's "Rene"; on her
suicidal mania; on the long rides which, clad in male attire, she took
with Deschartres; on the death of her grandmother, whose fortune she
inherited; on her life in Paris with her extravagantly-capricious
mother; on her rupture with her father's family, her aristocratic
relations, because she would not give up her mother--I say, without
enlarging on all this we will at once pass on to her marriage, about
which there has been so much fabling.
Aurore Dupin married Casimir Dudevant in September, 1822, and did so
of her own free will. Nor was her husband, as the story went, a
bald-headed, grey-moustached old colonel, with a look that made all his
dependents quake. On the contrary, Casimir Dudevant, a natural son of
Colonel Dudevant (an officer of the legion of honour and a baron of the
Empire), was, according to George Sand's own description, "a slender,
and rather elegant young man, with a gay countenance and a military
manner." Besides good looks and youth--he was twenty-seven--he must
also have possessed some education, for, although he did not follow
any profession, he had been at a military school, served in the army as
sub-lieutenant, and on leaving the army had read for the bar and been
admitted a barrister. There was nothing romantic in the courtship, but
at the same time it was far from commonplace.
He did not speak to me of love [writes George Sand], and
owned that he was little inclined to sudden passion, to
enthusiasm, and in any case no adept in expressing it in an
attractive manner. He spoke of a friendship that would stand
any test, and compared the tranquil happiness of our hosts
[she was then staying with some friends] to that which he
believed he could swear to procure me.
She found sincerity not only in his words, but also in his whole
conduct; indeed, what lady could question a suitor's sincerity
after hearing him say that he had been struck at first sight by her
good-natured and sensible look, but that he had not thought her either
beautiful or pretty?
Shortly after their marriage the young couple proceeded to Nohant, where
they spent the winter. In June, 1823, they went to Paris, and there
their son Maurice was born. Their only other offspring, the daughter
Solange, did not come into the world till fiveyears later. The
discrepancies of the husband and wife's character, which became soon
apparent, made themselves gradually more and more felt. His was a
practical, hers a poetic nature. Under his management Nohant assumed an
altogether different aspect--there was now order, neatness, and economy,
where there was previously confusion, untidiness, and waste. She
admitted that the change was for the better, but could not help
regretting the state of matters that had been--the old dog Phanor taking
possession of the fire-place and putting his muddy paws upon the carpet;
the old peacock eating the strawberries in the garden; and the wild
neglected nooks, where as a child she had so often played and dreamed.
Both loved the country, but they loved it for different reasons. He was
especially fond of hunting, a consequence of which was that he left his
wife much alone. And when he was at home his society may not always have
been very entertaining, for what liveliness he had seems to have been
rather in his legs than in his brain. Writing to her mother on April
i, 1828, Madame Dudevant says: "Vous savez comme il est paresseux de
l'esprit et enrage des jambes." On the other hand, her temper, which
was anything but uniformly serene, must have been trying to her husband.
Occasionally she had fits of weeping without any immediate cause, and
one day at luncheon she surprised her husband by a sudden burst of
tears which she was unable to account for. As M. Dudevant attributed
his wife's condition to the dulness of Nohant, the recent death of her
grandmother, and the air of the country, he proposed a change of scene,
which he did the more readily as he himself did not in the least like
Berry. The pleasant and numerous company they found in the house of the
friends with whom they went to stay at once revived her spirits, and
she became us frolicsome as she had before been melancholy. George
Sand describes her character as continually alternating between
"contemplative solitude and complete giddiness in conditions of
primitive innocence." It is hardly to be wondered at that one who
exhibited such glaring and unaccountable contrasts of character was
considered by some people whimsical (bizarre) and by her husband an
idiot. She herself admits the possibility that he may not have been
wrong. At any rate, little by little he succeeded in making her feel
the superiority of reason and intelligence so thoroughly that for a long
time she was quite crushed and stupefied in company. Afraid of finding
themselves alone at Nohant, the ill-matched pair continued their
migration on leaving their friends. Madame Dudevant made great efforts
to see through her husband's eyes and to think and act as he wished, but
no sooner did she accord with him than she ceased to accord with her
own instincts. Whatever they undertook, wherever they went, that sadness
"without aim and name" would from time to time come over her. Thinking
that the decline of her religiousness was the cause of her lowness of
spirits, she took counsel with her old confessor, the Jesuit Abbe de
Premord, and even passed, with her husband's consent, some days in the
retirement of the English convent. After staying during the spring of
1825 at Nohant, M. and Madame Dudevant set out for the south of France
on July 5, the twenty-first anniversary of the latter's birthday. In
what George Sand calls the "History of my Life," she inserted some
excerpts from a diary kept by her at this time, which throw much light
on the relation that existed between wife and husband. If only we could
be sure that it is not like so much in the book the outcome of her
powerful imagination! Besides repeated complaints about her husband's
ill-humour and frequent absences, we meet with the following ominous
reflections on marriage:--
Marriage is beautiful for lovers and useful for saints.
Besides saints and lovers there are a great many ordinary
minds and placid hearts that do not know love and cannot
attain to sanctity.
Marriage is the supreme aim of love. When love has left it,
or never entered it, sacrifice remains. This is very well for
those who understand sacrifice. The latter presupposes a
measure of heart and a degree of intelligence which are not
frequently to be met with.
For sacrifice there are compensations which the vulgar mind
can appreciate. The approbation of the world, the routine
sweetness of custom, a feeble, tranquil, and sensible
devotion that is not bent on rapturous exaltation, or money,
that is to say baubles, dress, luxury--in short, a thousand
little things which make one forget that one is deprived of
happiness.
The following extracts give us some glimpses which enable us to realise
the situation:--
I left rather sad. ____ said hard things to me, having been told
by a Madame ____ that I was wrong in making excursions without
my husband. I do not think that this is the case, seeing that
my husband goes first, and I go where he intends to go.
My husband is one of the most intrepid of men. He goes
everywhere, and I follow him. He turns round and rebukes me.
He says that I affect singularity. I'll be hanged if I think
of it. I turn round, and I see Zoe following me. I tell her
that she affects singularity. My husband is angry because Zoe
laughs.
...We quickly leave the guides and the caravan behind us.
We ride over the most fantastic roads at a gallop. Zoe is mad
with courage. This intoxicates me, and I at once am her
equal.
In addition to the above, we must read a remark suggested by certain
entries in the diary:--
Aimee was an accomplished person of an exquisite distinction.
She loved everything that in any way is elegant and ornate in
society: names, manners, talents, titles. Madcap as I
assuredly was, I looked upon all this as vanity, and went in
quest of intimacy and simplicity combined with poesy. Thanks
to God, I found them in Zoe, who was really a person of
merit, and, moreover, a woman with a heart as eager for
affection as my own.
M. and Madame Dudevant spent the greater part of autumn and the whole
winter at Guillery, the chateau of Colonel Dudevant. Had the latter not
died at this time, he might perhaps have saved the young people from
those troubles towards which they were drifting, at least so his
daughter-in-law afterwards thought. In the summer of 1826 the
ill-matched couple returned to Nohant, where they continued to live, a
few short absences excepted, till 1831. Hitherto their mutual relation
had left much to be desired, henceforth it became worse and worse
every day. It would, however, be a mistake to account for this state of
matters solely by the dissimilarity of their temperaments--the poetic
tendency on the one side, the prosaic on the other--for although
it precluded an ideal matrimonial union, it by no means rendered an
endurable and even pleasant companionship impossible. The real cause
of the gathering clouds and imminent storm is to be sought elsewhere.
Madame Dudevant was endowed with great vitality; she was, as it were,
charged with an enormous amount of energy, which, unless it found an
outlet, oppressed her and made her miserable. Now, in her then position,
all channels were closed up. The management of household affairs, which,
if her statement may be trusted, she neither considered beneath her
dignity nor disliked, might have served as a safety-valve; but her
administration came to an untimely end. When, after the first year of
their married life, her husband examined the accounts, he discovered
that she had spent 14,000 francs instead of 10,000, and found
himself constrained to declare that their purse was too light for her
liberality. Not having anything else to do, and her uselessness vexing
her, she took to doctoring the poor and concocting medicines. Hers,
however, was not the spirit that allows itself to be fettered by the
triple vow of obedience, silence, and poverty. No wonder, therefore,
that her life, which she compared to that of a nun, was not to her
taste. She did not complain so much of her husband, who did not
interfere with her reading and brewing of juleps, and was in no way a
tyrant, as of being the slave of a given situation from which he could
not set her free. The total lack of ready money was felt by her
to constitute in our altogether factitious society an intolerable
situation, frightful misery or absolute powerlessness. What she missed
was some means of which she might dispose, without compunction and
uncontrolled, for an artistic treat, a beautiful book, a week's
travelling, a present to a poor friend, a charity to a deserving person,
and such like trifles, which, although not indispensable, make life
pleasant. "Irresponsibility is a state of servitude; it is something
like the disgrace of the interdict." But servitude and disgrace are
galling yokes, and it was not likely that so strong a character would
long and meekly submit to them. We have, however, not yet exhausted the
grievances of Madame Dudevant. Her brother Hippolyte, after mismanaging
his own property, came and lived for the sake of economy at Nohant. His
intemperance and that of a friend proved contagious to her husband, and
the consequence was not only much rioting till late into the night,
but occasionally also filthy conversations. She began, therefore, to
consider how the requisite means might be obtained--which would enable
her to get away from such undesirable surroundings, and to withdraw her
children from these evil influences. For four years she endeavoured
to discover an employment by which she could gain her livelihood. A
milliner's business was out of the question without capital to begin
with; by needlework no more than ten sous a day could be earned; she was
too conscientious to make translation pay; her crayon and water-colour
portraits were pretty good likenesses, but lacked originality; and in
the painting of flowers and birds on cigar-cases, work-boxes, fans,
&c., which promised to be more successful, she was soon discouraged by a
change of fashion.
At last Madame Dudevant made up her mind to go to Paris and try her luck
in literature. She had no ambition whatever, and merely hoped to be able
to eke out in this way her slender resources. As regards the capital
of knowledge she was possessed of she wrote: "I had read history and
novels; I had deciphered scores; I had thrown an inattentive eye over
the newspapers....Monsieur Neraud [the Malgache of the "Lettres d'un
Voyageur"] had tried to teach me botany. According to the "Histoire de
ma Vie" this new departure was brought about by an amicable arrangement;
her letters, as in so many cases, tell, however, a very different tale.
Especially important is a letter written, on December 3, 1830, to Jules
Boucoiran, who had lately been tutor to her children, and whom, after
the relation of what had taken place, she asks to resume these duties
for her sake now that she will be away from Nohant and her children part
of the year. Boucoiran, it should be noted, was a young man of about
twenty, who was a total stranger to her on September 2, 1829, but whom
she addressed on November 30 of that year as "Mon cher Jules." Well, she
tells him in the letter in question that when looking for something in
her husband's writing-desk she came on a packet addressed to her, and
on which were further written by his hand the words "Do not open it till
after my death." Piqued by curiosity, she did open the packet, and found
in it nothing but curses upon herself. "He had gathered up in it," she
says, "all his ill-humour and anger against me, all his reflections on
my perversity." This was too much for her; she had allowed herself to be
humiliated for eight years, now she would speak out.
Without waiting a day longer, still feeble and ill, I
declared my will and mentioned my motives with an aplomb and
coolness which petrified him. He hardly expected to see a
being like me rise to its full height in order to face him.
He growled, disputed, beseeched. I remained immovable. I want
an allowance, I shall go to Paris, my children will remain at
Nohant.
She feigned intractability on all these points, but after some time
relented and consented to return to Nohant if her conditions were
accepted. From the "Histoire de ma Vie" we learn what these conditions
were. She demanded her daughter, permission to pass twice three months
every year in Paris, and an allowance of 250 francs per month during
the time of her absence from Nohant. Her letters, however, show that her
daughter was not with her during her first three months at Paris.
Madame Dudevant proceeded to Paris at the beginning of 1831. Her
establishment there was of the simplest. It consisted of three
little rooms on the fifth story (a mansarde) in a house on the Quai
Saint-Michel. She did the washing and ironing herself, the portiere
assisting her in the rest of the household work. The meals came from
a restaurant, and cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep
within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her
own authority. As she found her woman's attire too expensive, little
suited for facing mud and rain, and in other respects inconvenient,
she provided herself with a coat (redingote-guerite), trousers, and
waistcoat of coarse grey cloth, a hat of the same colour, a large
necktie, and boots with little iron heels. This latter part of her
outfit especially gave her much pleasure. Having often worn man's
clothes when riding and hunting at Nohant, and remembering that her
mother used to go in the same guise with her father to the theatre
during their residence in Paris, she felt quite at home in these
habiliments and saw nothing shocking in donning them. Now began what she
called her literary school-boy life (vie d'ecolier litteraire), her vie
de gamin. She trotted through the streets of Paris at all times and in
all weathers, went to garrets, studios, clubs, theatres, coffee-houses,
in fact, everywhere except to salons. The arts, politics, the romance
of society and living humanity, were the studies which she passionately
pursued. But she gives those the lie who said of her that she had the
"curiosite du vice."
The literary men with whom she had constant intercourse, and with whom
she was most closely connected, came, like herself, from Berry. Henri de
Latouche (or Delatouche, as George Sand writes), a native of La Chatre,
who was editor of the Figaro, enrolled her among the contributors to
this journal. But she had no talent for this kind of work, and at the
end of the month her payment amounted to perhaps from twelve to fifteen
francs. Madame Dudevant and the two other Berrichons, Jules Sandeau and
Felix Pyat, were, so to speak, the literary apprentices of Delatouche,
who not only was much older than they, having been born in 1785, but
had long ago established his reputation as a journalist, novelist, and
dramatic writer. The first work which Madame Dudevant produced was
the novel "Rose et Blanche"; she wrote it in collaboration with Jules
Sandeau, whose relation to her is generally believed to have been not
only of a literary nature. The novel, which appeared in 1831, was so
successful that the publishers asked the authors to write them another.
Madame Dudevant thereupon wrote "Indiana", but without the assistance of
Jules Sandeau. She was going to have it published under the nom de plume
Jules Sand, which they had assumed on the occasion of "Rose et Blanche."
But Jules Sandeau objected to this, saying that as she had done all the
work, she ought to have all the honour. To satisfy both, Jules Sandeau,
who would not adorn himself with another's plumes, and the publishers,
who preferred a known to an unknown name, Delatouche gave Madame
Dudevant the name of George Sand, under which henceforth all her
works were published, and by which she was best known in society,
and generally called among her friends. "Valentine" appeared, like
"Indiana," in 1832, and was followed in 1833 by Lelia. For the first two
of these novels she received 3,000 francs. When Buloz bought the Revue
des deux Mondes, she became one of the contributors to that
journal. This shows that a great improvement had taken place in her
circumstances, and that the fight she had to fight was not a very hard
one. Indeed, in the course of two years she had attained fame, and was
now a much-praised and much-abused celebrity.
All this time George Sand had, according to agreement, spent alternately
three months in Paris and three months at Nohant. A letter written by
M. Dudevant to his wife in 1831 furnishes a curious illustration of the
relation that existed between husband and wife. The accommodating spirit
which pervades it is most charming:--
I shall go to Paris; I shall not put up at your lodgings, for
I do not wish to inconvenience you any more than I wish you
to inconvenience me (parceque je ne veux pas vous gener, pas
plus que je ne veux que vous me geniez).
In August, 1833, George Sand and Alfred de Musset met for the first time
at a dinner which the editor Buloz gave to the contributors to the Revue
des deux Mondes. The two sat beside each other. Musset called on
George Sand soon after, called again and again, and before long was
passionately in love with her. She reciprocated his devotion. But the
serene blissfulness of the first days of their liaison was of short
duration. Already in the following month they fled from the Parisian
surroundings and gossipings, which they regarded as the disturbers of
their harmony. After visiting Genoa, Florence, and Pisa, they settled
at Venice. Italy, however, did not afford them the hoped-for peace and
contentment. It was evident that the days of "adoration, ecstasy, and
worship" were things of the past. Unpleasant scenes became more and more
frequent. How, indeed, could a lasting concord be maintained by two such
disparate characters? The woman's strength and determination contrasted
with the man's weakness and vacillation; her reasoning imperturbation,
prudent foresight, and love of order and activity, with his excessive
irritability and sensitiveness, wanton carelessness, and unconquerable
propensity to idleness and every kind of irregularity. While George Sand
sat at her writing-table engaged on some work which was to bring her
money and fame, Musset trifled away his time among the female singers
and dancers of the noiseless city. In April, 1834, before the poet had
quite recovered from the effects of a severe attack of typhoid fever,
which confined him to his bed for several weeks, he left George Sand
after a violent quarrel and took his departure from Venice. This,
however, was not yet the end of their connection. Once more, in spite
of all that had happened, they came together; but it was only for a
fortnight (at Paris, in the autumn of 1834), and then they parted for
ever.
It is impossible, at any rate I shall not attempt, to sift the true
from the false in the various accounts which have been published of
this love-drama. George Sand's version may be read in her Lettres d'un
Voyageur and in Elle et Lui; Alfred de Musset's version in his brother
Paul's book Lui et Elle. Neither of these versions, however, is a plain,
unvarnished tale. Paul de Musset seems to keep on the whole nearer
the truth, but he too cannot be altogether acquitted of the charge of
exaggeration. Rather than believe that by the bedside of her lover, whom
she thought unconscious and all but dead, George Sand dallied with the
physician, sat on his knees, retained him to sup with her, and drank
out of one glass with him, one gives credence to her statement that
what Alfred de Musset imagined to be reality was but the illusion of
a feverish dream. In addition to George Sand's and Paul de Musset's
versions, Louise Colet has furnished a third in her Lui, a publication
which bears the stamp of insincerity on almost every page, and which
has been described, I think by Maxime du Camp, as worse than a lying
invention--namely, as a systematic perversion of the truth. A passage
from George Sand's Elle et Lui, in which Therese and Laurent, both
artists, are the representatives of the novelist and poet, will indicate
how she wishes the story to be read:--
Therese had no weakness for Laurent in the mocking and
libertine sense that one gives to this word in love. It was
by an act of her will, after nights of sorrowful meditation,
that she said to him--"I wish what thou wishest, because we
have come to that point where the fault to be committed is
the inevitable reparation of a series of committed faults. I
have been guilty towards thee in not having the egotistical
prudence to shun thee; it is better that I should be guilty
towards myself in remaining thy companion and consolation at
the expense of my peace and of my pride."..."Listen," she
added, holding his hand in both of hers with all the strength
she possessed, "never draw back this hand from me, and,
whatever happens, preserve so much honour and courage as not
to forget that before being thy mistress I was thy
FRIEND....I ask of thee only, if thou growest weary of my
Jove as thou now art of my friendship, to recollect that it
was not a moment of delirium that threw me into thy arms, but
a sudden impulse of my heart, and a more tender and more
lasting feeling than the intoxication of voluptuousness."
I shall not continue the quotation, the discussion becomes too
nauseous. One cannot help sympathising with Alfred de Musset's impatient
interruption of George Sand's unctuous lecturing reported in his
brother's book--"My dear, you speak so often of chastity that it becomes
indecent." Or this other interruption reported by Louise Colet:--
When one gives the world what the world calls the scandale of
love, one must have at least the courage of one's passion. In
this respect the women of the eighteenth century are better
than you: they did not subtilise love in metaphysics [elles
n'alambiquaient pas l'amour dans la metaphysique].
It is hardly necessary to say that George Sand had much intercourse with
men of intellect. Several litterateurs of some distinction have already
been mentioned. Sainte-Beuve and Balzac were two of the earliest of her
literary friends, among whom she numbered also Heine. With Lamartine
and other cultivators of the belles-lettres she was likewise acquainted.
Three of her friends, men of an altogether different type and calibre,
have, however, a greater claim on the attention of the student of
George Sand's personality than any of those just named, because
their speculations and teachings gave powerful impulses to her mind,
determined the direction of her thoughts, and widened the sphere of her
intellectual activity. The influences of these three men--the advocate
Michel of Bourges, an earnest politician; the philosopher and political
economist: Pierre Leroux, one of the founders of the "Encyclopedie
Nouvelle," and author of "De l'humanite, de son principe et de
son avenir"; and the Abbe Lamennais, the author of the "Essai sur
l'indifference en matiere de religion," "Paroles d'un Croyant," &c.--are
clearly traceable in the "Lettres a Marcie, Spiridion," "Les sept
Cordes de la Lyre," "Les Compagnons du tour de France," "Consuelo,"
"La Comtesse de Rudolstadt," "Le Peche de M. Antoine," "Le Meunier
d'Angibault," &c. George Sand made the acquaintance of Pierre Leroux
and the Abbe Lammenais in 1835. The latter was introduced to her by her
friend Liszt, who knew all the distinguished men of the day, and seems
to have often done her similar services. George Sand's friendship with
Michel of Bourges, the Everard of her "Lettres d'un Voyageur," dates
farther back than 1835.
During George Sand's stay in Venice M. Dudevant had continued to write
to her in an amicable and satisfied tone. On returning in the summer of
1834 to France she therefore resumed her periodical sojourns at Nohant;
but the pleasure of seeing her home and children was as short-lived as
it was sweet, for she soon discovered that neither the former nor the
latter, "morally speaking," belonged to her. M. Dudevant's ideas of how
they ought to be managed differed entirely from those of his wife, and
altogether things had become very uncongenial to her. George Sand, whose
view of the circumstances I am giving, speaks mysteriously of abnormal
and dangerous influences to which the domestic hearth was exposed,
and of her inability to find in her will, adverse as it was to daily
struggles and family quarrels, the force to master the situation. From
the vague and exceedingly brief indications of facts which are scattered
here and there between eloquent and lengthy dissertations on marriage
in all its aspects, on the proper pride of woman, and more of the same
nature, we gather, however, thus much: she wished to be more independent
than she had been hitherto, and above all to get a larger share of her
revenues, which amounted to about 15,000 francs, and out of which her
husband allowed her and her daughter only 3,000 francs. M. Dudevant, it
must be noted, had all along been living on his wife's income, having
himself only expectations which would not be realised till after his
stepmother's death. By the remonstrances of his wife and the advice
of her brother he was several times prevailed upon to agree to a more
equitable settlement. But no sooner had he given a promise or signed
a contract than he revoked what he had done. According to one of these
agreements George Sand and her daughter were to have a yearly allowance
of 6,000 francs; according to another M. Dudevant was to have a yearly
allowance of 7,000 francs and leave Nohant and the remainder of the
revenues to his wife. The terms of the latter of these agreements were
finally accepted by both parties, but not till after more than a year's
quarrelling and three lawsuits. George Sand sued for a divorce, and the
Court of La Chatre gave judgment in her favour on February 16, 1836.
This judgment was confirmed after a second trial by the same Court on
May 11, 1836.
[Footnote: What George Sand calls her "matrimonial biography" can
be read in "Le Droit" ("Journal des Tribunaux") of May 18, 1836. The
account there given, no doubt inspired by her advocate if not directly
by herself, contains some interesting items, but leaves others
unmentioned. One would have liked to learn something more of the
husband's pleadings.
The proceedings began on October 30, 1835, when "Madame D----- a forme
centre son mari une demande en separation de corps. Cette demande etait
fondee sur les injures graves, sevices et mauvais traitements dont elle
se plaignait de la part de son mari."
The following is a passage from Michel of Bourges, her advocate's
defence: "Des 1824, la vie intime etait devenue difficile; les egards
auxquels toute femme a droit furent oublies, des actes d'emportement et
de violence revelerent de la part de M. D----- un caractere peu facile,
peu capable d'apprecier le devouement et la delicatesse qu'on lui avail
temoignes. Les mauvais traitements furent d'abord plus rares que les
mauvais precedes, ainsi les imputations d'imbecillite, de stupidite,
furent prodiguees a Madame D----- le droit de raisonner, de prendre
l'art a la conversation lui fut interdit... des relations avec d'autres
femmes furent connues de l'epouse,et vers le mois de Decembre, 1828,
toute cohabitation intime cessa.
"Les enfants eux-memes eurent quelque part dans les mauvais
traitements."]
M. Dudevant then appealed to the Court of Cassation at Bourges, where
the case was tried on July 25; but he withdrew his appeal before
judgment was given. The insinuations and revelations made in the course
of these lawsuits were anything but edifying. George Sand says that she
confined herself to furnishing the proofs strictly demanded by the law,
and revealed only such facts as were absolutely necessary. But these
facts and proofs must have been of a very damaging nature, for M.
Dudevant answered them by imputations to merit one hundred-thousandth
part of which would have made her tremble. "His attorney refused to read
a libel. The judges would have refused to listen to it." Of a deposition
presented by M. Dudevant to the Court, his wife remarks that it was
"dictated, one might have said, drawn up," by two servants whom she had
dismissed. She maintains that she did not deserve this treatment, as she
betrayed of her husband's conduct only what he himself was wont to boast
of.
George Sand's letters [Footnote: George Sand: Correspondence 1812-1876;
Six volumes (Paris: Calman Levy).] seem to me to show conclusively
that her chief motives for seeking a divorce were a desire for greater
independence and above all for more money. Complaints of ill-treatment
are not heard of till they serve to justify an action or to attain a
purpose. And the exaggeration of her varying statements must be obvious
to all but the most careless observer. George Sand is slow in making
up her mind; but having made it up she acts with fierce promptitude,
obstinate vigour, and inconsiderate unscrupulousness, in one word, with
that concentration of self which sees nothing but its own desires. On
the whole, I should say that M. Dudevant was more sinned against than
sinning. George Sand, even as she represents herself in the Histoire
de ma Vie and in her letters, was far from being an exemplary wife, or
indeed a woman with whom even the most angelic of husbands would have
found it easy to live in peace and happiness.
From the letters, which reveal so strikingly the ungentlewomanlikeness
(not merely in a conventional sense) of her manners and her numerous and
curious intimacies with men of all ages, more especially with young men,
I shall now cull a few characteristic passages in proof of what I have
said.
One must have a passion in life. I feel ennui for the want of
one. The agitated and often even rather needy life I am
leading here drives spleen far away. I am very well, and you
will see me in the best of humours. [To her friend A. M.
Duteil. Paris, February 15, 1831.]
I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The
profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible
one. [To Jules Boucoiran. Paris, March 4, 1831.]
I cannot bear the shadow of a constraint, this is my
principal fault. Everything that is imposed upon me as a duty
becomes hateful to me.
After saying that she leaves her husband full liberty to do what he
likes--"qu'il a des maitresses ou n'en a pas, suivant son appetit,"--and
speaking highly of his management of their affairs, she writes in the
same letter as follows:--
Moreover, it is only just that this great liberty which my
husband enjoys should be reciprocal; otherwise, he would
become to me odious and contemptible; that is what he does
not wish to be. I am therefore quite independent; I go to bed
when he rises, I go to La Chatre or to Rome, I come in at
midnight or at six o'clock; all this is my business. Those
who do not approve of this, and disparage me to you, judge
them with your reason and your mother's heart; the one and
the other ought to be with me. [To her mother. Nohant, May
31, 1831.]
Marriage is a state so contrary to every kind of union and
happiness that I have good reason to fear for you. [To Jules
Boucoiran, who had thoughts of getting married. Paris, March
6, 1833.]
You load me with very heavy reproaches, my dear child... you
reproach me with my numerous liaisons, my frivolous
friendships. I never undertake to clear myself from the
accusations which bear on my character. I can explain facts
and actions; but never defects of the mind or perversities of
the heart. [To Jules Boucoiran. Paris, January 18, 1833.]
Thou hast pardoned me when I committed follies which the
world calls faults. [To her friend Charles Duvernet. Paris,
October 15, 1834.]
But I claim to possess, now and for ever, the proud and
entire independence which you believe you alone have the
right to enjoy. I shall not advise it to everyone; but I
shall not suffer that, so far as I am concerned, any love
whatever shall in the least fetter it. I hope to make my
conditions so hard and so clear that no man will be bold and
vile enough to accept them. [To her friend Adolphe Gueroult.
Paris, May 6, 1835.]
Nothing shall prevent me from doing what I ought to and what
I will do. I am the daughter of my father, and I care not for
prejudices when my heart enjoins justice and courage. [To her
mother. Nohant, October 25, 1835.]
Opinion is a prostitute which must be sent about her business
with kicks when one is in the right. [To her friend Adolphe
Gueroult. La Chatre, November 9, 1835.]
The materials made use of in the foregoing sketch of George Sand's life
up to 1836 consist to a very considerable extent of her own DATA, and in
part even of her own words. From this fact, however, it ought not to
be inferred that her statements can always be safely accepted without
previous examination, or at any time be taken au pied de la lettre.
Indeed, the writer of the Histoire de ma Vie reveals her character
indirectly rather than directly, unawares rather than intentionally.
This so-called "history" of her life contains some truth, although
not all the truth; but it contains it implicitly, not explicitly. What
strikes the observant reader of the four-volumed work most forcibly, is
the attitude of serene self-admiration and self-satisfaction which
the autobiographer maintains throughout. She describes her nature as
pre-eminently "confiding and tender," and affirms that in spite of the
great and many wrongs she was made to suffer, she never wronged anyone
in all her life. Hence the perfect tranquillity of conscience she always
enjoyed. Once or twice, it is true, she admits that she may not be an
angel, and that she as well as her husband may have had faults. Such
humble words, however, ought not to be regarded as penitent confessions
of a sinful heart, but as generous concessions of a charitable mind. In
short, a thorough belief in her own virtuousness and superior excellence
was the key-note of her character. The Pharisaical tendency to thank
God for not having made her like other people pervades every page of her
autobiography, of which Charles Mazade justly says that it is--
a kind of orgy of a personality intoxicated with itself, an
abuse of intimate secrets in which she slashes her friends,
her reminiscences, and--truth.
George Sand declares again and again that she abstains from speaking
of certain matters out of regard for the feelings or memories of other
persons, whereas in reality she speaks recklessly of everybody as long
as she can do so without compromising herself. What virtuous motives
can have prompted her to publish her mother's shame? What necessity
was there to expatiate on her brother's drunkenness? And if she was
the wronged and yet pitiful woman she pretended to be, why, instead of
burying her husband's, Musset's, and others' sins in silence, does she
throw out against them those artful insinuations and mysterious hints
which are worse than open accusations? Probably her artistic instincts
suggested that a dark background would set off more effectively her own
glorious luminousness. However, I do not think that her indiscretions
and misrepresentations deserve always to be stigmatised as intentional
malice and conscious falsehood. On the contrary, I firmly believe that
she not only tried to deceive others, but that she actually deceived
herself. The habit of self-adoration had given her a moral squint, a
defect which was aggravated by a powerful imagination and excellent
reasoning faculties. For, swayed as these were by her sentiments and
desires, they proved themselves most fertile in generating flattering
illusions and artful sophisms. George Sand was indeed a great sophist.
She had always in readiness an inexhaustible store of interpretations
and subterfuges with which to palliate, excuse, or even metamorphose
into their contraries the most odious of her words and actions. It
is not likely that any one ever equalled, much less surpassed,
her expertness in hiding ugly facts or making innocent things look
suspicious. To judge by her writings and conversations she never acted
spontaneously, but reasoned on all matters and on all occasions.
At no time whatever [writes Paul Lindau in his "Alfred de
Musset"] is there to be discovered in George Sand a trace of
a passion and inconsiderateness, she possesses an
imperturbable calmness. Love sans phrase does not exist for
her. That her frivolity may be frivolity, she never will
confess. She calculates the gifts of love, and administers
them in mild, well-measured doses. She piques herself upon
not being impelled by the senses. She considers it more
meritorious if out of charity and compassion she suffers
herself to be loved. She could not be a Gretchen [a Faust's
Margaret], she would not be a Magdalen, and she became a Lady
Tartuffe.
George Sand's three great words were "maternity," "chastity," and
"pride." She uses them ad nauseam, and thereby proves that she did not
possess the genuine qualities. No doubt, her conceptions of the words
differed from those generally accepted: by "pride" (orgueil), for
instance, she seems to have meant a kind of womanly self-respect debased
by a supercilious haughtiness and self-idolatry. But, as I have said
already, she was a victim to self-deception. So much is certain, the
world, with an approach to unanimity rarely attained, not only does not
credit her with the virtues which she boasts of, but even accuses her of
the very opposite vices. None of the writers I have consulted arrives,
in discussing George Sand's character, at conclusions which tally with
her own estimate; and every person, in Paris and elsewhere, with whom I
have conversed on the subject condemned her conduct most unequivocally.
Indeed, a Parisian--who, if he had not seen much of her, had seen much
of many who had known her well--did not hesitate to describe her to me
as a female Don Juan, and added that people would by-and-by speak more
freely of her adventures. Madame Audley (see "Frederic Chopin, sa vie
et ses oeuvres," p. 127) seems to me to echo pretty exactly the general
opinion in summing up her strictures thus:--
A woman of genius, but a woman with sensual appetites, with
insatiable desires, accustomed to satisfy them at any price,
should she even have to break the cup after draining it,
equally wanting in balance, wisdom, and purity of mind, and
in decorum, reserve, and dignity of conduct.
Many of the current rumours about her doings were no doubt inventions of
idle gossips and malicious enemies, but the number of well-ascertained
facts go far to justify the worst accusations. And even though the
evidence of deeds were wanting, have we not that of her words and
opinions as set forth in her works? I cannot help thinking that George
Sand's fondness for the portraiture of sensual passion, sometimes even
of sensual passion in its most brutal manifestations, is irreconcilable
with true chastity. Many a page in her novels exhibits indeed a
surprising knowledge of the physiology of love, a knowledge which
presupposes an extensive practical acquaintance with as wellas attentive
study of the subject. That she depicts the most repulsive situations
with a delicacy of touch which veils the repulsiveness and deceives the
unwary rather aggravates the guilt. Now, though the purity of a work
of art is no proof of the purity of the artist (who may reveal only the
better part of his nature, or give expression to his aspirations), the
impurity of a work of art always testifies indubitably to the presence
of impurity in the artist, of impurity in thought, if not in deed. It
is, therefore, not an unwarranted assumption to say that the works
of George Sand prove conclusively that she was not the pure, loving,
devoted, harmless being she represents herself in the "Histoire de ma
Vie." Chateaubriand said truly that: "le talent de George Sand a
quelque ratine dans la corruption, elle deviendrait commune en devenant
timoree." Alfred Nettement, who, in his "Histoire de la litterature
franqaise sous le gouvernement de Juillet," calls George Sand a "painter
of fallen and defiled natures," remarks that--
most of her romances are dazzling rehabilitations of
adultery, and in reading their burning pages it would seem
that there remains only one thing to be done--namely, to break
the social chains in order that the Lelias and Sylvias may go
in quest of their ideal without being stopped by morality and
the laws, those importune customs lines which religion and
the institutions have opposed to individual whim and
inconstancy.
Perhaps it will be objected to this that the moral extravagances and
audacious sophistries to be met with in "Lelia," in "Leoni," and other
novels of hers, belong to the characters represented, and not to the
author. Unfortunately this argument is untenable after the publication
of George Sand's letters, for there she identifies herself with Lelia,
and develops views identical with those that shocked us in Leoni and
elsewhere.
[Footnote: On May 26, 1833, she writes to her friend Francois Rollinat
with regard to this book: "It is an eternal chat between us. We are the
gravest personages in it." Three years later, writing to the Comtesse
d'Agoult, her account differs somewhat: "I am adding a volume to
'Lelia.' This occupies me more than any other novel has as yet
done. Lelia is not myself, je suis meilleure enfant; but she is my
ideal."--Correspondance, vol. I., pp. 248 and 372.]
These letters, moreover, contain much that is damaging to her claim
to chastity. Indeed, one sentence in a letter written in June, 1835
(Correspondance, vol. I., p. 307), disposes of this claim decisively.
The unnecessarily graphic manner in which she here deals with an
indelicate subject would be revolting in a man addressing a woman, in a
woman addressing a man it is simply monstrous.
As a thinker, George Sand never attained to maturity; she always
remained the slave of her strong passions and vitiated principles.
She never wrote a truer word than when she confessed that she judged
everything by sympathy. Indeed, what she said of her childhood
applies also to her womanhood: "Il n'y avait de fort en moi que la
passion... rien dans man cerveau fit obstacle." George Sand often lays
her finger on sore places, fails, however, not only to prescribe the
right remedy, but even to recognise the true cause of the disease. She
makes now and then acute observations, but has not sufficient strength
to grapple successfully with the great social, philosophical, and
religious problems which she so boldly takes up. In fact, reasoning
unreasonableness was a very frequent condition of George Sand's mind.
That the unreasonableness of her reasoning remains unseen by many,
did so at any rate in her time, is due to the marvellous beauty and
eloquence of her language. The best that can be said of her subversive
theories was said by a French critic--namely, that they were in reality
only "le temoignage d'aspirations genereuses et de nobles illusions."
But even this is saying too much, for her aspirations and illusions are
far from being always generous and noble. If we wish to see George Sand
at her best we must seek her out in her quiet moods, when she contents
herself with being an artist, and unfolds before us the beauties of
nature and the secrets of the human heart. Indeed, unless we do this,
we cannot form a true idea of her character. Not all the roots of her
talent were imbedded in corruption. She who wrote Lelia wrote also
Andre, she who wrote Lucrezia Floriani wrote also La petite Fadette.
And in remembering her faults and shortcomings justice demands that we
should not forget her family history, with its dissensions and
examples of libertinism, and her education without system, continuity,
completeness, and proper guidance.
The most precious judgment pronounced on George Sand is by one who was
at once a true woman and a great poet. Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
saw in her the "large-brained woman and large-hearted man... whose soul,
amid the lions of her tumultuous senses, moans defiance and answers roar
for roar, as spirits can"; but who lacked "the angel's grace of a pure
genius sanctified from blame." This is from the sonnet to George Sand,
entitled "A Desire." In another sonnet, likewise addressed to George
Sand and entitled "A Recognition," she tells her how vain it was to deny
with a manly scorn the woman's nature... while before
The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,
We see thy woman-heart beat evermore
Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher,
Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore
Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire!
END OF VOLUME I.
VOLUME II.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTERS XX-XXXII
APPENDICES I-IX
REMARKS PRELIMINARY TO THE LIST OF CHOPIN'S WORKS.
LIST OF CHOPIN'S PUBLISHED WORKS
CHAPTER XX.
1836--1838.
THE LOVES OF CELEBRITIES.--VARIOUS ACCOUNTS OF CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND'S
FIRST MEETING.--CHOPIN'S FIRST IMPRESSION OF HER.--A COMPARISON OF THE
TWO CHARACTERS.--PORTRAYALS OF CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND.--HER POWER OF
PLEASING.--CHOPIN'S PUBLICATIONS IN 1837 AND 1838.--HE PLAYS AT COURT
AND AT CONCERTS IN PARIS AND ROUEN.--CRITICISM.
THE loves of famous men and women, especially of those connected with
literature and the fine arts, have always excited much curiosity. In the
majority of cases the poet's and artist's choice of a partner falls on a
person who is incapable of comprehending his aims and sometimes even of
sympathising with his striving. The question "why poets are so apt to
choose their mates, not for any similarity of poetical endowment,
but for qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest
handicrafts-man as well as that of the ideal craftsman" has perhaps
never been better answered than by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who remarks that
"at his highest elevation the poet needs no human intercourse; but he
finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger." Still, this is by no
means a complete solution of the problem which again and again presents
itself and challenges our ingenuity. Chopin and George Sand's
case belongs to the small minority of loves where both parties are
distinguished practitioners of ideal crafts. Great would be the mistake,
however, were we to assume that the elective affinities of such lovers
are easily discoverable On the contrary, we have here another problem,
one which, owing to the higher, finer, and more varied factors that come
into play, is much more difficult to solve than the first. But before we
can engage in solving the problem, it must be properly propounded. Now,
to ascertain facts about the love-affairs of poets and artists is the
very reverse of an easy task; and this is so partly because the parties
naturally do not let outsiders into all their secrets, and partly
because romantic minds and imaginative litterateurs are always busy
developing plain facts and unfounded rumours into wonderful myths. The
picturesqueness of the story, the piquancy of the anecdote, is generally
in inverse proportion to the narrator's knowledge of the matter
in question. In short, truth is only too often most unconscionably
sacrificed to effect. Accounts, for instance, such as L. Enault and
Karasowski have given of Chopin's first meeting with George Sand can be
recommended only to those who care for amusing gossip about the world of
art, and do not mind whether what they read is the simple truth or not,
nay, do not mind even whether it has any verisimilitude. Nevertheless,
we will give these gentlemen a hearing, and then try if we cannot find
some firmer ground to stand on.
L. Enault relates that Chopin and George Sand met for the first time at
one of the fetes of the Marquis de C., where the aristocracy of Europe
assembled--the aristocracy of genius, of birth, of wealth, of beauty,
&c.:--
The last knots of the chaine anglaise had already been untied,
the brilliant crowd had left the ball-room, the murmur of
discreet conversation was heard in the boudoirs: the fetes of
the intimate friends began. Chopin seated himself at the
piano. He played one of those ballads whose words are written
by no poet, but whose subjects, floating in the dreamy soul of
nations, belong to the artist who likes to take them. I
believe it was the Adieux du Cavalier...Suddenly, in the
middle of the ballad, he perceived, close to the door,
immovable and pale, the beautiful face of Lelia. [FOOTNOTE:
This name of the heroine of one of her romances is often given
to George Sand. See Vol. I., p. 338.] She fixed her passionate
and sombre eyes upon him; the impressionable artist felt at
the same time pain and pleasure... others might listen to him:
he played only for her.
They met again.
From this moment fears vanished, and these two noble souls
understood each other... or believed they understood each
other.
Karasowski labours hard to surpass Enault, but is not like him a master
of the ars artem celare. The weather, he tells us, was dull and damp,
and had a depressing effect on the mind of Chopin. No friend had visited
him during the day, no book entertained him, no musical idea gladdened
him. It was nearly ten o'clock at night (the circumstantiality of the
account ought to inspire confidence) when he bethought himself of paying
a visit to the Countess C. (the Marquis, by some means, magical or
natural, has been transformed into a Countess), this being her jour
fixe, on which an intellectual and agreeable company was always
assembled at her house.
When he ascended the carpet-covered stairs [Unfortunately we
are not informed whether the carpet was Turkey, Brussels, or
Kidderminster], it seemed to him as if he were followed by a
shadow that diffused a fragrance of violets [Ah!], and a
presentiment as if something strange and wonderful were going
to happen to him flashed through his soul. He was on the point
of turning back and going home, but, laughing at his own
superstition, he bounded lightly and cheerfully over the last
steps.
Skipping the fine description of the brilliant company assembled in the
salon, the enumeration of the topics on which the conversation ran, and
the observation that Chopin, being disinclined to talk, seated himself
in a corner and watched the beautiful ladies as they glided hither and
thither, we will join Karasowski again where, after the departure of
the greater number of the guests, Chopin goes to the piano and begins to
improvise.
His auditors, whom he, absorbed in his own thoughts and
looking only at the keys, had entirely forgotten, listened
with breathless attention. When he had concluded his
improvisation, he raised his eyes, and noticed a plainly-
dressed lady who, leaning on the instrument, seemed to wish to
read his soul with her dark fiery eyes. [Although a severe
critic might object to the attitude of a lady leaning on a
piano as socially and pictorially awkward, he must admit that
from a literary point of view it is unquestionably more
effective than sitting or standing by the door.] Chopin felt
he was blushing under the fascinating glances of the lady
[Bravo! This is a master-touch]; she smiled [Exquisite!], and
when the artist was about to withdraw from the company behind
a group of camellias, he heard the peculiar rustling of a silk
dress, which exhaled a fragrance of violets [Camellias,
rustling silks, fragrance of violets! What a profusion of
beauty and sweetness!], and the same lady who had watched him
so inquiringly at the piano approached him accompanied by
Liszt. Speaking to him with a deep, sweet voice, she made some
remarks on his playing, and more especially on the contents of
his improvisation. Frederick listened to her with pleasure and
emotion, and while words full of sparkling wit and
indescribable poetry flowed from the lady's eloquent lips
[Quite a novel representation of her powers of conversation],
he felt that he was understood as he had never been.
All this is undoubtedly very pretty, and would be invaluable in a novel,
but I am afraid we should embarrass Karasowski were we to ask him to
name his authorities.
Of this meeting at the house of the Marquis de C.--i.e., the Marquis de
Custine--I was furnished with a third version by an eye-witness--namely,
by Chopin's pupil Adolph Gutmann. From him I learned that the occasion
was neither a full-dress ball nor a chance gathering of a jour fixe, but
a musical matinee. Gutmann, Vidal (Jean Joseph), and Franchomme opened
the proceedings with a trio by Mayseder, a composer the very existence
of whose once popular chamber-music is unknown to the present
generation. Chopin played a great deal, and George Sand devoured him
with her eyes. Afterwards the musician and the novelist walked together
a long time in the garden. Gutmann was sure that this matinee took place
either in 1836 or in 1837, and was inclined to think that it was in the
first-mentioned year.
Franchomme, whom I questioned about the matinee at the Marquis
de Custine's, had no recollection of it. Nor did he remember the
circumstance of having on this or any other occasion played a trio
of Mayseder's with Gutmann and Vidal. But this friend of the Polish
pianist--composer, while confessing his ignorance as to the place where
the latter met the great novelist for the first time, was quite certain
as to the year when he met her. Chopin, Franchomme informed me, made
George Sand's acquaintance in 1837, their connection was broken in 1847,
and he died, as everyone knows, on October 17, 1849. In each of these
dates appears the number which Chopin regarded with a superstitious
dread, which he avoided whenever he could-for instance, he would not
at any price take lodgings in a house the number of which contained a
seven--and which may be thought by some to have really exercised a fatal
influence over him. It is hardly necessary to point out that it was this
fatal number which fixed the date in Franchomme's memory.
But supposing Chopin and George Sand to have really met at the Marquis
de Custine's, was this their first meeting?
[FOONOTE: That they were on one occasion both present at a party given
by the Marquis de Custine may be gathered from Freiherr von Flotow's
Reminiscences of his life in Paris (published in the "Deutsche Revue"
of January, 1883, p. 65); but not that this was their first meeting,
nor the time when it took place. As to the character of this dish
of reminiscences, I may say that it is sauced and seasoned for the
consumption of the blase magazine reader, and has no nutritive substance
whatever.]
I put the question to Liszt in the course of a conversation I had with
him some years ago in Weimar. His answer was most positive, and to the
effect that the first meeting took place at Chopin's own apartments.
"I ought to know best," he added, "seeing that I was instrumental in
bringing the two together." Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more
trustworthy witness in this matter than Liszt, who at that time not
only was one of the chief comrades of Chopin, but also of George Sand.
According to him, then, the meeting came about in this way. George
Sand, whose curiosity had been excited both by the Polish musician's
compositions and by the accounts she had heard of him, expressed to
Liszt the wish to make the acquaintance of his friend. Liszt thereupon
spoke about her to Chopin, but the latter was averse to having any
intercourse with her. He said he did not like literary women, and was
not made for their society; it was different with his friend, who there
found himself in his element. George Sand, however, did not cease to
remind Liszt of his promise to introduce her to Chopin. One morning in
the early part of 1837 Liszt called on his friend and brother-artist,
and found him in high spirits on account of some compositions he had
lately finished. As Chopin was anxious to play them to his friends, it
was arranged to have in the evening a little party at his rooms.
This seemed to Liszt an excellent opportunity to redeem the promise
which he had given George Sand when she asked for an introduction; and,
without telling Chopin what he was going to do, he brought her with him
along with the Comtesse d'Agoult. The success of the soiree was such
that it was soon followed by a second and many more.
In the foregoing accounts the reader will find contradictions enough to
exercise his ingenuity upon. But the involuntary tricks of memory and
the voluntary ones of imagination make always such terrible havoc of
facts that truth, be it ever so much sought and cared for, appears
in history and biography only in a more or less disfigured condition.
George Sand's own allusion to the commencement of the acquaintance
agrees best with Liszt's account. After passing in the latter part of
1836 some months in Switzerland with Liszt and the Comtesse d'Agoult,
she meets them again at Paris in the December of the same year:--
At the Hotel de France, where Madame d'Agoult had persuaded me
to take quarters near her, the conditions of existence were
charming for a few days. She received many litterateurs,
artists, and some clever men of fashion. It was at Madame
d'Agoult's, or through her, that I made the acquaintance of
Eugene Sue, Baron d'Eckstein, Chopin, Mickiewicz, Nourrit,
Victor Schoelcher, &c. My friends became also hers. Through me
she got acquainted with M. Lamennais, Pierre-Leroux, Henri
Heine, &c. Her salon, improvised in an inn, was therefore a
reunion d'elite over which she presided with exquisite grace,
and where she found herself the equal of all the eminent
specialists by reason of the extent of her mind and the
variety of her faculties, which were at once poetic and
serious. Admirable music was performed there, and in the
intervals one could instruct one's self by listening to the
conversation.
To reconcile Liszt's account with George Sand's remark that Chopin was
one of those whose acquaintance she made at Madame d'Agoult's or through
her, we have only to remember the intimate relation in which Liszt stood
to this lady (subsequently known in literature under the nom de plume of
Daniel Stern), who had left her husband, the Comte d'Agoult, in 1835.
And now at last we can step again from the treacherous quicksand of
reminiscences on the terra firma of documents. The following extracts
from some letters of George Sand's throw light on her relation to Chopin
in the early part of 1837:--
Nohant, March 28, 1837.
[To Franz Liszt.]...Come and see us as soon as possible. Love,
esteem, and friendship claim you at Nohant. Love (Marie
[FOOTNOTE: The Comtesse d'Agoult.]) is some what ailing,
esteem (Maurice and Pelletan [FOOTNOTE: The former, George
Sand's son; the latter, Eugene Pelletan, Maurice's tutor.])
pretty well, and friendship (myself) obese and in excellent
health.
Marie told me that there was some hope of Chopin. Tell Chopin
that I beg of him to accompany you; that Marie cannot live
without him, and that I adore him.
I shall write to Grzymala personally in order to induce him
also, if I can, to come and see us. I should like to be able
to surround Marie with all her friends, in order that she also
may live in the bosom of love, esteem, and friendship.
[FOOTNOTE: Albert Grzymala, a man of note among the Polish refugees.
He was a native of Dunajowce in Podolia, had held various military
and other posts--those of maitre des requites, director of the Bank of
Poland, attache to the staff of Prince Poniatowski, General Sebastiani,
and Lefebvre, &c.--and was in 1830 sent by the Polish Government on
a diplomatic mission to Berlin, Paris, and London. (See L'Amanach de
L'Emigration polonaise, published at Paris some forty years ago.) He
must not be confounded with the publicist Francis Grzymala, who at
Warsaw was considered one of the marechaux de plume, and at Paris was
connected with the Polish publication Sybilla. With one exception (Vol.
I., p. 3), the Grzymala spoken of in these volumes is Albert Grzymala,
sometimes also called Count Grzymala. This title, however, was, if I am
rightly informed, only a courtesy title. The Polish nobility as such was
untitled, titles being of foreign origin and not legally recognised.
But many Polish noblemen when abroad assume the prefix de or von, or the
title "Count," in order to make known their rank.]
Nohant, April 5, 1837.
[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.]...Tell Mick....[FOOTNOTE:
Mickiewicz, the poet.] (non-compromising manner of writing
Polish names) that my pen and my house are at his service, and
are only too happy to be so; tell Grzy...., [FOOTNOTE:
Gryzmala] whom I adore, Chopin, whom I idolatrise, and all
those whom you love that I love them, and that, brought by
you, they will be welcome. Berry in a body watches for the
maestro's [FOOTNOTE: Liszt's] return in order to hear him play
the piano. I believe we shall be obliged to place le garde-
champetre and la garde nationals of Nohant under arms in order
to defend ourselves against the dilettanti berrichoni.
Nohant, April 10, 1837.
[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.] I want the fellows, [FOOTNOTE:
"Fellows" (English) was the nickname which Liszt gave to
himself and his pupil Hermann Cohen.] I want them as soon and
as LONG as possible. I want them a mort. I want also Chopin
and all the Mickiewiczs and Grzymalas in the world. I want
even Sue if you want him. What more would I not want if that
were your fancy? For instance, M. de Suzannet or Victor
Schoelcher! Everything, a lover excepted.
Nohant, April 21, 1837.
[To the Comtesse d'Agoult.] Nobody has permitted himself to
breathe the air of your room since you left it. Arrangements
will be made to put up all those you may bring with you. I
count on the maestro, on Chopin, on the Rat, [FOOTNOTE:
Liszt's pupil, Hermann Cohen.] if he does not weary you too
much, and all the others at your choice.
Chopin's love for George Sand was not instantaneous like that of Romeo
for Juliet. Karasowski remembers having read in one of those letters of
the composer which perished in 1863: "Yesterday I met George Sand...;
she made a very disagreeable impression upon me." Hiller in his Open
Letter to Franz Liszt writes:--
One evening you had assembled in your apartments the
aristocracy of the French literary world--George Sand was of
course one of the company. On the way home Chopin said to me
"What a repellent [antipathische] woman the Sand is! But is
she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it."
Liszt, in discussing this matter with me, spoke only of Chopin's
"reserve" towards George Sand, but said nothing of his "aversion" to
her. And according to this authority the novelist's extraordinary mind
and attractive conversation soon overcame the musician's reserve. Alfred
de Musset's experience had been of a similar nature. George Sand did
not particularly please him at first, but a few visits which he paid her
sufficed to inflame his heart with a violent passion. The liaisons
of the poet and musician with the novelist offer other points of
resemblance besides the one just mentioned: both Musset and Chopin were
younger than George Sand--the one six, the other five years; and both,
notwithstanding the dissimilarity of their characters, occupied the
position of a weaker half. In the case of Chopin I am reminded of a
saying of Sydney Smith, who, in speaking of his friends the historian
Grote and his wife, remarked: "I do like them both so much, for he is
so lady-like, and she is such a perfect gentleman." Indeed, Chopin was
described to me by his pupil Gutmann as feminine in looks, gestures, and
taste; as to George Sand, although many may be unwilling to admit her
perfect gentlemanliness, no one can doubt her manliness:--
Dark and olive-complexioned Lelia! [writes Liszt] thou hast
walked in solitary places, sombre as Lara, distracted as
Manfred, rebellious as Cain, but more fierce [farouche], more
pitiless, more inconsolable than they, because thou hast found
among the hearts of men none feminine enough to love thee as
they have been loved, to pay to thy virile charms the tribute
of a confiding and blind submission, of a silent and ardent
devotion, to suffer his allegiance to be protected by thy
Amazonian strength!
The enthusiasm with which the Poles of her acquaintance spoke of their
countrywomen, and the amorous suavity, fulness of feeling, and spotless
nobleness which she admired in the Polish composer's inspirations, seem
to have made her anticipate, even before meeting Chopin, that she would
find in him her ideal lover, one whose love takes the form of worship.
To quote Liszt's words: "She believed that there, free from all
dependence, secure against all inferiority, her role would rise to the
fairy-like power of some being at once the superior and the
friend of man." Were it not unreasonable to regard spontaneous
utterances--expressions of passing moods and fancies, perhaps
mere flights of rhetoric--as well-considered expositions of stable
principles, one might be tempted to ask: Had George Sand found in Chopin
the man who was "bold or vile enough" to accept her "hard and clear"
conditions? [FOOTNOTE: See extract from one of her letters in the
preceding chapter, Vol. I., p. 334.]
While the ordinary position of man and woman was entirely reversed in
this alliance, the qualities which characterised them can nevertheless
hardly ever have been more nearly diametrically opposed. Chopin was weak
and undecided; George Sand strong and energetic. The former shrank from
inquiry and controversy; the latter threw herself eagerly into them.
[FOOTNOTE: George Sand talks much of the indolence of her temperament:
we may admit this fact, but must not overlook another one--namely, that
she was in possession of an immense fund of energy, and was always ready
to draw upon it whenever speech or action served her purpose or fancy.]
The one was a strict observer of the laws of propriety and an almost
exclusive frequenter of fashionable society; the other, on the contrary,
had an unmitigated scorn for the so-called proprieties and so-called
good society. Chopin's manners exhibited a studied refinement, and no
woman could be more particular in the matter of dress than he was. It
is characteristic of the man that he was so discerning a judge of the
elegance and perfection of a female toilette as to be able to tell at a
glance whether a dress had been made in a first-class establishment or
in an inferior one. The great composer is said to have had an unlimited
admiration for a well-made and well-carried (bien porte) dress. Now what
a totally different picture presents itself when we turn to George Sand,
who says of herself, in speaking of her girlhood, that although never
boorish or importunate, she was always brusque in her movements and
natural in her manners, and had a horror of gloves and profound
bows. Her fondness for male garments is as characteristic as Chopin's
connoisseurship of the female toilette; it did not end with her student
life, for she donned them again in 1836 when travelling in Switzerland.
The whole of Chopin's person was harmonious. "His appearance," says
Moscheles, who saw him in 1839, "is exactly like his music [ist
identificirt mit seiner Musik], both are tender and schwarmerisch."
[FOOTNOTE: I shall not attempt to translate this word, but I will
give the reader a recipe. Take the notions "fanciful," "dreamy," and
"enthusiastic" (in their poetic sense), mix them well, and you have a
conception of schwarmerisck.]
A slim frame of middle height; fragile but wonderfully flexible limbs;
delicately-formed hands; very small feet; an oval, softly-outlined head;
a pale, transparent complexion; long silken hair of a light chestnut
colour, parted on one side; tender brown eyes, intelligent rather than
dreamy; a finely-curved aquiline nose; a sweet subtle smile; graceful
and varied gestures: such was the outward presence of Chopin. As to the
colour of the eyes and hair, the authorities contradict each other most
thoroughly. Liszt describes the eyes as blue, Karasowski as dark brown,
and M. Mathias as "couleur de biere." [FOOTNOTE: This strange expression
we find again in Count Wodzinski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin,
where the author says: "His large limpid, expressive, and soft eyes
had that tint which the English call auburn, which the Poles, his
compatriots, describe as piwne (beer colour), and which the French would
denominate brown."] Of the hair Liszt says that it was blonde, Madame
Dubois and others that it was cendre, Miss L. Ramann that it was dark
blonde, and a Scotch lady that it was dark brown. [FOOTNOTE: Count
Wodzinski writes: "It was not blonde, but of a shade similar to that of
his eyes: ash-coloured (cendre), with golden reflections in the light."]
Happily the matter is settled for us by an authority to which all others
must yield--namely, by M. T. Kwiatkowski, the friend and countryman of
Chopin, an artist who has drawn and painted the latter frequently. Well,
the information I received from him is to the effect that Chopin had
des yeux bruns tendres (eyes of a tender brown), and les cheveux blonds
chatains (chestnut-blonde hair). Liszt, from whose book some of the
above details are derived, completes his portrayal of Chopin by some
characteristic touches. The timbre of his voice, he says, was subdued
and often muffled; and his movements had such a distinction and
his manners such an impress of good society that one treated him
unconsciously like a prince. His whole appearance made one think of
that of the convolvuli, which on incredibly slender stems balance
divinely-coloured chalices of such vapourous tissue that the slightest
touch destroys them.
And whilst Liszt attributes to Chopin all sorts of feminine graces and
beauties, he speaks of George Sand as an Amazon, a femme-heros, who is
not afraid to expose her masculine countenance to all suns and winds.
Merimee says of George Sand that he has known her "maigre comme un clou
et noire comme une taupe." Musset, after their first meeting, describes
her, to whom he at a subsequent period alludes as femme a l'oeil sombre,
thus:--
She is very beautiful; she is the kind of woman I like--brown,
pale, dull-complexioned with reflections as of bronze, and
strikingly large-eyed like an Indian. I have never been able
to contemplate such a countenance without inward emotion. Her
physiognomy is rather torpid, but when it becomes animated it
assumes a remarkably independent and proud expression.
The most complete literary portrayal of George Sand that has been handed
down to us, however, is by Heine. He represents her as Chopin knew
her, for although he published the portrait as late as 1854 he did not
represent her as she then looked; indeed, at that time he had probably
no intercourse with her, and therefore was obliged to draw from memory.
The truthfulness of Heine's delineation is testified by the approval of
many who knew George Sand, and also by Couture's portrait of her:--
George Sand, the great writer, is at the same time a beautiful
woman. She is even a distinguished beauty. Like the genius
which manifests itself in her works, her face is rather to be
called beautiful than interesting. The interesting is always a
graceful or ingenious deviation from the type of the
beautiful, and the features of George Sand bear rather the
impress of a Greek regularity. Their form, however, is not
hard, but softened by the sentimentality which is suffused
over them like a veil of sorrow. The forehead is not high, and
the delicious chestnut-brown curly hair falls parted down to
the shoulders. Her eyes are somewhat dim, at least they are
not bright, and their fire may have been extinguished by many
tears, or may have passed into her works, which have spread
their flaming brands over the whole world, illumined many a
comfortless prison, but perhaps also fatally set on fire many
a temple of innocence. The authoress of "Lelia" has quiet,
soft eyes, which remind one neither of Sodom nor of Gomorrah.
She has neither an emancipated aquiline nose nor a witty
little snub nose. It is just an ordinary straight nose. A good-
natured smile plays usually around her mouth, but it is not
very attractive; the somewhat hanging under-lip betrays
fatigued sensuality. The chin is full and plump, but
nevertheless beautifully proportioned. Also her shoulders are
beautiful, nay, magnificent. Likewise her arms and hands,
which, like her feet, are small. Let other contemporaries
describe the charms of her bosom, I confess my incompetence.
The rest of her bodily frame seems to be somewhat too stout,
at least too short. Only her head bears the impress of
ideality; it reminds one of the noblest remains of Greek art,
and in this respect one of our friends could compare the
beautiful woman to the marble statue of the Venus of Milo,
which stands in one of the lower rooms of the Louvre. Yes, she
is as beautiful as the Venus of Milo; she even surpasses the
latter in many respects: she is, for instance, very much
younger. The physiognomists who maintain that the voice of man
reveals his character most unmistakably would be much at a
loss if they were called upon to detect George Sand's
extraordinary depth of feeling [Innigkeit] in her voice. The
latter is dull and faded, without sonority, but soft and
agreeable. The naturalness of her speaking lends it some
charm. Of vocal talent she exhibits not a trace! George Sand
sings at best with the bravura of a beautiful grisette who has
not yet breakfasted or happens not to be in good voice. The
organ of George Sand has as little brilliancy as what she
says. She has nothing whatever of the sparkling esprit of her
countrywomen, but also nothing of their talkativeness. The
cause of this taciturnity, however, is neither modesty nor
sympathetic absorption in the discourse of another. She is
taciturn rather from haughtiness, because she does not think
you worth squandering her cleverness [Geist] upon, or even
from selfishness, because she endeavours to absorb the best of
your discourse in order to work it up afterwards in her works.
That out of avarice George Sand knows how never to give
anything and always to take something in conversation, is a
trait to which Alfred de Musset drew my attention. "This gives
her a great advantage over us," said Musset, who, as he had
for many years occupied the post of cavaliere servente to the
lady, had had the best opportunity to learn to know her
thoroughly. George Sand never says anything witty; she is
indeed one of the most unwitty Frenchwomen I know.
While admiring the clever drawing and the life-like appearance of
the portrait, we must, however, not overlook the exaggerations and
inaccuracies. The reader cannot have failed to detect the limner
tripping with regard to Musset, who occupied not many years but less
than a year the post of cavaliere servente. But who would expect
religious adherence to fact from Heine, who at all times distinguishes
himself rather by wit than conscientiousness? What he says of George
Sand's taciturnity in company and want of wit, however, must be true;
for she herself tells us of these negative qualities in the Histoire de
ma Vie.
The musical accomplishments of Chopin's beloved one have, of course, a
peculiar interest for us. Liszt, who knew her so well, informed me that
she was not musical, but possessed taste and judgment. By "not musical"
he meant no doubt that she was not in the habit of exhibiting her
practical musical acquirements, or did not possess these latter to any
appreciable extent. She herself seems to me to make too much of her
musical talents, studies, and knowledge. Indeed, her writings show
that, whatever her talents may have been, her taste was vague and her
knowledge very limited.
When we consider the diversity of character, it is not a matter for
wonder that Chopin was at first rather repelled than attracted by the
personality of George Sand. Nor is it, on the other hand, a matter for
wonder that her beauty and power of pleasing proved too strong for
his antipathy. How great this power of pleasing was when she wished to
exercise it, the reader may judge from the incident I shall now relate.
Musset's mother, having been informed of her son's projected tour to
Italy, begged him to give it up. The poet promised to comply with
her request: "If one must weep, it shall not be you," he said. In the
evening George Sand came in a carriage to the door and asked for Madame
Musset; the latter came out, and after a short interview gave her
consent to her son's departure. Chopin's unsuccessful wooing of Miss
Wodzinska and her marriage with Count Skarbek in this year (1837) may
not have been without effect on the composer. His heart being left
bruised and empty was as it were sensitised (if I may use this
photographic term) for the reception of a new impression by the action
of love. In short, the intimacy between Chopin and George Sand grew
steadily and continued to grow till it reached its climax in the autumn
of 1838, when they went together to Majorca. Other matters, however,
have to be adverted to before we come to this passage of Chopin's life.
First I shall have to say a few words about his artistic activity during
the years 1837 and 1838.
Among the works composed by Chopin in 1837 was one of the Variations
on the March from I Puritani, which were published under the title
Hexameron: Morceau de Concert. Grandes variations de bravoure sur la
marche des Puritains de Bellini, composees pour le concert de Madame la
Princesse Belgiojoso au benefice des pauvres, par M.M. Liszt, Thalberg,
Pixis, H. Herz, Czerny, et Chopin. This co-operative undertaking was
set on foot by the Princess, and was one of her many schemes to procure
money for her poor exiled countrymen. Liszt played these Variations
often at his concerts, and even wrote orchestral accompaniments to them,
which, however, were never published.
Chopin's publications of the year 1837 are: in October, Op. 25, Douze
Etudes, dedicated to Madame la Comtesse d'Agoult; and in December, Op.
29, Impromptu (in A flat major), dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse de
Lobau; Op. 30, Quatre Mazurkas, dedicated to Madame la Princesse de
Wurtemberg, nee Princesse Czartoryska; Op. 31, Deuxieme Scherzo (B flat
minor), dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse Adele de Furstenstein; and Op.
32, Deux Nocturnes (B major and A flat major), dedicated to Madame la
Baronne de Billing. His publications of the year 1838 are: in October,
Op. 33, Quatre Mazurkas, dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse Mostowska; and,
in December, Op. 34, Trois Valses brillantes (A flat major, A minor, and
F major), respectively dedicated to Mdlle. de Thun-Hohenstein, Madame G.
d'Ivri, and Mdlle. A. d'Eichthal. This last work appeared at Paris
first in an Album des Pianistes, a collection of unpublished pieces by
Thalberg, Chopin, Doehler, Osborne, Liszt, and Mereaux. Two things in
connection with this album may yet be mentioned--namely, that Mereaux
contributed to it a Fantasia on a mazurka by Chopin, and that Stephen
Heller reviewed it in the Gazette musicale. Chopin was by no means
pleased with the insertion of the waltzes in Schlesinger's Album des
Pianistes. But more of this and his labours and grievances as a composer
in the next chapter.
There are also to be recorded some public and semi-public appearances of
Chopin as a virtuoso. On February 25, 1838, the Gazette musicale
informs its readers that Chopin, "that equally extraordinary and modest
pianist," had lately been summoned to Court to be heard there en cercle
intime. His inexhaustible improvisations, which almost made up the
whole of the evening's entertainment, were particularly admired by the
audience, which knew as well as a gathering of artists how to appreciate
the composer's merits. At a concert given by Valentin Alkan on March 3,
1838, Chopin performed with Zimmermann, Gutmann, and the concert-giver,
the latter's arrangement of Beethoven's A major Symphony (or rather some
movements from it) for two pianos and eight hands. And in the Gazette
musicale of March 25, 1838, there is a report by M. Legouve of Chopin's
appearance at a concert given by his countryman Orlowski at Rouen, where
the latter had settled after some years stay in Paris. From a writer in
the Journal de Rouen (December 1, 1849) we learn that ever since this
concert, which was held in the town-hall, and at which the composer
played his E minor Concerto with incomparable perfection, the name of
Chopin had in the musical world of Rouen a popularity which secured to
his memory an honourable and cordial sympathy. But here is what Legouve
says about this concert. I transcribe the notice in full, because it
shows us both how completely Chopin had retired from the noise and
strife of publicity, and how high he stood in the estimation of his
contemporaries.
Here is an event which is not without importance in the
musical world. Chopin, who has not been heard in public for
several years; Chopin, who imprisons his charming genius in an
audience of five or six persons; Chopin, who resembles those
enchanted isles where so many marvels are said to abound that
one regards them as fabulous; Chopin, whom one can never
forget after having once heard him; Chopin has just given a
grand concert at Rouen before 500 people for the benefit of a
Polish professor. Nothing less than a good action to be done
and the remembrance of his country could have overcome his
repugnance to playing in public. Well! the success was
immense! immense! All these enchanting melodies, these
ineffable delicacies of execution, these melancholy and
impassioned inspirations, and all that poesy of playing and of
composition which takes hold at once of your imagination and
heart, have penetrated, moved, enraptured 500 auditors, as
they do the eight or ten privileged persons who listen to him
religiously for whole hours; every moment there were in the
hall those electric fremissements, those murmurs of ecstasy
and astonishment which are the bravos of the soul. Forward
then, Chopin! forward! let this triumph decide you; do not be
selfish, give your beautiful talent to all; consent to pass
for what you are; put an end to the great debate which divides
the artists; and when it shall be asked who is the first
pianist of Europe, Liszt or Thalberg, let all the world reply,
like those who have heard you..."It is Chopin."
Chopin's artistic achievements, however, were not unanimously received
with such enthusiastic approval. A writer in the less friendly La France
musicale goes even so far as to stultify himself by ridiculing, a propos
of the A flat Impromptu, the composer's style. This jackanapes--who
belongs to that numerous class of critics whose smartness of verbiage
combined with obtuseness of judgment is so well-known to the serious
musical reader and so thoroughly despised by him--ignores the spiritual
contents of the work under discussion altogether, and condemns without
hesitation every means of expression which in the slightest degree
deviates from the time-honoured standards. We are told that Chopin's
mode of procedure in composing is this. He goes in quest of an idea,
writes, writes, modulates through all the twenty-four keys, and, if the
idea fails to come, does without it and concludes the little piece very
nicely (tres-bien). And now, gentle reader, ponder on this momentous and
immeasurably sad fact: of such a nature was, is, and ever will be the
great mass of criticism.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHOPIN'S VISITS TO NOHANT IN 1837 AND 1838.--HIS ILL HEALTH.--HE DECIDES
TO GO WITH MADAME SAND AND HER CHILDREN TO MAJORCA.--MADAME SAND'S
ACCOUNT OF THIS MATTER AND WHAT OTHERS THOUGHT ABOUT IT.--CHOPIN AND HIS
FELLOW--TRAVELLERS MEET AT PERPIGNAN IN THE BEGINNING OF NOVEMBER, 1838,
AND PROCEED BY PORT-VENDRES AND BARCELONA TO PALMA.--THEIR LIFE AND
EXPERIENCES IN THE TOWN, AT THE VILLA SON-VENT, AND AT THE MONASTERY OF
VALDEMOSA, AS DESCRIBED IN CHOPIN'S AND GEORGE SAND'S LETTERS, AND THE
LATTER'S "MA VIE" AND "UN HIVER A MAJORQUE."--THE PRELUDES.--RETURN TO
FRANCE BY BARCELONA AND MARSEILLES IN THE END OF FEBRUARY, 1839.
In a letter written in 1837, and quoted on p. 313 of Vol. I., Chopin
said: "I may perhaps go for a few days to George Sand's." How heartily
she invited him through their common friends Liszt and the Comtesse
d'Agoult, we saw in the preceding chapter. We may safely assume, I
think, that Chopin went to Nohant in the summer of 1837, and may be sure
that he did so in the summer of 1838, although with regard to neither
visit reliable information of any kind is discoverable. Karasowski, it
is true, quotes four letters of Chopin to Fontana as written from Nohant
in 1838, but internal evidence shows that they must have been written
three years later.
We know from Mendelssohn's and Moscheles' allusions to Chopin's visit
to London that he was at that time ailing. He himself wrote in the same
year (1837) to Anthony Wodzinski that during the winter he had been
again ill with influenza, and that the doctors had wanted to send him
to Ems. As time went on the state of his health seems to have got worse,
and this led to his going to Majorca in the winter of 1838-1839. The
circumstance that he had the company of Madame Sand on this occasion has
given rise to much discussion. According to Liszt, Chopin was forced by
the alarming state of his health to go to the south in order to avoid
the severities of the Paris winter; and Madame Sand, who always watched
sympathetically over her friends, would not let him depart alone, but
resolved to accompany him. Karasowski, on the other hand, maintains that
it was not Madame Sand who was induced to accompany Chopin, but that
Madame Sand induced Chopin to accompany her. Neither of these statements
tallies with Madame Sand's own account. She tells us that when in
1838 her son Maurice, who had been in the custody of his father, was
definitively entrusted to her care, she resolved to take him to a milder
climate, hoping thus to prevent a return of the rheumatism from which he
had suffered so much in the preceding year. Besides, she wished to live
for some time in a quiet place where she could make her children work,
and could work herself, undisturbed by the claims of society.
As I was making my plans and preparations for departure [she
goes on to say], Chopin, whom I saw every day and whose genius
and character I tenderly loved, said to me that if he were in
Maurice's place he would soon recover. I believed it, and I
was mistaken. I did not put him in the place of Maurice on the
journey, but beside Maurice. His friends had for long urged
him to go and spend some time in the south of Europe. People
believed that he was consumptive. Gaubert examined him and
declared to me that he was not. "You will save him, in fact,"
he said to me, "if you give him air, exercise, and rest."
Others, knowing well that Chopin would never make up his mind
to leave the society and life of Paris without being carried
off by a person whom he loved and who was devoted to him,
urged me strongly not to oppose the desire he showed so a
propos and in a quite unhoped-for way.
As time showed, I was wrong in yielding to their hopes and my
own solicitude. It was indeed enough to go abroad alone with
two children, one already ill, the other full of exuberant
health and spirits, without taking upon myself also a terrible
anxiety and a physician's responsibility.
But Chopin was just then in a state of health that reassured
everybody. With the exception of Grzymala, who saw more
clearly how matters stood, we were all hopeful. I nevertheless
begged Chopin to consider well his moral strength, because for
several years he had never contemplated without dread the idea
of leaving Paris, his physician, his acquaintances, his room
even, and his piano. He was a man of imperious habits, and
every change, however small it might be, was a terrible event
in his life.
Seeing that Liszt--who was at the time in Italy--and Karasowski speak
only from hearsay, we cannot do better than accept George Sand's
account, which contains nothing improbable. In connection with this
migration to the south, I must, however, not omit to mention certain
statements of Adolph Gutmann, one of Chopin's pupils. Here is the
substance of what Gutmann told me. Chopin was anxious to go to Majorca,
but for some time was kept in suspense by the scantiness of his funds.
This threatening obstacle, however, disappeared when his friend the
pianoforte-maker and publisher, Camille Pleyel, paid him 2,000 francs
for the copyright of the Preludes, Op. 28. Chopin remarked of this
transaction to Gutmann, or in his hearing: "I sold the Preludes to
Pleyel because he liked them [parcequ'il les aimait]." And Pleyel
exclaimed on one occasion: "These are my Preludes [Ce sont mes
Preludes]." Gutmann thought that Pleyel, who was indebted to Chopin for
playing on his instruments and recommending them, wished to assist his
friend in a delicate way with some money, and therefore pretended to
be greatly taken with these compositions and bent upon possessing them.
This, however, cannot be quite correct; for from Chopin's letters, which
I shall quote I presently, it appears that he had indeed promised
Pleyel the Preludes, but before his departure received from him only
500 francs, the remaining 1,500 being paid months afterwards, on the
delivery of the manuscript. These letters show, on the other hand,
that when Chopin was in Majorca he owed to Leo 1,000 francs, which
very likely he borrowed from him to defray part of the expenses of his
sojourn in the south.
[FOOTNOTE: August Leo, a Paris banker, "the friend and patron of many
artists," as he is called by Moscheles, who was related to him through
his wife Charlotte Embden, of Hamburg. The name of Leo occurs often in
the letters and conversations of musicians, especially German musicians,
who visited Paris or lived there in the second quarter of this century.
Leo kept house together with his brother-in-law Valentin. (See Vol. I.,
p. 254.)]
Chopin kept his intention of going with Madame Sand to Majorca secret
from all but a privileged few. According to Franchomme, he did not
speak of it even to his friends. There seem to have been only three
exceptions--Fontana, Matuszynski, and Grzymala, and in his letters to
the first he repeatedly entreats his friend not to talk about him. Nor
does he seem to have been much more communicative after his return, for
none of Chopin's acquaintances whom I questioned was able to tell me
whether the composer looked back on this migration with satisfaction or
with regret; still less did they remember any remark made by him that
would throw a more searching light on this period of his life.
Until recently the only sources of information bearing on Chopin's stay
in Majorca were George Sand's "Un Hiver a Majorque" and "Histoire de ma
Vie." But now we have also Chopin's letters to Fontana (in the Polish
edition of Karasowski's "Chopin") and George Sand's "Correspondance,"
which supplement and correct the two publications of the novelist.
Remembering the latter's tendency to idealise everything, and her
disinclination to descend to the prose of her subject, I shall make
the letters the backbone of my narrative, and for the rest select my
material cautiously.
Telling Chopin that she would stay some days at Perpignan if he were not
there on her arrival, but would proceed without him if he failed to make
his appearance within a certain time, Madame Sand set out with her two
children and a maid in the month of November, 1838, for the south of
France, and, travelling for travelling's sake, visited Lyons, Avignon,
Vaucluse, Nimes, and other places. The distinguished financier and
well-known Spanish statesman Mendizabal, their friend, who was going to
Madrid, was to accompany Chopin to the Spanish frontier. Madame Sand was
not long left in doubt as to whether Chopin would realise his reve de
voyage or not, for he put in his appearance at Perpignan the very next
day after her arrival there. Madame Sand to Madame Marliani, [FOOTNOTE:
The wife of the Spanish politician and author, Manuel Marliani. We
shall hear more of her farther on.] November, 1838:-- Chopin arrived at
Perpignan last night, fresh as a rose, and rosy as a turnip; moreover,
in good health, having stood his four nights of the mail-coach heroically.
As to ourselves, we travelled slowly, quietly, and surrounded at all
stations by our friends, who overwhelmed us with kindness.
As the weather was fine and the sea calm Chopin did not suffer much on
the passage from Port-Vendres to Barcelona. At the latter town the party
halted for a while-spending some busy days within its walls, and making
an excursion into the country-and then took ship for Palma, the capital
of Majorca and the Balearic Isles generally. Again the voyagers were
favoured by the elements.
The night was warm and dark, illumined only by an
extraordinary phosphorescence in the wake of the ship;
everybody was asleep on board except the steersman, who, in
order to keep himself awake, sang all night, but in a voice so
soft and so subdued that one might have thought that he feared
to awake the men of the watch, or that he himself was half
asleep. We did not weary of listening to him, for his singing
was of the strangest kind. He observed a rhythm and
modulations totally different from those we are accustomed to,
and seemed to allow his voice to go at random, like the smoke
of the vessel carried away and swayed by the breeze. It was a
reverie rather than a song, a kind of careless divagation of
the voice, with which the mind had little to do, but which
kept time with the swaying of the ship, the faint sound of the
dead water, and resembled a vague improvisation, restrained,
nevertheless, by sweet and monotonous forms.
When night had passed into day, the steep coasts of Majorca, dentelees
au soleil du matin par les aloes et les palmiers, came in sight, and
soon after El Mallorquin landed its passengers at Palma. Madame Sand had
left Paris a fortnight before in extremely cold weather, and here she
found in the first half of November summer heat. The newcomers
derived much pleasure from their rambles through the town, which has
a strongly-pronounced character of its own and is rich in fine and
interesting buildings, among which are most prominent the magnificent
Cathedral, the elegant Exchange (la lonja), the stately Town-Hall,
and the picturesque Royal Palace (palacio real). Indeed, in Majorca
everything is picturesque,
from the hut of the peasant, who in his most insignificant
buildings has preserved the tradition of the Arabic style, to
the infant clothed in rags and triumphant in his "malproprete
grandiose," as Heine said a propos of the market-women of
Verona. The character of the landscape, whose vegetation is
richer than that of Africa is in general, has quite as much
breadth, calm, and simplicity. It is green Switzerland under
the sky of Calabria, with the solemnity and silence of the
East.
But picturesqueness alone does not make man's happiness, and Palma seems
to have afforded little else. If we may believe Madame Sand, there was
not a single hotel in the town, and the only accommodation her party
could get consisted of two small rooms, unfurnished rather than
furnished, in some wretched place where travellers are happy to find "a
folding-bed, a straw-bottomed chair, and, as regards food, pepper and
garlic a discretion." Still, however great their discomfort and disgust
might be, they had to do their utmost to hide their feelings; for, if
they had made faces on discovering vermin in their beds and scorpions in
their soup, they would certainly have hurt the susceptibilities of
the natives, and would probably have exposed themselves to unpleasant
consequences. No inhabitable apartments were to be had in the town
itself, but in its neighbourhood a villa chanced to be vacant, and this
our party rented at once.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Palma, November 14, 1838:--
I am leaving the town, and shall establish myself in the
country: I have a pretty furnished house, with a garden and a
magnificent view, for fifty francs per month. Besides, two
leagues from there I have a cell, that is to say, three rooms
and a garden full of oranges and lemons, for thirty-five
francs PER YEAR, in the large monastery of Valdemosa.
The furniture of the villa was indeed of the most primitive kind, and
the walls were only whitewashed, but the house was otherwise convenient,
well ventilated--in fact, too well ventilated--and above all beautifully
situated at the foot of rounded, fertile mountains, in the bosom of a
rich valley which was terminated by the yellow walls of Palma, the mass
of the cathedral, and the sparkling sea on the horizon.
Chopin to Fontana; Palma, November 15, 1838:--
[FOOTNOTE: Julius Fontana, born at Warsaw in 1810, studied music (at
the Warsaw Conservatoire under Elsner) as an amateur and law for his
profession; joined in 1830 the Polish insurrectionary army; left his
country after the failure of the insurrection; taught the piano in
London; played in 1835 several times with success in Paris; resided
there for some years; went in 1841 to Havannah; on account of the
climate, removed to New York; gave there concerts with Sivori; and
returned to Paris in 1850. This at least is the account we get of him
in Sowinski's "Les Musiciens polonais et slaves." Mr. A. J. Hipkins, who
became acquainted with Fontana during a stay which the latter made in
London in 1856 (May and early part of June), described him to me as "an
honourable and gentlemanly man." From the same informant I learned that
Fontana married a lady who had an income for life, and that by this
marriage he was enabled to retire from the active exercise of his
profession. Later on he became very deaf, and this great trouble was
followed by a still greater one, the death of his wife. Thus left deaf
and poor, he despaired, and, putting a pistol to one of his ears, blew
out his brains. According to Karasowski he died at Paris in 1870. The
compositions he published (dances, fantasias, studies, &c.) are of no
importance. He is said to have published also two books, one on Polish
orthography in 1866 and one on popular astronomy in 1869. The above and
all the following letters of Chopin to Fontana are in the possession
of Madame Johanna Lilpop, of Warsaw, and are here translated from
Karasowski's Polish edition of his biography of Chopin. Many of the
letters are undated, and the dates suggested by Karasowski generally
wrong. There are, moreover, two letters which are given as if dated
by Chopin; but as the contents point to Nohant and 1841 rather than to
Majorca and 1838 and 1839, I shall place them in Chapter XXIV., where
also my reasons for doing so will be more particularly stated. A third
letter, supposed by Karasowski to be written at Valdemosa in February, I
hold to be written at Marseilles in April. It will be found in the next
chapter.]
My dear friend,--I am at Palma, among palms, cedars, cactuses,
aloes, and olive, orange, lemon, fig, and pomegranate trees,
&c., which the Jardin des Plantes possesses only thanks to its
stoves. The sky is like a turquoise, the sea is like lazuli,
and the mountains are like emeralds. The air? The air is just
as in heaven. During the day there is sunshine, and
consequently it is warm--everybody wears summer clothes.
During the night guitars and songs are heard everywhere and at
all hours. Enormous balconies with vines overhead, Moorish
walls...The town, like everything here, looks towards
Africa...In one word, a charming life!
Dear Julius, go to Pleyel--the piano has not yet arrived--and
ask him by what route they have sent it.
The Preludes you shall have soon.
I shall probably take up my quarters in a delightful monastery
in one of the most beautiful sites in the world: sea,
mountains, palm trees, cemetery, church of the Knights of the
Cross, ruins of mosques, thousand-year-old olive trees!...Ah,
my dear friend, I am now enjoying life a little more; I am
near what is most beautiful--I am a better man.
Letters from my parents and whatever you have to send me give
to Grzymala; he knows the safest address.
Embrace Johnnie. [FOOTNOTE: The Johnnie so frequently
mentioned in the letters to Fontana is John Matuszynski.] How
soon he would recover here!
Tell Schlesinger that before long he will receive MS. To
acquaintances speak little of me. Should anybody ask, say that
I shall be back in spring. The mail goes once a week; I write
through the French Consulate here.
Send the enclosed letter as it is to my parents; leave it at
the postoffice yourself.
Yours,
CHOPIN.
George Sand relates in "Un Hiver a Majorque" that the first days which
her party passed at the Son-Vent (House of the Wind)--this was the name
of the villa they had rented--were pretty well taken up with promenading
and pleasant lounging, to which the delicious climate and novel scenery
invited. But this paradisaic condition was suddenly changed as if by
magic when at the end of two or three weeks the wet season began and the
Son-Vent became uninhabitable.
The walls of it were so thin that the lime with which our
rooms were plastered swelled like a sponge. For my part I
never suffered so much from cold, although it was in reality
not very cold; but for us, who are accustomed to warm
ourselves in winter, this house without a chimney was like a
mantle of ice on our shoulders, and I felt paralysed. Chopin,
delicate as he was and subject to violent irritation of the
larynx, soon felt the effects of the damp.
We could not accustom ourselves to the stifling odour of the
brasiers, and our invalid began to ail and to cough.
From this moment we became an object of dread and horror to
the population. We were accused and convicted of pulmonary
phthisis, which is equivalent to the plague in the prejudices
regarding contagion entertained by Spanish physicians. A rich
doctor, who for the moderate remuneration of forty-five francs
deigned to come and pay us a visit, declared, nevertheless,
that there was nothing the matter, and prescribed nothing.
Another physician came obligingly to our assistance; but the
pharmacy at Palma was in such a miserable state that we could
only procure detestable drugs. Moreover, the illness was to be
aggravated by causes which no science and no devotion could
efficiently battle against.
One morning, when we were given up to serious fears on account
of the duration of these rains and these sufferings which were
bound up together, we received a letter from the fierce Gomez
[the landlord], who declared, in the Spanish style, that we
held a person who held a disease which carried contagion into
his house, and threatened prematurely the life of his family;
in consequence of which he requested us to leave his palace
with the shortest delay possible.
This did not cause us much regret, for we could no longer stay
there without fear of being drowned in our rooms; but our
invalid was not in a condition to be moved without danger,
especially by such means of transport as are available in
Majorca, and in the weather then obtaining. And then the
difficulty was to know where to go, for the rumour of our
phthisis had spread instantaneously, and we could no longer
hope to find a shelter anywhere, not even at a very high price
for a night. We knew that the obliging persons who offeredto
take us in were themselves not free from prejudices, and that,
moreover, we should draw upon them, in going near them, the
reprobation which weighed upon us. Without the hospitality of
the French consul, who did wonders in order to gather us all
under his roof, we were threatened with the prospect of
camping in some cavern like veritable Bohemians.
Another miracle came to pass, and we found an asylum for the
winter. At the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa there was a
Spanish refugee, who had hidden himself there for I don't know
what political reason. Visiting the monastery, we were struck
with the gentility of his manners, the melancholy beauty of
his wife, and the rustic and yet comfortable furniture of
their cell. The poesy of this monastery had turned my head. It
happened that the mysterious couple wished to leave the
country precipitately, and--that they were as delighted to
dispose to us of their furniture and cell as we were to
acquire them. For the moderate sum of a thousand francs we had
then a complete establishment, but such a one as we could have
procured in France for 300 francs, so rare, costly, and
difficult to get are the most necessary things in Majorca.
The outcasts decamped speedily from the Son-Vent. But before Senor Gomez
had done with his tenants, he made them pay for the whitewashing and the
replastering of the whole house, which he held to have been infected by
Chopin.
And now let us turn once more from George Sand's poetical inventions,
distortions, and exaggerations, to the comparative sobriety and
trustworthiness of letters.
Chopin to Fontana; Palma, December 3, 1838:--
I cannot send you the MSS. as they are not yet finished.
During the last two weeks I have been as ill as a dog, in
spite of eighteen degrees of heat, [FOOTNOTE: That is,
eighteen degrees Centigrade, which are equal to about sixty-
four degrees Fahrenheit.] and of roses, and orange, palm, and
fig trees in blossom. I caught a severe cold. Three doctors,
the most renowned in the island, were called in for
consultation. One smelt what I spat, the second knocked whence
I spat, the third sounded and listened when I spat. The first
said that I would die, the second that I was dying, the third
that I had died already; and in the meantime I live as I was
living. I cannot forgive Johnnie that in the case of bronchite
aigue, which he could always notice in me, he gave me no
advice. I had a narrow escape from their bleedings,
cataplasms, and such like operations. Thanks to Providence, I
am now myself again. My illness has nevertheless a pernicious
effect on the Preludes, which you will receive God knows when.
In a few days I shall live in the most beautiful part of the
world. Sea, mountains... whatever you wish. We are to have our
quarters in an old, vast, abandoned and ruined monastery of
Carthusians whom Mend [FOOTNOTE: Mendizabal] drove away as it
were for me. Near Palma--nothing more wonderful: cloisters,
most poetic cemeteries. In short, I feel that there it will be
well with me. Only the piano has not yet come! I wrote to
Pleyel. Ask there and tell him that on the day after my
arrival here I was taken very ill, and that I am well again.
On the whole, speak little about me and my manuscripts. Write
to me. As yet I have not received a letter from you.
Tell Leo that I have not as yet sent the Preludes to the
Albrechts, but that I still love them sincerely, and shall
write to them shortly.
Post the enclosed letter to my parents yourself, and write as
soon as possible.
My love to Johnnie. Do not tell anyone that I was ill, they
would only gossip about it.
[FOOTNOTE: to Madame Dubois I owe the information that Albrecht, an
attache to the Saxon legation (a post which gave him a good standing in
society) and at the same time a wine-merchant (with offices in the Place
Vendome--his specialty being "vins de Bordeaux"), was one of Chopin's
"fanatic friends." In the letters there are allusions to two Albrechts,
father and son; the foregoing information refers to the son, who, I
think, is the T. Albrecht to whom the Premier Scherzo, Chopin's Op. 20,
is dedicated.]
Chopin to Fontana; Palma, December 14, 1838:--
As yet not a word from you, and this is my third or fourth
letter. Did you prepay? Perhaps my parents did not write.
Maybe some misfortune has befallen them. Or are you so lazy?
But no, you are not lazy, you are so obliging. No doubt you
sent my two letters to my people (both from Palma). And you
must have written to me, only the post of this place, which is
the most irregular in the world, has not yet delivered your
letters.
Only to-day I was informed that on the ist of December my
piano was embarked at Marseilles on a merchant vessel. The
letter took fourteen days to come from that town. Thus there
is some hope that the piano may pass the winter in the port,
as here nobody stirs when it rains. The idea of my getting it
just at my departure pleases me, for in addition to the 500
francs for freight and duty which I must pay, I shall have the
pleasure of packing it and sending it back. Meanwhile my
manuscripts are sleeping, whereas I cannot sleep, but cough,
and am covered with plasters, waiting anxiously for spring or
something else.
To-morrow I start for this delightful monastery of Valdemosa.
I shall live, muse, and write in the cell of some old monk who
may have had more fire in his heart than I, and was obliged to
hide and smother it, not being able to make use of it.
I think that shortly I shall be able to send you my Preludes
and my Ballade. Go and see Leo; do not mention that I am ill,
he would fear for his 1,000 francs.
Give my kind remembrances to Johnnie and Pleyel.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Palma, December 14, 1838:--
...What is really beautiful here is the country, the sky, the
mountains, the good health of Maurice, and the radoucissement of
Solange. The good Chopin is not in equally brilliant health. He
misses his piano very much. We received news of it to-day. It has
left Marseilles, and we shall perhaps have it in a fortnight. Mon
Dieu, how hard, difficult, and miserable the physical life is
here! It is beyond what one can imagine.
By a stroke of fortune I have found for sale a clean suite of
furniture, charming for this country, but which a French
peasant would not have. Unheard-of trouble was required to get
a stove, wood, linen, and who knows what else. Though for a
month I have believed myself established, I am always on the
eve of being so. Here a cart takes five hours to go three
leagues; judge of the rest. They require two months to
manufacture a pair of tongs. There is no exaggeration in what
I say. Guess about this country all I do not tell you. For my
part I do not mind it, but I have suffered a little from it in
the fear of seeing my children suffer much from it.
Happily, my ambulance is doing well. To-morrow we depart for
the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, the most poetic
residence on earth. We shall pass there the winter, which has
hardly begun and will soon end. This is the sole happiness of
this country. I have never in my life met with a nature so
delicious as that of Majorca.
...The people of this country are generally very gracious, very
obliging; but all this in words...
I shall write to Leroux from the monastery at leisure. If you
knew what I have to do! I have almost to cook. Here, another
amenity, one cannot get served. The domestic is a brute:
bigoted, lazy, and gluttonous; a veritable son of a monk (I
think that all are that). It requires ten to do the work which
your brave Mary does. Happily, the maid whom I have brought
with me from Paris is very devoted, and resigns herself to do
heavy work; but she is not strong, and I must help her.
Besides, everything is dear, and proper nourishment is
difficult to get when the stomach cannot stand either rancid
oil or pig's grease. I begin to get accustomed to it; but
Chopin is ill every time that we do not prepare his food
ourselves. In short, our expedition here is, in many respects,
a frightful fiasco.
