1. Overture to "Guillaume Tell" by Rossini.
2. Cavatina from "La Donna del lago" by Rossini, sung by Miss
Gladkowska.
3. Fantasia on Polish airs, composed and played by Chopin.
The success of the concert made Chopin forget his sorrows. There
is not one complaint in the letter in which he gives an account
of it; in fact, he seems to have been enjoying real halcyon days.
He had a full house, but played with as little nervousness as if
he had been playing at home. The first Allegro of the Concerto
went very smoothly, and the audience rewarded him with thundering
applause. Of the reception of the Adagio and Rondo we learn
nothing except that in the pause between the first and second
parts the connoisseurs and amateurs came on the stage, and
complimented him in the most flattering terms on his playing. The
great success, however, of the evening was his performance of the
Fantasia on Polish airs. "This time I understood myself, the
orchestra understood me, and the audience understood us." This is
quite in the bulletin style of conquerors; it has a ring of
"veni, vidi, vici" about it. Especially the mazurka at the end of
the piece produced a great effect, and Chopin was called back so
enthusiastically that he was obliged to bow his acknowledgments
four times. Respecting the bowing he says: "I believe I did it
yesterday with a certain grace, for Brandt had taught me how to
do it properly." In short, the concert-giver was in the best of
spirits, one is every moment expecting him to exclaim: "Seid
umschlungen Millionen, diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt." He is
pleased with himself and Streicher's piano on which he had
played; pleased with Soliva, who kept both soloist and orchestra
splendidly in order; pleased with the impression the execution of
the overture made; pleased with the blue-robed, fay-like Miss
Wolkow; pleased most of all with Miss Gladkowska, who "wore a
white dress and roses in her hair, and was charmingly beautiful."
He tells his friend that:
she never sang so well as on that evening (except the aria in
"Agnese"). You know "O! quante lagrime per te versai." The
tutto detesto down to the lower b came out so magnificently
that Zielinski declared this b alone was worth a thousand
ducats.
In Vienna the score and parts of the Krakowiak had been found to
be full of mistakes, it was the same with the Concerto in Warsaw.
Chopin himself says that if Soliva had not taken the score with
him in order to correct it, he (Chopin) did not know what might
have become of the Concerto on the evening of the concert. Carl
Mikuli, who, as well as his fellow-pupil Tellefsen, copied many
of Chopin's MSS., says that they were full of slips of the pen,
such as wrong notes and signatures, omissions of accidentals,
dots, and intervals of chords, and incorrect markings of slurs
and 8va's.
Although Chopin wrote on October 5, 1830, that eight days after
the concert he would certainly be no longer in Warsaw, that his
trunk was bought, his whole outfit ready, the scores corrected,
the pocket-handkerchiefs hemmed, the new trousers and the new
dress-coat tried on, &c., that, in fact, nothing remained to be
done but the worst of all, the leave-taking, yet it was not till
the 1st of November, 1830, that he actually did take his
departure. Elsner and a number of friends accompanied him to
Wola, the first village beyond Warsaw. There the pupils of the
Conservatorium awaited them, and sang a cantata composed by
Elsner for the occasion. After this the friends once more sat
down together to a banquet which had been prepared for them. In
the course of the repast a silver goblet filled with Polish earth
was presented to Chopin in the name of all.
May you never forget your country [said the speaker,
according to Karasowski], wherever you may wander or sojourn,
may you never cease to love it with a warm, faithful heart!
Remember Poland, remember your friends, who call you with
pride their fellow-countryman, who expect great things of
you, whose wishes and prayers accompany you!
How fully Chopin realised their wishes and expectations the
sequel will show: how much such loving words must have affected
him the reader of this chapter can have no difficulty in
understanding. But now came pitilessly the dread hour of parting.
A last farewell is taken, the carriage rolls away, and the
traveller has left behind him all that is dearest to him--
parents, sisters, sweetheart, and friends. "I have always a
presentiment that I am leaving Warsaw never to return to it; I am
convinced that I shall say an eternal farewell to my native
country." Thus, indeed, destiny willed it. Chopin was never to
tread again the beloved soil of Poland, never to set eyes again
on Warsaw and its Conservatorium, the column of King Sigismund
opposite, the neighbouring church of the Bernardines
(Constantia's place of worship), and all those things and places
associated in his mind with the sweet memories of his youth and
early manhood.