PART I

Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician, Volume 1 (of 2)

Frederick Niecks

Third Edition (1902)

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 he 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. Arid 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 weaiy 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 tnat 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 variƩe."

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.