On December 15, 1838, then, the Sand party took possession of their
quarters in the monastery of Valdemosa, and thence the next letters are
dated.
Chopin to Fontana; "Palma, December 28, 1838, or rather Valdemosa, a few
miles distant from Palma":--
Between rocks and the sea, in a great abandoned Carthusian
monastery, in one of the cells with doors bigger than the
gates in Paris, you may imagine me with my hair uncurled,
without white gloves, pale as usual. The cell is in the shape
of a coffin, high, and full of dust on the vault. The window
small, before the window orange, palm, and cypress trees.
Opposite the window, under a Moorish filigree rosette, stands
my bed. By its side an old square thing like a table for
writing, scarcely serviceable; on it a leaden candlestick (a
great luxury) with a little tallow-candle, Works of Bach, my
jottings, and old scrawls that are not mine, this is all I
possess. Quietness... one may shout and nobody will hear... in
short, I am writing to you from a strange place.
Your letter of the 9th of December I received the day before
yesterday; as on account of the holidays the express mail does
not leave till next week, I write to you in no great hurry. It
will be a Russian month before you get the bill of exchange
which I send you.
Sublime nature is a fine thing, but one should have nothing to
do with men--nor with roads and posts. Many a time I came here
from Palma, always with the same driver and always by another
road. Streams of water make roads, violent rains destroy them;
to-day it is impossible to pass, for what was a road is
ploughed; next day only mules can pass where you were driving
yesterday. And what carriages here! That is the reason,
Julius, why you do not see a single Englishman, not even an
English consul.
Leo is a Jew, a rogue! I was at his house the day before my
departure, and I told him not to send me anything here. I
cannot send you the Preludes, they are not yet finished. At
present I am better and shall push on the work. I shall write
and thank him in a way that will make him wince.
But Schlesinger is a still worse dog to put my Waltzes
[FOOTNOTE: "Trois Valses brillantes," Op. 34.] in the Album,
and to sell them to Probst [FOOTNOTE: Heinrich Albert Probst
founded in 1823 a music-shop and publishing-house at Leipzig.
In 1831 Fr. Kistner entered the business (Probst-Kistner),
which under his name has existed from 1836 down to this day.
In the Chopin letters we meet Probst in the character of
Breitkopf and Hartel's agent.] when I gave him them because he
begged them for his father in Berlin. [FOOTNOTE: Adolf Martin
Schlesinger, a music-publisher like his son Maurice Adolph of
Paris, so frequently mentioned in these letters.] All this
irritates me. I am only sorry for you; but in one month at the
latest you will be clear of Leo and my landlord. With the
money which you receive on the bill of exchange, do what is
necessary. And my servant, what is he doing? Give the portier
twenty francs as a New Year's present.
I do not remember whether I left any debts of importance. At
all events, as I promised you, we shall be clear in a month at
the latest.
To-day the moon is wonderful, I never saw it more beautiful.
By the way, you write that you sent me a letter from my
people. I neither saw nor heard of one, and I am longing so
much for one! Did you prepay when you sent them the letter?
Your letter, the only one I have hitherto received, was very
badly addressed. Here nature is benevolent, but the people are
thievish. They never see any strangers, and therefore do not
know what to ask of them. For instance, an orange they will
give you for nothing, but ask a fabulous sum for a coat-
button.
Under this sky you are penetrated with a kind of poetical
feeling which everything seems to exhale. Eagles alarmed by no
one soar every day majestically over our heads.
For God's sake write, always prepay, and to Palma add always
Valdemosa.
I love Johnnie, and I think it is a pity that he did not
altogether qualify himself as director of the children of some
benevolent institution in some Nuremberg or Bamberg. Get him
to write to me, were it only a few words.
I enclose you a letter to my people...I think it is already
the third or fourth that I send you for my parents.
My love to Albrecht, but speak very little about me.
Chopin to Fontana; Valdemosa, January 12, 1839:--
I send you the Preludes, make a copy of them, you and Wolf;
[FOOTNOTE: Edouard Wolff] I think there are no mistakes. You
will give the transcript to Probst, but my manuscript to
Pleyel. When you get the money from Probst, for whom I enclose
a receipt, you will take it at once to Leo. I do not write and
thank him just now, for I have no time. Out of the money which
Pleyel will give you, that is 1,500 francs, you will pay the
rent of my rooms till the New Year, 450 francs and you will
give notice of my giving them up if you have a chance to get
others from April. If not it will be necessary to keep them
for a quarter longer. The rest of the amount, or 1,000 francs,
you will return from me to Nougi. Where he lives you will
learn from Johnnie, but don't tell the latter of the money,
for he might attack Nougi, and I do not wish that anyone but
you and I should know of it. Should you succeed in finding
rooms, you could send one part of the furniture to Johnnie and
another to Grzymala. You will tell Pleyel to send letters
through you.
I sent you before the New Year a bill of exchange for Wessel;
tell Pleyel that I have settled with Wessel.
[FOOTNOTE: The music-publisher Christian Rudolph Wessel, of
Bremen, who came to London in 1825. Up to 1838 he had Stodart,
and from 1839 to 1845 Stapleton, as partner. He retired in
1860, Messrs. Edwin Ashdown and Henry Parry being his
successors. Since the retirement of Mr. Parry, in 1882, Mr.
Ashdown is the sole proprietor. Mr. Ashdown, whom I have to
thank for the latter part of this note, informs me that Wessel
died in 1885.]
In a few weeks you will receive a Ballade, a Polonaise, and a
Scherzo.
Until now I have not yet received any letters from my parents.
I embrace you.
Sometimes I have Arabian balls, African sun, and always before
my eyes the Mediterranean Sea.
I do not know when I shall be back, perhaps as late as May,
perhaps even later.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, January 15, 1839:--
...We inhabit the Carthusian monastery of Valdemosa, a really
sublime place, which I have hardly the time to admire, so many
occupations have I with my children, their lessons, and my work.
There are rains here of which one has elsewhere no idea: it is
a frightful deluge! The air is on account of it so relaxing,
so soft, that one cannot drag one's self along; one is really
ill. Happily, Maurice is in admirable health; his constitution
is only afraid of frost, a thing unknown here. But the little
Chopin [FOOTNOTE: Madame Marliani seems to have been in the
habit of calling Chopin "le petit." In another letter to her
(April 28, 1839) George Sand writes of Chopin as votre petit.
This reminds one of Mendelssohn's Chopinetto.] is very
depressed and always coughs much. For his sake I await with
impatience the return of fine weather, which will not be long
in coming. His piano has at last arrived at Palma; but it is
in the clutches of the custom-house officers, who demand from
five to six hundred francs duty, and show themselves
intractable.
...I am plunged with Maurice in Thucydides and company; with
Solange in the indirect object and the agreement of the
participle. Chopin plays on a poor Majorcan piano which reminds
me of that of Bouffe in "Pauvre Jacques." I pass my nights
generally in scrawling. When I raise my nose, it is to see
through the sky-light of my cell the moon which shines in the
midst of the rain on the orange trees, and I think no more of it
than she.
Madame Sand to M. A. M. Duteil; Valdemosa, January 20, 1839:--
...This [the slowness and irregularity of the post] is not the
only inconvenience of the country. There are innumerable ones,
and yet this is the most beautiful country. The climate is
delicious. At the time I am writing, Maurice is gardening in his
shirt-sleeves, and Solange, seated under an orange tree loaded
with fruit, studies her lesson with a grave air. We have bushes
covered with roses, and spring is coming in. Our winter lasted
six weeks, not cold, but rainy to a degree to frighten us. It is
a deluge! The rain uproots the mountains; all the waters of the
mountain rush into the plain; the roads become torrents. We found
ourselves caught in them, Maurice and I. We had been at Palma in
superb weather. When we returned in the evening, there were no
fields, no roads, but only trees to indicate approximately the
way which we had to go. I was really very frightened, especially
as the horse refused to proceed, and we were obliged to traverse
the mountain on foot in the night, with torrents across our legs.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Valdemosa, February 22, 1839:--
...You see me at my Carthusian monastery, still sedentary, and
occupied during the day with my children, at night with my work.
In the midst of all this, the warbling of Chopin, who goes his
usual pretty way, and whom the walls of the cell are much
astonished to hear.
The only remarkable event since my last letter is the arrival
of the so much-expected piano. After a fortnight of
applications and waiting we have been able to get it out of
the custom-house by paying three hundred francs of duty.
Pretty country this! After all, it has been disembarked
without accident, and the vaults of the monastery are
delighted with it. And all this is not profaned by the
admiration of fools-we do not see a cat.
Our retreat in the mountains, three leagues from the town, has
freed us from the politeness of idlers.
Nevertheless, we have had one visitor, and a visitor from
Paris!--namely, M. Dembowski, an Italian Pole whom Chopin
knew, and who calls himself a cousin of Marliani--I don't know
in what degree.
...The fact is, that we are very much pleased with the freedom
which this gives us, because we have work to do; but we
understand very well that these poetic intervals which one
introduces into one's life are only times of transition and rest
allowed to the mind before it resumes the exercise of the
emotions. I mean this in the purely intellectual sense; for, as
regards the life of the heart, it cannot cease for a moment...
This brings us to the end of the known letters written by Chopin and
Madame Sand from Majorca. And now let us see what we can find in George
Sand's books to complete the picture of the life of her and her party
at Valdemosa, of which the letters give only more or less disconnected
indications. I shall use the materials at my disposal freely and
cautiously, quoting some passages in full, regrouping and summing-up
others, and keeping always in mind--which the reader should likewise
do--the authoress's tendency to emphasise, colour, and embellish, for
the sake of literary and moral effect.
Not to extend this chapter too much, I refer the curious to George
Sand's "Un Hiver a Majorque" for a description of the "admirable,
grandiose, and wild nature" in the midst of which the "poetic abode" of
her and her party was situated--of the grandly and beautifully-varied
surface of the earth, the luxuriant southern vegetation, and the
marvellous phenomena of light and air; of the sea stretching out on two
sides and meeting the horizon; of the surrounding formidable peaks, and
the more distant round-swelling hills; of the eagles descending in the
pursuit of their prey down to the orange trees of the monastery gardens;
of the avenue of cypresses serpentining from the top of the mountain to
the bottom of the gorge; of the torrents covered with myrtles; in short,
of the immense ensemble, the infinite details, which overwhelm the
imagination and outvie the poet's and painter's dreams. Here it will be
advisable to confine ourselves to the investigation of a more limited
sphere, to inspect rather narrow interiors than vast landscapes.
As the reader has gathered from the preceding letters, there was no
longer a monastic community at Valdemosa. The monks had been dispersed
some time before, and the monastery had become the property of the
state. During the hot summer months it was in great part occupied by
small burghers from Palma who came in quest of fresh air. The only
permanent inhabitants of the monastery, and the only fellow-tenants of
George Sand's party, were two men and one woman, called by the novelist
respectively the Apothecary, the Sacristan, and Maria Antonia.
The first, a remnant of the dispersed community, sold mallows and
couch-grass, the only specifics he had; the second was the person in
whose keeping were the keys of the monastery; and the third was a
kind of housekeeper who, for the love of God and out of neighbourly
friendship, offered her help to new-comers, and, if it was accepted, did
not fail to levy heavy contributions.
The monastery was a complex of strongly-constructed, buildings without
any architectural beauty, and such was, its circumference and mass of
stones that it would have been easy to house an army corps. Besides the
dwelling of the superior, the cells of the lay-brothers, the lodgings
for visitors, the stables, and other structures, there were three
cloisters, each consisting of twelve cells and twelve chapels. The most
ancient of these cloisters, which is also the smallest, dates from the
15th century.
It presents a charming coup d'oeil. The court which it
encloses with its broken-down walls is the ancient cemetery of
the monks. No inscription distinguishes these tombs...The
graves are scarcely indicated by the swellings of the turf.
In the cells were stored up the remains of all sorts of fine old
furniture and sculpture, but these could only be seen through the
chinks, for the cells were carefully locked, and the sacristan would not
open them to anyone. The second cloister, although of more recent date,
was likewise in a dilapidated state, which, however, gave it character.
In stormy weather it was not at all safe to pass through it on account
of the falling fragments of walls and vaults.
I never heard the wind sound so like mournful voices and utter
such despairing howls as in these empty and sonorous
galleries. The noise of the torrents, the swift motion of the
clouds, the grand, monotonous sound of the sea, interrupted by
the whistling of the storm and the plaintive cries of sea-
birds which passed, quite terrified and bewildered, in the
squalls; then thick fogs which fell suddenly like a shroud and
which, penetrating into the cloisters through the broken
arcades, rendered us invisible, and made the little lamp we
carried to guide us appear like a will-o'-the-wisp wandering
under the galleries; and a thousand other details of this
monastic life which crowd all at once into my memory: all
combined made indeed this monastery the most romantic abode in
the world.
I was not sorry to see for once fully and in reality what I
had seen only in a dream, or in the fashionable ballads, and
in the nuns' scene in Robert le Diable at the Opera. Even
fantastic apparitions were not wanting to us. [FOOTNOTE: "Un
Hiver a Majorque," pp. 116 and 117.]
In the same book from which the above passage is extracted we find
also a minute description of the new cloister; the chapels, variously
ornamented, covered with gilding, decorated with rude paintings and
horrible statues of saints in coloured wood, paved in the Arabic style
with enamelled faience laid out in various mosaic designs, and provided
with a fountain or marble conch; the pretty church, unfortunately
without an organ, but with wainscot, confessionals, and doors of
most excellent workmanship, a floor of finely-painted faience, and a
remarkable statue in painted wood of St. Bruno; the little meadow in the
centre of the cloister, symmetrically planted with box-trees, &c., &c.
George Sand's party occupied one of the spacious, well-ventilated,
and well-lighted cells in this part of the monastery. I shall let her
describe it herself.
The three rooms of which it was composed were spacious,
elegantly vaulted, and ventilated at the back by open
rosettes, all different and very prettily designed. These
three rooms were separated from the cloister by a dark passage
at the end of which was a strong door of oak. The wall was
three feet thick. The middle room was destined for reading,
prayer, and meditation; all its furniture consisted of a large
chair with a praying-desk and a back, from six to eight feet
high, let into and fixed in the wall. The room to the right of
this was the friar's bed-room; at the farther end of it was
situated the alcove, very low, and paved above with flags like
a tomb. The room to the left was the workshop, the refectory,
the store-room of the recluse. A press at the far end of the
room had a wooden compartment with a window opening on the
cloister, through which his provisions were passed in. His
kitchen consisted of two little stoves placed outside, but
not, as was the strict rule, in the open air; a vault, opening
on the garden, protected the culinary labours of the monk from
the rain, and allowed him to give himself up to this
occupation a little more than the founder would have wished.
Moreover, a fire-place introduced into this third room
indicated many other relaxations, although the science of the
architect had not gone so far as to make this fire-place
serviceable.
Running along the back of the rooms, on a level with the
rosettes, was a long channel, narrow and dark, intended for
the ventilation of the cell, and above was a loft in which the
maize, onions, beans, and other simple winter provisions were
kept. On the south the three rooms opened on a flower garden,
exactly the size of the cell itself, which was separated from
the neighbouring gardens by walls ten feet high, and was
supported by a strongly-built terrace above a little orange
grove which occupied this ledge of the mountain. The lower
ledge was covered with a beautiful arbour of vines, the third
with almond and palm trees, and so on to the bottom of the
little valley, which, as I have said, was an immense garden.
The flower garden of each cell had all along its right side a
reservoir, made of freestone, from three to four feet in width
and the same in depth, receiving through conduits placed in
the balustrade of the terrace the waters of the mountain, and
distributing them in the flower garden by means of a stone
cross, which divided it into four equal squares.
As to this flower garden, planted with pomegranate, lemon, and
orange trees, surrounded by raised walks made of bricks which,
like the reservoir, were shaded by perfumed arbours, it was
like a pretty salon of flowers and verdure, where the monk
could walk dry-footed on wet days.
Even without being told, we should have known that the artists who
had now become inmates of the monastery were charmed with their
surroundings. Moreover, George Sand did her utmost to make life within
doors comfortable. When the furniture bought from the Spanish refugee
had been supplemented by further purchases, they were, considering the
circumstances, not at all badly off in this respect. The tables and
straw-bottomed chairs were indeed no better than those one finds in the
cottages of peasants; the sofa of white wood with cushions of mattress
cloth stuffed with wool could only ironically be called "voluptuous";
and the large yellow leather trunks, whatever their ornamental
properties might be, must have made but poor substitutes for wardrobes.
The folding-beds, on the other hand, proved irreproachable; the
mattresses, though not very soft, were new and clean, and the padded
and quilted chintz coverlets left nothing to be desired. Nor does
this enumeration exhaust the comforts and adornments of which the
establishment could boast. Feathers, a rare article in Majorca, had been
got from a French lady to make pillows for Chopin; Valenciennes matting
and long-fleeced sheep skins covered the dusty floor; a large tartan
shawl did duty as an alcove curtain; a stove of somewhat eccentric
habits, and consisting simply of an iron cylinder with a pipe that
passed through the window, had been manufactured for them at Palma; a
charming clay vase surrounded with a garland of ivy displayed its beauty
on the top of the stove; a beautiful large Gothic carved oak chair with
a small chest convenient as a book-case had, with the consent of the
sacristan, been brought from the monks' chapel; and last, but not least,
there was, as we have already read in the letters, a piano, in the
first weeks only a miserable Majorcan instrument, which, however, in
the second half of January, after much waiting, was replaced by one of
Pleyel's excellent cottage pianos.
[FOOTNOTE: By the way, among the many important and unimportant doubtful
points which Chopin's and George Sand's letters settle, is also that of
the amount of duty paid for the piano. The sum originally asked by the
Palma custom-house officers seems to have been from 500 to 600 francs,
and this demand was after a fortnight's negotiations reduced to 300
francs. That the imaginative novelist did not long remember the exact
particulars of this transaction need not surprise us. In Un Hiver a
Majorque she states tha the original demand was 700 francs, and the sum
ultimately paid about 400 francs.]
These various items collectively and in conjunction with the rooms in
which they were gathered together form a tout-ensemble picturesque and
homely withal. As regards the supply of provisions, the situation of
our Carthusians was decidedly less brilliant. Indeed, the water and the
juicy raisins, Malaga potatoes, fried Valencia pumpkins, &c., which
they had for dessert, were the only things that gave them unmixed
satisfaction. With anything but pleasure they made the discovery that
the chief ingredient of Majorcan cookery, an ingredient appearing in all
imaginable and unimaginable guises and disguises, was pork. Fowl was all
skin and bones, fish dry and tasteless, sugar of so bad a quality that
it made them sick, and butter could not be procured at all. Indeed,
they found it difficult to get anything of any kind. On account of
their non-attendance at church they were disliked by the villagers of
Valdemosa, who sold their produce to such heretics only at twice or
thrice the usual price. Still, thanks to the good offices of the French
consul's cook, they might have done fairly well had not wet weather been
against them. But, alas, their eagerly-awaited provisions often arrived
spoiled with rain, oftener still they did not arrive at all. Many a time
they had to eat bread as hard as ship-biscuits, and content themselves
with real Carthusian dinners. The wine was good and cheap, but,
unfortunately, it had the objectionable quality of being heady.
These discomforts and wants were not painfully felt by George Sand and
her children, nay, they gave, for a time at least, a new zest to life.
It was otherwise with Chopin. "With his feeling for details and the
wants of a refined well-being, he naturally took an intense dislike to
Majorca after a few days of illness." We have already seen what a bad
effect the wet weather and the damp of Son-Vent had on Chopin's health.
But, according to George Sand, [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Marjorque," pp.
161-168. I suspect that she mixes up matters in a very unhistorical
manner; I have, however, no means of checking her statements, her and
her companion's letters being insufficient for the purpose. Chopin
certainly was not likely to tell his friend the worst about his health.]
it was not till later, although still in the early days of their sojourn
in Majorca, that his disease declared itself in a really alarming
manner. The cause of this change for the worse was over-fatigue incurred
on an excursion which he made with his friends to a hermitage three
miles [FOOTNOTE: George Sand does not say what kind of miles] distant
from Valdemosa; the length and badness of the road alone would have been
more than enough to exhaust his fund of strength, but in addition to
these hardships they had, on returning, to encounter a violent wind
which threw them down repeatedly. Bronchitis, from which he had
previously suffered, was now followed by a nervous excitement that
produced several symptoms of laryngeal phthisis. [FOOTNOTE: In the
Histoire de ma Vie George Sand Bays: "From the beginning of winter,
which set in all at once with a diluvian rain, Chopin showed, suddenly
also, all the symptoms of pulmonary affection."] The physician, judging
of the disease by the symptoms that presented themselves at the time of
his visits, mistook its real nature, and prescribed bleeding, milk diet,
&c. Chopin felt instinctively that all this would be injurious to him,
that bleeding would even be fatal. George Sand, who was an experienced
nurse, and whose opportunities for observing were less limited than
those of the physician, had the same presentiment. After a long and
anxious struggle she decided to disregard the strongly-urged advice of
the physician and to obey the voice that said to her, even in her sleep:
"Bleeding will kill him; but if you save him from it, he will not die,"
She was persuaded that this voice was the voice of Providence, and that
by obeying it she saved her friend's life. What Chopin stood most in
need of in his weakness and languor was a strengthening diet, and that,
unfortunately, was impossible to procure:--
What would I not have given to have had some beef-tea and a
glass of Bordeaux wine to offer to our invalid every day! The
Majorcan food, and especially the manner in which it was
prepared when we were not there with eye and hand, caused him
an invincible disgust. Shall I tell you how well founded this
disgust was? One day when a lean chicken was put on the table
we saw jumping on its steaming back enormous Mattres Floh,
[FOOTNOTE: Anglice "fleas."] of which Hoffmann would have made
as many evil spirits, but which he certainly would not have
eaten in gravy. My children laughed so heartily that they
nearly fell under the table.
Chopin's most ardent wish was to get away from Majorca and back to
France. But for some time he was too weak to travel, and when he had got
a little stronger, contrary winds prevented the steamer from leaving
the port. The following words of George Sand depict vividly our poor
Carthusian friends' situation in all its gloom:--
As the winter advanced, sadness more and more paralysed my
efforts at gaiety and cheerfulness. The state of our invalid
grew always worse; the wind wailed in the ravines, the rain
beat against our windows, the voice of the thunder penetrated
through our thick walls and mingled its mournful sounds with
the laughter and sports of the children. The eagles and
vultures, emboldened by the fog, came to devour our poor
sparrows, even on the pomegranate tree which shaded my window.
The raging sea kept the ships in the harbours; we felt
ourselves prisoners, far from all enlightened help and from
all efficacious sympathy. Death seemed to hover over our heads
to seize one of us, and we were alone in contending with him
for his prey.
If George Sand's serenity and gaiety succumbed to these influences,
we may easily imagine how much more they oppressed Chopin, of whom she
tells us that--
The mournful cry of the famished eagle and the gloomy
desolation of the yew trees covered with snow saddened him
much longer and more keenly than the perfume of the orange
trees, the gracefulness of the vines, and the Moorish song of
the labourers gladdened him.
The above-quoted letters have already given us some hints of how the
prisoners of Valdemosa passed their time. In the morning there
were first the day's provisions to be procured and the rooms to be
tidied--which latter business could not be entrusted to Maria Antonia
without the sacrifice of their night's rest. [FOOTNOTE: George Sand's
share of the household work was not so great as she wished to make the
readers of Un Hiver a Majorque believe, for it consisted, as we gather
from her letters, only in giving a helping hand to her maid, who had
undertaken to cook and clean up, but found that her strength fell short
of the requirements.] Then George Sand would teach her children for
some hours. These lessons over, the young ones ran about and amused
themselves for the rest of the day, while their mother sat down to
her literary studies and labours. In the evening they either strolled
together through the moonlit cloisters or read in their cell, half of
the night being generally devoted by the novelist to writing. George
Sand says in the "Histoire de ma Vie" that she wrote a good deal and
read beautiful philosophical and historical works when she was not
nursing her friend. The latter, however, took up much of her time, and
prevented her from getting out much, for he did not like to be left
alone, nor, indeed, could he safely be left long alone. Sometimes
she and her children would set out on an expedition of discovery, and
satisfy their curiosity and pleasantly while away an hour or two in
examining the various parts of the vast aggregation of buildings; or the
whole party would sit round the stove and laugh over the rehearsal of
the morning's transactions with the villagers. Once they witnessed even
a ball in this sanctuary. It was on Shrove-Tuesday, after dark, that
their attention was roused by a strange, crackling noise. On going to
the door of their cell they could see nothing, but they heard the noise
approaching. After a little there appeared at the opposite end of the
cloister a faint glimmer of white light, then the red glare of torches,
and at last a crew the sight of which made their flesh creep and their
hair stand on end--he-devils with birds' heads, horses' tails, and
tinsel of all colours; she-devils or abducted shepherdesses in white
and pink dresses; and at the head of them Lucifer himself, horned and,
except the blood-red face, all black. The strange noise, however, turned
out to be the rattling of castanets, and the terrible-looking figures a
merry company of rich farmers and well-to-do villagers who were going to
have a dance in Maria Antonia's cell. The orchestra, which consisted
of a large and a small guitar, a kind of high-pitched violin, and from
three to four pairs of castanets, began to play indigenous jotas and
fandangos which, George Sand tells us, resemble those of Spain, but have
an even bolder form and more original rhythm. The critical spectators
thought that the dancing of the Majorcans was not any gayer than their
singing, which was not gay at all, and that their boleros had "la
gravite des ancetres, et point de ces graces profanes qu'on admire en
Andalousie." Much of the music of these islanders was rather interesting
than pleasing to their visitors. The clicking of the castanets with
which they accompany their festal processions, and which, unlike the
broken and measured rhythm of the Spaniards, consists of a continuous
roll like that of a drum "battant aux champs," is from time to time
suddenly interrupted in order to sing in unison a coplita on a phrase
which always recommences but never finishes. George Sand shares the
opinion of M. Tastu that the principal Majorcan rhythms and favourite
fioriture are Arabic in type and origin.
Of quite another nature was the music that might be heard in those
winter months in one of the cells of the monastery of Valdemosa. "With
what poesy did his music fill this sanctuary, even in the midst of his
most grievous troubles!" exclaims George Sand. I like to picture
to myself the vaulted cell, in which Pleyel's piano sounded so
magnificently, illumined by a lamp, the rich traceries of the Gothic
chair shadowed on the wall, George Sand absorbed in her studies, her
children at play, and Chopin pouring out his soul in music.
It would be a mistake to think that those months which the friends
spent in Majorca were for them a time of unintermittent or even
largely-predominating wretchedness. Indeed, George Sand herself admits
that, in spite of the wildness of the country and the pilfering habits
of the people, their existence might have been an agreeable one in
this romantic solitude had it not been for the sad spectacle of her
companion's sufferings and certain days of serious anxiety about his
life. And now I must quote a. long but very important passage from the
"Histoire de ma Vie":--
The poor great artist was a detestable patient. What I had
feared, but unfortunately not enough, happened. He became
completely demoralised. Bearing pain courageously enough, he
could not overcome the disquietude of his imagination. The
monastery was for him full of terrors and phantoms, even when
he was well. He did not say so, and I had to guess it. On
returning from my nocturnal explorations in the ruins with my
children, I found him at ten o'clock at night before his
piano, his face pale, his eyes wild, and his hair almost
standing on end. It was some moments before he could
recognise us.
He then made an attempt to laugh, and played to us sublime
things he had just composed, or rather, to be more accurate,
terrible or heartrending ideas which had taken possession of
him, as it were without his knowledge, in that hour of
solitude, sadness, and terror.
It was there that he composed the most beautiful of those
short pages he modestly entitled "Preludes." They are
masterpieces. Several present to the mind visions of deceased
monks and the sounds of the funeral chants which beset his
imagination; others are melancholy and sweet--they occurred
to him in the hours of sunshine and of health, with the noise
of the children's laughter under the window, the distant
sound of guitars, the warbling of the birds among the humid
foliage, and the sight of the pale little full-blown roses on
the snow.
Others again are of a mournful sadness, and, while charming
the ear, rend the heart. There is one of them which occurred
to him on a dismal rainy evening which produces a terrible
mental depression. We had left him well that day, Maurice and
I, and had gone to Palma to buy things we required for our
encampment. The rain had come on, the torrents had
overflowed, we had travelled three leagues in six hours to
return in the midst of the inundation, and we arrived in the
dead of night, without boots, abandoned by our driver, having
passed through unheard-of dangers. We made haste,
anticipating the anxiety of our invalid. It had been indeed
great, but it had become as it were congealed into a kind of
calm despair, and he played his wonderful prelude weeping. On
seeing us enter he rose, uttering a great cry, then he said
to us, with a wild look and in a strange tone: "Ah! I knew
well that you were dead!"
When he had come to himself again, and saw the state in which
we were, he was ill at the retrospective spectacle of our
dangers; but he confessed to me afterwards that while waiting
for our return he had seen all this in a dream and that, no
longer distinguishing this dream from reality, he had grown
calm and been almost lulled to sleep while playing the piano,
believing that he was dead himself. He saw himself drowned in
a lake; heavy and ice-cold drops of water fell at regular
intervals upon his breast, and when I drew his attention to
those drops of water which were actually falling at regular
intervals upon the roof, he denied having heard them. He was
even vexed at what I translated by the term imitative
harmony. He protested with all his might, and he was right,
against the puerility of these imitations for the ear. His
genius was full of mysterious harmonies of nature, translated
by sublime equivalents into his musical thought, and not by a
servile repetition of external sounds. His composition of
this evening was indeed full of the drops of rain which
resounded on the sonorous tiles of the monastery, but they
were transformed in his imagination and his music into tears
falling from heaven on his heart.
Although George Sand cannot be acquitted of the charge of exaggerating
the weak points in her lover's character, what she says about his being
a detestable patient seems to have a good foundation in fact. Gutmann,
who nursed him often, told me that his master was very irritable and
difficult to manage in sickness. On the other hand, Gutmann contradicted
George Sand's remarks about the Preludes, saying that Chopin composed
them before starting on his journey. When I mentioned to him that
Fontana had made a statement irreconcilable with his, and suggested
that Chopin might have composed some of the Preludes in Majorca, Gutmann
maintained firmly that every one of them was composed previously, and
that he himself had copied them. Now with Chopin's letters to Fontana
before us we must come to the conclusion that Gutmann was either under
a false impression or confirmed a rash statement by a bold assertion,
unless we prefer to assume that Chopin's labours on the Preludes
in Majorca were confined to selecting, [FOOTNOTE: Internal evidence
suggests that the Preludes consist (to a great extent at least) of
pickings from the composer's portfolios, of pieces, sketches, and
memoranda written at various times and kept to be utilised when occasion
might offer.] filing, and polishing. My opinion--which not only has
probability but also the low opus number (28) and the letters in its
favour--is that most of the Preludes, if not all, were finished or
sketched before Chopin went to the south, and that a few, if any, were
composed and the whole revised at Palma and Valdemosa. Chopin cannot
have composed many in Majorca, because a few days after his arrival
there he wrote: from Palma (Nov. 15, 1838) to Fontana that he would send
the Preludes soon; and it was only his illness that prevented him from
doing so. There is one statement in George Sand's above-quoted narrative
which it is difficult to reconcile with other statements in "Un Hiver
a Majorque" and in her and Chopin's letters. In the just-mentioned book
(p. 177) she says that the journey in question was made for the purpose
of rescuing the piano from the hands of the custom-house officers; and
in a letter of January 15, 1839, to her friend Madame Marliani (quoted
on p. 31), which does not contain a word about adventures on a stormy
night, [They are first mentioned in the letter of January 20, 1839,
quoted on p. 32.] she writes that the piano is still in the clutches of
the custom-house officers. From this, I think, we may conclude that it
must have taken place after January 15. But, then, how could Chopin have
composed on that occasion a Prelude included in a work the manuscript
of which he sent away on the lath? Still, this does not quite settle the
question. Is it not possible that Chopin may have afterwards substituted
the new Prelude for one of those already forwarded to France? To this
our answer must be that it is possible, but that the letters do not give
any support to such an assumption. Another and stronger objection would
be the uncertainty as to the correctness of the date of the letter.
Seeing that so many of Chopin's letters have been published with wrong
dates, why not also that of January 12? Unfortunately, we cannot in
this case prove or disprove the point by internal evidence. There is,
however, one factor we must be especially careful not to forget in our
calculations--namely, George Sand's habitual unconscientious inaccuracy;
but the nature of her narrative will indeed be a sufficient warning to
the reader, for nobody can read it without at once perceiving that it is
not a plain, unvarnished recital of facts.
It would be interesting to know which were the compositions that Chopin
produced at Valdemosa. As to the Prelude particularly referred to by
George Sand, it is generally and reasonably believed to be No. 6 (in B
minor). [FOOTNOTE: Liszt, who tells the story differently, brings in
the F sharp minor Prelude. (See Liszt's Chopin, new edition, pp. 273 and
274.)] The only compositions besides the Preludes which Chopin mentions
in his letters from Majorca are the Ballade, Op, 38, the Scherzo,
Op. 39, and the two Polonaises, Op. 40. The peevish, fretful, and
fiercely-scornful Scherzo and the despairingly-melancholy second
Polonaise (in C minor) are quite in keeping with the moods one imagines
the composer to have been in at the time. Nor is there anything
discrepant in the Ballade. But if the sadly-ailing composer really
created, and not merely elaborated and finished, in Majorca the
superlatively-healthy, vigorously-martial, brilliantly-chivalrous
Polonaise in A major, we have here a remarkable instance of the mind's
ascendency over the body, of its independence of it. This piece,
however, may have been conceived under happier circumstances, just as
the gloomy Sonata, Op. 35 (the one in B flat minor, with the funeral
march), and the two Nocturnes, Op. 37--the one (in G minor)
plaintive, longing, and prayerful; the other (in G major) sunny and
perfume-laden--may have had their origin in the days of Chopin's sojourn
in the Balearic island. A letter of Chopin's, written from Nohant in the
summer of 1839, leaves, as regards the Nocturnes, scarcely room for such
a conjecture. On the other hand, we learn from the same letter that he
composed at Palma the sad, yearning Mazurka in E minor (No. 2 of Op.
41).
As soon as fair weather set in and the steamer resumed its weekly
courses to Barcelona, George Sand and her party hastened to leave the
island. The delightful prospects of spring could not detain them.
Our invalid (she says) did not seem to be in a state to stand
the passage, but he seemed equally incapable of enduring
another week in Majorca. The situation was frightful; there
were days when I lost hope and courage. To console us, Maria
Antonia and her village gossips repeated to us in chorus the
most edifying discourses on the future life. "This consumptive
person," they said, "is going to hell, first because he is
consumptive, secondly, because he does not confess. If he is
in this condition when he dies, we shall not bury him in
consecrated ground, and as nobody will be willing to give him
a grave, his friends will have to manage matters as well as
they can. It remains to be seen how they will get out of the
difficulty; as for me, I will have Inothing to do with it,--
Nor I--Nor I: and Amen!"
In fact, Valdemosa, which at first was enchanting to them, lost
afterwards much of its poesy in their eyes. George Sand, as we have
seen, said that their sojourn was I in many respects a frightful fiasco;
it was so certainly as far as Chopin was concerned, for he arrived with
a cough and left the place spitting blood.
The passage from Palma to Barcelona was not so pleasant as that from
Barcelona to Palma had been. Chopin suffered much from sleeplessness,
which was caused by the noise and bad smell of the most favoured class
of passengers on board the Mallorquin--i.e., pigs. "The captain showed
us no other attention than that of begging us not to let the invalid
lie down on the best bed of the cabin, because according to Spanish
prejudice every illness is contagious; and as our man thought already of
burning the couch on which the invalid reposed, he wished it should be
the worst." [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Majorque," pp. 24--25.]
On arriving at Barcelona George Sand wrote from the Mallorquin and sent
by boat a note to M. Belves, the officer in command at the station, who
at once came in his cutter to take her and her party to the Meleagre,
where they were well received by the officers, doctor, and all the crew.
It seemed to them as if they had left the Polynesian savages and were
once more in civilised society. When they shook hands with the French
consul they could contain themselves no longer, but jumped for joy and
cried "Vive La France!"
A fortnight after their leaving Palma the Phenicien landed them at
Marseilles. The treatment Chopin received from the French captain of
this steamer differed widely from that he had met with at the hands
of the captain of the Mallorquin; for fearing that the invalid was not
quite comfortable in a common berth, he gave him his own bed. [FOOTNOTE:
"Un Hiver a Majorque," p. 183.]
An extract from a letter written by George Sand from Marseilles on March
8, 1839, to her friend Francois Rollinat, which contains interesting
details concerning Chopin in the last scenes of the Majorca intermezzo,
may fitly conclude this chapter.
Chopin got worse and worse, and in spite of all offers of
service which were made to us in the Spanish manner, we should
not have found a hospitable house in all the island. At last
we resolved to depart at any price, although Chopin had not
the strength to drag himself along. We asked only one--a first
and a last service--a carriage to convey him to Palma, where
we wished to embark. This service was refused to us, although
our FRIENDS had all equipages and fortunes to correspond. We
were obliged to travel three leagues on the worst roads in a
birlocho [FOOTNOTE: A cabriolet. In a Spainish Dictionary I
find a birlocho defined as a vehicle open in front, with two
seats, and two or four wheels. A more detailed description is
to be found on p. 101 of George Sand's "Un Hiver a
Marjorque."] that is to say, a brouette.
On arriving at Palma, Chopin had a frightful spitting of
blood; we embarked the following day on the only steamboat of
the island, which serves to transport pigs to Barcelona. There
is no other way of leaving this cursed country. We were in
company of 100 pigs, whose continual cries and foul odour left
our patient no rest and no respirable air. He arrived at
Barcelona still spitting basins full of blood, and crawling
along like a ghost. There, happily, our misfortunes were
mitigated! The French consul and the commandant of the French
maritime station received us with a hospitality and grace
which one does not know in Spain. We were brought on board a
fine brig of war, the doctor of which, an honest and worthy
man, came at once to the assistance of the invalid, and
stopped the hemorrhage of the lung within twenty-four hours.
From that moment he got better and better. The consul had us
driven in his carriage to an hotel. Chopin rested there a
week, at the end of which the same vessel which had conveyed
us to Spain brought us back to France. When we left the hotel
at Barcelona the landlord wished to make us pay for the bed in
which Chopin had slept, under the pretext that it had been
infected, and that the police regulations obliged him to burn
it.
Chapter XXII.
STAY AT MARSEILLES (FROM MARCH TO MAY, 1839) AS DESCRIBED IN CHOPIN'S
AND MADAME SAND'S LETTERS.--HIS STATE OF HEALTH.--COMPOSITIONS AND THEIR
PUBLICATION.--PLAYING THE ORGAN AT A FUNERAL SERVICE FOR NOURRIT.--AN
EXCURSION TO GENOA.--DEPARTURE FOR NOHANT.
As George Sand and her party were obliged to stop at Marseilles, she had
Chopin examined by Dr. Cauviere. This celebrated physician thought him
in great danger, but, on seeing him recover rapidly, augured that with
proper care his patient might nevertheless live a long time. Their stay
at Marseilles was more protracted than they intended and desired; in
fact, they did not start for Nohant till the 22nd of May. Dr. Cauviere
would not permit Chopin to leave Marseilles before summer; but whether
this was the only cause of the long sojourn of the Sand party in the
great commercial city, or whether there were others, I have not been
able to discover. Happily, we have first-hand information--namely,
letters of Chopin and George Sand--to throw a little light on these
months of the pianist-composer's life. As to his letters, their main
contents consist of business matters--wranglings about terms, abuse of
publishers, &c. Here and there, however, we find also a few words about
his health, characteristic remarks about friends and acquaintances,
interesting hints about domestic arrangements and the like--the allusion
(in the letter of March 2, 1839) to a will made by him some time before,
and which he wishes to be burned, will be read with some curiosity.
An extract or two from the letter which George Sand wrote on March 8,
1839, to Francois Rollinat, launches us at once in medias res.
At last we are in Marseilles. Chopin has stood the passage
very well. He is very weak here, but is doing infinitely
better in all respects, and is in the hands of Dr. Cauviere,
an excellent man and excellent physician, who takes a paternal
care of him, and who answers for his recovery. We breathe at
last, but after how many troubles and anxieties!...Write to me
here to the address of Dr. Cauviere, Rue de Rome, 71.
Chopin charges me to shake you heartily by the hand for him.
Maurice and Solange embrace you. They are wonderfully well.
Maurice has completely recovered.
Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 2, 1839:--
You no doubt learned from Grzymala of the state of my health
and my manuscripts. Two months ago I sent you from Palma my
Preludes. After making a copy of them for Probst and getting
the money from him, you were to give to Leo 1,000 francs; and
out of the 1,500 francs which Pleyel was to give you for the
Preludes I wrote you to pay Nougi and one term to the
landlord. In the same letter, if I am not mistaken, I asked
you to give notice of my leaving the apartments; for were this
not done before April, I should be obliged to retain them for
the next quarter, till July.
The second batch of manuscripts may have now reached you; for
it must have remained a long time at the custom-house, on the
sea, and again at the custom-house.
I also wrote to Pleyel with the Preludes that I give him the
Ballade (which I sold to Probst for Germany) for 1,000 francs.
For the two Polonaises I asked 1,500 francs for France,
England, and Germany (the right of Probst is confined to the
Ballade). It seems to me that this is not too dear.
In this way you ought to get, on receiving the second batch of
manuscripts, from Pleyel 2,500 francs, and from Probst, for
the Ballade, 500 or 600 francs, I do not quite remember, which
makes altogether 3,000 francs.
I asked Grzymala if he could send me immediately at least 500
francs, which need not prevent him from sending me soon the
rest. Thus much for business.
Now if, which I doubt, you succeed in getting apartments from
next month, divide my furniture amongst you three: Grzymala,
Johnnie, and you. Johnnie has the most room, although not the
most sense, judging from the childish letter he wrote to me.
For his telling me that I should become a Camaldolite, let him
take all the shabby things. Do not overload Grzymala too much,
and take to your house what you judge necessary and
serviceable to you, as I do not know whether I shall return to
Paris in summer (keep this to yourself). At all events, we
will always write one another, and if, as I expect, it be
necessary to keep my apartments till July, I beg of you to
look after them and pay the quarterly rent.
For your sincere and truly affectionate letter you have an
answer in the second Polonaise. [FOOTNOTE: See next foot-
note.] It is not my fault that I am like a mushroom that
poisons when you unearth and taste it. I know I have never in
anything been of service to anyone, but also not of much to
myself.
I told you that in the first drawer of my writing-desk near
the door there was a paper which you or Grzymala or Johnnie
might unseal on a certain occasion. Now I beg of you to take
it out and, WITHOUT READING IT, BURN IT. Do this, I entreat
you, for friendship's sake. This paper is now of no use.
If Anthony leaves without sending you the money, it is very
much in the Polish style; nota bene, do not say to him a word
about it. Try to see Pleyel; tell him I have received no word
from him, and that his pianino is entrusted to safe hands.
Does he agree to the transaction I proposed to him?
The letters from home reached me all three together, with
yours, before going on board the vessel. I again send you one.
I thank you for the friendly help you give me, who am not
strong. My love to Johnnie, tell him that I did not allow
them, or rather that they were not permitted, to bleed me;
that I wear vesicatories, that I am coughing a very little in
the morning, and that I am not yet at all looked upon as a
consumptive person. I drink neither coffee nor wine, but milk.
Lastly, I keep myself warm, and look like a girl.
Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 6, 1839:--
My health is still improving; I begin to play, eat, walk, and
speak, like other men; and when you receive these few words
from me you will see that I again write with ease. But once
more of business. I would like very much that my Preludes
should be dedicated to Pleyel (surely there is still time, for
they are not yet printed) and the Ballade to Robert Schumann.
The Polonaises, as they are, to you and to Kessler. If Pleyel
does not like to give up the dedication of the Ballade, you
will dedicate the Preludes to Schumann.
[FOOTNOTE: The final arrangement was that Op. 38, the
"Deuxieme Ballade," was dedicated to Robert Schumann; Op. 40,
the "Deux Polonaises," to Julius Fontana; the French and the
English edition of Op. 28, "Vingt-quatre Preludes," to Camille
Pleyel, and the German editon to J. C. Kessler.]
Garczynski called upon me yesterday on his way back from Aix;
he is the only person that I have received, for I keep the
door well shut to all amateurs of music and literature.
Of the change of dedication you will inform Probst as soon as
you have arranged with Pleyel.
From the money obtained you will give Grzymala 500 francs, the
rest, 2,500 francs, you will send me as soon as possible.
Love me and write.
Pardon me if I overwhelm you too much with commissions, but do
not be afraid, these are not the last. I think you do
willingly what I ask you.
My love to Johnnie.
Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 10, 1839:--
Thanks for your trouble. I did not expect Jewish tricks from
Pleyel; but if it is so, I beg of you to give him the enclosed
letter, unless he makes no difficulties about the Ballade and
the Polonaises. On the other hand, on receiving for the
Ballade 500 francs from Probst, you will take it to
Schlesinger. If one has to deal with Jews, let it at least be
with orthodox ones. Probst may cheat me still worse; he is a
bird you will not catch. Schlesinger used to cheat me, he
gained enough by me, and he will not reject new profit, only
be polite to him. Though a Jew, he nevertheless wishes to pass
for something better.
Thus, should Pleyel make the least difficulties, you will go
to Schlesinger, and tell him that I give him the Ballade for
France and England for 800 francs, and the Polonaises for
Germany, England, and France for 1,500 francs (should he not
be inclined to give so much, give them for 1,400, 1,300, and
even for 1,200 francs). If he mentions the Preludes, you may
say that it is a thing long ago promised to Pleyel--he wished
to be the publisher of them; that he asked them from me as a
favour before my departure from Paris--as was really the case.
You see, my very dear friend, for Pleyel I could break with
Schlesinger, but for Probst I cannot. What is it to me if
Schlesinger makes Probst pay dearer for my manuscripts? If
Probst pays dear for them to Schlesinger, it shows that the
latter cheats me, paying me too little. After all, Probst has
no establishment in Paris. For all my printed things
Schlesinger paid me at once, and Probst very often made me
wait for money. If he will not have them all, give him the
Ballade separately, and the Polonaises separately, but at the
latest within two weeks. If he does not accept the offer, then
apply to Probst. Being such an admirer of mine, he must not
pay less than Pleyel. You will deliver my letter to Pleyel
only if he makes any difficulties.
Dear me! this Pleyel who is such an adorer of mine! He thinks,
perhaps, that I shall never return to Paris alive. I shall
come back, and shall pay him a visit, and thank him as well as
Leo.
I enclose a note to Schlesinger, in which I give you full
authority to act in this matter.
I feel better every day; nevertheless, you will pay the
portier these fifty francs, to which I completely agree, for
my doctor does not permit me to move from here before summer.
Mickiewicz's "Dziady" I received yesterday. What shall you do
with my papers?
The letters you will leave in the writing-desk, and send the
music to Johnnie, or take it to your own house. In the little
table that stands in the anteroom there are also letters; you
must lock it well.
My love to Johnnie, I am glad he is better.
Chopin to Fontana; March 17, 1839:--
I thank you for all your efforts. Pleyel is a scoundrel,
Probst a scape-grace. He never gave me 1,000 francs for three
manuscripts. Very likely you have received my long letter
about Schlesinger, therefore I wish you and beg of you to give
that letter of mine to Pleyel, who thinks my manuscripts too
dear. If I have to sell them cheap, I would rather do so to
Schlesinger than look for new and improbable connections. For
Schlesinger can always count upon England, and as I am square
with Wessel, he may sell them to whomsoever he likes. The same
with the Polonaises in Germany, for Probst is a bird whom I
have known a long time. As regards the money, you must make an
unequivocal agreement, and do not give the manuscripts except
for cash. I send you a reconnaissance for Pleyel, it
astonishes me that he absolutely wants it, as if he could not
trust me and you.
Dear me, this Pleyel who said that Schlesinger paid me badly!
500 francs for a manuscript for all the countries seems to him
too dear! I assure you I prefer to deal with a real Jew. And
Probst, that good-for-nothing fellow, who pays me 300 francs
for my mazurkas! You see, the last mazurkas brought me with
ease 800 francs--namely, Probst 300 francs, Schlesinger 400,
and Wessel 100. I prefer giving my manuscripts as formerly at
a very low price to stooping before these...I prefer being
submissive to one Jew to being so to three. Therefore go to
Schlesinger, but perhaps you settled with Pleyel.
Oh, men, men! But this Mrs. Migneron, she too is a good one!
However, Fortune turns round, I may yet live and hear that
this lady will come and ask you for some leather; if, as you
say, you are aiming at being a shoemaker. I beg of you to make
shoes neither for Pleyel nor for Probst.
Do not yet speak to anyone of the Scherzo [Op. 39]. I do not
know when I shall finish it, for I am still weak and cannot
write.
As yet I have no idea when I shall see you. My love to
Grzymala; and give him such furniture as he will like, and let
Johnnie take the rest from the apartments. I do not write to
him, but I love him always. Tell him this, and give him my
love.
Wodzinski still astonishes me.
When you receive the money from Pleyel, pay first the
landlord's rent, and send me immediately 500 francs. I left on
the receipt for Pleyel the Op. blank, for I do not remember
the following number.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, April 22, 1839:--
...I was also occupied with the removal from one hotel to
another. Notwithstanding all his efforts and inquiries, the good
doctor was not able to find me a corner in the country where to
pass the month of April.
I am pretty tired of this town of merchants and shopkeepers,
where the intellectual life is wholly unknown; but here I am
still shut up for the month of April.
Further on in the letter, after inviting Madame Marliani and her husband
to come to Nohant in May, she proceeds thus:--
He [M. Marliani] loves the country, and I shall be a match for
him as regards rural pleasures, while you [Madame Marliani]
will philosophise at the piano with Chopin. It can hardly be
said that he enjoys himself in Marseilles; but he resigns
himself to recover patiently.
The following letter of Chopin to Fontana, which Karasowski thinks
was written at Valdemosa in the middle of February, ought to be dated
Marseilles, April, 1839:--
As they are such Jews, keep everything till my return. The
Preludes I have sold to Pleyel (I received from him 500
francs). He is entitled to do with them what he likes. But as
to the Ballades and Polonaises, sell them neither to
Schlesinger nor to Probst. But whatever may happen, with no
Schonenberger [FOOTNOTE: A Paris music-publisher] will I have
anything to do. Therefore, if you gave the Ballade to Probst,
take it back, even though he offered a thousand. You may tell
him that I have asked you to keep it till my return, that when
I am back we shall see.
Enough of these...Enough for me and for you.
My very life, I beg of you to forgive me all the trouble; you
have really been busying yourself like a friend, and now you
will have still on your shoulders my removal. I beg Grzymala
to pay the cost of the removal. As to the portier, he very
likely tells lies, but who will prove it? You must give, in
order to stop his barking.
My love to Johnnie, I will write to him when I am in better
spirits. My health is improved, but I am in a rage. Tell
Johnnie that from Anthony as well as from me he will have
neither word nor money.
Yesterday I received your letter, together with letters from
Pleyel and Johnnie.
If Clara Wieck pleased you, that is good, for nobody can play
better than she does. When you see her give her my
compliments, and also to her father.
Did I happen to lend you Witwicki's songs? I cannot find them.
I only ask for them in case you should chance to have them.
Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 25 [should no doubt be April 25],
1839:--
I received your letter, in which you let me know the
particulars of the removal. I have no words to thank you for
your true, friendly help. The particulars were very
interesting to me. But I am sorry that you complain, and that
Johnnie is spitting blood. Yesterday I played for Nourrit on
the organ, you see by this that I am better. Sometimes I play
to myself at home, but as yet I can neither sing nor dance.
Although the news of my mother is welcome, its having been
originated by Plat... is enough to make one consider it a
falsehood.
The warm weather has set in here, and I shall certainly not
leave Marseilles before May, and then go somewhere else in the
south of France.
It is not likely that we shall soon have news from Anthony.
Why should he write? Perhaps to pay his debts? But this is not
customary in Poland. The reason Raciborski appreciates you so
much is that you have no Polish habits, nota bene, not those
Polish habits you know and I mean.
You are staying at No. 26 [Chaussee d'Antin]. Are you
comfortable? On what floor, and how much do you pay? I take
more and more interest in these matters, for I also shall be
obliged to think of new apartments, but not till after my
return to Paris.
I had only that letter from Pleyel which he sent through you--
it is a month ago or more. Write to the same address, Rue et
Hotel Beauveau.
Perhaps you did not understand what I said above about my
having played for Nourrit. His body was brought from Italy and
carried to Paris. There was a Requiem Mass for his soul. I was
asked by his friends to play on the organ during the
Elevation.
Did Miss Wieck play my Etude well? Could she not select
something better than just this etude, the least interesting
for those who do not know that it is written for the black
keys? It would have been far better to do nothing at all.
[FOOTNOTE: Clara Wieck gave a concert in Paris on April 16,
1839. The study in question is No. 5 of Op. 10 (G flat major).
Only the right hand plays throughout on black keys.]
In conclusion, I have nothing more to write, except to wish
you good luck in the new house. Hide my manuscripts, that they
may not appear printed before the time. If the Prelude is
printed, that is Pleyel's trick. But I do not care.
Mischievous Germans, rascally Jews...! Finish the litany, for
you know them as well as I do.
Give my love to Johnnie and Grzymaia if you see them.--Your
FREDERICK.
One subject mentioned in this letter deserves a fuller explanation than
Chopin vouchsafes. Adolphe Nourrit, the celebrated tenor singer, had in
a state of despondency, caused by the idea that since the appearance of
his rival Duprez his popularity was on the wane, put an end to his life
by throwing himself out of a window at Naples on the 8th of March, 1839.
[FOOTNOTE: This is the generally-accepted account of Nourrit's death.
But Madame Garcia, the mother of the famous Malibran, who at the time
was staying in the same house, thought it might have been an accident,
the unfortuante artist having in the dark opened a window on a level
with the floor instead of a door. (See Fetis: Biographie universelle des
Musiciens.)] Madame Nourrit brought her husband's body to Paris, and it
was on the way thither that a funeral service was held at Marseilles for
the much-lamented man and singer.
Le Sud, Journal de la Mediterranee of April 25, 1839, [FOOTNOTE: Quoted
in L. M. Quicherat's Adolphe Nourrit, sa vie, son talent, son caractere]
shall tell us of Chopin's part in this service:--
At the Elevation of the Host were heard the melancholy tones
of the organ. It was M. Chopin, the celebrated pianist, who
came to place a souvenir on the coffin of Nourrit; and what a
souvenir! a simple melody of Schubert, but the same which had
so filled us with enthusiasm when Nourrit revealed it to us at
Marseilles--the melody of Les Astres. [FOOTNOTE: Die gestirne
is the original German title of this song.]
A less colourless account, one full of interesting facts and free from
conventional newspaper sentiment and enthusiasm, we find in a letter of
Chopin's companion.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, April 28, 1839:--
The day before yesterday I saw Madame Nourrit with her six
children, and the seventh coming shortly...Poor unfortunate
woman! what a return to France! accompanying this corpse, and
she herself super-intending the packing, transporting, and
unpacking [charger, voiturer, deballer] of it like a parcel!
They held here a very meagre service for the poor deceased,
the bishop being ill-disposed. This was in the little church
of Notre-Dame-du-Mont. I do not know if the singers did so
intentionally, but I never heard such false singing. Chopin
devoted himself to playing the organ at the Elevation, what an
organ! A false, screaming instrument, which had no wind except
for the purpose of being out of tune. Nevertheless, YOUR
LITTLE ONE [votre petit] made the most of it. He took the
least shrill stops, and played Les Astres, not in a proud and
enthusiastic style as Nourrit used to sing it, but in a
plaintive and soft style, like the far-off echo from another
world. Two, at the most three, were there who deeply felt
this, and our eyes filled with tears.
The rest of the audience, who had gone there en masse, and had
been led by curiosity to pay as much as fifty centimes for a
chair (an unheard-of price for Marseilles), were very much
disappointed; for it was expected that he would make a
tremendous noise and break at least two or three stops. They
expected also to see me, in full dress, in the very middle of
the choir; what not? They did not see me at all; I was hidden
in the organ-loft, and through the balustrade I descried the
coffin of poor Nourrit.
Thanks to the revivifying influences of spring and Dr. Cauviere's
attention and happy treatment, Chopin was able to accompany George Sand
on a trip to Genoa, that vaga gemma del mar, fior delta terra. It gave
George Sand much pleasure to see again, now with her son Maurice by her
side, the beautiful edifices and pictures of the city which six years
before she had visited with Musset. Chopin was probably not strong
enough to join his friends in all their sight-seeing, but if he saw
Genoa as it presents itself on being approached from the sea, passed
along the Via Nuova between the double row of magnificent palaces, and
viewed from the cupola of S. Maria in Carignano the city, its port, the
sea beyond, and the stretches of the Riviera di Levante and Riviera di
Ponente, he did not travel to Italy in vain. Thus Chopin got at last a
glimpse of the land where nine years before he had contemplated taking
up his abode for some time.
On returning to Marseilles, after a stormy passage, on which Chopin
suffered much from sea-sickness, George Sand and her party rested for a
few days at the house of Dr. Cauviere, and then set out, on the 22nd of
May, for Nohant.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Marseilles, May 20, 1839:--
We have just arrived from Genoa, in a terrible storm. The bad
weather kept us on sea double the ordinary time; forty hours
of rolling such as I have not seen for a long time. It was a
fine spectacle, and if everybody had not been ill, I would
have greatly enjoyed it...
We shall depart the day after to-morrow for Nohant. Address
your next letter to me there, we shall be there in eight days.
My carriage has arrived from Chalon at Arles by boat, and we
shall post home very quietly, sleeping at the inns like good
bourgeois.
CHAPTER XXIII.
JUNE TO OCTOBER, 1839.
GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN'S RETURN TO NOHANT.--STATE OF HIS HEALTH.--HIS
POSITION IN HIS FRIEND'S HOUSE.--HER ACCOUNT OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP.--HIS
LETTERS TO FONTANA, WHICH, AMONG MANY OTHER MATTERS, TREAT OF HIS
COMPOSITIONS AND OF PREPARATIONS TO BE MADE FOR HIS AND GEORGE SAND'S
ARRIVAL IN PARIS.
The date of one of George Sand's letters shows that the travellers were
settled again at Nohant on the 3rd of June, 1839. Dr. Papet, a rich
friend of George Sand's, who practised his art only for the benefit of
the poor and his friends, took the convalescent Chopin at once under
his care. He declared that his patient showed no longer any symptoms
of pulmonary affection, but was suffering merely from a slight chronic
laryngeal affection which, although he did not expect to be able to cure
it, need not cause any serious alarm.
On returning to Nohant, George Sand had her mind much exercised by the
question how to teach her children. She resolved to undertake the task
herself, but found she was not suited for it, at any rate, could not
acquit herself of it satisfactorily without giving up writing. This
question, however, was not the only one that troubled her.
In the irresolution in which I was for a time regarding the
arrangement of my life with a view to what would be best for
my dear children, a serious question was debated in my
conscience. I asked myself if I ought to entertain the idea
which Chopin had formed of taking up his abode near me. I
should not have hesitated to say "no," had I known then for
how short a time the retired life and the solemnity of the
country suited his moral and physical health. I still
attributed his despair and horror of Majorca to the excitement
of fever and the exces de caractere of that place. Nohant
offered pleasanter conditions, a less austere retreat,
congenial society, and resources in case of illness. Papet was
to him an enlightened and kind physician. Fleury, Duteil,
Duvernet, and their families, Planet, and especially Rollinat,
were dear to him at first sight. All of them loved him also,
and felt disposed to spoil him as I did.
Among those with whom the family at Nohant had much intercourse, and
who were frequent guests at the chateau, was also an old acquaintance
of ours, one who had not grown in wisdom as in age, I mean George Sand's
half-brother, Hippolyte Chatiron, who was now again living in Berry,
his wife having inherited the estate of Montgivray, situated only half a
league from Nohant.
His warmth of manner, his inexhaustible gaiety, the
originality of his sallies, his enthusiastic and naive
effusions of admiration for the genius of Chopin, the always
respectful deference which he showed to him alone, even in the
inevitable and terrible apres-boire, found favour with the
eminently-aristocratic artist. All, then, went very well at
first, and I entertained eventually the idea that Chopin might
rest and regain his health by spending a few summers with us,
his work necessarily calling him back to Paris in the winter.
However, the prospect of this kind of family union with a
newly-made friend caused me to reflect. I felt alarmed at the
task which I was about to undertake, and which I had believed
would be limited to the journey in Spain.
In short, George Sand presents herself as a sister of mercy, who,
prompted by charity, sacrifices her own happiness for that of another.
Contemplating the possibility of her son falling ill and herself being
thereby deprived of the joys of her work, she exclaims: "What hours
of my calm and invigorating life should I be able to devote to another
patient, much more difficult to nurse and comfort than Maurice?"
The discussion of this matter by George Sand is so characteristic of her
that, lengthy as it is, I cannot refrain from giving it in full.
A kind of terror seized me in presence of a new duty which I
was to take upon me. I was not under the illusion of passion.
I had for the artist a kind of maternal adoration which was
very warm, very real, but which could not for a moment contend
with maternal love, the only chaste feeling which may be
passionate.
I was still young enough to have perhaps to contend with love,
with passion properly so called. This contingency of my age,
of my situation, and of the destiny of artistic women,
especially when they have a horror of passing diversions,
alarmed me much, and, resolved as I was never to submit to any
influence which might divert me from my children, I saw a
less, but still possible danger in the tender friendship with
which Chopin inspired me.
Well, after reflection, this danger disappeared and even
assumed an opposite character--that of a preservative against
emotions which I no longer wished to know. One duty more in my
life, already so full of and so overburdened with work,
appeared to me one chance more to attain the austerity towards
which I felt myself attracted with a kind of religious
enthusiasm.
If this is a sincere confession, we can only wonder at the height of
self-deception attainable by the human mind; if, however, it is meant
as a justification, we cannot but be surprised at the want of skill
displayed by the generally so clever advocate. In fact, George Sand has
in no instance been less happy in defending her conduct and in setting
forth her immaculate virtuousness. The great words "chastity" and
"maternity" are of course not absent. George Sand could as little leave
off using them as some people can leave off using oaths. In either case
the words imply much more than is intended by those from whose mouths or
pens they come. A chaste woman speculating on "real love" and "passing
diversions," as George Sand does here, seems to me a strange phenomenon.
And how charmingly naive is the remark she makes regarding her relations
with Chopin as a "PRESERVATIVE against emotions which she no longer
wished to know"! I am afraid the concluding sentence, which in its
unction is worthy of Pecksniff, and where she exhibits herself as an
ascetic and martyr in all the radiance of saintliness, will not have the
desired effect, but will make the reader laugh as loud as Musset is said
to have done when she upbraided him with his ungratefulness to her, who
had been devoted to him to the utmost bounds of self-abnegation, to
the sacrifice of her noblest impulses, to the degradation of her chaste
nature.
George Sand, looking back in later years on this period of her life,
thought that if she had put into execution her project of becoming the
teacher of her children, and of shutting herself up all the year round
at Nohant, she would have saved Chopin from the danger which, unknown
to her, threatened him--namely, the danger of attaching himself too
absolutely to her. At that time, she says, his love was not so great but
that absence would have diverted him from it. Nor did she consider his
affection exclusive. In fact, she had no doubt that the six months which
his profession obliged him to pass every year in Paris would, "after a
few days of malaise and tears," have given him back to "his habits of
elegance, exquisite success, and intellectual coquetry." The correctness
of the facts and the probability of the supposition may be doubted. At
any rate, the reasons which led her to assume the non-exclusiveness
of Chopin's affection are simply childish. That he spoke to her of a
romantic love-affair he had had in Poland, and of sweet attractions he
had afterwards experienced in Paris, proves nothing. What she says about
his mother having been his only passion is still less to the point. But
reasoning avails little, and the strength of Chopin's love was not put
to the test. He went, indeed, in the autumn of 1839 to Paris, but
not alone; George Sand, professedly for the sake of her children's
education, went there likewise. "We were driven by fate," she says,
"into the bonds of a long connection, and both of us entered into it
unawares." The words "driven by fate," and "entered into it unawares,"
sound strange, if we remember that they apply not to a young girl who,
inexperienced and confiding, had lost herself in the mazes of life,
but to a novelist skilled in the reading of human hearts, to a
constantly-reasoning and calculating woman, aged 35, who had better
reasons than poor Amelia in Schiller's play for saying "I have lived and
loved."
After all this reasoning, moralising, and sentimentalising, it is
pleasant to be once more face to face with facts, of which the following
letters, written by Chopin to Fontana during the months from June to
October, 1839, contain a goodly number. The rather monotonous publishing
transactions play here and there again a prominent part, but these
Nohant letters are on the whole more interesting than the Majorca
letters, and decidedly more varied as regards contents than those he
wrote from Marseilles--they tell us much more of the writer's tastes and
requirements, and even reveal something of his relationship to George
Sand. Chopin, it appears to me, did not take exactly the same view of
this relationship as the novelist. What will be read with most interest
are Chopin's directions as to the decoration and furnishing of his
rooms, the engagement of a valet, the ordering of clothes and a hat, the
taking of a house for George Sand, and certain remarks made en passant
on composers and other less-known people.
[I.]
...The best part of your letter is your address, which I had
already forgotten, and without which I do not know if I would
have answered you so soon; but the worst is the death of
Albrecht. [FOOTNOTE: See p.27 foot-note 7.]
You wish to know when I shall be back. When the misty and
rainy weather begins, for I must breathe fresh air.
Johnnie has left. I don't know if he asked you to forward to
me the letters from my parents should any arrive during his
absence and be sent to his usual address. Perhaps he thought
of it, perhaps not. I should be very sorry if any of them
miscarried. It is not long since I had a letter from home,
they will not write soon, and by this time he, who is so kind
and good, will be in good health and return.
I am composing here a Sonata in B flat minor, in which will be
the Funeral March which you have already. There is an allegro,
then a "Scherzo" in E flat minor, the "March," and a short
"Finale" of about three pages. The left hand unisono with the
right hand are gossiping [FOOTNOTE: "Lewa reka unisono z
prawa, ogaduja po Marszu."] after the March. I have a new
"Nocturne" in G major, which will go along with the Nocturne
in G minor, [FOOTNOTE: "Deux Nocturnes," Op.37.] if you
remember such a one.
You know that I have four new mazurkas: one from Palma in E
minor, three from here in B major, A flat major, and C sharp
minor. [FOOTNOTE: Quatre mazurkas, Op. 41.] They seem to me
pretty, as the youngest children usually do when the parents
grow old.
Otherwise I do nothing; I correct for myself the Parisian
edition of Bach; not only the stroke-makers' [FOOTNOTE: In
Polish strycharz, the usual meaning of which is "brickmaker."
Chopin may have played upon the word. A mistake, however, is
likewise possible, as the Polish for engraver is sztycharz.]
(engravers') errors, but, I think, the harmonic errors
committed by those who pretend to understand Bach. I do not do
it with the pretension that I understand him better than they,
but from a conviction that I sometimes guess how it ought to
be.
You see I have praised myself enough to you.
Now, if Grzymata will visit me (which is doubtful), send me
through him Weber for four hands. Also the last of my Ballade
in manuscript, as I wish to change something in it. I should
like very much to have your copy of the last mazurkas, if you
have such a thing, for I do not know if my gallantry went so
far as to give you a copy.
Pleyel wrote to me that you were very obliging, and have
corrected the Preludes. Do you know how much Wessel paid him
for them? It would be well to know this for the future.
My father has written to me that my old sonata has been
published by Haslinger, and that the Germans praise it.
[FOOTNOTE: There must have been some misunderstanding; the
Sonata, Op. 4, was not published till 1851.]
I have now, counting those you have, six manuscripts; the
devil take them if they get them for nothing. Pleyel did not
do me any service with his offers, for he thereby made
Schlesinger indifferent about me. But I hope this will be set
right, f wrote to ask him to let me know if he had been paid
for the piano sent to Palma, and I did so because the French
consul in Majorca, whom I know very well, was to be changed,
and had he not been paid, it would have been very difficult
for me to settle this affair at such a distance. Fortunately,
he is paid, and very liberally, as he wrote to me only last
week.
Write to me what sort of lodgings you have. Do you board at
the club?
Woyciechowski wrote to me to compose an oratorio. I answered
him in the letter to my parents. Why does he build a sugar-
refinery and not a monastery of Camaldolites or a nunnery of
Dominican sisters!
[2.]
I give you my most hearty thanks for your upright, friendly,
not English but Polish soul.
Select paper (wall-paper) such as I had formerly, tourterelle
(dove colour), only bright and glossy, for the two rooms, also
dark green with not too broad stripes. For the anteroom
something else, but still respectable. Nevertheless, if there
are any nicer and more fashionable papers that are to your
liking, and you think that I also will like them, then take
them. I prefer the plain, unpretending, and neat ones to the
common shopkeeper's staring colours. Therefore, pearl colour
pleases me, for it is neither loud nor does it look vulgar. I
thank you for the servant's room, for it is much needed.
Now, as to the furniture: you will make the best of it if you
look to it yourself. I did not dare to trouble you with it,
but if you will be so kind, take it and arrange it as it ought
to be. I shall ask Grzymala to give money for the removal. I
shall write to him about it at once. As to the bed and writing-
desk, it may be necessary to give them to the cabinet-maker to
be renewed. In this case you will take the papers out of the
writing-desk, and lock them up somewhere else. I need not tell
you what you ought to do. Act as you like and judge what is
necessary. Whatever you may do will be well done. You have my
full confidence: this is one thing.
Now the second.
You must write to Wessel--doubtless you have already written
about the Preludes. Let him know that I have six new
manuscripts, for which I want 300 francs each (how many pounds
is that?). If you think he would not give so much, let me know
first. Inform me also if Probst is in Paris. Further look out
for a servant. I should prefer a respectable honest Pole. Tell
also Grzymala of it. Stipulate that he is to board himself; no
more than 80 francs. I shall not be in Paris before the end of
October--keep this, however, to yourself.
My dear friend, the state of Johnnie's health weighs sometimes
strangely on my heart. May God give him what he stands in need
of, but he should not allow himself to be cheated...However,
this is neither here nor there. The greatest truth in the
world is that I shall always love you as a most honest and
kind man and Johnnie as another.
I embrace you both, write each of you and soon, were it of
nothing more than the weather.--Your old more than ever long-
nosed
FREDERICK.
[3.]
According to your description and that of Grzymala you have
found such capital rooms that we are now thinking you have a
lucky hand, and for this reason a man--and he is a great man,
being the portier of George's house--who will run about to
find a house for her, is ordered to apply to you when he has
found a few; and you with your elegant tact (you see how I
flatter you) will also examine what he has found, and give
your opinion thereon. The main point is that it should be
detached, if possible; for instance, a little hotel. Or
something in a courtyard, with a view into a garden, or, if
there be no garden, into a large court-yard; nota bene, very
few lodgers--elegant--not higher than the second story.
Perhaps some corps de logis, but small, or something like
Perthuis's house, or even smaller. Lastly, should it be in
front, the street must not be noisy. In one word, something
you judge would be good for her. If it could be near me, so
much the better; but if it cannot be, this consideration need
not prevent you.
It seems to me that a little hotel in the new streets--such as
Clichy, Blanche, or Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as far as Rue des
Martyrs--would be most suitable. Moreover, I send you a list
of the streets where Mr. Mardelle--the portier of the Hotel
Narbonne, Rue de la Harpe, No. 89, which belongs to George--
will look for a house. If in your leisure time you also looked
out for something in our part of the town, it would be very
nice. Fancy, I don't know why, but we think that you will find
something wonderfully good, although it is already late.
The price she wishes to pay is from 2,000 to 2,500 francs, you
might also give a couple of hundred francs more if anything
extra fine should turn up. Grzymala and Arago promised to look
out for something, but in spite of Grzymala's efforts nothing
acceptable has thus far been found. I have written to him that
he should employ you also in this business of mine (I say of
MINE, for it is just the same as if it were mine). I shall
write to him again to-day and tell him that I have asked you
to give your help and use all your talents. It is necessary
that there should be three bedrooms, two of which must be
beside each other and one separated, for instance, by the
drawing-room. Adjoining the third there will be required a
well-lighted cabinet for her study. The other two may be
small, this one, the third, also not very large. Besides this
a drawing-room and dining-room in proportion. A pretty large
kitchen. Two rooms for the servants, and a coal-cellar. The
rooms must of course have inlaid floors, be newly laid, if
possible, and require no repairs. But a little hotel or a
separate part of a house in a court-yard looking into a garden
would be most desirable. There must be tranquillity,
quietness, no blacksmith in the neighbourhood. Respectable
stairs. The windows exposed to the sun, absolutely to the
south. Further, there must be no smoke, no bad odour, but a
fine view, a garden, or at least a large court. A garden would
be best. In the Faubourg St. Germain are many gardens, also in
the Faubourg St. Honore. Find something quickly, something
splendid, and near me. As soon as you have any chance, write
immediately, don't be lazy; or get hold of Grzymala, go and
see, both of you, take et que cela finisse. I send you a plan
of the arrangement of the apartments. If you find something
like this, draw the plan, or take it at once, which will be
better than letting it slip out of your hands.
Mr. Mardelle is a decent man, and no fool, he was not always a
portier. He is ordered to go and see you whenever he finds
anything. You must also on your part be on the look-out, but
let us keep that between us. I embrace you and Johnnie also.
You will have our true gratitude when you find a house.
[a diagram of the apartments is inserted here in the letter.]
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| | | | | |
| Study | Bedroom. | Drawing room. | Bedroom. | Servants room. |
| | | | | |
|----------------------------------------------------------------|
| | | |
| | Dining room | |
| | | |
|----------------------------------------------------------------|
| | | |
| | Lobby | |
| | | |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Pas de voisinage, surtout blacksmith, nor anything that
belongs to him. For God's sake I beg of you take an active
interest in the matter, my dear friend!
[4.]
I thank you for all your kind actions.
In the anteroom you will direct the grey curtains to be hung
which were in my cabinet with the piano, and in the bedroom
the same that were in the bedroom, only under them the white
muslin ones which were under the grey ones.
I should like to have a little press in my bedroom, unless
there be not room enough, or the drawing-room be too bare
between the windows.
If the little sofa, the same which stood in the dining-room,
could be covered with red, with the same stuff with which the
chairs are covered, it might be placed in the drawing-room;
but as it would be necessary to call in the upholsterer for
that, it may be difficult.
It is a good thing that Domaradzki is going to be married, for
surely he will give me back the 80 francs after the wedding. I
should like also to see Podczaski married, and Nakw.
(Nakwaska), and Anthony also. Let this remain between this
paper, myself, and you.
Find me a valet. Kiss Madame Leo (surely the first commission
will be the more pleasant to you, wherefore I relieve you of
the second if you will do the first).
Let me know about Probst, whether he is in Paris or not. Do
not forget Wessel. Tell Gutmann that I was much pleased that
he asked for me at least once. To Moscheles, should he be in
Paris, order to be given an injection of Neukomm's oratorios,
prepared with Berlioz's "Cellini" and Doehler's Concerto. Give
Johnnie from me for his breakfast moustaches of sphinxes and
kidneys of parrots, with tomato sauce powdered with little
eggs of the microscopic world. You yourself take a bath in
whale's infusion as a rest from all the commissions I give
you, for I know that you will do willingly as much as time
will permit, and I shall do the same for you when you are
married--of which Johnnie will very likely inform me soon.
Only not to Ox, for that is my party.
[5.]
My dear friend,--In five, six, or seven days I shall be in
Paris. Get things prepared as quickly as possible; if not all,
let me find at least the rooms papered and the bed ready.
I am hastening my arrival as the presence of George Sand is
necessary on account of a piece to be played. [FOOTNOTE:
"Cosima." The first representation, at the Comedie Francaise,
did not take place until April, 1840.] But this remains
between us. We have fixed our departure for the day after to-
morrow; thus, counting a few days for delay, we shall see each
other on Wednesday or Thursday.
Besides the different commissions I gave you, especially that
in the last letter about her house, which after our arrival
will be off your shoulders--but till then, for God's sake, be
obliging--besides all this, I say, I forgot to ask you to
order for me a hat from my Duport in your street, Chaussee
d'Antin. He has my measure, and knows how light I want it and
of what kind. Let him give the hat of this year's shape, not
too much exaggerated, for I do not know how you are dressing
yourself just now. Again, besides this, call in passing at
Dautremont's, my tailor's, on the Boulevards, and order him to
make me at once a pair of grey trousers. You will yourself
select a dark-grey colour for winter trousers; something
respectable, not striped, but plain and elastic. You are an
Englishman, so you know what I require. Dautremont will be
glad to hear that I am coming. Also a quiet black velvet
waistcoat, but with very little and no loud pattern, something
very quiet but very elegant. Should he not have the best
velvet of this kind, let him make a quiet, fine silk
waistcoat, but not too much open. If the servant could be got
for less than 80 francs, I should prefer it; but as you have
already found one, let the matter rest.
My very dear friend, pardon me once more for troubling you,
but I must. In a few days we shall see each other, and embrace
for all this.
I beg of you, for God's sake, do not say to any Poles that I
am coming so soon, nor to any Jewess either, as I should like
to reserve myself during the first few days only for you,
Grzymala, and Johnnie. Give them my love; to the latter I
shall write once more.
I expect that the rooms will be ready. Write constantly to me,
three times a day if you like, whether you have anything to
say or not. Before leaving here I shall once more write to
you.
Monday.
You are inappreciable! Take Rue Pigal [Pigalle], both houses,
without asking anybody. Make haste. If by taking both houses
you can diminish a little the price, well; if not, take them
for 2,500 francs. Do not let them slip out of your hands, for
we think them the best and most excellent. SHE regards you as
my most logical and best--and I would add: the most splenetic,
Anglo-Polish, from my soul beloved--friend.
[6.]
The day after to-morrow, Thursday, at five o'clock in the
morning, we start, and on Friday at three, four, certainly at
five o'clock, I shall be in Rue Tronchet, No. 5. I beg of you
to inform the people there of this, I wrote to Johnnie to-day
to retain for me that valet, and order him to wait for me at
Rue Tronchet on Friday from noon. Should you have time to call
upon me at that time, we would most heartily embrace each
other. Once more my and my companion's most sincere thanks for
Rue Pigalle.
Now, keep a sharp look-out on the tailor, he must have the
clothes ready by Friday morning, so that I can change my
clothes as soon as I come. Order him to take them to Rue
Tronchet, and deliver them there to the valet Tineau--if I
mistake not, that is his name. Likewise the hat from Dupont,
[FOOTNOTE: In the preceding letter it was Duport] and for that
I shall alter for you the second part of the Polonaise till
the last moment of my life. Yesterday's version also may not
please you, although I racked my brains with it for at least
eighty seconds.
I have written out my manuscripts in good order. There are six
with your Polonaises, not counting the seventh, an impromptu,
which may perhaps be worthless--I do not know myself, it is
too new. But it would be well if it be not too much in the
style of Orlowski, Zimmermann, or Karsko-Konski, [FOOTNOTE:
Chopin's countryman, the pianist and composer Antoine Kontski]
or Sowinski, or other similar animals. For, according to my
reckoning, it might fetch me about 800 francs. That will be
seen afterwards.
As you are such a clever man, you might also arrange that no
black thoughts and suffocating coughs shall annoy me in the
new rooms. Try to make me good. Change, if you can, many
episodes of my past. It would also not be a bad thing if I
should find a few years of great work accomplished. By this
you will greatly oblige me, also if you would make yourself
younger or bring about that we had never been born.--Your old
FREDERICK.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1839-1842.
RETURN OF GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN TO PARIS.--GEORGE SAND IN THE RUE
PIGALLE.--CHOPIN IN THE RUE TRONCHET: REMINISCENCES OF BRINLEY RICHARDS
AND MOSCHELES.--SOIREES AT LEO'S AND ST. CLOUD.--CHOPIN JOINS MADAME
SAND IN THE RUE PIGALLE.--EXTRACTS FROM GEORGE SAND'S CORRESPONDANCE;
A LETTER OF MADAME SAND'S TO CHOPIN; BALZAC ANECDOTES.--MADAME SAND AND
CHOPIN DO NOT GO TO NOHANT IN 1840.--COMPOSITIONS OF THIS PERIOD.--ABOUT
CHOPIN AS A PIANIST.--LETTERS WRITTEN TO FONTANA IN THE SUMMER AND
AUTUMN OF 1841.
Although Chopin and George Sand came to Paris towards the end of
October, 1839, months passed before the latter got into the house which
Fontana had taken for her. This we learn from a letter written by her
to her friend Gustave Papet, and dated Paris, January, 1840, wherein we
read:--
At last I am installed in the Rue Pigalle, 16, only since the
last two days, after having fumed, raged, stormed, and sworn
at the upholsterers, locksmith, &c., &c. What a long,
horrible, unbearable business it is to lodge one's self here!
[FOOTNOTE: In the letter, dated Paris, October, 1839,
preceding, in the George Sand "Correspondance," the one from
which the above passage is extracted, occur the following
words: "Je suis enfin installee chez moi a Paris." Where this
chez moi was, I do not know.]
How greatly the interiors of George Sand's pavilions in the Rue
Pigalle differed from those of Senor Gomez's villa and the cells in the
monastery of Valdemosa, may be gathered from Gutmann's description of
two of the apartments.
[FOOTNOTE: I do not guarantee the correctness of all the following
details, although I found them in a sketch of Gutmann's life inspired by
himself ("Der Lieblings-schuler Chopin's", No. 3 of "Schone Geister,"
by Bernhard Stavenow, Bremen, 1879), and which he assured me was
trustworthy. The reasons of my scepticism are--1, Gutmann's imaginative
memory and tendency to show himself off to advantage; 2, Stavenow's love
of fine writing and a good story; 3, innumerable misstatements that can
be indisputably proved by documents.]
Regarding the small salon, he gives only the general information that it
was quaintly fitted up with antique furniture. But of George Sand's
own room, which made a deeper impression upon him, he mentions so many
particulars--the brown carpet covering the whole floor, the walls hung
with a dark-brown ribbed cloth (Ripsstoff), the fine paintings, the
carved furniture of dark oak, the brown velvet seats of the chairs, the
large square bed, rising but little above the floor, and covered with
a Persian rug (Teppich)--that it is easy to picture to ourselves the
tout-ensemble of its appearance. Gutmann tells us that he had an early
opportunity of making these observations, for Chopin visited his pupil
the very day after his arrival (?), and invited him at once to call on
George Sand in order to be introduced to her. When Gutmann presented
himself in the small salon above alluded to, he found George Sand seated
on an ottoman smoking a cigarette. She received the young man with great
cordiality, telling him that his master had often spoken to her of him
most lovingly. Chopin entered soon after from an adjoining apartment,
and then they all went into the dining-room to have dinner. When they
were seated again in the cosy salon, and George Sand had lit another
cigarette, the conversation, which had touched on a variety of topics,
among the rest on Majorca, turned on art. It was then that the authoress
said to her friend: "Chop, Chop, show Gutmann my room that he may see
the pictures which Eugene Delacroix painted for me."
Chopin on arriving in Paris had taken up his lodgings in the Rue
Tronchet, No. 5, and resumed teaching. One of his pupils there was
Brinley Richards, who practised under him one of the books of studies.
Chopin also assisted the British musician in the publication, by
Troupenas, of his first composition, having previously looked over
and corrected it. Brinley Richards informed me that Chopin, who played
rarely in these lessons, making his corrections and suggestions rather
by word of mouth than by example, was very languid, indeed so much so
that he looked as if he felt inclined to lie down, and seemed to say: "I
wish you would come another time."
About this time, that is in the autumn or early in the winter of 1839,
Moscheles came to Paris. We learn from his diary that at Leo's, where
he liked best to play, he met for the first time Chopin, who had just
returned from the country, and whose acquaintance he was impatient
to make. I have already quoted what Moscheles said of Chopin's
appearance--namely, that it was exactly like [identificirt mit] his
music, both being delicate and dreamy [schwarmerisch]. His remarks on
his great contemporary's musical performances are, of course, still more
interesting to us.
He played to me at my request, and now for the first time I
understand his music, and can also explain to myself the
enthusiasm of the ladies. His ad libitum playing, which with
the interpreters of his music degenerates into disregard of
time, is with him only the most charming originality of
execution; the dilettantish harsh modulations which strike me
disagreeably when I am playing his compositions no longer
shock me, because he glides lightly over them in a fairy-like
way with his delicate fingers; his piano is so softly breathed
forth that he does not need any strong forte in order to
produce the wished-for contrasts; it is for this reason that
one does not miss the orchestral-like effects which the German
school demands from a pianoforte-player, but allows one's self
to be carried away, as by a singer who, little concerned about
the accompaniment, entirely follows his feeling. In short, he
is an unicum in the world of pianists. He declares that he
loves my music very much, and at all events he knows it very
well. He played me some studies and his latest work, the
"Preludes," and I played him many of my compositions.
In addition to this characterisation of the artist Chopin, Moscheles'
notes afford us also some glimpses of the man. "Chopin was lively,
merry, nay, exceedingly comical in his imitations of Pixis, Liszt, and a
hunchbacked pianoforte-player." Some days afterwards, when Moscheles saw
him at his own house, he found him an altogether different Chopin:--
I called on him according to agreement with Ch. and E., who
are also quite enthusiastic about him, and who were
particularly struck with the "Prelude" in A flat major in 6/8
time with the ever-recurring pedal A flat. Only the Countess
O. [Obreskoff] from St. Petersburg, who adores us artists en
bloc, was there, and some gentlemen. Chopin's excellent pupil
Gutmann played his master's manuscript Scherzo in C sharp
minor. Chopin himself played his manuscript Sonata in B flat
minor with the Funeral March.
Gutmann relates that Chopin sent for him early in the morning of the
day following that on which he paid the above-mentioned visit to George
Sand, and said to him:--
Pardon me for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I
have just received a note from Moscheles, wherein he expresses
his joy at my return to Paris, and announces that he will
visit me at five in the afternoon to hear my new compositions.
Now I am unfortunately too weak to play my things to him; so
you must play. I am chiefly concerned about this Scherzo.
Gutmann, who did not yet know the work (Op. 39), thereupon sat down at
Chopin's piano, and by dint of hard practising managed to play it at
the appointed hour from memory, and to the satisfaction of the composer.
Gutmann's account does not tally in several of its details with
Moscheles'. As, however, Moscheles does not give us reminiscences, but
sober, business-like notes taken down at the time they refer to, and
without any attempt at making a nice story, he is the safer authority.
Still, thus much at least we may assume to be certain:--Gutmann played
the Scherzo, Op. 39, on this occasion, and his rendering of it was such
as to induce his master to dedicate it to him.
Comte de Perthuis, the adjutant of King Louis Philippe, who had heard
Chopin and Moscheles repeatedly play the latter's Sonata in E flat major
for four hands, spoke so much and so enthusiastically about it at Court
that the royal family, wishing "to have also the great treat," invited
the two artists to come to St. Cloud. The day after this soiree
Moscheles wrote in his diary:--
Yesterday was a memorable day... at nine o'clock Chopin and I,
with Perthuis and his amiable wife, who had called for us,
drove out to St. Cloud in the heaviest showers of rain, and
felt so much the more comfortable when we entered the
brilliant, well-lighted palace. We passed through many state-
rooms into a salon carre, where the royal family was assembled
en petit comite. At a round table sat the queen with an
elegant work-basket before her (perhaps to embroider a purse
for me?); near her were Madame Adelaide, the Duchess of
Orleans, and ladies-in-waiting. The noble ladies were as
affable as if we had been old acquaintances...Chopin played
first a number of nocturnes and studies, and was admired and
petted like a favourite. After I also had played some old and
new studies, and been honoured with the same applause, we
seated ourselves together at the instrument--he again playing
the bass, which he always insists on doing. The close
attention of the little circle during my E flat major Sonata
was interrupted only by the exclamations "divine!"
"delicious!" After the Andante the queen whispered to a lady-
in-waiting: "Would it not be indiscreet to ask them to play it
again?" which naturally was equivalent to a command to repeat
it, and so we played it again with increased abandon. In the
Finale we gave ourselves up to a musical delirium. Chopin's
enthusiasm throughout the whole piece must, I believe, have
infected the auditors, who now burst forth into eulogies of
us. Chopin played again alone with the same charm, and called
forth the same sympathy as before; then I improvised...
[FOOTNOTE: In the "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik" of November 12,
1839, we read that Chopin improvised on Grisar's "La Folle,"
Moscheles on themes by Mozart. La Folle is a romance the
success of which was so great that a wit called it une folie
de salon. It had for some years an extraordinary popularity,
and made the composer a reputation.]
To show his gratitude, the king sent the two artists valuable presents:
to Chopin a gold cup and saucer, to Moscheles a travelling case. "The
king," remarked Chopin, "gave Moscheles a travelling case to get the
sooner rid of him." The composer was fond of and had a talent for
throwing off sharp and witty sayings; but it is most probable that on
this occasion the words were prompted solely by the fancy, and that
their ill-nature was only apparent. Or must we assume that the man
Moscheles was less congenial to Chopin than the artist? Moscheles was a
Jew, and Chopin disliked the Jews. As, however, the tempting opportunity
afforded by the nature of the king's present to Moscheles is sufficient
to account for Chopin's remark, and no proofs warranting a less
creditable explanation are forthcoming, it would be unfair to listen to
the suggestions of suspicion.
George Sand tells us in the "Histoire de ma Vie" that Chopin found his
rooms in the Rue Tronchet cold and damp, and felt sorely the separation
from her. The consequence of this was that the saintly woman, the sister
of mercy, took, after some time, pity upon her suffering worshipper, and
once more sacrificed herself. Not to misrepresent her account, the only
one we have, of this change in the domestic arrangements of the
two friends, I shall faithfully transcribe her delicately-worded
statements:--
He again began to cough alarmingly, and I saw myself forced
either to give in my resignation as nurse, or to pass my life
in impossible journeyings to and fro. He, in order to spare me
these, came every day to tell me with a troubled face and a
feeble voice that he was wonderfully well. He asked if he
might dine with us, and he went away in the evening, shivering
in his cab. Seeing how he took to heart his exclusion from our
family life, I offered to let to him one of the pavilions, a
part of which I could give up to him. He joyfully accepted. He
had there his room, received there his friends, and gave there
his lessons without incommoding me. Maurice had the room above
his; I occupied the other pavilion with my daughter.
Let us see if we cannot get some glimpses of the life in the pavilions
of the Rue Pigalle, No. 16. In the first months of 1840, George Sand was
busy with preparations for the performance of her drama Cosima, moving
heaven and earth to bring about the admission of her friend Madame
Dorval into the company of the Theatre-Francais, where her piece,
in which she wished this lady to take the principal part, was to be
performed. Her son Maurice passed his days in the studio of Eugene
Delacroix; and Solange gave much time to her lessons, and lost much over
her toilet. Of Grzymala we hear that he is always in love with all the
beautiful women, and rolls his big eyes at the tall Borgnotte and the
little Jacqueline; and that Madame Marliani is always up to her ears in
philosophy. This I gathered from George Sand's Correspondance, where, as
the reader will see presently, more is to be found.
George Sand to Chopin; Cambrai, August 13, 1840:--
I arrived at noon very tired, for it is 45 and 35 leagues from
Paris to this place. We shall relate to you good stories of
the bourgeois of Cambrai. They are beaux, they are stupid,
they are shopkeepers; they are the sublime of the genre. If
the Historical Procession does not console us, we are capable
of dying of ennui at the politeness which people show us. We
are lodged like princes. But what hosts, what conversations,
what dinners! We laugh at them when we are by ourselves, but
when we are before the enemy, what a pitiable figure we
selves, make! I am no longer desirous to see you come; but I
aspire to depart very quickly, and I understand why you do not
wish to give concerts. It is not unlikely that Pauline Viardot
may not sing the day after to-morrow, for want of a hall. We
shall, perhaps, leave a day sooner. I wish I were already far
away from the Cambresians, male and female.
Good night! I am going to bed, I am overcome with fatigue.
Love your old woman [votre vieille] as she loves you.
From a letter written two days later to her son, we learn that Madame
Viardot after all gave two concerts at Cambrai. But amusing as the
letter is, we will pass it over as not concerning us here. Of another
letter (September 20,1840), likewise addressed to her son, I shall quote
only one passage, although it contains much interesting matter about the
friends and visitors of the inmates of the pavilions of the Rue Pigalle,
No. 16:--
Balzac came to dine here the day before yesterday. He is quite
mad. He has discovered the blue rose, for which the
horticultural societies of London and Belgium have promised a
reward of 500,000 francs (qui dit, dit-il). He will sell,
moreover, every grain at a hundred sous, and for this great
botanic production he will lay out only fifty centimes.
Hereupon Rollinat asked him naively:--
"Well, why, then, do you not set about it at once?"
To which Balzac replied:
"Oh! because I have so many other things to do; but I shall
set about it one of these days."
Stavenow, in Schone Geister (see foot-note, p. 70), tells an anecdote of
Balzac, which may find a place here:--
One day Balzac had invited George Sand, Chopin, and Gutmann to
dinner. On that occasion he related to them that the next day
he would have to meet a bill of 30,000 francs, but that he had
not a sou in his pocket. Gutmann asked what he intended to do?
"Well," replied Balzac, "what shall I do? I wait quietly.
Before to-morrow something unexpected may turn up, and give me
the means to pay the sum." Scarcely had he said this when the
door bell rang. The servant entered and announced that a
gentleman was there who urgently wished to speak with M.
Balzac.
Balzac rose and left the room. After a quarter of an hour he
came back in high spirits and said:
"The 30,000 francs are found. My publisher wishes to bring out
a new edition of my works, and he offers me just this sum."
George Sand, Chopin, and Gutmann looked at each other with a
smile, and thought--"Another one!"
George Sand to her son; Paris, September 4, 1840:--
We have had here great shows of troops. They have fione the
gendarme and cuisse the national guardsman. All Paris was in
agitation, as if there were to be a revolution. Nothing took
place, except that some passers-by were knocked down by the
police.
There were places in Paris where it was dangerous to pass, as
these gentlemen assassinated right and left for the pleasure
of getting their hands into practice. Chopin, who will not
believe anything, has at last the proof and certainty of it.
Madame Marliani is back. I dined at her house the day before
yesterday with the Abbe de Lamennais. Yesterday Leroux dined
here. Chopin embraces you a thousand times. He is always qui,
qui, qui, me, me, me. Rollinat smokes like a steam-boat.
