“I doubt whether there is a city on Earth where
more pianists are to be found than in Paris”
When the stage-coach in which Chopin rode had passed the walls of
Paris, the young musician climbed up on the seat beside the driver. He
hardly knew where to look, at the monuments or at a crowd so thick it
might be thought another revolution. However, it was only the joy of
living again that had brought the people into the streets and forced
the horses down to a walk. The driver felt impressively at home among
all these symbolic costumes of the bourgeois gentlemen, and pointed
them out to his passenger. Each political group had its own livery.
The School of Medicine and the Young French parties were distinguished
by their beards and cravats. The Carlists had green waistcoats, the
Republicans red, and the Saint Simoniens blue. Many strutted about
in tailed coats, called _à la propriétaire_, which fell to their
heels. There were artists dressed after Raphaël, with hair to their
shoulders and wide-brimmed tam-o’-shanters. Others affected the Middle
Ages,—numbers of women dressed as pages, as musketeers, as hunters. And
in this swarm were hawkers brandishing their pamphlets: “Ask for _The
Art of Making Love and Keeping It_; ask for _The Loves of the Priests_;
ask for _The Archbishop of Paris and the Mme. la Duchesse de Berry_.”
Frederick was at first somewhat scandalized. Later he was agreeably
surprised to see a group of youths march by, crying: “Poland! Poland!”
“That is in honour of General Ramorino, the Italian who is trying to
deliver our Polish brothers from the Russian boot,” explained the
driver. They were obliged to stop the carriage for the crowd to pass.
Eventually they reached the posting station and Chopin dismounted, had
his baggage loaded on a cabriolet, and betook himself to a house agent,
who provided him with two rooms on the fifth floor at 27, Boulevard
Poissonnière.
He liked these quarters because his windows had a balcony from which
he could see the succession of boulevards. The endless perspective of
trees hedged in between two rows of houses astonished him. “It is down
there,” he thought, “that the history of France is being written.”
Not far away, in the rue d’Enfer, M. de Chateaubriand was editing his
memoirs and he too wrote: “What happenings have taken place before
my very door! But after the trial of Louis XVI and the revolutionary
uprisings, all trials and uprisings are insignificant.” And at the same
time, a plainly dressed young woman was writing in her garret novels
which she signed with the name George Sand, and exclaimed: “To live,
how sweet! How good it is, in spite of griefs, husbands, boredom,
debts, relatives, tittle-tattle, in spite of bitter pangs and tedious
annoyances. To live, how intoxicating! To love, to be loved! That is
happiness, that is Heaven!”
The day after his arrival Frederick plunged into the crowd and exulted
in his solitude. It was more complete here than in the depths of the
German forest, and it at once stimulated and frightened the artist.
He floated with the tide, until suddenly the crowd thickened, became
organized, and Chopin found himself carried along by a compact column
who, with flags at their head, were marching to acclaim Ramorino. Then
fear seized him in good earnest, and breaking away, he returned home by
back streets, and climbed to his balcony where he witnessed from above
that storm of enthusiasm. Shops were shut and a squadron of hussars
arrived at a gallop and swept away the populace, who hissed and spat
at the soldiers. Till midnight there was an uproar which approached a
riot. And Chopin wrote to Titus: “I can’t tell you what a disagreeable
impression the horrible voices of this angry mob gave me.” Decidedly he
did not like noise, or crowds; politics were not in his line.
Music, music, his only escape, because it is the only way of thinking
with the emotions. “Here alone can one know what singing is. With the
exception of Pasta, I do not believe there is a greater singer in
Europe than Malibran-Garcia.” He spent his evenings at the Académie
Royale or at the Italian Opera. Veron managed the Académie, where
Habeneck conducted. At the Italian Opera Rossini and Zamboni were in
the bill. He heard Lablache and Malibran in _Il Barbieri di Siviglia_,
in _Otello_, and in _L’Italiana in Algeri_. Under the stimulus of his
pleasure he wrote again to Titus: “You can have no idea what Lablache
is like. Some say that Pasta’s voice is weakening, but I have never in
my life heard one so divine. Malibran has a range of three octaves;
in her own _genre_ her singing is unique, uncanny. She plays Othello;
Schroeder-Devrient, Desdemona. Malibran is small, the German larger.
Sometimes you think Desdemona is going to strangle Othello.”
Chopin had a letter of introduction to Paër, who put him in touch
with Cherubini, Rossini, and the pianist then more famous than any
of the others, Kalkbrenner. With beating heart Chopin went to see
this supreme master at his house. He was a tall man, stiff and cold,
with the bearing of a diplomat, and an unstable glance. He put on
the airs of a gentleman, was doubtless too polite, and certainly
very pedantic. Marmontel says of him that his playing was smooth,
sustained, harmonious, and perfectly even, and that it charmed more
than it astonished; that his left hand had an unequalled dexterity and
that he played, without moving his head or body, with splendid style
in the grand manner. “A giant!” said Chopin. “He crushes everybody,
myself included.” In Kalkbrenner the young artist specially admired the
purist, the man who talked at the piano, the language of Cicero.
