1835--1837.
PUBLICATIONS IN 1835 AND 1836.--FIRST PERFORMANCE OF LES
HUGUENOTS.-- GUSIKOW, LIPINSKI, THALBERG.--CHOPIN'S
IMPRESSIONABLENESS AND FICKLENESS IN REGARD TO THE FAIR SEX.--THE
FAMILY WODZINSKI.--CHOPIN'S LOVE FOR MARIA WODZINSKA (DRESDEN,
1835; MARIENBAD, 1836).--ANOTHER VISIT TO LEIPZIG (1836).--
CHARACTER OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN 1837.--MENTION OF HIS FIRST
MEETING WITH GEORGE SAND.--HIS VISIT TO LONDON.--NEWSPAPER
ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER VISIT TO MARIENBAD.--STATE OF HIS HEALTH
IN 1837.
IF we leave out of account his playing in the salons, Chopin's
artistic activity during the period comprised in this chapter was
confined to teaching and composition. [Footnote: A Paris
correspondent wrote in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik of May 17,
1836, that Chopin had not been heard at all that winter, meaning,
of course, that he had not been heard in public.] The publication
of his works enables us to form an approximate idea of how he was
occupied as a creative musician. In the year 1835 were published:
in February, Op. 20, Premier Scherzo (in B minor), dedicated to
Mr. T. Albrecht, and in November, Op. 24, Quatre Mazurkas,
dedicated to M. le Comte de Perthuis. In 1836 appeared: in April,
Op. 21, Second Concerto (in F minor), dedicated to Madame la
Comtesse Delphine Potocka: in May, Op. 27, Deux Nocturnes (in C
sharp minor and D flat major), dedicated to Madame la Comtesse
d'Appony; in June, Op. 23, Ballade (in G minor), dedicated to M.
le Baron de Stockhausen; in July, Op. 22, Grande Polonaise
brillante (E flat major) precedee d'un Andante spianato for
pianoforte and orchestra, dedicated to Madame la Baronne d'Est;
and Op. 26, Deux Polonaises (in C sharp minor and E flat minor),
dedicated to Mr. J. Dessauer. It is hardly necessary to point out
that the opus numbers do not indicate the order of succession in
which the works were composed. The Concerto belongs to the year
1830; the above notes show that Op. 24 and 27 were sooner in
print than Op. 23 and 26; and Op. 25, although we hear of its
being played by the composer in 1834 and 1835, was not published
till 1837.
The indubitably most important musical event of the season 1835-
1836, was the production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, which took
place on February 29, 1836, and had an extraordinary success. The
concert-rooms, however, concern us more than the opera-houses.
This year brought to Paris two Polish musicians: Lipinski, the
violinist, and Gusikow, the virtuoso on the Strohfiedel,
[FOOTNOTE: "Straw-fiddle," Gigelira, or Xylophone, an instrument
consisting of a graduated series of bars of wood that lie on
cords of twisted straw and are struck with sticks.] whom
Mendelssohn called "a true genius," and another contemporary
pointed out as one of the three great stars (Paganini and
Malibran were the two others) at that time shining in the musical
heavens. The story goes that Lipinski asked Chopin to prepare the
ground for him in Paris. The latter promised to do all in his
power if Lipinski would give a concert for the benefit of the
Polish refugees. The violinist at first expressed his willingness
to do so, but afterwards drew back, giving as his reason that if
he played for the Polish refugees he would spoil his prospects in
Russia, where he intended shortly to make an artistic tour.
Enraged at this refusal, Chopin declined to do anything to
further his countryman's plans in Paris. But whether the story is
true or not, Lipinski's concert at the Hotel de Ville, on March
3, was one of the most brilliant and best-attended of the season.
[FOOTNOTE: Revue et Gazette musicale of March 13, 1836. Mainzer
had a report to the same effect in the Neue Zeitschrift fur
Musik.]
The virtuoso, however, whose appearance caused the greatest
sensation was Thalberg. The Gazette musicale announced his
arrival on November 8, 1835. He was first heard at M.
Zimmermann's; Madame Viardot-Garcia, Duprez, and De Beriot being
the other artists that took active parts in the soiree. The
enthusiasm which Thalberg on this occasion as well as
subsequently excited was immense. The Menestrel expressed the all
but unanimous opinion when, on March 13, 1836, it said: "Thalberg
is not only the first pianist in the world, but he is also a most
distinguished composer." His novel effects astonished and
delighted his hearers. The pianists showed their appreciation by
adopting their confrere's manipulations and treatment of the
piano as soon as these ceased to puzzle them; the great majority
of the rising Parisian pianists became followers of Thalberg, nor
were some of the older ones slow in profiting by his example. The
most taking of the effects which Thalberg brought into vogue was
the device of placing the melody in the middle--i.e., the most
sonorous part of the instrument--and dividing it so between the
hands that they could at the same time accompany it with full
chords and brilliant figures. Even if he borrowed the idea from
the harpist Parish-Alvars, or from the pianist Francesco G.