Solange has been good for two or three days, but yesterday she
had a fit of temper [acces de fureur]. It is the Rebouls, the
English neighbours, people and dogs, who turn her head.
In the summer of 1840 George Sand did not go to Nohant, and Chopin seems
to have passed most of, if not all, the time in Paris. From a letter
addressed to her half-brother, we learn that the reason of her staying
away from her country-seat was a wish to economise:--
If you will guarantee my being able to pass the summer at
Nohant for 4,000 francs, I will go. But I have never been
there without spending 1,500 francs per month, and as I do not
spend here the half of this, it is neither the love of work,
nor that of spending, nor that of glory, which makes me
stay...
George Sand's fits of economy never lasted very long. At any rate,
in the summer of 1841 we find her again at Nohant. But as it is my
intention to treat of Chopin's domestic life at Nohant and in Paris
with some fulness in special chapters, I shall now turn to his artistic
doings.
In 1839 there appeared only one work by Chopin, Op. 28, the "Preludes,"
but in the two following years as many as sixteen--namely, Op. 35-50.
Here is an enumeration of these compositions, with the dates of
publication and the dedications.
[FOOTNOTE: Both the absence of dedications in the case of some
compositions, and the persons to whom others are dedicated, have a
biographical significance. They tell us of the composer's absence from
Paris and aristocratic society, and his return to them.]
The "Vingt-quatre Preludes," Op. 28, published in September, 1839, have
a twofold dedication, the French and English editions being dedicated a
son ami Pleyel, and the German to Mr. J. C. Kessler. The publications
of 1840 are: in May--Op. 35, "Sonate" (B flat minor); Op. 36, "Deuxieme
Impromptu" (F sharp minor); Op. 37, "Deux Nocturnes" (G minor and G
major); in July--Op. 42, "Valse" (A flat major); in September--Op.
38, "Deuxieme Ballade" (F major), dedicated to Mr. R. Schumann; in
October--Op. 39, "Troisieme Scherzo" (C sharp minor), dedicated to
Mr. A. Gutmann; in November--Op. 40, "Deux Polonaises" (A major and C
minor), dedicated to Mr. J. Fontana; and in December--Op. 41, "Quatre
Mazurkas" (C sharp and E minor, B and A flat major), dedicated to E.
Witwicki. Those of 1841 are: in October--Op. 43, "Tarantelle" (A flat
major), without any dedication; and in November--Op. 44, "Polonaise" (F
sharp minor), dedicated to Madame la Princesse Charles de Beauvau;
Op. 45, "Prelude" (C sharp minor), dedicated to Madame la Princesse
Elizabeth Czernicheff; Op. 46, "Allegro de Concert" (A major), dedicated
to Mdlle. F. Muller; Op. 47, "Troisieme Ballade" (A flat major),
dedicated to Mdlle. P. de Noailles; Op. 48, "Deux Nocturnes" (C minor
and F sharp minor), dedicated to Mdlle. L. Duperre; Op. 49, "Fantaisie"
(F minor), dedicated to Madame la Princesse C. de Souzzo; and Op. 50,
"Trois Mazurkas" (G and A flat major, and C sharp minor), dedicated to
Mr. Leon Smitkowski.
Chopin's genius had now reached the most perfect stage of its
development, and was radiating with all the intensity of which its
nature was capable. Notwithstanding such later creations as the fourth
"Ballade," Op. 52, the "Barcarolle," Op. 60, and the "Polonaise," Op.
53, it can hardly be said that the composer surpassed in his subsequent
works those which he had published in recent years, works among which
were the first three ballades, the preludes, and a number of stirring
polonaises and charming nocturnes, mazurkas, and other pieces.
However, not only as a creative artist, but also as an executant, Chopin
was at the zenith of his power. His bodily frame had indeed suffered
from disease, but as yet it was not seriously injured, at least, not
so seriously as to disable him to discharge the functions of a musical
interpreter. Moreover, the great majority of his compositions demanded
from the executant other qualities than physical strength, which was
indispensable in only a few of his works. A writer in the "Menestrel"
(April 25, 1841) asks himself the question whether Chopin had progressed
as a pianist, and answers: "No, for he troubles himself little about the
mechanical secrets of the piano; in him there is no charlatanism;
heart and genius alone speak, and in these respects his privileged
organisation has nothing to learn." Or rather let us say, Chopin
troubled himself enough about the mechanical secrets of the piano, but
not for their own sakes: he regarded them not as ends, but as means to
ends, and although mechanically he may have made no progress, he had
done so poetically. Love and sorrow, those most successful teachers of
poets and musicians, had not taught him in vain.
It was a fortunate occurrence that at this period of his career Chopin
was induced to give a concert, and equally fortunate that men of
knowledge, judgment, and literary ability have left us their impressions
of the event. The desirability of replenishing an ever-empty purse, and
the instigations of George Sand, were no doubt the chief motive powers
which helped the composer to overcome his dislike to playing in public.
"Do you practise when the day of the concert approaches?" asked Lenz.
[FOOTNOTE: Die grossen Pianoforte-Virtusen unstrer Zeit, p. 36.] "It is
a terrible time for me," was Chopin's answer; "I dislike publicity, but
it is part of my position. I shut myself up for a fortnight and play
Bach. That is my preparation; I never practise my own compositions."
What Gutmann told me confirms these statements. Chopin detested playing
in public, and became nervous when the dreaded time approached. He then
fidgeted a great deal about his clothes, and felt very unhappy if one
or the other article did not quite fit or pinched him a little. On one
occasion Chopin, being dissatisfied with his own things, made use of a
dress-coat and shirt of his pupil Gutmann. By the way, the latter, who
gave me this piece of information, must have been in those days of less
bulk, and, I feel inclined to add, of less height, than he was when I
became acquainted with him.
Leaving the two concerts given by Chopin in 1841 and 1842 to be
discussed in detail in the next chapter, I shall now give a translation
of the Polish letters which he wrote in the summer and autumn of 1841 to
Fontana. The letters numbered 4 and 5 are those already alluded to on p.
24 (foot-note 3) which Karasowski gives as respectively dated by Chopin:
"Palma, November 17, 1838"; and "Valdemosa, January 9, 1839." But
against these dates militate the contents: the mention of Troupenas,
with whom the composer's business connection began only in 1840 (with
the Sonata, Op. 35); the mention of the Tarantelle, which was not
published until 1841; the mention (contradictory to an earlier
inquiry--see p. 30) of the sending back of a valet nowhere else alluded
to; the mention of the sending and arrival of a piano, irreconcilable
with the circumstances and certain statements in indisputably
correctly-dated letters; and, lastly, the absence of all mention of
Majorca and the Preludes, those important topics in the letters really
from that place and of that time. Karasowski thinks that the letters
numbered 1, 2, 3, and 9 were of the year 1838, and those numbered 6,
7, and 8 of the year 1839; but as the "Tarantelle," Op. 43, the
"Polonaise," Op. 44, the "Prelude," Op. 45, the "Allegro de Concert,"
Op. 46, the third "Ballade," Op. 47, the two "Nocturnes," Op. 48, and
the "Fantaisie," Op. 49, therein mentioned, were published in 1841, I
have no doubt that they are of the year 1841. The mention in the ninth
letter of the Rue Pigalle, 16, George Sand's and Chopin's abode in
Paris, of Pelletan, the tutor of George Sand's son Maurice, and of the
latter's coming to Paris, speaks likewise against 1838 and for 1841,
1840 being out of the question, as neither George Sand nor Chopin was in
this year at Nohant. What decides me especially to reject the date 1839
for the seventh letter is that Pauline Garcia had then not yet become
the wife of Louis Viardot. There is, moreover, an allusion to a visit of
Pauline Viardot to Nohant in the summer of 1841 in one of George Sand's
letters (August 13, 1841). In this letter occurs a passage which is
important for the dating both of the fifth and the seventh letter. As
to the order of succession of the letters, it may be wrong, it certainly
does not altogether satisfy me; but it is the result of long and careful
weighing of all the pros and cons. I have some doubt about the seventh
letter, which, read by the light of George Sand's letter, ought perhaps
to be placed after the ninth. But the seventh letter is somewhat of a
puzzle. Puzzles, owing to his confused statements and slipshod style,
are, however, not a rare thing in Chopin's correspondence. The passage
in the above-mentioned letter of George Sand runs thus: "Pauline leaves
me on the 16th [of August]; Maurice goes on the 17th to fetch his
sister, who should be here on the 23rd."
[I.] Nohant [1841].
My very dear friend,--I arrived here yesterday, Thursday. For
Schlesinger [FOOTNOTE: The Paris music-publisher.] I have
composed a Prelude in C sharp minor [Op. 45], which is short,
as he wished it. Seeing that, like Mechetti's [FOOTNOTE: The
Vienna music-publisher.] Beethoven, this has to come out at
the New Year, do not yet give my Polonaise to Leo (although
you have already transcribed it), for to-morrow I shall send
you a letter for Mechetti, in which I shall explain to him
that, if he wishes something short, I will give him for the
Album instead of the mazurka (which is already old) the NEW
prelude. It is well modulated, and I can send it without
hesitation. He ought to give me 300 francs for it, n'est-ce
pas? Par-dessus le marche he may get the mazurka, only he must
not print it in the Album.
Should Troupenas, [FOOTNOTE: Eugene Troupenas, the Paris music-
publisher.] that is, Masset, [FOOTNOTE: Masset (his daughter,
Madame Colombier, informed me) was the partner of Troupenas,
and managed almost the whole business, Troupenas being in weak
health, which obliged him to pass the last ten winters of his
life at Hyeres.] make any difficulties, do not give him the
pieces a farthing cheaper, and tell him that if he does not
wish to print them all--which I should not like--I could sell
them at a better price to others.
Now of something else.
You will find in the right-hand drawer of my writing-desk (in
the place where the cash-box always is) a sealed parcel
addressed to Madame Sand. Wrap this parcel in wax-cloth, seal
it, and send it by post to Madame Sand's address. Sew on the
address with a strong thread, that it may not come off the wax-
cloth. It is Madame Sand who asks me to do this. I know you
will do it perfectly well. The key, I think, is on the top
shelf of the little cabinet with the mirror. If it should not
be there, get a locksmith to open the drawer.
I love you as an old friend. Embrace Johnnie.--Your
FREDERICK.
[2.] Nohant [1841].
Thanks for forwarding the parcel. I send you the Prelude, in
large characters for Schlesinger and in small characters for
Mechetti. Clip the MS. of the Polonaise to the same size,
number the pages, and fold it like the Prelude, add to the
whole my letter to Mechetti, and deliver it into Leo's own
hands, praying him to send it by the first mail, as Mechetti
is waiting for it.
The letter to Haslinger [FOOTNOTE: The Vienna music-
publisher.] post yourself; and if you do not find Schlesinger
at home leave the letter, but do not give him the MS. until he
tells you that he accepts the Prelude as a settlement of the
account. If he does not wish to acquire the right of
publication for London, tell him to inform me of it by letter.
Do not forget to add the opus on the Polonaise and the
following number on the Prelude--that is, on the copies that
are going to Vienna.
I do not know how Czerniszewowa is spelt. Perhaps you will
find under the vase or on the little table near the bronze
ornament a note from her, from her daughter, or from the
governess; if not, I should be glad if you would go--they know
you already as my friend--to the Hotel de Londres in the Place
Vendome, and beg in my name the young Princess to give you her
name in writing and to say whether it is Tscher or Tcher. Or
better still, ask for Mdlle. Krause, the governess; tell her
that I wish to give the young Princess a surprise; and inquire
of her whether it is usual to write Elisabeth and
Tschernichef, or ff. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin dedicated the Prelude,
Op. 45, to Mdlle. la Princesse Elisabeth Czernicheff.]
If you do not wish to do this, don't be bashful with me, and
write that you would rather be excused, in which case I shall
find it out by some other means. But do not yet direct
Schlesinger to print the title. Tell him I don't know how to
spell. Nevertheless, I hope that you will find at my house
some note from them on which will be the name....
I conclude because it is time for the mail, and I wish that my
letter should reach Vienna without fail this week.
[3.] Nohant, Sunday [1841].
I send you the Tarantella [Op. 43]. Please to copy it. But
first go to Schlesinger, or, better still, to Troupenas, and
see the collection of Rossini's songs published by Troupenas.
In it there is a Tarantella in F. I do not know whether it is
written in 6/8 or 12/8 time. As to my composition, it does not
matter which way it is written, but I should prefer it to be
like Rossini's. Therefore, if the latter be in 12/8 or in C
with triplets, make in copying one bar out of two. It will be
thus: [here follows one bar of music, bars four and five of
the Tarantella as it is printed.] [FOOTNOTE: This is a
characteristic instance of Chopin's carelessness in the
notation of his music. To write his Tarantella in 12/8 or C
would have been an egregious mistake. How Chopin failed to see
this is inexplicable to me.]
I beg of you also to write out everything in full, instead of
marking repeats. Be quick, and give it to Leo with my letter
to Schubert. [FOOTNOTE: Schuberth, the Hamburg music-
publisher.] You know he leaves for Hamburg before the 8th of
next month, and I should not like to lose 500 francs.
As regards Troupenas, there is no hurry. If the time of my
manuscript is not right, do not deliver the latter, but make a
copy of it. Besides this, make a third copy of it for Wessel.
It will weary you to copy this nasty thing so often; but I
hope I shall not compose anything worse for a long time. I
also beg of you to look up the number of the last opus--
namely, the last mazurkas, or rather the waltz published by
Paccini [FOOTNOTE: Pacini, a Paris music-publisher. He
published the Waltz in A flat major, Op. 42, in the summer of
1840, if not earlier.]--and give the following number to the
Tarantella.
I am keeping my mind easy, for I know you are willing and
clever. I trust you will receive from me no more letters
burdened with commissions. Had I not been with only one foot
at home before my departure you would have none of these
unpleasantnesses. Attend to the Tarantella, give it to Leo,
and tell him to keep the money he may receive till I come
back. Once more I beg of you to excuse my troubling you so
much. To-day I received the letter from my people in Poland
you sent me. Tell the portier to give you all the letters
addressed to me.
[4.]
My dear friend,--As you are so good, be so to the end. Go to
the transport commission-office of Mr. Hamberg et Levistal
successeurs de Mr. Corstel fils aine et Cie, rue des Marais
St. Martin, No. 51, a Paris, and direct them to send at once
to Pleyel for the piano I am to have, so that it may go off
the next day. Say at the office that it is to be forwarded par
un envoy [sic] accelere et non ordinaire. Such a transport
costs of course far more, but is incomparably quicker. It will
probably cost five francs per cwt. I shall pay here. Only
direct them to give you a receipt, on which they will write
how many cwts. the piano weighs, when it leaves, and when it
will arrive at Chateauroux. If the piano is conveyed by
roulage [land-transport]--which goes straight to Toulouse and
leaves goods only on the route--the address must not be a la
Chatre, [FOOTNOTE: Instead of "la Chatre" we have in
Karasowski's Polish book "la Chatie," which ought to warn us
not to attribute all the peculiar French in this letter to
Chopin, who surely knew how to spell the name of the town in
the neighbourhood of the familiar Nohant.] but Madame
Dudevant, a Chateauroux, as I wrote above. [FOOTNOTE: "Address
of the piano: Madame Dudevant, a Chateauroux. Bureau Restant
chez M. Vollant Patureau." This is what Chopin wrote above.]
At the last-mentioned place the agency has been informed, and
will forward it at once. You need not send me the receipt, we
should require it only in case of some unforeseen reclamation.
The correspondent in Chateauroux says that PAR LA VOYE
ACCELERE [SIC] it will come from Paris in four days. If this
is so, let him bind himself to deliver the piano at
Chateauroux in four or five days.
Now to other business.
Should Pleyel make any difficulties, apply to Erard; I think
that the latter in all probability ought to be serviceable to
you. Only do not act hastily, and first ascertain how the
matter really stands.
As to the Tarantella, seal it and send it to Hamburg. To-
morrow I shall write you of other affairs, concerning
Troupenas, &c.
Embrace Johnnie, and tell him to write.
[5.]
Thanks for all the commissions you have executed so well. To-
day, that is on the 9th, I received the piano and the other
things. Do not send my little bust to Warsaw, it would
frighten them, leave it in the press. Kiss Johnnie for his
letter. I shall write him a few lines shortly.
To-morrow I shall very likely send back my old servant, who
loses his wits here. He is an honest man and knows how to
serve, but he is tiresome, and makes one lose one's patience.
I shall send him back, telling him to wait for me in Paris. If
he appears at the house, do not be frightened.
Latterly the weather has been only so-so.
The man in Chateauroux was waiting three days for the piano;
yesterday, after receiving your letter, I gave orders that he
should be recalled. To-day I do not yet know what kind of tone
the piano has, as it is not yet unpacked; this great event is
to take place to-morrow. As to the delay and misunderstanding
in sending it, do not make any inquiries; let the matter rest,
it is not worth a quarrel. You did the best you could. A
little ill-humour and a few days lost in expectation are not
worth a pinch of snuff. Forget, therefore, my commissions and
your transaction; next time, if God permits us to live,
matters will turn out better.
I write you these few words late at night. Once more I thank
you, most obliging of men, for the commissions, which are not
yet ended, for now comes the turn of the Troupenas business,
which will hang on your shoulders. I shall write to you on
this subject more fully some other time, and to-day I wish you
good night. But don't have dreams like Johnnie--that I died;
but rather dream that I am about to be born, or something of
the sort.
In fact, I am feeling now as calm and serene as a baby in
swaddling-clothes; and if somebody wished to put me in leading-
strings, I should be very glad--nota bene, with a cap thickly
lined with wadding on my head, for I feel that at every moment
I should stumble and turn upside down. Unfortunately, instead
of leading-strings there are probably awaiting me crutches, if
I approach old age with my present step. I once dreamt that I
was dying in a hospital, and this is so strongly rooted in my
mind that I cannot forget it--it is as if I had dreamt it
yesterday. If you survive me, you will learn whether we may
believe in dreams.
And now I often dream with my eyes open what may be said to
have neither rhyme nor reason in it.
That is why I write you such a foolish letter, is it?
Send me soon a letter from my people, and love your old
FREDERICK.
[6.] Nohant [1841].
Thanks for your very kind letter. Unseal all you judge
necessary.
Do not give the manuscripts to Troupenas till Schubert has
informed you of the day of publication. The answer will very
likely come soon through Leo.
What a pity that the Tarantella is gone to Berlin, for, as you
know from Schubert's letter, Liszt is mixed up in this
monetary affair, and I may have some unpleasantness. He is a
thin-skinned Hungarian, and may think that I do not trust him
because I directed that the manuscripts should not be given
otherwise than for cash. I do not know, but I have a
presentiment of a disagreeable mess. Do not say anything about
it to the ailing Leo; go and see him if you think it
necessary, give him my compliments and thanks (although
undeserved), and ask pardon for troubling him so much. After
all, it is kind of him to take upon him the forwarding of my
things. Give my compliments, also to Pleyel, and ask him to
excuse my not writing to him (do not say anything about his
sending me a very inferior piano).
I beg of you to put into the letter-box at the Exchange
yourself the letter to my parents, but I say do it yourself,
and before 4 o'clock. Excuse my troubling you, but you know of
what great importance my letter is to my people.
Escudier has very likely sent you that famous album. If you
wish you may ask Troupenas to get you a copy as if it were for
me; but if you don't wish, say nothing.
[FOOTNOTE: Leon Escudier, I suppose. The brothers Marie and
Leon Escudier established a music business in the latter part
of the fourth decade of this century; but when soon after both
married and divided their common property, Marie got their
journal "La France Musicale" and Leon the music-business. They
wrote and published together various books on music and
musicians.]
Still one more bother.
At your leisure transcribe once more this unlucky Tarantella,
which will be sent to Wessel when the day [of publication] is
known. If I tire you so much with this Tarentella, you may be
sure that it is for the last time. From here, I am sure you
will have no more manuscript from me. If there should not be
any news from Schubert within a week, please write to me. In
that case you would give the manuscript to Troupenas. But I
shall write him about it.
[7.] Nohant [1841], Friday evening.
My dear Julius,--I send you a letter for Bonnet; read, seal,
and deliver it. And if in passing through the streets in which
you know I can lodge, you find something suitable for me,
please write to me. Just now the condition about the staircase
exists no longer. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin felt so much stronger that
high stairs were no longer any objection to lodgings.] I also
send you a letter to Dessauer [FOOTNOTE: Joseph Dessauer, a
native of Prague, best known by his songs. He stayed in Paris
in 1833, and afterwards settled in Vienna. George Sand
numbered him among her friends.] in answer to his letter which
Madame Deller sent me from Austria. He must already be back to
Paris; be sure and ask Schlesinger, who will be best able to
inform you of this.
Do not give Dessauer many particulars about me; do not tell
him that you are looking for rooms, nor Anthony either, for he
will mention it to Mdlle. de Rozieres, and she is a babbler
and makes the least thing a subject for gossip. Some of her
gossipings have already reached me here in a strange way. You
know how great things sometimes grow out of nothing if they
pass through a mouth with a loose tongue. Much could be said
on this head.
As to the unlucky Tarantella, you may give it to Troupenas
(that is, to Masset); but, if you think otherwise, send it by
post to Wessel, only insist on his answering at once that he
has received it. The weather has been charming here for the
last few days, but my music--is ugly. Madame Viardot spent a
fortnight here; we occupied ourselves less with music than
with other things.
Please write to me whatever you like, but write.
May Johnnie be in good health!
But remember to write on Troupenas's copy: Hamburg, Schubert;
Wessel, London.
In a few days I shall send you a letter for Mechetti in
Vienna, to whom I promised to give some compositions. If you
see Dessauer or Schlesinger, ask if it is absolutely necessary
to pay postage for the letters sent to Vienna.--I embrace you,
adieu.
CHOPIN.
[8.]
Nohant, Sunday [1841].
What you have done you have done well. Strange world! Masset
is a fool, so also is Pelletan. Masset knew of Pacini's waltz
and that I promised it to the "Gazette" for the Album. I did
not wish to make any advances to him. If he does not wish them
at 600 francs, with London (the price of my USUAL manuscripts
was 300 francs with him)--three times five being fifteen--I
should have to give so much labour for 1,500 francs--that
cannot be. So much the more as I told him when I had the first
conversation with him that it might happen that I could not
let him have my things at this price. For instance, he cannot
expect that I should give him twelve Etudes or a new Methode
de Piano for 300 francs. The Allegro maestoso ["Allegro de
Concert," Op. 46] which I send you to-day I cannot give for
300 francs, but only for 600 francs, nor the "Fantasia" [Op.
49], for which I ask 500 francs. Nevertheless, the "Ballade"
[the third, Op. 47], the Nocturnes ["Deux Nocturnes," Op. 48],
and Polonaise [F sharp minor, Op. 44], I shall let him have at
300 francs, for he has already formerly printed such things.
In one word, for Paris I give these five compositions for
2,000 francs. If he does not care for them, so much the
better. I say it entre nous--for Schlesinger will most
willingly buy them. But I should not like him to take me for a
man who does not keep his word in an agreement. "Il n'y avait
qu'une convention facile d'honnete homme a honnete homme."
therefore, he should not complain of my terms, for they are
very easy. I want nothing but to come out of this affair
respectably. You know that I do not sell myself. But tell him
further that if I were desirous of taking advantage of him or
of cheating him, I could write fifteen things per year, but
worthless ones, which he would buy at 300 francs and I would
have a better income. Would it be an honest action?
My dear friend, tell him that I write seldom, and spend but
little. He must not think that I wish to raise the price. But
when you yourself see my manuscript flies, [FOOTNOTE: An
allusion to his small, fine writing.] you will agree with me
that I may ask 600 francs when I was paid 300 francs for the
Tarantella and 500 for the Bolero.
For God's sake take good care of the manuscripts, do not
squeeze, dirty, or tear them. I know you are not capable of
doing anything of the sort, but I love my WRITTEN TEDIOUSNESS
[NUDY, tediousness; NUTY, notes] so much that I always fear
that something might happen to them.
To-morrow you will receive the Nocturne, and at the end of the
week the Ballade and Fantasia; I cannot get my writing done
sooner. Each of these things you will transcribe; your copies
will remain in Paris. If copying wearies you, console yourself
with thinking that you are doing it for THE REMISSION OF YOUR
SINS. I should not like to give my little spider-feet to any
copyist who would daub coarsely. Once more I make this
request, for had I again to write these eighteen pages, I
should most certainly go wrong in my mind.
I send you a letter from Hartel.
Try to get another valet instead of the one you have. I shall
probably be in Paris during the first days of November. To-
morrow I will write to you again.
Monday
morning.
On reading your letter attentively, I see that Masset does not
ask for Paris. Leave this point untouched if you can. Mention
only 3,000 francs pour les deux pays, and 2,000 francs for
Paris itself if he particularly asks about it. Because la
condition des deux pays is still easier, and for me also more
convenient. If he should not want it, it must be because he
seeks an opportunity for breaking with me. In that case, wait
for his answer from London. Write to him openly and frankly,
but always politely, and act cautiously and coolly, but mind,
not to me, for you know how much loves you your...
[9.] Nohant [1841].
My dear friend,--You would be sure to receive my letters and
compositions. You have read the German letters, sealed them,
and done everything I asked you, have you not? As to Wessel,
he is a fool and a cheat. Write him whatever you like, but
tell him that I do not intend to give up my rights to the
Tarantella, as he did not send it back in time. If he
sustained losses by my compositions, it is most likely owing
to the foolish titles he gave them, in spite of my directions.
Were I to listen to the voice of my soul, I would not send him
anything more after these titles. Say as many sharp things to
him as you can.
[FOOTNOTE: Here are some specimens of the publisher's
ingenious inventiveness:--"Adieu a Varsovie" (Rondeau, Op. 1),
"Hommage a Mozart" (Variations, Op. 2), "La Gaite"
(Introduction et Polonaise, Op. 3), "La Posiana" (Rondeau a la
Mazur, Op. 5), "Murmures de la Seine" (Nocturnes, Op. 9), "Les
Zephirs" (Nocturnes, Op. 15), "Invitation a la Valse" (Valse,
Op. 18), "Souvenir d'Andalousie" (Bolero, Op. 19), "Le banquet
infernal" (Premier Scherzo, Op. 20), "Ballade ohne Worte"
[Ballad without words] (Ballade, Op. 23), "Les Plaintives"
(Nocturnes, Op. 27), "La Meditation" (Deuxieme Scherzo, Op.
31), "Il lamento e la consolazione" (Nocturnes, Op. 32), "Les
Soupirs" (Nocturnes, Op. 37), and "Les Favorites" (Polonaises,
Op. 40). The mazurkas generally received the title of
"Souvenir de la Pologne."]
Madame Sand thanks you for the kind words accompanying the
parcel. Give directions that my letters may be delivered to
Pelletan, Rue Pigal [i.e., Pigalle], 16, and impress it very
strongly on the portier. The son of Madame Sand will be in
Paris about the 16th. I shall send you, through him, the MS.
of the Concerto ["Allegro de Concert"] and the Nocturnes [Op.
46 and 48].
These letters of the romantic tone-poet to a friend and fellow-artist
will probably take the reader by surprise, nay, may even disillusionise
him. Their matter is indeed very suggestive of a commercial man writing
to one of his agents. Nor is this feature, as the sequel will show,
peculiar to the letters just quoted. Trafficking takes up a very large
part of Chopin's Parisian correspondence; [FOOTNOTE: I indicate by this
phrase comprehensively the whole correspondence since his settling in
the French capital, whether written there or elsewhere.] of the ideal
within him that made him what he was as an artist we catch, if any, only
rare glimmerings and glimpses.
CHAPTER XXV.
TWO PUBLIC CONCERTS, ONE IN 1841 AND ANOTHER IN 1842.--CHOPIN'S STYLE OF
PLAYING: TECHNICAL QUALITIES; FAVOURABLE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS; VOLUME
OF TONE; USE OF THE PEDALS; SPIRITUAL QUALITIES; TEMPO RUBATO;
INSTRUMENTS.--HIS MUSICAL SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES.--OPINIONS ON MUSIC
AND MUSICIANS.
The concert which Chopin gave in 1841, after several years of
retirement, took place at Pleyel's rooms on Monday, the 26th of April.
It was like his subsequent concerts a semi-public rather than a public
one, for the audience consisted of a select circle of pupils, friends,
and partisans who, as Chopin told Lenz, took the tickets in advance and
divided them among themselves. As most of the pupils belonged to the
aristocracy, it followed as a matter of course that the concert was
emphatically what Liszt calls it, "un concert de fashion." The three
chief musical papers of Paris: the "Gazette Musicale," the "France
Musicale," and the "Menestrel" were unanimous in their high, unqualified
praise of the concert-giver, "the king of the fete, who was overwhelmed
with bravos." The pianoforte performances of Chopin took up by far the
greater part of the programme, which was varied by two arias from Adam's
"La Rose de Peronne," sung by Mdme. Damoreau--Cinti, who was as usual
"ravissante de perfection," and by Ernst's "Elegie," played by the
composer himself "in a grand style, with passionate feeling and a purity
worthy of the great masters." Escudier, the writer of the notice in the
"France Musicale," says of Ernst's playing: "If you wish to hear the
violin weep, go and hear Ernst; he produces such heart-rending, such
passionate sounds, that you fear every moment to see his instrument
break to pieces in his hands. It is difficult to carry farther the
expression of sadness, of suffering, and of despair."
To give the reader an idea of the character of the concert, I shall
quote largely from Liszt's notice, in which he not only sets forth the
merits of the artists, but also describes the appearance of the room
and the audience. First, however, I must tell a pretty anecdote of which
this notice reminds me. When Liszt was moving about among the audience
during the intervals of the concert, paying his respects here and there,
he came upon M. Ernest Legouve. The latter told him of his intention
to give an account of the concert in the "Gazette Musicale." Liszt
thereupon said that he had a great wish to write one himself, and M.
Legouve, although reluctantly, gave way. When it came to the ears of
Chopin that Liszt was going to report on the concert, he remarked: "Il
me donnera un petit royaume dans son empire" (He will give me a little
kingdom in his empire).
[FOOTNOTE: Since I wrote the above, M. Legouve has published his
"Soixante ans de Souvenirs," and in this book gives his version of the
story, which, it is to be hoped, is less incorrect than some other
statements of his relating to Chopin: "He [Chopin] had asked me to
write a report of the concert. Liszt claimed the honour. I hastened to
announce this good news to Chopin, who quietly said to me: "I should
have liked better if it had been you." "What are you thinking of my dear
friend! An article by Liszt, that is a fortunate thing for the public
and for you. Trust in his admiration for your talent. I promise you
qu'il vous fera un beau royaume.'--'Oui, me dit-il en souriant, dans son
empire!'""]
These few words speak volumes. But here is what Liszt wrote about the
concert in the "Gazette musicale" of May 2, 1841:--
Last Monday, at eight o'clock in the evening, M. Pleyel's
rooms were brilliantly lighted up; numerous carriages brought
incessantly to the foot of a staircase covered with carpet and
perfumed with flowers the most elegant women, the most
fashionable young men, the most celebrated artists, the
richest financiers, the most illustrious noblemen, a whole
elite of society, a whole aristocracy of birth, fortune,
talent, and beauty.
A grand piano was open on a platform; people crowded round,
eager for the seats nearest it; they prepared to listen, they
composed them-selves, they said to themselves that they must
not lose a chord, a note, an intention, a thought of him who
was going to seat himself there. And people were right in
being thus eager, attentive, and religiously moved, because he
for whom they waited, whom they wished to hear, admire, and
applaud, was not only a clever virtuoso, a pianist expert in
the art of making notes [de faire des notes], not only an
artist of great renown, he was all this and more than all
this, he was Chopin...
...If less eclat has gathered round his name, if a less bright
aureole has encircled his head, it is not because he had not in
him perhaps the same depth of feeling as the illustrious author
of "Conrad Wallenrod" and the "Pilgrims," [FOOTNOTE: Adam
Mickiewicz.] but his means of expression were too limited, his
instrument too imperfect; he could not reveal his whole self by
means of a piano. Hence, if we are not mistaken, a dull and
continual suffering, a certain repugnance to reveal himself to
the outer world, a sadness which shrinks out of sight under
apparent gaiety, in short, a whole individuality in the highest
degree remarkable and attractive.
...It was only rarely, at very distant intervals, that Chopin
played in public; but what would have been for anyone else an
almost certain cause of oblivion and obscurity was precisely what
assured to him a fame above the caprices of fashion, and kept him
from rivalries, jealousies, and injustice. Chopin, who has taken
no part in the extreme movement which for several years has
thrust one on another and one against another the executive
artists from all quarters of the world, has been constantly
surrounded by faithful adepts, enthusiastic pupils, and warm
friends, all of whom, while guarding him against disagreeable
contests and painful collisions, have not ceased to spread abroad
his works, and with them admiration for his name. Moreover, this
exquisite, altogether lofty, and eminently aristocratic celebrity
has remained unattacked. A complete silence of criticism already
reigns round it, as if posterity were come; and in the brilliant
audience which flocked together to hear the too long silent poet
there was neither reticence nor restriction, unanimous praise was
on the lips of all.
...He has known how to give to new thoughts a new form. That
element of wildness and abruptness which belongs to his country
has found its expression in bold dissonances, in strange
harmonies, while the delicacy and grace which belong to his
personality were revealed in a thousand contours, in a thousand
embellishments of an inimitable fancy.
In Monday's concert Chopin had chosen in preference those of
his works which swerve more from the classical forms. He
played neither concerto, nor sonata, nor fantasia, nor
variations, but preludes, studies, nocturnes, and mazurkas.
Addressing himself to a society rather than to a public, he
could show himself with impunity as he is, an elegiac poet,
profound, chaste, and dreamy. He did not need either to
astonish or to overwhelm, he sought for delicate sympathy
rather than for noisy enthusiasm. Let us say at once that he
had no reason to complain of want of sympathy. From the first
chords there was established a close communication between him
and his audience. Two studies and a ballade were encored, and
had it not been for the fear of adding to the already great
fatigue which betrayed itself on his pale face, people would
have asked for a repetition of the pieces of the programme one
by one...
An account of the concert in La France musicale of May 2, 1841,
contained a general characterisation of Chopin's artistic position
with regard to the public coinciding with that given by Liszt, but
the following excerpts from the other parts of the article may not be
unacceptable to the reader:--
We spoke of Schubert because there is no other nature which
has a more complete analogy with him. The one has done for the
piano what the other has done for the voice...Chopin was a
composer from conviction. He composes for himself, and what he
composes he performs for himself...Chopin is the pianist of
sentiment PAR EXCELLENCE. One may say that Chopin is the
creator of a school of pianoforte-playing and of a school of
composition. Indeed, nothing equals the lightness and
sweetness with which the artist preludes on the piano, nothing
again can be placed by the side of his works full of
originality, distinction, and grace. Chopin is an exceptional
pianist who ought not to be, and cannot be, compared with
anyone.
The words with which the critic of the Menestrel closes his remarks,
describe well the nature of the emotions which the artist excited in his
hearers:--
In order to appreciate Chopin rightly, one must love gentle
impressions, and have the feeling for poetry: to hear Chopin
is to read a strophe of Lamartine....Everyone went away full
of sweet joy and deep reverie (recueillement).
The concert, which was beyond a doubt a complete success, must have
given Chopin satisfaction in every respect. At any rate, he faced the
public again before a year had gone by. In the Gazette Musicale of
February 20, 1842, we read that on the following evening, Monday, at
Pleyel's rooms, the haute societe de Paris et tous les artistes s'y
donneront rendez-vous. The programme of the concert was to be as
follows:--
1. Andante suivi de la 3ieme Ballade, par Chopin.
2. Felice Donzella, air de Dessauer.
3. Suite de Nocturnes, Preludes et Etudes, par Chopin.
4. Divers fragments de Handel, chante par Madame Viardot-
Garcia.
5. Solo pour Violoncello, par M. Franchomme.
6. Nocturne, Preludes, Mazurkas et Impromptu.
7. Le Chene et le Roseau, chante par Madame Viardot-Garcia,
accompagne par Chopin.
Maurice Bourges, who a week later reports on the concert, states more
particularly what Chopin played. He mentions three mazurkas in A flat
major, B major, and A minor; three studies in A flat major, F minor, and
C minor; the Ballade in A flat major; four nocturnes, one of which was
that in F sharp minor; a prelude in D flat; and an impromptu in G (G
flat major?). Maurice Bourges's account is not altogether free from
strictures. He finds Chopin's ornamentations always novel, but sometimes
mannered (manierees). He says: "Trop de recherche fine et minutieuse
n'est pas quelquefois sans pretention et san froideur." But on the whole
the critique is very laudatory. "Liszt and Thalberg excite, as is well
known, violent enthusiasm; Chopin also awakens enthusiasm, but of a
less energetic, less noisy nature, precisely because he causes the most
intimate chords of the heart to vibrate."
From the report in the "France musicale" we see that the audience was
not less brilliant than that of the first concert:--
...Chopin has given in Pleyel's hall a charming soiree, a fete
peopled with adorable smiles, delicate and rosy faces, small and
well-formed white hands; a splendid fete where simplicity was
combined with grace and elegance, and where good taste served as
a pedestal to wealth. Those ugly black hats which give to men the
most unsightly appearance possible were very few in number. The
gilded ribbons, the delicate blue gauze, the chaplets of
trembling pearls, the freshest roses and mignonettes, in short, a
thousand medleys of the prettiest and gayest colours were
assembled, and intersected each other in all sorts of ways on the
perfumed heads and snowy shoulders of the most charming women for
whom the princely salons contend. The first success of the seance
was for Madame George Sand. As soon as she appeared with her two
charming daughters [daughter and cousin?], she was the observed
of all observers. Others would have been disturbed by all those
eyes turned on her like so many stars; but George Sand contented
herself with lowering her head and smiling...
This description is so graphic that one seems to see the actual scene,
and imagines one's self one of the audience. It also points out a very
characteristic feature of these concerts--namely, the preponderance of
the fair sex. As regards Chopin's playing, the writer remarks that the
genre of execution which aims at the imitation of orchestral effects
suits neither Chopin's organisation nor his ideas:--
In listening to all these sounds, all these nuances, which
follow each other, intermingle, separate, and reunite to
arrive at one and the same goal, melody, do you not think you
hear little fairy voices sighing under silver bells, or a rain
of pearls falling on crystal tables? The fingers of the
pianist seem to multiply ad infinitum; it does not appear
possible that only two hands can produce effects of rapidity
so precise and so natural...
I shall now try to give the reader a clearer idea of what Chopin's style
of playing was like than any and all of the criticisms and descriptions
I have hitherto quoted can have done. And I do this not only in order to
satisfy a natural curiosity, but also, and more especially, to furnish a
guide for the better understanding and execution of the master's works.
Some, seeing that no music reflects more clearly its author's nature
than that of Chopin, may think that it would be wiser to illustrate
the style of playing by the style of composition, and not the style of
composition by the style of playing. Two reasons determine me to
differ from them. Our musical notation is an inadequate exponent of
the conceptions of the great masters--visible signs cannot express the
subtle shades of the emotional language; and the capabilities of
Chopin the composer and of Chopin the executant were by no means
coextensive--we cannot draw conclusions as to the character of his
playing from the character of his Polonaises in A major (Op. 40) and
in A flat (Op. 53), and certain movements of the Sonata in B flat minor
(Op. 35). The information contained in the following remarks is derived
partly from printed publications, partly from private letters and
conversations; nothing is admitted which does not proceed from Chopin's
pupils, friends, and such persons as have frequently heard him.
What struck everyone who had the good fortune to hear Chopin was the
fact that he was a pianist sui generis. Moscheles calls him an unicum;
Mendelssohn describes him as "radically original" (Gruneigentumlich);
Meyerbeer said of him that he knew no pianist, no composer for the
piano, like him; and thus I could go on quoting ad infinitum. A writer
in the "Gazette musicale" (of the year 1835, I think), who, although
he places at the head of his article side by side the names of Liszt,
Hiller, Chopin, and--Bertini, proved himself in the characterisation
of these pianists a man of some insight, remarks of Chopin: "Thought,
style, conception, even the fingering, everything, in fact, appears
individual, but of a communicative, expansive individuality, an
individuality of which superficial organisations alone fail to recognise
the magnetic influence." Chopin's place among the great pianists of the
second quarter of this century has been felicitously characterised by an
anonymous contemporary: Thalberg, he said, is a king, Liszt a prophet,
Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a
sibyl, and Doehler a pianist.
But if our investigation is to be profitable, we must proceed
analytically. It will be best to begin with the fundamental technical
qualities. First of all, then, we have to note the suppleness and
equality of Chopin's fingers and the perfect independence of his hands.
"The evenness of his scales and passages in all kinds of touch," writes
Mikuli, "was unsurpassed, nay, prodigious." Gutmann told me that his
master's playing was particularly smooth, and his fingering calculated
to attain this result. A great lady who was present at Chopin's last
concert in Paris (1848), when he played among other works his Valse in
D flat (Op. 64, No. 1), wished to know "le secret de Chopin pour que les
gammes fussent si COULEES sur le piano." Madame Dubois, who related
this incident to me, added that the expression was felicitous, for
this "limpidite delicate" had never been equalled. Such indeed were the
lightness, delicacy, neatness, elegance, and gracefulness of Chopin's
playing that they won for him the name of Ariel of the piano. The reader
will remember how much Chopin admired these qualities in other artists,
notably in Mdlle. Sontag and in Kalkbrenner.
So high a degree and so peculiar a kind of excellence was of course
attainable only under exceptionally favourable conditions, physical
as well as mental. The first and chief condition was a suitably formed
hand. Now, no one can look at Chopin's hand, of which there exists a
cast, without perceiving at once its capabilities. It was indeed small,
but at the same time it was thin, light, delicately articulated, and, if
I may say so, highly expressive. Chopin's whole body was extraordinarily
flexible. According to Gutmann, he could, like a clown, throw his legs
over his shoulders. After this we may easily imagine how great must have
been the flexibility of his hands, those members of his body which he
had specially trained all his life. Indeed, the startlingly wide-spread
chords, arpeggios, &c., which constantly occur in his compositions, and
which until he introduced them had been undreamt-of and still are far
from being common, seemed to offer him no difficulty, for he executed
them not only without any visible effort, but even with a pleasing ease
and freedom. Stephen Heller told me that it was a wonderful sight to see
one of those small hands expand and cover a third of the keyboard. It
was like the opening of the mouth of a serpent which is going to swallow
a rabbit whole. In fact, Chopin appeared to be made of caoutchouc.
In the criticisms on Chopin's public performances we have met again and
again with the statement that he brought little tone out of the piano.
Now, although it is no doubt true that Chopin could neither subdue to
his sway large audiences nor successfully battle with a full orchestra,
it would be a mistake to infer from this that he was always a weak and
languid player. Stephen Heller, who declared that Chopin's tone was
rich, remembered hearing him play a duet with Moscheles (the latter's
duet, of which Chopin was so fond), and on this occasion the Polish
pianist, who insisted on playing the bass, drowned the treble of his
partner, a virtuoso well known for his vigour and brilliancy. Were we,
however, to form our judgment on this single item of evidence, we should
again arrive at a wrong conclusion. Where musical matters--i.e.,
matters generally estimated according to individual taste and momentary
impressibility alone--are concerned, there is safety only in the
multitude of witnesses. Let us, therefore, hear first what Chopin's
pupils have got to say on this point, and then go and inquire further.
Gutmann said that Chopin played generally very quietly, and rarely,
indeed hardly ever, fortissimo. The A flat major Polonaise (Op. 53),
for instance, he could not thunder forth in the way we are accustomed to
hear it. As for the famous octave passages which occur in it, he began
them pianissimo and continued thus without much increase in loudness.
And, then, Chopin never thumped. M. Mathias remarks that his master
had extraordinary vigour, but only in flashes. Mikuli's preface to his
edition of the works of Chopin affords more explicit information. We
read there:--
The tone which Chopin brought out of the instrument was
always, especially in the cantabiles, immense (riesengross),
only Field could perhaps in this respect be compared to him. A
manly energy gave to appropriate passages overpowering effect--
energy without roughness (Rohheit); but, on the other hand,
he knew how by delicacy--delicacy without affectation--to
captivate the hearer.
We may summarise these various depositions by saying with Lenz that,
being deficient in physical strength, Chopin put his all in the
cantabile style, in the connections and combinations, in the detail. But
two things are evident, and they ought to be noted: (1) The volume of
tone, of pure tone, which Chopin was capable of producing was by no
means inconsiderable; (2) he had learnt the art of economising his means
so as to cover his shortcomings. This last statement is confirmed by
some remarks of Moscheles which have already been quoted--namely, that
Chopin's piano was breathed forth so softly that he required no vigorous
forte to produce the desired contrasts; and that one did not miss the
orchestral effects which the German school demanded from a pianist, but
allowed one's self to be carried away as by a singer who takes little
heed of the accompaniment and follows his own feelings.
In listening to accounts of Chopin's style of playing, we must not leave
out of consideration the time to which they refer. What is true of the
Chopin of 1848 is not true of the Chopin of 1831 nor of 1841. In the
last years of his life he became so weak that sometimes, as Stephen
Heller told me, his playing was hardly audible. He then made use of
all sorts of devices to hide the want of vigour, often modifying the
original conception of his compositions, but always producing beautiful
effects. Thus, to give only one example (for which and much other
interesting information I am indebted to Mr. Charles Halle), Chopin
played at his last concert in Paris (February, 1848) the two forte
passages towards the end of the Barcarole, not as they are printed,
but pianissimo and with all sorts of dynamic finesses. Having possessed
himself of the most recondite mysteries of touch, and mastered as no
other pianist had done the subtlest gradations of tone, he even then,
reduced by disease as he was, did not give the hearer the impression
of weakness. At least this is what Mr. Otto Goldschmidt relates, who
likewise was present at this concert. There can be no doubt that what
Chopin aimed at chiefly, or rather, let us say, what his physical
constitution permitted him to aim at, was quality not quantity of tone.
A writer in the "Menestrel" (October 21, 1849) remarks that for Chopin,
who in this was unlike all other pianists, the piano had always too much
tone; and that his constant endeavour was to SENTIMENTALISE the timbre,
his greatest care to avoid everything which approached the fracas
pianistique of the time.
Of course, a true artist's touch has besides its mechanical also its
spiritual aspect. With regard to this it is impossible to overlook the
personal element which pervaded and characterised Chopin's touch. M.
Marmontel does not forget to note it in his "Pianistes Celebres." He
writes:--
In the marvellous art of carrying and modulating the tone, in
the expressive, melancholy manner of shading it off, Chopin
was entirely himself. He had quite an individual way of
attacking the keyboard, a supple, mellow touch, sonorous
effects of a vaporous fluidity of which only he knew the
secret.
In connection with Chopin's production of tone, I must not omit to
mention his felicitous utilisation of the loud and soft pedals. It was
not till the time of Liszt, Thalberg, and Chopin that the pedals
became a power in pianoforte-playing. Hummel did not understand their
importance, and failed to take advantage of them. The few indications
we find in Beethoven's works prove that this genius began to see some of
the as yet latent possibilities. Of the virtuosi,
Moscheles was the first who made a more extensive and artistic use of
the pedals, although also he employed them sparingly compared with
his above-named younger contemporaries. Every pianist of note has,
of course, his own style of pedalling. Unfortunately, there are no
particulars forthcoming with regard to Chopin's peculiar style; and this
is the more to be regretted as the composer was very careless in his
notation of the pedals. Rubinstein declares that most of the pedal marks
in Chopin's compositions are wrongly placed. If nothing more, we know at
least thus much: "No pianist before him [Chopin] has employed the pedals
alternately or simultaneously with so much tact and ability," and
"in making constantly use of the pedal he obtained des harmonies
ravissantes, des bruissements melodiques qui etonnaient et charmaient."
[FOOTNOTE: Marmontel: "Les Pianistes celebres."]
The poetical qualities of Chopin's playingare not so easily defined as
the technical ones. Indeed, if they are definable at all they are so
only by one who, like Liszt, is a poet as well as a great pianist. I
shall, therefore, transcribe from his book some of the most important
remarks bearing on this matter.
After saying that Chopin idealised the fugitive poesy inspired by
fugitive apparitions like "La Fee aux Miettes," "Le Lutin d'Argail,"
&c., to such an extent as to render its fibres so thin and friable that
they seemed no longer to belong to our nature, but to reveal to us the
indiscreet confidences of the Undines, Titanias, Ariels, Queen Mabs, and
Oberons, Liszt proceeds thus:--
When this kind of inspiration laid hold of Chopin his playing
assumed a distinctive character, whatever the kind of music he
executed might be--dance-music or dreamy music, mazurkas or
nocturnes, preludes or scherzos, waltzes or tarantellas,
studies or ballades. He imprinted on them all one knows not
what nameless colour, what vague appearance, what pulsations
akin to vibration, that had almost no longer anything material
about them, and, like the imponderables, seemed to act on
one's being without passing through the senses. Sometimes one
thought one heard the joyous tripping of some amorously-
teasing Peri; sometimes there were modulations velvety and
iridescent as the robe of a salamander; sometimes one heard
accents of deep despondency, as if souls in torment did not
find the loving prayers necessary for their final deliverance.
At other times there breathed forth from his fingers a despair
so mournful, so inconsolable, that one thought one saw Byron's
Jacopo Foscari come to life again, and contemplated the
extreme dejection of him who, dying of love for his country,
preferred death to exile, being unable to endure the pain of
leaving Venezia la bella!
It is interesting to compare this description with that of another poet,
a poet who sent forth his poetry daintily dressed in verse as well
as carelessly wrapped in prose. Liszt tells us that Chopin had in his
imagination and talent something "qui, par la purete de sa diction, par
ses accointances avec La Fee aux Miettes et Le Lutin d'Argail, par ses
rencon-tres de Seraphine et de Diane, murmurant a son oreille leurs plus
confidentielles plaintes, leurs reves les plus innommes," [FOOTNOTE: The
allusions are to stories by Charles Nodier. According to Sainte-Beuve,
"La Fee aux Miettes" was one of those stories in which the author was
influenced by Hoffmann's creations.] reminded him of Nodier. Now, what
thoughts did Chopin's playing call up in Heine?
Yes, one must admit that Chopin has genius in the full sense
of the word; he is not only a virtuoso, he is also a poet; he
can embody for us the poesy which lives within his soul, he is
a tone-poet, and nothing can be compared to the pleasure which
he gives us when he sits at the piano and improvises. He is
then neither a Pole, nor a Frenchman, nor a German, he reveals
then a higher origin, one perceives then that he comes from
the land of Mozart, Raphael, and Goethe, his true fatherland
is the dream-realm of poesy. When he sits at the piano and
improvises I feel as though a countryman from my beloved
native land were visiting me and telling me the most curious
things which have taken place there during my
absence...Sometimes I should like to interrupt him with
questions: And how is the beautiful little water-nymph who
knows how to fasten her silvery veil so coquettishly round her
green locks? Does the white-bearded sea-god still persecute
her with his foolish, stale love? Are the roses at home still
in their flame-hued pride? Do the trees still sing as
beautifully in the moonlight?
But to return to Liszt. A little farther on than the passage I quoted
above he says:--
In his playing the great artist rendered exquisitely that kind
of agitated trepidation, timid or breathless, which seizes the
heart when one believes one's self in the vicinity of
supernatural beings, in presence of those whom one does not
know either how to divine or to lay hold of, to embrace or to
charm. He always made the melody undulate like a skiff borne
on the bosom of a powerful wave; or he made it move vaguely
like an aerial apparition suddenly sprung up in this tangible
and palpable world. In his writings he at first indicated this
manner which gave so individual an impress to his virtuosity
by the term tempo rubato: stolen, broken time--a measure at
once supple, abrupt, and languid, vacillating like the flame
under the breath which agitates it, like the corn in a field
swayed by the soft pressure of a warm air, like the top of
trees bent hither and thither by a keen breeze.
But as the term taught nothing to him who knew, said nothing
to him who did not know, understand, and feel, Chopin
afterwards ceased to add this explanation to his music, being
persuaded that if one understood it, it was impossible not to
divine this rule of irregularity. Accordingly, all his
compositions ought to be played with that kind of accented,
rhythmical balancement, that morbidezza, the secret of which
it was difficult to seize if one had not often heard him play.
Let us try if it is not possible to obtain a clearer notion of this
mysterious tempo rubato. Among instrumentalists the "stolen time" was
brought into vogue especially by Chopin and Liszt. But it is not
an invention of theirs or their time. Quanz, the great flutist (see
Marpurg: "Kritische Beitrage." Vol. I.), said that he heard it for
the first time from the celebrated singer Santa Stella Lotti, who was
engaged in 1717 at the Dresden Opera, and died in 1759 at Venice. Above
all, however, we have to keep in mind that the tempo rubato is a genus
which comprehends numerous species. In short, the tempo rubato of Chopin
is not that of Liszt, that of Liszt is not that of Henselt, and so on.
As for the general definitions we find in dictionaries, they can afford
us no particular enlightenment. But help comes to us from elsewhere.
Liszt explained Chopin's tempo rubato in a very poetical and graphic
manner to his pupil the Russian pianist Neilissow:--"Look at these
trees!" he said, "the wind plays in the leaves, stirs up life among
them, the tree remains the same, that is Chopinesque rubato." But how
did the composer himself describe it? From Madame Dubois and other
pupils of Chopin we learn that he was in the habit of saying to them:
"Que votre main gauche soit votre maitre de chapelle et garde toujours
la mesure" (Let your left hand be your conductor and always keep time).
According to Lenz Chopin taught also: "Angenommen, ein Stuck dauert
so und so viel Minuten, wenn das Ganze nur so lange gedauert hat, im
Einzelnen kann's anders sein!" (Suppose a piece lasts so and so many
minutes, if only the whole lasts so long, the differences in the details
do not matter). This is somewhat ambiguous teaching, and seems to be
in contradiction to the preceding precept. Mikuli, another pupil of
Chopin's, explains his master's tempo rubato thus:--"While the singing
hand, either irresolutely lingering or as in passionate speech eagerly
anticipating with a certain impatient vehemence, freed the truth of
the musical expression from all rhythmical fetters, the other, the
accompanying hand, continued to play strictly in time." We get a very
lucid description of Chopin's tempo rubato from the critic of the
Athenaeum who after hearing the pianist-composer at a London matinee in
1848 wrote:--"He makes free use of tempo rubato; leaning about within
his bars more than any player we recollect, but still subject to a
presiding measure such as presently habituates the ear to the liberties
taken." Often, no doubt, people mistook for tempo rubato what in reality
was a suppression or displacement of accent, to which kind of playing
the term is indeed sometimes applied. The reader will remember the
following passage from a criticism in the "Wiener Theaterzeitung" of
1829:--"There are defects noticeable in the young man's [Chopin's]
playing, among which is perhaps especially to be mentioned the
non-observance of the indication by accent of the commencement of
musical phrases." Mr. Halle related to me an interesting dispute bearing
on this matter. The German pianist told Chopin one day that he played in
his mazurkas often 4/4 instead of 3/4 time. Chopin would not admit it
at first, but when Mr. Halle proved his case by counting to Chopin's
playing, the latter admitted the correctness of the observation, and
laughing said that this was national. Lenz reports a similar dispute
between Chopin and Meyerbeer. In short, we may sum up in Moscheles'
words, Chopin's playing did not degenerate into Tactlosigkeit [lit.,
timelessness], but it was of the most charming originality. Along with
the above testimony we have, however, to take note of what Berlioz
said on the subject: "Chopin supportait mal le frein de la mesure; il
a pousse beaucoup trap loin, selon moi, l'independance rhythmique."
Berlioz even went so far as to say that "Chopin could not play strictly
in time [ne pouvait pas jouer regulierement]."
Indeed, so strange was Chopin's style that when Mr. Charles Halle first
heard him play his compositions he could not imagine how what he heard
was represented by musical signs. But strange as Chopin's style of
playing was he thinks that its peculiarities are generally exaggerated.
The Parisians said of Rubinstein's playing of compositions of Chopin:
"Ce n'est pas ca!" Mr. Halle himself thinks that Rubinstein's rendering
of Chopin is clever, but not Chopinesque. Nor do Von Bulow's readings
come near the original. As for Chopin's pupils, they are even less
successful than others in imitating their master's style. The opinion of
one who is so distinguished a pianist and at the same time was so well
acquainted with Chopin as Mr. Halle is worth having. Hearing Chopin
often play his compositions he got so familiar with that master's music
and felt so much in sympathy with it that the composer liked to have it
played by him, and told him that when he was in the adjoining room he
could imagine he was playing himself.
But it is time that we got off the shoals on which we have been lying so
long. Well, Lenz shall set us afloat:--
In the undulation of the motion, in that suspension and unrest
[Hangen und Bangen], in the rubato as he understood it, Chopin
was captivating, every note was the outcome of the best taste
in the best sense of the word. If he introduced an
embellishment, which happened only rarely, it was always a
kind of miracle of good taste. Chopin was by his whole nature
unfitted to render Beethoven or Weber, who paint on a large
scale and with a big brush. Chopin was an artist in crayons
[Pastellmaler], but an INCOMPARABLE one! By the side of Liszt
he might pass with honour for that master's well-matched wife
[ebenburtige Frau, i.e., wife of equal rank]. Beethoven's B
flat major Sonata, Op. 106, and Chopin exclude each other.
One day Chopin took Lenz with him to the Baronne Krudner and her friend
the Countess Scheremetjew to whom he had promised to play the variations
of Beethoven's Sonata in A flat major (Op. 26). And how did he play
them?
Beautifully [says Lenz], but not so beautifully as his own
things, not enthrallingly [packend], not en relief, not as a
romance increasing in interest from variation to variation. He
whispered it mezza voce, but it was incomparable in the
cantilena, infinitely perfect in the phrasing of the
structure, ideally beautiful, but FEMININE! Beethoven is a man
and never ceases to be one!
Chopin played on a Pleyel, he made it a point never to give
lessons on another instrument; they were obliged to get a
Pleyel. All were charmed, I also was charmed, but only with
the tone of Chopin, with his touch, with his sweetness and
grace, with the purity of his style.
Chopin's purity of style, self-command, and aristocratic reserve have to
be quite especially noted by us who are accustomed to hear the master's
compositions played wildly, deliriously, ostentatiously. J. B. Cramer's
remarks on Chopin are significant. The master of a bygone age said of
the master of the then flourishing generation:--
I do not understand him, but he plays beautifully and
correctly, oh! very correctly, he does not give way to his
passion like other young men, but I do not understand him.
What one reads and hears of Chopin's playing agrees with the account
of his pupil Mikuli, who remarks that, with all the warmth which Chopin
possessed in so high a degree, his rendering was nevertheless temperate
[massvoll], chaste, nay, aristocratic, and sometimes even severely
reserved. When, on returning home from the above-mentioned visit to the
Russian ladies, Lenz expressed his sincere opinion of Chopin's playing
of Beethoven's variations, the master replied testily: "I indicate
(j'indique); the hearer must complete (parachever) the picture." And
when afterwards, while Chopin was changing his clothes in an adjoining
room, Lenz committed the impertinence of playing Beethoven's theme as he
understood it, the master came in in his shirt-sleeves, sat down beside
him, and at the end of the theme laid his hand on Lenz's shoulder and
said: "I shall tell Liszt of it; this has never happened to me
before; but it is beautiful--well, BUT MUST ONE THEN ALWAYS SPEAK SO
PASSIONATELY (si declamatoirement)?" The italics in the text, not those
in parentheses, are mine. I marked some of Chopin's words thus that they
might get the attention they deserve. "Tell me with whom you associate,
and I will tell you who you are." Parodying this aphorism one might say,
not without a good deal of truth: Tell me what piano you use, and I
will tell you what sort of a pianist you are. Liszt gives us all the
desirable information as to Chopin's predilection in this respect. But
Lenz too has, as we have seen, touched on this point. Liszt writes:--
While Chopin was strong and healthy, as during the first years
of his residence in Paris, he used to play on an Erard piano;
but after his friend Camille Pleyel had made him a present of
one of his splendid instruments, remarkable for their metallic
ring and very light touch, he would play on no other maker's.
If he was engaged for a soiree at the house of one of his
Polish or French friends, he would often send his own
instrument, if there did not happen to be a Pleyel in the
house.
Chopin was very partial to [affectionnait] Pleyel's pianos,
particularly on account of their silvery and somewhat veiled
sonority, and of the easy touch which permitted him to draw
from them sounds which one might have believed to belong to
those harmonicas of which romantic Germany has kept the
monopoly, and which her ancient masters constructed so
ingeniously, marrying crystal to water.
Chopin himself said:--
When I am indisposed, I play on one of Erard's pianos and
there I easily find a ready-made tone. But when I feel in the
right mood and strong enough to find my own tone for myself, I
must have one of Pleyel's pianos.
From the fact that Chopin played during his visit to Great Britain in
1848 at public concerts as well as at private parties on instruments of
Broadwood's, we may conclude that he also appreciated the pianos of this
firm. In a letter dated London, 48, Dover Street, May 6, 1848, he writes
to Gutmann: "Erard a ete charmant, il m'a fait poser un piano. J'ai un
de Broadwood et un de Pleyel, ce qui fait 3, et je ne trouve pas encore
le temps pour les jouer." And in a letter dated Edinburgh, August 6, and
Calder House, August 11, he writes to Franchomme: "I have a Broadwood
piano in my room, and the Pleyel of Miss Stirling in the salon."
Here, I think, will be the fittest place to record what I have learnt
regarding Chopin's musical taste and opinions on music and musicians,
and what will perhaps illustrate better than any other part of this
book the character of the man and artist. His opinions of composers
and musical works show that he had in a high degree les vices de ses
qualites. The delicacy of his constitution and the super-refinement
of his breeding, which put within his reach the inimitable beauties
of subtlest tenderness and grace that distinguish his compositions
and distinguished his playing, were disqualifications as well as
qualifications. "Every kind of uncouth roughness [toutes les rudesses
sauvages] inspired him with aversion," says Liszt. "In music as in
literature and in every-day life everything which bordered on melodrama
was torture to him." In short, Chopin was an aristocrat with all the
exclusiveness of an aristocrat.
The inability of men of genius to appreciate the merit of one or
the other of their great predecessors and more especially of their
contemporaries has often been commented on and wondered at, but I doubt
very much whether a musician could be instanced whose sympathies were
narrower than those of Chopin. Besides being biographically important,
the record of the master's likings and dislikings will teach a
useful lesson to the critic and furnish some curious material for the
psychological student.
Highest among all the composers, living and dead, Chopin esteemed
Mozart. Him he regarded as "the ideal type, the poet par excellence."
It is related of Chopin--with what truth I do not know--that he never
travelled without having either the score of "Don Giovanni" or that of
the "Requiem" in his portmanteau. Significant, although not founded on
fact, is the story according to which he expressed the wish that the
"Requiem" should be performed at his funeral service. Nothing, however,
shows his love for the great German master more unmistakably and more
touchingly than the words which on his death-bed he addressed to his
dear friends the Princess Czartoryska and M. Franchomme: "You will play
Mozart together, and I shall hear you." And why did Chopin regard Mozart
as the ideal type, the poet par excellence? Liszt answers: "Because
Mozart condescended more rarely than any other composer to cross the
steps which separate refinement from vulgarity." But what no doubt
more especially stirred sympathetic chords in the heart of Chopin, and
inspired him with that loving admiration for the earlier master, was
the sweetness, the grace, and the harmoniousness which in Mozart's works
reign supreme and undisturbed--the unsurpassed and unsurpassable perfect
loveliness and lovely perfection which result from a complete absence of
everything that is harsh, hard, awkward, unhealthy, and eccentric. And
yet, says Liszt of Chopin:--
His sybaritism of purity, his apprehension of what was
commonplace, were such that even in "Don Giovanni," even in
this immortal chef-d'oeuvre, he discovered passages the
presence of which we have heard him regret. His worship of
Mozart was not thereby diminished, but as it were saddened.
The composer who next to Mozart stood highest in Chopin's esteem was
Bach. "It was difficult to say," remarks Mikuli, "which of the two he
loved most." Chopin not only, as has already been mentioned, had works
of Bach on his writing-table at Valdemosa, corrected the Parisian
edition for his own use, and prepared himself for his concerts by
playing Bach, but also set his pupils to study the immortal cantor's
suites, partitas, and preludes and fugues. Madame Dubois told me that
at her last meeting with him (in 1848) he recommended her "de toujours
travailler Bach," adding that that was the best means of making
progress.
Hummel, Field, and Moscheles were the pianoforte composers who seem to
have given Chopin most satisfaction. Mozart and Bach were his gods, but
these were his friends. Gutmann informed me that Chopin was particularly
fond of Hummel; Liszt writes that Hummel was one of the composers Chopin
played again and again with the greatest pleasure; and from Mikuli we
learn that of Hummel's compositions his master liked best the Fantasia,
the Septet, and the Concertos. Liszt's statement that the Nocturnes of
Field were regarded by Chopin as "insuffisants" seems to me disproved
by unexceptionable evidence. Chopin schooled his pupils most assiduously
and carefully in the Nocturnes as well as in the Concertos of Field, who
was, to use Madame Dubois's words, "an author very sympathetic to
him." Mikuli relates that Chopin had a predilection for Field's A flat
Concerto and the Nocturnes, and that, when playing the latter, he used
to improvise the most charming embellishments. To take liberties with
another artist's works and complain when another artist takes liberties
with your own works is very inconsistent, is it not? But it is also
thoroughly human, and Chopin was not exempt from the common failing. One
day when Liszt did with some composition of Chopin's what the latter was
in the habit of doing with Field's Nocturnes, the enraged composer
is said to have told his friend to play his compositions as they were
written or to let them alone. M. Marmontel writes:--
Either from a profound love of the art or from an excess of
conscience personelle, Chopin could not bear any one to touch
the text of his works. The slightest modification seemed to
him a grave fault which he did not even forgive his intimate
friends, his fervent admirers, Liszt not excepted. I have many
a time, as well as my master, Zimmermann, caused Chopin's
sonatas, concertos, ballades, and allegros to be played as
examination pieces; but restricted as I was to a fragment of
the work, I was pained by the thought of hurting the composer,
who considered these alterations a veritable sacrilege.
This, however, is a digression. Little need be added to what has already
been said in another chapter of the third composer of the group we were
speaking of. Chopin, the reader will remember, told Moscheles that he
loved his music, and Moscheles admitted that he who thus complimented
him was intimately acquainted with it. From Mikuli we learn that
Moscheles' studies were very sympathetic to his master. As to Moscheles'
duets, they were played by Chopin probably more frequently than the
works of any other composer, excepting of course his own works. We hear
of his playing them not only with his pupils, but with Osborne, with
Moscheles himself, and with Liszt, who told me that Chopin was fond of
playing with him the duets of Moscheles and Hummel.
Speaking of playing duets reminds me of Schubert, who, Gutmann informed
me, was a favourite of Chopin's. The Viennese master's "Divertissement
hongrois" he admired without reserve. Also the marches and polonaises
a quatre mains he played with his pupils. But his teaching repertoire
seems to have contained, with the exception of the waltzes, none of the
works a deux mains, neither the sonatas, nor the impromptus, nor the
"Moments musicals." This shows that if Schubert was a favourite of
Chopin's, he was so only to a certain extent. Indeed, Chopin even
found fault with the master where he is universally regarded as facile
princeps. Liszt remarks:--
In spite of the charm which he recognised in some of
Schubert's melodies, he did not care to hear those whose
contours were too sharp for his ear, where feeling is as it
were denuded, where one feels, so to speak, the flesh
palpitate and the bones crack under the grasp of anguish. A
propos of Schubert, Chopin is reported to have said: "The
sublime is dimmed when it is followed by the common or the
trivial."
I shall now mention some of those composers with whom Chopin was less
in sympathy. In the case of Weber his approval, however, seems to have
outweighed his censure. At least Mikuli relates that the E minor and
A flat major Sonatas and the "Concertstuck" were among those works for
which his master had a predilection, and Madame Dubois says that he made
his pupils play the Sonatas in C and in A flat major with extreme care.
Now let us hear Lenz:-- He could not appreciate Weber; he spoke of
"opera," "unsuitable for the piano" [unklaviermassig]! On the whole,
Chopin was little in sympathy with the GERMAN spirit in music,
although I heard him say: "There is only ONE SCHOOL, the
German!"
Gutmann informed me that he brought the A flat major Sonata with him
from Germany in 1836 or 1837, and that Chopin did not know it then. It
is hard enough to believe that Liszt asked Lenz in 1828 if the composer
of the "Freischutz" had also written for the piano, but Chopin's
ignorance in 1836 is much more startling. Did fame and publications
travel so slowly in the earlier part of the century? Had genius to wait
so long for recognition? If the statement, for the correctness of which
Gutmann alone is responsible, rests on fact and not on some delusion
of memory, this most characteristic work of Weber and one of the most
important items of the pianoforte literature did not reach Chopin,
one of the foremost European pianists, till twenty years after its
publication, which took place in December, 1816.
That Chopin had a high opinion of Beethoven may be gathered from a story
which Lenz relates in an article written for the "Berliner Musikzeitung"
(Vol. XXVI). Little Filtsch--the talented young Hungarian who made Liszt
say: "I shall shut my shop when he begins to travel"--having played to
a select company invited by his master the latter's Concerto in E minor,
Chopin was so pleased with his pupil's performance that he went with
him to Schlesinger's music-shop, asked for the score of "Fidelio," and
presented it to him with the words:--"I am in your debt, you have given
me great pleasure to-day, I wrote the concerto in a happy time, accept,
my dear young friend, the great master work! read in it as long as
you live and remember me also sometimes." But Chopin's high opinion of
Beethoven was neither unlimited nor unqualified. His attitude as regards
this master, which Franchomme briefly indicated by saying that his
friend loved Beethoven, but had his dislikes in connection with him, is
more fully explained by Liszt.
However great his admiration for the works of Beethoven might
be, certain parts of them seemed to him too rudely fashioned.
Their structure was too athletic to please him; their wraths
seemed to him too violent [leurs courroux lui semblaient trop
rugissants]. He held that in them passion too closely
approaches cataclysm; the lion's marrow which is found in
every member of his phrases was in his opinion a too
substantial matter, and the seraphic accents, the Raphaelesque
profiles, which appear in the midst of the powerful creations
of this genius, became at times almost painful to him in so
violent a contrast.
I am able to illustrate this most excellent general description by some
examples. Chopin said that Beethoven raised him one moment up to the
heavens and the next moment precipitated him to the earth, nay, into the
very mire. Such a fall Chopin experienced always at the commencement of
the last movement of the C minor Symphony. Gutmann, who informed me
of this, added that pieces such as the first movement of the Moonlight
Sonata (C sharp minor) were most highly appreciated by his master. One
day when Mr. Halle played to Chopin one of the three Sonatas, Op. 31
(I am not sure which it was), the latter remarked that he had formerly
thought the last movement VULGAR. From this Mr. Halle naturally
concluded that Chopin could not have studied the works of Beethoven
thoroughly. This conjecture is confirmed by what we learn from Lenz,
who in 1842 saw a good deal of Chopin, and thanks to his Boswellian
inquisitiveness, persistence, and forwardness, made himself acquainted
with a number of interesting facts. Lenz and Chopin spoke a great deal
about Beethoven after that visit to the Russian ladies mentioned in
a foregoing part of this chapter. They had never spoken of the great
master before. Lenz says of Chopin:--
He did not take a very serious interest in Beethoven; he knew
only his principal compositions, the last works not at all.
This was in the Paris air! People knew the symphonies, the
quartets of the middle period but little, the last ones not at
all.
Chopin, on being told by Lenz that Beethoven had in the F minor Quartet
anticipated Mendelssohn, Schumann, and him; and that the scherzo
prepared the way for his mazurka-fantasias, said: "Bring me this
quartet, I do not know it." According to Mikuli Chopin was a regular
frequenter of the concerts of the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire
and of the Alard, Franchomme, &c., quartet party. But one of the most
distinguished musicians living in Paris, who knew Chopin's opinion
of Beethoven, suspects that the music was for him not the greatest
attraction of the Conservatoire concerts, that in fact, like most of
those who went there, he considered them a fashionable resort. True or
not, the suspicion is undeniably significant. "But Mendelssohn," the
reader will say, "surely Chopin must have admired and felt in sympathy
with this sweet-voiced, well-mannered musician?" Nothing, however, could
be farther from the truth. Chopin hated Mendelssohn's D minor Trio, and
told Halle that that composer had never written anything better than the
first Song without Words. Franchomme, stating the case mildly, says
that Chopin did not care much for Mendelssohn's music; Gutmann, however,
declared stoutly that his master positively disliked it and thought it
COMMON. This word and the mention of the Trio remind me of a passage in
Hiller's "Mendelssohn: Letters and Recollections," in which the author
relates how, when his friend played to him the D minor Trio after its
completion, he was favourably impressed by the fire, spirit, and flow,
in one word, the masterly character of the work, but had some misgivings
about certain pianoforte passages, especially those based on broken
chords, which, accustomed as he was by his constant intercourse with
Liszt and Chopin during his stay of several years in Paris to the
rich passage work of the new school, appeared to him old-fashioned.
Mendelssohn, who in his letters repeatedly alludes to his sterility in
the matter of new pianoforte passages, allowed himself to be persuaded
by Hiller to rewrite the pianoforte part, and was pleased with the
result. It is clear from the above that if Mendelssohn failed to give
Chopin his due, Chopin did more than apply the jus talionis.
Schumann, however, found still less favour in the eyes of Chopin than
Mendelssohn; for whilst among the works which, for instance, Madame
Dubois, who was Chopin's pupil for five years, studied under her master,
Mendelssohn was represented at least by the Songs without Words and the
G minor Concerto, Schumann was conspicuous by his total absence. And let
it be remarked that this was in the last years of Chopin's life, when
Schumann had composed and published almost all his important works for
pianoforte alone and many of his finest works for pianoforte with other
instruments. M. Mathias, Chopin's pupil during the years 1839-1844,
wrote to me: "I think I recollect that he had no great opinion of
Schumann. I remember seeing the "Carnaval," Op. 9, on his table; he did
not speak very highly of it." In 1838, when Stephen Heller was about
to leave Augsburg for Paris, Schumann sent him a copy of his "Carnaval"
(published in September, 1837), to be presented to Chopin. This copy had
a title-page printed in various colours and was most tastefully bound;
for Schumann knew Chopin's love of elegance, and wished to please him.
Soon after his arrival in Paris, Heller called on the Polish musician
and found him sitting for his portrait. On receiving the copy of the
"Carnaval" Chopin said: "How beautifully they get up these things in
Germany!" but uttered not a word about the music. However, we shall see
presently what his opinion of it was. Some time, perhaps some years,
after this first meeting with Chopin, Heller was asked by Schlesinger
whether he would advise him to publish Schumann's "Carnaval." Heller
answered that it would be a good speculation, for although the work
would probably not sell well at first, it was sure to pay in the long
run. Thereupon Schlesinger confided to Heller what Chopin had told
him--namely, that the "Carnaval" was not music at all. The contemplation
of this indifference and more than indifference of a great artist to the
creations of one of his most distinguished contemporaries is saddening,
especially if we remember how devoted Schumann was to Chopin, how he
admired him, loved him, upheld him, and idolised him. Had it not been
for Schumann's enthusiastic praise and valiant defence Chopin's fame
would have risen and spread, more slowly in Germany.
"Of virtuoso music of any kind I never saw anything on his desk, nor do
I think anybody else ever did," says Mikuli.. This, although true in
the main, is somewhat too strongly stated. Kalkbrenner, whose "noisy
virtuosities [virtuosites tapageuses] and decorative expressivities
[expressivites decoratives]" Chopin regarded with antipathy, and
Thalberg, whose shallow elegancies and brilliancies he despised, were
no doubt altogether banished from his desk; this, however, seems not
to have been the case with Liszt, who occasionally made his appearance
there. Thus Madame Dubois studied under Chopin Liszt's transcription
of Rossini's "Tarantella" and of the Septet from Donizetti's "Lucia di
Lammermoor." But the compositions of Liszt that had Chopin's approval
were very limited in number. Chopin, who viewed making concessions to
bad taste at the cost of true art and for the sake of success with the
greatest indignation, found his former friend often guilty of this sin.
In 1840 Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's "Adelaide" was published
in a supplement to the Gazette musicale. M. Mathias happened to come to
Chopin on the day when the latter had received the number of the journal
which contained the piece in question, and found his master furious,
outre, on account of certain cadenzas which he considered out of place
and out of keeping.
We have seen in one of the earlier chapters how little Chopin approved
of Berlioz's matter and manner; some of the ultra-romanticist's
antipodes did not fare much better. As for Halevy, Chopin had no great
opinion of him; Meyerbeer's music he heartily disliked; and, although
not insensible to Auber's French esprit and liveliness, he did not prize
this master's works very highly. Indeed, at the Italian opera-house
he found more that was to his taste than at the French opera-houses.
Bellini's music had a particular charm for Chopin, and he was also an
admirer of Rossini.
The above notes exemplify and show the truth of Liszt's remark:--
In the great models and the master-works of art Chopin sought
only what corresponded with his nature. What resembled it
pleased him; what differed from it hardly received justice
from him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1843-1847.
CHOPIN'S PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND BUSINESS EXPERIENCES WITH
PUBLISHERS.--LETTERS TO FRANCHOMME.--PUBLICATIONS FROM 1842-7.--SOJOURNS
AT NOHANT.--LISZT, MATTHEW ARNOLD, GEORGE SAND, CHARLES ROLLINAT,
AND EUGENE DELACROIX ON NOHANT AND LIFE AT NOHANT.--CHOPIN'S MODE OF
COMPOSITION.--CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND TAKE UP THEIR PARIS QUARTERS IN
THE CITE D'ORLEANS.--THEIR WAY OF LIFE THERE, PARTICULARLY CHOPIN'S, AS
DESCRIBED BY HIS PUPILS LINDSAY SLOPER, MATHIAS, AND MADAME DUBOIS, AND
MORE ESPECIALLY BY LENZ, MADAME SAND HERSELF, AND PROFESSOR ALEXANDER
CHODZKO (DOMESTIC RELATIONS, APARTMENTS, MANNERS, SYMPATHIES, HIS
TALENT FOR MIMICRY, GEORGE SAND'S FRIENDS, AND HER ESTIMATE OF CHOPIN'S
CHARACTER).
Chopin's life from 1843 to 1847 was too little eventful to lend itself
to a chronologically progressive narrative. I shall, therefore, begin
this chapter with a number of letters written by the composer during
this period to his friend Franchomme, and then endeavour to describe
Chopin's mode of life, friends, character, &c.
The following fascicle of letters, although containing less about the
writer's thoughts, feelings, and doings than we could wish, affords
nevertheless matter of interest. At any rate, much additional light is
thrown on Chopin's pecuniary circumstances and his dealings with his
publishers.
Impecuniosity seems to have been a chronic state with the artist and
sometimes to have pressed hard upon him. On one occasion it even made
him write to the father of one of his pupils, and ask for the payment
of the fees for five lessons (100 francs). M. Mathias tells me that the
letter is still in his possession. One would hardly have expected such
a proceeding from a grand seigneur like Chopin, and many will, no doubt,
ask, how it was that a teacher so much sought after, who got 20 francs a
lesson, and besides had an income from his compositions, was reduced to
such straits. The riddle is easily solved. Chopin was open-handed
and not much of an economist: he spent a good deal on pretty trifles,
assisted liberally his needy countrymen, made handsome presents to
his friends, and is said to have had occasionally to pay bills of his
likewise often impecunious lady-love. Moreover, his total income was not
so large as may be supposed, for although he could have as many pupils
as he wished, he never taught more than five hours a day, and lived
every year for several months in the country. And then there is one
other point to be taken into consideration: he often gave his lessons
gratis. From Madame Rubio I learned that on one occasion when she had
placed the money for a series of lessons on the mantel-piece, the master
declined to take any of it, with the exception of a 20-franc piece, for
which sum he put her name down on a subscription list for poor Poles.
Lindsay Sloper, too, told me that Chopin declined payment for the
lessons he gave him.
Chopin's business experiences were not, for the most part, of a pleasant
nature; this is shown as much by the facts he mentions in his letters
as by the distrust with which he speaks of the publishers. Here are some
more particulars on the same subject. Gutmann says that Chopin on
his return from Majorca asked Schlesinger for better terms. But the
publisher, whilst professing the highest opinion of the composer's
merit, regretted that the sale of the compositions was not such as to
allow him to pay more than he had hitherto done. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin's
letters show that Gutmann's statement is correct. Troupenas was Chopin's
publisher for some time after his return from Majorca.] Stephen Heller
remembered hearing that Breitkopf and Hartel, of Leipzig, wrote to their
Paris agent informing him that they would go on publishing Chopin's
compositions, although, considering their by no means large sale, the
terms at which they got them were too high. Ed. Wolff related to me that
one day he drove with his countryman to the publisher Troupenas, to whom
Chopin wished to sell his Sonata (probably the one in B flat minor).
When after his negotiations with the publisher Chopin was seated again
in the carriage, he said in Polish: "The pig, he offered me 200
francs for my Sonata!" Chopin's relations with England were even less
satisfactory. At a concert at which Filtsch played, Chopin introduced
Stephen Heller to Wessel or to a representative ofthat firm, but
afterwards remarked: "You won't find them pleasant to deal with."
Chopin at any rate did not find them pleasant to deal with. Hearing that
Gutmann was going to London he asked his pupil to call at Wessel's and
try to renew the contract which had expired. The publisher on being
applied to answered that not only would he not renew the contract, but
that he would not even print Chopin's compositions if he got them for
nothing. Among the pieces offered was the Berceuse. With regard to this
story of Gutmann's it has, however, to be stated that, though it may
have some foundation of fact, it is not true as he told it; for
Wessel certainly had published the Berceuse by June 26, 1845, and also
published in the course of time the five following works. Then, however,
the connection was broken off by Wessel. Chopin's grumblings at his
English publisher brings before us only one side of the question. The
other side comes in view in the following piece of information with
which Wessel's successor, Mr. Edwin Ashdown, favoured me:--"In 1847
Mr. Wessel got tired of buying Chopin's works, which at that time had
scarcely any sale, and discontinued the agreement, his last assignment
from Chopin (of Op. 60, 61, and 62) being dated July 17, 1847." Wessel
advertised these works on September 26, 1846.
Although in the first of the following letters the day, month, and year
when it was written are not mentioned, and the second and third inform
us only of the day and month, but not of the year, internal evidence
shows that the first four letters form one group and belong to the year
1844. Chopin places the date sometimes at the head, sometimes at the
foot, and sometimes in the middle of his letters; to give it prominence
I shall place it always at the head, but indicate where he places it in
the middle.
Chateau de Nohant, near La Chatre, Indre [August 1, 1844].
Dearest [Cherissime],--I send you [FOOTNOTE: In addressing
Franchomme Chopin makes use of the pronoun of the second
person singular.] the letter from Schlesinger and another for
him. Read them. He wishes to delay the publication, and I
cannot do so. If he says NO, give my manuscripts to Maho
[FOOTNOTE: See next letter.] so that he may get M. Meissonnier
[FOOTNOTE: A Paris music-publisher. He brought out in the
following year (1845) Chopin's Op. 57, Berceuse, and Op. 58,
Sonate (B minor). The compositions spoken of in this and the
next two letters are Op. 55, Deux Nocturnes, and Op. 56, Trois
Mazurkas.] to take them for the same price, 600 francs, I
believe that he (Schlesinger) will engrave them. They must be
published on the 20th. But you know it is only necessary to
register the title on that day. I ask your pardon for
troubling you with all these things. I love you, and apply to
you as I would to my brother. Embrace your children. My
regards to Madame Franchomme.--Your devoted friend,
F. Chopin.
A thousand compliments from Madame Sand.
Chateau de Nohant, Indre, August 2 [1844].
Dearest,--I was in great haste yesterday when I wrote to you
to apply at Meissonnier's through Maho IF SCHLESINGER REFUSES
my compositions. I forgot that Henri Lemoine [FOOTNOTE: A
Paris music-publisher.] paid Schlesinger a very high price for
my studies, and that I had rather have Lemoine engrave my
manuscripts than Meissonnier. I give you much trouble, dear
friend, but here is a letter for H. Lemoine, which I send to
you. Read it, and arrange with him. He must either publish the
compositions or register the titles on the 20th of this month
(August); ask from him only 300 francs for each, which makes
600 francs for the two. Tell him he need not pay me till my
return to Paris if he likes. Give him even the two for 500
francs if you think it necessary. I had rather do that than
give them to Meissonnier for 600 francs, as I wrote to you
yesterday without reflecting. If you have in the meantime
already arranged something with M., it is a different matter.
If not, do not let them go for less than 1,000 francs. For
Maho, who is the correspondent of Haertel (who pays me well)
might, knowing that I sell my compositions for so little in
Paris, make me lower my price in Germany. I torment you much
with my affairs. It is only in case Schlesinger persists in
his intention not to publish this month. If you think Lemoine
would give 800 francs for the two works, ask them. I do not
mention THE PRICE to him so as to leave you complete freedom.
I have no time to lose before the departure of the mail. I
embrace you, dear brother--write me a line.--Yours devotedly,
Chopin.
My regards to Madame. A thousand kisses to your children.
Nohant, Monday, August 4 [1844].
Dearest,--I relied indeed on your friendship--therefore the
celerity with which you have arranged the Schlesinger affair
for me does not surprise me at all. I thank you from the
bottom of my heart, and await the moment when I shall be able
to do as much for you. I imagine all is well in your home--
that Madame Franchomme and your dear children are well--and
that you love me as I love you.--Yours devotedly,
F. CH.
Madame Sand embraces your dear big darling [fanfan], and sends
you a hearty grasp of the hand.
Chateau de Nohant, September 20, 1844.
Dearest,--If I did not write you before, it was because I
thought I should see you again this week in Paris. My
departure being postponed, I send you a line for Schlesinger
so that he may remit to you the price of my last manuscripts,
that is to say, 600 francs (100 of which you will keep for
me). I hope he will do it without making any difficulty about
it--if not, ask him at once for a line in reply (without
getting angry), send it to me, and I shall write immediately
to M. Leo to have the 500 francs you had the kindness to lend
me remitted to you before the end of the month.
What shall I say? I often think of our last evening spent with
my dear sister. [FOOTNOTE: His sister Louise, who had been on
a visit to him.] How glad she was to hear you! She wrote to me
about it since from Strasburg, and asked me to remember her to
you and Madame Franchomme. I hope you are all well, and that I
shall find you so. Write to me, and love me as I love you.
Your old
[A scrawl.]
A thousand compliments to Madame. I embrace your dear
children. A thousand compliments from Madame Sand.
[Date.]
I send you also a receipt for Schlesinger which you will give
up to him for the money only. Once more, do not be vexed if he
makes any difficulties. I embrace you.
C.
August 30, 1845.
Very dear friend,--Here are three manuscripts for Brandus,
[FOOTNOTE: Brandus, whose name here appears for the first time
in Chopin's letters, was the successor of Schlesinger.] and
three for Maho, who will remit to you Haertel's price for them
(1,500 francs). Give the manuscripts only at the moment of
payment. Send a note for 500 francs in your next letter, and
keep the rest for me. I give you much trouble, I should like
to spare you it--but--but----.
Ask Maho not to change the manuscripts destined for Haertel,
because, as I shall not correct the Leipzig proofs, it is
important that my copy should be clear. Also ask Brandus to
send me two proofs, one of which I may keep.
Now, how are you? and Madame Franchomme and her dear children?
I know you are in the country--(if St. Germain may be called
country)--that ought to do you all infinite good in the fine
weather which we continue to have. Look at my erasures! I
should not end if I were to launch out into a chat with you,
and I have not time to resume my letter, for Eug. Delacroix,
who wishes much to take charge of my message for you, leaves
immediately. He is the most admirable artist possible--I have
spent delightful times with him. He adores Mozart--knows all
his operas by heart.
Decidedly I am only making blots to-day--pardon me for them.
Au revoir, dear friend, I love you always, and I think of you
every day.
Give my kind regards to Madame Franchomme, and embrace the
dear children.
September 22, 1845.
Very dear friend,--I thank you with all my heart for all your
journeys after Maho, and your letter which I have just
received with the money. The day of the publication seems to
me good, and I have only to ask you again not to let Brandus
fall asleep on my account or over my accounts.
Nohant, July 8, 1846.
Very dear friend,--It was not because I did not think of it
that I have not written to you sooner, but because I wished to
send you at the same time my poor manuscripts, which are not
yet finished. In the meantime here is a letter for M. Brandus.
When you deliver it to him, be so kind as to ask him for a
line in reply, which you will have the goodness to send to me;
because if any unforeseen event occurs, I shall have to apply
to Meissonnier, their offers being equal.
My good friend,--I am doing my utmost to work, but I do not
get on; and if this state of things continues, my new
productions will no longer remind people either of the
WARBLING OF LINNETS [gazouillement des fauvettes] [FOOTNOTE:
This is an allusion to a remark which somebody made on his
compositions.] or even of BROKEN CHINA [porcelaine cassee]. I
must resign myself.
Write to me. I love you as much as ever.
A thousand kind regards to Madame Franchomme, and many
compliments from my sister Louise. I embrace your dear
children.
[Date.]
Madame Sand begs to be remembered to you and Madame
Franchomme.
Chateau de Nohant, near La Chatre, September 17, 1846.
Very dear friend,--I am very sorry that Brandus is away, and
that Maho is not yet in a position to receive the manuscripts
that he has so often asked me for this winter. One must
therefore wait; meanwhile I beg you will be so kind as to go
back AS SOON as you judge it possible, for I should not now
like this to be a long business, having sent my copy to London
at the same time as to you. Do not tell them this--if they are
CLEVER tradesmen [marchands habiles] they may cheat me like
honest people [en honnetes gens]. As this is all my present
fortune I should prefer the affair to turn out differently.
Also have the kindness not to consign my manuscripts to them
without receiving the money agreed upon, and send me
immediately a note for 500 francs in your letter. You will
keep the rest for me till my arrival in Paris, which will take
place probably in the end of October. I thank you a thousand
times, dear friend, for your good heart and friendly offers.
Keep your millions for me till another time--is it not already
too much to dispose of your time as I do?
[Here follow compliments to and friendly enquiries after
Franchomme's family.]
Madame Sand sends you a thousand compliments and desires to be
remembered to Madame Franchomme.
[Date.]
I shall answer Madame Rubio. [FOOTNOTE: Nee Vera de
Kologriwof, a pupil of Chopin's and teacher of music in Paris;
she married Signor Rubio, an artist, and died in the summer of
1880 at Florence.] If Mdlle. Stirling [FOOTNOTE: A Scotch lady
and pupil of Chopin's; I shall have to say more about her by-
and-by. Madame Erskine was her elder sister.] is at St.
Germain, do not forget to remember me to her, also to Madame
Erskine.
This will be the proper place to mention the compositions of the years
1842-47, about the publication of many of which we have read so much in
the above letters. There is no new publication to be recorded in 1842.
The publications of 1843 were: in February--Op. 51, Allegro vivace,
Troisieme Impromptu (G flat major), dedicated to Madame la Comtesse
Esterhazy; in December--Op. 52, Quatrieme Ballade (F minor), dedicated
to Madame la Baronne C. de Rothschild; Op. 53, Huitieme Polonaise (A
flat major), dedicated to Mr. A. Leo; and Op. 54, Scherzo, No. 4 (E
major), dedicated to Mdlle. J. de Caraman. Those of 1844 were: in
August--Op. 55, Deux Nocturnes (F minor and E flat major), dedicated
to Mdlle. J. H. Stirling; and Op. 56, Trois Mazurkas (A minor, A flat
major, and F sharp minor), dedicated to Mdlle. C. Maberly. Those of
1845: in May--Op. 57, Berceuse (D flat major), dedicated to Mdlle. Elise
Gavard; and in June--Op. 58, Sonate (B minor), dedicated to Madame la
Comtesse E. de Perthuis. Those of 1846: in April--Op. 59, Trois Mazurkas
(A minor, A flat major, and F sharp minor); and in September--Op.
60, Barcarole (F sharp major), dedicated to Madame la Baronne de
Stockhausen; Op. 61, Polonaise-Fantaisie (A flat major), dedicated to
Madame A. Veyret; and Op. 62, Deux Nocturnes (B major and E major),
dedicated to Mdlle. R. de Konneritz. Those of 1847: in September--Op.
63, Trois Mazurkas (B major, F minor, and C sharp minor), dedicated
to Madame la Comtesse L. Czosnowska, and Op. 64, Trois Valses (D flat
major, C sharp minor, and A flat major), respectively dedicated to
Madame la Comtesse Delphine Potocka, Madame la Baronne Nathaniel de
Rothschild, and Madame la Baronne Bronicka; and lastly, in October--Op.
65, Sonate (G minor), pour piano et violoncelle, dedicated to Mr. A.
Franchomme.
From 1838 to 1846 Chopin passed regularly every year, with the exception
of 1840, three or four months at Nohant. The musical papers announced
Chopin's return to town sometimes at the beginning of October, sometimes
at the beginning of November. In 1844 he must either have made a longer
stay at Nohant than usual or paid it a visit during the winter, for in
the "Gazette musicale" of January 5, 1845, we read: "Chopin has returned
to Paris and brought with him a new grand Sonata and variantes. These
two important works will soon be published."
[FOOTNOTE: The new Sonata here mentioned is the one in B minor, Op. 58,
which was published in June, 1845. As to the other item mentioned, I
am somewhat puzzled. Has the word to be taken in its literal sense
of "various readings," i.e., new readings of works already known (the
context, however, does not favour this supposition), or does it refer to
the ever-varying evolutions of the Berceuse, Op. 57. published in May,
1845, or, lastly, is it simply a misprint?]
George Sand generally prolonged her stay at Nohant till pretty far into
the winter, much to the sorrow of her malade ordinaire (thus Chopin used
to style himself), who yearned for her return to Paris.
According to Liszt, the country and the vie de chateau pleased Chopin so
much that for the sake of enjoying them he put up with company that did
not please him at all. George Sand has a different story to tell. She
declares that the retired life and the solemnity of the country agreed
neither with Chopin's physical nor with his moral health; that he loved
the country only for a fortnight, after which he bore it only out of
attachment to her; and that he never felt regret on leaving it. Whether
Chopin loved country life or not, whether he liked George Sand's Berry
friends and her guests from elsewhere or not, we may be sure that he
missed Paris and his accustomed Paris society.