The master and the unknown played several pieces for each other. When
Chopin had finished his _Concerto in E minor_, Kalkbrenner said to
him: “You have the style of Cramer and the touch of Field,” which
was without doubt the greatest compliment he could find. Divining
in this unexpected disciple the great man of to-morrow, he explained
his faults, trotted out again his lack of method, even pencilled his
concerto. He tried to decipher it. But if he succeeded in the first
part, he was stopped at the beginning of the second by insurmountable
difficulties, for its technique was entirely new. Nevertheless, he
stated with assurance that nothing short of three years of study
under his direction would make Chopin master of a new piano school.
Frederick was disquieted. Three years more study! What would his family
say? “However, I will submit to it,” he thought, “if I can be sure of
making a big advance.” But, by the time he had reached home again, he
no longer doubted. “No, I will never be a copy of Kalkbrenner.... No,
he shan’t destroy in me that hope, daring, I admit, but noble, _of
creating a new world for myself_.” A quarter of a century earlier than
Wagner, here in this young man of twenty years was the certainty of the
same destiny.
We must be grateful to M. Nicolas Chopin for having upheld his son’s
faith. “But, my dear fellow,” he wrote to him, “I cannot see how, with
your capacities which he (Kalkbrenner) said he remarked, he can think
that three more years of work under his eyes are necessary for you to
become an artist and the head of a new school. You know that I have
done everything I could to further your inclinations and develop your
talent, that I have opposed you in nothing. You know also that the
technique of playing took you only a short time to learn, and that
your mind has been busier than your fingers. If others have spent whole
days in practising scales, you have rarely passed an hour on the works
of others. Experts can distinguish genius from its earliest moments,
but they cannot prophesy the peak it will reach.”
Even more remarkable was the letter from his sister Louise, who had run
to Elsner to lay before him the dilemma in which the whole family was
plunged. The aged teacher, like the young sister, had soon found traces
of a calculating self-interest in the proposal of the virtuoso. And
they said so, they who had simple hearts, they who had faith. “Elsner
was angry. He cried ‘Jealousy already,—three years, indeed!’ and tossed
his head. Then he added: ‘I know Frederick. He is good, but he has no
pride, no ambition; he is easily swayed. I shall write him what I think
of all this.’ Sure enough, this morning he brought a letter which I
am sending you. He went on talking to us about this business. We who
judge men in the simplicity of our hearts thought Kalkbrenner the most
honest man in the world; but Elsner was not altogether of this opinion.
He said: ‘They recognized a genius in Frederick, and they are afraid
of being supplanted by him. That is why they would like to have their
hands on him for three years, so that they could stop the growth that
Nature would develop if she were left alone.’ Elsner does not want you
to imitate, and he expresses himself well when he says: ‘No imitation
is worth the original.’ As soon as you begin imitating you cease to
be creative, and, although you are young, your own conceptions may be
better than those of many others.... Then, M. Elsner does not only want
to see in you a concert player, a famous virtuoso, which is easier and
less worth while, but he wants to see you attain the goal towards which
Nature is urging you and for which she has made you. What irritated him
extremely was, as he says, ‘the presumption and arrogance that after
having run over your orchestration would pick up a pencil to strike out
passages without ever having heard the concerto with the full effect
of the orchestra.’ He says that it would have been quite another thing
to have advised you when you write concerto, to shorten the _allegro_:
but to make you erase what was already written, that he cannot pardon.
Elsner compared it to taking a seemingly unnecessary pillar away from
a house that had already been built, with the result of changing
everything in eliminating what was deemed bad. I think that Elsner is
right in declaring that to be superior it is necessary to excel not
only one’s teachers but also one’s contemporaries. You can excel them
by imitating them, but then, that is following in their tracks. And
he says that you, who already know what is good and what is better,
should now be making your own path. Your genius will guide you. One
more thing, he said. ‘Frederick has drawn from his native soil this
distinguishing particularity: the rhythm—shall I say?—which makes him
as much more original and characteristically himself as his ideas are
more noble than others.’ He would like you to retain that. We do not
understand these things as well as you do, my dear little Fritz, and we
cannot advise you; we can only send you our comments.”
It is beautiful, this letter. It is not literature, but it goes to
the root of the matter. Frederick followed its councils and preferred
to remain himself, even were it at the expense of a rapid success.
Meanwhile, Kalkbrenner had the wisdom not to be annoyed at seeing this
prize pupil refuse to allow himself to be convinced. Their friendship
persisted. It was even Kalkbrenner who presented him to the directors
of the famous house of Pleyel. Chopin attached himself to other
artists, particularly to Hiller, pianist, composer, and musical critic,
and to Franchomme, the celebrated violoncellist, both of whom aided him
to organize his opening concert.
This took place on the 26th of February, 1832, in the Salons Pleyel.