Pollini, there remains to him the honour of having improved the
invention of his forerunners and applied it with superior
ability. His greatness, however, does not solely or even mainly
rest on this or any other ingeniously-contrived and cleverly-
performed trick. The secret of his success lay in the
aristocratic nature of his artistic personality, in which
exquisite elegance and calm self-possession reigned supreme. In
accordance with this fundamental disposition were all the details
of his style of playing. His execution was polished to the
highest degree; the evenness of his scales and the clearness of
his passages and embellishments could not be surpassed. If
sensuous beauty is the sole end of music, his touch must be
pronounced the ideal of perfection, for it extracted the essence
of beauty. Strange as the expression "unctuous sonorousness" may
sound, it describes felicitously a quality of a style of playing
from which roughness, harshness, turbulence, and impetuosity were
altogether absent. Thalberg has been accused of want of
animation, passion, in short, of soul; but as Ambros remarked
with great acuteness--
Thalberg's compositions and playing had soul, a salon soul to
be sure, somewhat like that of a very elegant woman of the
world, who, nevertheless, has really a beautiful disposition
[Gemueth], which, however, is prevented from fully showing
itself by the superexquisiteness of her manners.
This simile reminds me of a remark of Heine's, who thought that
Thalberg distinguished himself favourably from other pianists by
what he (Heine) felt inclined to call "his musical conduct
[Betragen]." Here are some more of the poet-critic's remarks on
the same subject:--
As in life so also in art, Thalberg manifests innate tact;
his execution is so gentlemanlike, so opulent, so decorous,
so entirely without grimace, so entirely without forced
affectation of genius [forcirtes Genialthun], so entirely
without that boastful boorishness which badly conceals the
inner pusillanimity...He enchants by balsamic euphony, by
sobriety and gentleness....There is only one I prefer. That
is Chopin.
As a curiosity I must quote a passage from a letter dated July
10, 1836, and addressed by George Sand to the Comtesse d'Agoult.
Feelings of friendship, and, in one case at least, of more than
friendship, made these ladies partial to another prince of the
keyboard:--
I have heard Thalberg in Paris. He made on me the impression
of a good little child, very nice and very well-behaved.
There are hours when Franz [Liszt], while amusing himself,
trifles [badine], like him, on some notes in order to let the
furious elements afterwards loose on this gentle breeze.
Liszt, who was at the time of Thalberg's visit to Paris in
Switzerland, doubted the correctness of the accounts which
reached him of this virtuoso's achievements. Like Thomas he would
trust only his own senses; and as his curiosity left him no rest,
he betook himself in March, 1836, to Paris. But, unfortunately,
he arrived too late, Thalberg having quitted the capital on the
preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which were everywhere the
answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated Liszt, and
seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge
criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave
two private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both
of which were crowded, the latter being attended by more than
four hundred people. The result was a brilliant victory, and
henceforth there were two camps. The admiration and stupefaction
of those who heard him were extraordinary; for since his last
appearance Liszt had again made such enormous progress as to
astonish even his most intimate friends. In answer to those who
had declared that with Thalberg a new era began, Berlioz,
pointing to Liszt's Fantasia on I Pirati and that on themes from
La Juive, now made the counter-declaration that "this was the new
school of pianoforte-playing." Indeed, Liszt was only now
attaining to the fulness of his power as a pianist and composer
for his instrument; and when after another sojourn in Switzerland
he returned in December, 1836, to Paris, and in the course of the
season entered the lists with Thalberg, it was a spectacle for
the gods. "Thalberg," writes Leon Escudier, "est la grace, comme
Liszt la force; le jeu de l'un est blond, celui de l'autre est
brun." A lady who heard the two pianists at a concert for the
Italian poor, given in the salons of the Princess Belgiojoso,
exclaimed: "Thalberg est le premier pianiste du monde."--"Et
Liszt?" asked the person to whom the words were addressed--
"Liszt! Liszt--c'est le seul!" was the reply. This is the spirit
in which great artists should be judged. It is oftener narrowness
of sympathy than acuteness of discrimination which makes people
exalt one artist and disparage another who differs from him. In
the wide realm of art there are to be found many kinds of
excellence; one man cannot possess them all and in the highest
degree. Some of these excellences are indeed irreconcilable and
exclude each other; most of them can only be combined by a
compromise. Hence, of two artists who differ from each other, one
is not necessarily superior to the other; and he who is the
greater on the whole may in some respects be inferior to the
lesser. Perhaps the reader will say that these are truisms. To be
sure they are. And yet if he considers only the judgments which
are every day pronounced, he may easily be led to believe that
these truisms are most recondite truths now for the first time
revealed. When Liszt after his first return from Switzerland did
not find Thalberg himself, he tried to satisfy his curiosity by a
careful examination of that pianist's compositions. The
conclusions he came to be set forth in a criticism of Thalberg's
Grande Fantaisie, Op. 22, and the Caprices, Op. 15 and 19, which
in 1837 made its appearance in the Gazette musicale, accompanied
by an editorial foot-note expressing dissent. I called Liszt's
article a criticism, but "lampoon" or "libel" would have been a
more appropriate designation. In the introductory part Liszt
sneers at Thalberg's title of "Pianist to His Majesty the Emperor
of Austria," and alludes to his rival's distant (i.e.,
illegitimate) relationship to a noble family, ascribing his
success to a great extent to these two circumstances. The
personalities and abusiveness of the criticism remind one
somewhat of the manner in which the scholars of earlier
centuries, more especially of the sixteenth and seventeenth,
dealt critically with each other. Liszt declares that love of
truth, not jealousy, urged him to write; but he deceived himself.
