Chopin's compositions, aside from his Waltzes, were in his day too
novel and strange to attract more than the discerning and progressive
few. Obtuse and ignorant critics vented their wrath upon them. Even
Moscheles found them full of abrupt and harsh modulations, and the
attitude of Mendelssohn was one of mingled like and loathing. Liszt
alone accepted them in their entirety. Because of all this, their
inevitably small sale made Chopin's office of composer comparatively an
unremunerative one.
Unlike Beethoven who, from choice as well as necessity, lived most
frugally and solitary as a lion in his den, Chopin was somewhat of a
Sybarite in his tastes, and, furthermore, improvident and accustomed
to extravagant expenditures. Therefore, while esteeming himself at par
value as a composer, he was of necessity a teacher also. In addition to
the distractions and fatigues of regular lesson-giving, an ever-present
misfortune, a wasting and fatal malady, crippled what should have been
his years of physical prime. Yet despite all that certainly hindered
and probably impaired the result of Chopin's Parisian years of creative
effort, that result may be summarized as follows:
First and foremost, are those «Soul-animating strains, alas too few!»
the four incomparable Ballades of which Schumann said that a poet
inspired them, and a poet might easily write words to them. In the
Ballades, Chopin encompasses a height and breadth and depth elsewhere
unattained in his works. Here the local is indeed outgrown, and almost
the universal is in the sweep of his vision. Abreast of the bardic
view, he develops a world theme, he rings a story of the antique and
the modern.
Next in enumeration come the great Polonaises, epics of Poland in
heroic meter, Iliads of battle on her native soil. The bitter taunt of
rage and scorn; the hurled defiance and the fierce reply; the rush,
the crash of the onset; the broken swords and splintered lances; the
vanquished rider and the fallen war-horse; the anguished cries of dying
men; the hopeless wail of captives; the harsh rattle of galling chains;
the deep and solemn notes of dirge. Iliads of Poland! Iliads of her
olden glory and her prone defeat; and then an Iliad of her proud-arisen
days to be!
In marked contrast, and therefore proving the versatility of Chopin,
we have what outlasts a thousand ballroom waltzes every one of which,
like the gay butterfly, joys through its little day and then is gone
forever. Of the poetic and perfect Waltzes of Chopin, evidently not
written for the mere dancer, may be instanced the one in A flat op. 42;
also the set of three op. 34. The second of them, tenderly melancholy
in both minor and major, was an especial favorite of its author.
Nor should we overlook the celebrated waltz in D flat which, while
fulfilling all musical requirements, has proved universally popular,
being, in fact, what its history indicates, the unpremeditated outpour
of a happy hour.
The greater number of the forty-one Mazurkas published by Chopin, date
from the Paris period. They are easy of execution and often brief, some
being held within the limits of sixty measures. In these Mazurkas the
poet of the epic turns to polish the line, the stanza; the painter of
the heroic perfects the miniature. Each Mazurka is a tiny picture of
Polish life; a little draught from the well of Polish folk-song. How
readily these dances lend themselves to an exaggerated rubato, the
common fault of would-be interpreters!
Because of its noble, singing quality, the key of D flat was chosen for
some of Chopin's most exquisite melodies. In this markedly individual
key, whose tone color is but the veil of some unimagined splendor,
was set the «Berceuse,» most ethereal and lovely of cradle songs. A
sweet murmur of waters, it glides and ripples and gently falls from
no earth-born spring. No upland snows make clear its limpid, winding
way. From loftier far than ever rain-clouds find, the home of innocence
which slumbering infancy beholds, it brings of Wisdom's fount what,
hidden from the wise, is yet revealed to babes.
Another of the Paris pieces is the somewhat long Barcarolle in nocturne
form; an Italian scene beneath the skies of Venice. Not the palaced
Venice of marble and porphyry and alabaster, but that mobile Venice
which mirrors the rising moon touched at times by filmy shades, yet
light enough for lovers borne upon the sparkling tides. Though devoid
of striking contrasts, this Barcarolle contains probably more of
variety than Mendelssohn could have woven into it.
In Paris were composed all save one of the nineteen Nocturnes bearing
the name of Chopin. On these, and the Polonaise in A major, and such
Waltzes as op. 18 in E flat, mostly rests his popular estimate.
As a producer in this lighter vein, Chopin encounters no rival. A
few, a very few of the earlier Nocturnes betray the influence of John
Field originator of this somewhat sentimental style of salon music;
but shortly the Chopinesque quality asserts itself and lo, the night
of lulled winds, heavy with the tropical odor of flowers! Night of
indolent southern stars, and the chaste Diana grown languorous and
tender! Night of little clouds that weep they know not why! Night of
the bashful, subdued bird that lifts not to the cheerful sun his notes
of love and grief and yearning.