"Of all the troubles I had not to endure but to contend against, the
sufferings of my malade ordinaire were not the least," says George
Sand. "Chopin always wished for Nohant, and never could bear it."
And, speaking of the later years, when the havoc made in Chopin's
constitution by the inroads of his malady showed itself more and more,
she remarks: "Nohant had become repugnant to him. His return in the
spring still filled him with ecstatic joy for a short time. But as soon
as he began to work everything round him assumed a gloomy aspect."
Before we peep into Chopin's room and watch him at work, let us see what
the chateau of Nohant and life there were like. "The railway through
the centre of France went in those days [August, 1846] no further
than Vierzon," [FOOTNOTE: The opening of the extension of the line to
Chateauroux was daily expected at that time.] writes Mr. Matthew Arnold
in an account of a visit paid by him to George Sand:--
From Vierzon to Chateauroux one travelled by an ordinary
diligence, from Chateauroux to La Chatre by a humbler
diligence, from La Chatre to Broussac by the humblest
diligence cf. all. At Broussac diligence ended, and PATACHE
began. Between Chateauroux and La Chatre, a mile or two before
reaching the latter place, the road passes by the village of
Nohant. The chateau of Nohant, in which Madame Sand lived, is
a plain house by the roadside, with a walled garden. Down in
the meadows not far off flows the Indre, bordered by trees.
The Chateau of Nohant is indeed, as Mr. Matthew Arnold says, a plain
house, only the roof with its irregularly distributed dormars and
chimney-stacks of various size giving to it a touch of picturesqueness.
On the other hand, the ground-floor, with its central door flanked
on each side by three windows, and the seven windowed story above,
impresses one with the sense of spaciousness.
Liszt, speaking of a three months' stay at Nohant made by himself and
his friend the Comtesse d'Agoult in the summer of 1837--i.e., before
the closer connection of George Sand and Chopin began--relates that the
hostess and her guests spent the days in reading good books, receiving
letters from absent friends, taking long walks on the banks of the
Indre, and in other equally simple occupations and amusements. In the
evenings they assembled on the terrace. There, where the light of
the lamps cast fantastic shadows on the neighbouring trees, they
sat listening to the murmuring of the river and the warbling of the
nightingales, and breathing in the sweet perfume of the lime-trees
and the stronger scent of the larches till the Countess would exclaim:
"There you are again dreaming, you incorrigible artists! Do you not know
that the hour for working has come?" And then George Sand would go
and write at the book on which she was engaged, and Liszt would betake
himself to the old scores which he was studying with a view to discover
some of the great masters' secrets. [FOOTNOTE: Liszt. "Essays and
Reisebriefe eines Baccalaureus der Tonkunst." Vol. II., pp. 146 and 147
of the collected works.]
Thus was Nohant in quiet days. But the days at Nohant were by no means
always quiet. For George Sand was most hospitable, kept indeed literally
open house for her friends, and did so regardless of credit and debit.
The following passage from a letter written by her in 1840 from Paris to
her half-brother Hippolyte Chatiron gives us a good idea of the state of
matters:--
If you will guarantee my being able to pass the summer at Nohant
for 4,000 francs, I will go. But I have never been there without
spending 1,500 francs per month, and as I do not spend here the
half of this, it is neither the love of work, nor that of
spending, nor that of GLORY, which makes me stay. I do not know
whether I have been pillaged; but I am at a loss how to avoid it
with my nonchalance, in so vast a house, and so easy a kind of
life as that of Nohant. Here I can see clearly; everything is
done under my eyes as I understand and wish it. At Nohant--let
this remain between us--you know that before I am up a dozen
people have often made themselves at home in the house. What can
I do? Were I to pose as a good manager [econome] they would
accuse me of stinginess; were I to let things go on, I should not
be able to provide for them. Try if you can find a remedy for
this.
In George Sand's letters many glimpses may be caught of the life at
Nohant. To some of them I have already drawn the reader's attention in
preceding chapters; now I shall point out a few more.
George Sand to Madame Marliani; Nohant, August 13, 1841:--
I have had all my nights absorbed by work and fatigue. I have
passed all my days with Pauline [Viardot] in walking, playing
at billiards, and all this makes me so entirely go out of my
indolent character and lazy habits that, at night, instead of
working quickly, I fall stupidly asleep at every
line....Viardot [Louis Viardot, the husband of Pauline] passes
his days in poaching with my brother and Papet; for the
shooting season has not yet begun, and they brave the laws,
divine and human. Pauline reads with Chopin whole scores at
the piano. She is always good-natured and charming, as you
know her.
George Sand to Mdlle. Rozieres: Nohant, October 15, 1841:--
Papet is in the depths of the forests; in "Erymanthe" at
least, hunting the wild boar. Chopin is in Paris, and he has
relapsed, as he says, into his triples croches
[demisemiquavers].
George Sand to Mdlle. Rozieres; Nohant, May 9, 1842:--
Quick to work! Your master, the great Chopin, has forgotten
(that for which he nevertheless cares a great deal) to buy a
beautiful present for Francoise, my faithful servant, whom he
adores, and he is very right.
He begs of you therefore to send him, IMMEDIATELY, four yards
of lace, two fingers broad at least, within the price of ten
francs a yard; further, a shawl of whatever material you like,
within the price of forty francs....This, then, is the superb
present which your HONOURED MASTER asks you to get for him,
with an eagerness worthy of the ardour which he carries into
his gifts, and of the impatience which he puts into little
things.
Charles Rollinat, a friend of George Sand's, the brother of one of
George Sand's most intimate and valued friends, Francois Rollinat,
published in "Le Temps" (September 1, 1874) a charming "Souvenir de
Nohant," which shows us the the chateau astir with a more numerous
company:--
The hospitality there [he writes] was comfortable, and the
freedom absolute. There were guns and dogs for those who loved
hunting, boats and nets for those who loved fishing, a
splendid garden to walk in. Everyone did as he liked. Liszt
and Chopin composed; Pauline Garcia studied her role of the
"Prophete"; the mistress of the house wrote a romance or a
drama; and it was the same with the others. At six o'clock
they assembled again to dine, and did not part company till
two or three o'clock in the morning.
Chopin rarely played. He could only be prevailed upon to play
when he was sure of perfection. Nothing in the world would
have made him consent to play indifferently. Liszt, on the
contrary, played always, well or badly.
[FOOTNOTE: Charles Rollinat, a younger brother of Francois, went
afterwards to Russia, where, according to George Sand (see letter
to Edmond Plauchut, April 8, 1874), he was for twenty-five years
"professeur de musique et haut enseignement, avec une bonne place du
gouvernement." He made a fortune and lost it, retaining only enough
to live upon quietly in Italy. He tried then to supplement his scanty
income by literary work (translations from the Russian). George Sand,
recalling the days of long ago, says: "Il chantait comme on ne chante
plus, excepte Pauline [Viardot-Garcia]!"]
Unfortunately, the greater portion of M. Rollinat's so-called Souvenir
consists of "poetry WITHOUT truth." Nevertheless, we will not altogether
ignore his pretty stories.
One evening when Liszt played a piece of Chopin's with embellishments of
his own, the composer became impatient and at last, unable to restrain
himself any longer, walked up to Liszt and said with his ENGLISH
PHLEGM:--
"I beg of you, my dear friend, if you do me the honour to play
a piece of mine, to play what is written, or to play something
else. It is only Chopin who has the right to alter Chopin."
"Well! play yourself!" said Liszt, rising from his seat a
little irritated,
"With pleasure," said Chopin.
At that moment a moth extinguished the lamp. Chopin would not
have it relighted, and played in the dark. When he had
finished his delighted auditors overwhelmed him with
compliments, and Liszt said:
"Ah, my friend, you were right! The works of a genius like you
are sacred; it is a profanation to meddle with them. You are a
true poet, and I am only a mountebank."
Whereupon Chopin replied: "We have each our genre."
M. Rollinat then proceeds to tell his readers that Chopin, believing he
had eclipsed Liszt that evening, boasted of it, and said: "How vexed he
was!" It seems that the author felt that this part of the story put a
dangerously severe strain on the credulity of his readers, for he thinks
it necessary to assure them that these were the ipsissima verba of
Chopin. Well, the words in question came to the ears of Liszt, and he
resolved at once to have his revenge.
Five days afterwards the friends were again assembled in the same place
and at the same time. Liszt asked Chopin to play, and had all the lights
put out and all the curtains drawn; but when Chopin was going to the
piano, Liszt whispered something in his ear and sat down in his stead.
He played the same composition which Chopin had played on the previous
occasion, and the audience was again enchanted. At the end of the piece
Liszt struck a match and lighted the candles which stood on the piano.
Of course general stupefaction ensued.
"What do you say to it?" said Liszt to his rival.
"I say what everyone says; I too believed it was Chopin."
"You see," said the virtuoso rising, "that Liszt can be Chopin
when he likes; but could Chopin be Liszt?"
Instead of commenting on the improbability of a generous artist thus
cruelly taunting his sensitive rival, I shall simply say that Liszt had
not the slightest recollection of ever having imitated Chopin's playing
in a darkened room. There may be some minute grains of truth mixed up
with all this chaff of fancy--Chopin's displeasure at the liberties
Liszt took with his compositions was no doubt one of them--but it is
impossible to separate them.
M. Rollinat relates also how in 184-, when Chopin, Liszt, the Comtesse
d'Agoult, Pauline Garcia, Eugene Delacroix, the actor Bocage, and other
celebrities were at Nohant, the piano was one moonlit night carried
out to the terrace; how Liszt played the hunting chorus from Weber's
Euryanthe, Chopin some bars from an impromptu he was then composing; how
Pauline Garcia sang Nel cor piu non mi sento, and a niece of George Sand
a popular air; how the echo answered the musicians; and how after the
music the company, which included also a number of friends from the
neighbouring town, had punch and remained together till dawn. But
here again M. Rollinat's veracity is impugned on all sides. Madame
Viardot-Garcia declares that she was never at Nohant when Liszt was
there; and Liszt did not remember having played on the terrace of the
chateau. Moreover, seeing that the first performance of the Prophete
took place on April 16, 1849, is it likely that Madame Pauline Garcia
was studying her part before or in 1846? And unless she did so she could
not meet Chopin at Nohant when she was studying it.
M. Rollinat is more trustworthy when he tells us that there was a pretty
theatre and quite an assortment of costumes at the chateau; that the
dramas and comedies played there were improvised by the actors, only
the subject and the division into scenes being given; and that on two
pianos, concealed by curtains, one on the right and one on the left
of the stage, Chopin and Liszt improvised the musical part of the
entertainment. All this is, however, so much better and so much
more fully told by George Sand (in Dernieres Pages: Le Theatre des
Marionnettes de Nohant) that we will take our information from her. It
was in the long nights of a winter that she conceived the plan of these
private theatricals in imitation of the comedia dell' arte--namely,
of "pieces the improvised dialogue of which followed a written sketch
posted up behind the scenes."
They resembled the charades which are acted in society and
which are more or less developed according to the ensemble and
the talent of the performers. We had begun with these. By
degrees the word of the charade disappeared and we played
first mad saynetes, then comedies of intrigues and adventures,
and finally dramas of incidents and emotions. The whole thing
began by pantomime, and this was of Chopin's invention; he
occupied the place at the piano and improvised, while the
young people gesticulated scenes and danced comic ballets. I
leave you to imagine whether these now wonderful, now charming
improvisations quickened the brains and made supple the legs
of our performers. He led them as he pleased and made them
pass, according to his fancy, from the droll to the severe,
from the burlesque to the solemn, from the graceful to the
passionate. We improvised costumes in order to play
successively several roles. As soon as the artist saw them
appear, he adapted his theme and his accent in a marvellous
manner to their respective characters. This went on for three
evenings, and then the master, setting out for Paris, left us
thoroughly stirred up, enthusiastic, and determined not to
suffer the spark which had electrified us to be lost.
To get away from the quicksands of Souvenirs--for George Sand's pages,
too, were written more than thirty years after the occurrences she
describes, and not published till 1877--I shall make some extracts from
the contemporaneous correspondence of George Sand's great friend,
the celebrated painter Eugene Delacroix. [FOOTNOTE: Lettres de Eugene
Delacroix (1815 a 1863) recucillies et publiees par M. Philippe Burty.
Paris, 1878.] The reader cannot fail to feel at once the fresh breeze
of reality that issues from these letters, which contain vivid sketches
full of natural beauties and free from affectation and striving after
effect:--
Nohant, June 7, 1842.
...The place is very pleasant, and the hosts do their utmost to
please me. When we are not assembled to dine, breakfast, play at
billiards, or walk, we are in our rooms, reading, or resting on
our sofas. Now and then there come to you through the window
opening on the garden, whiffs of the music of Chopin, who is
working in his room; this mingles with the song of the
nightingales and the odour of the roses. You see that so far I am
not much to be pitied, and, nevertheless, work must come to give
the grain of salt to all this. This life is too easy, I must
purchase it with a little racking of my brains; and like the
huntsman who eats with more appetite when he has got his skin
torn by bushes, one must strive a little after ideas in order to
feel the charm of doing nothing.
Nohant, June 14, 1842.
...Although I am in every respect most agreeably circumstanced,
both as regards body and mind, for I am in much better health, I
have not been able to prevent myself from thinking of work. How
strange! this work is fatiguing, and yet the species of activity
it gives to the mind is necessary to the body itself. In vain did
I try to get up a passion for billiards, in which I receive a
lesson every day, in vain have I good conversations on all the
subjects that please me, music that I seize on the wing and by
whiffs, I have felt the need of doing something. I have begun a
Sainte-Anne for the parish, and I have already set it agoing.
Nohant, June 22, 1842.
...Pen and ink certainly become more and more repugnant to me. I
have no more than you any event to record. I lead a monastic
life, and as monotonous as it well can be. No event varies the
course of it. We expected Balzac, who has not come, and I am not
sorry. He is a babbler who would have destroyed this harmony of
NONCHALANCE which I am enjoying thoroughly; at intervals a little
painting, billiards, and walking, that is more than is necessary
to fill up the days. There is not even the distraction of
neighbours and friends from the environs; in this part of the
country everyone remains at home and occupies him self with his
oxen and his land. One would become a fossil here in a very short
time.
I have interminable private interviews with Chopin, whom I
love much, and who is a man of a rare distinction; he is the
most true artist I have met. He is one of the few one can
admire and esteem. Madame Sand suffers frequently from violent
headaches and pains in her eyes, which she tries to master as
much as possible and with much strength of will, so as not to
weary us with what she suffers.
The greatest event of my stay has been a peasants' ball on the
lawn of the chateau with the best bagpipers of the place. The
people of this part of the country present a remarkable type
of gentleness and good nature; ugliness is rare here, though
beauty is not often seen, but there is not that kind of fever
which is observable in the peasants of the environs of Paris.
All the women have the appearance of those sweet faces one
sees only in the pictures of the old masters. They are all
Saint Annes.
Amidst the affectations, insincerities, and superficialities of Chopin's
social intercourse, Delacroix's friendship--we have already seen that
the musician reciprocated the painter's sentiments--stands out like a
green oasis in a barren desert. When, on October 28, 1849, a few days
after Chopin's death, Delacroix sent a friend a ticket for the funeral
service of the deceased, he speaks of him as "my poor and dear Chopin."
But the sincerity of Delacroix's esteem and the tenderness of his love
for Chopin are most fully revealed in some lines of a letter which he
wrote on January 7, 1861, to Count Czymala [Grzymala]:--
When I have finished [the labours that took up all his time],
I shall let you know, and shall see you again, with the
pleasure I have always had, and with the feelings your kind
letter has reanimated in me. With whom shall I speak of the
incomparable genius whom heaven has envied the earth, and of
whom I dream often, being no longer able to see him in this
world nor to hear his divine harmonies.
If you see sometimes the charming Princess Marcelline
[Czartoryska], another object of my respect, place at her feet
the homage of a poor man who has not ceased to be full of the
memory of her kindnesses and of admiration for her talent,
another bond of union with the seraph whom we have lost and
who, at this hour, charms the celestial spheres.
The first three of the above extracts from Delacroix's letters enable us
to form a clear idea of what the everyday life at Nohant was like, and
after reading them we can easily imagine that its monotony must have had
a depressing effect on the company-loving Chopin. But the drawback was
counterbalanced by an advantage. At Paris most of Chopin's time was
occupied with teaching and the pleasures of society, at Nohant he could
devote himself undisturbed and undistracted to composition. And there
is more than sufficient evidence to prove that in this respect Chopin
utilised well the quiet and leisure of his rural retirement.
Few things excite the curiosity of those who have a taste for art and
literature so much as an artist's or poet's mode of creation. With what
interest, for instance, do we read Schindler's account of how Beethoven
composed his Missa Solemnis--of the master's absolute detachment from
the terrestrial world during the time he was engaged on this work; of
his singing, shouting, and stamping, when he was in the act of giving
birth to the fugue of the Credo! But as regards musicians, we know,
generally speaking, very little on the subject; and had not George Sand
left us her reminiscences, I should not have much to tell the reader
about Chopin's mode of creation. From Gutmann I learned that his master
worked long before he put a composition to paper, but when it was once
in writing did not keep it long in his portfolio. The latter part
of this statement is contradicted by a remark of the better-informed
Fontana, who, in the preface to Chopin's posthumous works, says that the
composer, whether from caprice or nonchalance, had the habit of keeping
his manuscripts sometimes a very long time in his portfolio before
giving them to the public. As George Sand observed the composer with an
artist's eye and interest, and had, of course, better opportunities than
anybody else to observe him, her remarks are particularly valuable. She
writes:--
His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it
without seeking it, without foreseeing it. It came on his
piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head
during a walk, and he was impatient to play it to himself. But
then began the most heart-rending labour I ever saw. It was a
series of efforts, of irresolutions, and of frettings to seize
again certain details of the theme he had heard; what he had
conceived as a whole he analysed too much when wishing to
write it, and his regret at not finding it again, in his
opinion, clearly defined, threw him into a kind of despair. He
shut himself up in his room for whole days, weeping, walking,
breaking his pens, repeating and altering a bar a hundred
times, writing and effacing it as many times, and recommencing
the next day with a minute and desperate perseverance. He
spent six weeks over a single page to write it at last as he
had noted it down at the very first.
I had for a long time been able to make him consent to trust
to this first inspiration. But when he was no longer disposed
to believe me, he reproached me gently with having spoiled him
and with not being severe enough for him. I tried to amuse
him, to take him out for walks. Sometimes, taking away all my
brood in a country char a bancs, I dragged him away in spite
of himself from this agony. I took him to the banks of the
Creuse, and after being for two or three days lost amid
sunshine and rain in frightful roads, we arrived, cheerful and
famished, at some magnificently-situated place where he seemed
to revive. These fatigues knocked him up the first day, but he
slept. The last day he was quite revived, quite rejuvenated in
returning to Nohant, and he found the solution of his work
without too much effort; but it was not always possible to
prevail upon him to leave that piano which was much oftener
his torment than his joy, and by degrees he showed temper when
I disturbed him. I dared not insist. Chopin when angry was
alarming, and as, with me, he always restrained himself, he
seemed almost to choke and die.
A critic remarks in reference to this account that Chopin's mode of
creation does not show genius, but only passion. From which we may
conclude that he would not, like Carlyle, have defined genius as the
power of taking infinite pains. To be sure, the great Scotchman's
definition is inadequate, but nothing is more false than the popular
notion that the great authors throw off their works with the
pleasantest ease, that creation is an act of pure enjoyment. Beethoven's
sketch-books tell a different story; so do also Balzac's proof-sheets
and the manuscripts of Pope's version of the Iliad and Odyssey in the
British Museum. Dr. Johnson speaking of Milton's MSS. observed truly:
"Such reliques show how excellence is acquired." Goethe in writing to
Schiller asks him to return certain books of "Wilhelm Meister" that he
may go over them A FEW TIMES before sending them to the press. And on
re-reading one of these books he cut out one third of its contents.
Moreover, if an author writes with ease, this is not necessarily a proof
that he labours little, for he may finish the work before bringing it to
paper. Mozart is a striking instance. He has himself described his mode
of composing--which was a process of accumulation, agglutination, and
crystallisation--in a letter to a friend. The constitution of the mind
determines the mode of working. Some qualities favour, others obstruct
the realisation of a first conception. Among the former are acuteness
and quickness of vision, the power of grasping complex subjects, and a
good memory. But however varied the mode of creation may be, an almost
unvarying characteristic of the production of really precious and
lasting artwork is ungrudging painstaking, such as we find described in
William Hunt's "Talks about Art":--"If you could see me dig and groan,
rub it out and start again, hate myself and feel dreadfully! The people
who do things easily, their things you look at easily, and give away
easily." Lastly and briefly, it is not the mode of working, but the
result of this working which demonstrates genius.
As Chopin disliked the pavilion in the Rue Pigalle, George Sand moved
with her household in 1842 to the quiet, aristocratic-looking Cite
(Court or Square) d'Orleans, where their friend Madame Marliani arranged
for them a vie de famille. To get to the Cite d'Orleans one has to pass
through two gateways--the first leads from the Rue Taitbout (close
to the Rue St. Lazare), into a small out-court with the lodge of the
principal concierge; the second, into the court itself. In the centre
is a grass plot with four flower-beds and a fountain; and between
this grass plot and the footpath which runs along the houses extends a
carriage drive. As to the houses which form the square, they are well
and handsomely built, the block opposite the entrance making even
some architectural pretensions. Madame Sand's, Madame Marliani's, and
Chopin's houses, which bore respectively the numbers 5, 4, and 3, were
situated on the right side, the last-mentioned being just in the first
right-hand corner on entering from the out-court. On account of the
predilection shown for it by artists and literary men as a place of
abode, the Court d'Orldans has not inaptly been called a little Athens.
Alexander Dumas was one of the many celebrities who lived there at one
time or other; and Chopin had for neighbours the famous singer Pauline
Viardot-Garcia, the distinguished pianoforte-professor Zimmermann, and
the sculptor Dantan, from whose famous gallery of caricatures, or rather
charges, the composer's portrait was not absent. Madame Marliani,
the friend of George Sand and Chopin, who has already repeatedly been
mentioned in this book, was the wife of Manuel Marliani, Spanish Consul
in Paris, author, [FOOTNOTE: Especially notable among his political and
historical publications in Spanish and French is: "Histoire politique de
l'Espagne moderne suivie d'un apercu sur les finances." 2 vols. in 8vo
(Paris, 1840).] politician, and subsequently senator. Lenz says that
Madame Marliani was a Spanish countess and a fine lady; and George Sand
describes her as good-natured and active, endowed with a passionate head
and maternal heart, but destined to be unhappy because she wished to
make the reality of life yield to the ideal of her imagination and the
exigences of her sensibility.
Some excerpts from a letter written by George Sand on November 12, 1842,
to her friend Charles Duvernet, and a passage from Ma Vie will bring
scene and actors vividly before us:--
We also cultivate billiards; I have a pretty little table,
which I hire for twenty francs a month, in my salon, and
thanks to kind friendships we approach Nohant life as much as
is possible in this melancholy Paris. What makes things
country-like also is that I live in the same square as the
family Marliani, Chopin in the next pavilion, so that without
leaving this large well-lighted and sanded Court d'Orleans, we
run in the evening from one to another like good provincial
neighbours. We have even contrived to have only one pot
[marmite], and eat all together at Madame Marliani's, which is
more economical and by far more lively than taking one's meals
at home. It is a kind of phalanstery which amuses us, and
where mutual liberty is much better guaranteed than in that of
the Fourierists...
Solange is at a boarding-school, and comes out every Saturday
to Monday morning. Maurice has resumed the studio con furia,
and I, I have resumed Consuelo like a dog that is being
whipped; for I have idled on account of my removal and the
fitting up of my apartments...
Kind regards and shakes of the hand from Viardot, Chopin, and
my children.
The passge [sic: passage] from Ma Vie, which contains some
repetitions along with a few additional touches, runs as
follows:-- She [Madame Marliani] had fine apartments between the
two we [George Sand and Chopin] occupied. We had only a large
planted and sanded and always clean court to cross in order to
meet, sometimes, in her rooms, sometimes in mine, sometimes in
Chopin's when he was inclined to give us some music. We dined
with her at common expense. It was a very good association,
economical like all associations, and enabled one to see society
at Madame Marliani's, my friends more privately in my apartments,
and to take up my work at the hour when it suited me to withdraw.
Chopin rejoiced also at having a fine, isolated salon where he
could go to compose or to dream. But he loved society, and made
little use of his sanctuary except to give lessons in it.
Although George Sand speaks only of a salon, Chopin's official
residence, as we may call it, consisted of several rooms. They were
elegantly furnished and always adorned with flowers--for he loved le
luxe and had the coquetterie des appartements.
[FOOTNOTE: When I visited in 1880 M. Kwiatkowski in Paris, he showed me
some Chopin relics: 1, a pastel drawing by Jules Coignet (representing
Les Pyramides d'Egypte), which hung always above the composer's piano;
2, a little causeuse which Chopin bought with his first Parisian
savings; 3, an embroidered easy-chair worked and presented to him by the
Princess Czartoiyska; and 4, an embroidered cushion worked and presented
to him by Madame de Rothschild. If we keep in mind Chopin's remarks
about his furniture and the papering of his rooms, and add to the
above-mentioned articles those which Karasowski mentions as having been
bought by Miss Stirling after the composer's death, left by her to his
mother, and destroyed by the Russians along with his letters in 1861
when in possession of his sister Isabella Barcinska--his portrait by Ary
Scheffer, some Sevres porcelain with the inscription "Offert par Louis
Philippe a Frederic Chopin," a fine inlaid box, a present from one of
the Rothschild family, carpets, table-cloths, easy-chairs, &c.,
worked by his pupils--we can form some sort of idea of the internal
arrangements of the pianist-composer's rooms.]
Nevertheless, they exhibited none of the splendour which was to be
found in the houses of many of the celebrities then living in Paris.
"He observed," remarks Liszt, "on this point as well as in the then so
fashionable elegancies of walking-sticks, pins, studs, and jewels, the
instinctive line of the comme il faut between the too much and the too
little." But Chopin's letters written from Nohant in 1839 to Fontana
have afforded the reader sufficient opportunities to make himself
acquainted with the master's fastidiousness and good taste in matters
of furniture and room decoration, above all, his horror of vulgar
gaudiness.
Let us try to get some glimpses of Chopin in his new home. Lindsay
Sloper, who--owing, no doubt, to a great extent at least, to the letter
of recommendation from Moscheles which he brought with him--had got
permission from Chopin to come for a lesson as often as he liked at
eight o'clock in the morning, found the master at that hour not in
deshabille, but dressed with the greatest care. Another early pupil, M.
Mathias, always fell in with the daily-attending barber. M. Mathias
told me also of Chopin's habit of leaning with his back against the
mantel-piece while he was chatting at the end of the lesson. It must
have been a pretty sight to see the master in this favourite attitude
of his, his coat buttoned up to the chin (this was his usual style),
the most elegant shoes on his small feet, faultless exquisiteness
characterising the whole of his attire, and his small eyes sparkling
with esprit and sometimes with malice.
Of all who came in contact with Chopin, however, no one made so much of
his opportunities as Lenz: some of his observations on the pianist
have already been quoted, those on the man and his surroundings
deserve likewise attention. [FOOTNOTE: W. von Lenz: "Die Grossen
Pianoforte-Virtuosen unserer Zeit."] Lenz came to Paris in the summer
or autumn of the year 1842; and as he wished to study Chopin's mazurkas
with the master himself, he awaited impatiently his return from Nohant.
At last, late in October, Lenz heard from Liszt that Chopin had arrived
in town; but Liszt told him also that it was by no means an easy thing
to get lessons from Chopin, that indeed many had journeyed to Paris for
the purpose and failed even to get sight of him. To guard Lenz against
such a mishap, Liszt gave him a card with the words "Laissez passer,
Franz Liszt" on it, and advised him to call on Chopin at two o'clock.
The enthusiastic amateur was not slow in availing himself of his artist
friend's card and advice. But on reaching his destination he was met
in the anteroom by a male servant--"an article of luxury in Paris, a
rarissima avis in the house of an artist," observes Lenz--who informed
him that Chopin was not in town. The visitor, however, was not to be
put off in this way, and insisted that the card should be taken in to
Chopin. Fortune favours the brave. A moment after the servant had left
the room the great artist made his appearance holding the card in
his hand: "a young man of middle height, slim, thin, with a careworn,
speaking face and the finest Parisian tournure." Lenz does not hesitate
to declare that he hardly ever met a person so naturally elegant and
winning. But here is what took place at this interview.
Chopin did not press me to sit down [says Lenz], I stood as
before a reigning sovereign. "What do you wish? a pupil of
Liszt's, an artist?" "A friend of Liszt's. I wish to have the
happiness of making, under your guidance, acquaintance with
your mazurkas, which I regard as a literature. Some of them I
have already studied with Liszt." I felt I had been
imprudent, but it was too late. "Indeed!" replied Chopin, with
a drawl, but in the politest tone, "what do you want me for
then? Please play to me what you have played with Liszt, I
have still a few minutes at my disposal"--he drew from his
fob an elegant, small watch--"I was on the point of going out,
I had told my servant to admit nobody, pardon me!"
Lenz sat down at the piano, tried the gue of it--an expression at which
Chopin, who was leaning languidly on the piano and looking with his
intelligent eyes straight in his visitor's face, smiled--and then struck
up the Mazurka in B flat major. When he came to a passage in which
Liszt had taught him to introduce a volata through two octaves, Chopin
whispered blandly:--
"This TRAIT is not your own; am I right? HE has shown it you--
he must meddle with everything; well! he may do it, he plays
before THOUSANDS, I rarely before ONE. Well, this will do, I
will give you lessons, but only twice a week, I never give
more, it is difficult for me to find three-quarters of an
hour." He again looked at his watch. "What do you read then?
With what do you occupy yourself generally?" This was a
question for which I was well prepared. "George Sand and Jean
Jacques I prefer to all other writers," said I quickly. He
smiled, he was most beautiful at that moment. "Liszt has told
you this. I see, you are initiated, so much the better. Only
be punctual, with me things go by the clock, my house is a
pigeon-house (pigeonnier). I see already we shall become more
intimate, a recommendation from Liszt is worth something, you
are the first pupil whom he has recommended to me; we are
friends, we were comrades."
Lenz had, of course, too imaginative a turn of mind to leave facts in
their native nakedness, but this tendency of his is too apparent to need
pointing out. What betrays him is the wonderful family likeness of his
portraits, a kind of vapid esprit, not distantly related to silliness,
with which the limner endows his unfortunate sitters, Chopin as well as
Liszt and Tausig. Indeed, the portraits compared with the originals are
like Dresden china figures compared with Greek statuary. It seems to me
also very improbable that so perfect a gentleman as Chopin was should
subject a stranger to an examination as to his reading and general
occupation. These questions have very much the appearance of having
been invented by the narrator for the sake of the answers. However,
notwithstanding the many unmistakable embellishments, Lenz's account
was worth quoting, for after all it is not without a basis of fact and
truth. The following reminiscences of the lively Russian councillor,
although not wanting in exaggerations, are less open to objections:--
I always made my appearance long before my hour and waited.
One lady after another came out, one more beautiful than the
other, on one occasion Mdlle. Laure Duperre, the daughter of
the admiral, whom Chopin accompanied to the staircase, she was
the most beautiful of all, and as straight as a palm; to her
Chopin has dedicated two of his most important Nocturnes (in C
minor and F sharp minor, Op. 48); she was at that time his
favourite pupil. In the anteroom I often met little Filtsch,
who, unfortunately, died too young, at the age of thirteen, a
Hungarian and a genius. He knew how to play Chopin! Of Filtsch
Liszt said in my presence at a soiree of the Comtesse
d'Agoult: "When the little one begins to travel, I shall shut
up my shop" (Quand le petit voyagera, je fermerai boutique). I
was jealous of Filtsch, Chopin had eyes only for him.
How high an opinion the master had of this talented pupil appears from
his assertion that the boy played the E minor Concerto better than he
himself. Lenz mentions Filtsch and his playing of the E minor Concerto
only in passing in "Die grossen Pianoforte-Virtuosen unserer Zeit," but
devotes to them more of his leisure in an article which appeared in the
Berliner Musikzeitung (Vol. XXVI.), the amusing gossip of which deserves
notice here on account of the light thrown by some of its details on
Chopin's ways and the company he received in his salon. On one occasion
when Filtsch had given his master particular satisfaction by a tasteful
rendering of the second solo of the first movement of the E minor
Concerto, Chopin said: "You have played this well, my boy (mon
garcon), I must try it myself." Lenz relates that what now followed was
indescribable: the little one (der Kleine) burst into tears, and Chopin,
who indeed had been telling them the story of his artist life, said,
as if speaking to himself, "I have loved it! I have already once
played it!" Then, turning to Filtsch, he spoke these words: "Yours is a
beautiful artist nature (une belle nature d'artiste), you will become
a great artist." Whilst the youthful pianist was studying the Concerto
with Chopin, he was never allowed to play more than one solo at a time,
the work affecting too much the feelings of the composer, who, moreover,
thought that the whole was contained in every one of the solos; and
when he at last got leave to perform the whole, an event for which he
prepared himself by fasting and prayers of the Roman Catholic Church,
and by such reading as was pointed out by his master, practising being
forbidden for the time, Chopin said to him: "As you have now mastered
the movement so well, we will bring it to a hearing."
The reader must understand that I do not vouch for the strict
correctness of Lenz's somewhat melodramatic narrative; and having given
this warning I shall, to keep myself free from all responsibility,
simply translate the rest of what is yet to be told:--
Chopin invited a party of ladies, George Sand was one of them,
and was as quiet as a mouse; moreover, she knew nothing of
music. The favoured pupils from the highest aristocracy
appeared with modest demeanour and full of the most profound
devotion, they glided silently, like gold-fishes in a vase,
one after another into the salon, and sat down as far as
possible from the piano, as Chopin liked people to do. Nobody
spoke, Chopin only nodded, and shook hands with one here and
there, not with all of them. The square pianoforte, which
stood in his cabinet, he had placed beside the Pleyel concert
grand in the salon, not without the most painful embarras to
him. The most insignificant trifle affected him; he was a noli
me tangere. He had said once, or rather had thought aloud: "If
I saw a crack more in the ceiling, I should not be able to
bring out a note." Chopin poured the whole dreamy, vaporous
instrumentation of the work into his incomparable
accompaniment. He played without book. I have never heard
anything that could be compared to the first tutti, which he
played alone on the piano. The little one did wonders. The
whole was an impression for all the rest of one's life. After
Chopin had briefly dismissed the ladies (he loved praise
neither for himself nor for others, and only George Sand was
permitted to embrace Filtsch), he said to the latter, his
brother, who always accompanied the little one, and me: "We
have yet to take a walk." It was a command which we received
with the most respectful bow.
The destination of this walk was Schlesinger's music-shop, where Chopin
presented his promising young pupil with the score of Beethoven's
"Fidelio":--
"I am in your debt, you have given me much pleasure to-day. I
wrote the Concerto in happier days. Receive, my dear little
friend, this great master-work; read therein as long as you
live, and remember me also sometimes." The little one was as
if stunned, and kissed Chopin's hand. We were all deeply
moved, Chopin himself was so. He disappeared immediately
through the glass door on a level with the Rue Richelieu, into
which it leads.
A scene of a very different nature which occurred some years later was
described to me by Madame Dubois. This lady, then still Mdlle. O'Meara
and a pupil of Chopin's, had in 1847 played, accompanied on a second
piano by her master, the latter's Concerto in E minor at a party of
Madame de Courbonne's. Madame Girardin, who was among the guests,
afterwards wrote most charmingly and eulogistically about the young
girl's beauty and talent in one of her Lettres parisiennes, which
appeared in La Presse and were subsequently published in a collected
form under the title of "Le Vicomte de Launay." Made curious by Madame
Girardin's account, and probably also by remarks of Chopin and others,
George Sand wished to see the heroine of that much-talked-of letter.
Thus it came to pass that one day when Miss O'Meara was having her
lesson, George Sand crossed the Square d'Orleans and paid Chopin a
visit in his apartments. The master received her with all the grace
and amiability he was capable of. Noticing that her pardessus
was bespattered with mud, he seemed to be much vexed, and the
exquisitely-elegant gentleman (l'homme de toutes les elegances ) began
to rub off with his small, white hands the stains which on any other
person would have caused him disgust. And Mdlle. O'Meara, child as she
still was, watched what was going on from the corner of her eye and
thought: "Comme il aime cette femme!" [FOOTNOTE: Madame A. Audley gives
an altogether incorrect account of this incident in her FREDERIC CHOPIN.
Madame Girardin was not one of the actors, and Mdlle. O'Meara did not
think the thoughts attributed to her.]
Whenever Chopin's connection with George Sand is mentioned, one hears
a great deal of the misery and nothing or little of the happiness which
accrued to him out of it. The years of tenderness and devotion are
slurred over and her infidelities, growing indifference, and final
desertion are dwelt upon with undue emphasis. Whatever those of Chopin's
friends who were not also George Sand's friends may say, we may be sure
that his joys outweighed his sorrows. Her resoluteness must have been an
invaluable support to so vacillating a character as Chopin's was; and,
although their natures were in many respects discordant, the poetic
element of hers cannot but have found sympathetic chords in his. Every
character has many aspects, but the world is little disposed to see more
than one side of George Sand's--namely, that which is most conspicuous
by its defiance of law and custom, and finds expression in loud
declamation and denunciation. To observe her in one of her more lovable
attitudes of mind, we will transport ourselves from Chopin's to her
salon.
Louis Enault relates how one evening George Sand, who sometimes thought
aloud when with Chopin--this being her way of chatting--spoke of
the peacefulness of the country and unfolded a picture of the rural
harmonies that had all the charming and negligent grace of a village
idyl, bringing, in fact, her beloved Berry to the fireside of the room
in the Square d'Orleans.
"How well you have spoken!" said Chopin naively.
"You think so?" she replied. "Well, then, set me to music!"
Hereupon Chopin improvised a veritable pastoral symphony, and
George Sand placing herself beside him and laying her hand
gently on his shoulder said: "Go on, velvet fingers [courage,
doigts de velour]!"
Here is another anecdote of quiet home-life. George Sand had a little
dog which was in the habit of turning round and round in the endeavour
to catch its tail. One evening when it was thus engaged, she said to
Chopin: "If I had your talent, I would compose a pianoforte piece for
this dog." Chopin at once sat down at the piano, and improvised the
charming Waltz in D flat (Op. 64), which hence has obtained the name
of Valse du petit chien. This story is well known among the pupils and
friends of the master, but not always told in exactly the same way.
According to another version, Chopin improvised the waltz when the
little dog was playing with a ball of wool. This variation, however,
does not affect the pith of the story.
The following two extracts tell us more about the intimate home-life at
Nohant and in the Court d'Orleans than anything we have as yet met with.
Madame Sand to her son; October 17, 1843:--
Tell me if Chopin is ill; his letters are short and sad. Take
care of him if he is ailing. Take a little my place. He would
take my place with so much zeal if you were ill.
Madame Sand to her son; November 16, 1843:--
If you care for the letter which I have written you about her
[Solange], ask Chopin for it. It was for both of you, and it
has not given him much pleasure. He has taken it amiss, and
yet I did not wish to annoy him, God forbid! We shall all see
each other soon again, and hearty embraces [de bonnes
bigeades] [FOOTNOTE: Biger is in the Berry dialect "to kiss."]
all round shall efface all my sermons.
In another of George Sand's letters to her son--it is dated November 28,
1843--we read about Chopin's already often-mentioned valet. Speaking
of the foundation of a provincial journal, "L'Eclaireur de l'Indre," by
herself and a number of her friends, and of their being on the look-out
for an editor who would be content with the modest salary of 2,000
francs, she says:--
This is hardly more than the wages of Chopin's domestic, and
to imagine that for this it is possible to find a man of
talent! First measure of the Committee of Public Safety: we
shall outlaw Chopin if he allows himself to have lackeys
salaried like publicists.
Chopin treated George Sand with the greatest respect and devotion; he
was always aux petits soins with her. It is characteristic of the man
and exemplifies strikingly the delicacy of his taste and feeling that
his demeanour in her house showed in no way the intimate relation in
which he stood to the mistress of it: he seemed to be a guest like any
other occasional visitor. Lenz wishes to make us believe that George
Sand's treatment of Chopin was unworthy of the great artist, but his
statements are emphatically contradicted by Gutmann, who says that
her behaviour towards him was always respectful. If the lively Russian
councillor in the passages I am going to translate describes correctly
what he heard and saw, he must have witnessed an exceptional occurrence;
it is, however, more likely that the bad reception he received from the
lady prejudiced him against her.
Lenz relates that one day Chopin took him to the salon of Madame
Marliani, where there was in the evening always a gathering of friends.
George Sand [thus runs his account of his first meeting with
the great novelist] did not say a word when Chopin introduced
me. This was rude. Just for that reason I seated myself beside
her. Chopin fluttered about like a little frightened bird in
its cage, he saw something was going to happen. What had he
not always feared on this terrain? At the first pause in the
conversation, which was led by Madame Sand's friend, Madame
Viardot, the great singer whose acquaintance I was later to
make in St. Petersburg, Chopin put his arm through mine and
led me to the piano. Reader! if you play the piano you will
imagine how I felt! It was an upright or cottage piano [Steh-
oder Stutzflugel] of Pleyel's, which people in Paris regard as
a pianoforte. I played the Invitation in a fragmentary
fashion, Chopin gave me his hand in the most friendly manner,
George Sand did not say a word. I seated myself once more
beside her. I had obviously a purpose. Chopin looked anxiously
at us across the table, on which was burning the inevitable
carcel.
"Are you not coming sometime to St. Petersburg," said I to
George Sand in the most polite tone, "where you are so much
read, so highly admired?"
"I shall never lower myself by visiting a country of slaves!"
answered George Sand shortly.
This was indecorous [unanstandig] after she had been uncivil.
"After all, you are right NOT to come," I replied in the same
tone; "you might find the door closed! I was thinking of the
Emperor Nicholas."
George Sand looked at me in astonishment, I plunged boldly
into her large, beautiful, brown, cow-like eyes. Chopin did
not seem displeased, I knew the movements of his head.
Instead of giving any answer George Sand rose in a theatrical
fashion, and strode in the most manly way through the salon to
the blazing fire. I followed her closely, and seated myself
for the third time beside her, ready for another attack.
She would be obliged at last to say something.
George Sand drew an enormously thick Trabucco cigar out of her
apron pocket, and called out "Frederic! un fidibus!"
This offended me for him, that perfect gentleman, my master; I
understood Liszt's words: "Pauvre Frederic!" in all their
significance.
Chopin immediately came up with a fidibus.
As she was sending forth the first terrible cloud of smoke,
George Sand honoured me with a word:
"In St. Petersburg," she began, "I could not even smoke a
cigar in a drawing-room?"
"In NO drawing-room have I ever seen anyone smoke a cigar,
Madame," I answered, not without emphasis, with a bow!
George Sand fixed her eyes sharply upon me--the thrust had
gone home! I looked calmly around me at the good pictures in
the salon, each of which was lighted up by a separate lamp.
Chopin had probably heard nothing; he had returned to the
hostess at the table.
Pauvre Frederic! How sorry I was for him, the great artist!
The next day the Suisse [hall-porter] in the hotel, Mr.
Armand, said to me: "A gentleman and a lady have been here, I
said you were not at home, you had not said you would receive
visitors; the gentleman left his name, he had no card with
him." I read: Chopin et Madame Sand. After this I quarrelled
for two months with Mr. Armand.
George Sand was probably out of humour on the evening in question; that
it was not her usual manner of receiving visitors may be gathered from
what Chopin said soon after to Lenz when the latter came to him for a
lesson. "George Sand," he said, "called with me on you. What a pity you
were not at home! I regretted it very much. George Sand thought she had
been uncivil to you. You would have seen how amiable she can be. You
have pleased her."
Alexander Chodzko, the learned professor of Slavonic literature at the
College de France, told me that he was half-a-dozen times at George
Sand's house. Her apartments were furnished in a style in favour with
young men. First you came into a vestibule where hats, coats, and
sticks were left, then into a large salon with a billiard-table. On
the mantel-piece were to be found the materials requisite for smoking.
George Sand set her guests an example by lighting a cigar. M. Chodzko
met there among others the historian and statesman Guizot, the
litterateur Francois, and Madame Marliani. If Chopin was not present,
George Sand would often ask the servant what he was doing, whether he
was working or sleeping, whether he was in good or bad humour. And when
he came in all eyes were directed towards him. If he happened to be in
good humour George Sand would lead him to the piano, which stood in
one of the two smaller apartments adjoining the salon. These smaller
apartments were provided with couches for those who wished to talk.
Chopin began generally to prelude apathetically and only gradually grew
warm, but then his playing was really grand. If, however, he was not in
a playing mood, he was often asked to give some of his wonderful mimetic
imitations. On such occasions Chopin retired to one of the side-rooms,
and when he returned he was irrecognisable. Professor Chodzko remembers
seeing him as Frederick the Great.
Chopin's talent for mimicry, which even such distinguished actors as
Bocage and Madame Dorval regarded with admiration, is alluded to by
Balzac in his novel "Un Homme d'affaires," where he says of one of the
characters that "he is endowed with the same talent for imitating people
which Chopin, the pianist, possesses in so high a degree; he represents
a personage instantly and with astounding truth." Liszt remarks that
Chopin displayed in pantomime an inexhaustible verve drolatique, and
often amused himself with reproducing in comical improvisations the
musical formulas and peculiar ways of certain virtuosos, whose faces and
gestures he at the same time imitated in the most striking manner.
These statements are corroborated by the accounts of innumerable eye
and ear-witnesses of such performances. One of the most illustrative of
these accounts is the following very amusing anecdote. When the Polish
musician Nowakowski [FOOTNOTE: He visited Paris in 1838, 1841, and 1846,
partly for the purpose of making arrangements for the publication of
his compositions, among which are Etudes dedicated to Chopin.]
visited Paris, he begged his countryman to bring him in contact with
Kalkbrenner, Liszt, and Pixis. Chopin, replying that he need not put
himself to the trouble of going in search of these artists if he wished
to make their acquaintance, forthwith sat down at the piano and assumed
the attitude, imitated the style of playing, and mimicked the mien and
gestures, first of Liszt and then of Pixis. Next evening Chopin and
Nowakowski went together to the theatre. The former having left the box
during one of the intervals, the latter looked round after awhile and
saw Pixis sitting beside him. Nowakowski, thinking Chopin was at his
favourite game, clapped Pixis familiarly on the shoulder and said:
"Leave off, don't imitate now!" The surprise of Pixis and the subsequent
confusion of Nowakowski may be easily imagined. When Chopin, who at this
moment returned, had been made to understand what had taken place, he
laughed heartily, and with the grace peculiar to him knew how to make
his friend's and his own excuses. One thing in connection with Chopin's
mimicry has to be particularly noted--it is very characteristic of the
man. Chopin, we learn from Liszt, while subjecting his features to all
kinds of metamorphoses and imitating even the ugly and grotesque, never
lost his native grace, "la grimace ne parvenait meme pas a l'enlaidir."
We shall see presently what George Sand has to say about her lover's
imitative talent; first, however, we will make ourselves acquainted with
the friends with whom she especially associated. Besides Pierre Leroux,
Balzac, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and others who have already been
mentioned in the foregoing chapters, she numbered among her most
intimate friends the Republican politician and historian Louis Blanc,
the Republican litterateur Godefroy Cavaignac, the historian Henri
Martin, and the litterateur Louis Viardot, the husband of Pauline
Garcia.
[FOOTNOTE: This name reminds me of a passage in Louis Blanc's "Histoire
de la Revolution de 1840" (p. 210 of Fifth Edition. Paris, 1880). "A
short time before his [Godefroy Cavaignac's] end, he was seized by an
extraordinary desire to hear music once more. I knew Chopin. I offered
to go to him, and to bring him with me, if the doctor did not oppose it.
The entreaties thereupon took the character of a supplication. With the
consent, or rather at the urgent prayer, of Madame Cavaignac, I betook
myself to Chopin. Madame George Sand was there. She expressed in a
touching manner the lively interest with which the invalid inspired her;
and Chopin placed himself at my service with much readiness and grace. I
conducted him then into the chamber of the dying man, where there was a
bad piano. The great artist begins...Suddenly he is interrupted by
sobs. Godefroy, in a transport of sensibility which gave him a moment's
physical strength, had quite unexpectedly raised himself in his bed of
suffering, his face bathed in tears. Chopin stopped, much disturbed;
Madame Cavaignac, leaning towards her son, anxiously interrogated him
with her eyes. He made an effort to become self-possessed; he attempted
to smile, and with a feeble voice said, 'Do not be uneasy, mamma, it
is nothing; real childishness...Ah! how beautiful music is, understood
thus!' His thought was--we had no difficulty in divining it--that he
would no longer hear anything like it in this world, but he refrained
from saying so."]
Friends not less esteemed by her than these, but with whom she was
less intimate, were the Polish poet Mickiewicz, the famous bass singer
Lablache, the excellent pianist and composer Alkan aine, the Italian
composer and singing-master Soliva (whom we met already in Warsaw),
the philosopher and poet Edgar Quinet, General Guglielmo Pepe
(commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan insurrectionary army in 1820-21),
and likewise the actor Bocage, the litterateur Ferdinand Francois,
the German musician Dessauer, the Spanish politician Mendizabal, the
dramatist and journalist Etienne Arago, [FOOTNOTE: The name of Etienne
Arago is mentioned in "Ma Vie," but it is that of Emmanuel Arago which
occurs frequently in the "Corrcspcndance."] and a number of literary
and other personages of less note, of whom I shall mention only Agricol
Perdiguier and Gilland, the noble artisan and the ecrivain proletaire,
as George Sand calls them.
Although some of George Sand's friends were also Chopin's, there can be
no doubt that the society which gathered around her was on the whole not
congenial to him. Some remarks which Liszt makes with regard to George
Sand's salon at Nohant are even more applicable to her salon in Paris.
An author's relations with the representatives of publicity
and his dramatic executants, actors and actresses, and with
those whom he treats with marked attention on account of their
merits or because they please him; the crossing of incidents,
the clash and rebound of the infatuations and disagreements
which result therefrom; were naturally hateful to him [to
Chopin]. For a long time he endeavoured to escape from them by
shutting his eyes, by making up his mind not to see anything.
There happened, however, such things, such catastrophes
[denouements], as, by shocking too much his delicacy,
offending too much his habits of the moral and social comme-il-
faut, ended in rendering his presence at Nohant impossible,
although he seemed at first to have felt more content [plus de
repif] there than elsewhere.
These are, of course, only mere surmises, but Liszt, although often
wrong as to incidents, is, thanks to his penetrative genius, generally
right as to essences. Indeed, if George Sand's surroundings and Chopin's
character and tastes are kept in view nothing seems to be more probable
than that his over-delicate susceptibilities may have occasionally been
shocked by unrestrained vivacity, loud laughter, and perhaps even coarse
words; that his uncompromising idealism may have been disturbed by the
discordance of literary squabbles, intrigues, and business transactions;
that his peaceable, non-speculative, and non-argumentative disposition
may have been vexed and wearied by discussions of political, social,
religious, literary, and artistic problems. Unless his own art was the
subject, Chopin did not take part in discussions. And Liszt tells us
that Chopin not only, like most artists, lacked a generalising
mind [esprit generalisateur], but showed hardly any inclination for
aesthetics, of which he had not even heard much. We may be sure that
to Chopin to whom discussions of any kind were distasteful, those of a
circle in which, as in that of George Sand, democratic and socialistic,
theistic and atheistic views prevailed, were particularly so. For,
notwithstanding his bourgeois birth, his sympathies were with the
aristocracy; and notwithstanding his neglect of ritual observances, his
attachment to the Church of Rome remained unbroken. Chopin does not seem
to have concealed his dislike to George Sand's circle; if he did not
give audible expression to it, he made it sufficiently manifest by
seeking other company. That she was aware of the fact and displeased
with it, is evident from what she says of her lover's social habits
in Ma Vie. The following excerpt from that work is an important
biographical contribution; it is written not without bitterness, but
with hardly any exaggeration:--
He was a man of the world par excellence, not of the too
formal and too numerous world, but of the intimate world, of
the salons of twenty persons, of the hour when the crowd goes
away and the habitues crowd round the artist to wrest from him
by amiable importunity his purest inspiration. It was then
only that he exhibited all his genius and all his talent. It
was then also that after having plunged his audience into a
profound recueillement or into a painful sadness, for his
music sometimes discouraged one's soul terribly, especially
when he improvised, he would suddenly, as if to take away the
impression and remembrance of his sorrow from others and from
himself, turn stealthily to a glass, arrange his hair and his
cravat, and show himself suddenly transformed into a
phlegmatic Englishman, into an impertinent old man, into a
sentimental and ridiculous Englishwoman, into a sordid Jew.
The types were always sad, however comical they might be, but
perfectly conceived and so delicately rendered that one could
not grow weary of admiring them.
All these sublime, charming, or bizarre things that he knew
how to evolve out of himself made him the soul of select
society, and there was literally a contest for his company,
his noble character, his disinterestedness, his self-respect,
his proper pride, enemy of every vanity of bad taste and of
every insolent reclame, the security of intercourse with him,
and the exquisite delicacy of his manners, making him a friend
equally serious and agreeable.
To tear Chopin away from so many gdteries, to associate him
with a simple, uniform, and constantly studious life, him who
had been brought up on the knees of princesses, was to deprive
him of that which made him live, of a factitious life, it is
true, for, like a painted woman, he laid aside in the evening,
in returning to his home, his verve and his energy, to give
the night to fever and sleeplessness; but of a life which
would have been shorter and more animated than that of the
retirement and of the intimacy restricted to the uniform
circle of a single family. In Paris he visited several salons
every day, or he chose at least every evening a different one
as a milieu. He had thus by turns twenty or thirty salons to
intoxicate or to charm with his presence.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS: HIS PREDILECTION FOR THE FASHIONABLE
SALON SOCIETY (ACCOUNTS BY MADAME GIRARDIN AND BERLIOZ); HIS NEGLECT OF
THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS (ARY SCHEFFER, MARMONTEL, HELLER, SCHULHOFF, THE
PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE MUSICAL WORLD); APHORISMS BY LISZT ON CHOPIN
IN HIS SOCIAL ASPECT.--CHOPIN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--GEORGE SAND, LISZT, LENZ,
HELLER, MARMONTEL, AND HILLER ON HIS CHARACTER (IRRITABILITY, FITS OF
ANGER--SCENE WITH MEYERBEER--GAIETY AND RAILLERY, LOVE OF SOCIETY, AND
LITTLE TASTE FOR READING, PREDILECTION FOR THINGS POLISH).--HIS POLISH,
GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND RUSSIAN FRIENDS.--THE PARTY MADE FAMOUS BY LISZT'S
ACCOUNT.--HIS INTERCOURSE WITH MUSICIANS (OSBORNE, BERLIOZ, BAILLOT,
CHERUBINI, KALKBRENNER, FONTANA, SOWINSKI, WOLFF, MEYERBEER, ALKAN,
ETC.).--HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH LISZT.--HIS DISLIKE TO LETTER-WRITING.
George Sand, although one of the cleverest of the literary portrayers
who have tried their hand at Chopin, cannot be regarded as one of the
most impartial; but it must be admitted that in describing her deserted
lover as un homme du monde par excellence, non pas du monde trop
officiel, trop nombreux, she says what is confirmed by all who
have known him, by his friends, foes, and those that are neither.
Aristocratic society, with which he was acquainted from his earliest
childhood, had always a great charm for him. When at the beginning
of 1833, a little more than two years after his arrival in Paris,
he informed his friend Dziewanowski that he moved in the highest
society--among ambassadors, princes, and ministers--it is impossible not
to see that the fact gives him much satisfaction. Without going so far
as to say with a great contemporary of Chopin, Stephen Heller, that the
higher you go in society the greater is the ignorance you find, I
think that little if any good for either heart or mind can come from
intercourse with that section of the people which proudly styles itself
"society" (le monde). Many individuals that belong to it possess, no
doubt, true nobility, wisdom, and learning, nay, even the majority
may possess one or the other or all of them in some degree, but these
qualities are so out of keeping with the prevailing frivolity that few
have the moral courage to show their better nature. If Chopin imagined
that he was fully understood as an artist by society, he was sadly
mistaken. Liszt and Heller certainly held that he was not fully
understood, and they did not merely surmise or speak from hearsay, for
neither of them was a stranger in that quarter, although the latter
avoided it as much as possible. What society could and did appreciate in
Chopin was his virtuosity, his elegance, and his delicacy. It is not my
intention to attempt an enumeration of Chopin's aristocratic friends and
acquaintances, but in the dedications of his works the curious will
find the most important of them. There, then, we read the names of the
Princess Czartoryska, Countess Plater, Countess Potocka, Princesse de
Beauvau, Countess Appony, Countess Esterhazy, Comte and Comtesse de
Perthuis, Baroness Bronicka, Princess Czernicheff, Princess Souzzo,
Countess Mostowska, Countess Czosnowska, Comtesse de Flahault, Baroness
von Billing, Baron and Baroness von Stockhausen, Countess von Lobau,
Mdlle. de Noailles, &c. And in addition to these we have representatives
of the aristocracy of wealth, Madame C. de Rothschild foremost amongst
them. Whether the banker Leo with whom and his family Chopin was on very
friendly terms may be mentioned in this connection, I do not know.
But we must remember that round many of the above names cluster large
families. The names of the sisters Countess Potocka and Princesse de
Beauvau call up at once that of their mother, Countess Komar. Many of
these here enumerated are repeatedly mentioned in the course of this
book, some will receive particular attention in the next chapter. Now we
will try to get a glimpse of Chopin in society.
Madame de Girardin, after having described in one of her "Lettres
parisiennes" (March 7, 1847) [FOOTNOTE: The full title of the work is:
"Le Vicomte de Launay--Lettres parisiennes par Mdme. Emile de Girardin."
(Paris: Michel Levy freres.)] with what success Mdlle. O'Meara
accompanied by her master played his E minor Concerto at a soiree
of Madame de Courbonne, proceeds thus:--
Mdlle. Meara is a pupil of Chopin's. He was there, he was
present at the triumph of his pupil, the anxious audience asked
itself: "Shall we hear him?"
The fact is that it was for passionate admirers the torment of
Tantalus to see Chopin going about a whole evening in a salon and
not to hear him. The mistress of the house took pity on us; she
was indiscreet, and Chopin played, sang his most delicious songs;
we set to these joyous or sad airs the words which came into our
heads; we followed with our thoughts his melodious caprices.
There were some twenty of us, sincere amateurs, true believers,
and not a note was lost, not an intention was misunderstood; it
was not a concert, it was intimate, serious music such as we
love; he was not a virtuoso who comes and plays the air agreed
upon and then disappears; he was a beautiful talent, monopolised,
worried, tormented, without consideration and scruples, whom one
dared ask for the most beloved airs, and who full of grace and
charity repeated to you the favourite phrase, in order that you
might carry it away correct and pure in your memory, and for a
long time yet feast on it in remembrance. Madame so-and-so said:
"Please, play this pretty nocturne dedicated to Mdlle.
Stirling."--The nocturne which I called the dangerous one.--He
smiled, and played the fatal nocturne. "I," said another lady,
"should like to hear once played by you this mazurka, so sad and
so charming." He smiled again, and played the delicious mazurka.
The most profoundly artful among the ladies sought expedients to
attain their end: "I am practising the grand sonata which
commences with this beautiful funeral march," and "I should like
to know the movement in which the finale ought to be played." He
smiled a little at the stratagem, and played the finale, of the
grand sonata, one of the most magnificent pieces which he has
composed.
Although Madame Girardin's language and opinions are fair specimens of
those prevalent in the beatified regions in which Chopin delighted to
move, we will not follow her rhapsodic eulogy of his playing. That she
cannot be ranked with the connoisseurs is evident from her statement
that the sonata BEGINS with the funeral march, and that the FINALE is
one of the most magnificent creations of the composer. Notwithstanding
Madame Girardin's subsequent remark that Chopin's playing at Madame de
Courbonne's was quite an exception, her letter may mislead the reader
into the belief that the great pianist was easily induced to sit down
at the piano. A more correct idea may be formed of the real state of
matters from a passage in an article by Berlioz (Feuilleton du Journal
des Debats, October 27, 1849) in which the supremacy of style over
matter is a little less absolute than in the lady's elegant chit-chat:--
A small circle of select auditors, whose real desire to hear
him was beyond doubt, could alone determine him to approach
the piano. What emotions he would then call forth! In what
ardent and melancholy reveries he loved to pour out his soul!
It was usually towards midnight that he gave himself up with
the greatest ABANDON, when the big butterflies of the salon
had left, when the political questions of the day had been
discussed at length, when all the scandal-mongers were at the
end of their anecdotes, when all the snares were laid, all the
perfidies consummated, when one was thoroughly tired of prose,
then, obedient to the mute petition of some beautiful,
intelligent eyes, he became a poet, and sang the Ossianic
loves of the heroes of his dreams, their chivalrous joys, and
the sorrows of the absent fatherland, his dear Poland always
ready to conquer and always defeated. But without these
conditions--the exacting of which for his playing all artists
must thank him for--it was useless to solicit him. The
curiosity excited by his fame seemed even to irritate him, and
he shunned as far as possible the nonsympathetic world when
chance had led him into it. I remember a cutting saying which
he let fly one evening at the master of a house where he had
dined. Scarcely had the company taken coffee when the host,
approaching Chopin, told him that his fellow-guests who had
never heard him hoped that he would be so good as to sit down
at the piano and play them some little thing [quelque petite
chose]. Chopin excused himself from the very first in a way
which left not the slightest doubt as to his inclination. But
when the other insisted, in an almost offensive manner, like a
man who knows the worth and the object of the dinner which he
has given, the artist cut the conversation short by saying
with a weak and broken voice and a fit of coughing: "Ah!
sir...I have... eaten so little!"
Chopin's predilection for the fashionable salon society led him to
neglect the society of artists. That he carried the odi profanum vulgus,
et arceo too far cannot for a moment be doubted. For many of those who
sought to have intercourse with him were men of no less nobility of
sentiment and striving than himself. Chopin offended even Ary Scheffer,
the great painter, who admired him and loved him, by promising to spend
an evening with him and again and again disappointing him. Musicians,
with a few exceptions. Chopin seems always to have been careful to keep
at a distance, at least after the first years of his arrival in Paris.
This is regrettable especially in the case of the young men who looked
up to him with veneration and enthusiasm, and whose feelings were
cruelly hurt by the polite but unsympathetic reception he gave them:--
We have had always a profound admiration for Chopin's talent
[writes M. Marmontel], and, let us add, a lively sympathy for
his person. No artist, the intimate disciples not excepted,
has more studied his compositions, and more caused them to be
played, and yet our relations with this great musician have
only been rare and transient. Chopin was surrounded, fawned
upon, closely watched by a small cenacle of enthusiastic
friends, who guarded him against importunate visitors and
admirers of the second order. It was difficult to get access
to him; and it was necessary, as he said himself to that other
great artist whose name is Stephen Heller, to try several
times before one succeeded in meeting him. These trials
["essais"] being no more to my taste than to Heller's, I could
not belong to that little congregation of faithful ones whose
cult verged on fanaticism.
As to Stephen Heller--who himself told me that he would have liked to
be more with Chopin, but was afraid of being regarded as intrusive--Mr.
Heller thinks that Chopin had an antipathy to him, which considering
the amiable and truly gentlemanly character of this artist seems rather
strange.
If the details of Karasowski's account of Chopin's and Schulhoff's first
meeting are correct, the Polish artist was in his aloofness sometimes
even deficient in that common civility which good-breeding and
consideration for the feelings of others demand. Premising that Fetis
in telling the story is less circumstantial and lays the scene of the
incident in the pianoforte-saloon of Pleyel, I shall quote Karasowski's
version, as he may have had direct information from Schulhoff, who
since 1855 has lived much of his time at Dresden, where Karasowski also
resides:--
Schulhoff came when quite a young man and as yet completely
unknown to Paris. There he learned that Chopin, who was then
already very ailing and difficult of access, was coming to the
pianoforte-manufactory of Mercier to inspect one of the newly-
invented transposing pianofortes. It was in the year 1844.
Schulhoff seized the opportunity to become personally
acquainted with the master, and made his appearance among the
small party which awaited Chopin. The latter came with an old
friend, a Russian Capellmeister [Soliva?]. Taking advantage of
a propitious moment, Schulhoff got himself introduced by one
of the ladies present. On the latter begging Chopin to allow
Schulhoff to play him something, the renowned master, who was
much bothered by dilettante tormentors, signified, somewhat
displeased, his consent by a slight nod of the head. Schulhoff
seated himself at the pianoforte, while Chopin, with his back
turned to him, was leaning against it. But already during the
short prelude he turned his head attentively towards Schulhoff
who now performed an Allegro brillant en forme de Senate (Op.
I), which he had lately composed. With growing interest Chopin
came nearer and nearer the keyboard and listened to the fine,
poetic playing of the young Bohemian; his pale features grew
animated, and by mien and gesture he showed to all who were
present his lively approbation. When Schulhoff had finished,
Chopin held out his hand to him with the words: "Vous etes un
vrai artiste, un collegue!" Some days after Schulhoff paid the
revered master a visit, and asked him to accept the dedication
of the composition he had played to him. Chopin thanked him in
a heart-winning manner, and said in the presence of several
ladies: "Je suis tres flatte de l'honneur que vous me faites."
The behaviour of Chopin during the latter part of this transaction made,
no doubt, amends for that of the earlier. But the ungracious manner
in which he granted the young musician permission to play to him, and
especially his turning his back to Schulhoff when the latter began
to play, are not excused by the fact that he was often bothered by
dilettante tormentors.
The Paris correspondent of the Musical World, writing immediately after
the death of the composer, describes the feeling which existed among the
musicians in the French capital, and also suggests an explanation and
excuse. In the number of the paper bearing date November 10, 1849, we
read as follows:--
Owing to his retired way of living and his habitual reserve,
Chopin had few friends in the profession; and, indeed, spoiled
from his original nature by the caprice of society, he was too
apt to treat his brother-artists with a supercilious hauteur,
which many, his equals, and a few, his superiors, were wont to
stigmatise as insulting. But from want of sympathy with the
man, they overlooked the fact that a pulmonary complaint,
which for years had been gradually wasting him to a shadow,
rendered him little fit for the enjoyments of society and the
relaxations of artistic conviviality. In short, Chopin, in
self-defence, was compelled to live in comparative seclusion,
but we wholly disbelieve that this isolation had its source in
unkindness or egotism. We are the more inclined to this
opinion by the fact that the intimate friends whom he
possessed in the profession (and some of them were pianists)
were as devotedly attached to him as the most romantic of his
aristocratic worshippers.
The reasoning does not seem to me quite conclusive. Would it not have
been possible to live in retirement without drawing upon himself the
accusation of supercilious hauteur? Moreover, as Chopin was strong
enough to frequent fashionable salons, he cannot have been altogether
unable to hold intercourse with his brother-artists. And, lastly, who
are the pianist friends that were as devotedly attached to him as the
most romantic of his aristocratic worshippers? The fact that Chopin
became subsequently less social and more reticent than he had been
in his early Paris days, confined himself to a very limited number of
friends and families, and had relations of an intimate nature with only
a very few musicians, cannot, therefore, be attributable to ill-health
alone, although that too had, no doubt, something to do with it,
directly or indirectly. In short, the allegation that Chopin was
"spoiled by the caprice of society," as the above-quoted correspondent
puts it, is not only probable, but even very likely. Fastidious by
nature and education, he became more so, partly in consequence of his
growing physical weakness, and still more through the influence of the
society with which, in the exercise of his profession and otherwise,
he was in constant contact. His pupils and many of his other admirers,
mostly of the female sex and the aristocratic class, accustomed him
to adulation and adoration to such an extent as to make these to be
regarded by him as necessaries of life. Some excerpts from Liszt's book,
which I shall quote here in the form of aphorisms, will help to bring
Chopin, in his social aspect, clearly before the reader's eyes:--
As he did not confound his time, thought, and ways with those
of anyone, the society of women was often more convenient to
him in that it involved fewer subsequent relations.
He carried into society the uniformity of temper of people
whom no annoyance troubles because they expect no interest.
His conversation dwelt little on stirring subjects. He glided
over them; as he was not at all lavish of his time, the talk
was easily absorbed by the details of the day.
He loved the unimportant talk [les causeries sans portee] of
people whom he esteemed; he delighted in the childish
pleasures of young people. He passed readily whole evenings in
playing blind-man's-buff with young girls, in telling them
amusing or funny little stories, in making them laugh the mad
laughter of youth, which it gives even more pleasure to hear
than the singing of the warbler. [FOOTNOTE: This, I think,
must refer to the earlier years of Chopin's residence in
Paris.]
In his relations and conversations he seemed to take an
interest in what preoccupied the others; he took care not to
draw them out of the circle of their personality inorder to
lead them into his. If he gave up little of his time, he, to
make up for it, reserved to himself nothing of that which he
granted.
The presence of Chopin was, therefore, always heartily welcome
[fetee]. Not hoping to be understood [devine], disdaining to
speak of himself [de se raconter lui-meme], he occupied
himself so much with everything that was not himself that his
intimate personality remained aloof, unapproached and
unapproachable, under this polite and smooth [glissant]
surface where it was impossible to get a footing.
He pleased too much to make people reflect.
He hardly spoke either of love or of friendship.
He was not exacting like those whose rights and just demands
surpass by far what one would have to offer them. The most
intimate acquaintances did not penetrate to this sacred recess
where, withdrawn from all the rest of his life, dwelt the
secret motive power of his soul: a recess so concealed that
one scarcely suspected its existence.
Ready to give everything, he did not give himself.
The last dictum and part of the last but one were already quoted by
me in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completeness, and
also because they form an excellent starting-point for the following
additional remarks on Chopin's friendships, I have repeated them here.
First of all, I venture to make the sweeping assertion that Chopin had
among his non-Polish friends none who could be called intimate in the
fullest sense of the word, none to whom he unbosomed himself as he
did to Woyciechowski and Matuszynski, the friends of his youth,
and Grzymala, a friend of a later time. Long cessation of personal
intercourse together with the diverging development of their characters
in totally unlike conditions of life cannot but have diminished the
intimacy with the first named. [FOOTNOTE: Titus Woyciechowski continued
to live on his estate Poturzyn, in the kingdom of Poland.] With
Matuszyriski Chopin remained in close connection till this friend's
death. [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says in the first volume of his Polish
biography of Chopin that Matuszynski died on April 20, 1842; and in the
second that he died after Chopin's father, but in the same year--that
is, in 1844.] How he opened his whole heart to Grzymala we shall see
in a subsequent chapter. That his friendship with Fontana was of a
less intimate character becomes at once apparent on comparing Chopin's
letters to him with those he wrote to the three other Polish friends.
Of all his connections with non-Poles there seems to be only one which
really deserves the name of friendship, and that is his connection with
Franchomme. Even here, however, he gave much less than he received.
Indeed, we may say--speaking generally, and not only with a view to
Franchomme--that Chopin was more loved than loving. But he knew well how
to conceal his deficiencies in this respect under the blandness of
his manners and the coaxing affectionateness of his language. There is
something really tragic, and comic too, in the fact that every friend of
Chopin's thought that he had more of the composer's love and confidence
than any other friend. Thus, for instance, while Gutmann told me that
Franchomme was not so intimate with Chopin that the latter would confide
any secrets to him, Franchomme made to me a similar statement with
regard to Gutmann. And so we find every friend of Chopin declaring that
every other friend was not so much of a friend as himself. Of Chopin's
procedures in friendship much may be learned from his letters; in
them is to be seen something of his insinuating, cajoling ways, of his
endeavours to make the person addressed believe himself a privileged
favourite, and of his habit of speaking not only ungenerously and
unlovingly, but even unjustly of other persons with whom he was
apparently on cordial terms. In fact, it is only too clear that Chopin
spoke differently before the faces and behind the backs of people. You
remember how in his letters to Fontana he abuses Camille Pleyel in a
manner irreconcilable with genuine love and esteem. Well, to this same
Camille Pleyel, of whom he thus falls foul when he thinks himself in the
slightest aggrieved, he addresses on one occasion the following note.
Mark the last sentence:--
Dearest friend [Cherissime],--Here is what Onslow has written
to me. I wished to call on you and tell you, but I feel very
feeble and am going to lie down. I love you always more, if
this is possible [je vous aime toujours plus si c'est
possible].
CHOPIN.
[FOOTNOTE: To the above, unfortunately undated, note, which
was published for the first time in the Menestrel of February
15, 1885, and reprinted in "Un nid d'autographes," lettres
incites recueillies et annotees par Oscar Comettant (Paris: E.
Dentu), is appended the following P.S.:--"Do not forget,
please, friend Herbeault. Till to-morrow, then; I expect you
both."
La Mara's Musikerbriefe (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hartel)
contains likewise a friendly letter of Chopin to Camille
Pleyel. It runs thus:
"Dearest friend,--I received the other day your piano, and
give you my best thanks. It arrived in good tune, and is
exactly at concert-pitch. As yet I have not played much on it,
for the weather is at present so fine that I am almost always
in the open air. I wish you as pleasant weather for your
holidays. Write me a few words (if you find that you have not
sufficiently exercised your pen in the course of the day). May
you all remain well--and lay me at the feet of your mother and
sister.--Your devoted, "F. CHOPIN."
The date given by La Mara is "Monday [May 20, 1842], Nohant,
near La Chatre, Indre." This, however, cannot be right, for
the 20th of May in 1842 was a Friday.]
And, again, how atrociously he reviles in the same letters the banker
Leo, who lends him money, often takes charge of his manuscripts,
procures payment for them, and in whose house he has been for years
a frequent visitor. Mr. Ch. Halle informed me that Chopin was on
particularly good terms with the Leos. From Moscheles' diary we learn
that the writer made Chopin's acquaintance at the banker's house.
Stephen Heller told me that he met Chopin several times at Leo's, and
that the Polish composer visited there often, and continued to go there
when he had given up going to many other houses. And from the same
informant I learned also that Madame Leo as well as her husband took a
kindly interest in Chopin, showing this, for instance, by providing him
with linen. And yet Leo, this man who does him all sorts of services,
and whose smiling guest he is before and after, is spoken of by Chopin
as if he were the most "despicable wretch imaginable"; and this for no
other reason than that everything has not been done exactly as he wished
it to be done. Unless we assume these revilings to be no more than
explosions of momentary ill-humour, we must find Chopin convicted of
duplicity and ingratitude. In the letters to Fontana there are also
certain remarks about Matuszynski which I do not like. Nor can they be
wholly explained away by saying that they are in part fun and in part
indirect flattery of his correspondent. It would rather seem that
Chopin's undoubtedly real love for Matuszynski was not unmixed with a
certain kind of contempt. And here I must tell the reader that while
Poles have so high an opinion of their nation in comparison with other
nations, and of their countrymen with other countrymen, they have
generally a very mean opinion of each other. Indeed, I never met with a
Pole who did not look down with a self-satisfied smile of pity on any
of his fellow-countrymen, even on his best friend. It seems that their
feeling of individual superiority is as great as that of their national
superiority. Liszt's observations (see Vol. I., p. 259) and those of
other writers (Polish as well as non-Polish) confirm mine, which else
might rightly be supposed to be based on too limited an experience. To
return to Matuszynski, he may have been too ready to advise and censure
his friend, and not practical enough to be actively helpful. After
reading the letters addressed to them one comes to the conclusion that
Fontana's and Franchomme's serviceableness and readiness to serve went
for something in his appreciation of them as friends. At any rate, he
did not hesitate to exploiter them most unconscionably. Taking a general
view of the letters written by him during the last twelve years of his
life, one is struck by the absence of generous judgments and the extreme
rareness of sympathetic sentiments concerning third persons. As this
was not the case in his earlier letters, ill-health and disappointments
suggest themselves naturally as causes of these faults of character
and temper. To these principal causes have, however, to be added his
nationality, his originally delicate constitution, and his cultivation
of salon manners and tastes. His extreme sensitiveness, fastidiousness,
and irritability may be easily understood to derive from one or the
other of these conditions.
George Sand's Ma Vie throws a good deal of light on Chopin's character;
let us collect a few rays from it:--
He [Chopin] was modest on principle and gentle [doux] by
habit, but he was imperious by instinct, and full of a
legitimate pride that did not know itself.
He was certainly not made to live long in this world, this
extreme type of an artist. He was devoured by the dream of an
ideal which no practical philosophic or compassionate
tolerance combated. He would never compound with human nature.
He accepted nothing of reality. This was his vice and his
virtue, his grandeur and his misery. Implacable to the least
blemish, he had an immense enthusiasm for the least light, his
excited imagination doing its utmost to see in it a sun.
He was the same in friendship [as in love], becoming
enthusiastic at first sight, getting disgusted, and correcting
himself [se reprenant] incessantly, living on infatuations
full of charms for those who were the object of them, and on
secret discontents which poisoned his dearest affections.
Chopin accorded to me, I may say honoured me with, a kind of
friendship which was an exception in his life. He was always
the same to me.
The friendship of Chopin was never a refuge for me in sadness.
He had enough of his own ills to bear.
We never addressed a reproach to each other, except once,
which, alas! was the first and the last time.
But if Chopin was with me devotion, kind attention, grace,
obligingness, and deference in person, he had not for all that
abjured the asperities of his character towards those who were
about me. With them the inequality of his soul, in turn
generous and fantastic, gave itself full course, passing
always from infatuation to aversion, and vice versa.
Chopin when angry was alarming, and as, with me, he always
restrained himself, he seemed almost to choke and die.
The following extracts from Liszt's book partly corroborate, partly
supplement, the foregoing evidence:--
His imagination was ardent, his feelings rose to violence,--
his physical organisation was feeble and sickly! Who can sound
the sufferings proceeding from this contrast? They must have
been poignant, but he never let them be seen.
The delicacy of his constitution and of his heart, in imposing
upon him the feminine martyrdom of for ever unavowed tortures,
gave to his destiny some of the traits of feminine destinies.
He did not exercise a decisive influence on any existence. His
passion never encroached upon any of his desires; he neither
pressed close nor bore down [n'a etreint ni masse] any mind by
the domination of his own.
However rarely, there were nevertheless instances when we
surprised him profoundly moved. We have seen him turn pale
[palir et blemir] to such a degree as to assume green and
cadaverous tints. But in his intensest emotions he remained
concentrated. He was then, as usually, chary of words about
what he felt; a minute's reflection [recueillement] always hid
the secret of his first impression...This constant control
over the violence of his character reminded one of the
melancholy superiority of certain women who seek their
strength in reticence and isolation, knowing the uselessness
of the explosions of their anger, and having a too jealous
care of the mystery of their passion to betray it
gratuitously.
Chopin, however, did not always control his temper. Heller remembers
seeing him more than once in a passion, and hearing him speak very
harshly to Nowakowski. The following story, which Lenz relates in "Die
grossen Pianoforte-Virtuosen unserer Zeit," is also to the point.
On one occasion Meyerbeer, whom I had not yet seen, entered
Chopin's room when I was getting a lesson. Meyerbeer was not
announced, he was king. I was playing the Mazurka in C (Op.
33), printed on one page which contains so many hundreds--I
called it the epitaph of the idea [Grabschrift des Begriffs],
so full of distress and sadness is the composition, the
wearied flight of an eagle.
Meyerbeer had taken a seat, Chopin made me go on.
"This is two-four time," said Meyerbeer. Chopin denied this,
made me repeat the piece, and beat time aloud with the pencil
on the piano--his eyes were glowing.
"Two crotchets," repeated Meyerbeer, calmly.
Only once I saw Chopin angry, it was at this moment. It was
beautiful to see how a light red coloured his pale cheeks.
"These are three crotchets," he said with a loud voice, he who
spoke always so low
"Give it me," replied Meyerbeer, "for a ballet in my opera
("L'Africaine," at that time kept a secret), I shall show it
you then."
"These are three crotchets," Chopin almost shouted, and played
it himself. He played the mazurka several times, counted
aloud, stamped time with his foot, was beside himself. But all
was of no use, Meyerbeer insisted on TWO crotchets. They
parted very angrily. I found it anything but agreeable to have
been a witness of this angry scene. Chopin disappeared into
his cabinet without taking leave of me. The whole thing lasted
but a few minutes.
Exhibitions of temper like this were no doubt rare, indeed, hardly ever
occurred except in his intercourse with familiars and, more especially,
fellow-countrymen--sometimes also with pupils. In passing I may remark
that Chopin's Polish vocabulary was much less choice than his French
one. As a rule, Chopin's manners were very refined and aristocratic, Mr.
Halle thinks they were too much so. For this refinement resulted in
a uniform amiability which left you quite in the dark as to the real
nature of the man. Many people who made advances to Chopin found like
M. Marmontel--I have this from his own mouth--that he had a temperament
sauvage and was difficult to get at. And all who came near him learned
soon from experience that, as Liszt told Lenz, he was ombrageux. But
while Chopin would treat outsiders with a chilly politeness, he charmed
those who were admitted into his circle both by amiability and wit.
"Usually," says Liszt, "he was lively, his caustic mind unearthed
quickly the ridiculous far below the surface where it strikes all eyes."
And again, "the playfulness of Chopin attacked only the superior keys of
the mind, fond of witticism as he was, recoiling from vulgar joviality,
gross laughter, common merriment, as from those animals more abject
than venomous, the sight of which causes the most nauseous aversion
to certain sensitive and delicate natures." Liszt calls Chopin "a fine
connoisseur in raillery and an ingenious mocker." The testimony of other
acquaintances of Chopin and that of his letters does not allow us to
accept as holding good generally Mr. Halle's experience, who, mentioning
also the Polish artist's wit, said to me that he never heard him utter a
sarcasm or use a cutting expression.
Fondness of society is a characteristic trait in Chopin's mental
constitution. Indeed, Hiller told me that his friend could not be
without company. For reading, on the other hand, he did not much
care. Alkan related to me that Chopin did not even read George Sand's
works--which is difficult to believe--and that Pierre Leroux, who liked
Chopin and always brought him his books, might have found them any time
afterwards uncut on the pianist's table, which is not so difficult to
believe, as philosophy and Chopin are contraries. According to what I
learned from Hiller, Chopin took an interest in literature but read very
little. To Heller it seemed that Chopin had no taste for literature,
indeed, he made on him the impression of an uneducated man. Heller, I
must tell the reader parenthetically, was both a great reader and an
earnest thinker, over whom good books had even the power of making
him neglect and forget mistress Musica without regret and with little
compunction. But to return to Chopin. Franchomme excused his friend
by saying that teaching and the claims of society left him no time for
reading. But if Chopin neglected French literature--not to speak of
other ancient and modern literatures--he paid some attention to that of
his native country; at any rate, new publications of Polish books were
generally to be found on his table. The reader will also remember that
Chopin, in his letters to Fontana, alludes twice to books of poetry--one
by Mickiewicz which was sent him to Majorca, the other by Witwicki which
he had lost sight of.
Indeed, anything Polish had an especial charm and value for Chopin.
Absence from his native country so far from diminishing increased his
love for it. The words with which he is reported to have received the
pianist Mortier de Fontaine, who came to Paris in 1833 and called on him
with letters of introduction, are characteristic in this respect: "It
is enough that you have breathed the air of Warsaw to find a friend
and adviser in me." There is, no doubt, some exaggeration in Liszt's
statement that whoever came to Chopin from Poland, whether with or
without letters of introduction, was sure of a hearty welcome, of being
received with open arms. On the other hand, we may fully believe the
same authority when he says that Chopin often accorded to persons of his
own country what he would not accord to anyone else--namely, the right
of disturbing his habits; that he would sacrifice his time, money,
and comfort to people who were perhaps unknown to him the day before,
showing them the sights of the capital, having them to dine with him,
and taking them in the evening to some theatre. We have already seen
that his most intimate friends were Poles, and this was so in the
aristocratic as well as in the conventionally less-elevated circles.
However pleasant his relations with the Rothschilds may have
been--indeed, Franchomme told me that his friend loved the house of
Rothschild and that this house loved him, and that more especially
Madame Nathaniel Rothschild preserved a touching remembrance of him
[FOOTNOTE: Chopin dedicated to Madame la Baronne C. Rothschild the
Waltz, Op. 64, No. 2 (Parisian Edition), and the Ballade, Op. 52.]--they
can have been but of small significance in comparison with the almost
passionate attachment he had to Prince Alexander Czartoryski and his
wife the Princess Marcelline. And if we were to compare his friendship
for any non-Polish gentleman or lady with that which he felt for the
Countess Delphine Potocka, to whom he dedicated two of his happiest
inspirations in two very different genres (the F minor Concerto, Op. 21,
and the D flat major Waltz, Op. 64, No. I), the result would be again in
favour of his compatriot. There were, indeed, some who thought that he
felt more than friendship for this lady; this, however, he energetically
denied.
[FOOTNOTE: Of this lady Kwiatkowski said that she took as much trouble
and pride in giving choice musical entertainments as other people did in
giving choice dinners. In Sowinski's Musiciens polonais we read that
she had a beautiful soprano voice and occupied the first place among the
amateur ladies of Paris. "A great friend of the illustrious Chopin, she
gave formerly splendid concerts at her house with the old company of
the Italians, which one shall see no more in Paris. To cite the names of
Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, Malibran, Grisi, Persiani, is to give
the highest idea of Italian singing. The Countess Potocka sang herself
according to the method of the Italian masters."]
But although Chopin was more devoted and more happy in his Polish
friendships, he had beloved as well as loving friends of all
nationalities--Germans, English, and even Russians. That as a good
Pole he hated the Russians as a nation may be taken for granted. Of his
feelings and opinions with regard to his English friends and the English
in general, information will be forthcoming in a subsequent chapter.
The Germans Chopin disliked thoroughly, partly, no doubt, from political
reasons, partly perhaps on account of their inelegance and social
awkwardness. Still, of this nation were some of his best friends, among
them Hiller, Gutmann, Albrecht, and the Hanoverian ambassador Baron von
Stockhausen.
[FOOTNOTE: Gutmann, in speaking to me of his master's dislike,
positively ascribed it to the second of the above causes. In connection
with this we must, however, not forget that the Germans of to-day differ
from the Germans of fifty years ago as much socially as politically.
Nor have the social characters of their neighbours, the French and the
English, remained the same.]
Liszt has given a glowing description of an improvised soiree at
Chopin's lodgings in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin--that is, in the
years before the winter in Majorca. At this soiree, we are told, were
present Liszt himself, Heine, Meyerbeer, Nourrit, Hiller, Delacroix,
Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, George Sand, and the Comtesse d'Agoult. Of
course, this is a poetic licence: these men and women cannot have been
at one and the same time in Chopin's salon. Indeed, Hiller informed me
that he knew nothing of this party, and that, moreover, as long as
he was in Paris (up to 1836) there were hardly ever more numerous
gatherings at his friend's lodgings than of two or three. Liszt's
group, however, brings vividly before us one section of Chopin's social
surroundings: it shows us what a poetic atmosphere he was breathing,
amidst what a galaxy of celebrities he was moving. A glimpse of the real
life our artist lived in the early Paris years this extravagant effort
of a luxuriant imagination does not afford. Such glimpses we got in his
letters to Hiller and Franchomme, where we also met with many friends
and acquaintances with less high-sounding names, some of whom Chopin
subsequently lost by removal or death. In addition to the friends who
were then mentioned, I may name here the Polish poet Stephen Witwicki,
the friend of his youth as well as of his manhood, to whom in 1842 he
dedicated his Op. 41, three mazurkas, and several of whose poems he set
to music; and the Polish painter Kwiatkowski, an acquaintance of a later
time, who drew and painted many portraits of the composer, and more than
one of whose pictures was inspired by compositions of his friend. I have
not been able to ascertain what Chopin's sentiments were with regard to
Kwiatkowski, but the latter must have been a frequent visitor, for after
relating to me that the composer was fond of playing in the dusk, he
remarked that he heard him play thus almost all his works immediately
after they were composed.
As we have seen in the chapters treating of Chopin's first years
in Paris, there was then a goodly sprinkling of musicians among his
associates--I use the word "associates" advisedly, for many of them
could not truly be called friends. When he was once firmly settled,
artistically and socially, not a few of these early acquaintances
lapsed. How much this was due to the force of circumstances, how much to
the choice of Chopin, is difficult to determine. But we may be sure that
his distaste to the Bohemianism, the free and easy style that obtains
among a considerable portion of the artistic tribe, had at least as much
to do with the result as pressure of engagements. Of the musicians of
whom we heard so much in the first years after his coming to Paris,
he remained in close connection only with one-namely, with Franchomme.
Osborne soon disappeared from his circle. Chopin's intercourse with
Berlioz was in after years so rare that some of their common friends
did not even know of its existence. The loosening of this connection
was probably brought about by the departure of Hiller in 1836 and the
quarrel with Liszt some time after, which broke two links between the
sensitive Pole and the fiery Frenchman. The ageing Baillot and Cherubini
died in 1842. Kalkbrenner died but a short time before Chopin, but the
sympathy existing between them was not strong enough to prevent their
drifting apart. Other artists to whom the new-comer had paid due homage
may have been neglected, forgotten, or lost sight of when success was
attained and the blandishments of the salons were lavished upon him.
Strange to say, with all his love for what belonged to and came from
Poland, he kept compatriot musicians at a distance. Fontana was an
exception, but him he cherished, no doubt, as a friend of his youth in
spite of his profession, or, if as a musician at all, chiefly because
of his handiness as a copyist. For Sowinski, who was already settled
in Paris when Chopin arrived there, and who assisted him at his first
concert, he did not care. Consequently they had afterwards less and less
intercourse, which, indeed, in the end may have ceased altogether.
An undated letter given by Count Wodziriski in "Les trois Romans de
Frederic Chopin," no doubt originally written in Polish, brings the
master's feelings towards his compatriot, and also his irritability,
most vividly before the reader.
Here he is! He has just come in to see me--a tall strong
individual who wears moustaches; he sits down at the piano and
improvises, without knowing exactly what. He knocks, strikes,
and crosses his hands, without reason; he demolishes in five
minutes a poor helpless key; he has enormous fingers, made
rather to handle reins and whip somewhere on the confines of
Ukraine. Here you have the portrait of S... who has no other
merit than that of having small moustaches and a good heart.
If I ever thought of imagining what stupidity and charlatanism
in art are, I have now the clearest perception of them. I run
through my room with my ears reddening; I have a mad desire to
throw the door wide open; but one has to spare him, to show
one's self almost affectionate. No, you cannot imagine what it
is: here one sees only his neckties; one does him the honour
of taking him seriously....There remains, therefore, nothing
but to bear him. What exasperates me is his collection of
little songs, compositions in the most vulgar style, without
the least knowledge of the most elementary rules of harmony
and poetry, concluding with quadrille ritornelli, and which he
calls Recueil de Chants Polonais. You know how I wished to
understand, and how I have in part succeeded in understanding,
our national music. Therefore you will judge what pleasure I
experience when, laying hold of a motive of mine here and
there, without taking account of the fact that all the beauty
of a melody depends on the accompaniment, he reproduces it
with the taste of a frequenter of suburban taverns
(guinguettes) and public-houses (cabarets). And one cannot say
anything to him, for he comprehends nothing beyond what he has
taken from you.
Edouard Wolff came to Paris in 1835, provided with a letter of
introduction from Chopin's master Zywny; [FOOTNOTE: See Vol. I., p. 31.]
but, notwithstanding this favourable opening of their acquaintanceship,
he was only for some time on visiting terms with his more distinguished
compatriot. Wolff himself told me that Chopin would never hear one of
his compositions. From any other informant I would not have accepted
this statement as probable, still less as true. [FOOTNOTE: Wolff
dedicated in 1841 his Grand Allegro de Concert pour piano still, Op. 59,
a son ami Chopin; but the latter never repaid him the compliment.] These
remarks about Wolff remind me of another piece of information I got from
this pianist-composer a few months before his death--namely, that Chopin
hated all Jews, Meyerbeer and Halevy among the rest. What Pole does not
hate the Jews? That Chopin was not enamoured of them we have seen in his
letters. But that he hated Meyerbeer is a more than doubtful statement.
Franchomme said to me that Meyerbeer was not a great friend of Chopin's;
but that the latter, though he did not like his music, liked him as a
man. If Lenz reports accurately, Meyerbeer's feelings towards Chopin
were, no doubt, warmer than Chopin's towards Meyerbeer. When after
the scene about the rhythm of a mazurka Chopin had left the room, Lenz
introduced himself to Meyerbeer as a friend of the Counts Wielhorski,
of St. Petersburg. On coming to the door, where a coupe was waiting, the
composer offered to drive him home, and when they were seated said:--
I had not seen Chopin for a long time, I love him very much. I
know no pianist like him, no composer for the piano like him.
The piano lives on nuances and on cantilena; it is an
instrument of intimacy [ein Intimitalsinstrument], I also was
once a pianist, and there was a time when I trained myself to
be a virtuoso. Visit me when you come to Berlin. Are we not
now comrades? When one has met at the house of so great a man,
it was for life.
Kwiatkowski told me a pretty story which se non vero is certainly ben
trovato. When on one occasion Meyerbeer had fallen out with his wife,
he sat down to the piano and played a nocturne or some other composition
which Chopin had sent him. And such was the effect of the music on his
helpmate that she came and kissed him. Thereupon Meyerbeer wrote Chopin
a note telling him of what had taken place, and asking him to come and
see their conjugal happiness. Among the few musicians with whom Chopin
had in later years friendly relations stands out prominently, both by
his genius and the preference shown him, the pianist and composer Alkan
aine (Charles Henri Valentine), who, however, was not so intimate
with the Polish composer as Franchomme, nor on such easy terms of
companionship as Hiller and Liszt had been. The originality of the
man and artist, his high aims and unselfish striving, may well have
attracted Chopin; but as an important point in Alkan's favour must be
reckoned the fact that he was also a friend of George Sand's. Indeed,
some of the limitations of Chopin's intercourse were, no doubt, made on
her account. Kwiatkowski told me that George Sand hated Chopin's Polish
friends, and that some of them were consequently not admitted at all and
others only reluctantly. Now suppose that she disliked also some of the
non-Polish friends, musicians as well as others, would not her influence
act in the same way as in the case of the Poles?