Nor did his special knowledge and experience as a musician and
virtuoso qualify him, as he pretended, above others for the task
he had undertaken; he forgot that no man can be a good judge in
his own cause. No wonder, therefore, that Fetis, enraged at this
unprovoked attack of one artist on a brother-artist, took up his
pen in defence of the injured party. Unfortunately, his retort
was a lengthy and pedantic dissertation, which along with some
true statements contained many questionable, not to say silly,
ones. In nothing, however, was he so far off the mark as in his
comparative estimate of Liszt and Thalberg. The sentences in
which he sums up the whole of his reasoning show this clearly:
"You are the pre-eminent man of the school which is effete and
which has nothing more to do, but you are not the man of a new
school! Thalberg is this man--herein lies the whole difference
between you two." Who can help smiling at this combination of
pompous authoritativeness and wretched short-sightedness? It has
been truly observed by Ambros that there is between Thalberg and
Liszt all the difference that exists between a man of talent and
a man of genius; indeed, the former introduced but a new fashion,
whereas the latter founded really a new school. The one
originated a few new effects, the other revolutionised the whole
style of writing for the pianoforte. Thalberg was perfect in his
genre, but he cannot be compared to an artist of the breadth,
universality, and, above all, intellectual and emotional power of
Liszt. It is possible to describe the former, but the latter,
Proteus-like, is apt to elude the grasp of him who endeavours to
catch hold of him. The Thalberg controversy did not end with
Fetis's article. Liszt wrote a rejoinder in which he failed to
justify himself, but succeeded in giving the poor savant some
hard hits. I do not think Liszt would have approved of the
republication of these literary escapades if he had taken the
trouble to re-read them. It is very instructive to compare his
criticism of Thalberg's compositions with what Schumann--who in
this case is by no means partial--said of them. In the opinion of
the one the Fantaisie sur Les Huguenots is not only one of the
most empty and mediocre works, but it is also so supremely
monotonous that it produces extreme weariness. In the opinion of
the other the Fantaisie deserves the general enthusiasm which it
has called forth, because the composer proves himself master of
his language and thoughts, conducts himself like a man of the
world, binds and loosens the threads with so much ease that it
seems quite unintentional, and draws the audience with him
wherever he wishes without either over-exciting or wearying it.
The truth, no doubt, is rather with Schumann than with Liszt.
Although Thalberg's compositions cannot be ranked with the great
works of ideal art, they are superior to the morceaux of Czerny,
Herz, and hoc genus omne, their appearance marking indeed an
improvement in the style of salon music.
But what did Chopin think of Thalberg? He shared the opinion of
Liszt, whose side he took. In fact, Edouard Wolff told me that
Chopin absolutely despised Thalberg. To M. Mathias I owe the
following communication, which throws much light on Chopin's
attitude:--
I saw Chopin with George Sand at the house of Louis Viardot,
before the marriage of the latter with Pauline Garcia. I was
very young, being only twelve years old, but I remember it as
though it had been yesterday. Thalberg was there, and had
played his second fantasia on Don Giovanni (Op. 42), and upon
my word Chopin complimented him most highly and with great
gravity; nevertheless, God knows what Chopin thought of it in
his heart, for he had a horror of Thalberg's arrangements,
which I have seen and heard him parody in the most droll and
amusing manner, for Chopin had the sense of parody and
ridicule in a high degree.
Thalberg had not much intercourse with Chopin, nor did he
exercise the faintest shadow of an influence over him; but as one
of the foremost pianist-composers--indeed, one of the most
characteristic phenomena of the age--he could not be passed by in
silence. Moreover, the noisy careers of Liszt and Thalberg serve
as a set-off to the noiseless one of Chopin.