Frederick had got it up with the greatest care amid constantly renewed
difficulties. He had recruited for the occasion five violinists (among
them Urhan, Liszt’s friend, and Baillot), who were to play Beethoven’s
_Quintette_. Mlles. Tomeoni and Isambert were to sing. Kalkbrenner,
Stamati, Hiller, Osborne, Sowinski and Chopin were to play a _Grande
Polonaise_ for six pianos, composed by Kalkbrenner himself; then Chopin
was to play his _Concerto in F minor_ and his _Variations on the “La
ci darem”_ of Mozart. The _Grande Polonaise_ for six pianos disquieted
him. “It is a mad idea, isn’t it?” he wrote to Titus. “One of the
grand pianos is very large: it is Kalkbrenner’s; another is very small:
that is mine.” He never loved show. Besides, concerts for the general
public were always odious to him. So on this evening of February 26th,
there stepped on the platform a very pale young man, whose attitude
betrayed a very sincere annoyance much more than it did a dramatic
inspiration. The hall was only half-filled and that mostly with Poles,
critics and musicians. In the front row could be seen the handsome
features of Liszt. A stunning silence descended when Chopin had slipped
his first caresses over the keyboard.
Then there arose from the piano a voice such as no one, ever, had heard
before. Yet each recognized in it the cry of his innermost self. It
was neither a tale, nor a brilliant commentary, but the simple song
of life; an authentic revelation; the essential word of the heart.
By means of a delicate rightness, which is the strength of the pure,
Chopin transported these connoisseurs. Liszt himself, whose “doubled
and redoubled applause was not sufficient to express his enthusiasm,”
saw here the revelation of “a new phase of poetic feeling side by side
with innovations in the form of the art.” From that evening he gave him
his warm friendship. Fétis, the sharp but influential critic, declared:
“Here is a young man who, abandoning himself to his natural feelings,
and following no model, has discovered, if not a complete renovation
of piano music, at least a part of what we have long been vainly
seeking: an abundance of original ideas which fit into no earlier
classification.”
Chopin accepted these eulogies without pride and without false
modesty, because he totally lacked all vanity. The receipts were
counted; they barely sufficed to cover expenses. But that was nothing
in comparison to another disappointment: the French public had not
attended. The artist’s object, therefore, had not been achieved. When,
towards midnight, he returned to his room, Chopin believed that fate
had pronounced an unfavourable verdict, and he conceived the idea of
leaving for America.
He had hardly any money left. His friends were still few, being limited
to a small number of artists and compatriots. Ah, how happy Meyerbeer
must be, having just had produced his _Robert the Devil_, a mine of
gold and glory! Chopin confided to Titus: “Chance brought me here.
Here one can certainly breathe freely. But perhaps one also sighs
more, too. Paris is everything that you want it to be. Here you can
amuse yourself, be bored, laugh, cry, do whatever you like without
anyone giving you a glance. I doubt whether there is a city on earth
where more pianists are to be found than in Paris, or more asses and
virtuosi. Ah, how I wish I had you with me. If you only knew how sad
it is not to be able to relieve one’s soul. I like the society of
people. I make friends easily, and am up to my ears in acquaintances;
but there is no one, no one who can understand me. My heart always
beats, so to speak, in swoons, and I resent it and should like a
pause,—solitude,—with not a single soul to see me or speak to me all
day long. Above all, I detest hearing my bell ring when I am writing to
you.”
However, it rang a good deal, that little bell, and was mostly pulled
by that worst of the bores, the deadly, the awful, the ridiculous
Sowinski. “He is just coming in to see me. It is something big, and
strong, and it wears a tiny moustache; it sits down at the piano and
improvises without knowing why. It bangs, it knocks, it crosses its
hands without rhyme or reason; for five minutes at a time it batters
a defenceless key. It has enormous fingers made rather to hold the
reins and the whip somewhere in the wilds of the Ukraine. It has no
other virtues than a tiny moustache and a big heart.... When shall
we see each other again? Maybe never, because I assure you that my
health is wretched. Outwardly, I am gay, but within I am consumed. Dark
forebodings, restlessness, insomnia, home-sickness, indifference to
everything. Pleasure in life, then immediately afterwards,—longing for
death....”
Other friends come and go through Chopin’s little apartment: Albert
Grzymala, Count Plater, Liszt, Berlioz, who arrives from Rome and
has great plans, Polish refugees. But money these young people
have practically none, and Frederick, in spite of the “little
reinforcements” that his father sends him, sees his resources vanish.
As for love, that was a luxury of which he must not think. The
memory of Constance faded after Isabelle informed her brother of the
marriage of that faithless one: “Like you I marvel that anyone could
be so callous. It is easy to see that a fine château was a greater
attraction. She had feeling only in her singing!” But chastity is the
natural estate of the poor, and pleasure was a word that Chopin did not
even understand. Living just below him, however, was a fresh, pretty
woman. They met sometimes on the stairs, smiled, occasionally exchanged
a few words. She heard from his room the passionate harmonies that this
handsome male angel invented... for whom? Once she said to him:
“Come and see me some evening. I am often alone and I adore music.”
He refused, blushing. Yet a regret escaped him on paper, in his cold
room: “I should have found a hearth, a fire. It would be nice to warm
myself at it.”