But now I must say a few words about Chopin and Liszt's friendship, and
how it came to an end. This connection of the great pianists has been
the subject of much of that sentimental talk of which writers on music
and of musical biography are so fond. This, however, which so often has
been represented as an ideal friendship, was really no friendship
at all, but merely comradeship. Both admired each other sincerely as
musicians. If Chopin did not care much for Liszt's compositions, he had
the highest opinion of him as a pianist. We have seen in the letter of
June 20, 1833, addressed to Hiller and conjointly written by Chopin
and Liszt, how delighted Chopin was with Liszt's manner of playing his
studies, and how he wished to be able to rob him of it. He said on one
occasion to his pupil Mdlle. Kologrivof [FOOTNOTE: Afterwards Madame
Rubio.]: "I like my music when Liszt plays it." No doubt, it was Liszt's
book with its transcendentally-poetic treatment which induced the false
notion now current. Yet whoever keeps his eyes open can read between the
lines what the real state of matters was. The covert sneers at and the
openly-expressed compassion for his comrade's whims, weaknesses, and
deficiencies, tell a tale. Of Chopin's sentiments with regard to Liszt
we have more than sufficient evidence. Mr. Halle, who arrived in Paris
at the end of 1840, was strongly recommended to the banker Mallet. This
gentleman, to give him an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the
Polish pianist, invited both to dinner. On this occasion Mr. Halle asked
Chopin about Liszt, but the reticent answer he got was indicative rather
of dislike than of anything else. When in 1842 Lenz took lessons from
Chopin, the latter defined his relations with Liszt thus: "We are
friends, we were comrades." What he meant by the first half of
the statement was, no doubt: "Now we meet only on terms of polite
acquaintanceship." When the comradeship came to an end I do not know,
but I think I do know how it came to an end. When I asked Liszt
about the cause of the termination of their friendship, he said: "Our
lady-loves had quarrelled, and as good cavaliers we were in duty bound
to side with them." [FOOTNOTE: Liszt's words in describing to me his
subsequent relation with Chopin were similar to those of Chopin to Lenz.
He said: "There was a cessation of intimacy, but no enmity. I left Paris
soon after, and never saw him again."] This, however, was merely a way
to get rid of an inconvenient question. Franchomme explained the mystery
to me, and his explanation was confirmed by what I learned from Madame
Rubio. The circumstances are of too delicate a nature to be set forth in
detail. But the long and short of the affair is that Liszt, accompanied
by another person, invaded Chopin's lodgings during his absence, and
made himself quite at home there. The discovery of traces of the use to
which his rooms had been put justly enraged Chopin. One day, I do not
know how long after the occurrence, Liszt asked Madame Rubio to tell
her master that he hoped the past would be forgotten and the young man's
trick (Junggesellenstuck) wiped out. Chopin then said that he could not
forget, and was much better as he was; and further, that Liszt was not
open enough, having always secrets and intrigues, and had written
in some newspapers feuilleton notices unfavourable to him. This last
accusation reminds one at once of the remark he made when he heard
that Liszt intended to write an account of one of his concerts for the
Gazette musicale. I have quoted the words already, but may repeat them
here: "Il me donnera un petit royaume dans son empire" (He will give me
a little kingdom in his empire). In this, as in most sayings of Chopin
regarding Liszt, irritation against the latter is distinctly noticeable.
The cause of this irritation may be manifold, but Liszt's great success
as a concert-player and his own failure in this respect [FOOTNOTE: I
speak here only of his inability to impress large audiences, to move
great masses.] have certainly something to do with it. Liszt, who
thought so likewise, says somewhere in his book that Chopin knew how to
forgive nobly. Whether this was so or not, I do not venture to decide.
But I am sure if he forgave, he never forgot. An offence remained for
ever rankling in his heart and mind.
From Chopin's friends to his pupils is but one step, and not even that,
for a great many of his pupils were also his friends; indeed, among them
were some of those who were nearest to his heart, and not a few in whose
society he took a particular delight. Before I speak, however, of his
teaching, I must say a few words about a subject which equally relates
to our artist's friends and pupils, and to them rather than to any other
class of people with whom he had any dealings.
One of his [Chopin's] oddities [writes Liszt] consisted in
abstaining from every exchange of letters, from every sending
of notes; one could have believed that he had made a vow never
to address letters to strangers. It was a curious thing to see
him have recourse to all kinds of expedients to escape from
the necessity of tracing a few lines. Many times he preferred
traversing Paris from one end to the other in order to decline
a dinner or give some slight information, to saving himself
the trouble by means of a little sheet of paper. His
handwriting remained almost unknown to most of his friends. It
is said that he sometimes deviated from this habit in favour
of his fair compatriots settled at Paris, of whom some are in
possession of charming autographs of his, all written in
Polish. This breach of what one might have taken as a rule may
be explained by the pleasure he took in speaking his language,
which he employed in preference, and whose most expressive
idioms he delighted in translating to others. Like the Slaves
generally, he mastered the French language very well;
moreover, owing to his French origin, it had been taught him
with particular care. But he accommodated himself badly to it,
reproaching it with having little sonority and being of a cold
genius.
[FOOTNOTE: Notwithstanding his French origin, Chopin spoke
French with a foreign accent, some say even with a strong
foreign accent. Of his manner of writing French I spoke when
quoting his letters to Franchomme (see Vol. I., p. 258).]
Liszt's account of Chopin's bizarrerie is in the main correct, although
we have, of course, to make some deduction for exaggeration. In fact,
Gutmann told me that his master sometimes began a letter twenty times,
and finally flung down the pen and said: "I'll go and tell her [or
"him," as the case might be] myself."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHOPIN AS A TEACHER: HIS SUCCESS OR WANT OF SUCCESS AS SUCH; HIS PUPILS,
AMATEUR AND PROFESSIONAL; METHOD OF TEACHING; AND TEACHING REPERTOIRE.
As Chopin rarely played in public and could not make a comfortable
living by his compositions, there remained nothing for him but to teach,
which, indeed, he did till his strength forsook him. But so far from
regarding teaching as a burden, says his pupil Mikuli, he devoted
himself to it with real pleasure. Of course, a teacher can only
take pleasure in teaching when he has pupils of the right sort. This
advantage, however, Chopin may have enjoyed to a greater extent than
most masters, for according to all accounts it was difficult to be
received as a pupil--he by no means gave lessons to anyone who asked for
them. As long as he was in fair health, he taught during the season from
four to five hours a day, in later years only, or almost only, at home.
His fee for a lesson was twenty francs, which were deposited by the
pupil on the mantelpiece.
Was Chopin a good teacher? His pupils without exception most positively
affirm it. But outsiders ask: How is it, then, that so great a virtuoso
has not trained players who have made the world ring with their fame?
Mr. Halle, whilst pointing out the fact that Chopin's pupils have not
distinguished themselves, did not wish to decide whether this was owing
to a deficiency in the master or to some other cause. Liszt, in speaking
to me on this subject, simply remarked: "Chopin was unfortunate in his
pupils--none of them has become a player of any importance, although
some of his noble pupils played very well." If we compare Liszt's
pianistic offspring with Chopin's, the difference is indeed striking.
But here we have to keep in mind several considerations--Chopin taught
for a shorter period than Liszt; most of his pupils, unlike Liszt's,
were amateurs; and he may not have met with the stuff out of which great
virtuosos are made. That Chopin was unfortunate in his pupils may
be proved by the early death of several very promising ones. Charles
Filtsch, born at Hermannstadt, Transylvania (Hungary), about 1830, of
whom Liszt and Lenz spoke so highly (see Chapter XXVI.), died on May
11, 1845, at Venice, after having in 1843 made a sensation in London and
Vienna, both by the poetical and technical qualities of his playing. In
London "little Filtsch" played at least twice in public (on June 14 at
the St. James's Theatre between two plays, and on July 4 at a matinee
of his own at the Hanover Square Rooms), repeatedly in private, and had
also the honour to appear before the Queen at Buckingham Palace. J. W.
Davison relates in his preface to Chopin's mazurkas and waltzes (Boosey
& Co.) a circumstance which proves the young virtuoso's musicianship.
"Engaged to perform Chopin's second concerto in public, the orchestral
parts not being obtainable, Filtsch, nothing dismayed, wrote out the
whole of them from memory." Another short-lived great talent was Paul
Gunsberg. "This young man," Madame Dubois informed me, "was endowed
with an extraordinary organisation. Chopin had made of him an admirable
executant. He died of consumption, otherwise he would have become
celebrated." I do not know in which year Gunsberg died. He was still
alive on May 11, 1855. For on that day he played with his fellow-pupil
Tellefsen, at a concert given by the latter in Paris, a duet of
Schumann's. A third pupil of Chopin prematurely snatched away by death
was Caroline Hartmann, the daughter of a manufacturer, born at Munster,
near Colmar, in 1808. She came to Paris in 1833, and died the year
after--of love for Chopin, as Edouard Wolff told me. Other authorities,
however, ascribe the sad effect to a less romantic cause. They say that
through persevering study under the direction of Chopin and Liszt she
became an excellent pianist, but that the hard work brought on a chest
complaint to which she succumbed on July 30, 1834. The GAZETTE MUSICALE
of August 17, 1834, which notices her death, describes her as a pupil
of Liszt, Chopin, and Pixis, without commenting on her abilities. Spohr
admired her as a child. But if Chopin has not turned out virtuosos of
the calibre of Tausig and Hans von Bulow, he has nevertheless formed
many very clever pianists. It would serve no purpose except that
of satisfying idle curiosity to draw up a list of all the master's
ascertainable pupils. Those who wish, however, to satisfy this idle
curiosity can do so to some extent by scanning the dedications of
Chopin's works, as the names therein to be found--with a few and mostly
obvious exceptions--are those of pupils. The array of princesses,
countesses, &c., will, it is to be hoped, duly impress the investigator.
Let us hear what the illustrious master Marmontel has to say on this
subject:--
Among the pianist-composers who have had the immense advantage
of taking lessons from Chopin, to impregnate themselves with
his style and manner, we must cite Gutmann, Lysberg, and our
dear colleague G. Mathias. The Princesses de Chimay,
Czartoryska, the Countesses Esterhazy, Branicka, Potocka, de
Kalergis, d'Est; Mdlles. Muller and de Noailles were his
cherished disciples [disciples affectionnees]. Madame Dubois,
nee O'Meara, is also one of his favourite pupils [eleves de
predilection], and numbers among those whose talent has best
preserved the characteristic traditions and procedures
[procedes] of the master.
Two of Chopin's amateur and a few more of his professional pupils ought
to be briefly noticed here--first and chiefly of the amateurs, the
Princess Marcelline Czartoryska, who has sometimes played in public for
charitable purposes, and of whom it has often been said that she is the
most faithful transmitter of her master's style. Would the praise which
is generally lavished upon her have been so enthusiastic if the lady
had been a professional pianist instead of a princess? The question is
ungracious in one who has not had the pleasure of hearing her, but not
unnaturally suggests itself. Be this as it may, that she is, or was,
a good player, who as an intimate friend and countrywoman thoroughly
entered into the spirit of her master's music, seems beyond question.
[FOOTNOTE: "The Princess Marcelline Czartoryska," wrote Sowinski in
1857 in the article "Chopin" of his "Musicien polonais," "who has a
fine execution, seems to have inherited Chopin's ways of procedure,
especially in phrasing and accentuation. Lately the Princess performed
at Paris with much success the magnificent F minor Concerto at a concert
for the benefit of the poor." A critic, writing in the Gazette Musicale
of March 11, 1855, of a concert given by the Princess--at which she
played an andante with variations for piano and violoncello by Mozart,
a rondo for piano and orchestra by Mendelssohn, and Chopin's F minor
Concerto, being assisted by Alard as conductor, the violoncellist
Franchomme, and the singers Madame Viardot and M. Fedor--praised
especially her rendering of the ADAGIO in Chopin's Concerto. Lenz was
the most enthusiastic admirer of the Princess I have met with. He calls
her (in the Berliner Musikzeitung, Vol. XXVI) a highly-gifted nature,
the best pupil [Schulerin] of Chopin, and the incarnation of her
master's pianoforte style. At a musical party at the house of the Counts
Wilhorski at St. Petersburg, where she performed a waltz and the Marche
funebre by Chopin, her playing made such an impression that it was
thought improper to have any more music on that evening, the trio of
the march having, indeed, moved the auditors to tears. The Princess told
Lenz that on one occasion when Chopin played to her this trio, she fell
on her knees before him and felt unspeakably happy.]
G. Chouquet reminded me not to omit to mention among Chopin's pupils
Madame Peruzzi, the wife of the ambassador of the Duke of Tuscany to the
court of Louis Philippe:--
This virtuosa [wrote to me the late keeper of the Musee of the
Paris Conservatoire] had no less talent than the Princess
Marcelline Czartoryska. I heard her at Florence in 1852, and I
can assure you that she played Chopin's music in the true
style and with all the unpublished traits of the master. She
was of Russian origin.
But enough of amateurs. Mdlle. Friederike Muller, now for many years
married to the Viennese pianoforte-maker J. B. Streicher, is regarded
by many as the most, and is certainly one of the most gifted of Chopin's
favourite pupils. [FOOTNOTE: She played already in public at Vienna
in the fourth decade of this century, which must have been before her
coming to Paris (see Eduard Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in
Wien, p. 326). Marriage brought the lady's professional career to a
close.] That the composer dedicated to her his Allegro de Concert,
Op. 46, may be regarded as a mark of his love and esteem for her. Carl
Mikuli found her assistance of great importance in the preparation of
his edition of Chopin's works, as she had received lessons from the
master for several years, and, moreover, had had many opportunities
of hearing him on other occasions. The same authority refers to Madame
Dubois (nee O'Meara) [FOOTNOTE: A relation of Edward Barry O'Meara,
physician to the first Napoleon at St. Helena, and author of "Napoleon
in Exile."] and to Madame Rubio (NEE Vera de Kologrivof) as to "two
extremely excellent pianists [hochst ausgezeichnete Pianistinnen] whose
talent enjoyed the advantage of the master's particular care." The
latter lady was taught by Chopin from 1842 to 1849, and in the last
years of his life assisted him, as we shall see, by taking partial
charge of some of his pupils. Madame Dubois, who studied under
Kalkbrenner from the age of nine to thirteen, became then a pupil of
Chopin, with whom she remained five years. It was very difficult to
obtain his consent to take another pupil, but the influence of M.
Albrecht, a common friend of her father's and Chopin's, stood her in
good stead. Although I heard her play only one or two of her master's
minor pieces, and under very unfavourable circumstances too--namely, at
the end of the teaching season and in a tropical heat--I may say that
her suave touch, perfect legato, and delicate sentiment seemed to me to
bear out the above-quoted remark of M. Marmontel. Madame Dubois, who is
one of the most highly-esteemed teachers of the piano in Paris, used to
play till recently in public, although less frequently in later than in
earlier years. And here I must extract a passage from Madame Girardin's
letter of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV. of "Le Vicomte de Launay," where,
after describing Mdlle. O'Meara's beauty, more especially her Irish
look--"that mixture of sadness and serenity, of profound tenderness and
shy dignity, which you never find in the proud and brilliant looks which
you admire in the women of other nations "--she says:--
We heard her a few hours ago; she played in a really superior
way the beautiful Concerto of Chopin in E flat minor [of
course E minor]; she was applauded with enthusiasm. [FOOTNOTE:
Chopin accompanied on a second piano. The occasion was a
soiree at the house of Madame de Courbonne.] All we can say to
give you an idea of Mdlle. O'Meara's playing is that there is
in her playing all that is in her look, and in addition to it
an admirable method, and excellent fingering. Her success has
been complete; in hearing her, statesmen were moved... and the
young ladies, those who are good musicians, forgave her her
prettiness.
As regards Chopin's male pupils, we have to note George Mathias (born
at Paris in 1826), the well-known professor of the piano at the Paris
Conservatoire, [FOOTNOTE: He retired a year or two ago.] and still
more widely-known composer of more than half-a-hundred important works
(sonatas, trios, concertos, symphonic compositions, pianoforte pieces,
songs, &c.), who enjoyed the master's teaching from 1839 to 1844;
Lysberg (1821-1873), whose real name was Charles Samuel Bovy, for many
years professor of the piano at the Conservatoire of his native town,
Geneva, and a very fertile composer of salon pieces for the piano
(composer also of a one-act comic opera, La Fills du Carillonneur),
distinguished by "much poetic feeling, an extremely careful form, an
original colouring, and in which one often seems to see pass a breath
of Weber or Chopin"; [FOOTNOTE: Supplement et Complement to Fetis'
Biographie universelle des Musiciens, published under the direction of
Arthur Pougin.] the Norwegian Thomas Dyke Acland Tellefsen (1823-1874),
a teacher of the piano in Paris and author of an edition of Chopin's
works; Carl Mikuli (born at Czernowitz in 1821), since 1858 artistic
director of the Galician Musical Society (conservatoire, concerts, &c.),
and author of an edition of Chopin's works; and Adolph Gutmann, the
master's favourite pupil par excellence, of whom we must speak somewhat
more at length. Karasowski makes also mention of Casimir Wernik, who
died at St. Petersburg in 1859, and of Gustav Schumann, a teacher of the
piano at Berlin, who, however, was only during the winter of 1840-1841
with the Polish master. For Englishmen the fact of the late Brinley
Richards and Lindsay Sloper having been pupils of Chopin--the one for a
short, the other for a longer period--will be of special interest.
Adolph Gutmann was a boy of fifteen when in 1834 his father brought
him to Paris to place him under Chopin. The latter, however, did not at
first feel inclined to accept the proposed trust; but on hearing the boy
play he conceived so high an idea of his capacities that he agreed to
undertake his artistic education. Chopin seems to have always retained
a thorough belief in his muscular pupil, although some of his great
pianist friends thought this belief nothing but a strange delusion.
There are also piquant anecdotes told by fellow-pupils with the purpose
of showing that Chopin did not care very much for him. For instance, the
following: Some one asked the master how his pupil was getting on, "Oh,
he makes very good chocolate," was the answer. Unfortunately, I cannot
speak of Gutmann's playing from experience, for although I spent eight
days with him, it was on a mountain-top in the Tyrol, where there were
no pianos. But Chopin's belief in Gutmann counts with me for something,
and so does Moscheles' reference to him as Chopin's "excellent pupil";
more valuable, I think, than either is the evidence of Dr. A. C.
Mackenzie, who at my request visited Gutmann several times in Florence
and was favourably impressed by his playing, in which he noticed
especially beauty of tone combined with power. As far as I can make
out Gutmann planned only once, in 1846, a regular concert-tour, being
furnished for it by Chopin with letters of introduction to the
highest personages in Berlin, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg. Through the
intervention of the Countess Rossi (Henriette Sontag), he was invited to
play at a court-concert at Charlottenburg in celebration of the King's
birthday. [FOOTNOTE: His part of the programme consisted of his master's
E minor Concerto (2nd and 3rd movements) and No. 3 of the first book of
studies, and his own tenth study.] But the day after the concert he
was seized with such home-sickness that he returned forthwith to Paris,
where he made his appearance to the great astonishment of Chopin.
The reader may perhaps be interested in what a writer in the Gazette
Musicale said about Chopin's favourite pupil on March 24, 1844:--
M. Gutmann is a pianist with a neat but somewhat cold style of
playing; he has what one calls fingers, and uses them with
much dexterity. His manner of proceeding is rather that of
Thalberg than of the clever professor who has given him
lessons. He afforded pleasure to the lovers of the piano
[amateurs de piano] at the musical SOIREE which he gave last
Monday at M. Erard's. Especially his fantasia on the
"Freischutz" was applauded.
Of course, the expression of any individual opinion is no conclusive
proof. Gutmann was so successful as a teacher and in a way also as
a composer (his compositions, I may say in passing, were not in his
master's but in a light salon style) that at a comparatively early
period of his life he was able to retire from his profession. After
travelling for some time he settled at Florence, where he invented the
art, or, at least, practised the art which he had previously invented,
of painting with oil-colours on satin. He died at Spezzia on October 27,
1882.
[FOOTNOTE: The short notice of Gutmann in Fetis' Biographie Universelle
des Musiciens, and those of the followers of this by no means infallible
authority, are very incorrect. Adolfo Gutmann, Riccordi Biografici,
by Giulio Piccini (Firenze: Guiseppe Polverini, 1881), reproduces to a
great extent the information contained in Der Lieblingsschuler Chopin's
in Bernhard Stavenow's Schone Geister (Bremen: Kuhlmann, 1879), both
which publications, eulogistic rather than biographical, were inspired
by Gutmann.]
Whatever interest the reader may have taken in this survey of Chopin's
pupils, he is sure to be more deeply interested by the account of the
master's manner and method of teaching. Such an account, which would be
interesting in the case of any remarkable virtuoso who devoted himself
to instruction, is so in a higher degree in that of Chopin: first,
because it may help us to solve the question why so unique a virtuoso
did not form a single eminent concert-player; secondly, because it
throws still further light on his character as a man and artist; and
thirdly, because, as Mikuli thinks may be asserted without exaggeration,
"only Chopin's pupils knew the pianist in the fulness of his unrivalled
height." The materials at my disposal are abundant and not less
trustworthy than abundant. My account is based chiefly on the
communications made to me by a number of the master's pupils--notably,
Madame Dubois, Madame Rubio, M. Mathias, and Gutmann--and on Mikuli's
excellent preface to his edition of Chopin's works. When I have drawn
upon other sources, I have not done so without previous examination
and verification. I may add that I shall use as far as possible the
ipsissima verba of my informants:--
As to Chopin's method of teaching [wrote to me M. Mathias], it
was absolutely of the old legato school, of the school of
Clementi and Cramer. Of course, he had enriched it by a great
variety of touch [d'une grande variete dans l'attaque de la
touche]; he obtained a wonderful variety of tone and NUANCES
of tone; in passing I may tell you that he had an
extraordinary vigour, but only by flashes [ce ne pouvait etre
que par eclairs].
The Polish master, who was so original in many ways, differed from his
confreres even in the way of starting his pupils. With him the normal
position of the hand was not that above the keys c, d, e, f, g (i.e.,
above five white keys), but that above the keys e, f sharp, g sharp, a
sharp, b (I.E., above two white keys and three black keys, the latter
lying between the former). The hand had to be thrown lightly on the
keyboard so as to rest on these keys, the object of this being to secure
for it not only an advantageous, but also a graceful position:--
[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski, in Chopin: De l'interpretation de ses
oeuvres--Trois conferences faites a Varsovie, says that he was told by
several of the master's pupils that the latter sometimes held his hands
absolutely flat. When I asked Madame Dubois about the correctness of
this statement, she replied: "I never noticed Chopin holding his hands
flat." In short, if Chopin put his hands at any time in so awkward a
position, it was exceptional; physical exhaustion may have induced him
to indulge in such negligence when the technical structure of the music
he was playing permitted it.]
Chopin [Madame Dubois informed me] made his pupils begin with
the B major scale, very slowly, without stiffness. Suppleness
was his great object. He repeated, without ceasing, during the
lesson: "Easily, easily" [facilement, facilement]. Stiffness
exasperated him.
How much stiffness and jerkiness exasperated him may be judged from what
Madame Zaleska related to M. Kleczynski. A pupil having played somewhat
carelessly the arpeggio at the beginning of the first study (in A flat
major) of the second book of Clementi's Preludes et Exercices, the
master jumped from his chair and exclaimed: "What is that? Has a dog
been barking?" [Qu'est-ce? Est-ce un chien qui vient d'aboyer?] The
rudeness of this exclamation will, no doubt, surprise. But polite as
Chopin generally was, irritation often got the better of him, more
especially in later years when bad health troubled him. Whether he ever
went the length of throwing the music from the desk and breaking chairs,
as Karasowski says, I do not know and have not heard confirmed by
any pupil. Madame Rubio, however, informed me that Chopin was very
irritable, and when teaching amateurs used to have always a packet of
pencils about him which, to vent his anger, he silently broke into bits.
Gutmann told me that in the early stages of his discipleship Chopin
sometimes got very angry, and stormed and raged dreadfully; but
immediately was kind and tried to soothe his pupil when he saw him
distressed and weeping.
To be sure [writes Mikuli], Chopin made great demands on the
talent and diligence of the pupil. Consequently, there were
often des lecons orageuses, as it was called in the school
idiom, and many a beautiful eye left the high altar of the
Cite d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, bedewed with tears, without,
on that account, ever bearing the dearly-beloved master the
least grudge. For was not the severity which was not easily
satisfied with anything, the feverish vehemence with which the
master wished to raise his disciples to his own stand-point,
the ceaseless repetition of a passage till it was understood,
a guarantee that he had at heart the progress of the pupil? A
holy artistic zeal burnt in him then, every word from his lips
was incentive and inspiring. Single lessons often lasted
literally for hours at a stretch, till exhaustion overcame
master and pupil.
Indeed, the pupils were so far from bearing their master the least
grudge that, to use M. Marmontel's words, they had more for him than
admiration: a veritable idolatry. But it is time that after this
excursion--which hardly calls for an excuse--we return to the more
important part of our subject, the master's method of teaching.
What concerned Chopin most at the commencement of his
instruction [writes Mikuli] was to free the pupil from every
stiffness and convulsive, cramped movement of the hand, and to
give him thus the first condition of a beautiful style of
playing, souplesse (suppleness), and with it independence of
the fingers. He taught indefatigably that the exercises in
question were no mere mechanical ones, but called for the
intelligence and the whole will of the pupil, on which account
twenty and even forty thoughtless repetitions (up to this time
the arcanum of so many schools) do no good at all, still less
the practising during which, according to Kalkbrenner's
advice, one may occupy one's self simultaneously with some
kind of reading(!).
He feared above all [remarked Madame Dubois to me] the
abrutissement of the pupils. One day he heard me say that I
practised six hours a day. He became quite angry, and forbade
me to practise more than three hours. This was also the advice
of Hummel in his pianoforte school.
To resume Mikuli's narrative:--
Chopin treated very thoroughly the different kinds of touch,
especially the full-toned [tonvolle] legato.
[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says that Chopin demanded absolutely
from his pupils that they should practise the exercises, and
especially the scales in major and minor, from piano to
fortissimo, staccato as well as legato, and also with a change
of accent, which was to be now on the second, now on the
third, now on the fourth note. Madame Dubois, on the other
hand, is sure she was never told by her master to play the
scales staccato.]
"As gymnastic helps he recommended the bending inward and
outward of the wrist, the repeated touch from the wrist, the
extending of the fingers, but all this with the earnest
warning against over-fatigue. He made his pupils play the
scales with a full tone, as connectedly as possible, very
slowly and only gradually advancing to a quicker TEMPO, and
with metronomic evenness. The passing of the thumb under the
other fingers and the passing of the latter over the former
was to be facilitated by a corresponding turning inward of the
hand. The scales with many black keys (B, F sharp, and D flat)
were first studied, and last, as the most difficult, C major.
In the same sequence he took up Clementi's Preludes et
Exercices, a work which for its utility he esteemed very
highly."
[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski writes that whatever the degree of
instruction was which Chopin's pupils brought with them, they
had all to play carefully besides the scales the second book
of Clementi's Preludes et Exercices, especially the first in A
flat major.]
According to Chopin the evenness of the scales (also of the
arpeggios) not merely depended on the utmost equal
strengthening of all fingers by means of five-finger exercises
and on a thumb entirely free at the passing under and over,
but rather on a lateral movement (with the elbow hanging quite
down and always easy) of the hand, not by jerks, but
continuously and evenly flowing, which he tried to illustrate
by the glissando over the keyboard. Of studies he gave after
this a selection of Cramer's Etudes, Clementi's Gradus ad
Parnassum, Moscheles' style-studies for the higher development
(which were very sympathetic to him), and J. S. Bach's suites
and some fugues from Das wohltemperirte Clavier. In a certain
way Field's and his own nocturnes numbered likewise with the
studies, for in them the pupil was--partly by the apprehension
of his explanations, partly by observation and imitation (he
played them to the pupil unweariedly)--to learn to know, love,
and execute the beautiful smooth [gebundene] vocal tone and
the legato.
[FOOTNOTE: This statement can only be accepted with much
reserve. Whether Chopin played much or little to his pupil
depended, no doubt, largely on the mood and state of health he
was in at the time, perhaps also on his liking or disliking
the pupil. The late Brinley Richards told me that when he had
lessons from Chopin, the latter rarely played to him, making
his corrections and suggestions mostly by word of mouth.]
With double notes and chords he demanded most strictly
simultaneous striking, breaking was only allowed when it was
indicated by the composer himself; shakes, which he generally
began with the auxiliary note, had not so much to be played
quick as with great evenness the conclusion of the shake
quietly and without precipitation. For the turn (gruppetto)
and the appoggiatura he recommended the great Italian singers
as models. Although he made his pupils play octaves from the
wrist, they must not thereby lose in fulness of tone.
All who have had the good fortune to hear Chopin play agree in declaring
that one of the most distinctive features of his style of execution was
smoothness, and smoothness, as we have seen in the foregoing notes, was
also one of the qualities on which he most strenuously insisted in the
playing of his pupils. The reader will remember Gutmann's statement to
me, mentioned in a previous chapter, that all his master's fingering
was calculated for the attainment of this object. Fingering is the
mainspring, the determining principle, one might almost say the life and
soul, of the pianoforte technique. We shall, therefore, do well to give
a moment's consideration to Chopin's fingering, especially as he was one
of the boldest and most influential revolutionisers of this important
department of the pianistic art. His merits in this as in other
respects, his various claims to priority of invention, are only too
often overlooked. As at one time all ameliorations in the theory and
practice of music were ascribed to Guido of Arezzo, so it is nowadays
the fashion to ascribe all improvements and extensions of the pianoforte
technique to Liszt, who more than any other pianist drew upon himself
the admiration of the world, and who through his pupils continued to
make his presence felt even after the close of his career as a virtuoso.
But the cause of this false opinion is to be sought not so much in
the fact that the brilliancy of his artistic personality threw all his
contemporaries into the shade, as in that other fact, that he gathered
up into one web the many threads new and old which he found floating
about during the years of his development. The difference between
Liszt and Chopin lies in this, that the basis of the former's art is
universality, that of the latter's, individuality. Of the fingering of
the one we may say that it is a system, of that of the other that it
is a manner. Probably we have here also touched on the cause of Liszt's
success and Chopin's want of success as a teacher. I called Chopin a
revolutioniser of fingering, and, I think, his full enfranchisement of
the thumb, his breaking-down of all distinctions of rank between
the other fingers, in short, the introduction of a liberty sometimes
degenerating into licence, justifies the expression. That this master's
fingering is occasionally eccentric (presupposing peculiarly flexible
hands and a peculiar course of study) cannot be denied; on the whole,
however, it is not only well adapted for the proper rendering of his
compositions, but also contains valuable contributions to a universal
system of fingering. The following particulars by Mikuli will be read
with interest, and cannot be misunderstood after what has just now been
said on the subject:--
In the notation of fingering, especially of that peculiar to
himself, Chopin was not sparing. Here pianoforte-playing owes
him great innovations which, on account of their expedience,
were soon adopted, notwithstanding the horror with which
authorities like Kalkbrenner at first regarded them. Thus, for
instance, Chopin used without hesitation the thumb on the
black keys, passed it even under the little finger (it is
true, with a distinct inward bend of the wrist), if this could
facilitate the execution and give it more repose and evenness.
With one and the same finger he took often two consecutive
keys (and this not only in gliding down from a black to the
next white key) without the least interruption of the sequence
being noticeable. The passing over each other of the longer
fingers without the aid of the thumb (see Etude, No. 2, Op.
10) he frequently made use of, and not only in passages where
the thumb stationary on a key made this unavoidably necessary.
The fingering of the chromatic thirds based on this (as he
marked it in Etude, No. 5, Op. 25) affords in a much higher
degree than that customary before him the possibility of the
most beautiful legato in the quickest tempo and with a
perfectly quiet hand.
But if with Chopin smoothness was one of the qualities upon which he
insisted strenuously in the playing of his pupils, he was by no means
satisfied with a mere mechanical perfection. He advised his pupils to
undertake betimes thorough theoretical studies, recommending his friend,
the composer and theorist Henri Reber as a teacher. He advised them
also to cultivate ensemble playing--trios, quartets, &c., if first-class
partners could be had, otherwise pianoforte duets. Most urgent, however,
he was in his advice to them to hear good singing, and even to learn to
sing. To Madame Rubio he said: "You must sing if you wish to play"; and
made her take lessons in singing and hear much Italian opera--this
last, the lady remarked, Chopin regarded as positively necessary for
a pianoforte-player. In this advice we recognise Chopin's ideal of
execution: beauty of tone, intelligent phrasing, truthfulness and warmth
of expression. The sounds which he drew from the pianoforte were pure
tone without the least admixture of anything that might be called noise.
"He never thumped," was Gutmann's remark to me. Chopin, according to
Mikuli, repeatedly said that when he heard bad phrasing it appeared
to him as if some one recited, in a language he did not know, a speech
laboriously memorised, not only neglecting to observe the right quantity
of the syllables, but perhaps even making full stops in the middle of
words. "The badly-phrasing pseudo-musician," he thought, "showed that
music was not his mother-tongue, but something foreign, unintelligible
to him," and that, consequently, "like that reciter, he must altogether
give up the idea of producing any effect on the auditor by his
rendering." Chopin hated exaggeration and affectation. His precept was:
"Play as you feel." But he hated the want of feeling as much as false
feeling. To a pupil whose playing gave evidence of nothing but the
possession of fingers, he said emphatically, despairingly: "METTEZ-Y
DONc TOUTE VOTRE AME!" (Do put all your soul into it!)
[FOOTNOTE: "In dynamical shading [im nuanciren]," says Mikuli, "he
was exceedingly particular about a gradual increase and decrease of
loudness." Karasowski writes: "Exaggeration in accentuation was hateful
to him, for, in his opinion, it took away the poesy from playing, and
gave it a certain didactic pedantry."]
On declamation, and rendering in general [writes Mikuli], he
gave his pupils invaluable and significant instructions and
hints, but, no doubt, effected more certain results by
repeatedly playing not only single passages, but whole pieces,
and this he did with a conscientiousness and enthusiasm that
perhaps he hardly gave anyone an opportunity of hearing when
he played in a concert-room. Frequently the whole hour passed
without the pupil having played more than a few bars, whilst
Chopin, interrupting and correcting him on a Pleyel cottage
piano (the pupil played always on an excellent grand piano;
and it was enjoined upon him as a duty to practise only on
first-class instruments), presented to him for his admiration
and imitation the life-warm ideal of the highest beauty.
With regard to Chopin's playing to his pupils we must keep in mind what
was said in foot-note 12 on page 184. On another point in the above
quotation one of Madame Dubois's communications to me throws some
welcome light:--
Chopin [she said] had always a cottage piano [pianino] by the
side of the grand piano on which he gave his lessons. It was
marvellous to hear him accompany, no matter what compositions,
from the concertos of Hummel to those of Beethoven. He
performed the role of the orchestra most wonderfully [d'une
facon prodigieuse]. When I played his own concertos, he
accompanied me in this way.
Judging from various reports, Chopin seems to have regarded his Polish
pupils as more apt than those of other nationalities to do full justice
to his compositions. Karasowski relates that when one of Chopin's
French pupils played his compositions and the auditors overwhelmed the
performer with their praise, the master used often to remark that his
pupil had done very well, but that the Polish element and the Polish
enthusiasm had been wanting. Here it is impossible not to be reminded
of the contention between Chopin on the one hand and Liszt and Hiller on
the other hand about the possibility of foreigners comprehending Polish
national music (See Vol. 1., p. 256). After revealing the mystery of
Chopin's tempo rubato, Liszt writes in his book on this master:--
All his compositions have to be played with this sort of
balancement accentue et prosodie, this morbidezza, of which it
was difficult to seize the secret when one had not heard him
often. He seemed desirous to teach this manner to his numerous
pupils, especially to his compatriots, to whom he wished, more
than to others, to communicate the breath of his inspiration.
These [ceux-ci, ou plutot celles-la] seized it with that
aptitude which they have for all matters of sentiment and
poesy. An innate comprehension of his thought permitted them
to follow all the fluctuations of his azure wave.
There is one thing which is worth inquiring into before we close this
chapter, for it may help us to a deeper insight into Chopin's character
as a teacher--I mean his teaching repertoire. Mikuli says that,
carefully arranged according to their difficulty, Chopin placed before
his pupils the following compositions: the concertos and sonatas of
Clementi, Mozart, Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Dussek, Field, Hummel, Ries,
Beethoven; further, Weber, Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Hiller, Schumann, and
his own works. This enumeration, however, does not agree with accounts
from other equally authentic sources. The pupils of Chopin I have
conversed and corresponded with never studied any Schumann under their
master. As to the cultivation of Beethoven, it was, no doubt, limited.
M. Mathias, it is true, told me that Chopin showed a preference for
Clementi (Gradus ad Parnassum), Bach, Field (of him much was
played, notably his concertos), and naturally for Beethoven, Weber,
&c.--Clementi, Bach, and Field being always the composers most laid
under contribution in the case of debutants. Madame Rubio, on the other
hand, confined herself to stating that Chopin put her through Hummel,
Moscheles, and Bach; and did not mention Beethoven at all. Gutmann's
statements concerning his master's teaching contain some positive
evidence with regard to the Beethoven question. What he said was this:
Chopin held that dementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, Bach's pianoforte
fugues, and Hummel's compositions were the key to pianoforte-playing,
and he considered a training in these composers a fit preparation
for his own works. He was particularly fond of Hummel and his style.
Beethoven he seemed to like less. He appreciated such pieces as the
first movement of the Moonlight Sonata (C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2).
Schubert was a favourite with him. This, then, is what I learned from
Gutmann. In parenthesis, as it were, I may ask: Is it not strange that
no pupil, with the exception of Mikuli, mentions the name of Mozart, the
composer whom Chopin is said to have so much admired? Thanks to Madame
Dubois, who at my request had the kindness to make out a list of the
works she remembers having studied under Chopin, we shall be able to
form a pretty distinct idea of the master's course of instruction,
which, to be sure, would be modified according to the capacities of his
pupils and the objects they had in view. Well, Madame Dubois says that
Chopin made her begin with the second book of Clementi's Preludes et
Exercices, and that she also studied under him the same composer's
Gradus ad Parnassum and Bach's forty-eight preludes and fugues. Of his
high opinion of the teaching qualities of Bach's compositions we
may form an idea from the recommendation to her at their last
meeting--already mentioned in an earlier chapter--to practise them
constantly, "ce sera votre meilleur moyen de progresser" (this will
be your best means to make progress). The pieces she studied under him
included the following ones: Of Hummel, the Rondo brillant sur un theme
russe (Op. 98), La Bella capricciosa, the Sonata in F sharp minor (Op.
81), the Concertos in A minor and B minor, and the Septet; of Field,
several concertos (the one in E flat among others) and several nocturnes
("Field" she says, "lui etait tres sympathique"); of Beethoven, the
concertos and several sonatas (the Moonlight, Op. 27, No. 2; the one
with the Funeral March, Op. 26; and the Appassionata, Op. 57); of Weber,
the Sonatas in C and A flat major (Chopin made his pupils play these two
works with extreme care); of Schubert, the Landler and all the waltzes
and some of the duets (the marches, polonaises, and the Divertissement
hongrois, which last piece he admired sans reserve); of Mendelssohn,
only the G minor Concerto and the Songs without Words; of Liszt, no more
than La Tarantelle de Rossini and the Septet from Lucia ("mais ce genre
de musique ne lui allait pas," says my informant); and of Schumann,
NOTHING.
Madame Streicher's interesting reminiscences, given in Appendix III.,
form a supplement to this chapter.
CHAPTER XXIX.
RUPTURE OF THE SAND-CHOPIN CONNECTION.--HER OWN, LISZT'S, AND
KARASOWSKI'S ACCOUNTS.-THE LUCREZIA FLORIANI INCIDENT.--FURTHER
INVESTIGATION OF THE CAUSES OF THE RUPTURE BY THE LIGHT OF LETTERS AND
THE INFORMATION OF GUTMANN, FRANCHOMME, AND MADAME RUBIO.--SUMMING-UP OF
THE EVIDENCE.--CHOPIN'S COMPOSITIONS IN 1847.--GIVES A CONCERT, HIS
LAST IN PARIS (1848): WHAT AND HOW HE PLAYED; THE CHARACTER OF THE
AUDIENCE.--GEORGE SAND AND CHOPIN MEET ONCE MORE.--THE FEBRUARY
REVOLUTION; CHOPIN MAKES UP HIS MIND TO VISIT ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
WE now come to the catastrophe of Chopin's life, the rupture of his
connection with George Sand. Although there is no lack of narratives in
which the causes, circumstances, and time of this rupture are set forth
with absolute positiveness, it is nevertheless an undeniable fact that
we are not at the present moment, nor, all things well considered,
shall be even in the most distant future, in a position to speak on this
subject otherwise than conjecturally.
[FOOTNOTE: Except the letter of George Sand given on p. 75, and the
note of Chopin to George Sand which will be given a little farther on,
nothing, I think, of their correspondence has become public. But even
if their letters were forth-coming, it is more likely than not that they
would fail to clear up the mystery. Here I ought, perhaps, to reproduce
the somewhat improbable story told in the World of December 14, 1887, by
the Paris correspondent who signs himself "Theoc." He writes as follows:
"I have heard that it was by saving her letters to Chopin that M.
Alexandre Dumas won the friendship of George Sand. The anecdote runs
thus: When Chopin died, his sister found amongst his papers some two
hundred letters of Madame Sand, which she took with her to Poland. By
chance this lady had some difficulties at the frontier with the Russian
custom-house officials; her trunks were seized, and the box containing
the letters was mislaid and lost. A few years afterwards, one of the
custom-house officials found the letters and kept them, not knowing
the name and the address of the Polish lady who had lost them. M. Dumas
discovered this fact, and during a journey in Russia he explained to
this official how painful it would be if by some indiscretion these
letters of the illustrious novelist ever got into print. 'Let me restore
them to Madame Sand,' said M. Dumas. 'And my duty?' asked the customs
official. 'If anybody ever claims the letters,' replied M. Dumas, 'I
authorise you to say that I stole them.' On this condition M. Dumas,
then a young man, obtained the letters, brought them back to Paris, and
restored them to Madame Sand, whose acquaintance he thus made. Madame
Sand burnt all her letters to Chopin, but she never forgot the service
that M. Dumas had rendered her."]
I have done my utmost to elucidate the tragic event which it is
impossible not to regard as one of the most momentous crises in Chopin's
life, and have succeeded in collecting besides the material already
known much that is new; but of what avail is this for coming to a final
decision if we find the depositions hopelessly contradictory, and the
witnesses more or less untrustworthy--self-interest makes George Sand's
evidence suspicious, the instability of memory that of others. Under
the circumstances it seems to me safest to place before the reader the
depositions of the various witnesses--not, however, without comment--and
leave him to form his own conclusions. I shall begin with the account
which George Sand gives in her Ma Vie:--
After the last relapses of the invalid, his mind had become
extremely gloomy, and Maurice, who had hitherto tenderly loved
him, was suddenly wounded by him in an unexpected manner about
a trifling subject. They embraced each other the next moment,
but the grain of sand had fallen into the tranquil lake, and
little by little the pebbles fell there, one after
another...All this was borne; but at last, one day, Maurice,
tired of the pin-pricks, spoke of giving up the game. That
could not be, and should not be. Chopin would not stand my
legitimate and necessary intervention. He bowed his head and
said that I no longer loved him.
What blasphemy after these eight years of maternal devotion!
But the poor bruised heart was not conscious of its delirium.
I thought that some months passed at a distance and in silence
would heal the wound, and make his friendship again calm and
his memory equitable. But the revolution of February came, and
Paris became momentarily hateful to this mind incapable of
yielding to any commotion in the social form. Free to return
to Poland, or certain to be tolerated there, he had preferred
languishing ten [and some more] years far from his family,
whom he adored, to the pain of seeing his country transformed
and deformed [denature]. He had fled from tyranny, as now he
fled from liberty.
I saw him again for an instant in March, 1848. I pressed his
trembling and icy hand. I wished to speak to him, he slipped
away. Now it was my turn to say that he no longer loved me. I
spared him this infliction, and entrusted all to the hands of
Providence and the future.
I was not to see him again. There were bad hearts between us.
There were good ones too who were at a loss what to do. There
were frivolous ones who preferred not to meddle with such
delicate matters; Gutmann was not there.
I have been told that he had asked for me, regretted me, and
loved me filially up to the very end. It was thought fit to
conceal this from me till then. It was also thought fit to
conceal from him that I was ready to hasten to him.
Liszt's account is noteworthy because it gives us the opinion of a man
who knew the two principal actors in the drama intimately, and had
good opportunities to learn what contemporary society thought about it.
Direct knowledge of the facts, however, Liszt had not, for he was no
longer a friend either of the one or the other of the two parties:--
These commencements, of which Madame de Stael spoke,
[FOOTNOTE: He alludes to her saying: En amour, il n'y a que
des commencemens.] had already for a long time been exhausted
between the Polish artist and the French poet. They had only
survived with the one by a violent effort of respect for the
ideal which he had gilded with its fatal brilliancy; with the
other by a false shame which sophisticated on the pretension
to preserve constancy in fidelity. The time came when this
factitious existence, which succeeded no longer in galvanising
fibres dried up under the eyes of the spiritualistic artist,
seemed to him to surpass what honour permitted him not to
perceive. No one knew what was the cause or the pretext of the
sudden rupture; one saw only that after a violent opposition
to the marriage of the daughter of the house, Chopin abruptly
left Nohant never to return again.
However unreliable Liszt's facts may be, the PHILOSOPHY of his account
shows real insight. Karasowski, on the other hand, has neither facts
nor insight. He speaks with a novelist's confidence and freedom of
characters whom he in no way knows, and about whom he has nothing to
tell but the vaguest and most doubtful of second-hand hearsays:--
The depressed invalid became now to her a burden. At first her
at times sombre mien and her shorter visits in the sick-room
showed him that her sympathy for him was on the decrease;
Chopin felt this painfully, but he said nothing...\The
complaints of Madame Sand that the nursing of the invalid
exhausted her strength, complaints which she often gave
expression to in his presence, hurt him. He entreated her to
leave him alone, to take walks in the fresh air; he implored
her not to give up for his sake her amusements, but to
frequent the theatre, to give parties, &c.; he would be
contented in quietness and solitude if he only knew that she
was happy. At last, when the invalid still failed to think of
a separation from her, she chose a heroic means.
By this heroic means Karasowski understands the publication of George
Sand's novel Lucrezia Floriani (in 1847), concerning which he says the
story goes that "out of refined cruelty the proof-sheets were handed to
him [Chopin] with the request to correct the misprints." Karasowski also
reports as a "fact" that
the children of Madame Sand [who, by the way, were a man of
twenty-three and a woman of eighteen] said to him [Chopin],
pointing to the novel: "M. Chopin, do you know that you are
meant by the Prince Karol?"...In spite of all this the
invalid, and therefore less passionate, artist bore with the
most painful feeling the mortification caused him by the
novel...At the beginning of the year 1847 George Sand brought
about by a violent scene, the innocent cause of which was her
daughter, a complete rupture. To the unjust reproaches which
she made to him, he merely replied: "I shall immediately leave
your house, and wish henceforth no longer to be regarded by
you as living." These words were very welcome to her; she made
no objections, and the very same day the artist left for ever
the house of Madame Sand. But the excitement and the mental
distress connected with it threw him once more on the sick-
bed, and for a long time people seriously feared that he would
soon exchange it for a coffin.
George Sand's view of the Lucrezia Floriani incident must be given in
full. In Ma Vie she writes as follows:--
It has been pretended that in one of my romances I have
painted his [Chopin's] character with a great exactness of
analysis. People were mistaken, because they thought they
recognised some of his traits; and, proceeding by this system,
too convenient to be sure, Liszt himself, in a Life of Chopin,
a little exuberant as regards style, but nevertheless full of
very good things and very beautiful pages, has gone astray in
good faith. I have traced in Prince Karol the character of a
man determined in his nature, exclusive in his sentiments,
exclusive in his exigencies.
Chopin was not such. Nature does not design like art, however
realistic it may be. She has caprices, inconsequences,
probably not real, but very mysterious. Art only rectifies
these inconsequences because it is too limited to reproduce
them.
Chopin was a resume of these magnificent inconsequences which
God alone can allow Himself to create, and which have their
particular logic. He was modest on principle, gentle by habit,
but he was imperious by instinct and full of a legitimate
pride which was unconscious of itself. Hence sufferings which
he did not reason and which did not fix themselves on a
determined object.
Moreover, Prince Karol is not an artist. He is a dreamer, and
nothing more; having no genius, he has not the rights of
genius. He is, therefore, a personage more true than amiable,
and the portrait is so little that of a great artist that
Chopin, in reading the manuscript every day on my writing-
desk, had not the slightest inclination to deceive himself, he
who, nevertheless, was so suspicious.
And yet afterwards, by reaction, he imagined, I am told, that
this was the case. Enemies, I had such about him who call
themselves his friends; as if embittering a suffering heart
was not murder, enemies made him believe that this romance was
a revelation of his character. At that time his memory was, no
doubt, enfeebled: he had forgotten the book, why did he not
reread it!
This history is so little ours! It was the very reverse of it
There were between us neither the same raptures [enivrements]
nor the same sufferings. Our history had nothing of a romance;
its foundation was too simple and too serious for us ever to
have had occasion for a quarrel with each other, a propos of
each other.
The arguments advanced by George Sand are anything but convincing; in
fact, her defence is extremely weak. She does not even tell us that she
did not make use of Chopin as a model. That she drew a caricature and
not a portrait will hardly be accepted as an excuse, nay, is sure to be
regarded as the very head and front of her offending. But George Sand
had extraordinarily naive notions on this subject, notions which are
not likely to be shared by many, at least not by many outside the
fraternities of novelists and dramatists. Having mentioned, in speaking
of her grand-uncle the Abbe de Beaumont, that she thought of him when
sketching the portrait of a certain canon in Consuelo, and that she had
very much exaggerated the resemblance to meet the requirements of the
romance, she remarks that portraits traced in this way are no longer
portraits, and that those who feel offended on recognising themselves
do an injustice both to the author and themselves. "Caricature or
idealisation," she writes, "it is no longer the original model, and
this model has little judgment if it thinks it recognises itself, if it
becomes angry or vain on seeing what art or imagination has been able
to make of it." This is turning the tables with a vengeance; and if
impudence can silence the voice of truth and humanity, George Sand has
gained her case. In her account of the Lucrezia Floriani incident George
Sand proceeds as usual when she is attacked and does not find it more
convenient simply to declare that she will not condescend to defend
herself--namely, she envelops the whole matter in a mist of beautiful
words and sentiments out of which issues--and this is the only
clearly-distinguishable thing--her own saintly self in celestial
radiance. But notwithstanding all her arguments and explanations there
remains the fact that Liszt and thousands of others, I one of them, read
Lucrezia Floriani and were not a moment in doubt that Chopin was the
prototype of Prince Karol. We will not charge George Sand with the
atrocity of writing the novel for the purpose of getting rid of Chopin;
but we cannot absolve her from the sin of being regardless of the pain
she would inflict on one who once was dear to her, and who still loved
her ardently. Even Miss Thomas, [FOOTNOTE: In George Sand, a volume of
the "Eminent Women Series."] who generally takes George Sand at her
own valuation, and in this case too tries to excuse her, admits that
in Lucrezia Floriani there was enough of reality interwoven to make
the world hasten to identify or confound Chopin with Prince Karol, that
Chopin, the most sensitive of mortals, could not but be pained by the
inferences which would be drawn, that "perhaps if only as a genius he
had the right to be spared such an infliction," and that, therefore,
"one must wish it could have appeared in this light to Madame Sand."
This is a mild way of expressing disapproval of conduct that shows,
to say the least, an inhuman callousness to the susceptibilities of a
fellow-being. And to speak of the irresistible prompting of genius in
connection with one who had her faculties so well under her control
is downright mockery. It would, however, be foolish to expect
considerateness for others in one who needlessly detailed and proclaimed
to the world not only the little foibles but also the drunkenness
and consequent idiocy and madness of a brother whose family was
still living. Her practice was, indeed, so much at variance with her
profession that it is preposterous rather to accept than to doubt her
words. George Sand was certainly not the self-sacrificing woman she
pretended to be; for her sacrifices never outlasted her inclinations,
they were, indeed, nothing else than an abandonment to her desires.
And these desires were the directors of her reason, which, aided by an
exuberant imagination, was never at a loss to justify any act, be it
ever so cruel and abject. In short, the chief characteristic of George
Sand's moral constitution was her incapacity of regarding anything she
did otherwise than as right. What I have said is fully borne out by her
Ma Vie and the "Correspondance," which, of course, can be more easily
and safely examined than her deeds and spoken words.
And now we will continue our investigations of the causes and
circumstances of the rupture. First I shall quote some passages from
letters written by George Sand, between which will be inserted a note
from Chopin to her. If the reader does not see at once what several of
these quotations have to do with the matter under discussion, he will do
so before long.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Nohant, September 1, 1846:--
It is exceedingly kind of you to offer me shelter [un gîte].
We have still our apartments in the Square Saint-Lazare
[Square d'Orleans], and nothing would prevent us from going
there.
Chopin to Madame Sand; Tuesday 2 1/2 [Paris, December 15,
1846]
[FOOTNOTE: The date is that of the postmark. A German
translation of the French original (in the Imperial Public
Library at St. Petersburg) will be found in La Mara's
"Musikerbriefe."]:--
Mademoiselle de Rozieres has found the piece of cloth in
question (it was in the camail-carton of Mdlle. Augustine),
and I sent it at once last night to Borie, [Victor Borie a
publicist and friend of George Sand] who, as Peter was told,
does not yet leave to-day. Here we have a little sun and
Russian snow. I am glad of this weather for your sake, and
imagine you walking about a great deal. Did Dib dance in last
night's pantomime? May you and yours enjoy good health!
Your most devoted,
C.
For your dear children.
I am well; but I have not the courage to leave my fireside for
a moment.
Madame Sand to Madame Marliani; Nohant, May 6, 1847:--
Solange marries in a fortnight Clesinger, the sculptor, a man
of great talent, who is making much money, and can give her
the brilliant existence which, I believe, is to her taste. He
is very violently in love with her, and he pleases her much.
She was this time as prompt and firm in her determination as
she was hitherto capricious and irresolute. Apparently she has
met with what she dreamt of. May God grant it!
As regards myself, the young man pleases me also much and
Maurice likewise. He is little civilised at first sight; but
he is full of sacred fire and for some time past, since I
noticed him making advances, I have been studying him without
having the appearance of doing so...He has other qualities
which compensate for all the defects he may have and ought to
have.
...Somebody told me of him all the ill that can be said of a man
[on making inquiries George Sand found that Clesinger was a man
"irreproachable in the best sense of the word"].
M. Dudevant, whom he has been to see, consents. We do not know
yet where the marriage will take place. Perhaps at Nerac,
[FOOTNOTE: Where M. Dudevant, her whilom husband, resided.] in
order to prevent M. Dudevant from falling asleep in the
eternal to-morrow to the province.
Madame Sand to Mazzini; Nohant, May 22, 1847:--
I have just married and, I believe, well married my daughter
to an artist of powerful inspiration and will. I had for her
but one ambition--namely, that she should love and be loved;
my wish is realised. The future is in the hand of God, but I
believe in the duration of this love and this union.
Madame Sand to Charles Poncy; Nohant, August 9, 1847:--
My good Maurice is always calm, occupied, and lively. He
sustains and consoles me. Solange is in Paris with her
husband; they are going to travel. Chopin is in Paris also;
his health has not yet permitted him to make the journey; but
he is better.
The following letter, of an earlier date than those from which my last
two excerpts are taken, is more directly concerned with Chopin.
Madame Sand to Gutmann; Nohant, May 12, 1847:--
Thanks, my good Gutmann, thanks from the bottom of my heart
for the admirable care which you lavish on him [Chopin]. I
know well that it is for him, for yourself, and not for me,
that you act thus, but I do not the less feel the need of
thanking you. It is a great misfortune for me that this
happens at a moment like that in which I find myself. Truly,
this is too much anxiety at one time! I would have gone mad, I
believe, if I had learned the gravity of his illness before
hearing that the danger was past. He does not know that I know
of it, and on account, especially, of the embarras in which he
knows I find myself, he wishes it to be concealed from me. He
wrote to me yesterday as if nothing had taken place, and I
have answered him as if I suspected as yet nothing. Therefore,
do not tell him that I write to you, and that for twenty-four
hours I have suffered terribly. Grzymala writes about you very
kindly a propos of the tenderness with which you have taken my
place by the side of him, and you especially, so that I will
tell you that I know it, and that my heart will keep account
of it seriously and for ever...
Au revoir, then, soon, my dear child, and receive my maternal
benediction. May it bring you luck as I wish!
George Sand.
[FOOTNOTE: This letter, which is not contained in the
"Correspondance," was, as far as I know, first published in
"Die Gegenwart" (Berlin, July 12, 1879)]
If all that George Sand here says is bona fide, the letter proves that
the rupture had not yet taken place. Indeed, Gutmann was of opinion that
it did not take place till 1848, shortly before Chopin's departure for
England, that, in-fact, she, her daughter, and son-in-law were present
at the concert he gave on February 16, 1848. That this, however, was not
the case is shown both by a letter written by George Sand from Nohant on
February 18, 1848, and by another statement of Gutmann's, according to
which one of the causes of the rupture was the marriage of Solange with
Clesinger of which Chopin (foreseeing unhappiness which did not fail to
come, and led to separation) did not approve. Another cause, he thought,
was Chopin's disagreements with Maurice Sand. There were hasty remarks
and sharp retorts between lover and son, and scenes in consequence.
Gutmann is a very unsatisfactory informant, everything he read and
heard seemed to pass through the retort of his imagination and reappear
transformed as his own experience.
A more reliable witness is Franchomme, who in a letter to me summed up
the information which he had given me on this subject by word of mouth
as follows:--
Strange to say [chose bizarre], Chopin had a horror of the
figure 7; he would not have taken lodgings in a house which
bore the number 7; he would not have set out on a journey on
the 7th or 17th, &c. It was in 1837 that he formed the liaison
with George Sand; it was in 1847 that the rupture took place;
it was on the 17th October that my dear friend said farewell
to us. The rupture between Chopin and Madame Sand came about
in this way. In June, 1847, Chopin was making ready to start
for Nohant when he received a letter from Madame Sand to the
effect that she had just turned out her daughter and son-in-
law, and that if he received them in his house all would be
over between them [i.e., between George Sand and Chopin]. I
was with Chopin at the time the letter arrived, and he said to
me, "They have only me, and should I close my door upon them?
No, I shall not do it!" and he did not do it, and yet he knew
that this creature whom he adored would not forgive it him.
Poor friend, how I have seen him suffer!
Of the quarrel at Nohant, Franchomme gave the following account:--There
was staying at that time at Nohant a gentleman who treated Madame
Clesinger invariably with rudeness. One day as Clesinger and his wife
went downstairs the person in question passed without taking off his
hat. The sculptor stopped him, and said, "Bid madam a good day"; and
when the gentleman or churl, as the case may be, refused, he gave him a
box on the ear. George Sand, who stood at the top of the stairs, saw it,
came down, and gave in her turn Clesinger a box on the ear. After this
she turned her son-in-law together with his wife out of her house, and
wrote the above-mentioned letter to Chopin.
Madame Rubio had also heard of the box on the ear which George Sand gave
Clesinger. According to this informant there were many quarrels between
mother and daughter, the former objecting to the latter's frequent
visits to Chopin, and using this as a pretext to break with him. Gutmann
said to me that Chopin was fond of Solange, though not in love with her.
But now we have again got into the current of gossip, and the sooner we
get out of it the better.
Before I draw my conclusions from the evidence I have collected, I must
find room for some extracts from two letters, respectively written on
August 9, 1847, and December 14,1847, to Charles Poncy. The contents
of these extracts will to a great extent be a mystery to the reader, a
mystery to which I cannot furnish the key. Was Solange the chief subject
of George Sand's lamentations? Had Chopin or her brother, or both, to do
with this paroxysm of despair?
After saying how she has been overwhelmed by a chain of chagrins, how
her purest intentions have had a fatal issue, how her best actions have
been blamed by men and punished by heaven as crimes, she proceeds:--
And do you think I have reached the end? No, all I have told
you hitherto is nothing, and since my last letter I have
exhausted all the cup of life contains of tribulation. It is
even so bitter and unprecedented that I cannot speak of it, at
least I cannot write it. Even that would give me too much
pain. I will tell you something about it when I see you...I
hoped at least for the old age on which I was entering the
recompense of great sacrifices, of much work, fatigue, and a
whole life of devotion and abnegation. I asked for nothing but
to render happy the objects of my affection. Well, I have been
repaid with ingratitude, and evil has got the upper hand in a
soul which I wished to make the sanctuary and the hearth of
the beautiful and the good. At present I struggle against
myself in order not to let myself die. I wish to accomplish my
task unto the end. May God aid me! I believe in Him and
hope!...Augustine has suffered much, but she has had great
courage and a true feeling of her dignity; and her health,
thank God, has not suffered.
[FOOTNOTE: Augustine Brault was according to the editor of the
Correspondance a cousin of George Sand's; George Sand herself
calls her in Ma Vie her parent, and tells us in a vague way
how her connection with this young lady gave occasion to
scandalous libels.]
The next quotation is from the letter dated Nohant, December 14, 1847.
Desirez is the wife of Charles Poncy, to whom the letter is addressed.
You have understood, Desirez and you, you whose soul is
delicate because it is ardent, that I passed through the
gravest and most painful phase of my life. I nearly succumbed,
although I had foreseen it for a long time. But you know one
is not always under the pressure of a sinister foresight,
however evident it may be. There are days, weeks, entire
months even, when one lives on illusions, and when one
flatters one's self one is turning aside the blow which
threatens one. At last, the most probable misfortune always
surprises us disarmed and unprepared. In addition to this
development of the unhappy germ, which was going on unnoticed,
there have arisen several very bitter and altogether
unexpected accessory circumstances. The result is that I am
broken in soul and body with chagrin. I believe that this
chagrin is incurable; for the better I succeed in freeing
myself from it for some hours, the more sombre and poignant
does it re-enter into me in the following hours...I have
undertaken a lengthy work [un ouvrage de longue haleine]
entitled Histoire de ma Vie...However, I shall not reveal the
whole of my life...It will be, moreover, a pretty good piece
of business, which will put me on my feet again, and will
relieve me of a part of my anxieties with regard to the future
of Solange, which is rather compromised.
We have, then, the choice of two explanations of the rupture: George
Sand's, that it was caused by the disagreement of Chopin and her son;
and Franchomme's, that it was brought about by Chopin's disregard of
George Sand's injunction not to receive her daughter and son-in-law.
I prefer the latter version, which is reconcilable with George Sand's
letters, confirmed by the testimony of several of Chopin's friends, and
given by an honest, simple-minded man who may be trusted to have told a
plain unvarnished tale.
[FOOTNOTE: The contradictions are merely apparent, and disappear if we
consider that George Sand cannot have had any inclination to give to
Gutmann and Poncy an explanation of the real state of matters. Moreover,
when she wrote to the former the rupture had, according to Franchomme,
not yet taken place.]
But whatever reason may have been alleged to justify, whatever
circumstance may have been the ostensible cause of the rupture, in
reality it was only a pretext. On this point all agree--Franchomme,
Gutmann, Kwiatkowski, Madame Rubio, Liszt, &c. George Sand was tired of
Chopin, and as he did not leave her voluntarily, the separation had to
be forced upon him. Gutmann thought there was no rupture at all. George
Sand went to Nohant without Chopin, ceased to write to him, and thus
the connection came to an end. Of course, Chopin ought to have left
her before she had recourse to the "heroic means" of kicking him,
metaphorically speaking, out of doors. But the strength of his passion
for this woman made him weak. If a tithe of what is rumoured about
George Sand's amorous escapades is true, a lover who stayed with her for
eight years must have found his capacity of overlooking and forgiving
severely tested. We hear on all sides of the infidelities she permitted
herself. A Polish friend of Chopin's informed me that one day when he
was about to enter the composer's, room to pay him a visit, the married
Berrichon female servant of George Sand came out of it; and Chopin, who
was lying ill in bed, told him afterwards that she had been complaining
of her mistress and husband. Gutmann, who said that Chopin knew of
George Sand's occasional infidelities, pretended to have heard him say
when she had left him behind in Paris: "I would overlook all if only she
would allow me to stay with her at Nohant." I regard these and such like
stories, especially the last one, with suspicion (is it probable that
the reticent artist was communicative on so delicate a subject, and with
Gutmann, his pupil and a much younger man?), but they cannot be ignored,
as they are characteristic of how Chopin's friends viewed his position.
And yet, tormented as he must have been in the days of possession,
crushed as he was by the loss, tempted as he subsequently often felt to
curse her and her deceitfulness, he loved and missed George Sand to the
very end--even the day before his death he said to Franchomme that she
had told him he would die in no other arms but hers (que je ne mourrais
que dans ses bras).
If George Sand had represented her separation from Chopin as a matter of
convenience, she would have got more sympathy and been able to make out
a better case.
The friendship of Chopin [she writes in Ma Vie] has never been
for me a refuge in sadness. He had quite enough troubles of
his own to bear. Mine would have overwhelmed him; moreover, he
knew them only vaguely and did not understand them at all. He
would have appreciated them from a point of view very
different from mine.
Besides Chopin's illnesses became more frequent, his strength diminished
from day to day, and care and attendance were consequently more than
ever needful. That he was a "detestable patient" has already been said.
The world takes it for granted that the wife or paramour of a man of
genius is in duty bound to sacrifice herself for him. But how does the
matter stand when there is genius on both sides, and self-sacrifice
of either party entails loss to the world? By the way, is it not very
selfish and hypocritical of this world which generally does so little
for men of genius to demand that women shall entirely, self-denyingly
devote themselves to their gifted lovers? Well, both George Sand and
Chopin had to do work worth doing, and if one of them was hampered by
the other in doing it, the dissolution of the union was justified. But
perhaps this was not the reason of the separation. At any rate, George
Sand does not advance such a plea. Still, it would have been unfair not
to discuss this possible point of view.
The passage from the letter of George Sand dated September 1, 1846,
which I quoted earlier in this chapter, justifies us, I think, in
assuming that, although she was still keeping on her apartments in the
Square d'Orleans, the phalanstery had ceased to exist. The apartments
she gave up probably sometime in 1847; at any rate, she passed the
winter of 1847-8, for the most part at least, at Nohant; and when after
the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 she came to Paris (between the
9th and 14th of March), she put up at a hotel garni. Chopin continued
to live in his old quarters in the Square d'Orldans, and, according to
Gutmann, was after the cessation of his connection with George Sand in
the habit of dining either with him (Gutmann) or Grzymala, that is to
say, in their company.
It is much to be regretted that no letters are forthcoming to tell us of
Chopin's feelings and doings at this time. I can place before the reader
no more than one note, the satisfactory nature of which makes up to some
extent for its brevity. It is addressed to Franchomme; dated Friday,
October 1, 1847; and contains only these few words:--
Dear friend,--I thank you for your good heart, but I am very
RICH this evening. Yours with all my heart.
In this year--i.e., 1847--appeared the three last works which Chopin
published, although among his posthumous compositions there are two of
a later date. The Trois Mazurkas, Op. 63 (dedicated to the Comtesse L.
Czosnowska), and the Trois Valses, Op. 64 (dedicated respectively to
Madame la Comtesse Potocka, Madame la Baronne de Rothschild, and Madame
la Baronne Bronicka), appeared in September, and the Sonata for piano
and violoncello, Op. 65 (dedicated to Franchomme), in October. Now I
will say of these compositions only that the mazurkas and waltzes are
not inferior to his previous works of this kind, and that the sonata is
one of his most strenuous efforts in the larger forms. Mr. Charles Halle
remembers going one evening in 1847 with Stephen Heller to Chopin,
who had invited some friends to let them hear this sonata which he had
lately finished. On arriving at his house they found him rather unwell;
he went about the room bent like a half-opened penknife. The visitors
proposed to leave him and to postpone the performance, but Chopin would
not hear of it. He said he would try. Having once begun, he soon became
straight again, warming as he proceeded. As will be seen from some
remarks of Madame Dubois's, which I shall quote farther on, the sonata
did not make an altogether favourable impression on the auditors.
The name of Madame Dubois reminds me of the soiree immortalised by a
letter of Madame Girardin (see the one of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV.
of Le Vicomte de Launay), and already several times alluded to by me in
preceding chapters. At this soiree Chopin not only performed several of
his pieces, but also accompanied on a second piano his E minor Concerto
which was played by his pupil, the youthful and beautiful Mdlle. Camille
O'Meara. But the musical event par excellence of the period of Chopin's
life with which we are concerned in this chapter is his concert, the
last he gave in Paris, on February 16, 1848. Before I proceed with my
account of it, I must quote a note, enclosing tickets for this concert,
which Chopin wrote at this time to Franchomme. It runs thus: "The best
places en evidence for Madame D., but not for her cook." Madame D. was
Madame Paul Delaroche, the wife of the great painter, and a friend of
Franchomme's.
But here is a copy of the original programme:--
FIRST PART.
Trio by Mozart, for piano, violin, and violoncello,
performed by MM. Chopin, Alard, and Franchomme.
Aria, sung by Mdlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.
Nocturne, |
|--composed and performed by M. Chopin.
Barcarole, |
Air, sung by Mdlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.
Etude, |
|--composed and performed by M. Chopin.
Berceuse, |
SECOND PART.
Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale of the Sonata in G minor, for
piano and violoncello, composed by M. Chopin, and performed
by the author and M. Franchomme.
Air nouveau from Robert le Diable, composed by M. Meyerbeer,
sung by M. Roger.
Preludes, |
|
Mazurkas, |--composed and performed by M. Chopin.
|
Valse, |
Accompanists:--MM. Aulary and de Garaude.
The report of "M. S." in the Gazette musicale of February 20, 1848,
transports us at once into the midst of the exquisite, perfume-laden
atmosphere of Pleyel's rooms on February 16:--
A concert by the Ariel of pianists is a thing too rare to be
given, like other concerts, by opening both wings of the doors
to whomsoever wishes to enter. For this one a list had been
drawn up: everyone inscribed thereon his name: but everyone
was not sure of obtaining the precious ticket: patronage was
required to be admitted into the holy of holies, to obtain the
favour of depositing one's offering, and yet this offering
amounted to a louis; but who has not a louis to spare whep
Chopin may be heard?
The outcome of all this naturally was that the fine flower of
the aristocracy of the most distinguished women, the most
elegant toilettes, filled on Wednesday Pleyel's rooms. There
was also the aristocracy of artists and amateurs, happy to
seize in his flight this musical sylph who had promised to let
himself once more and for a few hours be approached, seen, and
heard.
The sylph kept his word, and with what success, what
enthusiasm! It is easier to tell you of the reception he got,
the transport he excited, than to describe, analyse, divulge,
the mysteries of an execution which was nothing analogous in
our terrestrial regions. If we had in our power the pen which
traced the delicate marvels of Queen Mab, not bigger than an
agate that glitters on the finger of an alderman, of her liny
chariot, of her diaphanous team, only then should we succeed
in giving an idea of a purely ideal talent into which matter
enters hardly at all. Only Chopin can make Chopin understood:
all those who were present at the seance of Wednesday are
convinced of this as well as we.
The programme announced first a trio of Mozart, which Chopin,
Alard, and Franchomme executed in such a manner that one
despairs of ever hearing it again so well performed. Then
Chopin played studies, preludes, mazurkas, waltzes; he
performed afterwards his beautiful sonata with Franchomme. Do
not ask us how all these masterpieces small and great were
rendered. We said at first we would not attempt to reproduce
these thousands and thousands of nuances of an exceptional
genius having in his service an organisation of the same kind.
We shall only say that the charm did not cease to act a single
instant on the audience, and that it still lasted after the
concert was ended.
Let us add that Roger, our brilliant tenor, sang with his most
expressive voice the beautiful prayer intercalated in Robert
le Diable by the author himself at the debut of Mario at the
Opera; that Mdlle. Antonia de Mendi [a niece of Pauline
Viardot's; see the spelling of her name in the programme], the
young and beautiful singer, carried off her share of bravos by
her talent full of hope and promise.
There is a talk of a second concert which Chopin is to give on
the 10th of March, and already more than 600 names are put
down on the new list. In this there is nothing astonishing;
Chopin owed us this recompense, and he well deserves this
eagerness.
As this report, although it enables us to realise the atmosphere, is
otherwise lacking in substance, we must try to get further information
elsewhere. Happily, there is plenty at our disposal.
Before playing the violoncello sonata in public [wrote Madame
Dubois to me], Chopin had tried it before some artists and
intimate friends; the first movement, the masterpiece, was not
understood. It appeared to the hearers obscure, involved by
too many ideas, in short, it had no success. At the last
moment Chopin dared not play the whole sonata before so
worldly and elegant an audience, but confined himself to the
Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale. I shall never forget the manner
in which he executed the Barcarole, that adorable composition;
the Waltz in D flat (la valse au petit chien) was encored
amidst the acclamations of the public. A grande dame who was
present at this concert wished to know Chopin's secret of
making the scales so flowing on the piano [faire les gammes si
coulees stir le piano]. The expression is good, and this
limpidity has never been equalled.
Stephen Heller's remark to me, that Chopin became in his last years
so weak that his playing was sometimes hardly audible, I have already
related in a preceding chapter. There I have also mentioned what Mr.
Charles Halle' told me--namely, that in the latter part of his life
Chopin often played forte passages piano and even pianissimo, that,
for instance, at the concert we are speaking of he played the two forte
passages towards the end of the Barcarole pianissimo and with all
sorts of dynamic finesses. Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, who was present at the
concert on February 16, 1848, gave some interesting recollections of
it, after the reading of a paper on the subject of Chopin, by Mr. G.
A. Osborne, at one of the meetings of the Musical Association (see
Proceedings, of the Musical Association for the year 1879-80):--
He [Chopin] was extremely weak, but still his playing--by
reason of that remarkable quality which he possessed of
gradation in touch--betrayed none of the impress of weakness
which some attributed to piano playing or softness of touch;
and he possessed in a greater degree than any pianoforte-
player he [Mr. Goldschmidt] had ever heard, the faculty of
passing upwards from piano through all gradations of tone...It
was extremely difficult to obtain admission, for Chopin, who
had been truly described as a most sensitive man--which seemed
to be pre-eminently a quality of artistic organisations--not
only had a list submitted to him of those who ought to be
admitted, but he sifted that list, and made a selection from
the selected list; he was, therefore, surrounded by none but
friends and admirers. The room was beautifully decorated with
flowers of all kinds, and he could truly say that even now, at
the distance of thirty years, he had the most vivid
recollection of the concert...The audience was so enraptured
with his [Chopin's] playing that he was called forward again
and again.
In connection with what Mr. Goldschmidt and the writer in the Gazette
musicale say about the difficulty of admission and a sifted list, I have
to record, and I shall do no more than record, Franchomme's denial.
"I really believe," he said to me, "that this is a mere fiction. I saw
Chopin every day; how, then, could I remain ignorant of it?"
To complete my account of Chopin's last concert in Paris, I have yet
to add some scraps of information derived from Un nid d'autographes, by
Oscar Comettant, who was present at it, and, moreover, reported on it
in Le Siecle. The memory of the event was brought back to him when
on looking over autographs in the possession of Auguste Wolff, the
successor of Camille Pleyel, he found a ticket for the above described
concert. As the concert so was also the ticket unlike that of any other
artist. "Les lettres d'ecriture anglaise etaient gravees au burin et
imprimees en taille-douce sur de beau papier mi-carton glace, d'un carre
long elegant et distingue." It bore the following words and figures:--
SOIREE DE M. CHOPIN,
DANS L'UN DES SALONS DE MM. PLEYEL ET CIE.,
20, Rue Rochechouart,
Le mercredi 16 fevrier 1848 a 8 heures 1/2.
Rang....Prix 20 francs....Place reservee.
M. Comettant, in contradiction to what has been said by others about
Chopin's physical condition, states that when the latter came on the
platform, he walked upright and without feebleness; his face, though
pale, did not seem greatly altered; and he played as he had always
played. But M. Comettant was told that Chopin, having spent at the
concert all his moral and physical energy, afterwards nearly fainted in
the artists' room.
In March Chopin and George Sand saw each other once more. We will rest
satisfied with the latter's laconic account of the meeting already
quoted: "Je serrai sa main tremblante et glacee. Je voulu lui parler,
il s'echappa." Karasowski's account of this last meeting is in the
feuilleton style and a worthy pendant to that of the first meeting:--
A month before his departure [he writes], in the last days of
March, Chopin was invited by a lady to whose hospitable house
he had in former times often gone. Some moments he hesitated
whether he should accept this invitation, for he had of late
years less frequented the salons; at last--as if impelled by
an inner voice--he accepted. An hour before he entered the
house of Madame H...
And then follow wonderful conversations, sighs, blushes, tears, a lady
hiding behind an ivy screen, and afterwards advancing with a gliding
step, and whispering with a look full of repentance: "Frederick!" Alas,
this was not the way George Sand met her dismissed lovers. Moreover,
let it be remembered she was at this time not a girl in her teens, but a
woman of nearly forty-four.
The outbreak of the revolution on February 22, 1848, upset the
arrangements for the second concert, which was to take place on the
10th of March, and, along with the desire to seek forgetfulness of the
grievous loss he had sustained in a change of scene, decided him at
last to accept the pressing and unwearied invitations of his Scotch and
English friends to visit Great Britain. On April 2 the Gazette musicale
announced that Chopin would shortly betake himself to London and pass
the season there. And before many weeks had passed he set out upon his
journey. But the history of his doings in the capital and in other parts
of the United Kingdom shall be related in another chapter.
CHAPTER XXX.
DIFFERENCE OF STYLE IN CHOPIN'S WORKS.----THEIR CHARACTERISTICS
DISCUSSED, AND POPULAR PREJUDICES CONTROVERTED.----POLISH NATIONAL MUSIC
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CHOPIN.----CHOPIN A PERSONAL AS WELL AS NATIONAL
TONE-POET.--A REVIEW OF SOME OF HIS LESS PERFECT COMPOSITIONS AND OF
HIS MASTERPIECES: BOLERO; RONDEAU; VARIATIONS; TARANTELLE; ALLEGRO DE
CONCERT; TWO SONATAS FOR PIANOFORTE (OP. 38 AND 58); SONATA (OP. 65)
AND GRAND DUO CONCERTANT FOR PIANOFORTE AND VIOLONCELLO; FANTAISIE;
MAZURKAS; POLONAISES; VALSES; ETUDES; PRELUDES; SCHERZI; IMPROMPTUS;
NOCTURNES; BERCEUSE; BARCAROLE; AND BALLADES-----THE SONGS.----VARIOUS
EDITIONS.
Before we inquire into the doings and sufferings of Chopin in England
and Scotland, let us take a general survey of his life-work as a
composer. We may fitly do so now; as at the stage of his career we have
reached, his creative activity had come to a close. The last composition
he published, the G minor Sonata for piano and violoncello, Op. 65,
appeared in October, 1847; and among his posthumous compositions
published by Fontana there are only two of later date--namely, the
mazurkas, No. 2 of Op. 67 (G minor) and No. 4 of Op. 68 (F minor),
which came into existence in 1849. Neither of these compositions can
be numbered with the master's best works, but the latter of them is
interesting, because it seems in its tonal writhings and wailings
a picture of the bodily and mental torments Chopin was at the time
enduring.
A considerable number of the master's works I have already discussed in
Chapters III., VIII., and XIII. These, if we except the two Concertos,
Op. II and 21 (although they, too, do not rank with his chefs-d'oeuvre),
are, however, for us of greater importance biographically, perhaps also
historically, than otherwise. It is true, we hear now and then of some
virtuoso playing the Variations, Op. 2, or the Fantasia on Polish airs,
Op. 13, nay, we may hear even of the performance of the Trio, Op. 8;
but such occurrences are of the rarest rarity, and, considering how
rich musical literature is in unexceptionable concert-pieces and chamber
compositions, one feels on the whole pleased that these enterprising
soloists and trio-players find neither much encouragement nor many
imitators. While in examining the earlier works, the praise bestowed on
them was often largely mixed with censure, and the admiration felt for
them tempered by dissatisfaction; we shall have little else than pure
praise and admiration for the works that remain to be considered, at
least for the vast majority of them. One thing, however, seems to me
needful before justice can be done to the composer Chopin: certain
prejudices abroad concerning him have to be combated. I shall,
therefore, preface my remarks on particular compositions and groups of
compositions by some general observations.
It is sometimes said that there are hardly any traces of a development
in the productions of Chopin, and that in this respect he is unlike
all the other great masters. Such an opinion cannot be the result of a
thorough and comprehensive study of the composer's works. So far
from agreeing with those who hold it, I am tempted to assert that the
difference of style between Chopin's early and latest works (even when
juvenile compositions like the first two Rondos are left out of account)
is as great as that between Beethoven's first and ninth Symphony. It
would be easy to classify the Polish master's works according to three
and even four (with the usual exceptions) successive styles, but I have
no taste for this cheap kind of useless ingenuity. In fact, I shall
confine myself to saying that in Chopin's works there are clearly
distinguishable two styles--the early virtuosic and the later poetic
style. The latter is in a certain sense also virtuosic, but with this
difference, that its virtuosity is not virtuosity for virtuosity's
sake. The poetic style which has thrown off the tinsel showiness of its
predecessor does not, however, remain unchanged, for its texture becomes
more and more close, and affords conclusive evidence of the increasing
influence of Johann Sebastian Bach. Of course, the grand master of
fugue does not appear here, as it were, full life-size, in peruke,
knee-breeches, and shoe-buckles, but his presence in spite of
transformation and attenuation is unmistakable. It is, however, not only
in the closeness and complexity of texture that we notice Chopin's
style changing: a striving after greater breadth and fulness of form are
likewise apparent, and, alas! also an increase in sombreness, the result
of deteriorating health. All this the reader will have to keep in mind
when he passes in review the master's works, for I shall marshal them by
groups, not chronologically.
Another prejudice, wide-spread, almost universal, is that Chopin's music
is all languor and melancholy, and, consequently, wanting in variety.
Now, there can be no greater error than this belief. As to variety,
we should be obliged to wonder at its infiniteness if he had composed
nothing but the pieces to which are really applicable the epithets
dreamy, pensive, mournful, and despondent. But what vigour, what more
than manly vigour, manifests itself in many of his creations! Think only
of the Polonaises in A major (Op. 40, No. 1) and in A flat major (Op.
53), of many of his studies, the first three of his ballades, the
scherzos, and much besides! To be sure, a great deal of this vigour is
not natural, but the outcome of despair and maddening passion. Still, it
is vigour, and such vigour as is not often to be met with. And, then, it
is not the only kind to be found in his music. There is also a healthy
vigour, which, for instance, in the A major Polonaise assumes a
brilliantly-heroic form. Nor are serene and even joyous moods so rare
that it would be permissible to ignore them. While thus controverting
the so-called vox Dei (are not popular opinions generally popular
prejudices?) and the pseudo-critics who create or follow it, I have
no intention either to deny or conceal the Polish master's excess of
languor and melancholy. I only wish to avoid vulgar exaggeration, to
keep within the bounds of the factual. In art as in life, in biography
as in history, there are not many questions that can be answered by a
plain "yea" or "nay". It was, indeed, with Chopin as has been said of
him, "his heart was sad, his mind was gay. "One day when Chopin, Liszt,
and the Comtesse d'Agoult spent the after-dinner hours together, the
lady, deeply moved by the Polish composer's playing, ventured to ask him
"by what name he called the extraordinary feeling which he enclosed
in his compositions, like unknown ashes in superb urns of most
exquisitely-chiselled alabaster? "He answered her that--
her heart had not deceived her in its melancholy saddening,
for whatever his moments of cheerfulness might be, he never
for all that got rid of a feeling which formed, as it were,
the soil of his heart, and for which he found a name only in
his mother-tongue, no other possessing an equivalent to the
Polish word zal [sadness, pain, sorrow, grief, trouble,
repentance, &c.]. Indeed, he uttered the word repeatedly, as
if his ear had been eager for this sound, which for him
comprised the whole scale of the feelings which is produced by
an intense plaint, from repentance to hatred, blessed or
poisoned fruits of this acrid root.
After a long dissertation on the meaning of the word zal, Liszt, from
whose book this quotation is taken, proceeds thus:--
Yes, truly, the zal colours with a reflection now argent, now
ardent, the whole of Chopin's works. It is not even absent
from his sweetest reveries. These impressions had so much the
more importance in the life of Chopin that they manifested
themselves distinctly in his last works. They little by little
attained a kind of sickly irascibility, reaching the point of
feverish tremulousness. This latter reveals itself in some of
his last writings by a distortion of his thought which one is
sometimes rather pained than surprised to meet. Suffocating
almost under the oppression of his repressed transports of
passion, making no longer use of the art except to rehearse to
himself his own tragedy, he began, after having sung his
feeling, to tear it to pieces.
Read together with my matter-of-fact statements, Liszt's hyperbolical
and circumlocutional poetic prose will not be misunderstood by the
reader. The case may be briefly summed up thus. Zal is not to be found
in every one of Chopin's compositions, but in the greater part of
them: sometimes it appears clearly on the surface, now as a smooth
or lightly-rippled flow, now as a wildly-coursing, fiercely-gushing
torrent; sometimes it is dimly felt only as an undercurrent whose
presence not unfrequently becomes temporarily lost to ear and eye.
We must, however, take care not to overlook that this zal is not
exclusively individual, although its width and intensity are so.
The key-note [of Polish songs] [says the editor and translator
into German of an interesting collection of Folk-songs of the
Poles][FOOTNOTE: Volkslieder der Polen. Gesammelt und
ubersetzt von W. P. (Leipzig,1833).] is melancholy--even in
playful and naive songs something may be heard which reminds
one of the pain of past sorrows; a plaintive sigh, a death-
groan, which seems to accuse the Creator, curses His
existence, and, as Tieck thinks, cries to heaven out of the
dust of annihilation:
"What sin have I committed?"
These are the after-throes of whole races; these are the pains
of whole centuries, which in these melodies entwine themselves
in an infinite sigh. One is tempted to call them sentimental,
because they seem to reflect sometimes on their own feeling;
but, on the other hand, they are not so, for the impulse to an
annihilating outpouring of feeling expresses itself too
powerfully for these musical poems to be products of conscious
creativeness. One feels when one hears these songs that the
implacable wheel of fate has only too often rolled over the
terrene happiness of this people, and life has turned to them
only its dark side. Therefore, the dark side is so
conspicuous; therefore, much pain and poetry--unhappiness and
greatness.
The remarks on Polish folk-music lead us naturally to the question of
Chopin's indebtedness to it, which, while in one respect it cannot be
too highly rated, is yet in another respect generally overrated. The
opinion that every peculiarity which distinguishes his music from that
of other masters is to be put to the account of his nationality, and may
be traced in Polish folk-music, is erroneous. But, on the other hand,
it is emphatically true that this same folk-music was to him a potent
inspirer and trainer. Generally speaking, however, Chopin has more of
the spirit than of the form of Polish folk-music. The only two classes
of his compositions where we find also something of the form are his
mazurkas and polonaises; and, what is noteworthy, more in the
former, the dance of the people, than in the latter, the dance of the
aristocracy. In Chopin's mazurkas we meet not only with many of the
most characteristic rhythms, but also with many equally characteristic
melodic and harmonic traits of this chief of all the Polish dances.
Polish national music conforms in part to the tonality prevailing
in modern art-music, that is, to our major and minor modes; in part,
however, it reminds one of other tonalities--for instance, of that of
the mediaeval church modes, and of that or those prevalent in the music
of the Hungarians, Wallachians, and other peoples of that quarter.
[FOOTNOTE: The strictly diatonic church modes (not to be confounded with
the ancient Greek modes bearing the same names) differ from each other
by the position of the two semitones: the Ionian is like our C major;
the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian. &c., are like the
series of natural notes starting respectively from d, c, f, g, a, &c.
The characteristic interval of the Hungarian scale is the augmented
second (a, b, c, d#, e, f, g#, a).]
The melodic progression, not always immediate, of an augmented fourth
and major seventh occurs frequently, and that of an augmented second
occasionally. Skips of a third after or before one or more steps of a
second are very common. In connection with these skips of a third may be
mentioned that one meets with melodies evidently based on a scale with a
degree less than our major and minor scales, having in one place a step
of a third instead of a second. [FOOTNOTE: Connoisseurs of Scotch music,
on becoming acquainted with Polish music, will be incited by many traits
of the latter to undertake a comparative study of the two.] The opening
and the closing note stand often to each other in the relation of a
second, sometimes also of a seventh. The numerous peculiarities to be
met with in Polish folkmusic with regard to melodic progression are not
likely to be reducible to one tonality or a simple system of tonalities.
Time and district of origin have much to do with the formal character of
the melodies. And besides political, social, and local influences
direct musical ones--the mediaeval church music, eastern secular music,
&c.--have to be taken into account. Of most Polish melodies it may be
said that they are as capricious as they are piquant. Any attempt to
harmonise them according to our tonal system must end in failure.
Many of them would, indeed, be spoiled by any kind of harmony, being
essentially melodic, not outgrowths of harmony.
[FOOTNOTE: To those who wish to study this subject may be recommended
Oskar Kolberg's Piesni Ludu Polskiego (Warsaw, 1857), the best
collection of Polish folk-songs. Charles Lipinski's collection, Piesni
Polskie i Ruskie Luttu Galicyjskiego, although much less interesting, is
yet noteworthy.]
To treat, however, this subject adequately, one requires volumes, not
pages; to speak on it authoritatively, one must have studied it more
thoroughly than I have done. The following melodies and snatches of
melodies will to some extent illustrate what I have said, although they
are chosen with a view rather to illustrate Chopin's indebtedness to
Polish folk-music than Polish folk-music itself:--
[11 music score excerpts illustrated here]
Chopin, while piquantly and daringly varying the tonality prevailing in
art-music, hardly ever departs from it altogether--he keeps at least in
contact with it, however light that contact may be now and then in the
mazurkas.
[FOOTNOTE: One of the most decided exceptions is the Mazurka, Op.
24, No. 2, of which only the A fiat major part adheres frankly to our
tonality. The portion beginning with the twenty-first bar and extending
over that and the next fifteen bars displays, on the other hand, the
purest Lydian, while the other portions, although less definite as
regards tonality, keep in closer touch with the mediaeval church smode
[sic: mode] than with our major and minor.]
Further, he adopted only some of the striking peculiarities of the
national music, and added to them others which were individual. These
individual characteristics--those audacities of rhythm, melody,
and harmony (in progressions and modulations, as well as in single
chords)--may, however, be said to have been fathered by the national
ones. As to the predominating chromaticism of his style, it is not to be
found in Polish folk-music; although slight rudiments are discoverable
(see Nos. 6-12 of the musical illustrations). Of course, no one would
seek there his indescribably-exquisite and highly-elaborate workmanship,
which alone enabled him to give expression to the finest shades and most
sudden changes of gentle feelings and turbulent passions. Indeed, as I
have already said, it is rather the national spirit than the form which
manifests itself in Chopin's music. The writer of the article on Polish
music in Mendel's Conversations-Lexikon remarks:--
What Chopin has written remains for all times the highest
ideal of Polish music. Although it would be impossible to
point out in a single bar a vulgar utilisation of a national
theme, or a Slavonic aping of it, there yet hovers over the
whole the spirit of Polish melody, with its chivalrous, proud,
and dreamy accents; yea, even the spirit of the Polish
language is so pregnantly reproduced in the musical diction as
perhaps in no composition of any of his countrymen; unless it
be that Prince Oginski with his polonaises and Dobrzynski in
his happiest moments have approached him.
Liszt, as so often, has also in connection with this aspect of the
composer Chopin some excellent remarks to offer.
He neither applied himself nor exerted himself to write Polish
music; it is possible that he would have been astonished to
hear himself called a Polish musician.
[FOOTNOTE: Liszt decidedly overshoots here the mark, and does
so in a less degree in the rest of these observations. Did not
Chopin himself say to Hiller that he wished to be to his
countrymen what Uhland was to the Germans? And did he not
write in one of his letters (see p. 168): "You know how I wish
to understand, and how I have in part succeeded in
understanding, our national music"?]
Nevertheless, he was a national musician par excellence...He
summed up in his imagination, he represented in his talent, a
poetic feeling inherent in his nation and diffused there among
all his contemporaries. Like the true national poets, Chopin
sang, without a fixed design, without a preconceived choice,
what inspiration spontaneously dictated to him; it is thus
that there arose in his music, without solicitation, without
effort, the most idealised form of the emotions which had
animated his childhood, chequered his adolescence, and
embellished his youth...Without making any pretence to it, he
collected into a luminous sheaf sentiments confusedly felt by
all in his country, fragmentarily disseminated in their
hearts, vaguely perceived by some.
George Sand tells us that Chopin's works were the mysterious and vague
expression of his inner life. That they were the expression of his inner
life is indeed a fact which no attentive hearer can fail to discover
without the aid of external evidence. For the composer has hardly
written a bar in which, so to speak, the beating of his heart may not be
felt. Chopin revealed himself only in his music, but there he revealed
himself fully. And was this expression of his inner life really
"mysterious and vague"? I think not! At least, no effusion of words
could have made clearer and more distinct what he expressed. For the
communications of dreams and visions such as he dreamt and saw, of
the fluctuating emotional actualities such as his sensitive heart
experienced, musical forms are, no doubt, less clumsy than verbal and
pictorial ones. And if we know something of his history and that of his
nation, we cannot be at a loss to give names and local habitations to
the impalpable, but emotionally and intellectually-perceptible contents
of his music. We have to distinguish in Chopin the personal and the
national tone-poet, the singer of his own joys and sorrows and that of
his country's. But, while distinguishing these two aspects, we must take
care not to regard them as two separate things. They were a duality the
constitutive forces of which alternately assumed supremacy. The national
poet at no time absorbed the personal, the personal poet at no time
disowned the national. His imagination was always ready to conjure up
his native atmosphere, nay, we may even say that, wherever he might be,
he lived in it. The scene of his dreams and visions lay oftenest in the
land of his birth. And what did the national poet dream and see in these
dreams and visions? A past, present, and future which never existed and
never will exist, a Poland and a Polish people glorified. Reality passed
through the refining fires of his love and genius and reappeared in his
music sublimated as beauty and poetry. No other poet has like Chopin
embodied in art the romance of the land and people of Poland. And,
also, no other poet has like him embodied in art the romance of his own
existence. But whereas as a national poet he was a flattering idealist,
he was as a personal poet an uncompromising realist.