I suspect that Chopin was one of that race of artists and poets
"qui font de la passion un instrument de l'art et de la poesie,
et dont l'esprit n'a d'activite qu'autant qu'il est mis en
mouvement par les forces motrices du coeur." At any rate, the
tender passion was a necessary of his existence. That his
disappointed first love did not harden his heart and make him
insensible to the charms of the fair sex is apparent from some
remarks of George Sand, who says that although his heart was
ardent and devoted, it was not continuously so to any one person,
but surrendered itself alternately to five or six affections,
each of which, as they struggled within it, got by turns the
mastery over all the others. He would passionately love three
women in the course of one evening party and forget them as soon
as he had turned his back, while each of them imagined that she
had exclusively charmed him. In short, Chopin was of a very
impressionable nature: beauty and grace, nay, even a mere smile,
kindled his enthusiasm at first sight, and an awkward word or
equivocal glance was enough to disenchant him. But although he
was not at all exclusive in his own affections, he was so in a
high degree with regard to those which he demanded from others.
In illustration of how easily Chopin took a dislike to anyone,
and how little he measured what he accorded of his heart with
what he exacted from that of others, George Sand relates a story
which she got from himself. In order to avoid misrepresenting
her, I shall translate her own words:--
He had taken a great fancy to the granddaughter of a
celebrated master. He thought of asking her in marriage at
the same time that he entertained the idea of another
marriage in Poland--his loyalty being engaged nowhere, and
his fickle heart floating from one passion to the other. The
young Parisian received him very kindly, and all went as well
as could be till on going to visit her one day in company
with another musician, who was of more note in Paris than he
at that time, she offered a chair to this gentleman before
thinking of inviting Chopin to be seated. He never called on
her again, and forgot her immediately.
The same story was told me by other intimate friends of Chopin's,
who evidently believed in its genuineness; their version differed
from that of George Sand only in this, that there was no allusion
to a lady-love in Poland. Indeed, true as George Sand's
observations are in the main, we must make allowance for the
novelist's habit of fashioning and exaggerating, and the woman's
endeavour to paint her dismissed and aggrieved lover as black as
possible. Chopin may have indulged in innumerable amorous
fancies, but the story of his life furnishes at least one
instance of his having loved faithfully as well as deeply. Nor
will it be denied that Chopin's love for Constantia Gladkowska
was a serious affair, whether the fatal end be attributable to
him or her, or both. And now I have to give an account of another
love-affair which deserves likewise the epithet "serious."
As a boy Chopin contracted a friendship with the brothers
Wodzinski, who were boarders at his father's establishment. With
them he went repeatedly to Sluzewo, the property of their father,
and thus became also acquainted with the rest of the family. The
nature of the relation in which Chopin and they stood to each
other is shown by a letter written by the former on July 18,
1834, to one of the brothers who with his mother and other
members of the family was at that time staying at Geneva, whither
they had gone after the Polish revolution of 1830-31, in which
the three brothers--Anthony, Casimir, and Felix--had taken part:-
-
My dear Felix,--Very likely you thought "Fred must be moping
that he does not answer my letter!" But you will remember
that it was always my habit to do everything too late. Thus I
went also too late to Miss Fanche, and consequently was
obliged to wait till honest Wolf had departed. Were it not
that I have only recently come back from the banks of the
Rhine and have an engagement from which I cannot free myself
just now, I would immediately set out for Geneva to thank
your esteemed mamma and at the same time accept her kind
invitation. But cruel fate--in one word, it cannot be done.
Your sister was so good as to send me her composition. It
gives me the greatest pleasure, and happening to improvise
the veryevening of its arrival in one of our salons, I took
for my subject the pretty theme by a certain Maria with whom
in times gone by I played at hide and seek in the house of
Mr. Pszenny...To-day! Je prends la liberte d'envoyer a mon
estimable collegue Mile Marie une petite valse que je viens
de publier. May it afford her a hundredth part of the
pleasure which I felt on receiving her variations. In
conclusion, I once more thank your mamma most sincerely for
kindly remembering her old and faithful servant in whose
veins also there run some drops of Cujavian blood.
[Footnote: Cujavia is the name of a Polish district.]
F. CHOPIN.
P.S.--Embrace Anthony, stifle Casimir with caresses if you
can. as for Miss Maria make her a graceful and respectful
bow. Be surprised and say in a whisper, "Dear me, how tall
she has grown!"
The Wodzinskis, with the exception of Anthony, returned in the
summer of 1835 to Poland, making on their way thither a stay at
Dresden. Anthony, who was then in Paris and in constant intercourse
with Chopin, kept the latter informed of his people's movements and
his people of Chopin's. Thus it came about that they met at Dresden
in September, 1835, whither the composer went after his meeting
with his parents at Carlsbad, mentioned in the preceding chapter
(p. 288). Count Wodzinski says in his Les trois Romans de Frederic
Chopin that Chopin had spoken to his father about his project of
marrying Maria Wodzinska, and that this idea had sprung up in his
soul by the mere force of recollections. The young lady was then
nineteen years of age, and, according to the writer just mentioned,
tall and slender in figure, and light and graceful in gait. The
features, he tells us, were distinguished neither by regularity nor
classical beauty, but had an indefinable charm. Her black eyes were
full of sweetness, reverie, and restrained fire; a smile of
ineffable voluptuousness played around her lips; and her
magnificent hair was as dark as ebony and long enough to serve her
as a mantle. Chopin and Maria saw each other every evening at the
house of her uncle, the Palatine Wodzinski. The latter concluded
from their frequent tete-a-tete at the piano and in corners that
some love-making was going on between them. When he found that his
monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on his niece, he
warned his sister-in-law. She, however, took the matter lightly,
saying that it was an amitie d'enfance, that Maria was fond of
music, and that, moreover, there would soon be an end to all
this--their ways lying in opposite directions, hers eastward to
Poland, his westward to France. And thus things were allowed to go
on as they had begun, Chopin passing all his evenings with the
Wodzinskis and joining them in all their walks. At last the time of
parting came, the clock of the Frauenkirche struck the hour of ten,
the carriage was waiting at the door, Maria gave Chopin a rose from
a bouquet on the table, and he improvised a waltz which he
afterwards sent her from Paris, and which she called L'Adieu.
Whatever we may think of the details of this scene of parting, the
waltz composed for Maria at Dresden is an undeniable fact.
Facsimiles may be seen in Szulc's Fryderyk Chopin and Count
Wodziriski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin. The manuscript
bears the superscription: "Tempo de Valse" on the left, and "pour
Mile. Marie" on the right; and the subscription: "F. Chopin, Drezno
[Dresden], September, 1835." [FOOTNOTE: It is Op. 69, No. 1, one of
the posthumous works published by Julius Fontana.]
The two met again in the following summer, this time at
Marienbad, where he knew she and her mother were going. They
resumed their walks, music, and conversations. She drew also his
portrait. And then one day Chopin proposed. Her answer was that
she could not run counter to her parents' wishes, nor could she
hope to be able to bend their will; but she would always preserve
for him in her heart a grateful remembrance.[FOOTNOTE: Count
Wodzinski relates on p. 255 of his book that at a subsequent
period of her life the lady confided to him the above-quoted
answer.] This happened in August, 1836; and two days after mother
and daughter left Marienbad. Maria Wodzinska married the next
year a son of Chopin's godfather, Count Frederick Skarbek. The
marriage turned but an unhappy one, and was dissolved.
Subsequently the Countess married a Polish gentleman of the name
of Orpiszewski, who died some years ago in Florence. She, I
think, is still alive.
Karasowski relates the affair very differently. He says Chopin,
who knew the brothers Wodzinski in Poland, met them again in
Paris, and through them made the acquaintance of their sister
Maria, whose beauty and amiability inspired him at once with an
interest which soon became ardent love. But that Chopin had known
her in Poland may be gathered from the above letter to Felix
Wodzinski, quite apart from the distinct statements of the author
of Les trois Romans that Chopin was a frequent visitor at
Sluzewo, and a great friend of Maria's. Further, Karasowski, who
does not mention at all the meeting of Chopin and the Wodzinskis
at Dresden in 1835, says that Chopin went in the middle of July,
1836, to Marienbad, where he knew he would find Maria and her
mother, and that there he discovered that she whom he loved
reciprocated his affection, the consequence being an engagement
approved of by her relations. When the sojourn in Marienbad came
to an end, the whole party betook itself to Dresden, where they
remained together for some weeks, which they spent most
pleasantly.
[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski relates that Chopin was at the zenith of
happiness. His good humour was irresistible. He imitated the most
famous pianists, and played his dreamy mazurkas in the manner
much in favour with Warsaw amateurs--i.e., strictly in time and
with the strongly-accented rhythm of common dance-tunes. And his
friends reminded him of the tricks which, as a boy, he had played
on his visits to the country, and how he took away his sisters'
kid gloves when he was going to an evening-party, and could not
buy himself new ones, promising to send them dozens as soon as he
had gained a good position in Paris. Count Wodzinski, too, bears
witness to Chopin's good humour while in the company of the
Wodzinskis. In the course of his account of the sojourn at
Marienbad, this writer speaks of Chopin's polichinades: "He
imitated then this or that famous artist, the playing of certain
pupils or compatriots, belabouring the keyboard with extravagant
gestures, a wild [echevele] and romantic manner, which he called
aller a la chasse aux pigeons."]
Unless Chopin was twice with the Wodzinskis in Dresden,
Karasowski must be mistaken. That Chopin sojourned for some time
at Dresden in 1835 is evidenced by Wieck's letter, quoted on p.
288, and by the above-mentioned waltz. The latter seems also to
confirm what Count Wodzinski says about the presence of the
Wodzinskis at Dresden in that year. On the other hand, we have no
such documents to prove the presence at Dresden in 1836 either of
Chopin or the Wodzinskis. According to Karasowski, the engagement
made at Marienbad remained in force till the middle of 1837, when
Chopin received at Paris the news that the lady withdrew from it.