The masterpieces of Chopin consist of mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes,
etudes, preludes, nocturnes (with which we will class the berceuse and
barcarole), scherzos and impromptus, and ballades. They do not,
however, comprise all his notable compositions. And about these notable
compositions which do not rank with his masterpieces, either because
they are of less significance or otherwise fail to reach the standard of
requisite perfectness, I shall first say a few words.
Chopin's Bolero, Op. 19, may be described as a Bolero a la polonaise.
It is livelier in movement and more coquettish in character than
the compositions which he entitles polonaises, but for all that its
physiognomy does not on the whole strike one as particularly Spanish,
certainly not beyond the first section of the Bolero proper and
the seductive strains of the Pililento, the second tempo of the
introduction. And in saying this I am not misled by the points of
resemblance in the rhythmical accompaniment of these dances. Chopin
published the Bolero in 1834, four years before he visited Spain, but
one may doubt whether it would have turned out less Polish if he had
composed it subsequently. Although an excellent imitator in the way
of mimicry, he lacked the talent of imitating musical thought and
character; at any rate, there are no traces of it in his works. The
cause of this lack of talent lies, of course, in the strength of his
subjectivism in the first place, and of his nationalism in the second. I
said the Bolero was published four years before his visit to Spain. But
how many years before this visit was it composed? I think a good many
years earlier; for it has so much of his youthful style about it, and
not only of his youthful style, but also of his youthful character--by
which I mean that it is less intensely poetic. It is not impossible that
Chopin was instigated to write it by hearing the Bolero in Auber's "La
Muette de Portici" ("Masaniello"), which opera was first performed on
February 28, 1828. These remarks are thrown out merely as hints. The
second composition which we shall consider will show how dangerous it is
to dogmatise on the strength of internal evidence.
Op. 16, a lightsome Rondeau with a dramatic Introduction, is, like the
Bolero, not without its beauties; but in spite of greater individuality,
ranks, like it, low among the master's works, being patchy, unequal, and
little poetical.
If ever Chopin is not Chopin in his music, he is so in his Variations
brillantes (in B flat major) sur le Rondeau favori: "Je vends des
Scapulaires" de Ludovic, de Herold et Halevy, Op. 12. Did we not know
that he must have composed the work about the middle of 1833, we should
be tempted to class it with the works which came into existence when his
individuality was as yet little developed. [FOOTNOTE: The opera Ludovic,
on which Herold was engaged when he died on January 19, 1833, and which
Halevy completed, was produced in Paris on May 16, 1833. From the German
publishers of Chopin's Op. 12 I learned that it appeared in November,
1833. In the Gazette musicale of January 26, 1834, may be read a review
of it.] But knowing what we do, we can only wonder at the strange
phenomenon. It is as if Chopin had here thrown overboard the Polish
part of his natal inheritance and given himself up unrestrainedly and
voluptuously to the French part. Besides various diatonic runs of an
inessential and purely ornamental character, there is in the finale
actually a plain and full-toned C flat major scale. What other work
of the composer could be pointed out exhibiting the like feature?
Of course, Chopin is as little successful in entirely hiding his
serpentining and chromaticising tendency as Mephistopheles in hiding the
limp arising from his cloven foot. Still, these fallings out of the role
are rare and transient, and, on the whole, Chopin presents himself as
a perfect homme du monde who knows how to say the most insignificant
trifles with the most exquisite grace imaginable. There can. be nothing
more amusing than the contemporary critical opinions regarding this
work, nothing more amusing than to see the at other times censorious
Philistines unwrinkle their brows, relax generally the sternness of
their features, and welcome, as it were, the return of the prodigal son.
We wiser critics of to-day, who, of course, think very differently
about this matter, can, nevertheless, enjoy and heartily applaud the
prettiness and elegance of the simple first variation, the playful
tripping second, the schwarmerische melodious third, the merry swinging
fourth, and the brilliant finale.
From Chopin's letters we see that the publication of the Tarantelle,
Op. 43, which took place in the latter part of 1841, was attended with
difficulties and annoyances. [FOOTNOTE: Herr Schuberth, of Leipzig,
informed me that a honorarium of 500 francs was paid to Chopin for this
work on July 1, 1841. The French publisher deposited the work at the
library of the Conservatoire in October, 1841.] What these difficulties
and annoyances were, is, however, only in part ascertainable. To turn
from the publication to the composition itself, I may say that it is
full of life, indeed, spirited in every respect, in movement and
in boldness of harmonic and melodic conception. The Tarantelle is a
translation from Italian into Polish, a transmutation of Rossini into
Chopin, a Neapolitan scene painted with opaque colours, the south
without its transparent sky, balmy air, and general brightness. That
this composition was inspired by impressions received from Rossini's
Tarantella, and not from impressions received in Italy (of which, as
has already been related, he had a short glimpse in 1839), is evident.
A comparison of Chopin's Op. 43 with Liszt's glowing and intoxicating
transcription of Rossini's composition may be recommended as a study
equally pleasant and instructive. Although not an enthusiastic admirer
of Chopin's Tarantelle, I protest in the interest of the composer and
for justice's sake against Schumann's dictum: "Nobody can call that
beautiful music; but we pardon the master his wild fantasies, for once
he may let us see also the dark sides of his inner life."
The Allegro de Concert, Op. 46, which was published in November, 1841,
although written for the pianoforte alone, contains, nevertheless,
passages which are more distinctly orchestral than anything Chopin
ever wrote for the orchestra. The form resembles somewhat that of the
concerto. In the first section, which occupies the place of the
opening tutti, we cannot fail to distinguish the entrances of single
instruments, groups of instruments, and the full orchestra. The soloist
starts in the eighty-seventh bar, and in the following commences a
cadenza. With the a tempo comes the first subject (A major), and the
passage-work which brings up the rear leads to the second subject (E
major), which had already appeared in the first section in A major.
The first subject, if I may dignify the matter in question with that
designation, does not recur again, nor was it introduced by the tutti.
The central and principal thought is what I called the second subject.
The second section concludes with brilliant passage-work in E major, the
time--honoured shake rousing the drowsy orchestra from its sweet
repose. The hint is not lost, and the orchestra, in the disguise of the
pianoforte, attends to its duty right vigorously. With the poco rit. the
soloist sets to work again, and in the next bar takes up the principal
subject in A minor. After that we have once more brilliant passage-work,
closing this time in A major, and then a final tutti. The Allegro de
Concert gives rise to all sorts of surmises. Was it written first for
the pianoforte and orchestra, as Schumann suspects? Or may we make even
a bolder guess, and suppose that the composer, at a more advanced age,
worked up into this Allegro de Concert a sketch for the first movement
of a concerto conceived in his younger days? Have we, perhaps, here a
fragment or fragments of the Concerto for two pianos which Chopin, in
a letter written at Vienna on December 21, 1830, said he would play in
public with his friend Nidecki, if he succeeded in writing it to his
satisfaction? And is there any significance in the fact that Chopin,
when (probably in the summer of 1841) sending the manuscript of this
work to Fontana, calls it a Concerto? Be this as it may, the principal
subject and some of the passage-work remind one of the time of the
concertos; other things, again, belong undoubtedly to a later period.
The tutti and solo parts are unmistakable, so different is the treatment
of the pianoforte: in the former the style has the heaviness of an
arrangement, in the latter it has Chopin's usual airiness. The work, as
a whole, is unsatisfactory, nay, almost indigestible. The subjects are
neither striking nor important. Of the passage-work, that which follows
the second subject contains the most interesting matter. Piquant traits
and all sorts of fragmentary beauties are scattered here and there over
the movement. But after we have considered all, we must confess that
this opus adds little or nothing to the value of our Chopin inheritance.
[FOOTNOTE: In justice to the composer I must here quote a criticism
which since I wrote the above appeared in the Athenaum (January 21,
1888):--"The last-named work [the Allegro de Concert, Op. 46] is
not often heard, and is generally regarded as one of Chopin's least
interesting and least characteristic pieces. Let us hasten to say that
these impressions are distinctly wrong; the executive difficulties of
the work are extremely great, and a mere mastery of them is far from
all that is needed. When M. de Pachmann commenced to play it was quickly
evident that his reading would be most remarkable, and in the end it
amounted to an astounding revelation. That which seemed dry and involved
became under his fingers instinct with beauty and feeling; the musicians
and amateurs present listened as if spellbound, and opinion was
unanimous that the performance was nothing short of an artistic
creation. For the sake of the composer, if not for his own reputation,
the pianist should repeat it, not once, but many times." Notwithstanding
this decided judgment of a weighty authority--for such everyone will,
without hesitation, acknowledge the critic in question to be--I am
unable, after once more examining the work, to alter my previously
formed opinion.]
As a further confirmation of the supposed origin of the Allegro de
Concert, I may mention the arrangement of it for piano and orchestra
(also for two pianos) by Jean Louis Nicode.
[FOOTNOTE: Nicode has done his work well so far as he kept close to the
text of Chopin; but his insertion of a working-out section of more than
seventy bars is not justifiable, and, moreover, though making the work
more like an orthodox first movement of a concerto, does not enhance its
beauty and artistic value.]
To the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35 (published in May, 1840), this
most powerful of Chopin's works in the larger forms, Liszt's remark,
"Plus de volonte que d'inspiration," is hardly applicable, although he
used the expression in speaking of Chopin's concertos and sonatas in
general; for there is no lack of inspiration here, nor are there traces
of painful, unrewarded effort. Each of the four pieces of which the
sonata consists is full of vigour, originality, and interest. But
whether they can be called a sonata is another question. Schumann, in
his playful manner, speaks of caprice and wantonness, and insinuates
that Chopin bound together four of his maddest children, and entitled
them sonata, in order that he might perhaps under this name smuggle them
in where otherwise they would not penetrate. Of course, this is a fancy
of Schumann's. Still, one cannot help wondering whether the
composer from the first intended to write a sonata and obtained this
result--amphora coepit institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?--or
whether these four movements got into existence without any
predestination, and were afterwards put under one cover. [FOOTNOTE: At
any rate, the march was finished before the rest of the work. See the
quotation from one of Chopin's letters farther on.] With all Schumann's
admiration for Chopin and praise of this sonata, it appears to me that
he does not give Chopin his due. There is something gigantic in the work
which, although it does not elevate and ennoble, being for the most
part a purposeless fuming, impresses one powerfully. The first movement
begins with four bars grave, a groan full of pain; then the composer,
in restless, breathless haste, is driven by his feelings onward, ever
onward, till he comes to the lovely, peaceful second subject (in D
flat major, a real contrast this time), which grows by-and-by more
passionate, and in the concluding portion of the first part transcends
the limits of propriety--VIDE those ugly dissonances. The connection
of the close of the first part with the repetition of this and the
beginning of the second part by means of the chord of the dominant
seventh in A flat and that in D flat with the suspended sixth, is
noteworthy. The strange second section, in which the first subject is
worked out, has the appearance rather of an improvisation than of a
composition. After this a few bars in 6/4 time, fiercely wild (stretto)
at first, but gradually subsiding, lead to the repeat in B flat major
of the second subject--the first subject does not appear again in its
original form. To the close, which is like that of the corresponding
section in the first part (6/4), is added a coda (2/2) introducing the
characteristic motive of the first subject. In the scherzo, the grandest
movement and the climax of the sonata, the gloom and the threatening
power which rise to a higher and higher pitch become quite weird and
fear-inspiring; it affects one like lowering clouds, rolling of thunder,
and howling and whistling of the wind--to the latter, for instance, the
chromatic successions of chords of the sixth may not inappropriately
be likened. The piu lento is certainly one of the most scherzo-like
thoughts in Chopin's scherzos--so light and joyful, yet a volcano is
murmuring under this serenity. The return of this piu lento, after the
repeat of the first section, is very fine and beneficently refreshing,
like nature after a storm. The Marche funebre ranks among Chopin's
best-known and most highly-appreciated pieces. Liszt mentions it with
particular distinction, and grows justly eloquent over it. I do not
altogether understand Schumann's objection: "It is still more gloomy
than the scherzo," he says, "and contains even much that is repulsive;
in its place an adagio, perhaps in D flat, would have had an
incomparably finer effect." Out of the dull, stupefied brooding, which
is the fundamental mood of the first section, there rises once and again
(bars 7 and 8, and 11 and 12) a pitiable wailing, and then an outburst
of passionate appealing (the forte passage in D flat major), followed
by a sinking helplessness (the two bars with the shakes in the bass),
accompanied by moans and deep breathings. The two parts of the second
section are a rapturous gaze into the beatific regions of a beyond, a
vision of reunion of what for the time is severed. The last movement
may be counted among the curiosities of composition--a presto in B flat
minor of seventy-five bars, an endless series of triplets from beginning
to end in octaves. It calls up in one's mind the solitude and dreariness
of a desert. "The last movement is more like mockery than music," says
Schumann, but adds, truly and wisely--
and yet one confesses to one's self that also out of this
unmelodious and joyless movement a peculiar dismal spirit
breathes upon us, who keeps down with a strong hand that which
would revolt, so that we obey, as if we were charmed, without
murmuring, but also without praising, for that is no music.
Thus the sonata concludes, as it began, enigmatically, like a
sphinx with a mocking smile.
J. W. Davison, in the preface to an edition of Chopin's mazurkas,
relates that Mendelssohn, on being questioned about the finale of one
of Chopin's sonatas (I think it must have been the one before us), said
briefly and bitterly, "Oh, I abhor it!" H. Barbedette remarks in his
"Chopin," a criticism without insight and originality, of this finale,
"C'est Lazare grattant de ses ongles la pierre de son tombeau et tombant
epuise de fatigue, de faim et de desespoir." And now let the reader
recall the words which Chopin wrote from Nohant to Fontana in the summer
of 1839:--
I am composing here a Sonata in B flat minor, in which will be
the funeral march which you have already. There is an Allegro,
then a Scherzo, in E flat minor, the March, and a short Finale
of about three pages. The left hand unisono with the right
hand are gossiping after the March [ogaduja po Marszu].
The meaning of which somewhat obscure interpretation seems to be, that
after the burial the good neighbours took to discussing the merits of
the departed, not without a spice of backbiting.
The Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, the second of Chopin's notable pianoforte
sonatas (the third if we take into account the unpalatable Op. 4),
made its appearance five years later, in June, 1845. Unity is as little
discernible in this sonata as in its predecessor. The four movements of
which the work consists are rather affiliated than cognate; nay, this
may be said even of many parts of the movements. The first movement
by far surpasses the other three in importance: indeed, the wealth of
beautiful and interesting matter which is here heaped up--for it is
rather an unsifted accumulation than an artistic presentation and
evolution--would have sufficed many a composer for several movements.
The ideas are very unequal and their course very jerky till we come to
the second subject (D major), which swells out into a broad stream
of impassioned melody. Farther on the matter becomes again jerky
and mosaic-like. While the close of the first part is very fine, the
beginning of the second is a comfortless waste. Things mend with the
re-entrance of the subsidiary part of the second subject (now in D
flat major), which, after being dwelt upon for some time and varied,
disappears, and is followed by a repetition of portions of the first
subject, the whole second subject (in B major), and the closing period,
which is prolonged by a coda to make the close more emphatic and
satisfying. A light and graceful quaver figure winds with now rippling,
now waving motion through the first and third sections of the scherzo;
in the contrasting second section, with the sustained accompaniment
and the melody in one of the middle parts, the entrance of the bright
A major, after the gloom of the preceding bars, is very effective. The
third movement has the character of a nocturne, and as such cannot fail
to be admired. In the visionary dreaming of the long middle section we
imagine the composer with dilated eyes and rapture in his look--it is
rather a reverie than a composition. The finale surrounds us with an
emotional atmosphere somewhat akin to that of the first movement,
but more agitated. After eight bold introductory bars with piercing
dissonances begins the first subject, which, with its rhythmically
differently-accompanied repetition, is the most important constituent
of the movement. The rest, although finely polished, is somewhat
insignificant. In short, this is the old story, plus de volonte que
d'inspiration, that is to say, inspiration of the right sort. And also,
plus de volonte que de savoir-faire.
There is one work of Chopin's to which Liszt's dictum, plus de volnte
que d'inspiratio, applies in all, and even more than all its force.
I allude to the Sonata (in G minor) for piano and violoncello, Op.
65 (published in September, 1847), in which hardly anything else but
effort, painful effort, manifests itself. The first and last movements
are immense wildernesses with only here and there a small flower. The
middle movements, a Scherzo and an Andante, do not rise to the dignity
of a sonata, and, moreover, lack distinction, especially the slow
movement, a nocturne-like dialogue between the two instruments. As to
the beauties--such as the first subject of the first movement (at the
entrance of the violoncello), the opening bars of the Scherzo, part
of the ANDANTE, &c.--they are merely beginnings, springs that lose
themselves soon in a sandy waste. Hence I have not the heart to
controvert Moscheles who, in his diary, says some cutting things about
this work: "In composition Chopin proves that he has only isolated happy
thoughts which he does not know how to work up into a rounded whole. In
the just published sonata with violoncello I find often passages which
sound as if someone were preluding on the piano and knocked at all the
keys to learn whether euphony was at home." [FOOTNOTE: Aus Moscheles'
Leben; Vol. II., p. 171.] An entry of the year 1850 runs as follows:
"But a trial of patience of another kind is imposed on me by Chopin's
Violoncello Sonata, which I am arranging for four hands. To me it is
a tangled forest, through which now and then penetrates a gleam of
the sun." [FOOTNOTE: Ibid., Vol. II., p. 216.] To take up after the
last-discussed work a composition like the Grand Duo Concertant for
piano and violoncello, on themes from "Robert le Diable," by Chopin and
A. Franchomme, is quite a relief, although it is really of no artistic
importance. Schumann is right when he says of this DUO, which saw the
light of publicity (without OPUS number) in 1833:14 [FOOTNOTE: The first
performance of Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" took place at the Paris
Opera on November 21, 1831.] "A piece for a SALON where behind the
shoulders of counts and countesses now and then rises the head of a
celebrated artist." And he may also be right when he says:--
It seems to me that Chopin sketched the whole of it, and that
Franchomme said "yes" to everything; for what Chopin touches
takes his form and spirit, and in this minor salon-style he
expresses himself with grace and distinction, compared with
which all the gentility of other brilliant composers together
with all their elegance vanish into thin air.
The mention of the DUO is somewhat out of place here, but the Sonata,
Op. 65, in which the violoncello is employed, naturally suggested it.
We have only one more work to consider before we come to the groups of
masterpieces in the smaller forms above enumerated. But this last
work is one of Chopin's best compositions, and in its way no less a
masterpiece than these. Unfettered by the scheme of a definite form such
as the sonata or concerto, the composer develops in the Fantaisie, Op.
49 (published in November, 1841), his thought with masterly freedom.
There is an enthralling weirdness about this work, a weirdness made up
of force of passion and an indescribable fantastic waywardness. Nothing
more common than the name of Fantasia, here we have the thing! The music
falls on our ears like the insuppressible outpouring of a being stirred
to its heart's core, and full of immeasurable love and longing. Who
would suspect the composer's fragility and sickliness in this work?
Does it not rather suggest a Titan in commotion? There was a time when
I spoke of the Fantasia in a less complimentary tone, now I bow down my
head regretfully and exclaim peccavi. The disposition of the composition
may be thus briefly indicated. A tempo di marcia opens the Fantasia--it
forms the porch of the edifice. The dreamy triplet passages of the poco
a poco piu mosso are comparable to galleries that connect the various
blocks of buildings. The principal subject, or accumulation of themes,
recurs again and again in different keys, whilst other subjects appear
only once or twice between the repetitions of the principal subject.
The mazurkas of Chopin are a literature in themselves, said Lenz,
and there is some truth in his saying. They may, indeed, be called
a literature in themselves for two reasons--first, because of their
originality, which makes them things sui generis; and secondly, because
of the poetical and musical wealth of their contents. Chopin, as I have
already said, is most national in the mazurkas and polonaises, for
the former of which he draws not only inspiration, but even rhythmic,
melodic, and harmonic motives from his country's folk-music. Liszt told
me, in a conversation I had with him, that he did not care much for
Chopin's mazurkas. "One often meets in them with bars which might just
as well be in another place." But he added, "And yet as Chopin puts
them, perhaps nobody else could have put them." And mark, those are the
words of one who also told me that when he sometimes played half-an-hour
for his amusement, he liked to resort to Chopin. Moscheles, I suspect,
had especially the mazurkas in his mind when, in 1833, [FOOTNOTE: At
this time the published compositions of Chopin were, of course, not
numerous, but they included the first two books of Mazurkas, Op. 6 and
7.] he said of the Polish master's compositions that he found "much
charm in their originality and national colouring," and that "his
thoughts and through them the fingers stumbled over certain hard,
inartistic modulations." Startling progressions, unreconciled contrasts,
and abrupt changes of mood are characteristic of Slavonic music and
expressive of the Slavonic character. Whether they ought to be called
inartistic or not, we will leave time to decide, if it has not done so
already; the Russian and other Slavonic composers, who are now coming
more and more to the front, seem to be little in doubt as to their
legitimacy. I neither regard Chopin's mazurkas as his most artistic
achievements nor recommend their capriciousness and fragmentariness for
general imitation. But if we view them from the right stand-point, which
is not that of classicism, we cannot help admiring them. The musical
idiom which the composer uses in these, notwithstanding their
capriciousness and fragmentariness, exquisitely-finished miniatures, has
a truly delightful piquancy. Yet delightful as their language is,
the mazurkas have a far higher claim to our admiration. They are
poems--social poems, poems of private life, in distinction from the
polonaises, which are political poems. Although Chopin's mazurkas and
polonaises are no less individual than the other compositions of this
most subjective of subjective poets, they incorporate, nevertheless, a
good deal of the poetry of which the national dances of those names
are the expression or vehicle. And let it be noted, in Poland so-called
civilisation did not do its work so fast and effectually as in Western
Europe; there dancing had not yet become in Chopin's days a merely
formal and conventional affair, a matter of sinew and muscle.
It is, therefore, advisable that we should make ourselves acquainted
with the principal Polish dances; such an acquaintance, moreover, will
not only help us to interpret aright Chopin's mazurkas and polonaises,
but also to gain a deeper insight into his ways of feeling and seeing
generally. Now the reader will become aware that the long disquisitions
on Poland and the Poles at the commencement of this biography were not
superfluous accessories. For completeness' sake I shall preface the
description of the mazurka by a short one of the krakowiak, the third
of the triad of principal Polish dances. The informants on whom I
shall chiefly rely when I am not guided by my own observations are the
musician Sowinski and the poet Brodzinski, both Poles:
The krakowiak [says Albert Sowinski in chant polonais] bubbles
over with esprit and gaiety; its name indicates its origin. It
is the delight of the salons, and especially of the huts. The
Cracovians dance it in a very agitated and expressive manner,
singing at the same time words made for the occasion of which
they multiply the stanzas and which they often improvise.
These words are of an easy gaiety which remind one strangely
of the rather loose [semi-grivoises] songs so popular in
France; others again are connected with the glorious epochs of
history, with the sweet or sad memories which it calls up, and
are a faithful expression of the character and manners of the
nation.
Casimir Brodzinski describes the dance as follows:--
The krakowiak resembles in its figures a simplified polonaise;
it represents, compared with the latter, a less advanced
social state. The boldest and strongest takes the position of
leader and conducts the dance; he sings, the others join in
chorus; he dances, they imitate him. Often also the krakowiak
represents, in a kind of little ballet, the simple course of a
love-affair: one sees a couple of young people place
themselves before the orchestra; the young man looks proud,
presumptuous, preoccupied with his costume and beauty. Before
long he becomes meditative, and seeks inspiration to improvise
verses which the cries of his companions ask for, and which
the time beaten by them provoke, as well as the manoeuvre of
the young girl, who is impatient to dance. Arriving before the
orchestra after making a round, the dancer generally takes the
liberty of singing a refrain which makes the young girl blush;
she runs away, and it is in pursuing her that the young man
displays all his agility. At the last round it is the young
man who pretends to run away from his partner; she tries to
seize his arm, after which they dance together until the
ritornello puts an end to their pleasure.
As a technical supplement to the above, I may say that this lively
dance is in 2/4 time, and like other Polish dances has the rhythmical
peculiarity of having frequently the accent on a usually unaccented
part of the bar, especially at the end of a section or a phrase, for
instance, on the second quaver of the second and the fourth bar, thus:--
[Here, the author illustrates with a rhythm diagram consisting of a line
of notes divided in measures: 1/8 1/16 1/16 1/8 1/8 | 1/8 1/4 1/8 | 1/8
1/16 1/16 1/8 1/8 | 1/8 1/4 dot]
Chopin has only once been inspired by the krakowiak--namely, in his Op.
14, entitled Krakowiak, Grand Rondeau de Concert, a composition which
was discussed in Chapter VIII. Thus much of the krakowiak; now to the
more interesting second of the triad.
The mazurek [or mazurka], whose name comes from Mazovia, one
of our finest provinces, is the most characteristic dance-tune
--it is the model of all our new tunes. One distinguishes,
however, these latter easily from the ancient ones on account
of their less original and less cantabile form. There are two
kinds of mazureks: one, of which the first portion is always
in minor and the second in major, has a romance-like
colouring, it is made to be sung, in Polish one says "to be
heard" (do sludninin); the other serves as an accompaniment to
a dance, of which the figures are multiplied passes and
coiuluiles. Its movement is in time, and yet less quick than
the waltz. The motive is in dotted notes, which must be
executed with energy and warmth, but not without a certain
dignity.
Now the mazurka is generally written in 3/4-time; Chopin's are all
written thus. The dotted rhythmical motive alluded to by Sowinski is
this, or similar to this--
[Another rhythm diagram: 1/8 dot 1/16 1/4 1/4 | 1/8 dot 1/16 1/2]
But the dotted notes are by no means de rigueur. As motives like the
following--
[Another rhythm diagram: 1/4 1/2 | 1/8 1/8 1/4 1/4 | triplet 1/4 1/4 |
triple 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8]
are of frequent occurrence, I would propose a more comprehensive
definition--namely, that the first part of the bar consists mostly of
quicker notes than the latter part. But even this more comprehensive
definition does not comprehend all; it is a rule which has many
exceptions. [FOOTNOTE: See the musical illustrations on pp. 217-218.] Le
Sowinski mentions only one classification of mazurkas. Several others,
however, exist. First, according to the district from which they
derive--mazurkas of Kujavia, of Podlachia, of Lublin, &c.; or, secondly,
according to their character, or to the purpose or occasion for which
they were composed: wedding, village, historical, martial, and political
mazurkas. And now let us hear what the poet Brodzinski has to say about
the nature of this dance:-- The mazurek in its primitive form and as the
common people dance is only a kind of krakowiak, only less lively and
less sautillant. The agile Cracovians and the mountaineers of the
Carpathians call the mazurek danced by the inhabitants of the plain but
a dwarfed krakowiak. The proximity of the Germans, or rather the sojourn
of the German troops, has caused the true character of the mazurek among
the people to be lost; this dance hap become a kind of awkward waltz.
With the people of the capital the real dances of the country
are disfigured not only by the influx of foreigners, but
especially also by the unfortunate employment of barrel-
organs....It is this instrument which crushes among the people
the practice of music, and takes the means of subsistence from
the village fiddler, who becomes more and more rare since
every tavern-keeper, in buying a barrel-organ, easily puts an
end to all competition. We see already more and more disappear
from our country sides these sweet songs and improvised
refrains which the rustic minstrels remembered and repeated,
and the truly national music gives way, alas! to the themes
borrowed from the operas most in vogue.
The mazurek, thus degenerated among the people, has been
adopted by the upper classes who, in preserving the national
allures, perfected it to the extent of rendering it, beyond
doubt, one of the most graceful dances in Europe. This dance
has much resemblance with the French quadrille, according to
what is analogous in the characters of the two nations; in
seeing these two dances one might say that a French woman
dances only to please, and that a Polish woman pleases by
abandoning herself to a kind of maiden gaiety--the graces
which she displays come rather from nature than from art. A
French female dancer recalls the ideal of Greek statues; a
Polish female dancer has something which recalls the
shepherdesses created by the imagination of the poets; if the
former charms us, the latter attaches us.
As modern dances lend themselves especially to the triumph of
the women, because the costume of the men is so little
favourable, it is noteworthy that the mazurek forms here an
exception; for a young man, and especially a young Pole,
remarkable by a certain amiable boldness, becomes soon the
soul and hero of this dance. A light and in some sort pastoral
dress for the women, and the Polish military costume so
advantageous for the men, add to the charm of the picture
which the mazurek presents to the eye of the painter. This
dance permits to the whole body the most lively and varied
movements, leaves the shoulders full liberty to bend with that
ABANDON which, accompanied by a joyous laisser-aller and a
certain movement of the foot striking the floor, is
exceedingly graceful.
One finds often a magic effect in the animated enthusiasm
which characterises the different movements of the head--now
proudly erect, now tenderly sunk on the bosom, now lightly
inclined towards the shoulder, and always depicting in large
traits the abundance of life and joy, shaded with simple,
graceful, and delicate sentiments. Seeing in the mazurek the
female dancer almost carried away in the arms and on the
shoulders of her cavalier, abandoning herself entirely to his
guidance, one thinks one sees two beings intoxicated with
happiness and flying towards the celestial regions. The female
dancer, lightly dressed, scarcely skimming the earth with her
dainty foot, holding on by the hand of her partner, in the
twinkling of an eye carried away by several others, and then,
like lightning, precipitating herself again into the arms of
the first, offers the image of the most happy and delightful
creature. The music of the mazurek is altogether national and
original; through its gaiety breathes usually something of
melancholy--one might say that it is destined to direct the
steps of lovers, whose passing sorrows are not without charm.
Chopin himself published forty-one mazurkas of his composition in eleven
sets of four, five, or three numbers--Op. 6, Quatre Mazurkas, and Op. 7,
Cinq Mazurkas, in December, 1832; Op. 17, Quatre Mazurkas, in May, 1834;
Op. 24, Quatre Mazurkas, in November, 1835; Op. 30, Quatre Maazurkas,
in December, 1837; Op. 33, Quatre Mazurkas, in October, 1838; Op. 41,
Quatre Mazurkas, in December, 1840; Op. 50, Trois Mazurkas, in November,
1841; Op, 56, Trois Mazurkas, in August, 1844; Op. 59, Trois Mazurkas,
in April, 1846; and Op. 63, Trois Mazurkas, in September, 1847. In the
posthumous works published by Fontana there are two more sets, each of
four numbers, and respectively marked as Op. 67 and 68. Lastly, several
other mazurkas composed by or attributed to Chopin have been published
without any opus number. Two mazurkas, both in A minor, although very
feeble compositions, are included in the editions by Klindworth and
Mikuli. The Breitkopf and Hartel edition, which includes only one of
these two mazurkas, comprises further a mazurka in G major and one in B
flat major of 1825, one in D major of 1829-30, a remodelling of the
same of 1832--these have already been discussed--and a somewhat more
interesting one in C major of 1833. Of one of the two mazurkas in A
minor, a poor thing and for the most part little Chopinesque, only the
dedication (a son ami Rmile Gaillard) is known, but not the date of
composition. The other (the one not included in Breitkopf and Hartel's,
No. 50 of Mikuli's and Klindworth's edition) appeared first as No. 2 of
Noire Temps, a publication by Schott's Sohne. On inquiry I learned that
Notre Temps was the general title of a series of 12 pieces by Czerny,
Chopin, Kalliwoda, Rosenhain, Thalberg, Kalkbrenner, Mendelssohn,
Bertini, Wolff, Kontski, Osborne, and Herz, which appeared in 1842 or
1843 as a Christmas Album. [FOONOTE: I find, however, that Chopin's
Mazurka was already separately announced as "Notre Temps, No. 2," in
the Monatsberichte of February, 1842.] Whether a Mazurka elegante by Fr,
Chopin, advertised in La France Musicale of April 6, 1845, as en vente
au Bureau de musique, 29, Place de la Bourse, is identical with one of
the above-enumerated mazurkas I have not been able to discover. In the
Klindworth edition [FOOTNOTE: That is to say, in the original Russian,
not in the English (Augener and Co.'s) edition; and there only by the
desire of the publishers and against the better judgment of the editor.]
is also to be found a very un-Chopinesque Mazurka in F sharp major,
previously published by J. P. Gotthard, in Vienna, the authorship of
which Mr. E. Pauer has shown to belong to Charles Mayer.
[FOOTNOTE: In an article, entitled Musical Plagiarism in the Monthly
Musical Record of July 1, 1882 (where also the mazurka in question is
reprinted), we read as follows:--"In 1877 Mr. E. Pauer, whilst preparing
a comprehensive guide through the entire literature of the piano, looked
through many thousand pieces for that instrument published by German
firms, and came across a mazurka by Charles Mayer, published by Pietro
Mechetti (afterwards C. A. Spinal, and entitled Souvenirs de la Pologne.
A few weeks later a mazurka, a posthumous work of F. Chopin, published
by J. Gotthard, came into his hands. At first, although the piece
'struck him as being an old acquaintance,' he could not fix the time
when and the place where he had heard it; but at last the Mayer mazurka
mentioned above returned to his remembrance, and on comparing the two,
he found that they were one and the same piece. From the appearance
of the title-page and the size of the notes, Mr. Pauer, who has had
considerable experience in these matters, concluded that the Mayer copy
must have been published between the years 1840 and 1845, and wrote to
Mr. Gotthard pointing out the similarity of Chopin's posthumous work,
and asking how he came into possession of the Chopin manuscript. Mr.
Gotthard replied,'that he had bought the mazurka as Chopin's autograph
from a Polish countess, who, being in sad distress, parted, though
with the greatest sorrow, with the composition of her illustrious
compatriot.' Mr. Pauer naturally concludes that Mr. Gotthard had been
deceived, that the manuscript was not a genuine autograph, and 'that
the honour of having composed the mazurka in question belongs to Charles
Mayer.' Mr. Pauer further adds: 'It is not likely that C. Mayer, even if
Chopin had made him a present of this mazurka, would have published it
during Chopin's lifetime as a work of his own, or have sold or given it
to the Polish countess. It is much more likely that Mayer's mazurka was
copied in the style of Chopin's handwriting, and after Mayer's death in
1862 sold as Chopin's autograph to Mr. Gotthard.'"]
Surveying the mazurkas in their totality, we cannot but notice that
there is a marked difference between those up to and those above Op. 41.
In the later ones we look in vain for the beautes sauvages which charm
us in the earlier ones--they strike us rather by their propriety of
manner and scholarly elaboration; in short, they have more of reflective
composition and less of spontaneous effusion about them. This, however,
must not be taken too literally. There are exceptions, partial and
total. The "native wood-notes wild" make themselves often heard, only
they are almost as often stifled in the close air of the study. Strange
to say, the last opus (63) of mazurkas published by Chopin has again
something of the early freshness and poetry. Schumann spoke truly when
he said that some poetical trait, something new, was to be found in
every one of Chopin's mazurkas. They are indeed teeming with interesting
matter. Looked at from the musician's point of view, how much do we not
see that is novel and strange, and beautiful and fascinating
withal? Sharp dissonances, chromatic passing notes, suspensions and
anticipations, displacements of accent, progressions of perfect fifths
(the horror of schoolmen), [FOOTNOTE: See especially the passage near
the close of Op. 30, No. 4, where there are four bars of simultaneous
consecutive fifths and sevenths.] sudden turns and unexpected
digressions that are so unaccountable, so out of the line of logical
sequence, that one's following the composer is beset with difficulties,
marked rhythm picture to us the graceful motions of the dancers, and
suggest the clashing of the spurs and the striking of heels against the
ground. The second mazurka might be called "the request." All the arts
of persuasion are tried, from the pathetic to the playful, and a vein
of longing, not unmixed with sadness, runs through the whole, or rather
forms the basis of it. The tender commencement of the second part is
followed, as it were, by the several times repeated questions--Yes? No?
(Bright sunshine? Dark clouds?) But there comes no answer, and the
poor wretch has to begin anew. A helpless, questioning uncertainty and
indecision characterise the third mazurka. For a while the composer
gives way (at the beginning of the second part) to anger, and speaks
in a defiant tone; but, as if perceiving the unprofitableness of
it, returns soon to his first strain. Syncopations, suspensions, and
chromatic passing notes form here the composer's chief stock in trade,
displacement of everything in melody, harmony, and rhythm is the rule.
Nobody did anything like this before Chopin, and, as far as I
know, nobody has given to the world an equally minute and distinct
representation of the same intimate emotional experiences. My last
remarks hold good with the fourth mazurka, which is bleak and joyless
till, with the entrance of A major, a fairer prospect opens. But
those jarring tones that strike in wake the dreamer pitilessly. The
commencement of the mazurka, as well as the close on the chord of the
sixth, the chromatic glidings of the harmonies, the strange twirls and
skips, give a weird character to this piece.
The origin of the polonaise (Taniec Polski, Polish dance), like that of
the, no doubt, older mazurka, is lost in the dim past. For much credit
can hardly be given to the popular belief that it developed out of the
measured procession, to the sound of music, of the nobles and their
ladies, which is said to have first taken place in 1574, the year after
his election to the Polish throne, when Henry of Anjou received the
grandees of his realm. The ancient polonaises were without words, and
thus they were still in the time of King Sobieski (1674-96). Under
the subsequent kings of the house of Saxony, however, they were often
adapted to words or words were adapted to them. Celebrated polonaises of
political significance are: the Polonaise of the 3rd of May, adapted to
words relative to the promulgation of the famous constitution of the 3rd
of May, 1791; the Kosciuszko Polonaise, with words adapted to already
existing music, dedicated to the great patriot and general when, in
1792, the nation rose in defence of the constitution; the Oginski
Polonaise, also called the Swan's song and the Partition of Poland, a
composition without words, of the year 1793 (at the time of the second
partition), by Prince Michael Cleophas Oginski. Among the Polish
composers of the second half of the last century and the beginning of
the present whose polonaises enjoyed in their day, and partly enjoy
still, a high reputation, are especially notable Kozlowski, Kamienski,
Elsner, Deszczynski, Bracicki, Wanski, Prince Oginski, Kurpinski, and
Dobrzynski. Outside Poland the polonaise, both as an instrumental and
vocal composition, both as an independent piece and part of larger
works, had during the same period quite an extraordinary popularity.
Whether we examine the productions of the classics or those of the
inferior virtuosic and drawing-room composers, [FOOTNOTE: I should
have added "operatic composers."] everywhere we find specimens of the
polonaise. Pre-eminence among the most successful foreign cultivators of
this Polish dance has, however, been accorded to Spohr and Weber. I said
just now "this dance," but, strictly speaking, the polonaise, which has
been called a marche dansante, is not so much a dance as a figured walk,
or procession, full of gravity and a certain courtly etiquette. As
to the music of the polonaise, it is in 3/4 time, and of a moderate
movement (rather slow than quick). The flowing and more or less florid
melody has rhythmically a tendency to lean on the second crotchet and
even on the second quaver of the bar (see illustration No. 1, a and
b), and generally concludes each of its parts with one of certain
stereotyped formulas of a similar rhythmical cast (see illustration No.
2, a, b, c, and d). The usual accompaniment consists of a bass note
at the beginning of the bar followed, except at the cadences, by five
quavers, of which the first may be divided into semiquavers. Chopin,
however, emancipated himself more and more from these conventionalities
in his later poetic polonaises.
[Two music score excerpts here, labeled No. 1 and No. 2]
The polonaise [writes Brodzinski] is the only dance which
suits mature age, and is not unbecoming to persons of elevated
rank; it is the dance of kings, heroes, and even old men; it
alone suits the martial dress. It does not breathe any
passion, but seems to be only a triumphal march, an expression
of chivalrous and polite manners. A solemn gravity presides
always at the polonaise, which, perhaps, alone recalls neither
the fire of primitive manners nor the gallantry of more
civilised but more enervated ages. Besides these principal
characteristics, the polonaise bears a singularly national and
historical impress; for its laws recall an aristocratic
republic with a disposition to anarchy, flowing less from the
character of the people than from its particular legislation.
In the olden times the polonaise was a kind of solemn
ceremony. The king, holding by the hand the most distinguished
personage of the assembly, marched at the head of a numerous
train of couples composed of men alone: this dance, made more
effective by the splendour of the chivalrous costumes, was
only, strictly speaking, a triumphal march.
If a lady was the object of the festival, it was her privilege
to open the march, holding by the hand another lady. All the
others followed until the queen of the ball, having offered
her hand to one of the men standing round the room, induced
the other ladies to follow her example.
The ordinary polonaise is opened by the most distinguished
person of the gathering, whose privilege it is to conduct the
whole file of the dancers or to break it up. This is called in
Polish rey wodzic, figuratively, to be the leader, in some
sort the king (from the Latin rex). To dance at the head was
also called to be the marshal, on account of the privileges of
a marshal at the Diets. The whole of this form is connected
with the memories and customs of raising the militia
(pospolite), or rather of the gathering of the national
assemblies in Poland. Hence, notwithstanding the deference
paid to the leaders, who have the privilege of conducting at
will the chain of dancers, it is allowable, by a singular
practice made into a law, to dethrone a leader every time any
bold person calls out odbiianego, which means retaken by force
or reconquered; he who pronounces this word is supposed to
wish to reconquer the hand of the first lady and the direction
of the dance; it is a kind of act of liberum veto, to which
everyone is obliged to give way. The leader then abandons the
hand of his lady to the new pretender; every cavalier dances
with the lady of the following couple, and it is only the
cavalier of the last couple who finds himself definitively
ousted if he has not the boldness to insist likewise upon his
privilege of equality by demanding odbiianego, and placing
himself at the head.
But as a privilege of this nature too often employed would
throw the whole ball into complete anarchy, two means are
established to obviate this abuse--namely, the leader makes
use of his right to terminate the polonaise, in imitation of a
king or marshal dissolving a Diet, or else, according to the
predominating wish, all the cavaliers leave the ladies alone
in the middle, who then choose new partners and continue the
dance, excluding the disturbers and discontented, which
recalls the confederations employed for the purpose of making
the will of the majority prevail.
The polonaise breathes and paints the whole national
character; the music of this dance, while admitting much art,
combines something martial with a sweetness marked by the
simplicity of manners of an agricultural people. Foreigners
have distorted this character of the polonaises; the natives
themselves preserve it less in our day in consequence of the
frequent employment of motives drawn from modern operas. As to
the dance itself, the polonaise has become in our day a kind
of promenade which has little charm for the young, and is but
a scene of etiquette for those of a riper age. Our fathers
danced it with a marvellous ability and a gravity full of
nobleness; the dancer, making gliding steps with energy, but
without skips, and caressing his moustache, varied his
movements by the position of his sabre, of his cap, and of
his tucked-up coat-sleeves, distinctive signs of a free man
and warlike citizen. Whoever has seen a Pole of the old school
dance the polonaise in the national costume will confess
without hesitation that this dance is the triumph of a well-
made man, with a noble and proud tournure, and with an air at
once manly and gay.
After this Brodzinski goes on to describe the way in which the polonaise
used to be danced. But instead of his description I shall quote a not
less true and more picturesque one from the last canto of Mickiewicz's
"Pan Tadeusz":--
It is time to dance the polonaise. The President comes
forward; he lightly throws back the fausses manches of his
overcoat, caresses his moustache, presents his hand to Sophia:
and, by a respectful salute, invites her for the first couple.
Behind them range themselves the other dancers, two and two;
the signal is given, the dance is begun, the President directs
it.
His red boots move over the green sward, his belt sends forth
flashes of light; he proceeds slowly, as if at random: but in
every one of his steps, in every one of his movements, one can
read the feelings and the thoughts of the dancer. He stops as
if to question his partner; he leans towards her, wishes to
speak to her in an undertone. The lady turns away, does not
listen, blushes. He takes off his cap, and salutes her
respectfully. The lady is not disinclined to look at him, but
persists in being silent. He slackens his pace, seeks to read
in her eyes, and smiles. Happy in her mute answer, he walks
more quickly, looking proudly at his rivals; now he draws his
cap with the heron-feathers forward, now he pushes it back. At
last he puts it on one side and turns up his moustaches. He
withdraws; all envy him, all follow his footsteps. He would
like to disappear with his lady. Sometimes he stops, raises
politely his hand, and begs the dancers to pass by him.
Sometimes he tries to slip dexterously away, changing the
direction. He would like to deceive his companions; but the
troublesome individuals follow him with a nimble step, entwine
him with more and more tightened loops. He becomes angry; lays
his right hand on his sword as if he wished to say: "Woe to
the jealous!" He turns, pride on his countenance, a challenge
in his air, and marches straight on the company, who give way
at his approach, open to him a passage, and soon, by a rapid
evolution, are off again in pursuit of him.
On all sides one hears the exclamation: "Ah! this is perhaps
the last. Look, young people, perhaps this is the last who
will know how to conduct thus the polonaise!"
Among those of Chopin's compositions which he himself published are,
exclusive of the "Introduction et Polonaise brillante" for piano
and violoncello, Op. 3, eight polonaises--namely: "Grande Polonaise
brillante" (in E flat major), "precedee d'un Andante spianato" (in G
major), "pour le piano avec orchestre," Op. 22; "Deux Polonaises" (in C
sharp minor and E flat minor), Op. 26; "Deux Polonaises" (in A major and
C minor), Op. 40; "Polonaise" (F sharp minor), Op. 44; "Polonaise" (in A
flat major), Op. 53; [FOOTNOTE: This polonaise is called the "eighth"
on the title-page, which, of course, it is only by including
the "Polonaise," Op. 3, for piano and violoncello.] and
"Polonaise-Fantaisie" (in A flat major), Op. 61. The three early
polonaises posthumously-published by Fontana as Op. 71 have already been
discussed in Chapter VIII. Other posthumously-published polonaises--such
as the Polonaise in G sharp minor, to be found in Mikuli's edition, and
one in B flat minor of the year 1826, first published in the supplement
of the journal "Echo Muzyczne"--need not be considered by us. [FOOTNOTE:
Both polonaises are included in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition, where
the one in G sharp minor bears the unlikely date 1822. The internal
evidence speaks against this statement.]
Chopin's Polonaises Op. 26, 40, 53, and 61 are pre-eminently political,
they are the composer's expression of his patriotic feelings. It is not
difficult to recognise in them proud memories of past splendours,
sad broodings over present humiliations, bright visions of a future
resurrection. They are full of martial chivalry, of wailing
dejection, of conspiracy and sedition, of glorious victories. The
poetically-inferior Polonaise, Op. 22, on the other hand, while
unquestionably Polish in spirit, is not political. Chopin played this
work, which was probably composed, or at least sketched, in 1830,
[FOOTNOTE: See Vol. I., Chapter xiii., pp. 201, 202.] and certainly
published in July, 1836, for the first time in public at a Paris
Conservatoire concert for the benefit of Habeneck on April 26, 1835;
and this was the only occasion on which he played it with orchestral
accompaniments. The introductory Andante (in G major, and 6/8 time), as
the accompanying adjective indicates, is smooth and even. It makes one
think of a lake on a calm, bright summer day. A boat glides over the
pellucid, unruffled surface of the water, by-and-by halts at a shady
spot by the shore, or by the side of some island (3/4 time), then
continues its course (f time), and finally returns to its moorings
(3/4). I can perceive no connection between the Andante and the
following Polonaise (in E flat major) except the factitious one of a
formal and forced transition, with which the orchestra enters on the
scene of action (Allegro molto, 3/4). After sixteen bars of tutti, the
pianoforte commences, unaccompanied, the polonaise. Barring the short
and in no way attractive and remarkable test's, the orchestra plays a
very subordinate and often silent role, being, indeed, hardly missed
when the pianoforte part is played alone. The pronounced bravura
character of the piece would warrant the supposition that it was written
expressly for the concert-room, even if the orchestral accompaniments
were not there to prove the fact. A proud bearing, healthful vigour,
and sprightly vivacity distinguish Chopin on this occasion. But
notwithstanding the brave appearance, one misses his best qualities.
This polonaise illustrates not only the most brilliant, but also the
least lovable features of the Polish character--ostentatiousness and
exaggerated rhetoric. In it Chopin is discovered posturing, dealing in
phrases, and coquetting with sentimental affectations. In short, the
composer comes before us as a man of the world, intent on pleasing,
and sure of himself and success. The general airiness of the style is
a particularly-noticeable feature of this piece of Chopin's virtuosic
period.
The first bars of the first (in C sharp minor) of the two Polonaises,
Op. 26 (published in July, 1836), fall upon one's ear like a decision of
irresistible, inexorable fate. Indignation flares up for a moment,
and then dies away, leaving behind sufficient strength only for a dull
stupor (beginning of the second part), deprecation, melting tenderness
(the E major in the second part, and the closing bars of the first and
second parts), and declarations of devotion (meno mosso). While the
first polonaise expresses weak timidity, sweet plaintiveness, and a
looking for help from above, the second one (in E flat minor) speaks of
physical force and self-reliance--it is full of conspiracy and sedition.
The ill-suppressed murmurs of discontent, which may be compared to the
ominous growls of a volcano, grow in loudness and intensity, till at
last, with a rush and a wild shriek, there follows an explosion. The
thoughts flutter hither and thither, in anxious, helpless agitation.
Then martial sounds are heard--a secret gathering of a few, which soon
grows in number and in boldness. Now they draw nearer; you distinguish
the clatter of spurs and weapons, the clang of trumpets (D flat major).
Revenge and death are their watchwords, and with sullen determination
they stare desolation in the face (the pedal F with the trebled part
above). After an interesting transition the first section returns. In
the meno mosso (B major) again a martial rhythm is heard; this time,
however, the gathering is not one for revenge and death, but for battle
and victory. From the far-off distance the winds carry the message that
tells of freedom and glory. But what is this (the four bars before the
tempo I.)? Alas! the awakening from a dream. Once more we hear
those sombre sounds, the shriek and explosion, and so on. Of the two
Polonaises, Op. 26, the second is the grander, and the definiteness
which distinguishes it from the vague first shows itself also in the
form.
A greater contrast than the two Polonaises, Op. 40 (published in
November, 1840), can hardly be imagined. In the first (in A major)
the mind of the composer is fixed on one elating thought--he sees the
gallantly-advancing chivalry of Poland, determination in every look
and gesture; he hears rising above the noise of stamping horses and the
clash of arms their bold challenge scornfully hurled at the enemy. In
the second (in C minor), on the other hand, the mind of the composer
turns from one depressing or exasperating thought to another--he seems
to review the different aspects of his country's unhappy state, its
sullen discontent, fretful agitation, and uncertain hopes. The manly
Polonaise in A major, one of the simplest (not easiest) compositions
of Chopin, is the most popular of his polonaises. The second polonaise,
however, although not so often heard, is the more interesting one, the
emotional contents being more varied, and engaging more our sympathy.
Further, the pianoforte, however fully and effectively employed, cannot
do justice to the martial music of the one, while its capacities are
well suited for the rendering of the less material effect of the other.
In conclusion, let me point out in the C minor Polonaise the chafing
agitation of the second part, the fitful play between light and shade of
the trio-like part in A flat major, and the added wailing voice in
the recurring first portion at the end of the piece. [FOOTNOTE: In
connection with the A major Polonaise, see last paragraph on next page.]
If Schiller is right in saying "Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist die
Kunst," then what we find in the Polonaise (in F sharp minor), Op. 44
(published in November, 1841), cannot be art. We look in vain for
beauty of melody and harmony; dreary unisons, querulous melodic phrases,
hollow-eyed chords, hard progressions and modulations throughout every
part of the polonaise proper. We receive a pathological rather than
aesthetical impression. Nevertheless, no one can deny the grandeur
and originality that shine through this gloom. The intervening
Doppio movimento, tempo di Mazurka, sends forth soft beneficent
rays--reminiscences of long ago, vague and vanishing, sweet and
melancholy. But there is an end to this as to all such dreams. Those
harassing, exasperating gloomy thoughts (Tempo di Polacca) return.
The sharp corners which we round so pleasantly and beautifully in our
reconstructions of the past make themselves only too soon felt in the
things of the present, and cruelly waken us to reality and its miseries.
The Polonaise, Op. 53 (in A flat major; published in December, 1843),
is one of the most stirring compositions of Chopin, manifesting an
overmastering power and consuming fire. But is it really the same
Chopin, is it the composer of the dreamy nocturnes, the elegant waltzes,
who here fumes and frets, struggling with a fierce, suffocating rage
(mark the rushing succession of chords of the sixth, the growling
semiquaver figures, and the crashing dissonances of the sixteen
introductory bars), and then shouts forth, sure of victory, his bold and
scornful challenge? And farther on, in the part of the polonaise where
the ostinato semiquaver figure in octaves for the left hand begins, do
we not hear the trampling of horses, the clatter of arms and spurs, and
the sound of trumpets? Do we not hear--yea, and see too--a high-spirited
chivalry approaching and passing? Only pianoforte giants can do justice
to this martial tone-picture, the physical strength of the composer
certainly did not suffice.
The story goes that when Chopin played one of his polonaises in the
night-time, just after finishing its composition, he saw the door
open, and a long train of Polish knights and ladies, dressed in antique
costumes, enter through it and defile past him. This vision filled the
composer with such terror that he fled through the opposite door, and
dared not return to the room the whole night. Karasowski says that the
polonaise in question is the last-mentioned one, in A flat major; but
from M. Kwiatkowski, who depicted the scene three times, [FOOTNOTE: "Le
Reve de Chopin," a water-colour, and two sketches in oils representing,
according to Chopin's indication (d'apres l'avis de Chopin), the
polonaise.] learned that it is the one in A major, No. 1 of Op. 40,
dedicated to Fontana.
I know of no more affecting composition among all the productions
of Chopin than the "Polonaise-Fantaisie" (in A flat major), Op. 61
(published in September, 1846). What an unspeakable, unfathomable
wretchedness reveals itself in these sounds! We gaze on a boundless
desolation. These lamentations and cries of despair rend our heart,
these strange, troubled wanderings from thought to thought fill us with
intensest pity. There are thoughts of sweet resignation, but the absence
of hope makes them perhaps the saddest of all. The martial strains, the
bold challenges, the shouts of triumph, which we heard so often in the
composer's polonaises, are silenced.
An elegiac sadness [says Liszt] predominates, intersected by
wild movements, melancholy smiles, unexpected starts, and
intervals of rest full of dread such as those experience who
have been surprised by an ambuscade, who are surrounded on all
sides, for whom there dawns no hope upon the vast horizon, and
to whose brain despair has gone like a deep draught of Cyprian
wine, which gives a more instinctive rapidity to every
gesture, a sharper point to every emotion, causing the mind to
arrive at a pitch of irritability bordering on madness.
Thus, although comprising thoughts that in beauty and grandeur equal--I
would almost say surpass-anything Chopin has written, the work stands,
on account of its pathological contents, outside the sphere of art.
Chopin's waltzes, the most popular of his compositions, are not poesie
intime like the greater number of his works. [FOOTNOTE: Op. 34, No.
2, and Op. 64, No. 2, however, have to be excepted, to some extent at
least.] In them the composer mixes with the world-looks without him
rather than within--and as a man of the world conceals his sorrows and
discontents under smiles and graceful manners. The bright brilliancy and
light pleasantness of the earlier years of his artistic career, which
are almost entirely lost in the later years, rise to the surface in the
waltzes. These waltzes are salon music of the most aristocratic kind.
Schumann makes Florestan say of one of them, and he might have said it
of all, that he would not play it unless one half of the female dancers
were countesses. But the aristocraticalness of Chopin's waltzes is
real, not conventional; their exquisite gracefulness and distinction are
natural, not affected. They are, indeed, dance-poems whose content is
the poetry of waltz-rhythm and movement, and the feelings these indicate
and call forth. In one of his most extravagantly-romantic critical
productions Schumann speaks, in connection with Chopin's Op. 18, "Grande
Valse brillante," the first-published (in June, 1834) of his waltzes, of
"Chopin's body and mind elevating waltz," and its "enveloping the dancer
deeper and deeper in its floods." This language is altogether out
of proportion with the thing spoken of; for Op. 18 differs from the
master's best waltzes in being, not a dance-poem, but simply a dance,
although it must be admitted that it is an exceedingly spirited one,
both as regards piquancy and dash. When, however, we come to Op. 34,
"Trois Valses brillantes" (published in December, 1838), Op. 42, "Valse"
(published in July, 1840), and Op. 64, "Trois Valses" (published in
September, 1847), the only other waltzes published by him, we find
ourselves face to face with true dance-poems. Let us tarry for a moment
over Op. 34. How brisk the introductory bars of the first (in A flat
major) of these three waltzes! And what a striking manifestation of the
spirit of that dance all that follows! We feel the wheeling motions;
and where, at the seventeenth bar of the second part, the quaver figure
enters, we think we see the flowing dresses sweeping round. Again what
vigour in the third part, and how coaxingly tender the fourth! And,
lastly, the brilliant conclusion--the quavers intertwined with triplets!
The second waltz (in A minor; Lento) is of quite another, of a more
retired and private, nature, an exception to the rule. The composer
evidently found pleasure in giving way to this delicious languor, in
indulging in these melancholy thoughts full of sweetest, tenderest
loving and longing. But here words will not avail. One day when Stephen
Heller--my informant--was at Schlesinger's music-shop in Paris, Chopin
entered. The latter, hearing Heller ask for one of his waltzes, inquired
of him which of them he liked best. "It is difficult to say which I like
best," replied Heller, "for I like them all; but if I were pressed for
an answer I would probably say the one in A minor." This gave Chopin
much pleasure. "I am glad you do," he said; "it is also my favourite."
And in an exuberance of amiability he invited Heller to lunch with
him, an invitation which was accepted, the two artists taking the meal
together at the Cafe Riche. The third waltz (in F major; Vivace) shows
a character very different from the preceding one. What a stretching of
muscles! What a whirling! Mark the giddy motions of the melody beginning
at bar seventeen! Of this waltz of Chopin's and the first it is more
especially true what Schumann said of all three: "Such flooding life
moves within these waltzes that they seem to have been improvised in the
ball-room." And the words which the same critic applies to Op. 34 may be
applied to all the waltzes Chopin published himself--"They must please;
they are of another stamp than the usual waltzes, and in the style
in which they can only be conceived by Chopin when he looks in a
grandly-artistic way into the dancing crowd, which he elevates by his
playing, thinking of other things than of what is being danced." In the
A flat major waltz which bears the opus number 42, the duple rhythm of
the melody along with the triple one of the accompaniment seems to me
indicative of the loving nestling and tender embracing of the dancing
couples. Then, after the smooth gyrations of the first period, come
those sweeping motions, free and graceful like those of birds, that
intervene again and again between the different portions of the waltz.
The D flat major part bubbles over with joyousness. In the sostenuto, on
the other hand, the composer becomes sentimental, protests, and heaves
sighs. But at the very height of his rising ardour he suddenly plunges
back into that wild, self-surrendering, heaven and earth-forgetting
joyousness--a stroke of genius as delightful as it is clever. If we do
not understand by the name of scherzo a fixed form, but rather a state
of mind, we may say that Chopin's waltzes are his scherzos and not the
pieces to which he has given that name. None of Chopin's waltzes is more
popular than the first of Op. 64 (in D flat major). And no wonder! The
life, flow, and oneness are unique; the charm of the multiform motions
is indescribable. That it has been and why it has been called valse au
petit chien need here only be recalled to the reader's recollection (see
Chapter XXVI., p. 142). No. 2 (in C sharp minor); different as it is,
is in its own way nearly as perfect as No. 1. Tender, love-sick longing
cannot be depicted more truthfully, sweetly, and entrancingly. The
excellent No. 3 (in A flat major), with the exquisite serpentining
melodic lines, which play so important a part in Chopin's waltzes, and
other beautiful details, is in a somewhat trying position beside the
other two waltzes. The non-publication by the composer of the waltzes
which have got into print, thanks to the zeal of his admirers and the
avidity of publishers, proves to me that he was a good judge of his own
works. Fontana included in his collection of posthumous compositions
five waltzes--"Deux Valses," Op. 69 (in F minor, of 1836; in B minor,
of 1829);. and "Trois Valses," Op. 70 (in G flat major, of 1835; in F
minor, of 1843; in D flat major, of 1830). There are further a waltz
in E minor and one in E major (of 1829). [FOOTNOTE: The "Deux Valses
melancoliques" (in F minor and B minor), ecrits sur l'album de Madame
la Comtesse P., 1844 (Cracow: J. Wildt), the English edition of which
(London: Edwin Ashdown) is entitled "Une soiree en 1844," "Deux Valses
melancoliques," are Op. 70. No. 2, and Op. 69, No. 2, of the works
of Chopin posthumously published by Fontana.] Some of these waltzes I
discussed already when speaking of the master's early compositions, to
which they belong. The last-mentioned waltz, which the reader will find
in Mikuli's edition (No. 15 of the waltzes), and also in Breitkopf and
Hartel's (No. 22 of the Posthumous works), is a very weak composition;
and of all the waltzes not published by the composer himself it may be
said that what is good in them has been expressed better in others.
We have of Chopin 27 studies: Op. 10, "Douze Etudes," published in July,
1833; Op. 25, "Douze Etudes," published in October, 1837; and "Trois
nouvelles Etudes," which, before being separately published, appeared in
1840 in the "Methode des Methodes pour le piano" by F. J. Fetis and I.
Moscheles. The dates of their publication, as in the case of many other
works, do not indicate the approximate dates of their composition.
Sowinski tells us, for instance, that Chopin brought the first book of
his studies with him to Paris in 1831. A Polish musician who visited the
French capital in 1834 heard Chopin play the studies contained in Op.
25. And about the last-mentioned opus we read in a critical notice by
Schumann, who had, no doubt, his information directly from Chopin: "The
studies which have now appeared [that is, those of Op. 25] were almost
all composed at the same time as the others [that is, those of Op. 10]
and only some of them, the greater masterliness of which is noticeable,
such as the first, in A flat major, and the splendid one in C minor
[that is, the twelfth] but lately." Regarding the Trois nouvelles Etudes
without OPUS number we have no similar testimony. But internal evidence
seems to show that these weakest of the master's studies--which,
however, are by no means uninteresting, and certainly very
characteristic--may be regarded more than Op. 25 as the outcome of a
gleaning. In two of Chopin's letters of the year 1829, we meet with
announcements of his having composed studies. On the 20th of October he
writes: "I have composed a study in my own manner"; and on the 14th of
November: "I have written some studies." From Karasowski learn that
the master composed the twelfth study of Op. 10 during his stay in
Stuttgart, being inspired by the capture of Warsaw by the Russians,
which took place on September 8, 1831. Whether looked at from the
aesthetical or technical point of view, Chopin's studies will be seen
to be second to those of no composer. Were it not wrong to speak of
anything as absolutely best, their excellences would induce one to call
them unequalled. A striking feature in them compared with Chopin's other
works is their healthy freshness and vigour. Even the slow, dreamy, and
elegiac ones have none of the faintness and sickliness to be found
in not a few of the composer's pieces, especially in several of the
nocturnes. The diversity of character exhibited by these studies is very
great. In some of them the aesthetical, in others the technical purpose
predominates; in a few the two are evenly balanced: in none is either
of them absent. They give a summary of Chopin's ways and means, of
his pianoforte language: chords in extended positions, wide-spread
arpeggios, chromatic progressions (simple, in thirds, and in octaves),
simultaneous combinations of contrasting rhythms, &c--nothing is
wanting. In playing them or hearing them played Chopin's words cannot
fail to recur to one's mind: "I have composed a study in my own manner."
Indeed, the composer's demands on the technique of the executant were
so novel at the time when the studies made their first public appearance
that one does not wonder at poor blind Rellstab being staggered, and
venting his feelings in the following uncouthly-jocular manner: "Those
who have distorted fingers may put them right by practising these
studies; but those who have not, should not play them, at least not
without having a surgeon at hand." In Op. 10 there are three studies
especially noteworthy for their musical beauty. The third (Lento ma
non troppo, in E major) and the sixth (Andante, in E flat minor) may be
reckoned among Chopin's loveliest compositions. They combine classical
chasteness of contour with the fragrance of romanticism. And the twelfth
study (Allegro con fuoco, in C minor), the one composed at Stuttgart
after the fall of Warsaw, how superbly grand! The composer seems to be
fuming with rage: the left hand rushes impetuously along and the
right hand strikes in with passionate ejaculations. With regard to the
above-named Lento ma non troppo (Op. 10, No. 3), Chopin said to Gutmann
that he had never in his life written another such beautiful melody
(CHANT); and on one occasion when Gutmann was studying it the master
lifted up his arms with his hands clasped and exclaimed: "O, my
fatherland!" ("O, me patrie!") I share with Schumann the opinion that
the total weight of Op. 10 amounts to more than that of Op. 25. Like him
I regard also Nos. 1 and 12 as the most important items of the latter
collection of studies: No. 1 (Allegro sostenuto, in A flat major)--a
tremulous mist below, a beautiful breezy melody floating above, and once
or twice a more opaque body becoming discernible within the vaporous
element--of which Schumann says that "after listening to the study
one feels as one does after a blissful vision, seen in a dream, which,
already half-awake, one would fain bring back": [FOOTNOTE: See the whole
quotation, Vol. I., p. 310.] and No. 12 (in C minor, Allegro molto con
fuoco), in which the emotions rise not less than the waves of arpeggios
(in both hands) which symbolise them. Stephen Heller's likings differ
from Schumann's. Discussing Chopin's Op. 25 in the Gazette musicale of
February 24, 1839, he says:--
What more do we require to pass one or several evenings in as
perfect a happiness as possible? As for me, I seek in this
collection of poesy (this is the only name appropriate to the
works of Chopin) some favourite pieces which I might fix in my
memory rather than others. Who could retain everything? For
this reason I have in my note book quite particularly marked
the numbers 4, 5, and 7 of the present poems. Of these twelve
much-loved studies (every one of which has a charm of its own)
these three numbers are those I prefer to all the rest.
In connection with the fourth, Heller points out that it reminds him
of the first bar of the Kyrie (rather the Requiem aeternam) of Mozart's
Requiem. And of the seventh study he remarks:--
It engenders the sweetest sadness, the most enviable torments;
and if in playing it one feels one's self insensibly drawn
towards mournful and melancholy ideas, it is a disposition of
the soul which I prefer to all others. Alas! how I love these
sombre and mysterious dreams, and Chopin is the god who
creates them.
This No. 7 (in C sharp minor, lento), a duet between a HE and a SHE,
of whom the former shows himself more talkative and emphatic than the
latter, is, indeed, very sweet, but perhaps, also somewhat tiresomely
monotonous, as such tete-a-tete naturally are to third parties. As a
contrast to No. 7, and in conclusion--leaving several aerial flights and
other charming conceptions undiscussed--I will yet mention the octave
study, No. 10, which is a real pandemonium; for a while holier sounds
intervene, but finally hell prevails.
The genesis of the Vingt-quatre Preludes, Op. 28, published in
September, 1839, I have tried to elucidate in the twenty-first chapter.
I need, therefore, not discuss the question here. The indefinite
character and form of the prelude, no doubt, determined the choice of
the title which, however, does not describe the contents of this OPUS.
Indeed, no ONE name could do so. This heterogeneous collection of pieces
reminds me of nothing so much as of an artist's portfolio filled with
drawings in all stages of advancement--finished and unfinished, complete
and incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed
indiscriminately together. The finished works were either too small or
too slight to be sent into the world separately, and the right mood for
developing, completing, and giving the last touch to the rest was gone,
and could not be found again. Schumann, after expressing his admiration
for these preludes, as well he might, adds: "This book contains morbid,
feverish, and repellent matter." I do not think that there is much that
could justly be called repellent; but the morbidity and feverishness of
a considerable portion must be admitted.
I described the preludes [writes Schumann] as remarkable. To
confess the truth, I expected they would be executed like the
studies, in the grandest style. Almost the reverse is the
case; they are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you
will, ruins, single eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together.
But in his fine nonpareil there stands in every piece:--
"Frederick Chopin wrote it." One recognises him by the violent
breathing during the rests. He is, and remains, the proudest
poet-mind of the time.
The almost infinite and infinitely-varied beauties collected in this
treasure-trove denominated Vingt-quatre Preludes could only be done
justice to by a minute analysis, for which, however, there is no room
here. I must content myself with a word or two about a few of them,
picked out at random. No. 4 is a little poem the exquisitely-sweet
languid pensiveness of which defies description. The composer seems to
be absorbed in the narrow sphere of his ego, from which the wide, noisy
world is for the time being shut out. In No. 6 we have, no doubt, the
one of which George Sand said that it occurred to Chopin one evening
while rain was falling, and that it "precipitates the soul into a
frightful depression." [FOOTNOTE: See George Sand's account and
description in Chapter XXI., p. 43.] How wonderfully the contending
rhythms of the accompaniment, and the fitful, jerky course of the
melody, depict in No. 8 a state of anxiety and agitation! The premature
conclusion of that bright vivacious thing No. 11 fills one with regret.
Of the beautifully-melodious No. 13, the piu lento and the peculiar
closing bars are especially noteworthy. No. 14 invites a comparison with
the finale of the B flat minor Sonata. In the middle section (in C sharp
minor) of the following number (in D flat major), one of the larger
pieces, rises before one's mind the cloistered court of the monastery
of Valdemosa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and
carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last
resting-place. It reminds one of the words of George Sand, that the
monastery was to Chopin full of terrors and phantoms. This C sharp minor
portion of No. 15 affects one like an oppressive dream; the re-entrance
of the opening D flat major, which dispels the dreadful nightmare, comes
upon one with the smiling freshness of dear, familiar nature--only
after these horrors of the imagination can its serene beauty be fully
appreciated. No. 17, another developed piece, strikes one as akin to
Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. I must not omit to mention No. 21,
one of the finest of the collection, with its calming cantilena and
palpitating quaver figure. Besides the set of twenty-four preludes, Op.
28, Chopin published a single one, Op. 45, which appeared in December,
1841. This composition deserves its name better than almost anyone of
the twenty-four; still, I would rather call it an improvisata. It seems
unpremeditated, a heedless outpouring when sitting at the piano in a
lonely, dreary hour, perhaps in the twilight. The quaver figure rises
aspiringly, and the sustained parts swell out proudly. The piquant
cadenza forestalls in the progression of diminished chords favourite
effects of some of our more modern composers. The modulation from
C sharp minor to D major and back again (after the cadenza) is very
striking and equally beautiful.
It can hardly be said, although Liszt seemed to be of a different
opinion, that Chopin created a new type by his preludes--they are too
unlike each other in form and character. On the other hand, he has done
so by his four scherzos--Op. 20 (in B minor), published in February,
1835; Op. 31 (B flat minor), published in December, 1837; Op. 39 (C
sharp minor), published in October, 1840; and Op. 54 (in E major),
published in December, 1843. "How is 'gravity' to clothe itself, if
'jest' goes about in dark veils?" exclaims Schumann. No doubt, scherzo,
if we consider the original meaning of the word, is a misnomer. But are
not Beethoven's scherzos, too, misnamed? To a certain extent they are.
But if Beethoven's scherzos often lack frolicsomeness, they are endowed
with humour, whereas Chopin's have neither the one nor the other. Were
it not that we attach, especially since Mendelssohn's time, the idea
of lightness and light-heartedness to the word capriccio, this would
certainly be the more descriptive name for the things Chopin entitled
SCHERZO. But what is the use of carping at a name? Let us rather look
at the things, and thus employ our time better. Did ever composer begin
like Chopin in his Premier Scherzo, Op. 20? Is this not like a shriek
of despair? and what follows, bewildered efforts of a soul shut in by a
wall of circumstances through which it strives in vain to break? at
last sinking down with fatigue, dreaming a dream of idyllic beauty?
but beginning the struggle again as soon as its strength is recruited?
Schumann compared the second SCHERZO, Op. 31, to a poem of Byron's, "so
tender, so bold, as full of love as of scorn." Indeed, scorn--an
element which does not belong to what is generally understood by either
frolicsomeness or humour--plays an important part in Chopin's scherzos.
The very beginning of Op. 31 offers an example.
[FOOTNOTE: "It must be a question [the doubled triplet figure A, B
flat, d flat, in the first bar], taught Chopin, and for him it was never
question enough, never piano enough, never vaulted (tombe) enough, as he
said, never important enough. It must be a charnel-house, he said on one
occasion." (W. von Lenz, in Vol. XXVI. of the Berliner Musikzeitung.)]
And then, we do not meet with a phrase of a more cheerful nature
which is not clouded by sadness. Weber--I mention his name
intentionally--would, for instance, in the D flat major portion have
concluded the melodic phrase in diatonic progression and left the
harmony pure. Now see what Chopin does. The con anima has this mark of
melancholy still more distinctly impressed upon it. After the repetition
of the capricious, impulsively-passionate first section (in B flat minor
and D flat major) follows the delicious second, the expression of which
is as indescribable as that of Leonardo da Vinci's "La Gioconda." It is
a pondering and wondering full of longing. In the deep, tender yearning,
with the urging undercurrent of feeling, of the C sharp minor portion,
the vague dreaming of the preceding portion of the section grows into
wakefulness, and the fitful imagination is concentrated on one object.
Without continuing the emotional or entering on a formal analysis of
this scherzo, I venture to say that it is a very important composition,
richer and more varied in emotional incidents than the other works of
Chopin which bear the same name. More than to any one of the master's
scherzos, the name capriccio would be suitable to his third "Scherzo,"
Op. 39, with its capricious starts and changes, its rudderless drifting.
Peevishness, a fierce scornfulness, and a fretful agitation, may be
heard in these sounds, of jest and humour there is nothing perceptible.
At any rate, the curled lip, as it were, contradicts the jesting words,
and the careless exterior does not altogether conceal the seething rage
within. But with the meno mosso (D flat major) come pleasanter thoughts.
The hymn-like snatches of sustained melody with the intervening airy
interludes are very lovely. These are the principal features, to
describe all the whims is of course impossible. You may call this work
an extravaganza, and point out its grotesqueness; but you must admit
that only by this erratic character of the form and these spasmodic
movements, could be expressed the peculiar restiveness, fitfulness,
and waywardness of thought and feeling that characterise Chopin's
individuality. To these unclassical qualities--for classical art is
above all plastic and self-possessed--combined as they are with a high
degree of refinement and delicacy, his compositions owe much of their
peculiar charm. The absence of scorn distinguishes the fourth "Scherzo,"
Op. 54, from the other three; but, like them, although less closely
wrapped, it wears dark veils. The tripping fairy steps which we find in
bars 17-20 and in other places are a new feature in Chopin. As to the
comparative value of the work, it seems to me inferior to its brothers.
The first section is too fragmentary to give altogether satisfaction.
One is hustled from one phrase to another, and they are as unlike
each other as can well be imagined. The beauty of many of the details,
however, must be acknowledged; indeed, the harmonic finesses, the
melodic cunning, and rhythmical piquancy, are too potent to be
ignored. The resting-place and redeeming part of this scherzo is the
sweetly-melodious second section, with its long, smooth, gently and
beautifully-curved lines. Also the return to the repetition of the first
section is very interesting. This scherzo has the appearance of being
laboured, painfully hammered and welded together. But as the poet is
born, not made-which "being born" is not brought about without travail,
nor makes the less desirable a careful bringing-up--so also does a
work of art owe what is best in it to a propitious concurrence of
circumstances in the natal hour.
The contents of Chopin's impromptus are of a more pleasing nature than
those of the scherzos. Like the latter they are wayward, but theirs is
a charming, lovable waywardness. The composer's three first impromptus
were published during his lifetime: Op. 29 in December, 1837; Op. 36
in May, 1840; and Op. 51 in February, 1843. The fourth impromptu
("Fantaisie-Impromptu"), Op. 66, is a posthumous publication. What name
has been more misapplied than that of impromptu? Again and again we meet
with works thus christened which bear upon them the distinct marks of
painful effort and anxious filing, which maybe said to smell of the
mid-night lamp, and to be dripping with the hard-working artificer's
sweat. How Chopin produced the "Impromptu," Op. 29 (in A flat major), I
do not know. Although an admired improviser, the process of composition
was to him neither easy nor quick. But be this as it may, this impromptu
has quite the air of a spontaneous, unconstrained outpouring. The first
section with its triplets bubbles forth and sparkles like a fountain on
which the sunbeams that steal through the interstices of the overhanging
foliage are playing. The F minor section is sung out clearly and
heartily, with graces beautiful as nature's. The song over, our
attention is again attracted by the harmonious murmuring and the
changing lights of the water. The "Deuxieme Impromptu," Op. 36 (in F
sharp major), is, like the first, a true impromptu, but while the first
is a fresh and lusty welling forth of joy amidst the pleasures of a
present reality, this is a dreamy lingering over thoughts and scenes of
the imagination that appear and vanish like dissolving views. One would
wish to have a programme of this piece. Without such assistance the D
major section of the impromptu is insignificant. We want to see, or at
least to know, who the persons that walk in the procession which the
music accompanies are. Some bars in the second half of this section
remind one of Schumann's "Fantasia" in C. After this section a curious
transition leads in again the theme, which first appeared in F sharp
major, in F major, and with a triplet accompaniment. When F sharp major
is once more reached, the theme is still further varied (melodically),
till at last the wondrous, fairy-like phrase from the first section
brings the piece to a conclusion. This impromptu is inferior to the
first, having less pith in it; but its tender sweetness and euphony
cannot be denied. The idle forgetfulness of the more serious duties and
the deep miseries of life in the enjoyment of a dolce far niente recalls
Schubert and the "Fantasia," Op. 78, and other works of his. In the
"Troisieme Impromptu" (in G flat major), Op. 51, the rhythmical motion
and the melodical form of the two parts that serpentine their lines in
opposite directions remind one of the first impromptu (in A flat), but
the characters of these pieces are otherwise very unlike. The earlier
work is distinguished by a brisk freshness; the later one by a feverish
restlessness and faint plaintiveness. After the irresolute flutter of
the relaxing and enervating chromatic progressions and successions of
thirds and sixths, the greater steadiness of the middle section, more
especially the subdued strength and passionate eloquence at the D
flat major, has a good effect. But here, too, the languid, lamenting
chromatic passing and auxiliary notes are not wanting, and the anxious,
breathless accompaniment does not make things more cheerful. In short,
the piece is very fine in its way, but the unrelieved, or at least very
insufficiently relieved, morbidezza is anything but healthy. We may take
note of the plain chord progressions which intervene in the first
and last sections of the impromptu; such progressions are of frequent
occurrence in Chopin's works. Is there not something pleonastic in the
title "Fantaisie-Impromptu?" Whether the reader may think so or not, he
will agree with me that the fourth impromptu (in C sharp minor), Op. 66,
is the most valuable of the compositions published by Fontana; indeed,
it has become one of the favourites of the pianoforte-playing world.
Spontaneity of emotional expression and effective treatment of the
pianoforte distinguish the Fantaisie-Impromptu. In the first section
we have the restless, surging, gushing semiquavers, carrying along with
them a passionate, urging melody, and the simultaneous waving
triplet accompaniment; in the second section, where the motion of
the accompaniment is on the whole preserved, the sonorous, expressive
cantilena in D flat major; the third section repeats the first, which
it supplements with a coda containing a reminiscence of the cantilena
of the second section, which calms the agitation of the semiquavers.
According to Fontana, Chopin composed this piece about 1834. Why did he
keep it in his portfolio? I suspect he missed in it, more especially in
the middle section, that degree of distinction and perfection of detail
which alone satisfied his fastidious taste.
Among Chopin's nocturnes some of his most popular works are to be found.
Nay, the most widely-prevailing idea of his character as a man and
musician seems to have been derived from them. But the idea thus formed
is an erroneous one; these dulcet, effeminate compositions illustrate
only one side of the master's character, and by no means the best
or most interesting. Notwithstanding such precious pearls as the two
Nocturnes, Op. 37, and a few others, Chopin shows himself greater both
as a man and a musician in every other class of pieces he has originated
and cultivated, more especially in his polonaises, ballades, and
studies. That, however, there is much to be admired in the class now
under consideration will be seen from the following brief comments on
the eighteen nocturnes (leaving out of account the one of the year
1828 published by Fontana as Op. 72, No. 1, and already discussed in an
earlier chapter) which Chopin gave to the world--Op. 9, Trois Nocturnes,
in January, 1833; Op. 15, Trois Nocturnes, in January, 1834; Op. 27,
Deux Nocturnes, in May, 1836; Op. 32, Deux Nocturnes, December, 1837;
Op. 37, Deux Nocturnes, in May, 1840; Op. 48, Deux Nocturnes, in
November, 1841; Op. 55, Deux Nocturnes, in August, 1844; and Op. 62,
Deux Nocturnes, in September, 1846. Rellstab remarked in 1833 of the
Trois Nocturnes, Op. 9, that Chopin, without borrowing directly from
Field, copied the latter's melody and manner of accompaniment. There
is some truth in this; only the word "copy" is not the correct one. The
younger received from the elder artist the first impulse to write in
this form, and naturally adopted also something of his manner. On the
whole, the similitude is rather generic than specific. Even the
contents of Op. 9 give Chopin a just claim to originality; and the Field
reminiscences which are noticeable in Nos. 1 and 2 (most strikingly in
the commencement of No. 2) of the first set of nocturnes will be looked
for in vain in the subsequent ones.
Where Field smiles [said the above-mentioned critic], Chopin
makes a grinning grimace; where Field sighs, Chopin groans;
where Field shrugs his shoulders, Chopin twists his whole
body; where Field puts some seasoning into the food, Chopin
empties a handful of Cayenne pepper...In short, if one holds
Field's charming romances before a distorting concave mirror,
so that every delicate expression becomes a coarse one, one
gets Chopin's work...We implore Mr. Chopin to return to
nature.
Now, what remains of this statement after subtracting prejudices and
narrow-mindedness? Nothing but that Chopin is more varied and passionate
than Field, and has developed to the utmost some of the means of
expression used by the latter. No. 1 (in B flat minor) of Op. 9 is
pervaded by a voluptuous dreaminess and cloying sweetness: it suggests
twilight, the stillness of night, and thoughts engendered thereby. The
tone of sentiment and the phraseology of No. 2 (in E fiat major) have
been made so common by fashionable salon composers that one cannot
help suspecting that it is not quite a natural tone--not a tone of true
feeling, but of sentimentality. The vulgar do not imitate the true
and noble, but the false and ostentatious. In this piece one breathes
drawing-room air, and ostentation of sentiment and affectation of speech
are native to that place. What, however, the imitations often lack is
present in every tone and motion of the original: eloquence, grace, and
genuine refinement.
[FOOTNOTE: Gutmann played the return of the principal subject in a way
very different from that in which it is printed, with a great deal of
ornamentation, and said that Chopin played it always in that way. Also
the cadence at the end of the nocturne (Op. 9, No. 2) had a different
form. But the composer very frequently altered the ornamentions of his
pieces or excogitated alternative readings.]
The third is, like the preceding nocturne, exquisite salon music. Little
is said, but that little very prettily. Although the atmosphere is
close, impregnated with musk and other perfumes, there is here no
affectation. The concluding cadenza, that twirling line, reads plainly
"Frederic Chopin." Op. 15 shows a higher degree of independence and
poetic power than Op. 9. The third (in G minor) of these nocturnes is
the finest of the three. The words languido e rubato describe well the
wavering pensiveness of the first portion of the nocturne, which finds
its expression in the indecision of the melodic progressions, harmonies,
and modulations. The second section is marked religiose, and may be
characterised as a trustful prayer, conducive to calm and comfort. The
Nocturnes in F major and F sharp major, Op. 15, are more passionate than
the one we just now considered, at least in the middle sections. The
serene, tender Andante in F major, always sweet, and here and there with
touches of delicate playfulness, is interrupted by thoughts of impetuous
defiance, which give way to sobs and sighs, start up again with equal
violence, and at last die away into the first sweet, tender serenity.
The contrast between the languid dreaming and the fiery upstarting
is striking and effective, and the practical musician, as well as the
student of aesthetics, will do well to examine by what means these
various effects are produced. In the second nocturne, F sharp major,
the brightness and warmth of the world without have penetrated into the
world within. The fioriture flit about as lightly as gossamer threads.
The sweetly-sad longing of the first section becomes more disquieting
in the doppio movimento, but the beneficial influence of the sun never
quite loses its power, and after a little there is a relapse into the
calmer mood, with a close like a hazy distance on a summer day. The
second (in D flat major) of Op. 27 was, no doubt, conceived in a more
auspicious moment than the first (in C sharp minor), of which the
extravagantly wide-meshed netting of the accompaniment is the most
noteworthy feature. [FOOTNOTE: In most of the pieces where, as in this
one, the left-hand accompaniment consists of an undulating figure,
Chopin wished it to be played very soft and subdued. This is what
Gutmann said.] As to the one in D flat, nothing can equal the finish and
delicacy of execution, the flow of gentle feeling, lightly rippled by
melancholy, and spreading out here and there in smooth expansiveness.
But all this sweetness enervates; there is poison in it. We should not
drink in these thirds, sixths, &c., without taking an antidote of Bach
or Beethoven. Both the nocturnes of Op. 32 are pretty specimens of
Chopin's style of writing in the tender, calm, and dreamy moods. Of the
two (in B major and A flat major) I prefer the quiet, pellucid first
one. It is very simple, ornaments being very sparingly introduced.
The quietness and simplicity are, however, at last disturbed by an
interrupted cadence, sombre sounds as of a kettle-drum, and a passionate
recitative with intervening abrupt chords. The second nocturne has less
originality and pith. Deux Nocturnes (in G minor and G major), Op. 37,
are two of the finest, I am inclined to say, the two finest, of this
class of Chopin's pieces; but they are of contrasting natures. The first
and last sections of the one in G minor are plaintive and longing,
and have a wailing accompaniment; the chord progressions of the middle
section glide along hymn-like. [FOOTNOTE: Gutmann played this section
quicker than the rest, and said that Chopin forgot to mark the change
of movement.] Were it possible to praise one part more emphatically than
another without committing an injustice, I would speak of the melodic
exquisiteness of the first motive. But already I see other parts rise
reproachfully before my repentant conscience. A beautiful sensuousness
distinguishes the nocturne in G major: it is luscious, soft, rounded,
and not without a certain degree of languor. The successions of
thirds and, sixths, the semitone progressions, the rocking motion,
the modulations (note especially those of the first section and the
transition from that to the second), all tend to express the essential
character. The second section in C major reappears in E major, after a
repetition of part of the first section; a few bars of the latter and a
reminiscence of the former conclude the nocturne. But let us not tarry
too long in the treacherous atmosphere of this Capua--it bewitches and
unmans. The two nocturnes (in C minor and F sharp minor) which form
Op. 48 are not of the number of those that occupy foremost places among
their companions. Still, they need not be despised. The melody of the C
minor portion of the first is very expressive, and the second has in
the C sharp minor portion the peculiar Chopinesque flebile dolcezza.
In playing these nocturnes there occurred to me a remark of Schumann's,
made when he reviewed some nocturnes by Count Wielhorski. He said, on
that occasion, that the quicker middle movements which Chopin
frequently introduces into his nocturnes are often weaker than his first
conceptions, meaning the first portions of the nocturnes. Now, although
the middle parts in the present instances are, on the contrary, slower
movements, yet the judgment holds good; at least, with respect to the
first nocturne, the middle part of which has nothing to recommend it but
the effective use of a full and sonorous instrumentation, if I may use
this word in speaking of one instrument. The middle part of the second
(f, D flat, Molto piu lento), however, is much finer; in it we meet
again, as we did in some other nocturnes, with soothing, simple chord
progressions. When Gutmann studied the C sharp minor nocturne with
Chopin, the master told him that the middle section (the Molto piu
lento, in D flat major) should be played as a recitative: "A tyrant
commands" (the first two chords), he said, "and the other asks for
mercy." Regarding the first nocturne (in F minor) of Op. 55, we will
note only the flebile dolcezza of the first and the last section, and
the inferiority of the more impassioned middle section. The second
nocturne (in E flat major) differs in form from the other nocturnes
in this, that it has no contrasting second section, the melody flowing
onward from begining to end in a uniform manner. The monotony of the
unrelieved sentimentality does not fail to make itself felt. One is
seized by an ever-increasing longing to get out of this oppressive
atmosphere, to feel the fresh breezes and warm sunshine, to see smiling
faces and the many-coloured dress of Nature, to hear the rustling of
leaves, the murmuring of streams, and voices which have not yet lost
the clear, sonorous ring that joy in the present and hope in the future
impart. The two nocturnes, Op. 62, seem to owe their existence rather to
the sweet habit of activity than to inspiration. At any rate, the tender
flutings, trills, roulades, syncopations, &c., of the first nocturne
(in B major), and the sentimental declarations and confused, monotonous
agitation of the second (in E major), do not interest me sufficiently to
induce me to discuss their merits and demerits.
One day Tausig, the great pianoforte-virtuoso, promised W. von Lenz to
play him Chopin's "Barcarolle," Op. 60 (published in September, 1846),
adding, "That is a performance which must not be undertaken before more
than two persons. I shall play you my own self (meinen Menschen). I
love the piece, but take it up only rarely." Lenz, who did not know
the barcarolle, thereupon went to a music-shop and read it through
attentively. The piece, however, did not please him at all; it seemed
to him a long movement in the nocturne-style, a Babel of figuration on
a lightly-laid foundation. But he found that he had made a mistake,
and, after hearing it played by Tausig, confessed that the virtuoso had
infused into the "nine pages of enervating music, of one and the same
long-breathed rhythm (12/8), so much interest, so much motion, and so
much action," that he regretted the long piece was not longer. And now
let us hear what remarks Tausig made with regard to the barcarolle:--
There are two persons concerned in the affair; it is a love-
scene in a discrete gondola; let us say this mise en scene is
the symbol of a lovers' meeting generally. This is expressed
in the thirds and sixths; the dualism of two notes (persons)
is maintained throughout; all is two-voiced, two-souled. In
this modulation here in C sharp major (superscribed dolce
sfogato), there are kiss and embrace! This is evident! When,
after three bars of introduction, the theme, lightly rocking
in the bass solo, enters in the fourth, this theme is
nevertheless made use of throughout the whole fabric only as
an accompaniment, and on this the cantilena in two parts is
laid; we have thus a continuous, tender dialogue.
Both Lenz's first and last impressions were correct. The form of the
barcarolle is that of most of Chopin's nocturnes--consisting of three
sections, of which the third is a modified repetition of the first--only
everything is on a larger scale, and more worked out. Unfortunately,
the contrast of the middle section is not great enough to prevent the
length, in spite of the excellence of the contents, from being felt.
Thus we must also subscribe to the "nine pages of enervating music."
Still, the barcarolle is one of the most important of Chopin's
compositions in the nocturne-style. It has distinctive features which
decidedly justify and make valuable its existence. Local colouring is
not wanting. The first section reminded me of Schumann's saying that
Chopin in his melodies leans sometimes over Germany towards Italy. If
properly told, this love-laden romance cannot fail to produce effect.
Of the pieces that bear the name "Berceuse," Chopin's Op. 57 (published
in June, 1845) is the finest, or at least one of the finest and happiest
conceptions. It rests on the harmonic basis of tonic and dominant. The
triad of the tonic and the chord of the dominant seventh divide
every bar between them in a brotherly manner. Only in the twelfth and
thirteenth bars from the end (the whole piece contains seventy) the
triad of the subdominant comes forward, and gives a little breathing
time to the triad of the tonic, the chord of the dominant having already
dropped off. Well, on this basis Chopin builds, or let us rather say, on
this rocking harmonic fluid he sets afloat a charming melody, which is
soon joined by a self-willed second part. Afterwards, this melody is
dissolved into all kinds of fioriture, colorature, and other trickeries,
and they are of such fineness, subtlety, loveliness, and gracefulness,
that one is reminded of Queen Mab, who comes--
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman.
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces of the smallest spider's web;
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat.
[FOOTNOTE: Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I., iv., 59-68]
But who does not know the delightful description of the fairy in her
hazel-nut coach, and the amusing story of her frolics and pranks?
By-and-by the nimble motions of the colorature become slower, and
finally glide into the original form of the melody, which, however,
already after the third bar comes to a stand-still, is resumed for a
short phrase, then expires, after a long-drawn chord of the dominant
seventh, on the chord of the tonic, and all is rest and silence.
Alexandre Dumas fils speaks in the "Affaire Clemenceau" of the
"Berceuse" as--
this muted music [musique en sourdine] which penetrated little
by little the atmosphere and enveloped us in one and the same
sensation, comparable perhaps to that which follows a Turkish
bath, when all the senses are confounded in a general
apaisement, when the body, harmoniously broken, has no longer
any other wish than rest, and when, the soul, seeing all the
doors of its prison open, goes wherever it lists, but always
towards the Blue, into the dream-land.
None of Chopin's compositions surpass in masterliness of form and beauty
and poetry of contents his ballades. In them he attains, I think, the
acme of his power as an artist. It is much to be regretted that they
are only four in number--Op. 23, published in June, 1836; Op. 38, in
September, 1840; Op. 47, in November, 1841; and Op 52, in December,
1843. When Schumann reviewed the second ballade he wrote: "Chopin has
already written a piece under the same title, one of his wildest and
most individual compositions." Schumann relates also that the poems of
Mickiewicz incited Chopin to write his ballades, which information he
got from the Polish composer himself. He adds significantly: "A poet,
again, might easily write words to them [Chopin's ballades]. They move
the innermost depth of the soul." Indeed, the "Ballade" (in G minor),
Op. 23, is all over quivering with intensest feeling, full of sighs,
sobs, groans, and passionate ebullitions. The seven introductory bars
(Lento) begin firm, ponderous, and loud, but gradually become looser,
lighter, and softer, terminating with a dissonant chord, which some
editors have thought fit to correct. [FOOTNOTE: For the correctness of
the suspected note we have the testimony of pupils--Gutmann, Mikuli,
&c.] Yet this dissonant E flat may be said to be the emotional key-note
of the whole poem. It is a questioning thought that, like a sudden pain,
shoots through mind and body. And now the story-teller begins his simple
but pathetic tale, heaving every now and then a sigh. After the ritenuto
the matter becomes more affecting; the sighs and groans, yet for a while
kept under restraint, grow louder with the increasing agitation, till at
last the whole being is moved to its very depths. On the uproar of the
passions follows a delicious calm that descends like a heavenly vision
(meno mosso, E flat major). But this does not last, and before long
there comes, in the train of the first theme, an outburst of passion
with mighty upheavings and fearful lulls that presage new eruptions.