[FOOTNOTE: In explanation of the breaking-off of this supposed
engagement, it has also been said that the latter was favoured by
the mother, but opposed by the father.] The same authority
informs us that before this catastrophe Chopin had thoughts of
settling with his future wife in the neighbourhood of Warsaw,
near his beloved parents and sisters. There he would cultivate
his art in retirement, and found schools for the people. How,
without a fortune of his own, and with a wife who, although
belonging to a fairly wealthy family, would not come into the
possession of her portion till after the death of her parents, he
could have realised these dreams, I am at a loss to conjecture.
[FOONOTE: To enable his readers to measure the social distance
that separated Chopin from his beloved one, Count Wodzinski
mentions among other details that her father possessed a domain
of about 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares). It is hardly necessary
to add that this large acreage, which we will suppose to be
correctly stated, is much less a measure of the possessor's
wealth than of his social rank.]
Chopin's letters, which testify so conclusively to the cordial
friendship existing between him and the Wodzinskis, unfortunately
contain nothing which throws light on his connection with the
young lady, although her name occurs in them several times. On
April 2, 1837, Chopin wrote to Madame Wodzinska as follows:--
I take advantage of Madame Nakwaska's permission and enclose
a few words. I expect news from Anthony's own hand, and shall
send you a letter even more full of details than the one
which contained Vincent's enclosure. I beg of you to keep
your mind easy about him. As yet all are in the town. I am
not in possession of any details, because the correspondents
only give accounts of themselves. My letter of the same date
must certainly be in Sluzewo; and, as far as is possible, it
will set your mind at rest with regard to this Spaniard who
must, must write me a few words. I am not going to use many
words in expressing the sorrow I felt on learning the news of
your mother's death--not for her sake whom I did not know,
but for your sake whom I do know. {This is a matter of
course!) I have to confess, Madam, that I have had an attack
like the one I had in Marienbad; I sit before Miss Maria's
book, and were I to sit a hundred years I should be unable to
write anything in it. For there are days when I am out of
sorts. To-day I would prefer being in Sluzewo to writing to
Sluzewo. Then would I tell you more than I have now written.
My respects to Mr. Wodzinski and my kind regards to Miss
Maria, Casimir, Theresa, and Felix.
The object of another letter, dated May 14, 1837, is likewise to
give news of Anthony Wodzinski, who was fighting in Spain. Miss
Maria is mentioned in the P.S. and urged to write a few words to
her brother.
After a careful weighing of the evidence before us, it appears to
me that--notwithstanding the novelistic tricking-out of Les trois
Romans de Frederic Chopin--we cannot but accept as the true
account the author's statement as to Chopin's proposal of
marriage and Miss Wodzinska's rejection at Marienbad in 1836. The
testimony of a relation with direct information from one of the
two chief actors in the drama deserves more credit than that of a
stranger with, at best, second-hand information; unless we prefer
to believe that the lady misrepresented the facts in order to
show herself to the world in a more dignified and amiable
character than that of a jilt. The letters can hardly be quoted
in support of the engagement, for the rejection would still admit
of the continuation of the old friendship, and their tone does
not indicate the greater intimacy of a closer relationship.
Subsequent to his stay at Marienbad Chopin again visited Leipzig.
But the promises which Mendelssohn and Chopin had so solemnly
made to each other in the preceding year had not been kept; the
latter did not go in the course of the winter to Leipzig, and if
he had gone, the former could not have performed a new symphony
of his in honour of the guest. Several passages in letters
written by Schumann in the early part of 1836 show, however, that
Chopin was not forgotten by his Leipzig friends, with whom he
seems to have been in correspondence. On March 8, 1836, Schumann
wrote to Moscheles:--
Mendelssohn sends you his hearty greetings. He has finished
his oratorio, and will conduct it himself at the Dusseldorf
Musical Festival. Perhaps I shall go there too, perhaps also
Chopin, to whom we shall write about it.
The first performance of Mendelssohn's St. Paul took place at
Dusseldorf on May 22, and was a great success. But neither
Schumann nor Chopin was there. The latter was, no doubt, already
planning his excursion to Marienbad, and could not allow himself
the luxury of two holidays within so short a time.
Here is another scrap from a letter of Schumann's, dated August
28, 1836, and addressed to his brother Edward and his sister-in-
law Theresa:--
I have just written to Chopin, who is said to be in
Marienbad, in order to learn whether he is really there. In
any case, I should visit you again in autumn. But if Chopin
answers my letter at once, I shall start sooner, and go to
Marienbad by way of Carlsbad. Theresa, what do you think! you
must come with me! Read first Chopin's answer, and then we
will fully discuss the rest.
Chopin either had left or was about to leave Marienbad when he
received Schumann's letter. Had he received it sooner, his answer
would not have been very encouraging. For in his circumstances he
could not but have felt even the most highly-esteemed confrere,
the most charming of companions, in the way.[FOOTNOTE:
Mendelscohn's sister, Rebecka Dirichlet, found him completely
absorbed in his Polish Countess. (See The Mendelssohn Family,
Vol. II, p. 15.)] But although the two musicians did not meet at
Marienbad, they saw each other at Leipzig. How much one of them
enjoyed the visit may be seen in the following extract from a
letter which Schumann wrote to Heinrich Dorn on September 14,
1836:--
The day before yesterday, just after I had received your
letter and was going to answer it, who should enter?--Chopin.
This was a great pleasure. We passed a very happy day
together, in honour of which I made yesterday a holiday...I
have a new ballade by Chopin. It appears to me his
genialischstes (not genialstes) work; and I told him that I
liked it best of all.
[FOOTNOTE: "Sein genialischstes (nicht genialstes) Werk." I
take Schumann to mean that the ballade in question (the one
in G minor) is Chopin's most spirited, most daring work, but
not his most genial--i.e., the one fullest of genius.
Schumann's remark, in a criticism of Op. 37, 38, and 42, that
this ballade is the "wildest and most original" of Chopin's
compositions, confirms my conjecture.]
After a long meditative pause he said with great emphasis: "I
am glad of that, it is the one which I too like best." He
played besides a number of new etudes, nocturnes, and
mazurkas--everything incomparable. You would like him very
much. But Clara [Wieck] is greater as a virtuoso, and gives
almost more meaning to his compositions than he himself.
Imagine the perfection, a mastery which seems to be quite
unconscious of itself!
Besides the announcement of September 16, 1836, that Chopin had
been a day in Leipzig, that he had brought with him among other
things new "heavenly" etudes, nocturnes, mazurkas, and a new
ballade, and that he played much and "very incomparably," there
occur in Schumann's writings in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik
unmistakable reminiscences of this visit of the Polish musician.
Thus, for instance, in a review of dance-music, which appeared in
the following year, and to which he gave the fantastic form of a
"Report to Jeanquirit in Augsburg of the editor's last artistico-
historical ball," the writer relates a conversation he had with
his partner Beda:--
I turned the conversation adroitly on Chopin. Scarcely had
she heard the name than she for the first time fully looked
at me with her large, kindly eyes. "And you know him?" I
answered in the affirmative. "And you have heard him?" Her
form became more and more sublime. "And have heard him
speak?" And when I told her that it was a never-to-be-
forgotten picture to see him sitting at the piano like a
dreaming seer, and how in listening to his playing one seemed
to one's self like the dream he created, and how he had the
dreadful habit of passing, at the end of each piece, one
finger quickly over the whizzing keyboard, as if to get rid
of his dream by force, and how he had to take care of his
delicate health--she clung to me with ever-increasing
timorous delight, and wished to know more and more about him.
Very interesting is Schumann's description of how Chopin played
some etudes from his Op. 25; it is to be found in another
criticism of the same year (1837):--
As regards these etudes, I have the advantage of having heard
most of them played by Chopin himself, and, as Florestan
whispered in my ear at the time, "He plays them very much a
la Chopin." Imagine an AEolian harp that had all the scales,
and that these were jumbled together by the hand of an artist
into all sorts of fantastic ornaments, but in such a manner
that a deeper fundamental tone and a softly-singing higher
part were always audible, and you have an approximate idea of
his playing. No wonder that we have become fondest of those
pieces which we heard him play himself, and therefore we
shall mention first of all the first one in A flat, which is
rather a poem than an etude. It would be a mistake, however,
to suppose that he brought out every one of the little notes
with distinctness; it was more like a billowing of the A flat
major chord, swelled anew here and there by means of the
pedal; but through the harmonies were heard the sustained
tones of a wondrous melody, and only in the middle of it did
a tenor part once come into greater prominence amid the
chords along with that principal cantilena. After listening
to the study one feels as one does after a blissful vision,
seen in a dream, which, already half awake, one would fain
bring back. He soon came to the one in F minor, the second in
the book, likewise one which impresses one indelibly with his
originality; it is so charming, dreamy, and soft, somewhat
like the singing of a child in its sleep. Beautiful also,
although less new in character than in the figure, was the
following one in F major; here the object was more to exhibit
bravura, the most charming bravura, and we could not but
praise the master highly for it....But of what use are
descriptive words?
This time we cannot cite a letter of Mendelssohn's; he was
elsewhere similarly occupied as Chopin in Marienbad. After
falling in love with a Frankfort lady, Miss Jeanrenaud, he had
gone to Scheweningen to see whether his love would stand the test
of absence from the beloved object. It stood the test admirably,
and on September 9, a few days before Chopin's arrival in
Leipzig, Mendelssohn's engagement to the lady who became his wife
on March 28, 1837, took place.