Thus the ballade rises and falls on the sea of passion till a mad,
reckless rush (presto con fuoco) brings it to a conclusion. Schumann
tells us a rather interesting fact in his notice of the "Deuxieme
Ballade" (in F major), Op. 38. He heard Chopin play it in Leipzig before
its publication, and at that time the passionate middle parts did
not exist, and the piece closed in F major, now it closes in A minor.
Schumann's opinion of this ballade is, that as a work of art it stands
below the first, yet is not less fantastic and geistreich. If two such
wholly dissimilar things can be compared and weighed in this fashion,
Schumann is very likely right; but I rather think they cannot. The
second ballade possesses beauties in no way inferior to those of the
first. What can be finer than the simple strains of the opening section!
They sound as if they had been drawn from the people's storehouse of
song. The entrance of the presto surprises, and seems out of keeping
with what precedes; but what we hear after the return of the tempo
primo--the development of those simple strains, or rather the
cogitations on them--justifies the presence of the presto. The second
appearance of the latter leads to an urging, restless coda in A minor,
which closes in the same key and pianissimo with a few bars of the
simple, serene, now veiled, first strain. The "Troisieme Ballade" (in A
flat major), Op. 47, does not equal its sisters in emotional intensity,
at any rate, not in emotional tumultuousness. On this occasion the
composer shows himself in a fundamentally caressing mood. But the fine
gradations, the iridescence of feeling, mocks at verbal definition.
Insinuation and persuasion cannot be more irresistible, grace and
affection more seductive. Over everything in melody, harmony, and
rhythm, there is suffused a most exquisite elegance. A quiver of
excitement runs through the whole piece. The syncopations, reversions
of accent, silences on accented parts of the bar (sighs and suspended
respiration, felicitously expressed), which occur very frequently in
this ballade, give much charm and piquancy to it. As an example, I may
mention the bewitching subject in F major of the second section. The
appearances of this subject in different keys and in a new guise are
also very effective. Indeed, one cannot but be struck with wonder at the
ease, refinement, and success with which Chopin handles here the form,
while in almost every work in the larger forms we find him floundering
lamentably. It would be foolish and presumptuous to pronounce this or
that one of the ballades the finest; but one may safely say that
the fourth (in F minor), Op. 52, is fully worthy of her sisters. The
emotional key-note of the piece is longing sadness, and this key-note is
well preserved throughout; there are no long or distant excursions
from it. The variations of the principal subject are more emphatic
restatements of it: the first is more impressive than the original, the
second more eloquently beseeching than either of them. I resist, though
with difficulty, the temptation to point out in detail the interesting
course of the composer's thoughts, and proceed at once to the coda
which, palpitating and swelling with passion, concludes the fourth and,
alas! last ballade.
We have now passed in review not only all the compositions published
by Chopin himself, but also a number of those published without his
authorisation. The publications not brought about by the master himself
were without exception indiscretions; most of them, no doubt, well
meant, but nevertheless regrettable. Whatever Fontana says to the
contrary in the preface to his collection of Chopin's posthumous works,
[FOOTNOTE: The Chopin compositions published by Fontana (in 1855)
comprise the Op. 66-74; the reader will see them enumerated in detail
in the list of cur composer's works at the end of this volume.] the
composer unequivocally expressed the wish that his manuscripts should
not be published. Indeed, no one acquainted with the artistic character
of the master, and the nature of the works published by himself,
could for a moment imagine that the latter would at any time or in any
circumstances have given his consent to the publication of insignificant
and imperfect compositions such as most of those presented to the world
by his ill-advised friend are. Still, besides the "Fantaisie-Impromptu,"
which one would not like to have lost, and one or two mazurkas, which
cannot but be prized, though perhaps less for their artistic than their
human interest, Fontana's collection contains an item which, if it adds
little value to Chopin's musical legacy, attracts at least the attention
of the lover and student of his music-namely, Op. 74, Seventeen Polish
Songs, composed in the years 1824-1844, the only vocal compositions of
this pianist-composer that have got into print. The words of most of
these songs are by his friend Stephen Witwicki; others are by Adam
Mickiewicz, Bogdan Zaleski, and Sigismond Krasinski, poets with all of
whom he was personally acquainted. As to the musical settings, they are
very unequal: a considerable number of them decidedly commonplace--Nos.
1, 5, 8, and also 4 and 12 may be instanced; several, and these
belong to the better ones, exceedingly simple and in the style of
folk-songs--No. 2 consists of a phrase of four bars (accompanied by a
pedal bass and the tonic and dominant harmonies) repeated alternately in
G minor and B flat major; and a few more developed in form and of a more
artistic character. In the symphonies (the preludes, interludes, &c.) of
the songs, we meet now and then with reminiscences from his instrumental
pieces. In one or two cases one notices also pretty tone-painting--for
instance, No. 10, "Horseman before the Battle," and No. 15, "The return
Home" (storm). Among the most noteworthy are: the already-described No.
2; the sweetly-melancholy No. 3; the artistically more dignified No. 9;
the popular No. 13; the weird No. 15; and the impressive, but, by
its terrible monotony, also oppressive No. 17 ("Poland's Dirge"). The
mazurka movement and the augmented fourth degree of the scale (Nos. 2
and 4) present themselves, apart from the emotional contents, as the
most strikingly-national features of these songs. Karasowski states that
many songs sung by the people in Poland are attributed to Chopin, chief
among them one entitled "The third of May."
I must not conclude this chapter without saying something about the
editions of Chopin's works. The original French, German, and English
editions all leave much to be desired in the way of correctness. To
begin with, the composer's manuscripts were very negligently prepared,
and of the German and the English, and even of the French edition, he
did not always see the proofs; and, whether he did or not, he was not
likely to be a good proof-reader, which presupposes a special talent,
or rather disposition. Indeed, that much in the preparation of the
manuscripts for the press and the correction of the proofs was left to
his friends and pupils may be gathered both from his letters and from
other sources. "The first comprehension of the piece," says Schumann,
in speaking of the German edition of the Tarantella, "is, unfortunately,
rendered very difficult by the misprints with which it is really
swarming." Those who assisted Chopin in the work incident to
publication--more especially by copying his autographs--were Fontana,
Wolff, Gutmann, and in later years Mikuli and Tellefsen.
Here I may fitly insert a letter written by Chopin to Maurice
Schlesinger on July 22, 1843 (not 1836, as La Mara supposes), which has
some bearing on the subject under discussion. The Impromptu spoken of is
the third, Op. 51, in G flat major:--
Dear friend,--In the Impromptu which you have issued with the
paper [Gazette musicals] of July 9, there is a confusion in
the paging, which makes my composition unintelligible. Though
I cannot at all pretend to taking the pains which our friend
Moscheles bestows on his works, I consider myself, however,
with regard to your subscribers, in duty bound to ask you on
this occasion to insert in your next number an erratum:--
Page 3--read page 5.
Page 5--read page 3.
If you are too busy or too lazy to write to me, answer me
through the erratum in the paper, and that shall signify to me
that you, Madame Schlesinger, and your children are all well.
--Yours very truly, July 22 [1843].
F. CHOPIN.
The first complete edition of Chopin's works was, according to
Karasowski, [FOOTNOTE: More recently the same firm brought out the works
of Chopin edited by Jean Kleczynski.] that published in 1864, with
the authorisation of the composer's family, by Gebethner and Wolff, of
Warsaw. But the most important editions--namely, critical editions--are
Tellefsen's (I mention them in chronological order), Klindworth's,
Scholtz's, and Breitkopf and Hartel's. Simon Richault, of Paris, the
publisher of the first-named edition, which appeared in 1860, says in
the preface to it that Tellefsen had in his possession a collection
of the works of Chopin corrected by the composer's own hand. As to the
violoncello part of the Polonaise, it was printed as Franchomme always
played it with the composer. The edition was also to be free from all
marks of expression that were not Chopin's own. Notwithstanding all
this, Tellefsen's edition left much to be desired.
My friend and fellow-pupil, Thomas Tellefsen [writes Mikuli],
who, till Chopin's last breath, had the happiness to be in
uninterrupted intercourse with him, was quite in a position to
bring out correctly his master's works in the complete edition
undertaken by him for Richault. Unfortunately, a serious
illness and his death interrupted this labour, so that
numerous misprints remained uncorrected.
[FOOTNOTE: Mikuli's spelling of the name is Telefsen, whereas
it is Tellefsen on the Norwegian's edition of Chopin's works,
in all the dictionaries that mention him, and in the
contemporary newspaper notices and advertisements I have come
across.]
[FOOTNOTE: I do not know how to reconcile this last remark
with the publisher's statement that the edition appeared in
1860 (it was entered at Stationers' Hall on September 20,
1860), and Tellefsen's death at Paris in October, 1874.]
Klindworth's edition, the first volume of which appeared in October,
1873, and the last in March, 1876, at Moscow (P. Jurgenson), in six
volumes, is described on the title-page as "Complete works of Fr.
Chopin critically revised after the original French, German, and
Polish editions, carefully corrected and minutely fingered for pupils."
[FOOTNOTE: This edition has been reprinted by Augener & Co., of London.]
The work done by Klindworth is one of the greatest merit, and has
received the highest commendations of such men as Liszt and Hans von
Bulow. Objections that can be made to it are, that the fingering,
although excellent, is not always Chopinesque; and that the alteration
of the rhythmically-indefinite small notes of the original into
rhythmically-definite ones, although facilitating the execution for
learners, counteracts the composer's intention. Mikuli holds that an
appeal to Chopin's manuscripts is of no use as they are full of slips
of the pen--wrong notes and values, wrong accidentals and clefs, wrong
slurs and 8va markings, and omissions of dots and chord-intervals. The
original French, German, and English editions he regards likewise as
unreliable. But of them he gives the preference to the French editions,
as the composer oftener saw proofs of them. On the other hand, the
German editions, which, he thinks, came out later than the Paris ones,
contain subsequently-made changes and improvements. [FOOTNOTE: Take
note, however, in connection with this remark, of Chopin's letter of
August 30, 1845, on pp. 119-120 of this volume.] Sometimes, no doubt,
the Paris edition preceded the German one, but not as a rule. The reader
will remember from the letters that Chopin was always anxious that his
works should appear simultaneously in all countries, which, of course,
was not always practicable. Mikuli based his edition (Leipzig: Fr.
Kistner), the preface to which is dated "Lemberg, September, 1879,"
on his own copies, mostly of Parisian editions, copies which Chopin
corrected in the course of his lessons; and on other copies, with
numerous corrections from the hand of the master, which were given him
by the Countess Delphine Potocka. He had also the assistance of Chopin's
pupils the Princess Marcelline Czartoryska and Madame Friederike
Streicher (nee Muller), and also of Madame Dubois and Madame Rubio,
and of the composer's friend Ferdinand Hiller. Mikuli's edition, like
Klindworth's, is fingered, and, as the title-page informs us, "for the
most part according to the author's markings." Hermann Scholtz, who
edited Chopin's works for Peters, of Leipzig, says in the preface (dated
"Dresden, December, 1879") that his critical apparatus consisted of the
original French, German, and English editions, various autographs
(the Preludes, Op. 28; the Scherzo, Op. 54; the Impromptu, Op. 51;
the Nocturnes, Op. 48; the Mazurka, Op. 7, No. 3, and a sketch of the
Mazurka, Op. 30, No. 4), and three volumes of Chopin's compositions
with corrections, additions, and marks of expression by his own
hand, belonging to the master's pupil Madame von Heygendorf (nee von
Konneritz). In addition to these advantages he enjoyed the advice of
M. Mathias, another pupil of Chopin. The critically-revised edition
published (March, 1878--January, 1880) by Breitkopf and Hartel was
edited by Woldemar Bargiel, Johannes Brahms, Auguste Franchomme, Franz
Liszt (the Preludes), Carl Reinecke, and Ernst Rudorff. The prospectus
sets forth that the revision was based on manuscript material
(autographs and proofs with the composer's corrections and additions)
and the original French and German editions; and that Madame Schumann,
M. Franchomme, and friends and pupils of the composer had been helpful
with their counsel. Breitkopf and Hartel's edition is the most complete,
containing besides all the pianoforte solo and ensemble works published
by the composer himself, a greater number of posthumous works (including
the songs) than is to be found in any other edition. Klindworth's is
a purely pianoforte edition, and excludes the trio, the pieces with
violoncello, and the songs. The above enumeration, however, does
not exhaust the existing Chopin editions, which, indeed, are almost
innumerable, as in the last decade almost every publisher, at least,
almost every German publisher, has issued one--among others there are
Schuberth's, edited by Alfred Richter, Kahnt's, edited by S. Jadassohn,
and Steingraber's, edited by Ed. Mertke. [FOOTNOTE: Among earlier
editions I may mention the incomplete OEuvres completes, forming Vols.
21-24 of the Bibliotheque des Pianistes, published by Schonenberger
(Paris, 1860).] Voluminous as the material for a critical edition of
Chopin's works is, its inconclusiveness, which constantly necessitates
appeals to the individual taste and judgment of the editor, precludes
the possibility of an edition that will satisfy all in all cases.
Chopin's pupils, who reject the editing of their master's works by
outsiders, do not accept even the labours of those from among their
midst. These reasons have determined me not to criticise, but simply to
describe, the most notable editions. In speaking of the disputes about
the correctness of the various editions, I cannot help remembering a
remark of Mendelssohn's, of which Wenzel told me. "Mendelssohn said on
one occasion in his naive manner: 'In Chopin's music one really does not
know sometimes whether a thing is right or wrong.'"
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHOPIN'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.--MUSICAL ASPECT OF THE BRITISH METROPOLIS
IN 1848.--CULTIVATION OF CHOPIN'S MUSIC IN ENGLAND.--CHOPIN AT EVENING
PARTIES, &C.--LETTERS GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS DOINGS AND FEELINGS.--TWO
MATINEES MUSICALES GIVEN BY CHOPIN; CRITICISMS ON THEM.--ANOTHER
LETTER.--KINDNESS SHOWN HIM.--CHOPIN STARTS FOR SCOTLAND.--A LETTER
WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH AND CALDER HOUSE.--HIS SCOTCH FRIENDS AND
ACQUAINTANCES.--HIS STAY AT DR. LYSCHINSKl'S.--PLAYS AT A CONCERT
IN MANCHESTER.--RETURNS TO SCOTLAND, AND GIVES A MATINEE MUSICALE
IN GLASGOW AND IN EDINBURGH.--MORE LETTERS FROM SCOTLAND.--BACK TO
LONDON.--OTHER LETTERS.--PLAYS AT A "GRAND POLISH BALL AND CONCERT"
IN THE GUILDHALL.--LAST LETTER FROM LONDON, AND JOURNEY AND RETURN TO
PARIS.
CHOPIN arrived in London, according to Mr. A. J. Hipkins, on April 21,
1848.
[FOOTNOTE: The indebtedness of two writers on Chopin to Mr. Hipkins has
already been adverted to in the Preface. But his vivid recollection
of Chopin's visit to London in this year, and of the qualities of his
playing, has been found of great value also in other published notices
dealing with this period. The present writer has to thank Mr. Hipkins,
apart from second-hand obligations, for various suggestions, answers to
inquiries, and reading the proof-sheets of this chapter.]
He took up his quarters first at 10, Bentinck Street, but soon removed
to the house indicated in the following letter, written by him to
Franchomme on May 1, 1848:--
Dearest friend,--Here I am, just settled. I have at last a
room--fine and large--where I shall be able to breathe and
play, and the sun visits me to-day for the first time. I feel
less suffocated this morning, but all last week I was good for
nothing. How are you and your wife and the dear children? You
begin at last to become more tranquil, [FOOTNOTE: This, I
think, refers to some loss Franchomme had sustained in his
family] do you not? I have some tiresome visits; my letters of
introduction are not yet delivered. I trifle away my time, and
VOILA. I love you, and once more VOILA.
Yours with all my heart.
My kindest regards to Madame Franchomme.
48, Dover Street.
Write to me, I will write to you also.
Were Chopin now to make his appearance in London, what a stir there
would be in musical society! In 1848 Billet, Osborne, Kalkbrenner,
Halle, and especially Thalberg, who came about the same time across
the channel, caused more curiosity. By the way, England was just then
heroically enduring an artistic invasion such as had never been seen
before; not only from France, but also from Germany and other musical
countries arrived day after day musicians who had found that their
occupation was gone on the Continent, where people could think of
nothing but politics and revolutions. To enumerate all the celebrities
then congregated in the British Metropolis would be beyond my power and
the scope of this publication, but I must at least mention that among
them was no less eminent a creative genius than Berlioz, no less
brilliant a vocal star than Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Of other
high-priests and high-priestesses of the art we shall hear in the
sequel. But although Chopin did not set the Thames on fire, his visit
was not altogether ignored by the press. Especially the Athenaeum (H.
F. Chorley) and the Musical World (J. W. Davison) honoured themselves
by the notice they took of the artist. The former journal not only
announced (on April 29) his arrival, but also some weeks previously (on
April 8) his prospective advent, saying: "M. Chopin's visit is an event
for which we most heartily thank the French Republic."
In those days, and for a long time after, the appreciation and
cultivation of Chopin's music was in England confined to a select few.
Mr. Hipkins told me that he "had to struggle for years to gain adherents
to Chopin's music, while enduring the good-humoured banter of Sterndale
Bennett and J. W. Davison." The latter--the author of An Essay on the
Works of Frederic Chopin (London, 1843), the first publication of some
length on the subject, and a Preface to, or, to be more precise,
a Memoir prefixed to Boosey & Co.'s The Mazurkas and Valses of F.
Chopin--seems to have in later years changed his early good opinion of
the Polish master.
[FOOTNOTE: Two suggestions have been made to me in explanation of this
change of opinion: it may have been due to the fear that the rising
glory of Chopin might dim that of Mendelssohn; or Davison may have taken
umbrage at Chopin's conduct in an affair relative to Mendelssohn. I
shall not discuss the probability of these suggestions, but will say
a few words with regard to the last-mentioned matter. My source of
information is a Paris letter in the Musical World of December 4, 1847.
After the death of Mendelssohn some foreign musicians living in Paris
proposed to send a letter of condolence to Mrs. Mendelssohn. One part
of the letter ran thus: "May it be permitted to us, German artists, far
from our country, to offer," &c. The signatures to it were: Rosenhain,
Kalkbrenner, Panofka, Heller, Halle, Pixis, and Wolff. Chopin when
applied to for his signature wrote: "La lettre venant des Allemands,
comment voulez-vous que je m'arroge le droit de la signer?" One would
think that no reasonable being could take exception to Chopin's conduct
in this affair, and yet the writer in the Musical World comments most
venomously on it.]
The battle fought in the pages of the Musical World in 1841 illustrates
the then state of matters in England. Hostilities commenced on October
28 with a criticism of the Mazurkas, Op. 41. Of its unparalleled nature
the reader shall judge himself:--
Monsieur Frederic Chopin has, by some means or other which we
cannot divine, obtained an enormous reputation, a reputation
but too often refused to composers of ten times his genius. M.
Chopin is by no means a putter down of commonplaces; but he
is, what by many would be esteemed worse, a dealer in the most
absurd and hyperbolical extravagances. It is a striking satire
on the capability for thought possessed by the musical
profession, that so very crude and limited a writer should be
esteemed, as he is very generally, a profound classical
musician. M. Chopin does not want ideas, but they never extend
beyond eight or sixteen bars at the utmost, and then he is
invariably in nubibus... the works of the composer give us
invariably the idea of an enthusiastic school-boy, whose parts
are by no means on a par with his enthusiasm, who WILL be
original whether he CAN or not. There is a clumsiness about
his harmonies in the midst of their affected strangeness, a
sickliness about his melodies despite their evidently FORCED
unlikeness to familiar phrases, an utter ignorance of design
everywhere apparent in his lengthened works...The entire works
of Chopin present a motley surface of ranting hyperbole and
excruciating cacophony. When he is not THUS singular, he is no
better than Strauss or any other waltz compounder... such as
admire Chopin, and they are legion, will admire these
Mazurkas, which are supereminently Chopin-ical; that do NOT
we.
Wessel and Stapleton, the publishers, protested against this shameful
criticism, defending Chopin and adducing the opinions of numerous
musicians in support of their own. But the valorous editor "ventures to
assure the distinguished critics and the publishers that there will
be no difficulty in pointing out a hundred palpable faults, and an
infinitude of meretricious uglinesses, such as, to real taste and
judgment, are intolerable." Three more letters appeared in the following
numbers--two for (Amateur and Professor) and one against (Inquirer)
Chopin; the editor continuing to insist with as much violence as
stupidity that he was right. It is pleasant to turn from this senseless
opposition to the friends and admirers of the master. Of them we learn
something in Davison's Essay on the Works of F. Chopin, from which I
must quote a few passages:--
This Concerto [the E minor] has been made known to the
amateurs of music in England by the artist-like performance of
Messrs. W. H. Holmes, F. B. Jewson, H. B. Richards, R.
Barnett, and other distinguished members of the Royal Academy,
where it is a stock piece...The Concerto [in F minor] has been
made widely known of late by the clever performance of that
true little prodigy Demoiselle Sophie Bohrer....These charming
bagatelles [the Mazurkas] have been made widely known in
England through the instrumentality of Mr. Moscheles, Mr.
Cipriani Potter, Mr. Kiallmark, Madame de Belleville-Oury, Mr.
Henry Field (of Bath), Mr. Werner, and other eminent pianists,
who enthusiastically admire and universally recommend them to
their pupils...To hear one of those eloquent streams of pure
loveliness [the nocturnes] delivered by such pianists as
Edouard Pirkhert, William Holmes, or Henry Field, a pleasure
we frequently enjoyed, is the very transcendency of delight.
[FOOTNOTE: Information about the above-named pianists may be
found in the musical biographical dictionaries, with three
exceptions-namely, Kiallmark, Werner, and Pirkhert. George
Frederick Kiallmark (b. November 7, 1804; d. December 13,
1887), a son of the violinist and composer George Kiallmark,
was for many years a leading professor in London. He is said
to have had a thorough appreciation and understanding of
Chopin's genius, and even in his last years played much of
that master's music. He took especial delight in playing
Chopin's Nocturnes, no Sunday ever passed without his family
hearing him play two or three of them.--Louis Werner (whose
real name was Levi) was the son of a wealthy and esteemed
Jewish family living at Clapham. He studied music in London
under Moscheles, and, though not an eminent pianist, was a
good teacher. His amiability assured him a warm welcome in
society.--Eduard Pirkhert died at Vienna, aged 63, on February
28, 1881. To Mr. Ernst Pauer, who is never appealed to in
vain, I am indebted for the following data as well as for the
subject--matter of my notice on Werner: "Eduard Pirkhert, born
at Graz in 1817, was a pupil of Anton Halm and Carl Czerny. He
was a shy and enormously diligent artist, who, however, on
account of his nervousness, played, like Henselt, rarely in
public. His execution was extraordinary and his tone
beautiful. In 1855 he became professor at the Vienna
Conservatorium." Mr. Pauer never heard him play Chopin.]
After this historical excursus let us take up again the record of our
hero's doings and sufferings in London.
Chopin seems to have gone to a great many parties of various kinds, but
he could not always be prevailed upon to give the company a taste of his
artistic quality. Brinley Richards saw him at an evening party at the
house of the politician Milner Gibson, where he did not play, although
he was asked to do so. According to Mr. Hueffer, [FOOTNOTE: Chopin in
Fortnightly Review of September, 1877, reprinted in Musical Studies
(Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1880).] he attended, likewise without
playing, an evening party (May 6) at the house of the historian Grote.
Sometimes ill-health prevented him from fulfilling his engagements;
this, for instance, was the case on the occasion of a dinner which
Macready is said to have given in his honour, and to which Thackeray,
Mrs. Procter, Berlioz, and Julius Benedict were invited. On the other
hand, Chopin was heard at the Countess of Blessington's (Gore House,
Kensington) and the Duchess of Sutherland's (Stafford House). On the
latter occasion Benedict played with him a duet of Mozart's. More than
thirty years after, Sir Julius had still a clear recollection of "the
great pains Chopin insisted should be taken in rehearsing it, to make
the rendering of it at the concert as perfect as possible." John
Ella heard Chopin play at Benedict's. Of another of Chopin's private
performances in the spring of 1848 we read in the Supplement du
Dictionnaire de la Conversation, where Fiorentino writes:
We were at most ten or twelve in a homely, comfortable little
salon, equally propitious to conversation and contemplation.
Chopin took the place of Madame Viardot at the piano, and
plunged us into ineffable raptures. I do not know what he
played to us; I do not know how long our ecstasy lasted: we
were no longer on earth; he had transported us into unknown
regions, into a sphere of flame and azure, where the soul,
freed from all corporeal bonds, floats towards the infinite.
This was, alas! the song of the swan.
The sequel will show that the concluding sentence is no more than a
flourish of the pen. Whether Chopin played at Court, as he says in a
letter to Gutmann he expected to do, I have not ascertained. Nor have
I been able to get any information about a dinner which, Karasowski
relates, some forty countrymen of Chopin's got up in his honour when
they heard of his arrival in London. According to this authority the
pianist-composer rose when the proceedings were drawing to an end, and
many speeches extolling him as a musician and patriot had been made,
and spoke, if not these words, to this effect: "My dear countrymen! The
proofs of your attachment and love which you have just given me have
truly moved me. I wish to thank you, but lack the talent of expressing
my feelings in words; I invite you therefore to accompany me to my
lodgings and to receive there my thanks at the piano." The proposal
was received with enthusiasm, and Chopin played to his delighted and
insatiable auditors till two o'clock in the morning. What a crush, these
forty or more people in Chopin's lodgings! However, that is no business
of mine.
[FOOTNOTE: After reading the above, Mr. Hipkins remarked: "I fancy this
dinner resembled the dinner which will go down to posterity as given by
the Hungarians of London to Liszt in [1886], which was really a private
dinner given by Mrs. Bretherton to fifteen people, of whom her children
and mine were four. NO Hungarians."]
The documents--letters and newspaper advertisements and notices--bearing
on this period of Chopin's life are so plentiful that they tell the
story without the help of many additions and explanatory notes. This is
satisfactory, for one grain of fact is more precious than a bushel of
guesses and hearsays.
Chopin to Gutmann; London, 48, Dover Street, Piccadilly,
Saturday, May 6, 1848:--
Dear friend,--Here I am at last, settled in this whirlpool of
London. It is only a few days since I began to breathe; for it
is only a few days since the sun showed itself. I have seen M.
D'Orsay, and notwithstanding all the delay of my letter he
received me very well. Be so good as to thank the duchess for
me and him. I have not yet made all my calls, for many persons
to whom I have letters of introduction are not yet here. Erard
was charming; he sent me a piano. I have a Broadwood and a
Pleyel, which makes three, and yet I do not find time to play
them. I have many visitors, and my days pass like lightning--I
have not even had a moment to write to Pleyel. Let me know how
you are getting on. In what state of mind are you? How are
your people? With my people things are not going well. I am
much vexed about this. In spite of that I must think of making
a public appearance; a proposal has been made to me to play at
the Philharmonic, [FOOTNOTE: "Chopin, we are told," says the
Musical World of May 27, 1848, "was invited to play at the
Philharmonic, but declined."] but I would rather not. I shall
apparently finish off, after playing at Court before the Queen
[chez la reine], by giving a matinee, limited to a number of
persons, at a private residence [hotel particulier]. I wish
that this would terminate thus. But these projects are only
projects in the air. Write to me a great deal about yourself.
--Yours ever, my old Gut.,
CHOPIN.
P.S.--I heard the other evening Mdlle. Lind in La Sonnambula.
[FOOTNOTE: Jenny Lind made her first appearance at Her
Majesty's Theatre in the season 1848, on May 4, as Amina, in
La Sonnambula. The Queen was present on that occasion. Pauline
Garcia made her first appearance, likewise as Amina, at Covent
Garden Theatre, on May 9.] It was very fine; I have made her
acquaintance. Madame Viardot also came to see me. She will
make her debuts at the rival theatre [Covent Garden], likewise
in La Sonnambula. All the pianists of Paris are here. Prudent
played his Concerto at the Philharmonic with little success,
for it is necessary to play classical music there. Thalberg is
engaged for twelve concerts at the theatre where Lind is [Her
Majesty's, Haymarket]. Halle is going to play Mendelssohn at
the rival theatre.
Chopin to his friend Grzymala; Thursday, May 11, 1848:--
I have just come from the Italian Opera, where Jenny Lind
appeared to-day, for the first time, as Sonnambula, and the
Queen showed herself for the first time to the people after a
long retirement. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin must have begun this letter
on the 4th of May, and dated it later on; for on the 11th of
May Jenny Lind sang in La Figlia del Reggimento, and the
presence of the Queen at the performance is not mentioned in
the newspaper accounts of it. See preceding foot-note.] Both
were, of course, of much interest to me; more especially,
however, Wellington, who, like an old, faithful dog in a
cottage, sat in the box below his crowned mistress. I have
also made Jenny Lind's personal acquaintance: when, a few days
afterwards, I paid her a visit, she received me in the most
amiable manner, and sent me an excellent "stall" for the opera
performance. I was capitally seated and heard excellently.
This Swede is indeed an original from top to toe! She does not
show herself in the ordinary light, but in the magic rays of
an aurora borealis. Her singing is infallibly pure and sure;
but what I admired most was her piano, which has an
indescribable charm. "Your
FREDERICK.
Of Chopin's visit Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt had to the last years of her
life a most pleasing and vivid recollection. She sang to him Polskas,
[FOOTNOTE: Polskas are dances of Polish origin, popular in Sweden, whose
introduction dates from the time of the union of the crowns of Sweden
and Poland in 1587.] which delighted him greatly. The way Madame
Goldschmidt spoke of Chopin showed unmistakably that he made the best
possible impression upon her, not only as an artist, but also as a
man--she was sure of his goodness, and that he could not but have been
right in the Sand affair, I mean as regards the rupture. She visited him
when she went in the following year (1849) to Paris.
In his letter to Gutmann, Chopin speaks of his intention to give a
matinee at a private house. And he more than realised it; for he not
only gave one, but two--the first at the house of Mrs. Sartoris (nee
Adelaide Kemble) and the second at the house of Lord Falmouth. Here are
two advertisements which appeared in the Times.
June 15, 1848:--
Monsieur Chopin will give a Matinee musicale, at No. 99, Eaton
Place, on Friday, June 23, to commence at 3 o'clock. A limited
number of tickets, one guinea each, with full particulars, at
Cramer, Beale & Co.'s, 201, Regent Street.
July 3 and 4, 1848:--
Monsieur Chopin begs to announce that his second Matinee
musicale will take place on Friday next, July 7, at the
residence of the Earl of Falmouth, No. 2, St. James's Square.
To commence at half-past 3. Tickets, limited in number, and
full particulars at Cramer, Beale & Co.'s, 201, Regent Street.
The Musical World (July 8, 1848) says about these
performances:--
M. Chopin has lately given two performances of his own
pianoforte music at the residence of Mrs. Sartoris (late Miss
Adelaide Kemble), which seem to have given much pleasure to
his audiences, among whom Mdlle. Lind, who was present at the
first, seems to be the most enthusiastic. We were not present
at either, and, therefore, have nothing to say on the subject.
[FOOTNOTE: Of course, the above-quoted advertisements prove
the reporter to be wrong in this particular; there was only
one at the house of Mrs. Sartoris.]
From an account of the first matinee in the Athenaeum we learn that
Chopin played nocturnes, etudes, mazurkas, two waltzes, and the
Berceuse, but none of his more developed works, such as sonatas,
concertos, scherzos, and ballades. The critic tries to analyse
the master's style of execution--a "mode" in which "delicacy,
picturesqueness, elegance, and humour are blended so as to produce
that rare thing, a new delight"--pointing out his peculiar fingering,
treatment of scale and shake, tempo rubato, &c. But although the critic
speaks no less appreciatively of the playing than of the compositions,
the tenor of the notice of the second matinee (July 15, 1848) shows that
the former left nevertheless something to be desired. "Monsieur Chopin
played better at his second than at his first matinee--not with more
delicacy (that could hardly be), but with more force and brio." Along
with other compositions of his, Chopin played on this occasion his
Scherzo in B flat and his Etude in C sharp minor. Another attraction of
the matinee was the singing of Madame Viardot-Garcia, "who, besides her
inimitable airs with Mdlle. de Mendi, and her queerly-piquant Mazurkas,
gave the Cenerentola rondo, graced with great brilliancy; and a song by
Beethoven, 'Ich denke dein.'"
[FOOTNOTE: No doubt, those Mazurkas by Chopin which, adapting to them
Spanish words, she had arranged for voice and piano. Hiller wrote
mostenthusiastically of these arrangements and her performance of them.]
Mr. Salaman said, at a meeting of the London Musical Association (April
5, 1880), in the course of a discussion on the subject of Chopin, that
he was present at the matinee at the house of Mrs. Sartoris, and would
never forget the concert-giver's playing, especially of the waltz in D
flat. "I remember every bar, how he played it, and the appearance of
his long, attenuated fingers during the time he was playing. [FOOTNOTE:
Their thinness may have made them appear long, but they were not really
so. See Appendix III.] He seemed quite exhausted." Mr. Salaman was
particularly struck by the delicacy and refinement of Chopin's touch,
and the utmost exquisiteness of expression.
To Chopin, as the reader will see in the letter addressed to Franchomme,
and dated August 6th and 11th, these semi-public performances had only
the one redeeming point--that they procured him much-needed money,
otherwise he regarded them as a great annoyance. And this is not to be
wondered at, if we consider the physical weakness under which he was
then labouring. When Chopin went before these matinees to Broadwood's
to try the pianoforte on which he was to play, he had each time to be
carried up the flight of stairs which led to the piano-room. Chopin had
also to be carried upstairs when he came to a concert which his pupil
Lindsay Sloper gave in this year in the Hanover Square Rooms. But
nothing brings his miserable condition so vividly before us as his own
letters.
Chopin to Grzymala, London, July 18, 1848:--
My best thanks for your kind lines and the accompanying letter
from my people. Heaven be thanked, they are all well; but why
are they concerned about me? I cannot become sadder than I am,
a real joy I have not felt for a long time. Indeed, I feel
nothing at all, I only vegetate, waiting patiently for my end.
Next week I go to Scotland to Lord Torphichen, the brother-in-
law of my Scottish friends, the Misses Stirling, who are
already with him (in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh). He wrote
to me and invited me heartily, as did also Lady Murray, an
influential lady of high rank there, who takes an
extraordinary interest in music, not to mention the many
invitations I have received from various parts of England. But
I cannot wander about from one place to another like a
strolling musician; such a vagabond' life is hateful to me,
and not conducive to my health. I intend to remain in Scotland
till the 29th of August, on which day I go as far as
Manchester, where I am engaged to play in public. I shall play
there twice without orchestra, and receive for this 60
[pounds]. The Alboni comes also, but all this does not
interest me--I just seat myself at the piano, and begin to
play. I shall stay during this time with rich manufacturers,
with whom also Neukomm [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski has Narkomm,
which is, of course, either a misreading or a misprint,
probably the former, as it is to be found in all editions of
his book.] has stayed. What I shall do next I don't know yet.
If only someone could foretell whether I shall not fall sick
here during the winter..."Your
FREDERICK.
Had Chopin, when he left Paris, really in view the possibility of
settling in London? There was at the time a rumour of this being the
case. The Athenaeum (April 8, 1848), in the note already adverted to,
said:--"M. Chopin is expected, if not already here--it is even added to
remain in England." But if he embraced the idea at first, he soon began
to loosen his grasp of it, and, before long, abandoned it altogether.
In his then state of health existence would have been a burden anywhere,
but it was a greater one away from his accustomed surroundings.
Moreover, English life to be enjoyable requires a robustness of
constitution, sentimental and intellectual as well as physical, which
the delicately-organised artist, even in his best time, could not boast
of. If London and the rest of Britain was not to the mind of Chopin, it
was not for want of good-will among the people. Chopin's letters show
distinctly that kindness was showered upon him from all sides. And these
letters do not by any means contain a complete roll of those who were
serviceable to him. The name of Frederick Beale, the publisher, for
instance, is not to be found there, and yet he is said, with what truth
I do not know, to have attached himself to the tone-poet.
[FOOTNOTE: Mr. Hipkins heard Chopin play at Broadwood's to Beale the
Waltzes in D flat major and C sharp minor (Nos. 1 and 2 of Op. 64),
subsequently published by Cramer, Beale and Co. But why did the
publisher not bring out the whole opus (three waltzes, not two), which
had already been in print in France and Germany for nine or ten months?
Was his attachment to the composer weaker than his attachment to his
cash-box?]
The attentions of the piano-makers, on the other hand, are duly
remembered. In connection with them I must not forget to record the
fact that Mr. Henry Fowler Broadwood had a concert grand, the first in a
complete iron frame, expressly made for Chopin, who, unfortunately, did
not live to play upon it.
[FOOTNOTE: For particulars about the Broadwood pianos used by Chopin in
England and Scotland (and he used there no others at his public concerts
and principal private entertainments), see the List of John Broadwood
& Sons' Exhibits at the International Inventions Exhibition (1885),
a pamphlet full of interesting information concerning the history and
construction of the pianoforte. It is from the pen of A. J. Hipkins.]
A name one misses with surprise in Chopin's letters is that of his
Norwegian pupil Tellefsen, who came over from Paris to London, and seems
to have devoted himself to his master. [FOOTNOTE: Tellefsen, says
Mr. Hipkins, was nearly always with Chopin.] Of his ever-watchful
ministering friend Miss Stirling and her relations we shall hear more in
the following letters.
Chopin started for Scotland early in August, 1848, for on the 6th August
he writes to Franchomme that he had left London a few days before.
Chopin to Franchomme; Edinburgh, August 6 [1848]. Calder
House, August 11:--
Very dear friend,--I do not know what to say. The best, it
seems to me, is not even to attempt to console you for the
loss of your father. I know your grief--time itself assuages
little such sorrows. I left London a few days ago. I made the
journey to Edinburgh (407 miles) in twelve hours. After having
taken a day's rest in Edinburgh, I went to Calder House,
twelve miles from Edinburgh, the mansion of Lord Torphichen,
brother-in-law of Madame Erskine, where I expect to remain
till the end of the month and to rest after my great doings in
London. I gave two matinees, which it appears have given
pleasure, but which, for all that, did not the less bore me.
Without them, however, I do not know how I could have passed
three months in this dear London, with large apartments
(absolutely necessary), carriage, and valet. My health is not
altogether bad, but I become more feeble, and the air here
does not yet agree with me. Miss Stirling was going to write
to you from London, and asks me to beg you to excuse her. The
fact is that these ladies had many preparations to make before
their journey to Scotland, where they intend to remain some
months. There is in Edinburgh a pupil of yours, Mr. Drechsler,
I believe.
[FOOTNOTE: Louis Drechsler (son of the Dessau violoncellist
Carl Drechsler and uncle of the Edinburgh violoncellist and
conductor Carl Drechsler Hamilton), who came to Edinburgh in
August, 1841, and died there on June 25,1860. From an obituary
notice in a local paper I gather that he studied under
Franchomme in 1845.]
He came to see me in London; he appeared to me a fine young
fellow, and he loves you much. He plays duets [fait de la
musique] with a great lady of this country, Lady Murray, one
of my sexagenarian pupils in London, to whom I have also
promised a visit in her beautiful mansion. [FOOTNOTE: The wife
of Lord (Sir John Archibald) Murray, I think. At any rate,
this lady was very musical and in the habit of playing with
Louis Drechsler.] But I do not know how I shall do it, for I
have promised to be in Manchester on the 28th of August to
play at a concert for 60 pounds. Neukomm is there, and,
provided that he does not improvise on the same day [et pourvu
qu'il ne m'improvise pas le meme jour], I reckon on earning my
60 francs [he means, of course, "60 pounds"].
[FOOTNOTE: Thinking that this remark had some hidden meaning,
I applied to Franchomme for an explanation; but he wrote to me
as follows: "Chopin trouvait que Neukomm etait un musicien
ennuyeux, et il lui etait desagreable de penser que Neukomm
pourrait improviser dans le concert dans lequel il devrait
jouer."]
After that I don't know what will become of me. I should like
very much if they were to give me a pension for life for
having composed nothing, not even an air a la Osborne or
Sowinski (both of them excellent friends), the one an
Irishman, the other a compatriot of mine (I am prouder of them
than of the rejected representative Antoine de Kontski--
Frenchman of the north and animal of the south). [FOOTNOTE:
"Frenchmen of the north" used to be a common appellation of
the Poles.]
After these parentheses, I will tell you truly that I know
[FOOTNOTE: Here probably "not" ought to be added.] what will
become of me in autumn. At any rate, if you get no news from
me do not complain of me, for I think very often of writing to
you. If you see Mdlle. de Rozieres or Grzymala, one or the
other of them will have heard something--if not from me, from
some friends. The park here is very beautiful, the lord of the
manor very excellent, and I am as well as I am permitted to
be. Not one proper musical idea. I am out of my groove; I am
like, for instance, an ass at a masked ball, a chanterelle
[first, i.e., highest string] of a violin on a double bass--
astonished, amazed, lulled to sleep as if I were hearing a
trait [a run or a phrase] of Bodiot [FOOTNOTE: That is,
Charles Nicolas Baudiot (1773-1849), the violoncellist, at one
time professor at the Conservatoire. He published a school and
many compositions for his instrument.] (before the 24th of
February), [FOOTNOTE: The revolution of February 24, 1848.] or
a stroke of the bow of M. Cap [FOOTNOTE: This gentleman was an
amateur player of the violoncello and other stringed
instruments.] (after the June days). [FOOTNOTE: The
insurrection of the Red Republicans on June 23-26, 1848.] I
hope they are still flourishing, for I cannot do without them
in writing. But another real question is, that I hope you have
no friends to deplore in all these terrible affairs. And the
health of Madame Franchomme and of the little children? Write
me a line, and address it to London, care of Mr. Broadwood,
33, Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square. I have here a
perfect (material) tranquillity, and pretty Scotch airs. I
wish I were able to compose a little, were it only to please
these good ladies--Madame Erskine and Mdlle. Stirling. I have
a Broadwood piano in my room, the Pleyel of Miss Stirling in
my salon. I lack neither paper nor pens. I hope that you also
will compose something, and may God grant that I hear it soon
newly born. I have friends in London who advise me to pass
there the winter.--But I shall listen only to my I do not know
what [mon je ne sais quoi]; or, rather, I shall listen to the
last comer--this comes often to the same thing as weighing
well. Adieu dear, dear friend! My most sincere wishes to
Madame Franchomme for her children. I hope that Rene amuses
himself with his bass, that Cecile works well, and that their
little sister always reads her books. Remember me to Madame
Lasserve, I pray you, and correct my orthography as well as my
French.
The following words are written along the margin:--
The people here are ugly, but, it would seem, good. As a
compensation there are charming, apparently mischievous,
cattle, perfect milk, butter, eggs, and tout ce qui s'en suit,
cheese and chickens.
To save the reader from becoming confused by allusions in Chopin's
letters to names of unknown persons and places, I will now say a few
words about the composer's Scotch friends. The Stirlings of Keir,
generally regarded as the principal family of the name, are said to be
descended from Walter de Striveline, Strivelyn, or Strivelyng, Lucas of
Strivelyng (1370-1449) being the first possessor of Keyr. The family was
for about two centuries engaged in the East India and West India trade.
Archibald Stirling, the father of the late baronet, went, as William
Fraser relates in The Stirlings of Keir, like former younger sons,
to Jamaica, where he was a planter for nearly twenty-five years. He
succeeded his brother James in 1831, greatly improved the mansion,
and died in 1847. When Chopin visited Keir it was in the possession of
William Stirling, who, in 1865, became Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (his
mother was a daughter of Sir John Maxwell), and is well-known by his
literary works--Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), The Cloister Life
of the Emperor Charles V. (1852), Velasquez (1855), &c. He was the uncle
of Jane Stirling and Mrs. Erskine, daughters (the former the youngest
daughter) of John Stirling, of Kippendavie and Kippenross, and friends
of Chopin. W. Hanna, the editor of the Letters of Thomas Erskine of
Linlathen, says that Jane Stirling was a cousin and particular friend
of Thomas Erskine. The latter used in later life to regard her and the
Duchess de Broglie as the most remarkable women he had ever met:--
In her later years she lived much in Paris, and counted among
her friends there Ary Scheffer. In his "Christus Consolator,"
this eminent artist has presented in one of the figures his
ideal of female beauty, and was struck on being first
introduced to Miss Stirling to find in her the almost exact
embodiment of that ideal. She was introduced afterwards in
many of his pictures.
In a letter addressed to Mrs. Schwabe, and dated February 14, 1859, we
read about her:--
She was ill for eight weeks, and suffered a great deal...I
know you will feel this deeply, for you could appreciate the
purity and beauty of that stream of love which flowed through
her whole life. I don't think that I ever knew anyone who
seemed more entirely to have given up self, and devoted her
whole being to the good of others. I remember her birth like
yesterday, and I never saw anything in her but what was
lovable from the beginning to the end of her course.
Lindsay Sloper, who lived in Paris from 1841 to 1846, told me that Miss
Stirling, who was likewise staying there, took for some time lessons
from him. As she wished to become a pupil of Chopin, he spoke to his
master about her. Chopin, Lindsay Sloper said, was pleased with her
playing, and soon began to like her.
[FOOTNOTE: To the above I must append a cautionary foot-note. In his
account to me Lindsay Sloper made two mistakes which prove that his
memory was not one of the most trustworthy, and suggest even the
possibility that his Miss Stirling was a different person from Chopin's
friend. His mistakes were these: he called Mrs. Erskine, who was with
Miss Stirling in Paris, her aunt instead of her sister; and thought
that Miss Stirling was about eighteen years old when he taught her. The
information I shall give farther on seems to show that she was older
rather than younger than Chopin; indeed, Mr Hipkins is of opinion that
she was in 1848 nearer fifty than forty.]
To her the composer dedicated his Deux Nocturnes, Op. 55, which he
published in August, 1844. It was thought that she was in love with
Chopin, and there were rumours of their going to be married. Gutmann
informed me that Chopin said to him one day when he was ill: "They have
married me to Miss Stirling; she might as well marry death." Of Miss
Jane Stirling's elder sister Katherine, who, in 1811, married her cousin
James Erskine, and lost her husband already in 1816, Thomas Erskine
says: "She was an admirable woman, faithful and diligent in all duties,
and unwearied in her efforts to help those who needed her help."
Lord Torphichen, at whose residence (Calder House, twelve miles from
Edinburgh) Chopin passed much of his time in Scotland, was, as we learn
from the composer's letters, a brother-in-law of Miss Stirling and Mrs.
Erskine. Johnstone Castle (twelve miles from Glasgow), where Chopin was
also received as a guest, belonged to the Houston family, friends of the
Erskines and Stirlings, but, I think, no relations. The death of
Ludovic Houston, Esq., in 1862, is alluded to in one of Thomas Erskine's
letters.
But Chopin, while in Scotland, was not always staying in manors and
castles, now and then he was housed less aristocratically, though
perhaps not less, nay, probably more, comfortably. Such humbler quarters
he found at the house (10, Warriston Crescent) of Dr. Lyschinski, a
Pole by birth, and a refugee, who after studying medicine in Edinburgh
practised it there until a few years ago when he removed to London.
For the information which I am now going to give I am indebted to Mrs.
Lyschinski. Among those who received Chopin at the Edinburgh railway
station was Dr. Lyschinski who addressed him in Polish. The composer put
up at an hotel (perhaps the London Hotel, in St. Andrew's Square). Next
day--Miss Paterson, a neighbour, having placed her carriage at Chopin's
disposal--Mrs. Lyschinski took him out for a drive. He soon got tired
of the hotel, in fact, felt it quite unbearable, and told the doctor,
to whom he had at once taken a fancy, that he could not do without him.
Whereupon the latter said: "Well, then you must come to my house; and
as it is rather small, you must be satisfied with the nursery." So the
children were sent to a friend's house, and the nursery was made into a
bedroom for the illustrious guest, an adjoining bedroom being prepared
for his servant Daniel, an Irish-Frenchman. Unless the above refers to
Chopin's return to Scotland in September, after his visit to Manchester,
Mrs. Lyschinski confuses her reminiscences a little, for, as the
last-quoted letter proves, he tarried, on his first arrival, only one
day in Edinburgh. But the facts, even if not exactly grouped, are, no
doubt, otherwise correctly remembered. Chopin rose very late in the day,
and in the morning had soup in his room. His hair was curled daily
by the servant, and his shirts, boots, and other things were of the
neatest--in fact, he was a petit-maitre, more vain in dress than any
woman. The maid-servants found themselves strictly excluded from his
room, however indispensable their presence might seem to them in the
interests of neatness and cleanliness. Chopin was so weak that Dr.
Lyschinski had always to carry him upstairs. After dinner he sat before
the fire, often shivering with cold. Then all on a sudden he would cross
the room, seat himself at the piano, and play himself warm. He could
bear neither dictation nor contradiction: if you told him to go to the
fire, he would go to the other end of the room where the piano stood.
Indeed, he was imperious. He once asked Mrs. Lyschinski to sing. She
declined. At this he was astonished and quite angry. "Doctor, would
you take it amiss if I were to force your wife to do it?" The idea of a
woman refusing him anything seemed to him preposterous. Mrs. Lyschinski
says that Chopin was gallant to all ladies alike, but thinks that he had
no heart. She used to tease him about women, saying, for instance, that
Miss Stirling was a particular friend of his. He replied that he had no
particular friends among the ladies, that he gave to all an equal
share of his attention. "Not even George Sand then," she asked, "is
a particular friend?" "Not even George Sand," was the reply. Had Mrs.
Lyschinski known the real state of matters between Chopin and George
Sand, she certainly would not have asked that question. He, however, by
no means always avoided the mention of his faithless love. Speaking
one day of his thinness he remarked that she used to call him mon cher
cadavre. Miss Stirling was much about Chopin. I may mention by the way
that Mrs. Lyschinski told me that Miss Stirling was much older than
Chopin, and her love for him, although passionate, purely Platonic.
Princess Czartoryska arrived some time after Chopin, and accompanied
him, my informant says, wherever he went. But, as we see from one of his
letters, her stay in Scotland was short. The composer was always on the
move. Indeed, Dr. Lyschinski's was hardly more than a pied-a-terre for
him: he never stayed long, and generally came unexpectedly. A number
of places where Chopin was a guest are mentioned in his letters. Mrs.
Lyschinski thinks that he also visited the Duke of Hamilton.
At the end of August and at the end of September and beginning of
October, this idling was interrupted by serious work, and a kind of work
which, at no time to his liking, was particularly irksome in the then
state of his health.
The Manchester Guardian of August 19, 1848, contained the following
advertisement:--
Concert Hall.--The Directors beg to announce to the
Subscribers that a Dress Concert has been fixed for Monday,
the 28th of August next, for which the following performers
have already been engaged: Signora Alboni, Signora Corbari,
Signer Salvi, and Mons. Chopin.
From an account of the concert in the same paper (August 30), the writer
of which declares the concert to have been the most brilliant of the
season, we learn that the orchestra, led by Mr. Seymour, played three
overtures--Weber's Ruler of the Spirits, Beethoven's Prometheus, and
Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia; and that Chopin performed an Andante
and Scherzo, and a Nocturne, Etudes, and the Berceuse of his own
composition. With regard to Chopin we read in this critique:--
With the more instrumental portion of the audience, Mons.
Chopin was perhaps an equal feature of interest with Alboni,
as he was preceded by a high musical reputation. Chopin
appears to be about thirty years of age. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin,
says Mr. Hipkins, had a young look, although much wasted.] He
is very spare in frame, and there is an almost painful air of
feebleness in his appearance and gait. This vanishes when he
seats himself at the instrument, in which he seems for the
time perfectly absorbed. Chopin's music and style of
performance partake of the same leading characteristics--
refinement rather than vigour--subtle elaboration rather than
simple comprehensiveness in composition--an elegant rapid
touch, rather than a firm, nervous grasp of the instrument.
Both his compositions and playing appear to be the perfection
of chamber music--fit to be associated with the most refined
instrumental quartet and quartet playing--but wanting breadth
and obviousness of design, and executive power, to be
effective in a large hall. These are our impressions from
hearing Mons. Chopin for the first time on Monday evening. He
was warmly applauded by many of the most accomplished amateurs
in the town, and he received an encore in his last piece, a
compliment thus accorded to each of the four London artists
who appeared at the concert.
From the criticism of the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General
Advertiser (August 30, 1848), I cull the following remarks:--
We can, with great sincerity, say that he delighted us. Though
we did not discover in him the vigour of Thalberg, yet there
was a chasteness and purity of style, a correctness of
manipulation combined with a brilliance of touch, and delicate
sensibility of expression which we never heard excelled. He
played in the second act [part]... and elicited a rapturous
encore. He did not, however, repeat any part, but treated the
audience with what appeared to be a fragment of great beauty.
Mr. Osborne, in a paper on Chopin read before the London Musical
Association, says:--
On a tour which I made with Alboni, I met Chopin at
Manchester, where he was announced to play at a grand concert
without orchestra. He begged I should not be present. "You, my
dear Osborne," said he, "who have heard me so often in Paris,
remain with those impressions. My playing will be lost in such
a large room, and my compositions will be ineffective. Your
presence at the concert will be painful both to you and me."
Mr. Osborne told his audience further that notwithstanding this appeal
he was present in a remote corner of the room. I may add that although
he could absent himself from the hall for the time Chopin was playing,
he could not absent himself from the concert, for, as the papers tell
us, he acted as accompanist. The impression which Chopin's performance
on this occasion left upon his friend's mind is described in the
following few sad words: "His playing was too delicate to create
enthusiasm, and I felt truly sorry for him."
Soon after the concert Chopin returned to Scotland. How many days
(between August 23 and September 7?) he remained in Manchester, I do not
know, but it is well known that while staying there he was the guest of
Mr. and Mrs. Salis Schwabe. To Mrs. Salis Schwabe, a lady noted for her
benevolence, Thomas Erskine addressed the letter concerning Miss Jane
Stirling a part of which I quoted on one of the foregoing pages of this
chapter. The reader remembers, of course, Chopin's prospective allusions
to the Manchester concert in his letters to Franchomme (August 6, 1848)
and Grzymala (July 18, 1848).
About a month after the concert at which he played in Manchester, Chopin
gave one of his own in Glasgow. Here is what may be read in the Courier
of September 28 and previous days:--
Monsieur Chopin has the honour to announce that his Matinee
musicals will take place on Wednesday, the 27th September, in
the Merchant Hall, Glasgow. To commence at half-past two
o'clock. Tickets, limited in number, half-a-guinea each, and
full particulars to be had from Mr. Muir Wood, 42, Buchanan
Street.
The net profits of this concert are said to have been 60 pounds. Mr.
Muir Wood relates:--
I was then a comparative stranger in Glasgow, but I was told
that so many private carriages had never been seen at any
concert in the town. In fact, it was the county people who
turned out, with a few of the elite of Glasgow society. Being
a morning concert, the citizens were busy otherwise, and half-
a-guinea was considered too high a sum for their wives and
daughters.
No doubt Chopin's playing and compositions must have been to the good
Glasgow citizens of that day what caviare is to the general. In fact,
Scotland, as regards music, had at that period not yet emerged from its
state of primitive savagery. But if we may believe the learned critic in
the Glasgow Courier, Chopin's matinee was numerously attended, and the
audience, which consisted of "the beauty and fashion, indeed of the
very elite of the West-end," thoroughly enjoyed the playing of the
concert-giver and the singing of Madame Adelasio de Margueritte who
assisted him. I think the reader will be interested by the following
specimen of criticism for more than one reason:--
The performance was certainly of the highest order in point of
musical attainment and artistic skill, and was completely
successful in interesting and delighting everyone present for
an hour and a half. Visited as we now are by the highest
musical talent, by this great player and the other eminent
composer, it must be difficult for each successive candidate
for our patronage and applause to produce in sufficient
quantity that essential element to success--novelty; but M.
Chopin has proved satisfactorily that it is not easy to
estimate the capabilities of the instrument he handles with so
much grace and ingenuity, or limit the skill and power whose
magic touch makes it pour forth its sublime strains to
electrify and delight anew the astonished listener. M.
Chopin's treatment of the pianoforte is peculiar to himself,
and his style blends in beautiful harmony and perfection the
elegant, the picturesque, and the humorous. We cannot at
present descend to practical illustrations in proof of these
observations, but feel persuaded we only express the feelings
of all who attended yesterday when we say that the pianist
produces, without extraordinary effort, not only pleasing, but
new musical delights. Madame Adelasio has a beautiful voice,
which she manages with great ease and occasional brilliancy.
She sang several airs with much taste and great acceptance. We
may mention that all the pieces were rapturously applauded,
and the audience separated with expressions of the highest
gratification.
Clearly this critic was not without judgment, although his literary
taste and skill leave much to be desired. That there were real Chopin
enthusiasts in Glasgow is proved by an effusion, full of praise and
admiration, which the editor received from a correspondent and inserted
on September 30, two days after the above criticism. But, without
indulging our curiosity further, we will now take our leave of Glasgow
and Glasgow critics.
On October 4, Chopin gave an evening concert in Edinburgh. Here is the
programme:--
HOPETOUN ROOMS, QUEEN STREET.
MONSIEUR CHOPIN'S SOIREE MUSICALE.
Programme.
1. Andante et Impromptu.
2. Etudes.
3. Nocturne et Berceuse.
4. Grande Valse Brillante.
5. Andante precede d'un Largo.
6. Preludes, Ballade, Mazurkas et Valses.
To commence at half-past eight o'clock. Tickets,
limited to number, half-a-guinea each. To be had, &c.
Mrs. Lyschinski told me that this concert was chiefly attended by
the nobility. Half-a-guinea had never been charged for admission to a
concert (which is probably overstating the case), and Chopin was little
known. Miss Stirling, who was afraid the hall might not be filled,
bought fifty pounds' worth of tickets. The piano on which Chopin played
(one sent by Broadwood, and used in Glasgow as well as in Edinburgh) was
afterwards sold for 30 pounds above the price. Thus, at any rate, runs
the legend.
In the Edinburgh Courant, which contained on September 30 and on other
days an advertisement similar to the Glasgow one (with the addition of a
programme, consisting, however, only of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th items
of the one above given), there appeared on October 7, 1848, a notice of
the concert, a part of which may find a place here:--
This talented pianist gratified his admirers by a performance
on Wednesday evening in the Hopetoun Rooms, where a select and
highly fashionable audience assembled to welcome him on his
first appearance in Edinburgh...Chopin's compositions have
been too long before the musical portion of Europe, and have
been too highly appreciated to require any comment, further
than that they are among the best specimens of classical
excellence in pianoforte music. Of his execution we need say
nothing further than that it is the most finished we have ever
heard. He has neither the ponderosity nor the digital power of
a Mendelssohn, a Thalberg, or Liszt; consequently his
execution would appear less effective in a large room; but as
a chamber pianist he stands unrivalled. Notwithstanding the
amount of musical entertainment already afforded the Edinburgh
public this season, the rooms were filled with an audience
who, by their judicious and well-timed applause, testified
their appreciation of the high talent of Monsieur Chopin.
An Edinburgh correspondent of the Musical World, who signs himself "M.,"
confirms (October 14, 1848) the statements of the critic of the Courant.
From this communication we learn that one of the etudes played was in
F minor (probably No. 2 of Op. 25, although there are two others in
the same key--No. 9 of Op. 10 and No. 1 of Trois Etudes without opus
number). The problematical Andante precede d'un Largo was, no doubt,
a juxtaposition of two of his shorter compositions, this title being
chosen to vary the programme. From Mr. Hipkins I learned that at this
Chopin played frequently the slow movement from his Op. 22, Grande
Polonaise preceded d'un Andante Spianato.
And now we will let Chopin again speak for himself.
Chopin to Grzymala; Keir, Perthshire, Sunday, October 1, 1848:--
No post, no railway, also no carriage (not even for taking the
air), no boat, not a dog to be seen--all desolate, desolate!
My dearest friend,--Just at the moment when I had already
begun to write to you on another sheet, your and my sister's
letters were brought to me. Heaven be thanked that cholera has
hitherto spared them. But why do you not write a word about
yourself? and yet to you corresponding is much easier than to
me; for I have been writing to you daily for a whole week
already--namely, since my return from northern Scotland
(Strachur [FOOTNOTE: A small town, eight miles south of
Inveraray, in Argyleshire.])--without getting done. I know,
indeed, that you have an invalid in Versailles; for Rozaria
[FOOTNOTE: Mdlle. de Rozieres.] wrote to me that you had paid
her a visit, and then in great haste had gone to an invalid in
Versailles. I hope it is not your grandfather or grandchild,
or one of your dear neighbours, the Rochanskis. Here one hears
as yet nothing of cholera, but in London it appears already
here and there.
With your letter, which I received at Johnstone Castle, and in
which you informed me that you had been with Soli [FOOTNOTE: I
suppose Solange, Madame Clesinger, George Sand's daughter.] at
the Gymnase Theatre, there came at the same time one from
Edinburgh, from Prince Alexander Czartoryski, with the news
that he and his wife had arrived, and that he would be very
glad to see me. Although tired, I at once took the train and
found them still in Edinburgh. Princess Marcelline was as kind
as she always is to me. The intercourse with them reanimated
me, and gave me strength to play in Glasgow, where the whole
haute volee had gathered for my concert. The weather was
magnificent, and the princely family had even come from
Edinburgh with little Marcel, who is growing nicely, and sings
already my compositions, yes, and even corrects when he hears
someone making mistakes. It was on Wednesday afternoon, at 3
o'clock, and the princely couple did me the kindness to accept
along with me an invitation to a dinner at Johnstone Castle
(by the way, twelve English miles from Glasgow) after the
concert; in this way, then, I passed the whole day with them.
Lord and Lady Murray and the old Lord Torphichen (who had come
a distance of a hundred miles) drove also thither with us, and
the next day all were quite charmed with the amiability of
Princess Marcelline. The princely pair returned to Glasgow,
whence, after a visit to Loch Tamen, [FOOTNOTE: There is no
such loch. Could it possibly be Loch Lomond? Loch Leven seems
to me less likely.] they wished to go back at once to London,
and thence to the Continent. The Prince spoke of you with
sincere kindness. I can very well imagine what your noble soul
must suffer when you see what is now going on in Paris. You
cannot think how I revived, how lively I became that day in
the society of such dear countrymen; but to-day I am again
very depressed. O, this mist! Although, from the window at
which I write, I have before me the most beautiful view of
Stirling Castle--it is the same, as you will remember, which
delighted Robert Bruce--and mountains, lochs, a charming park,
in one word, the view most celebrated for its beauty in
Scotland; I see nothing, except now and then, when the mist
gives way to the sun. The owner of this mansion, whose name is
Stirling, is the uncle of our Scotch ladies, and the head of
the family. I made his acquaintance in London; he is a rich
bachelor, and has a very beautiful picture-gallery, which is
especially distinguished by works of Murillo and other Spanish
masters. He has lately even published a very interesting book
on the Spanish school; he has travelled much (visited also the
East), and is a very intelligent man. All Englishmen of note
who come to Scotland go to him; he has always an open house,
so that there are daily on an average about thirty people at
dinner with him. In this way one has opportunities of seeing
the most different English beauties; lately there was, for
instance, for some days a Mrs. Boston here, but she is already
gone. As to dukes, earls, and lords, one now sees here more of
them than ever, because the Queen has sojourned in Scotland.
Yesterday she passed close by us by rail, as she had to be at
a certain time in London, and there was such a fog on the sea
that she preferred to return from Aberdeen to London by land,
and not (as she had come) by boat--to the great regret of the
navy, which had prepared various festivities for her. It is
said that her consort, Prince Albert, was very much pleased at
this, as he becomes always sea-sick on board, while the Queen,
like a true ruler of the sea, is not inconvenienced by a
voyage. I shall soon have forgotten Polish, speak French like
an Englishman, and English like a Scotchman--in short, like
Jawurek, jumble together five languages. If I do not write to
you a Jeremiad, it is not because you cannot comfort me, but
because you are the only one who knows everything; and if I
once begin to complain, there will be no end to it, and it
will always be in the same key. But it is incorrect when I
say: "always in the same key," for things are getting worse
with me every day. I feel weaker; I cannot compose, not for
want of inclination, but for physical reasons, and because I
am every week in a different place. But what shall I do? At
least, I shall save something for the winter. Invitations I
have in plenty, and cannot even go where I should like, for
instance, to the Duchess of Argyll and Lady Belhaven, as the
season is already too far advanced and too dangerous for my
enfeebled health. I am all the morning unable to do anything,
and when I have dressed myself I feel again so fatigued that I
must rest. After dinner I must sit two hours with the
gentlemen, hear what they say, and see how much they drink.
Meanwhile I feel bored to death. I think of something totally
different, and then go to the drawing-room, where I require
all my strength to revive, for all are anxious to hear me.
Afterwards my good Daniel carries me upstairs to my bedroom,
undresses me, puts me to bed, leaves the candle burning, and
then I am again at liberty to sigh and to dream until morning,
to pass the next day just like the preceding one. When I have
settled down in some measure, I must continue my travels, for
my Scotch ladies do not allow me--to be sure with the best
intentions in the world--any rest. They fetch me to introduce
me to all their relations; they will at last kill me with
their kindness, and I must bear it all out of pure amiability.--
Your
FREDERICK.
Chopin to Gutmann; Calder House, October 16, 1848 (twelve miles from
Edinburgh):--
Very dear friend,--What are you doing? How are your people,
your country, your art? you are unjustly severe upon me, for
you know my infirmity in the matter of letter-writing. I have
thought of you much, and on reading the other day that there
was a disturbance at Heidelberg, I tried some thirty rough
draughts [brouillons] in order to send you a line, the end of
them all being to be thrown into the fire. This page will
perhaps reach you and find you happy with your good mother.
Since I had news from you, I have been in Scotland, in this
beautiful country of Walter Scott, with so many memories of
Mary Stuart, the two Charleses, &c. I drag myself from one
lord to another, from one duke to another. I find everywhere,
besides extreme kindness and hospitality without limit,
excellent pianos, beautiful pictures, choice libraries; there
are also hunts, horses, dogs, interminable dinners, and
cellars of which I avail myself less. It is impossible to form
an idea of all the elaborate comfort which reigns in the
English mansions. The Queen having passed this year some weeks
in Scotland, all England followed her, partly out of courtesy,
partly because of the impossibility of going to the disturbed
Continent. Everything here has become doubly splendid, except
the sun, which has done nothing more than usual; moreover, the
winter advances, and I do not know yet what will become of me.
I am writing to you from Lord Torphichen's. In this mansion,
above my apartment, John Knox, the Scotch reformer, dispensed
for the first time the Sacrament. Everything here furnishes
matter for the imagination--a park with hundred-year-old
trees, precipices, walls of the castle in ruins, endless
passages with numberless old ancestors--there is even a
certain Red-cowl which walks there at midnight. I walk there
my incertitude. [II y a meme un certain bonnet rouge, qui s'y
promene a minuit. J'y promene mon incertitude.]
Cholera is coming; there is fog and spleen in London, and no
president in Paris. It does not matter where I go to cough and
suffocate, I shall always love you. Present my respects to
your mother, and all my wishes for the happiness of you all.
Write me a line to the address: Dr. Lishinsky, [FOOTNOTE: The
letter I shall next place before the reader is addressed by
Chopin to "Dr. Lishinski." In an Edinburgh medical directory
the name appeared as Lyszynski.] 10, Warriston Crescent,
Edinburgh, Scotland.--Yours, with all my heart,
CHOPIN.
P.S.--I have played in Edinburgh; the nobility of the
neighbourhood came to hear me; people say the thing went off
well--a little success and money. There were this year in
Scotland Lind, Grisi, Alboni, Mario, Salvi--everybody.
From Chopin's letters may be gathered that he arrived once more in
London at the end of October or beginning of November.
Chopin to Dr. Lyschinski; London, November 3, 1848:--
I received yesterday your kind words with the letter from
Heidelberg. I am as perplexed here as when I was with you, and
have the same love in my heart for you as when I was with you.
My respects to your wife and your neighbours. May God bless
you!
I embrace you cordially. I have seen the Princess
[Czartoryska]; they were inquiring about you most kindly.
My present abode is 4, St. James's Place. If anything should
come for me, please send it to that address.
3rd November, 1848.
Pray send the enclosed note to Miss Stirling, who, no doubt,
is still at Barnton.
[FOOTNOTE: In this case, as when writing to Woyciechowski,
Matuszynski, Fontana, Franchomme and Gutmann, Chopin uses in
addressing his correspondent, the pronoun of the second person
singular. Here I may also mention the curious monogram on his
seal: three C's in the form of horns (with mouthpieces and
bells) intertwined.]
The following letter shows in what state of mind and body Chopin was at
the time.
Chopin to Grzymala; London, October [should be November] 17-18, 1848:--
My dearest friend,--For the last eighteen days, that is, since
my arrival in London, I have been ill, and had such a severe
cold in my head (with headache, difficult breathing, and all
my bad symptoms) that I did not get out of doors at all. The
physician visits me daily (a homoeopathist of the name of
Mallan, the same whom my Scotch ladies have and who has here a
great reputation, and is married to a niece of Lady
Gainsborough). He has succeeded in restoring me so far that
yesterday I was able to take part in the Polish Concert and
Ball; I went, however, at once home, after I had gone through
my task. The whole night I could not sleep, as I suffered,
besides cough and asthma, from very violent headache. As yet
the mist has not been very bad, so that, in order to breathe a
little fresh air, I can open the windows of my apartments
notwithstanding the keen cold. I live at No. 4, St. James's
Street, see almost every day the excellent Szulczewski,
Broadwood, Mrs. Erskine, who followed me hither with Mr.
Stirling, and especially Prince Alexander [Czartoryski] and
his wife.
[FOOTNOTE: Charles Francis Szulczewski, son of Charles
Szulczewski, Receiver General for the District of Orlow, born
on January 18, 1814, was educated at the Military School at
Kalisz, served during the War of 1831 in the Corps of
Artillery under General Bem, obtained the Cross of Honour
(virtuti militari) for distinguishing himself at Ostrolenka,
passed the first years of his refugee life in France, and in
1842 took up his residence in London, where, in 1845, he
became Secretary of the Literary Association of the Friends of
Poland. He was promoted for his services to the rank of Major
in the Polish Legion, which was formed in Turkey under the
command of Ladislas Zamoyski, and after the treaty of Paris
(1856) the English Government appointed him to a post in the
War Office. Major Szulczewski, who died on October 18, 1884,
was an ardent patriot, highly esteemed not only by his
countrymen, but also by all others who came in contact with
him, numbering among his friends the late Lord Dudley Stuart
and the late Earl of Harrowby.]
Address your letters, please, to Szulczewski. I cannot yet
come to Paris, but I am always considering what is to be done
to return there. Here in these apartments, which for any
healthy man would be good, I cannot remain, although they are
beautifully situated and not dear (four and a half guineas a
week, inclusive of bed, coals, &c.); they are near Lord
Stuart's, [FOOTNOTE: Lord Dudley Cuotts Stuart, a staunch and
generous friend of the Poles.] who has just left me. This
worthy gentleman came to inquire how I felt after last night's
concert. Probably I shall take up my quarters with him,
because he has much larger rooms, in which I can breathe more
freely. En tout cas--inquire, please, whether there are not
somewhere on the Boulevard, in the neighbourhood of the Rue de
la Paix or Rue Royale, apartments to be had on the first etage
with windows towards the south; or, for aught I care, in the
Rue des Mathurin, but not in the Rue Godot or other gloomy,
narrow streets; at any rate, there must be included a room for
the servant. Perhaps Franck's old quarters, which were above
mine, at the excellent Madame Etienne's, in the Square No. 9
(Cite d'Orleans), are unoccupied; for I know from experience
that I cannot keep on my old ones during the winter. If there
were only on the same story a room for the servant, I should
go again and live with Madame Etienne, but I should not like
to let my Daniel go away, as, should I at any time wish or be
able to return to England, he will be acquainted with
everything.
Why I bother you with all this I don't know myself; but I must
think of myself, and, therefore, I beg of you, assist me in
this. I have never cursed anyone, but now I am so weary of
life that I am near cursing Lucrezia! [FOOTNOTE: George Sand.
This allusion after what has been said in a previous chapter
about her novel Lucrezia Floriani needs no further
explanation.] But she suffers too, and suffers more because
she grows daily older in wickedness. What a pity about Soli!
[FOOTNOTE: I suppose Solange, Madame Clesinger, George Sand's
daughter.] Alas! everything is going wrong in this world.
Think only that Arago with the eagle on his breast now
represents France!!! Louis Blanc attracts here nobody's
attention. The deputation of the national guard drove
Caussidier out of the Hotel de la Sablonniere (Leicester
Square) from the table d'hote with the exclamation: "Vous
n'etes pas francais!"
Should you find apartments, let me know at once; but do not
give up the old ones till then.--Your
FREDERICK.
The Polish Ball and Concert alluded to in the above letter deserves our
attention, for on that occasion Chopin was heard for the last time in
public, indeed, his performance there may be truly called the swan's
song.
The following is an advertisement which appeared in the DAILY NEWS of
November 1, 1848:--
Grand Polish Ball and Concert at Guildhall, under Royal and
distinguished patronage, and on a scale of more than usual
magnificence, will take place on Thursday, the 16th of
November, by permission of the Lord Mayor and Corporation of
the City of London; particulars of which will be shortly
announced to the public.
JAMES R. CARR, HONORARY SECRETARY.
The information given in this advertisement is supplemented in one of
November 15:--
The magnificent decorations used on the Lord Mayor's day are,
by permission, preserved. The concert will comprise the most
eminent vocalists. Tickets (refreshments included), for a lady
and gentleman, 21/-; for a gentleman, 15/-; for a lady, 10/6;
to be had of, &c.
On the 17th of November the TIMES had, of course, an account of the
festivity of the preceding night:--
The patrons and patronesses of this annual or rather perennial
demonstration in favour of foreign claims on domestic charity
assembled last night at Guildhall much in the same way as they
assembled last year and on previous occasions, though
certainly not in such numbers, nor in such quality as some
years ago. The great hall was illuminated and decorated as at
the Lord Mayor's banquet. The appearance was brilliant without
being particularly lively.
Then the dancing, Mr. Adams' excellent band, the refreshment rooms, a
few noble Lords, the Lord Mayor, and some of the civic authorities (who
"diversified the plain misters and mistresses who formed the majority"),
the gay costumes of some Highlanders and Spaniards, and Lord Dudley (the
great lion of the evening)--all these are mentioned, but there is not
a word about Chopin. Of the concert we read only that it "was much
the same as on former anniversaries, and at its conclusion many of the
company departed." We learn, moreover, that the net profit was estimated
at less than on former occasions.
The concert for which Chopin, prompted by his patriotism and persuaded
by his friends, lent his assistance, was evidently a subordinate part of
the proceedings in which few took any interest. The newspapers either
do not notice it at all or but very briefly; in any case the great
pianist-composer is ignored. Consequently, very little information is
now to be obtained about this matter. Mr. Lindsay Sloper remembered that
Chopin played among other things the "Etudes" in A flat and F minor (Op.
25, Nos. 1 & 2). But the best account we have of the concert are some
remarks of one present at it which Mr. Hueffer quotes in his essay on
Chopin in "Musical Studies":--
The people, hot from dancing, who went into the room where he
played, were but little in the humour to pay attention, and
anxious to return to their amusement. He was in the last stage
of exhaustion, and the affair resulted in disappointment. His
playing at such a place was a well-intentioned mistake.
What a sad conclusion to a noble artistic career!
Although Chopin was longing for Paris in November, he was still in
London in the following January.
Chopin to Grzymaia; London, Tuesday, January, 1849:--
My dearest friend,--To-day I am again lying almost the whole
day, but Thursday I shall leave the to me unbearable London.
The night from Thursday to Friday I shall remain at Boulogne,
and, I hope, go to bed on Friday night in the Place d'Orleans.
To other ailments is now added neuralgia. Please see that the
sheets and pillows are quite dry and cause fir-nuts to be
bought; Madame Etienne is not to spare anything, so that I may
warm myself when I arrive. I have written to Drozewski that he
is to provide carpets and curtains. I shall pay the paper-
hanger Perrichon at once after my arrival. Tell Pleyel to send
me a piano on Thursday; let it be closed and a nosegay of
violets be bought, so that there may be a nice fragrance in
the salon. I should like to find a little poesy in my rooms
and in my bedroom, where I in all probability shall lie down
for a long time.
Friday evening, then, I expect to be in Paris; a day longer
here, and I shall go mad or die! My Scotch ladies are good,
but so tedious that--God have mercy on us! They have so
attached themselves to me that I cannot easily get rid of
them; only Princess Marcelline [Czartoryska] and her family,
and the excellent Szulczewski keep me alive. Have fires
lighted in all rooms and the dust removed--perhaps I may yet
recover.--Yours ever,
FREDERICK.
Mr. Niedzwiecki told me that he travelled with Chopin, who was
accompanied by his servant, from London to Paris.
[FOOTNOTE: Leonard Niedzwiecki, born in the Kingdom of Poland in 1807,
joined the National Army in 1830, distinguished himself on several
battlefields, came in 1832 as a refugee to England, made there a
livelihood by literary work and acted as honorary librarian of the
Literary Association of the friends of Poland, left about 1845 London
for Paris and became Private Secretary, first to General Count Ladislas
Zamoyski, and after the Count's death to the widowed Countess. M.
Niedzwiecki, who is also librarian of the Polish Library at Paris, now
devotes all his time to historical and philological research.]
The three had a compartment to themselves. During the journey the
invalid suffered greatly from frequent attacks of breathlessness. Chopin
was delighted when he saw Boulogne. How hateful England and the English
were to him is shown by the following anecdote. When they had left
Boulogne and Chopin had been for some time looking at the landscape
through which they were passing, he said to Mr. Niedzwiecki: "Do you see
the cattle in this meadow? Ca a plus d'intelligence que les Anglais."
Let us not be wroth at poor Chopin: he was then irritated by his
troubles, and always anything but a cosmopolitan.
CHAPTER XXXII.
DETERIORATION OF CHOPIN'S STATE OF HEALTH.--TWO LETTERS.--REMOVES FROM
THE SQUARE D'ORLEANS TO THE RUE CHAILLOT.--PECUNIARY CIRCUMSTANCES.--A
CURIOUS STORY.--REMINISCENCES AND LETTERS CONNECTED WITH CHOPIN'S STAY
IN THE RUE CHAILLOT.--REMOVES TO NO. 12, PLACE VENDOME.--LAST DAYS, AND
DEATH.--FUNERAL.--LAST RESTING-PLACE.--MONUMENT AND COMMEMORATION IN
1850.
The physical condition in which we saw Chopin in the preceding chapter
was not the outcome of a newly-contracted disease, but only an acuter
phase of that old disease from which he had been suffering more or less
for at least twelve years, and which in all probability he inherited
from his father, who like himself died of a chest and heart complaint.
[FOOTNOTE: My authority for this statement is Dr. Lyschinski, who must
have got his information either from Chopin himself or his mother. That
Chopin's youngest sister, Emilia, died of consumption in early life
cannot but be regarded as a significant fact.] Long before Chopin went
in search of health to Majorca, ominous symptoms showed themselves; and
when he returned from the south, he was only partly restored, not cured.
My attachment [writes George Sand in "Ma Vie"] could work this
miracle of making him a little calm and happy, only because
God had approved of it by preserving a little of his health.
He declined, however, visibly, and I knew no longer what
remedies to employ in order to combat the growing irritation
of his nerves. The death of his friend Dr. Matuszynski, then
that of his own father, [FOOTNOTE: Nicholas Chopin died on May
3, 1844. About Matuszynski's death see page 158.] were to him
two terrible blows. The Catholic dogma throws on death
horrible terrors. Chopin, instead of dreaming for these pure
souls a better world, had only dreadful visions, and I was
obliged to pass very many nights in a room adjoining his,
always ready to rise a hundred times from my work in order to
drive away the spectres of his sleep and wakefulness. The idea
of his own death appeared to him accompanied with all the
superstitious imaginings of Slavonic poetry. As a Pole he
lived under the nightmare of legends. The phantoms called him,
clasped him, and, instead of seeing his father and his friend
smile at him in the ray of faith, he repelled their fleshless
faces from his own and struggled under the grasp of their icy
hands.
But a far more terrible blow than the deaths of his friend and his
father was his desertion by George Sand, and we may be sure that it
aggravated his disease a hundredfold. To be convinced of this we have
only to remember his curse on Lucrezia (see the letter to Grzymala of
November 17-18, 1848).
Jules Janin, in an obituary notice, says of Chopin that "he lived ten
years, ten miraculous years, with a breath ready to fly away" (il a vecu
dix ans, dix ans de miracle, d'un souffle pret a s'envoler). Another
writer remarks: "In seeing him [Chopin] so puny, thin, and pale, one
thought for a. long time that he was dying, and then one got accustomed
to the idea that he could live always so." Stephen Heller in chatting to
me about Chopin expressed the same idea in different words: "Chopin was
often reported to have died, so often, indeed, that people would not
believe the news when he was really dead." There was in Chopin for many
years, especially since 1837, a constant flux and reflux of life. To
repeat another remark of Heller's: "Now he was ill, and then again one
saw him walking on the boulevards in a thin coat." A married sister of
Gutmann's remembers that Chopin had already, in 1843-4, to be carried
upstairs, when he visited her mother, who in that year was staying with
her children in Paris; to walk upstairs, even with assistance, would
have been impossible to him.
For a long time [writes M. Charles Gavard] Chopin had been,
moving about with difficulty, and only went out to have
himself carried to a few faithful friends. He visited them by
no means in order that they might share his misery, on the
contrary, he seemed even to forget his troubles, and at sight
of the family life, and in the midst of the demonstrations of
love which he called forth from everyone, he found new impulse
and new strength to live.
[FOOTNOTE: In a manuscript now before me, containing
reminiscences of the last months of Chopin's life. Karasowski,
at whose disposal the author placed his manuscript, copies
LITERALY, in the twelfth chapter of his Chopin biography, page
after page, without the customary quotation marks.]
Edouard Wolff told me that, in the latter part of Chopin's life, he
did not leave the carriage when he had any business at Schlesinger's
music-shop; a shopman came out to the composer, who kept himself closely
wrapped in his blue mantle. The following reminiscence is, like some of
the preceding ones, somewhat vague with regard to time. Stephen Heller
met Chopin shortly before the latter fell ill. On being asked where he
was going, Chopin replied that he was on his way to buy a new carpet,
his old one having got worn, and then he complained of his legs
beginning to swell. And Stephen Heller saw indeed that there were lumps
of swelling. M. Mathias, describing to me his master as he saw him in
1847, wrote: "It was a painful spectacle to see Chopin at that time;
he was the picture of exhaustion--the back bent, the head bowed
forward--but always amiable and full of distinction." That Chopin was
no longer in a condition to compose (he published nothing after October,
1847), and that playing in public was torture to him and an effort
beyond his strength, we have already seen. But this was not all the
misery; he was also unable to teach. Thus all his sources of income were
cut off. From Chopin's pupil Madame Rubio (nee Vera de Kologrivof) I
learned that latterly when her master was ill and could not give many
lessons, he sent to her several of his pupils, among whom was also Miss
Stirling, who then came to him only once a week instead of oftener. But
after his return from England Chopin was no longer able to teach at
all. [FOOTNOTE: "When languor [son mal de langueur] took hold of him,"
relates Henri Blaze de Bury in "Etudes et Souvenirs," "Chopin gave his
lessons, stretched on a sofa, having within reach a piano of which he
made use for demonstration."] This is what Franchomme told me, and he,
in the last years especially, was intimately acquainted with Chopin,
and knew all about his financial affairs, of which we shall hear more
presently.
As we saw from the letter quoted at the end of the last chapter, Chopin
took up his quarters in the Square d'Orleans, No. 9. He, however, did
not find there the recovery of his health, of which he spoke in the
concluding sentences. Indeed, Chopin knew perfectly by that time that
the game was lost. Hope showed herself to him now and then, but very
dimly and doubtfully. Nothing proves the gravity of his illness and his
utter prostration so much as the following letters in which he informs
his Titus, the dearest friend of his youth, that he cannot go and meet
him in Belgium.
Chopin to Titus Woyciechowski; Paris, August 20, 1849:--
Square d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, No 9.
My dearest friend,--Nothing but my being so ill as I really am
could prevent me from leaving Paris and hastening to meet you
at Ostend; but I hope that God will permit you to come to me.
The doctors do not permit me to travel. I drink Pyrenean
waters in my own room. But your presence would do me more good
than any kind of medicine.--Yours unto death,
FREDERICK.
Paris, September 12, 1849.
My dear Titus,--I had too little time to see about the permit
for your coming here; [FOOTNOTE: As a Russian subject,
Woyciechowski required a special permission from the Rusian
authorities to visit Paris, which was not readily granted to
Poles.] I cannot go after it myself, for the half of my time I
lie in bed. But I have asked one of my friends, who has very
great influence, to undertake this for me; I shall not hear
anything certain, about it till Saturday. I should have liked
to go by rail to the frontier, as far as Valenciennes, to see
you again; but the doctors do not permit me to leave Paris,
because a few days ago I could not get as far as Ville
d'Avraye, near Versailles, where I have a goddaughter. For the
same reason they do not send me this winter to a warmer
climate. It is, then, illness that retains me; were I only
tolerably well I should certainly have visited you in Belgium.
Perhaps you may manage to come here. I am not egotistic enough
to ask you to come only on my account; for, as I am ill, you
would have with me weary hours and disappointments, but,
perhaps, also hours of comfort, and of beautiful reminiscences
of our youth, and I wish only that our time together may be a
time of happiness.--Yours ever,
FREDERICK.
When Chopin wrote the second of the above letters he was staying in
a part of Paris more suitable for summer quarters than the Square
d'Orleans--namely, in the Rue Chaillot, whither he had removed in the
end of August.
The Rue Chaillot [writes M. Charles Gavard] was then a very
quiet street, where one thought one's self rather in the
province than in the capital. A large court-yard led to
Chopin's apartments on the second story and with a view of
Paris, which can be seen from the height of Chaillot.
The friends who found these apartments for the invalid composer made
him believe that the rent was only 200 francs. But in reality it was 400
francs, and a Russian lady, Countess Obreskoff, [FOOTNOTE: Madame Rubio,
differing in this one particular from Franchomme, said that Chopin paid
100 francs and Countess Obreskoff 200.] paid one half of it. When Chopin
expressed surprise at the lowness of the rent, he was told that lodgings
were cheap in summer.
This last story prompts me to say a few words about Chopin's pecuniary
circumstances, and naturally leads me to another story, one more like
romance than reality. Chopin was a bad manager, or rather he was no
manager at all. He spent inconsiderately, and neglecting to adapt his
expenditure to his income, he was again and again under the necessity of
adapting his income to his expenditure. Hence those borrowings of money
from friends, those higglings with and dunnings of publishers, in short,
all those meannesses which were unworthy of so distinguished an artist,
and irreconcilable with his character of grand seigneur. Chopin's income
was more than sufficient to provide him with all reasonable comforts;
but he spent money like a giddy-headed, capricious woman, and
unfortunately for him had not a fond father or husband to pay the debts
thus incurred. Knowing in what an unsatisfactory state his financial
affairs were when he was earning money by teaching and publishing, we
can have no difficulty in imagining into what straits he must have been
driven by the absolute cessation of work and the consequent cessation of
income. The little he had saved in England and Scotland was soon gone,
gone unawares; indeed, the discovery of the fact came to him as a
surprise. What was to be done? Franchomme, his right hand, and his
head too, in business and money matters--and now, of course, more than
ever--was at his wits' end. He discussed the disquieting, threatening
problem with some friends of Chopin, and through one of them the
composer's destitution came to the knowledge of Miss Stirling. She cut
the Gordian knot by sending her master 25,000 francs. [FOOTNOTE: M.
Charles Gavard says 20,000 francs.] This noble gift, however; did not at
once reach the hands of Chopin. When Franchomme, who knew what had been
done, visited Chopin a few days afterwards, the invalid lamented as on
previous occasions his impecuniosity, and in answer to the questions of
his astonished friend stated that he had received nothing. The enquiries
which were forthwith set on foot led to the envelope with the precious
enclosure being found untouched in the clock of the portiere, who
intentionally or unintentionally had omitted to deliver it. The story
is told in various ways, the above is the skeleton of apparently
solid facts. I will now make the reader acquainted with the hitherto
unpublished account of Madame Rubio, who declared solemnly that her
version was correct in every detail. Franchomme's version, as given in
Madame Audley's book on Chopin, differs in several points from that
of Madame Rubio; I shall, therefore, reproduce it for comparison in a
foot-note.
One day in 1849 Franchomme came to Madame Rubio, and said that something
must be done to get money for Chopin. Madame Rubio thereupon went to
Miss Stirling to acquaint her with the state of matters. When Miss
Stirling heard of Chopin's want of money, she was amazed, and told her
visitor that some time before she had, without the knowledge of anyone,
sent Chopin 25,000 francs in a packet which, in order to conceal
the sender, she got addressed and sealed in a shop. The ladies made
enquiries as to the whereabouts of the money, but without result. A
Scotch gentleman, a novelist (Madame Rubio had forgotten the name at the
time she told the story, but was sure she would recall it, and no doubt
would have done so, had not her sudden death soon after [FOOTNOTE: In
the summer of 1880] intervened), proposed to consult the clairvoyant
Alexandre. [FOOTNOTE: Madame Rubio always called the clairvoyant thus.
See another name farther on.] The latter on being applied to told them
that the packet along with a letter had been delivered to the portiere
who had it then in her possession, but that he could not say more until
he got some of her hair. One evening when the portiere was bathing
Chopin's feet, he--who had in the meantime been communicated
with--talked to her about her hair and asked her to let him cut off one
lock. She allowed him to do so, and thus Alexandre was enabled to say
that the money was in the clock in the portiere's room. Having got this
information, they went to the woman and asked her for the packet. She
turned pale, and, drawing it out of the clock, said that at the time she
forgot to give it to Chopin, and when she remembered it afterwards was
afraid to do so. The packet of notes was unopened. Madame Rubio supposed
that the portiere thought Chopin would soon die and that then she might
keep the contents of the parcel.
[FOOTNOTE: After relating that an intimate friend of Chopin's told Miss
Stirling of the latter's straitened circumstances, received from her
bank-notes to the amount of 25,000 francs, and handed them enclosed in
an envelope to the master's portiere with the request to deliver the
packet immediately to its address, Madame Audley proceeds with her story
(which Franchomme's death prevented me from verifying) thus: "Here,
then, was a gleam of light in this darkened sky, and the reassured
friends breathed more freely." "But what was my surprise," said M.
Franchomme, from whom I have the story, "when some time after I heard
Chopin renew his complaints and speak of his distress in the most
poignant terms. Becoming impatient, and being quite at a loss as to what
was going on," I said at last to him: "But, my dear friend, you have no
cause to torment yourself, you can wait for the return of your
health, you have money now!"--"I, money!" exclaimed Chopin; "I
have nothing."--"How! and these 25,000 francs which were sent you
lately?"--"25,000 francs? Where are they? Who sent them to me? I have
not received a sou!"--"Ah! really, that is too bad!" Great commotion
among the friends. It was evident that the money given to the portiere
had not arrived at its destination; but how to be assured of this? and
what had become of it? Here was a curious enough fact, as if a little
of the marvellous must always be mingled with Chopin's affairs. Paris at
that time possessed a much run-after clairvoyant, the celebrated Alexis;
they thought of going to consult him. But to get some information it was
necessary to put him en rapport, directly or indirectly, with the person
suspected. Now this person was, naturally, the portiere. By ruse or by
address they got hold of a little scarf that she wore round her neck
and placed it in the hands of the clairvoyant. The latter unhesitatingly
declared that the 25,000 francs were behind the looking-glass in the
loge. The friend who had brought them immediately presented himself
to claim them; and our careful portiere, fearing, no doubt, the
consequences of a too prolonged sequestration, drew the packet from
behind the clock and held it out to him, saying: 'Eh bien, la v'la, vot'
lettre!'"]
Chopin, however, refused to accept the whole of the 25,000 francs.
According to Madame Rubio, he kept only 1,000 francs, returning the rest
to Miss Stirling, whilst Franchomme, on the other hand, said that his
friend kept 12,000 francs.
During Chopin's short stay in the Rue Chaillot, M. Charles Gavard, then
a very young man, in fact, a youth, spent much of his time with the
suffering composer:--
The invalid [he writes] avoided everything that could make me
sad, and, to shorten the hours which we passed together,
generally begged me to take a book out of his library and to
read to him. For the most part he chose some pages out of
Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique. He valued very highly
the finished form of that clear and concise language, and that
so sure judgment on questions of taste. Thus, for instance, I
remember that the article on taste was one of the last I read
to him.
What M. Gavard says of how slowly, in pain, and often in loneliness, the
hours passed for Chopin in the spacious, rooms of his lodgings in the
Rue Chaillot, reminds me of a passage in Hector Berlioz's admirable
article on his friend in the Journal des Debats (October 27, 1849):--
His weakness and his sufferings had become so great that he
could no longer either play the piano or compose; even the
slightest conversation fatigued him in an alarming manner. He
endeavoured generally to make himself understood as far as
possible by signs. Hence the kind of isolation in which he
wished to pass the last months of his life, an isolation which
many people wrongly interpreted--some attributing it to a
scornful pride, others to a melancholic temper, the one as
well as the other equally foreign to the character of this,
charming artist.
During his stay in the Rue Chaillot Chopin wrote the following note and
letter to Franchomme:--
Dear friend,--Send me a little of your Bordeaux. I must take a
little wine to-day, and have none. How distrustful I am! Wrap
up the bottle, and put your seal on it. For these porters! And
I do not know who will take charge of this commission.
Yours, with all my heart.
Sunday after your departure, September 17, 1849.