But another person who has been mentioned in connection with
Chopin's first visit to Leipzig, Henrietta Voigt, [FOOTNOTE: The
editor of "Acht Briefe und ein Facsimile van Felix Mendelssohn-
Bartholdy" speaks of her as "the artistic wife of a Leipzig
merchant, whose house stood open to musicians living in and
passing through Leipzig."] has left us an account of the
impression made upon her. An entry in her diary on September 13,
1836, runs thus:--
Yesterday Chopin was here and played an hour on my piano--a
fantasia and new etude of his--interesting man and still more
interesting playing; he moved me strangely. The over-
excitement of his fantastic manner is imparted to the keen-
eared; it made me hold my breath. Wonderful is the ease with
which his velvet fingers glide, I might almost say fly, over
the keys. He has enraptured me--I cannot deny it--in a way
which hitherto had been unknown to me. What delighted me was
the childlike, natural manner which he showed in his
demeanour and in his playing.
After this short break of his journey at Leipzig, which he did
not leave without placing a wreath of flowers on the monument of
Prince Joseph Poniatowski, who in 1812 met here with an early
death, being drowned in the river Elster, Chopin proceeded on his
homeward journey, that is toward Paris, probably tarrying again
for a day or two at Heidelberg.
The non-artistic events of this period are of a more stirring
nature than the artistic ones. First in time and importance comes
Chopin's meeting with George Sand, which more than any other
event marks an epoch in the composer's life. But as this subject
has to be discussed fully and at some length we shall leave it
for another chapter, and conclude this with an account of some
other matters.
Mendelssohn, who arrived in London on August 24, 1837, wrote on
September 1 to Hiller:--
Chopin is said to have suddenly turned up here a fortnight
ago; but he visited nobody and made no acquaintances. He
played one evening most beautifully at Broadwood's, and then
hurried away again. I hear he is still suffering very much.
Chopin accompanied by Camille Pleyel and Stanislas Kozmian, the
elder, came to London on the 11th of July and stayed till the
22nd. Pleyel introduced him under the name of M. Fritz to his
friend James Broadwood, who invited them to dine with him at his
house in Bryanston Square. The incognito, however, could only be
preserved as long as Chopin kept his hands off the piano. When
after dinner he sat down to play, the ladies of the family
suspected, and, suspicion being aroused, soon extracted a
confession of the truth.
Moscheles in alluding in his diary to this visit to London adds
an item or two to its history:--
Chopin, who passed a few days in London, was the only one of
the foreign artists who visited nobody and also did not wish
to be visited, as every conversation aggravates his chest-
complaint. He went to some concerts and disappeared.
Particularly interesting are the reminiscences of the writer of
an enthusiastic review [Footnote: Probably J. W. Davison.]of some
of Chopin's nocturnes and a scherzo in the "Musical World" of
February 23, 1838:--
Were he [Chopin] not the most retiring and unambitious of all
living musicians, he would before this time have been
celebrated as the inventor of a new style, or school, of
pianoforte composition. During his short visit to the
metropolis last season, but few had the high gratification of
hearing his extemporaneous performance. Those who experienced
this will not readily lose its remembrance. He is, perhaps,
par eminence, the most delightful of pianists in the drawing-
room. The animation of his style is so subdued, its
tenderness so refined, its melancholy so gentle, its niceties
so studied and systematic, the tout-ensemble so perfect, and
evidently the result of an accurate judgment and most
finished taste, that when exhibited in the large concert-
room, or the thronged saloon, it fails to impress itself on
the mass. The "Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik" of September 8,
1837, brought the piece of news that Chopin was then at a
Bohemian watering-place. I doubt the correctness of this
statement; at any rate, no other information to that effect
has come to my knowledge, and the ascertained facts do not
favour the assumption of its truth.
Never robust, Chopin had yet hitherto been free from any serious
illness. Now, however, the time of his troubles begins. In a
letter, undated, but very probably written in the summer of 1837,
which he addressed to Anthony Wodzinski, who had been wounded in
Spain, where civil war was then raging, occur remarks
confirmatory of Mendelssohn's and Moscheles' statements:--
My dearest life! Wounded! Far from us--and I can send you
nothing....Your friends are thinking only of you. For mercy's
sake recover as soon as possible and return. The newspaper
accounts say that your legion is completely annihilated.
Don't enter the Spanish army....Remember that your blood may
serve a better purpose....Titus [Woyciechowski] wrote to ask
me if I could not meet him somewhere in Germany. During the
winter I was again ill with influenza. They wanted to send me
to Ems. Up to the present, however, I have no thought of
going, as I am unable to move. I write and prepare
manuscript. I think far more of you than you imagine, and
love you as much as ever.
F. C.
Believe me, you and Titus are enshrined in my memory.
On the margin, Chopin writes--
I may perhaps go for a few days to George Sand's, but keep
your mind easy, this will not interfere with the forwarding
of your money, for I shall leave instructions with Johnnie
[Matuszynski].
With regard to this and to the two preceding letters to members
of the Wodzinski family, I have yet to state that I found them in
M. A. Szulc's "Fryderyk Chopin."