Dear friend,--I am very sorry that you were not well at Le
Mans. Now, however, you are in Touraine, whose sky will have
been more favourable to you. I am less well rather than
better. MM. Cruveille, Louis, and Blache have had a
consultation, and have come to the conclusion that I ought not
to travel, but only to take lodgings in the south and remain
at Paris. After much seeking, very dear apartments, combining
all the desired conditions, have been found in the Place
Vendome, No. 12. Albrecht has now his offices there. Meara
[FOOTNOTE: This is a very common French equivalent for
O'Meara.] has been of great help to me in the search for the
apartments. In short, I shall see you all next winter--well
housed; my sister remains with me, unless she is urgently
required in her own country. I love you, and that is all I can
tell you, for I am overcome with sleep and weakness. My sister
rejoices at the idea of seeing Madame Franchomme again, and I
also do so most sincerely. This shall be as God wills. Kindest
regards to M. and Madame Forest. How much I should like to be
some days with you! Is Madame de Lauvergeat also at the sea-
side? Do not forget to remember me to her, as well as to M. de
Lauvergeat. Embrace your little ones. Write me a line. Yours
ever. My sister embraces Madame Franchomme.
After a stay of less than six weeks Chopin removed from the Rue Chaillot
to the apartments in No. 12, Place Vendome, which M. Albrecht and Dr.
O'Meara had succeeded in finding for him. About this time Moscheles came
to Paris. Of course he did not fail to inquire after his brother-artist
and call at his house. What Moscheles heard and thought may be gathered
from the following entry in his diary:-"Unfortunately, we heard of
Chopin's critical condition, made ourselves inquiries, and found all the
sad news confirmed. Since he has been laid up thus, his sister has been
with him. Now the days of the poor fellow are numbered, his sufferings
great. Sad lot!" Yes, Chopin's condition had become so hopeless that
his relations had been communicated with, and his sister, Louisa
Jedrzejewicz, [FOOTNOTE: The same sister who visited him in 1844, passed
on that occasion also some time at Nohant, and subsequently is mentioned
in a letter of Chopin's to Franchomme.] accompanied by her husband
and daughter, had lost no time in coming from Poland to Paris. For the
comfort of her presence he was, no doubt, thankful. But he missed and
deplored very much during his last illness the absence of his old,
trusted physician, Dr. Molin, who had died shortly after the composer's
return from England.
The accounts of Chopin's last days--even if we confine ourselves to
those given by eye-witnesses--are a mesh of contradictions which it is
impossible to wholly disentangle. I shall do my best, but perhaps the
most I can hope for is to avoid making confusion worse confounded.
In the first days of October Chopin was already in such a condition that
unsupported he could not sit upright. His sister and Gutmann did not
leave him for a minute, Chopin holding a hand of the latter almost
constantly in one of his. By the 15th of October the voice of the
patient had lost its sonority. It was on this day that took place the
episode which has so often and variously been described. The Countess
Delphine Potocka, between whom and Chopin existed a warm friendship, and
who then happened to be at Nice, was no sooner informed of her friend's
fatal illness than she hastened to Paris.
When the coming of this dear friend was announced to Chopin
[relates M. Gavard], he exclaimed: "Therefore, then, has God
delayed so long to call me to Him; He wished to vouchsafe me
yet the pleasure of seeing you." Scarcely had she stepped up
to him when he expressed the wish that she should let him hear
once more the voice which he loved so much. When the priest
who prayed beside the bed had granted the request of the dying
man, the piano was moved from the adjoining room, and the
unhappy Countess, mastering her sorrow and suppressing tier
sobs, had to force herself to sing beside the bed where her
friend was exhaling his life. I, for my part, heard nothing; I
do not know what she sang. This scene, this contrast, this
excess of grief had over-powered my-sensibility; I remember
only the moment when the death-rattle of the departing one
interrupted the Countess in the middle of the second piece.
The instrument was quickly removed, and beside the bed
remained only the priest who said the prayers for the dying,
and the kneeling friends around him.
However, the end was not yet come, indeed, was not to come till two
days after. M. Gavard, in saying that he did not hear what the Countess
Potocka sang, acts wisely, for those who pretended to have heard it
contradict each other outright. Liszt and Karasowski, who follows him,
say that the Countess sang the Hymn to the Virgin by Stradella, and a
Psalm by Marcello; on the other hand, Gutmann most positively asserted
that she sang a Psalm by Marcello and an air by Pergolesi; whereas
Franchomme insisted on her having sung an air from Bellini's Beatrice
di Tenda, and that only once, and nothing else. As Liszt was not himself
present, and does not give the authority for his statement, we may set
it, and with it Karasowski's, aside; but the two other statements,
made as they were by two musicians who were ear witnesses, leave us
in distressing perplexity with regard to what really took place, for
between them we cannot choose. Chopin, says M. Gavard, looked forward to
his death with serenity.
Some days after his removal to the Place Vendome, Chopin,
sitting upright and leaning on the arm of a friend, remained
silent for a long time and seemed lost in deep meditation.
Suddenly he broke the silence with the words: "Now my death-
struggle begins" [Maintenant j'entre en agonie]. The
physician, who was feeling his pulse, wished to comfort him
with some commonplace words of hope. But Chopin rejoined with
a superiority which admitted of no reply: "God shows man a
rare favour when He reveals to him the moment of the approach
of death; this grace He shows me. Do not disturb me."
M. Gavard relates also that on the 16th October Chopin twice called his
friends that were gathered in his apartments around him. "For everyone
he had a touching word; I, for my part, shall never forget the tender
words he spoke to me." Calling to his side the Princess Czartoryska and
Mdlle. Gavard, [FOOTNOTE: A sister of M. Charles Gavard, the pupil to
whom Chopin dedicated his Berceuse.] he said to them: "You will play
together, you will think of me, and I shall listen to you." And calling
to his side Franchomme, he said to the Princess: "I recommend Franchomme
to you, you will play Mozart together, and I shall listen to you."
[FOOTNOTE: The words are usually reported to have been "Vous jouerez
du Mozart en memoire de moi."] "And," added Franchomme when he told me
this, "the Princess has always been a good friend to me."
And George Sand? Chopin, as I have already mentioned, said two days
before his death to Franchomme: "She had said to me that I would die
in no arms but hers" [Elle n'avait dit que je ne mourrais que dans ses
bras]. Well, did she not come and fulfil her promise, or, at least, take
leave of her friend of many years? Here, again, all is contradiction. M.
Gavard writes:--
Among the persons who called and were not admitted was a
certain Madame M., who came in the name of George Sand--who
was then much occupied with the impending representation of
one of her dramas--to inquire after Chopin's state of health.
None of us thought it proper to disturb the last moments of
the master by the announcement of this somewhat late
remembrance.
Gutmann, on the other hand, related that George Sand came to the landing
of the staircase and asked him if she might see Chopin; but that he
advised her strongly against it, as it was likely to excite the patient
too much. Gutmann, however, seems to have been by no means sure about
this part of his recollections, for on two occasions he told me that it
was Madame Clesinger (George Sand's daughter, Solange) who asked if it
was advisable for her mother to come. Madame Clesinger, I may say
in passing, was one of those in loving attendance on Chopin, and, as
Franchomme told me, present, like himself, when the pianist-composer
breathed his last. From the above we gather, at least, that it is very
uncertain whether Chopin's desire to see George Sand was frustrated by
her heartlessness or the well-meaning interference of his friends.
During this illness of Chopin a great many of his friends and
acquaintances, in fact, too many, pressed forward, ready to be of use,
anxious to learn what was passing. Happily for the dying man's comfort,
most of them were not allowed to enter the room in which he lay.
In the back room [writes M. Gavard] lay the poor sufferer,
tormented by fits of breathlessness, and only sitting in bed
resting in the arms of a friend could he procure air for his
oppressed lungs. It was Gutmann, the strongest among us, who
knew best how to manage the patient, and who mostly thus
supported him. At the head of his bed sat the Princess
Marcelline Czartoryska: she never left him, guessing his most
secret wishes, nursing him like a sister of mercy with a
serene countenance, which did not betray her deep sorrow.
Other friends gave a helping hand or relieved her, everyone
according to his power; but most of them stayed in the two
adjoining rooms. Everyone had assumed a part; everyone helped
as much as he could: one ran to the doctors, to the
apothecary; another introduced the persons asked for; a third
shut the door on the intruders. To be sure, many who had
anything but free entrance came, and called to take leave of
him just as if he were about to start on a journey. This
anteroom of the dying man, where every one of us hopelessly
waited and watched, was like a guard-house or a camp.
M. Gavard probably exaggerates the services of the Princess Czartoryska,
but certainly forgets those of the composer's sister. Liszt, no doubt,
comes nearer the truth when he says that among those who assembled
in the salon adjoining Chopin's bedroom, and in turn came to him and
watched his gestures and looks when he had lost his speech, the Princess
Marcelline Czartoryska was the most assiduous.
She passed every day a couple of hours with the dying man. She
left him at the last only after having prayed for a long time
beside him who had just then fled from this world of illusions
and sorrows....
After a bad night Chopin felt somewhat better on the morning of the
16th. By several authorities we are informed that on this day, the day
after the Potocka episode, the artist received the sacrament which a
Polish priest gave him in the presence of many friends. Chopin got worse
again in the evening. While the priest was reading the prayers for
the dying, he rested silently and with his eyes closed upon Gutmann's
shoulder; but at the end of the prayers he opened his eyes wide and said
with a loud voice: "Amen."
The Polish priest above mentioned was the Abbe Alexander Jelowicki.
Liszt relates that in the absence of the Polish priest who was formerly
Chopin's confessor, the Abbe called on his countryman when he heard of
his condition, although they had not been on good terms for years. Three
times he was sent away by those about Chopin without seeing him. But
when he had succeeded in informing Chopin of his wish to see him, the
artist received him without delay. After that the Abbe became a daily
visitor. One day Chopin told him that he had not confessed for many
years, he would do so now. When the confession was over and the last
word of the absolution spoken, Chopin embraced his confessor with both
arms a la polonaise, and exclaimed: "Thanks! Thanks! Thanks to you I
shall not die like a pig." That is what Liszt tells us he had from Abbe
Jelowicki's own lips. In the account which the latter has himself given
of how Chopin was induced by him to receive the sacrament, induced only
after much hesitation, he writes:--
Then I experienced an inexpressible joy mixed with an
indescribable anguish. How should I receive this precious soul
so as to give it to God? I fell on my knees, and cried to God
with all the energy of my faith: "You alone receive it, O my
God!" And I held out to Chopin the image of the crucified
Saviour, pressing it firmly in his two hands without saying a
word. Then fell from his eyes big tears. "Do you believe?" I
asked him.--"I believe."--"Do you believe as your mother
taught you?"--"As my mother taught me." And, his eyes fixed on
the image of his Saviour, he confessed while shedding torrents
of tears. Then he received the viaticum and the extreme
unction which he asked for himself. After a moment he desired
that the sacristan should be given twenty times more than was
usually given to him. When I told him that this would be far
too much, he replied: "No, no, this is not too much, for what
I have received is priceless." From this moment, by God's
grace, or rather under the hand of God Himself, he became
quite another, and one might almost say he became a saint. On
the same day began the death-struggle, which lasted four days
and four nights. His patience and resignation to the will of
God did not abandon him up to the last minute....
When Chopin's last moments approached he took "nervous cramps" (this
was Gutmann's expression in speaking of the matter), and the only thing
which seemed to soothe him was Gutmann's clasping his wrists and ankles
firmly. Quite near the end Chopin was induced to drink some wine or
water by Gutmann, who supported him in his arms while holding the glass
to his lips. Chopin drank, and, sinking back, said "Cher ami!" and died.
Gutmann preserved the glass with the marks of Chopin's lips on it till
the end of his life.
[FOOTNOTE: In B. Stavenow's sketch already more than once alluded to
by me, we read that Chopin, after having wetted his lips with the water
brought him by Gutmann, raised the latter's hand, kissed it, and with
the words "Cher ami!" breathed his last in the arms of his pupil, whose
sorrow was so great that Count Gryzmala was obliged to lead him out of
the room. Liszt's account is slightly different. "Who is near me?" asked
Chopin, with a scarcely audible voice. He bent his head to kiss the hand
of Gutmann who supported him, giving up his soul in this last proof of
friendship and gratitude. He died as he had lived, loving.]
M. Gavard describes the closing hours of Chopin's life as follows:--
The whole evening of the 16th passed in litanies; we gave the
responses, but Chopin remained silent. Only from his difficult
breathing could one perceive that he was still alive. That
evening two doctors examined him. One of them, Dr. Cruveille,
took a candle, and, holding it before Chopin's face, which had
become quite black from suffocation, remarked to us that the
senses had already ceased to act. But when he asked Chopin
whether he suffered, we heard, still quite distinctly, the
answer "No longer" [Plus]. This was the last word I heard from
his lips. He died painlessly between three and four in the
morning [of October 17, 1849]. When I saw him some hours
afterwards, the calm of death had given again to his
countenance the grand character which we find in the mould
taken the same day [by Clesinger], and still more in the
simple pencil sketch which was drawn by the hand of a friend,
M. Kwiatkowski. This picture of Chopin is the one I like best.
Liszt, too, reports that Chopin's face resumed an unwonted youth,
purity, and calm; that his youthful beauty so long eclipsed by suffering
reappeared. Common as the phenomenon is, there can be nothing more
significant, more impressive, more awful, than this throwing-off in
death of the marks of care, hardship, vice, and disease--the corruption
of earthly life; than this return to the innocence, serenity, and
loveliness of a first and better nature; than this foreshadowing of
a higher and more perfect existence. Chopin's love of flowers was not
forgotten by those who had cherished and admired him now when his soul
and body were parted. "The bed on which he lay," relates Liszt, "the
whole room, disappeared under their varied colours; he seemed to repose
in a garden." It was a Polish custom, which is not quite obsolete even
now, for the dying to choose for themselves the garments in which they
wished to be dressed before being laid in the coffin (indeed, some
people had their last habiliments prepared long before the approach of
their end); and the pious, more especially of the female sex, affected
conventual vestments, men generally preferring their official attire.
That Chopin chose for his grave-clothes his dress-suit, his official
attire, in which he presented himself to his audiences in concert-hall
and salon, cannot but be regarded as characteristic of the man, and is
perhaps more significant than appears at first sight. But I ought to
have said, it would be if it were true that Chopin really expressed the
wish. M. Kwiatkowski informed me that this was not so.
For some weeks after, from the 18th October onwards, the French press
occupied itself a good deal with the deceased musician. There was not, I
think, a single Paris paper of note which did not bring one or more long
articles or short notes regretting the loss, describing the end, and
estimating the man and artist. But the phenomenal ignorance, exuberance
of imagination, and audacity of statement, manifested by almost every
one of the writers of these articles and notes are sufficient to destroy
one's faith in journalism completely and for ever. Among the offenders
were men of great celebrity, chief among them Theophile Gautier
(Feuilleton de la Presse, November 5, 1849) and Jules Janin (Feuilleton
du Journal des Debuts, October 22, 1849), the latter's performance being
absolutely appalling. Indeed, if we must adjudge to French journalists
the palm for gracefulness and sprightliness, we cannot withhold it from
them for unconscientiousness. Some of the inventions of journalism, I
suspect, were subsequently accepted as facts, in some cases perhaps
even assimilated as items of their experience, by the friends of the
deceased, and finally found their way into AUTHENTIC biography. One
of these myths is that Chopin expressed the wish that Mozart's Requiem
should be performed at his funeral. Berlioz, one of the many journalists
who wrote at the time to this effect, adds (Feuilleton du Journal des
Debuts, October 27, 1849) that "His [Chopin's] worthy pupil received
this wish with his last sigh." Unfortunately for Berlioz and this pretty
story, Gutmann told me that Chopin did not express such a wish; and
Franchomme made to me the same statement. I must, [I must, however, not
omit to mention here that M. Charles Gavard says that Chopin drew up
the programme of his funeral, and asked that on that occasion Mozart's
Requiem should be performed.] Also the story about Chopin's wish to be
buried beside Bellini is, according to the latter authority, a baseless
invention. This is also the place to dispose of the question: What was
done with Chopin's MSS.? The reader may know that the composer is said
to have caused all his MSS. to be burnt. Now, this is not true. From
Franchomme I learned that what actually took place was this. Pleyel
asked Chopin what was to be done with the MSS. Chopin replied that
they were to be distributed among his friends, that none were to be
published, and that fragments were to be destroyed. Of the pianoforte
school which Chopin is said to have had the intention to write, nothing
but scraps, if anything, can have been found.
M. Gavard pere made the arrangements for the funeral, which, owing to
the extensiveness of the preparations, did not take place till the 30th
of October. Ready assistance was given by M. Daguerry, the curate of the
Madeleine, where the funeral service was to be held; and thanks to him
permission was received for the introduction of female singers into the
church, without whom the performance of Mozart's Requiem would have been
an impossibility.
Numerous equipages [says Eugene Guinot in the Feuilleton du
Siecle of November 4] encumbered last Tuesday the large
avenues of the Madeleine church, and the crowd besieged the
doors of the Temple where one was admitted only on presenting
a letter of invitation. Mourning draperies announced a funeral
ceremony, and in seeing this external pomp, this concourse of
carriages and liveried servants, and this privilege which
permitted only the elect to enter the church, the curious
congregated on the square asked: "Who is the great lord [grand
seigneur] whom they are burying?" As if there were still
grands seigneurs! Within, the gathering was brilliant; the
elite of Parisian society, all the strangers of distinction
which Paris possesses at this moment, were to be found
there...
Many writers complain of the exclusiveness which seems to have presided
at the sending out of invitations. M. Guinot remarks in reference to
this point:
His testamentary executors [executrices] organised this
solemnity magnificently. But, be it from premeditation or from
forgetfulness, they completely neglected to invite to the
ceremony most of the representatives of the musical world.
Members of the Institute, celebrated artists, notable writers,
tried in vain to elude the watch-word [consigne] and penetrate
into the church, where the women were in a very great
majority. Some had come from London, Vienna, and Berlin.
In continuation of my account of the funeral service I shall quote from
a report in the Daily News of November 2, 1849:--
The coffin was under a catafalque which stood in the middle of
the area. The semicircular space behind the steps of the altar
was screened by a drapery of black cloth, which being
festooned towards the middle, gave a partial view of the vocal
and instrumental orchestra, disposed not in the usual form of
a gradual ascent from the front to the back, but only on the
level of the floor....
The doors of the church were opened at eleven o'clock, and at
noon (the time fixed for the commencement of the funeral
service) the vast area was filled by an assembly of nearly
three thousand persons, all of whom had received special
invitations, as being entitled from rank, from station in the
world of art and literature, or from friendship for the
lamented deceased, to be present on so solemn and melancholy
an occasion.
A trustworthy account of the whole ceremony, and especially a clear and
full report of the musical part of the service, we find in a letter
from the Paris correspondent of The Musical World (November 10, 1849).
I shall quote some portions of this letter, accompanying them with
elucidatory and supplementary notes:--
The ceremony, which took place on Tuesday (the 30th ult.), at
noon, in the church of the Madeleine, was one of the most
imposing we ever remember to have witnessed. The great door of
the church was hung with black curtains, with the initials of
the deceased, "F. C.," emblazoned in silver. On our entry we
found the vast area of the modern Parthenon entirely crowded.
Nave, aisles, galleries, &c., were alive with human beings who
had come to see the last of Frederick Chopin. Many, perhaps,
had never heard of him before....In the space that separates
the nave from the choir, a lofty mausoleum had been erected,
hung with black and silver drapery, with the initials "F.C."
emblazoned on the pall. At noon the service began. The
orchestra and chorus (both from the Conservatoire, with M.
Girard as conductor and the principal singers (Madame Viardot-
Garcia, Madame Castellan, Signor Lablache, and M. Alexis
Dupont)) were placed at the extreme end of the church, a black
drapery concealing them from view.
[FOOTNOTE: This statement is confirmed by one in the Gazette
musicals, where we read that the members of the Societe des
Concerts "have made themselves the testamentary executors of
this wish"--namely, to have Mozart's Requiem performed. Madame
Audley, misled, I think, by a dubious phrase of Karasowski's,
that has its origin in a by no means dubious phrase of
Liszt's, says that Meyerbeer conducted (dirigeait l'ensemble).
Liszt speaks of the conducting of the funeral procession.]
When the service commenced the drapery was partially withdrawn
and exposed the male executants to view, concealing the women,
whose presence, being uncanonical, was being felt, not seen. A
solemn march was then struck up by the band, during the
performance of which the coffin containing the body of the
deceased was slowly carried up the middle of the nave...As
soon as the coffin was placed in the mausoleum, Mozart's
Requiem was begun...The march that accompanied the body to the
mausoleum was Chopin's own composition from his first
pianoforte sonata, instrumented for the orchestra by M. Henri
Reber.
[FOOTNOTE: Op. 35, the first of those then published, but in
reality his second, Op. 4 being the first. Meyerbeer
afterwards expressed to M. Charles Gavard his surprise that he
had not been asked to do the deceased the homage of scoring
the march.]
During the ceremony M. Lefebure-Wely, organist of the
Madeleine, performed two of Chopin's preludes [FOOTNOTE: Nos.
4 and 6, in E and B minor] upon the organ...After the service
M. Wely played a voluntary, introducing themes from Chopin's
compositions, while the crowd dispersed with decorous gravity.
The coffin was then carried from the church, all along the
Boulevards, to the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise-a distance of
three miles at least--Meyerbeer and the other chief mourners,
who held the cords, walking on foot, bareheaded.
[FOOTNOTE: Liszt writes that Meyerbeer and Prince Adam
Czartoryski conducted the funeral procession, and that Prince
Alexander Czartoryski, Delacroix, Franchomme, and Gutmann were
the pall-bearers. Karasowski mentions the same gentlemen as
pall-bearers; Madame Audley, on the other hand, names
Meyerbeer instead of Gutmann. Lastly, Theophile Gautier
reported in the Feuilleton de la Presse of November 5, 1849,
that MM. Meyerbeer, Eugene Delacroix, Franchomme, and Pleyel
held the cords of the pall. The Gazette musicale mentions
Franchomme, Delacroix, Meyerbeer, and Czartoryski.]
A vast number of carriages followed...
[FOOTNOTE: "Un grand nombre de voitures de deuil et de
voitures particulieres," we read in the Gazette musicals, "ont
suivi jusqu'au cimetiere de l'Est, dit du Pere-Lachaise, le
pompeux corbillard qui portait le corps du defunt. L'elite des
artistes de Paris lui a servi de cortege. Plusieurs dames, ses
eleves, en grand deuil, ont suivi le convoi, a pied, jusqu'au
champ de repos, ou l'artiste eminent, convaincu, a eu pour
oraisons funebres des regrets muets, profondement sentis, qui
valent mieux que des discours dans lesquels perce toujours une
vanite d'auteur ou d'orateur"]
At Pere-Lachaise, in one of the most secluded spots, near the
tombs of Habeneck and Marie Milanollo, the coffin was
deposited in a newly-made grave. The friends and admirers took
a last look, ladies in deep mourning threw garlands and
flowers upon the coffin, and then the gravedigger resumed his
work...The ceremony was performed in silence.
One affecting circumstance escaped the attention of our otherwise so
acute observer--namely, the sprinkling on the coffin, when the latter
had been lowered into the grave, of the Polish earth which, enclosed in
a finely-wrought silver cup, loving friends had nearly nineteen years
before, in the village of Wola, near Warsaw, given to the departing
young and hopeful musician who was never to see his country again.
Chopin's surroundings at Pere-Lachaise are most congenial. Indeed,
the neighbourhood forms quite a galaxy of musical talent--close by lie
Cherubini, Bellini, Gretry, Boieldieu, Bocquillon-Wilhem, Louis Duport,
and several of the Erard family; farther away, Ignace Pleyel, Rodolphe
Kreutzer, Pierre Galin, Auguste Panseron, Mehul, and Paer. Some of
these, however, had not yet at that time taken possession of their
resting-places there, and Bellini has since then (September 15, 1876)
been removed by his compatriots, to his birthplace, Catania, in Sicily.
Not the whole of Chopin's body, however, was buried at Pere-Lachaise;
his heart was conveyed to his native country and is preserved in the
Holy Cross Church at Warsaw, where at the end of 1879 or beginning of
1880 a monument was erected, consisting of a marble bust of the composer
in a marble niche. Soon after Chopin's death voluntary contributions
were collected, and a committee under Delacroix's presidence was formed,
for the erection of a monument, the execution of which was entrusted to
Clesinger, the husband of Madame Sand's daughter, Solange. Although
the sculptor's general idea is good--a pedestal bearing on its front a
medallion, and surmounted by a mourning muse with a neglected lyre in
her hand--the realisation leaves much to be desired. This monument was
unveiled in October, 1850, on the anniversary of Chopin's death.
[FOOTNOTE: On the pedestal of the monument are to be read besides the
words "A. Frederic Chopin" above the medallion, "Ses amis" under the
medallion, and the name of the sculptor and the year of its production
(J. Clesinger, 1850), the following incorrect biographical data:
"Frederic Chopin, ne en Pologne a Zelazowa Wola pres de Varsovie: Fils
d'un emigre francais, marie a Mile. Krzyzanowska, fille d'un gentilhomme
Polonais."]
The friends of the composer, as we learn from an account in John Bull
(October 26, 1850), assembled in the little chapel of Pere-Lachaise, and
after a religious service proceeded with the officiating priest at their
head to Chopin's grave. The monument was then unveiled, flowers and
garlands were scattered over and around it, prayers were said, and M.
Wolowski, the deputy, [FOOTNOTE: Louis Francois Michel Raymond Wolowski,
political economist, member of the Academie des Sciences Morales, and
member of the Constituante. A Pole by birth, he became a naturalised
French subject in 1834.] endeavoured to make a speech, but was so much
moved that he could only say a few words.
[FOOTNOTE: In the Gazette muticale of October 20, 1850, we read: "Une
messe commemorative a ete dite jeudi dernier [i.e., on the 17th] dans la
chapelle du cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise a la memoire de Frederic Chopin
et pour l'inauguration de son monument funebre."]
The Menestrel of November 3, 1850, informed its readers that in the
course of the week (it was on the 30th October at eleven o'clock) an
anniversary mass had been celebrated at the Madeleine in honour of
Chopin, at which from two to three hundred of his friends were present,
and that Franchomme on the violoncello and Lefebure-Wely on the organ
had played some of the departed master's preludes, or, to quote our
authority literally, "ont redit aux assistants emus les preludes si
pleins de melancolie de I'illustre defunt."
EPILOGUE.
We have followed Chopin from his birthplace, Zelazowa Wola, to Warsaw,
where he passed his childhood and youth, and received his musical as
well as his general education; we have followed him in his holiday
sojourns in the country, and on his more distant journeys to Reinerz,
Berlin, and Vienna; we have followed him when he left his native
country and, for further improvement, settled for a time in the Austrian
capital; we have followed him subsequently to Paris, which thenceforth
became his home; and we have followed him to his various lodgings there
and on the journeys and in the sojourns elsewhere--to 27, Boulevard
Poissonniere, to 5 and 38, Chaussee d'Antin, to Aix-la-Chapelle,
Carlsbad, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Marienbad, and London, to Majorca, to
Nohant, to 5, Rue Tronchet, 16, Rue Pigalle, and 9, Square d'Orleans,
to England and Scotland, to 9, Square d'Orleans once more, Rue Chaillot,
and 12, Place Vendome; and, lastly, to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery. We
have considered him as a pupil at the Warsaw Lyceum and as a student of
music under the tuition of Zywny and Elsner; we have considered him as a
son and as a brother, as a lover and as a friend, as a man of the world
and as a man of business; and we have considered him as a virtuoso, as a
teacher, and as a composer. Having done all this, there remains only one
thing for me to do--namely, to summarise the thousands of details of the
foregoing account, and to point out what this artist was to his and is
to our time. But before doing this I ought perhaps to answer a question
which the reader may have asked himself. Why have I not expressed an
opinion on the moral aspect of Chopin's connection with George Sand?
My explanation shall be brief. I abstained from pronouncing judgment
because the incomplete evidence did not seem to me to warrant my doing
so. A full knowledge of all the conditions and circumstances. I hold
to be indispensable if justice is to be done; the rash and ruthless
application of precepts drawn from the social conventions of the day are
not likely to attain that end. Having done my duty in placing before the
reader the ascertainable evidence, I leave him at liberty to decide on
it according to his wisdom and charity.
Henri Blaze de Bury describes (in Etudes et Souvenirs) the portrait
which Ary Scheffer painted of Chopin in these words:--
It represents him about this epoch [when "neither physical nor
moral consumption of any kind prevented him from attending
freely to his labours as well as to his pleasures"], slender,
and in a nonchalant attitude, gentlemanlike in the highest
degree: the forehead superb, the hands of a rare distinction,
the eyes small, the nose prominent, but the mouth of an
exquisite fineness and gently closed, as if to keep back a
melody that wishes to escape.
M. Marmontel, with, "his [Chopin's] admirable portrait" by Delacroix
before him, penned the following description:--
This is the Chopin of the last years, ailing, broken by
suffering; the physiognomy already marked by the last seal [le
sceau supreme], the look dreamy, melancholy, floating between
heaven and earth, in the limbos of dream and agony. The
attenuated and lengthened features are strongly accentuated:
the relief stands out boldly, but the lines of the countenance
remain beautiful; the oval of the face, the aquiline nose and
its harmonious curve, give to this sickly physiognomy the
stamp of poetic distinction peculiar to Chopin.
Poetic distinction, exquisite refinement, and a noble bearing are the
characteristics which strike one in all portraits of Chopin, [FOOTNOTE:
See Appendix IV.] and which struck the beholder still more strongly in
the real Chopin, where they were reinforced by the gracefulness of his
movements, and by manners that made people involuntarily treat him as
a prince...[FOOTNOTE: See my description of Chopin, based on the most
reliable information, in Chapter XX.] And pervading and tincturing every
part of the harmonious whole of Chopin's presence there was delicacy,
which was indeed the cardinal factor in the shaping not only of his
outward conformation, but also of his character, life, and art-practice.
Physical delicacy brought with it psychical delicacy, inducing a
delicacy of tastes, habits, and manners, which early and continued
intercourse with the highest aristocracy confirmed and developed.
Many of the charming qualities of the man and artist derive from this
delicacy. But it is likewise the source of some of the deficiencies and
weaknesses in the man and artist. His exclusiveness, for instance, is,
no doubt, chargeable to the superlative sensitiveness which shrank from
everything that failed to satisfy his fastidious, exacting nature, and
became more and more morbid as delicacy, of which it was a concomitant,
degenerated into disease. Yet, notwithstanding the lack of robustness
and all it entails, Chopin might have been moderately happy, perhaps
even have continued to enjoy moderately good health, if body and soul
had been well matched. This, however, was not the case. His thoughts
were too big, his passions too violent, for the frail frame that held
them; and the former grew bigger and more violent as the latter grew
frailer and frailer. He could not realise his aspirations, could not
compass his desires, in short, could not fully assert himself. Here,
indeed, we have lit upon the tragic motive of Chopin's life-drama,
and the key to much that otherwise would be enigmatical, certainly not
explicable by delicacy and disease alone. His salon acquaintances, who
saw only the polished outside of the man, knew nothing of this disparity
and discrepancy; and even the select few of his most intimate friends,
from whom he was not always able to conceal the irritation that gnawed
at his heart, hardly more than guessed the true state of matters. In
fact, had not Chopin been an artist, the tale of his life would have
for ever remained a tale untold. But in his art, as an executant and a
composer, he revealed all his strength and weakness, all his excellences
and insufficiencies, all his aspirations and failures, all his successes
and disappointments, all his dreams and realities.
Chopin [wrote Anton Schindler in 1841] [FOOTNOTE: Beethoven in
Paris, p. 71] is the prince of all pianists, poesy itself at
the piano... His playing does not impress by powerfulness of
touch, by fiery brilliancy, for Chopin's physical condition
forbids him every bodily exertion, and spirit and body are
constantly at variance and in reciprocal excitement. The
cardinal virtue of this great master in pianoforte-playing
lies in the perfect truth of the expression of every feeling
within his reach [dessen er sich bemeistern darf], which is
altogether inimitable and might lead to caricature were
imitatior attempted.
Chopin was not a virtuoso in the ordinary sense of the word. His sphere
was the reunion intime, not the mixed crowd of concert audiences. If,
however, human testimony is worth anything, we may take it as proven
that there never was a pianist whose playing exercised a charm equal to
that of Chopin. But, as Liszt has said, it is impossible to make those
who have not heard him understand this subtle, penetrating charm of an
ineffable poesy. If words could give an idea of Chopin's playing, it
would be given by such expressions as "legerete impalpable," "palais
aeriens de la Fata Morgana," "wundersam und marchenhaft," and other
similar ones used with regard to it by men who may safely be accepted as
authorities.
As a pianist Chopin was sorely restricted by lack of physical vigour,
which obliged him often to merely suggest, and even to leave not a
little wholly unexpressed. His range as a composer was much wider, as
its limits were those of his spirit. Still, Chopin does not number among
those masterminds who gather up and grasp with a strong hand all the
acquisitions of the past and present, and mould them into a new and
glorious synthesis-the highest achievement possible in art, and not to
be accomplished without a liberal share of originality in addition to
the comprehensive power. Chopin, then, is not a compeer of Bach, Handel,
Mozart, and Beethoven. But if he does not stand on their level, he
stands on a level not far below them. And if the inferiority of his
intellectual stamina prevented him from achieving what they achieved,
his delicate sensibility and romantic imagination enabled him to achieve
what they were disqualified from achieving. Of universality there
was not a trace in him, but his individuality is one of the most
interesting. The artistico-historical importance of Chopin lies in his
having added new elements to music, originated means of expression for
the communication and discrimination of moods and emotions, and shades
of moods and emotions, that up to his time had belonged to the realm of
the unuttered and unutterable. Notwithstanding the high estimation
in which Chopin is held, it seems to me that his importance for the
development of the art is not rated at its full value. His influence on
composers for the pianoforte, both as regards style and subject-matter,
is generally understood; but the same cannot be said of his less obvious
wider influence. Indeed, nothing is more common than to overlook his
connection with the main current of musical history altogether, to
regard him as a mere hors d'oeuvre in the musical MENU of the universe.
My opinion, on the contrary, is that among the notable composers who
have lived since the days of Chopin there is not to be found one who
has not profited more or less, consciously or unconsciously, directly
or indirectly, by this truly creative genius. To trace his influence
we must transport ourselves back fifty or sixty years, and see what
the state of music then was, what composers expressed and what means of
expression they had at their disposal. Much that is now familiar, nay,
even commonplace, was then a startling novelty. The appearance of Chopin
was so wonderful a phenomenon that it produced quite an electrical
effect upon Schumann. "Come," said Berlioz to Legouve in the first
years of the fourth decade of this century, "I am going to let you see
something which you have never seen, and someone whom you will never
forget." This something and someone was Chopin. Mendelssohn being
questioned about his enthusiasm for one of this master's preludes
replied: "I love it, I cannot tell you how much, or why; except,
perhaps, that it is something which I could never have written at
all." Of course, Chopin's originality was not universally welcomed
and appreciated. Mendelssohn, for instance, was rather repelled than
attracted by it; at any rate, in his letters there are to be found
frequent expressions of antipathy to Chopin's music, which seemed to
him" mannered "(see letter to Moscheles of February 7, 1835). But even
the heartless and brainless critic of the Musical World whose nonsense I
quoted in Chapter XXXI. admits that Chopin was generally esteemed by the
"professed classical musicians," and that the name of the admirers
of the master's compositions was legion. To the early popularity of
Chopin's music testify also the many arrangements for other instruments
(the guitar not excepted) and even for voices (for instance, OEuvres
celebres de Chopin, transcrites a une ou deux voix egales par Luigi
Bordese) to which his compositions were subjected. This popularity was,
however, necessarily limited, limited in extent or intensity. Indeed,
popular, in the comprehensive sense of the word, Chopin's compositions
can never become. To understand them fully we must have something of
the author's nature, something of his delicate sensibility and romantic
imagination. To understand him we must, moreover, know something of
his life and country. For, as Balzac truly remarked, Chopin was less a
musician than une ame qui se rend sensible. In short, his compositions
are the "celestial echo of what he had felt, loved, and suffered"; they
are his memoirs, his autobiography, which, like that of every poet,
assumes the form of "Truth and Poetry."
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I.
THE GOLDEN AGE OP POLISH MUSIC.
(VOL. I., p. 66.)
As yet it is difficult to speak with any degree of certainty of the
early musical history of Poland. Our general histories of music have
little or nothing to say on the matter, and a special history exists
neither in the Polish nor in any other language. The Abbe Joseph
Surzynski, who by his labours is endeavouring to remove the reproach of
indifference and ignorance now lying on his countrymen in this respect,
says: [FOOTNOTE: In the preface to the Monumenta Musices sacra, selected
works of the best composers of classical religious music in Poland,
published by him. The first two parts of this publication, respectively
issued in 1885 and 1887, contain compositions by Thomas Szadek, Nicolas
Zielenski, G. G. Gorczycki, Venceslas, Szamotulski, and Sebastian
of Felsztyn.] "The compositions of our old masters are buried in the
archives and libraries--no one cares to make them known to the public;
many Polish musicians, not even supposing that these compositions exist,
are very far from believing that the authors of these pieces deserve to
be ranked with the best composers of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, in
studying these works, we find in the century of Palestrina and Vittoria
among our artists: Marcin ze Lwowa (Martin Leopolita), Christopher
Borek, Thomas Szadek, Venceslas Szamotulski, and especially Zielenski
and Gomolka--distinguished masters who deserve to be known by the
friends of the musical art, either on account of their altogether
national genius, or on account of their inspiration and the perfection
of the forms which manifest themselves in their compositions." One of
the first illustrious names in the history of music in Poland is the
German Henry Finck, the chapel-master of the Polish Kings, John Albert
(1492-1501) and Alexander (1501-1506). From the fact that this excellent
master got his musical education in Poland we may safely conclude--and
it is not the only fact which justifies our doing so--that in that
country already in the fifteenth century good contrapuntists were to
be found. The Abbe Surzynski regards Zielenski as the best of the
early composers, having been impressed both by the profound religious
inspiration and the classical form of his works. Of Gomolka, who has
been called the Polish Palestrina as Sebastian of Felsztyn the Polish
Goudimel, the Abbe remarks: "Among the magnificent musical works of
Martin Leopolita, Szadek, and Zielenski, the compositions of Gomolka
present themselves like miniature water-colours, in which, nevertheless,
every line, every colour, betrays the painter of genius. His was a
talent thoroughly indigenous--his compositions are of great simplicity;
no too complicated combinations of parts, one might even say that they
are homophonous; nevertheless what wealth of thought, what beauty of
harmony, what profoundness of sentiment do we find there! These simple
melodies clothed in pure and truly holy harmonies, written, as Gomolka
said himself, not for the Italians, but for the Poles, who are happy
in their own country, are the best specimens of the national style. "In
speaking of the early Polish church music I must not forget to mention
the famous College of the Roratists, [FOOTNOTE: The duties of these
singers were to sing Rorate masses and Requiem masses for the royal
family. Their name was derived from the opening word of the Introit,
"Rorate coeli."] the Polish Sistine Chapel, attached to the Cracow
Cathedral. It was founded in 1543 and subsisted till 1760. With the
fifteenth of seventeen conductors of the college, Gregor Gorczycki, who
died in 1734, passed away the last of the classical school of Polish
church music. Music was diligently cultivated in the seventeenth
century, especially under the reigns of Sigismund III. (1587-1632), and
Wladislaw IV. (1632-1648); but no purpose would be served by crowding
these pages with unknown names of musicians about whom only scanty
information is available; I may, however, mention the familiar names of
three of many Italian composers who, in the seventeenth century, like
many more of their countrymen, passed a great part of their lives in
Poland--namely, Luca Marenzio, Asprilio Pacelii, and Marco Scacchi.
APPENDIX II.
EARLY PERFORMANCES OF CHOPIN'S WORKS IN GERMANY.
(VOL. I., p. 268.)
The first performance of a composition by Chopin at the Leipzig
Gewandhaus took place on October 27, 1831. It was his Op. 1, the
variations on La ci darem la mano, which Julius Knorr played at a
concert for the benefit of the Pension-fund of the orchestra, but not
so as to give the audience pleasure--at least, this was the opinion of
Schumann, as may be seen from his letter to Frederick Wieck of January
4, 1832. Chopin relates already on June 5, 1830, that Emilie Belleville
knew his variations by heart and had played them in Vienna. Clara Wieck
was one of the first who performed Chopin's compositions in public. On
September 29, 1833, she played at a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert the last
movement of the E minor Concerto, and on May 5, 1834, in the same hall
at an extra concert, the whole work and two Etudes. Further information
about the introduction and repetitions of Chopin's compositions at the
Leipzig Gewandhaus, is to be found in the statistical part (p. 13) of
Alfred Dorffel's Die Gewandhausconcerte.
APPENDIX III.
MADAME SCHUMANN ON CHOPIN'S VISIT TO LEIPZIG.
(VOL. I., p. 290.)
Through a kind communication from Madame Schumann I have learned that
Wenzel's account does not quite agree with her diary. There she finds
written that her father, Friedrich Wieck, felt offended because Chopin,
for whose recognition in Germany he had done so much, had not called
upon him immediately after his arrival. Chopin made his appearance only
two hours before his departure, but then did not find Wieck at home, for
he, to avoid Chopin, had gone out and had also taken his daughter Clara
with him. When Wieck returned an hour later, he found unexpectedly
Chopin still there. Clara had now to play to the visitor. She let
him hear Schumann's F sharp minor Sonata, two Etudes by Chopin, and a
movement of a Concerto by herself. After this Chopin played his E
flat major Nocturne. By degrees Wieck's wrath subsided, and finally he
accompanied Chopin to the post-house, and parted from him in the most
friendly mood.
APPENDIX IV.
REBECCA DIRICHLET ON CHOPIN AT MARIENBAD.
(VOL. I., p. 309.)
When Rebecca Dirichlet came with her husband to Marienbad, she learnt
that Chopin did not show himself, and that his physician and a Polish
countess, who completely monopolised him, did not allow him to play.
Having, however, heard so much of his playing from her brothers,
she was, in order to satisfy her curiosity, even ready to commit the
bassesse of presenting herself as the soeur de Messieurs Paul et Felix
Mendelssohn Bartholdy. As she humorously wrote a few days later: "The
bassesse towards Chopin has been committed and has completely
failed. Dirichlet went to him, and said that a soeur, &c.--only a
mazurka--impossible, mal aux nerfs, mauvais piano--et comment se porte
cette chere Madame Hensel, el Paul est marie? heureux couple, &c.--allez
vous promener--the first and the last time that we do such a thing."
APPENDIX V.
PALMA AND VALDEMOSA.
(VOL. II., pp. 22-48.)
The Argosy of 1888 contains a series of Letters from Majorca by Charles
W. Wood, illustrated by views of Palma, Valdemosa, and other parts of
the island. The illustrations in the April number comprise a general
view of the monastery of Valdemosa, and views of one of its courts and
of the cloister in which is situated the cell occupied by George Sand
and Chopin in the winter of 1838-1839. The cloister has a groined vault,
on one side the cell doors, and on the other side, opening on the court,
doors and rectangular windows with separate circular windows above them.
The letters have been republished in book form (London: Bentley and
Sons).
APPENDIX VI.
On Tempo Rubato.
(VOL. II., p. 101.)
An earlier practiser of the tempo rubato than the lady mentioned by
Quanz (see Vol. II., p. 101 of this work) was Girolamo Frescobaldi, who
speaks of this manner of musical rendering in the preface to Il primo
libra di Capricci fatti sopra diversi sogetti et Arie in partitura
(1624). An extract from this preface is to be found in A. G. Ritter's
Zur Geschichte des Orgelspiels, Vol. I., p. 34. F. X. Haberl remarks
in the preface to his collection of pieces by Frescobaldi (Leipzig:
Breitkopf and Hartel): "A chief trait of Frescobaldi's genius is the
so-called tempo rubato, an absolute freedom in the employment of a
quicker and slower tempo."
APPENDIX VII.
CAROLINE HARTMANN.
(VOL. II., p. 171.)
On page 175 of this volume I made an allusion to Spohr in connection
with Chopin's pupil Caroline Hartmann. To save the curious reader
trouble, I had better point out that the information is to be found in
Spohr's autobiography under date Munster, near Colmar, March 26, 1816
(German edition, pp. 245-250; English edition, pp. 229-232). Jacques
Hartmann, the father of Caroline, was a cotton manufacturer and an
enthusiastic lover of music. He had an orchestra consisting of his
family and employes. Spohr calls the father a bassoon-virtuoso; what
he says of the daughter will be seen in the following sentences: "His
sister and his daughter play the pianoforte. The latter, a child eight
years old, is the star of the amateur orchestra. She plays with a
dexterity and exactness that are worthy of admiration. I was still
more astonished at her fine ear, with which (away from the piano) she
recognises the intervals of the most intricate and full dissonant chords
which one strikes, and names the notes of which they consist in their
sequence. If the child is well guided, she is sure to become one day an
excellent artist."
APPENDIX VIII.
MADAME PERUZZI.
(VOL. II., p. 177.)
The reader will be as grateful as I am for the following interesting
communications of Madame Peruzzi (nee Elise Eustaphieve, whose father
was Russian Consul-General to the United States of America) about her
intercourse with Chopin.
"I first met Chopin at the house of the American banker, Samuel Welles,
in Paris, where I, like every one present, was enchanted listening to
his mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, &c., which he played on a wretched
square piano. I lived as dame en chambre (a very convenient custom for
ladies alone), at a pension, or rather a regular boarding-school, with
rooms to let for ladies. The lady of the house was acquainted with many
of the musical people, and I had a splendid American grand piano which
was placed in the large drawing-room of the establishment, so that I
felt quite at home, and there received Chopin, Liszt, and Herz (Miss
Herz, his sister, gave lessons in the school), and often played
four-hand pieces with them.
"My intimacy with Chopin began after my marriage. He often dined with
us, was very fond of my husband, and after dinner we were not at home
if any one else came, but remained at our two pianos (Erard had sent me
one), playing together, and I used to amuse him by picking out of his
music little bits that seemed like questions for him to answer on the
other piano. He lived very near us, so we very often passed mornings at
his house, where he asked me to play with him all Weber's duets. This
was delightful to me, the more so, as he complimented me on my reading
and entering at first sight into the spirit of the music. He made me
acquainted with the beautiful duet of Moscheles, and was the first with
whom I played Hummel's splendid duet. He was a great admirer of Weber.
We frequently had morning concerts with double quartet, and Chopin would
very kindly turn the leaves for me. He was particularly fond of doing so
when I played Hummel's Septet, and was so encouraging. Even when playing
to him his own music, he would approve some little thing not indicated
and say, 'What a good idea of yours that is!' My husband begged him to
give me lessons; but he always refused, and did give them; for I studied
so many things with him, among others his two concertos. The one in E
minor I once played accompanied by himself on a second piano. We passed
many pleasant evenings at Mr. and Madame Leo's house, a very musical
one. Madame Moscheles was a niece of theirs. Chopin was fond of going
there, where he was quite a pet. He always appeared to best advantage
among his most intimate friends. I was one who helped to christen the
Berceuse. You ask me in what years I knew Chopin, 1838 is the date of
the manuscript in my collection which he gave me after I was married,
and the last notes of that little jewel he wrote on the desk of the
piano in our presence. He said it would not be published because they
would play it....Then he would show how they would play it, which was
very funny. It came out after his death, it is a kind of waltz-mazurka
[the Valse, Op. 69, No. I], Chopin's intimate friend, Camille Pleyel,
called it the story of a D flat, because that note comes in constantly.
One morning we took Paganini to hear Chopin, and he was enchanted;
they seemed to understand each other so well. When I knew him he was a
sufferer and would only occasionally play in public, and then place his
piano in the middle of Pleyel's room whilst his admirers were around
the piano. His speciality was extreme delicacy, and his pianissimo
extraordinary. Every little note was like a bell, so clear. His fingers
seemed to be without any bones; but he would bring out certain effects
by great elasticity. He got very angry at being accused of not keeping
time; calling his left hand his maitre de chapelle and allowing his
right to wander about ad libitum."
APPENDIX IX.
MADAME STREICHER'S (nee FRIEDERIKE MULLER) RECOLLECTIONS OF CHOPIN,
BASED ON EXTRACTS FROM HER CAREFULLY-KEPT DIARY OF THE YEARS 1839, 1840,
AND 1841. (VOL. II., p. 177.)
In March, 1839, I went to Paris, accompanied by a kind aunt, who was
a highly-cultured musical connoisseur, animated by the wish to get
if possible lessons from Chopin, whose compositions inspired me with
enthusiasm. But he was from home and very ill; indeed, it was feared he
would not return to Paris even in the winter. However, at last, at
last, in October, 1839, he came. I had employed this long time in making
myself acquainted with the musical world in Paris, but the more I heard,
nay, even admired, the more was my intention to wait till Chopin's
return confirmed. And I was quite right.
On the 30th of October, 1839, we, my kind aunt and I, went to him. At
that time he lived in Rue Tronchet, No. 5. Anxiously I handed him my
letters of introduction from Vienna, and begged him to take me as a
pupil. He said very politely, but very formally: "You have played with
applause at a matinee at the house of Countess Appony, the wife of the
Austrian ambassador, and will hardly require my instruction." I became
afraid, for I was wise enough to understand he had not the least
inclination to accept me as a pupil. I quickly protested that I knew
very well I had still very, very much to learn. And, I added timidly,
I should like to be able to play his wondrously-beautiful compositions
well. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "it would be sad if people were not in a
position to play them well without my instruction." "I certainly am not
able to do so," I replied anxiously. "Well, play me something," he said.
And in a moment his reserve had vanished. Kindly and indulgently he
helped me to overcome my timidity, moved the piano, inquired whether I
were comfortably seated, let me play till I had become calm, then gently
found fault with my stiff wrist, praised my correct comprehension, and
accepted me as a pupil. He arranged for two lessons a week, then turned
in the most amiable way to my aunt, excusing himself beforehand if he
should often be obliged to change the day and hour of the lesson on
account of his delicate health. His servant would always inform us of
this.
Alas! he suffered greatly. Feeble, pale, coughing much, he often took
opium drops on sugar and gum-water, rubbed his forehead with eau de
Cologne, and nevertheless he taught with a patience, perseverance,
and zeal which were admirable. His lessons always lasted a full hour,
generally he was so kind as to make them longer. Mikuli says: "A holy
artistic zeal burnt in him then, every word from his lips was incentive
and inspiring. Single lessons often lasted literally for hours at a
stretch, till exhaustion overcame master and pupil." There were for me
also such blessed lessons. Many a Sunday I began at one o'clock to play
at Chopin's, and only at four or five o'clock in the afternoon did he
dismiss us. Then he also played, and how splendidly but not only his own
compositions, also those of other masters, in order to teach the pupil
how they should be performed. One morning he played from memory fourteen
Preludes and Fugues of Bach's, and when I expressed my joyful admiration
at this unparalleled performance, he replied: "Cela ne s'oublie jamais,"
and smiling sadly he continued: "Depuis un an je n'ai pas etudie un
quart d'heure de sante, je n'ai pas de force, pas d'energie, j'attends
toujours un peu de sante pour reprendre tout cela, mais... j'attends
encore." We always spoke French together, in spite of his great fondness
for the German language and poetry. It is for this reason that I give
his sayings in the French language, as I heard them from him. In Paris
people had made me afraid, and told me how Chopin caused Clementi,
Hummel, Cramer, Moscheles, Beethoven, and Bach to be studied, but not
his own compositions. This was not the case. To be sure, I had to study
with him the works of the above-mentioned masters, but he also required
me to play to him the new and newest compositions of Hiller, Thalberg,
and Liszt, &c. And already in the first lesson he placed before me
his wondrously--beautiful Preludes and Studies. Indeed, he made me
acquainted with many a composition before it had appeared in print.
I heard him often preluding in a wonderfully-beautiful manner. On
one occasion when he was entirely absorbed in his playing, completely
detached from the world, his servant entered softly and laid a letter
on the music-desk. With a cry Chopin left off playing, his hair stood
on end--what I had hitherto regarded as impossible I now saw with my own
eyes. But this lasted only for a moment.
His playing was always noble and beautiful, his tones always sang,
whether in full forte, or in the softest piano. He took infinite pains
to teach the pupil this legato, cantabile way of playing. "Il [ou elle]
ne sait pas lier deux notes" was his severest censure. He also required
adherence to the strictest rhythm, hated all lingering and dragging,
misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated ritardandos. "Je vous prie de
vous asseoir," he said on such an occasion with gentle mockery. And it
is just in this respect that people make such terrible mistakes in the
execution of his works. In the use of the pedal he had likewise attained
the greatest mastery, was uncommonly strict regarding the misuse of it,
and said repeatedly to the pupil: "The correct employment of it remains
a study for life."
When I played with him the study in C major, the first of those he
dedicated to Liszt, he bade me practise it in the mornings very slowly.
"Cette etude vous fera du bien," he said. "Si vous l'etudiez comme
je l'entends, cela elargit la main, et cela vous donne des gammes
d'accords, comme les coups d'archet. Mais souvent malheureusement au
lieu d'apprendre tout cela, elle fait desapprendre." I am quite aware
that it is a generally-prevalent error, even in our day, that one can
only play this study well when one possesses a very large hand. But this
is not the case, only a supple hand is required.
Chopin related that in May, 1834, he had taken a trip to Aix-la-Chapelle
with Hiller and Mendelssohn. "Welcomed there in a very friendly manner,
people asked me when I was introduced: 'You are, I suppose, a brother
of the pianist?' I answered in the affirmative, for it amused me, and
described my brother the pianist. 'He is tall, strong, has black hair,
a black moustache, and a very large hand.'" To those who have seen the
slightly-built Chopin and his delicate hand, the joke must have been
exceedingly amusing.
On the 20th of April, 1840, Liszt, who had come back to Paris after
extended artistic tours, gave a matinee to an invited audience in
Erard's saloon. He played, as he did always, very brilliantly, and the
next morning I had to give a minute account to Chopin of what and how
he had played. He himself was too unwell to be present. When I spoke of
Liszt's artistic self-control and calmness in overcoming the greatest
technical difficulties, he exclaimed: "Ainsi il parait que mon avis est
juste. La derniere chose c'est la simplicite. Apres avoir epuise toutes
les difficultes, apres avoir joue une immense quantite de notes, et
de notes, c'est la simplicite qui sort avec tout son charme, comme
le dernier sceau de l'art. Quiconque veut arriver de suite a cela n'y
parviendra jamais, on ne peut commencer par la fin. II faut avoir etudie
beaucoup, meme immensement pour atteindre ce but, ce n'est pas une chose
facile. II m'etait impossible," he continued, "d'assister a sa matinee.
Avec ma sante ou ne peut rien faire. Je suis toujours embrouille avec
mes affaires, de maniere que je n'ai pas un moment libre. Que j'envie
les gens forts qui sont d'une sante robuste et qui n'ont rien a faire!
Je suis bien fache, je n'ai pas le temps d'etre malade."
When I studied his Trio he drew my attention to some passages which now
displeased him, he would now write them differently. At the end of the
Trio he said: "How vividly do the days when I composed it rise up in
my memory! It was at Posen, in the castle surrounded by vast forests of
Prince Radziwill. A small but very select company was gathered together
there. In the mornings there was hunting, in the evenings music. Ah!
and now," he added sadly, "the Prince, his wife, his son, all, all are
dead."
At a soiree (Dec. 20, 1840) he made me play the Sonata with the Funeral
March before a large assemblage. On the morning of the same day I had
once more to play over to him the Sonata, but was very nervous. "Why do
you play less well to-day?" he asked. I replied that I was afraid.
"Why? I consider you play it well," he rejoined very gravely, indeed,
severely. "But if you wish to play this evening as nobody played before
you, and nobody will play after you, well then!"...These words restored
my composure. The thought that I played to his satisfaction possessed
me also in the evening; I had the happiness of gaining Chopin's approval
and the applause of the audience. Then he played with me the Andante of
his F minor Concerto, which he accompanied magnificently on the second
piano. The entire assemblage assailed him with the request to perform
some more of his compositions, which he then did to the delight of all.
For eighteen months (he did not leave Paris this summer) I was allowed
to enjoy his instruction. How willingly would I have continued my
studies with him longer! But he himself was of opinion that I should
now return to my fatherland, pursue my studies unaided, and play much
in public. On parting he presented me with the two manuscripts of his
C sharp major and E major studies (dedicated to Liszt), and promised to
write during his stay in the country a concert-piece and dedicate it to
me.
In the end of the year 1844 I went again to Paris, and found Chopin
looking somewhat stronger. At that time his friends hoped for the
restoration of, or at least for a considerable improvement in, his
health.
The promised concert-piece, Op. 46, had to my inexpressible delight been
published. I played it to him, and he was satisfied with my playing
of it; rejoiced at my successes in Vienna, of which he had been told,
exerted himself with the amiability peculiar to him to make me still
better known to the musical world of Paris. Thus I learned to know
Auber, Halevy, Franchomme, Alkan, and others. But in February, 1845,1
was obliged to return to Vienna; I had pupils there who were waiting for
me. On parting he spoke of the possibility of coming there for a short
time, and I had quite made up my mind to return for another visit
to Paris in eighteen months, in order again to enjoy his valuable
instruction and advice. But this, to my deepest regret, was not to be.
I saw Madame Sand in the year 1841 and again in the year 1845 in a box
in a theatre, and had an opportunity of admiring her beauty. I never
spoke to her.
APPENDIX X.
PORTRAITS OF CHOPIN.
A biography is incomplete without some account of the portraits of the
hero or heroine who is the subject of it. M. Mathias regards as the
best portrait of Chopin a lithograph by Engelmann after a drawing by
Vigneron, of 1833, published by Maurice Schlesinger, of Paris. In a
letter to me he writes: "This portrait is marvellous for the absolutely
exact idea it gives of Chopin: the graceful fall of the shoulders, the
Polish look, the charm of the mouth." Continuing, he says: "Another good
likeness of Chopin, but of a later date, between the youthful period and
that of his decay, is Bovy's medallion, which gives a very exact idea
of the outlines of his hair and nose. Beyond these there exists nothing,
all is frightful; for instance, the portrait in Karasowski's book,
which has a stupid look." The portrait here alluded to is a lithographic
reproduction of a drawing by A. Duval. As a rule, the portraits of
Chopin most highly prized by his pupils and acquaintances are those by
A. Bovy and T. Kwiatkowski. Madame Dubois, who likes Bovy's medallion
best, and next to it the portraits by Kwiatkowski, does not care much
for Ary Scheffer's portrait of her master, in whose apartments she had
of course frequent opportunities to examine it. "It had the appearance
of a ghost [d'un ombre], and was more pale and worn than Chopin
himself." Of a bust by Clesinger Madame Dubois remarks that it does not
satisfy those who knew Chopin. M. Marmontel writes in a letter to me
that the portrait of Chopin by Delacroix in his possession is a powerful
sketch painted in oil, "reproducing the great artist in the last period
of his life, when he was about to succumb to his chest disease. My
dear friend Felix Barrias has been inspired, or, to be more exact, has
reproduced this beautiful and poetic face in his picture of the dying
Chopin asking the Countess Potocka to sing to him." Gutmann had in his
possession two portraits of his master, both pencil drawings; the one
by Franz Winterhalter, dated May 2, 1847, the other by Albert Graefle,
dated October 19, 1849. The former of these valuable portraits shows
Chopin in his decline, the latter on his death-bed. Both seem good
likenesses, Graefle's drawing having a strong resemblance with Bovy's
medallion.
[FOOTNOTE: The authorship alone is sufficient to make a drawing by
George Sand interesting. Madame Dubois says (in a letter written to
me) that the portrait, after a drawing of George Sand, contained in the
French edition of Chopin's posthumous works, published by Fontana, is
not at all a good likeness. Herr Herrmann Scholtz in Dresden has in his
possession a faithful copy of a drawing by George Sand made by a nephew
of the composer, a painter living at Warsaw. Madame Barcinska, the
sister of Chopin, in whose possession the original is, spoke of it as
a very good likeness. This picture, however, is not identical with that
mentioned by Madame Dubois.]
The portrait by A. Regulski in Szulc's book can only be regarded as a
libel on Chopin, and ought perhaps also to be regarded as a libel on
the artist. Various portraits in circulation are curiosities rather than
helps to a realisation of the outward appearance of Chopin. Schlesinger,
of Berlin, published a lithograph after a drawing by Maurir; and
Schuberth, of Hamburg, an engraving on steel, and Hofmeister, of
Leipzig, a lithograph, after I don't know what original. Several other
portraits need not be mentioned, as they are not from life, but more or
less fancy portraits based on one or more of the authentic delineations.
Bovy's medallion graces Breitkopf and Hartel's Gesammtausgabe and
Thematic Catalogue of the master's published works. The portrait by Ary
Scheffer may be seen lithographically reproduced by Waldow in the German
edition of Chopin's posthumous works, published by Fontana. A wood-cut
after the drawing by Graefle appeared in 1879 in the German journal Die
Gartenlaube. Prefixed to the first volume of the present biography the
reader will find one of the portraits by Kwiatkowski, an etching after a
charming pencil drawing in my possession, the reproduction of which
the artist has kindly permitted. M. Kwiatkowski has portrayed Chopin
frequently, and in many ways and under various circumstances, alive
and dead. Messrs. Novello, Ewer & Co. have in their possession a clever
water-colour drawing by Kwiatkowski of Chopin on his death-bed. A more
elaborate picture by the same artist represents Chopin on his death-bed
surrounded by his sister, the Princess Marcellince Czartoryska,
Grzymala, the Abbe Jelowicki, and the portrayer. On page 321 of this
volume will be found M. Charles Gavard's opinion of two portrayals of
Chopin, respectively by Clesinger and Kwiatkowski. In conclusion, I
recall to the reader's attention what has been said of the master's
appearance and its pictorial and literary reproductions on pp. 65 and
246 of Vol. I. and pp. 100, 135, and 329 of Vol. II.
REMARKS PRELIMINARY TO THE LIST OF CHOPIN'S WORKS.
The original editions were three in number: the German, the French, and
the English (see p. 272). To avoid overcrowding, only the names of the
original German and French publishers will be given in the following
list, with two exceptions, however,--Op. 1 and 5, which were published
in Poland (by Brzezina & Co., of Warsaw) long before they made their
appearance elsewhere. [FOOTNOTE: What is here said, however, does not
apply to Section IV.] Some notes on the publication of the works in
England are included in these preliminary remarks.
In the list the publishers will be always placed in the same order--the
German first, and the French second (in the two exceptional cases, Op. 1
and 5, they will be second and third). The dates with an asterisk and
in parentheses (*) are those at which a copy of the respective works
was deposited at the Paris Bibliotheque du Conservatoire de Musique, the
dates without an asterisk in parentheses are derived from advertisements
in French musical journals; the square brackets [ ] enclose conjectural
and approximate dates and additional information; and lastly, the dates
without parentheses and without brackets were obtained by me direct from
the successors of the original German publishers, and consequently are
more exact and trustworthy than the others. In a few cases where the
copyright changed hands during the composer's lifetime, and where
unacquaintance with this change might give rise to doubts and
difficulties, I have indicated the fact.
The publishing firms mentioned in the list are the following:--Maurice
Schlesinger, Brandus &Cie. (the successors of M. Schlesinger), Eugene
Troupenas & Cie., Joseph Meissonnier, Joseph Meissonnier fils H.
Lemoine, Ad. Catelin & Cie. (Editeurs des Compositeurs reunis, Rue
Grange Bateliere, No. 26), Pacini (Antonio Francesco Gaetano), Prilipp &
Cie. (Aquereurs d'une partie du Fond d'lgn. Pleyel & Cie.), S. Richault
(i.e., Charles Simon Richault, to whom succeeded his son Guillaume
Simon, who in his turn was succeeded by his son Leon.--Present
style: Richault et Cie., Successeurs), and Schonenberger, all of
Pans;-Breitkopf & Hartel, Probst-Kistner (since 1836 Friedrich Kistner),
Friedrich Hofmeister, and C. F. Peters, of Leipzig;--Ad. M. Schlesinger,
Stern & Co.( from 1852 J. Friedlander; later on annexed to Peters,
of Leipzig), and Bote and Bock, of Berlin;--Tobias Haslinger, Carl
Haslinger quondam Tobias, and Pietro Mechetti (whose widow was succeeded
by C. A. Spina), of Vienna;--Schuberth & Co., of Hamburg (now Julius
Schuberth, of Leipzig);--B. Schott's Sohne, of Mainz;--Andr. Brzezina
& Co. and Gebethner & Wolff, of Warsaw;--J. Wildt and W. Chaberski, of
Cracow;--and J. Leitgeber, of Posen.
From 1836 onward the course of the publication of Chopin's works in
England can be followed in the advertisement columns of the Musical
World. Almost all the master's works were published in England by
Wessel. On March 8, 1838, Messrs. Wessel advertised Op. 1-32 with the
exception of Op. 4, 11, and 29. This last figure has, no doubt, to be
read as 28, as the Preludes could hardly be in print at that time, and
the Impromptu, Op. 29, was advertised on October 20, 1837, as OP. 28.
With regard to Op. 12 it has to be noted that it represents not the
Variations brillantes sur le Rondo favori "Je vends des Scapulaires,"
but the Grand Duo concertant for piano and violoncello, everywhere else
published without opus number. The Studies, Op. 10, were offered to
the public "revised with additional fingering by his pupil I. [sic]
Fontana." On November 18, 1841, Wessel and Stapleton (the latter having
come in as a partner in 1839) advertised Op. 33-43, and subsequently
Op. 44-48. On February 22, 1844, they announced that they had "the sole
copyright of the COMPLETE and entire works" of Chopin. On May 15, 1845,
were advertised Op. 57 and 58; on January 17, 1846, Op. 59; on September
26, 1846, Op. 60, 61, and 62. The partnership with Stapleton having
in 1845 been dissolved, the style of the firm was now Wessel &
Co. Thenceforth other English publishers came forward with Chopin
compositions. On June 3, 1848, Cramer, Beale & Co. advertised Chopin's
"New Valses and Mazurkas for the pianoforte"; and on the title-pages
of the French edition of Op. 63, 64, and 65 I found the words: "London,
Jullien et Cie." But also before this time Wessel seems to have had
competitors; for on the title-page of the French edition of Op. 22 may
be read: "London, Mori et Lavenu," and on September 20, 1838, Robert
Cocks advertised "Five Mazurkas and Three Nocturnes." On September 23,
1848, however, Wessel & Co. call themselves sole proprietors of Chopin's
works; and on November 24, 1849, they call themselves Publishers of the
Complete Works of Chopin. Information received from Mr. Ashdown, the
present proprietor of the business, one of the two successors (Mr. Parry
retired in 1882) of Christian Rudolph Wessel, who retired in 1860 and
died in 1885, throws some further light on the publication of Chopin's
works in England. We have already seen in a former part of this book (p.
117) that Wessel discontinued to deal with Chopin after Op. 62. "Cramer,
Beale & Co.," writes Mr. Ashdown, "published the Mazurkas, Op. 63, and
two only of the Waltzes, Op. 64; these, being non-copyright in England,
Mr. Wessel added to his edition, together with the third waltz of Op.
64. The name of Jullien on the French edition was probably put on in
consequence of negotiations for the sale of English copyright having
been entered upon, but without result." With the exception of Op. 12 and
65, Wessel published all the works with opus numbers of Chopin that
were printed during the composer's lifetime. Cramer, Addison & Beale
published the Variations, Op. 12; Chappell, the Trois Nouvelles Etudes;
R. Cocks, the posthumous Sonata, Op. 4, and the Variations stir un
air allemand without opus number; and Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co., the
Seventeen Polish Songs, Op. 74. The present editions issued by the
successor of Wessel are either printed from the original plates or
re-engraved (which is the case in about half of the number) from the old
Wessel copies, with here and there a correction.
Simultaneous publication was aimed at, as we see from Chopin's letters,
but the dates of the list show that it was rarely attained. The
appearance of the works in France seems to have in most cases preceded
that in Germany; in the case of the Tarantelle, Op. 43, I found the
English edition first advertised (October 28, 1841). Generally there was
approximation if not simultaneity.
I.--WORKS PUBLISHED WITH OPUS NUMBERS DURING THE COMPOSER'S LIFETIME.
DATES ORIGINAL
OF GERMAN & FRENCH
PUBLICATION TITLES WITH REFERENCES PUBLISHERS.
1825. OP.1. Premier Rondeau [C minor] Brzezina.
pour le piano. Dedie a Mme. de A. M. Schlesinger.
Linde.--Vol. I, pp. 52, 53-54, M. Schlesinger
55, 112;--Vol. II, p.87
[1830, OP.2. La ci darem la mano [B flat T. Haslinger
about March] major] varie pour le piano, avec M. Schlesinger
(September accompagnement d'orchestre. Dedie
21, 1834.) a Mr. Woyciechowski.--Vol. I., pp.
53, 62, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101,
105, 112, 116-118, 120, 163, 241;
Vol. II., p.87, 212
[1833 in OP.3. Introduction et Polonaise Mechetti
print.] brillante [C major], pour piano S. Richault
June, 1835) et violincelle Dediee d Mr. Joseph
Merk.--Vol.I., pp. 129, 200-201;
--Vol. II., p. 87.
Op.4. As this work was published
posthumously, it had to be placed
in Section III. Nevertheless, it
differs from the works with which
it is classed in one important
respect--it was intended for
publication by the composer himself,
who sent it to Vienna in 1828.
[1827?] Op.5. Rondeau a la Mazur [F major] Brzezina.
May, 1836 pour le piano. Dediee a Mlle. la Hofmeister.
Comtesse Alexandrine de Moriolles. Schonenberger.
--Vol. I., pp. 54-55, 56, 112, 168;
--Vol. II., p.87
Dec., 1832 Op.6. Quatre Mazurkas [F sharp minor Probst-Kistner.
(Nov. 23, C Sharp minor, E major, and E flat M. Schlesinger.
1834.) minor] pour le piano. Dediees a
Mlle. la Comtesse Pauline Plater.
--Vol. I., p. 268;--Vol. II, pp.231-
232.234-239.
Dec.1832 Op.7. Cinq Mazurkas [B flat major, Probst-Kistner
(Nov. 23, A minor, F minor, A flat major, and M. Schlesinger.
1834.) C major] pour le piano. Dediees a
Mr. Johns.--Vol. I., pp.250,268,
276 (No. 1);--Vol. II, pp. 231-232
234-239.
March, 1833.) Op.8. Premier Trio [G minor] pour Probst-Kistner
(Nov. 23, piano, violon, et violoncelle. M. Schlesinger
1834.) Dedie a Mr. le Prince Antonine
Radziwill--Vol. I., pp. 62, 88,
112, 113-115, 268;--Vol. II., p.
212,342
Jan. 1833. Op.9. Trois Nocturnes (B flat Probst-Kistner
(Nov. 23, minor, E flamajor, and B major] M. Schlesinger
1834.) pour le piano Dedies a Mme.
Camille Pleyel--Vol.l.,268;
--Vol. II., pp.87. 261-63
August, 1833. Op.10.Douze Grandes Etudes [C major Probst-Kistner
(July 6,1833.) A minor, E major, C sharp minor M. Schlesinger
G flat major, E flat minor, C [who sold them
major, F major, F minor, A flat afterwards to
major, E flat major, and C minor] Lemoine].
pour le piano. Dediees a Mr. Fr.
Liszt.--Vol. I., p.201,268; Vol.
II., p. 55 (No. 5), 251-254.
Sept., 1833 Op.11.Grand Concerto [E minor] pour Probst-Kistner
(July 6, le piano avec orchestre. Dedie a M. Schlesinger
1833.) Mr. Fr. Kalkbrenner.--Vol. I., pp
127, 146, 147, 150, 151, 152, 156,
189, 195, 203-208, 210-212, 233, 240,
241, 268, 281; Vol. II., pp. 16, 211
Nov., 1833 Op.12.Variations brillantes [B flat Breitkopf & Hartel
(Jan.26, major] pour le piano sur le Rondeau M. Schlesinger
1834) favori de Ludovic de Herold: "Je
vends des Scapulaires." Dediees a
Mlle. Emma Horsford.--Vol.I.,p.268;
Vol. II., p.221.
May, 1834 Op.13.Grande Fantaisie [A major] sur Probst-Kistner
(April, des airs polonais, pour le piano M. Schlesinger
1834) avec orchestre. Dediee a Mr. J.
P. Pixis--Vol.I., pp. 112,116.
118-120,132,152,197,268; Vol.
II., p.212.
July, 1834. Op.14 Krakowiak, Grand Rondeau de Probst-Kistner
(June, Concert [F major] pour le piano M. Schlesinger
1834.) avec orchestre. Deidie a Mme. la
Princesse Adam Czartoryska.
Vol.I.,pp.88,96,97,98,99,101,
102.112,116,118-120,134,268;
Vol. II., 233.
Jan., 1834 OP. 15. Trois Nocturnes [F major, F Breitkopf &
[Copies sharp major, and G minor] pour le Hartel.
sent to piano. Dedies a Mr. Ferd. Hiller.--
M. Schlesinger.
composer Vol. II., pp. 87, 261, 263
already in
Dec.,
1833].
(Jan.
12,1834.)
March, OP. 16. Rondeau [E flat major] pour Breitkopf &
1834. le piano. Dedie a Mlle. Caroline Hartel.
Hartmann.--Vol. I., p. 269; Vol. M. Schlesinger.
II., p. 221.
May, 1834. OP. 17. Quatre Mazurkas [B flat Breitkopf &
major, E minor, A flat major, and A Hartel.
minor] pour le piano, Dediees a Mme. M. Schlesinger.
Lina Freppa.--Vol. I., p. 268; Vol.
II., 231-232, 234-239.
July, 1834. OP. 18. Grande Valse [E fiat major] Breitkopf &
(June, pour le piano. Dediee a Mlle. Laura Hartel.
1834.*) Harsford [thus in all the editions, M. Schlesinger
but should probably be Horsford. See [who sold it
Op. 12.]--Vol. I., pp. 268, 273; afterwards to
Vol. II., 249. Lemoine].
March, OP. 20. Premier Scherzo [B minor] Breitkopf &
1835. pour le piano. Dedie a Mr. Hartel.
(Feb., T.Albrecht.--Vol. I., p. 294; Vol. M. Schlesinger.
1835.*) II., pp. 27,87, 256-257.
April, OP. 21. Second Concerto [F minor] Breitkopf and
1836. pour le piano avec orchestre. Dedie Hartel.
(Aug., a Mme. la Comtesse Delphine Potocka. M. Schlesinger.
1836.) --Vol. I., pp. 128, 131-132, 134,
156, 163, 200, 203-210, 212, 241,
294; II., p. 211.
Aug., 1836. OP. 22. Grande Polonaise brillante Breitkopf &
(July, [E flat major], precedee d'un Hartel.
1836.*) Andante spianato, pour le piano avec M. Schlesinger.
orchestre. Dediee a Mme. la Baronne
d'Est.--Vol. I., pp. 201-202, 295;
Vol. II., pp. 239-243, 244.
June, 1836. OP. 23. Ballade [G minor] pour le Breitkopf &
(July, piano. Dediee a Mr. le Baron de Hartel.
1836.*) Stockhausen.--Vol. I., pp. 294, 295 M. Schlesinger.
Vol. II., pp. 87, 268-9.
Nov., 1835. Op. 24 Quatre Mazurkas [G minor, C Breitkopf &
(Jan., major, A flat major, and B flat Hartel.
1836.) minor]. Dediees a Mr. le Comte de M. Schlesinger.
Perthuis.-Vol. I., pp. 294,
295; Vol. II., pp. 218 (No. 2), 231-
2, 234 9.
Oct., 1837. Op. 25 Douze Etudes [A flat major, F Breitkopf &
(Oct.22, minor, F major, A minor, E minor, G Hartel.
1837.) sharp minor, C sharp minor, D flat M. Schlesinger
major G flat major, B minor, A minor, [who sold the
& C minor] pour le piano. Dediees & copyright
Mme. la Comtesse d'Agoult.--Vol. I., afterwards to
pp. 276, 295, 310; Vol. II., pp. 15, Lemoine].
251-4.
July, 1836. Op. 26. Deux Polonaises [C sharp Breitkopf &
(July, minor and E flat minor] pour le Hartel.
1836.*) piano. Dediees a Mr. J. Dessauer.--
M. Schlesinger.
Vol. I., p. 295; Vol. II., pp. 239-
244; 245-6.
May, 1836. Op. 27. Deux Nocturnes [C sharp Breitkopf &
(July, minor and D flat major] pour le Hartel.
1836.*) piano. Dediees a Mme. la Comtesse M. Schlesinger.
d'Appony.-Vol. I., pp. 294, 295;
Vol. II., pp. 87, 261, 263-4.
Sept., Op. 28. Vingt-quatre Preludes pour Breitkopf &
1839. le piano. Dediees a son ami Pleyel Hartel.
(Sept., [in the French and in the English Ad. Catelin et
1839.*) edition; a Mr. J. C. Kessler in the Cie.
German edition. The French edition
appeared in two books and without
opus number].--Vol. II., pp. 20, 24,
27, 28, 29-30, 30-31, 42-45, 50, 51,
71, 72, 76, 77,
254-6.
Jan., 1838. Op. 29. Impromptu [A flat major] Breitkopf &
(Dec., pour le piano. Dedie a Mile, la Hartel.
1837.*) Comtesse de Lobau.--Vol. II., pp. M. Schlesinger.
15, 259.
Jan., 1838. Op. 30. Quatre Mazurkas [C minor, B Breitkopf &
(Dec., minor, D flat major, and C sharp Hartel.
1837.*) minor] pour le piano. Dediees a Mme. M. Schlesinger.
la Princesse de Wurtemberg, nee
Princesse Czartoryska.--Vol. II.,
pp. 15, 231-2, 234-9.
Feb., 1838. Op. 31. Deuxieme Scherzo [B flat Breitkopf &
(Dec., minor] pour le piano. Dedie a Mile, Hartel.
1837.*) la Comtesse Adele de Fursienslein. M. Schlesinger.
--Vol. II., pp. 15, 87, 256, 257.
(Dec., OP. 32. Deux Nocturnes [B major and A. M.
1837.*) A flat major] pour le Piano. Dedies Schlesinger.
a Mme. la Baronne de Billing.--Vol. M. Schlesinger.
II., pp. 15, 87, 264.
Nov., 1838. OP. 33. Quatre Mazurkas [G sharp Breitkopf &
(Nov., minor, D major, C major, and B Hartel.
1838.) minor] pour le piano. Dediees a M. Schlesinger.
Mlle. la Comtesse Mostowska.--Vol.
II., pp. 15, 231-2, 234-9.
Dec., 1838. OP. 34. Trois Valses brillantes [A Breitkopf &
(Jan., flat major, A minor, and F major] Hartel.
1839.*) pour le piano. Dediees [No. 1] a M. Schlesinger.
Mlle. deThun-Hohenstein; [No. 2] a
Mme. G. d'Ivri; [No. 3] d Mile. A.
d'Eichthal.--Vol. I., p. 200 (No.
I); Vol. II., pp. 15, 30; 248, 249.
May, 1840. OP. 35. Sonate [B flat minor] pour Breitkopf &
(May, le piano.--Vol. II., pp. 45, 62, 72, Hartel.
1840.*) 77, 94, 225-8. Troupenas et
Cie.
May, 1840. OP. 36. Deuxieme Impromptu [F sharp Breitkopf &
(May, minor] pour le piano.--Vol. II., pp. Hartel.
1840.*) 259-60. Troupenas et
Cie.
May, 1840. OP. 37. Deux Nocturnes [G minor and Breitkopf &
(June, G major] pour le piano.--Vol. II., Hartel.
1840.*) p. 45, 62, 87, 261, 264. Troupenas et
Cie.
Sept., OP. 38. Deuxieme Ballade [F major] Breitkopf &
1840. pour le piano. Dediee a Mr. R. Hartel.
(Sept., Schumann.--Vol. II., pp. 45, 50, 51, Troupenas et
1840.*) 52,54,77,268,269. Cie.
Oct., 1840. Op. 39. Troisieme Scherzo [C sharp Breitkopf &
(Dec., minor] pour le piano. Dedie a Mr. A. Hartel.
1840.*) Gutmann.--Vol. II., pp. 45, 53, 72, Troupenas et
77, 256, 258. Cie.
Nov., 1840. Op. 40. Deux Polonaises [A major and Breitkopf &
(Dec., C minor] pour le piano. Dediees a Hartel.
1840.*) Mr. J. Fontana.--Vol. II., pp. 45, Troupenas et
50, 51, 52, 54, 77, 87, 94, 213 (No. Cie.
1), 239-244, 246, 247.
Dec., 1840. Op. 41. Quatre Mazurkas [C sharp Breitkopf &
(Dec., minor, E minor, B major, and A flat Hartel.
1840.*) major] pour le piano. Dediees a Mr. Troupenas et
E. Witwicki.--Vol. II., pp. 46 (No. Cie.
1), 62, 77, 231-2, 234-9.
July, 1840. Op. 42. Valse [A flat major pour le Breitkopf &
piano,--Vol. II., pp. 77, 86, 248, Hartel.
249. Pacini.
(1841. An Op. 43. Tarantella [A flat major] Schuberth & Co.
nounced in pour le piano.--Vol. II., pp. 77, Troupenas et Cie.
Monatsbe-
82-86, 222.
richte on Jan.
1,1842. Paid
for by the
publisher on
July 7, 1841.]
(Oct., 1841.*)
(Nov. 28, Op.44. Polonaise [F sharp minor] Merchetti.
1841.) pour le piano. Dediee a Mme. la M. Schlesinger.
Princesse Charles de Beauvau.--Vol.
II., pp. 77,80, 81,86,239-244,246.
(Nov. 28, Op.45. Prelude [C sharp minor] pour Merchetti.
1841.) piano. Dediee a Mlle. la Prin-
M. Schlesinger.
cesse Elisabeth Czernicheff.--Vol.
II., pp. 77, 80, 81, 256
Jan., 1842. Op.46. Allegro de Concert [A major] Breitkopf & Hartel.
(Nov. 28, pour le piano. Dedie a Mlle. F. M. Schlesinger.
1841) Muller--Vol. I., p. 202; Vol.II.,
pp.77, 86, 87, 177, 223-5.
Jan. 1842 Op.47. Troisieme Ballade [A flat Breitkopf & Hartel.
(Nov. 28, major] pour le piano. Dediee a M. Schlesinger.
1841) Mlle. P. de Noailles.--Vol.II.,
pp.77,87, 92, 268, 269-70.
Jan., 1842 Op.48. Deux Nocturnes [C minor Breitkopf & Hartel.
(Nov. 28, and F sharp minor] pour le piano. M. Schlesinger.
1841) Dediees a Mlle. L. Duperre--Vol.II.,
pp. 77, 87, 88, 262, 265
Jan., 1842 Op.49. Fantaisie [F minor] pour Breitkopf & Hartel.
(Nov. 28, le piano Dediee a Mme. la Princesse M. Schlesinger.
1841) C. de Souzzo.--Vol. II., pp. 77,87,
230-1.
[Sept.,1842. Op.50. Trois Mazurkas [G major, Mechetti.
Announced A flat major, and C charp minor] M. Schlesinger.
in Monats-
pour le piano. Dediees a Mr. Leon
berichte.] Szmitkowski--Vol.II., p.77,231-2,
(Nov.28,1841 234-9.
[not again
advertised
till June 5,
1842,
although the
preceding
numbers
were.])
Feb.,1843. Op. 51. Allegro Vivace. Troisieme Hofmeister.
(July 9, Impromptu [G flat major] pour le M. Schlesinger.
1843.) piano. Dedie a Mme. la Comtesse
Esterhazy.--Vol.II.,pp.121,260.
Feb., 1843. Op. 52. Quatrieme Ballade [F minor] Breitkopf &
(Dec. 24, pour le piano. Dediee a Mme. la Hartel.
1843.) Baronne C. de Rothschild.--Vol. II., M. Schlesinger.
pp. 77, 121, 268, 270.
Dec., 1843. OP. 53. Huiticmc Polonaise [A flat Breitkopf &
(Dec. 24, major] pour le piano. Dediee a Mr. Hartel.
1843.) A. Leo.--Vol. II., pp. 77, 94, 97, M. Schlesinger.
121, 213, 239-244, 247.
Dec., 1843. Op. 54. Scherzo No. 4 [E major] pour Breitkopf &
(Dec. 24, le piano. Dedie a Mlle. J. de Hartel.
1843.) Caraman.--Vol. II-, pp. 121, 256, M. Schlesinger.
258-9.
Aug. 1844. Op. 55. Deux Nocturnes [F minor and Breitkopf &
(Sept. 22, E flat major] pour le piano. Dedies Hartel.
1844.) a Mlle. J. W. Stirling.--Vol. II., M. Schlesinger.
p. 118, 121,262, 265-6.
Aug., 1844. Op. 56. Trois Mazurkas [B major, C Breitkopf &
(Sept. 22, major, and C minor] pour le piano. Hartel.
1844.) Dediees a Mlle. C. Maberly.--Vol. M. Schlesinger.
II., pp. 118, 121-2, 231-2, 234-9.
May, 1845. Op. 57. Berceuse [D flat major] pour Breitkopf &
(June, le piano. Dediee & Mlle. Elise Hartel.
1845.*) Gavard.--Vol. I., p. 119; Vol. II., J. Meissonnier.
pp. 118, 122,267-8.
June, 1845. Op.58. Sonate [B minor] pour le Breitkopf & Hartel
(June, piano. Dediee a Mme.la Comtesse J. Meissonnier.
1845*) E. de Perthuis.--Vol. II., pp.
118, 122, 228-9.
[Jan., 1846, Op. 59. Trois Mazurkas [A minor, Stern et Cie.
announced A flat major, and F sharp minor] Brandus et Cie.
in Monats-
pour le piano.--Vol.II.,pp. 122,
berichte.] 231-2, 234-9.
(April,
1846.*)
Dec., 1846 Op.60 Barcarolle [F sharp major] Breitkopf & Hartel
(Sept., pour le piano. Dediee a Mme. la Brandus et Cie.
1846) Baronne de Stockhausen-Vol.II,
pp.77, 122 266-7.
Dec., 1846. Op.61 Polonaise-Fantaisie [A Breitkopf & Hartel
(Sept., flat major] pour le piano. Brandus et Cie.
1846.*) Dediee a Mme. A.Veyret.--
Vol.II., pp. 122, 239-244, 248
Dec., 1846. Op. 62. Deux Nocturnes [B major Breitkopf & Hartel.
(Sept., and E major] pour le piano. Dedies Brandus et Cie.
1846.*) a Mlle. R. de Konneritz.--Vol. II.,
pp. 122, 262, 266.
Sept., OP. 63. Trois Mazurkas [B major, F Breitkopf &
1847. minor, and C sharp minor] pour le Hartel.
(Oct. 17, piano. Dediees a. Mme. la Comtesse Brandus et Cie.
1847) L. Czosnowska.--Vol. II., pp. 122,
205, 231-2, 234-9.
Sept., OP. 64. Trois Valses [D flat major, Breitkopf &
1847. C sharp minor, and A flat major] Hartel.
(Oct. 17, pour le piano. Dediees [No 1] a Mme. Brandus et Cie.
1847) la Comtesse Potocka; [No. 2] a Mme.
la Baronne de Rothschild;
[No. 3] a Mme. la Baronne Bronicka.--
Vol. II., pp. 95, 122, 142 (No. 1),
205, 248, 250-1, 387.
Sept., OP. 65. Sonate [G minor] pour piano Breitkopf &
1847. et violoncelle. Dediee a Mr. A. Hartel.
(Oct. 17, Franchomme.--Vol. II., pp. 122, 205, Brandus et Cie.
1847) 206, 207, 211, 229.
II.--WORKS PUBLISHED WITHOUT OPUS NUMBERS DURING THE COMPOSER'S
LIFETIME.
[1833, in Grand Duo concertant [E major] pour M. Schlesinger.
print.] piano et violoncelle sur des themes A. M.
(July 6, de Robert le Diable, par F. Chopin Schlesinger.
1833.) et A. Franchomme.--Vol. II., p. 230.
Aug. or Trois Nouvelles Etudes [F. minor, A M. Schlesinger.
Sept., 1840 flat major, and D flat major]. Etudes A. M.
[this is de Schlesinger. Perfection de la
the date of Methode des Moscheles et Fetis.--Vol.
the II., p. 252.
appearance
of the
Methode.]
(July 25, Variation VI. [Largo, E major, C] T. Haslinger.
1841.) from the Hexameron: Morceau de Troupenas et Cie.
Concert. Grandes Variations de
bravoure sur la Marche des
"Puritains" de Bellini, composees
pour le Concert de Mme. la Princesse
Belgiojoso au benefice des pauvres,
par MM. Liszt, Thalberg, Pixis, H.
Herz, Czerny, and Chopin.--Vol. II.,
pp. 14, 15.
[Feb., 1842, Mazurka [A minor] pour piano, No.2 B. Schott's Sohne.
announced of "Notre Temps."--Vol.II.,p.237
in Monats-berichte.
III.--WORKS PUBLISHED WITH OPUS NUMBERS AFTER THE COMPOSER'S DEATH.
[May, OP. 4. Sonate [C minor] pour le C. Haslinger.
1851.] piano. Dediee a Mr. Joseph Elsner. S. Richault.
(May, [This work was already in the hands
1851.*) of the German publisher, T. Haslinger,
in 1828.]--Vol. I., pp. 62,112,118;
Vol. II., p. 63.
1855. OP. 66-74 are the posthumous works A. M.
with opus numbers given to the world Schlesinger.
by Julius Fontana (publies sur fils. J. Meissonnier
manuscrits originaux avec
autorisation de sa famille).--Vol.
II., 270-1.
OP. 66. Fantaisie-Impromptu [C
sharp minor]. Composed about 1834.--
Vol. II.. p. 261, 271.
OP. 67. Quatre Mazurkas [G major
(1835), G minor (1849), C major (1835),
and A minor (1846).]--Vol. II.,
p. 271.
OP. 68. Quatre Mazurkas [C major
(1830), A minor (1827), F major (1830),
and F minor (1849).]--Vol. I., pp.
112, 122 (No. 2).
OP. 69. Deux Valses [F minor
(1836), and B minor (1829).]--
Vol. I., pp. 112, 122 (No. 2).
OP. 70. Trois Valses [G flat major
(1835), F minor (1843), and D flat major
(1830).]--Vol. I., pp. 128, 200
(No. 3).
Op. 71. Trois Polonaises [D minor
(1827), B flat major (1828), and F minor
(1829).]--Vol. I., pp. 62 (Nos. 1
and 2), 112, 121 (Nos. 1, 2, and 3),
129 (No. 3).
OP. 72. Nocturne [E minor (1827)];
Marche funebre [C minor (1829)];
et Trois Ecossaises [D major, G
major, and D flat major (1830)].--
Vol. I., pp. 62, 112, 121 (No. 1);
112, 123 (No. 2); 202 (No. 3).
OP. 73. Rondeau [C major] pour deux
pianos (1828).--Vol. I., pp. 62,
112, 116.
OP. 74. Seventeen Polish Songs by
Witwicki, Mickiewicz, Zaleski, &c.,
for voice with pianoforte
accompaniment. The German translation
by Ferd. Gumbert. [The
English translation of Stanley
Lucas, Weber & Co.'s English
edition is by the Rev. J.
Troutbeck.]--Vol. II., p. 271-272.
IV.--WORKS PUBLISHED WITHOUT OPUS NUMBERS AFTER THE COMPOSER'S DEATH.
[May, Variations [E major] pour le piano C. Haslinger.
1851.] stir un air allemand. (1824?) S. Richault.
[although not published till 1851,
this composition was already in 1830
in T. Haslinger's hands).--Vol. I.:
pp. 53, 55, 56.
Mazurka [G major]. (1825.)--Vol. I., J. Leitgeber.
p. 52; II., 236. Gebethner &
Wolff.
Mazurka [B flat major (1825)].--Vol.
I., p. 52; II., 236.
Mazurka [D major (1829-30)].--Vol.
I., PP--202-203; II., 236.
Mazurka [D major (1832.--A
remodelling of the preceding
Mazurka)].--Vol. I., pp.
202-203; II., 236.
Mazurka [C major (1833)].--Vol. II., Gebethner &
p. 236. Wolff.
Mazurka [A minor. Dediee a son ami Bote & Bock.
Emile Gail'ard.--Vol. II, p. 236.
1858. Valse [E minor].--Vol. II., p. 251. B. Schott's
Sohne.
Gebethner &
Wolff.
1864. Polonaise [G sharp minor]. Dediee B. Schott's
a Mme. Dupont.--Vol. I., p. 52 (see Sohne.
also Corrections and Additions, Vol. Gebethner &
I., p. VIII. Wolff.
1872. Polonaise [G flat major]. Nothing B. Schott's
but the composer's autograph could Sohne.
convince one of the genuineness of
this piece. There are here and there
passages which have the Chopin ring,
indeed, seem to be almost bodily
taken from some other of his works,
but there is also a great deal which
it is impossible to imagine to have
come at any time from his pen--the
very opening bars may be instanced.
Polonaise [B flat minor (1826)].--
Gebethner &
Vol. I., pp. 52-53. Wolff.
Valse [E major (1829)].--
Vol. I., Gebethner &
pp. 112, 122. Wolff.
W. Chaberski.
Souvenir de Paganini [A major].
This piece, which I do not know, is
mentioned in the list of the
master's works given by Karasowski
in the Polish edition of his life of
Chopin. It was published in the
supplement of the Warsaw Echo
Muzyczne, where also the two
preceding pieces first appeared.
About a Mazurka in F sharp major,
published under Chopin's name by J.
P. Gotthard, of Vienna, see Vol.
II., p. 237; and about Deux Valses
melancoliques (F minor and B minor)
ecrites sur l'Album de Mme. la
Comtesse P. 1844, see Vol. II., p.
251.
La Reine des Songes, which appeared
in the Paris Journal de Musique, No.
8, 1876, is No. 1 of the Seventeen
Polish Songs (transposed to B flat
major) with French words by George
Sand, beginning:
"Quand la lune se leve
Dans un pale rayon
Elle vient comme un reve,
Comme une vision."
Besides this song, the letter-press,
taken from George Sand's Histoire de
ma Vie, is accompanied by two
instrumental pieces, extracts from
the last movement of the E minor
Concerto and the Bolero, the latter
being called Chanson de Zingara.
END OF VOLUME II.
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