Without underestimating the musical and technical value of Clementi's
«Gradus ad Parnassum» on whose broad and solid foundation rests all
modern pianoforte playing, and without in the least belittling the
contributions of Cramer, it may be asserted that the Etudes of Chopin
are revelations in technique. Of all their class, they alone anticipate
the virtuoso requirements of to-day, while some, like Nos. 3 and 6 of
op. 10, are, as inspired music, unmatched in the world's repertory of
piano studies. Painstaking authorities have edited, and eminent critics
have almost extravagantly praised them. Hunaker holds them monumental
of our nineteenth century attainment in piano music. However, Chopin's
twenty-seven Etudes have little place in this present enumeration,
for, excepting two or three in the second book, op. 25, they, like the
Concertos, the Bolero, the Rondos op. 1 and op. 16, and the Variations
op. 2, all of them antedate the year 1831.
The weight of evidence would prove that of the twenty-four Preludes
op. 28, the bulk was composed prior to Chopin's visit to Majorca
in 1839. Schumann called them «ruins, eagle feathers all strangely
intermingled.» To Kullak they are «little masterpieces of the first
rank.» Hunaker holds them «a sheaf of moods.» Rubinstein believes them
the pearls of Chopin's works. They are in fact autobiographical poems
in brief stanzas. Though we grant the excellence and completeness of
many, and the individuality of all these Preludes, certain of them
seemed fragmentary. The sixteen measures comprised in No. 7, may be
the sole remnant of some discarded Mazurka. Those thirteen measures
of solemn moving chords in C minor, the total of No. 20, suggest the
episode in the G minor Nocturne, and may have been preserved from some
such composition.
We have, by Chopin, four Impromptus all written later than the year
1831: op. 29 in A flat, op. 36 in F sharp major, op. 51 in G flat, and
the posthumous Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor. The word Impromptu
is usually a misnomer betraying, to the discerning, the vanity of
an author who would have his public suppose him capable of off-hand
effusions in all ways superior to the careful work of others.
That Chopin is here not altogether innocent is at once shown by
the premeditated consecutive minor ninths between the melody and
accompaniment in the first and second measures of op. 29. The six
introductory measures of op. 36 are a carefully written two-part bass
which, blending with the treble melody entering at the seventh measure,
forms with it a three-part harmony worthy of the most painstaking
writer. In op. 51, Chopin is chromatic and winding and premeditating as
is his wont. Op. 66 comes nearest the title, «Impromptu.» Interest here
centers in the right hand, which, throughout the first and the third
sections, is an uninterrupted torrent of semiquavers, and, in the D
flat middle movement, is a sustained and melodious cantabile which yet
is not the master's true cantabile, that noble and tender and pensive
poetry pervading, for instance, the con anima of the B flat minor
Scherzo.
The instrumental music of Haydn and Mozart furnishes many models of
the true Scherzo. The Sonatas and Symphonies of Beethoven exhibit in
its fullness this evolution of the old Minuet, but, coming to the four
Scherzos of Chopin, the mere classifier is puzzled and halted while
the real musician is exalted and led onward. Leaving the consideration
of name and structure and logical sequence to the hypercritical, he
enters without cavil this unique, forest-encompassed temple of art
where joy and laughter indeed are not, for an elegiac sadness murmurs
from the over-roofing green, and oftentimes the winds without, those
whisperers in their woodland tongue, will swell to impassioned euphony
or hopeless, wild lament, and suddenly midst Nature's momentary hush, a
solemn, deep-toned temple hymn is breathed around, and then, above, the
swaying branches make their moan anew, and hark! the harsh, capricious
blast is pouring once again its tale of wretchedness and woe.
The mind of Chopin, like that of every man and woman of true genius,
exhibits both male and female characteristics, for the sexless
human soul, the source of those characteristics, would stamp itself
clearly and wholly on the impressionable brain of such as he. Chopin's
masculineness, so often in abeyance, as throughout the Nocturnes, at
once asserts itself in the noble Fantaisie op. 49, whose recurring
first figure requires no fortissimo to drive it deep into the heart.
The true genius has his moment when, sole and venturous, he lifts
him loftier than the eagle. The sun beyond--the light he failed to
reach--did it not from the airless heaven scorn his defeat and leave
him humbled in the height? And yet the tree-tops, far beneath upon the
mountain, were proud with wings that never dared as he. Many fanciful
and imaginative interpretations we have of that empyrean flight
the F minor Fantaisie, but, as if too conscious of failure in the
unattainable, the author would discredit them all with a commonplace
explanation.
Inevitably the collected works of great authors, in whatever
department, contain that which as a whole adds little or nothing to
their eminent reputation. Of the works of Chopin's mature years, the
Allegro de Concert, the Tarantelle, and the Rondo op. 16, belong in
this category. And yet any of these, the first especially, would make
famous a pianoforte composer not already high in the first rank.
Chopin, as we have seen, studied well the compositions of Bach, and
to that study should be traced his comprehensive knowledge of harmonic
possibilities. This is wholly proved by his every important work; but
in daring how he distances the profound and methodical contrapuntist
of Leipsic! Only Wagner and Richard Strauss are bolder than he. As a
harmonist Chopin was bent on notable things, and with equal zeal he
essayed that most difficult and hazardous of undertakings, the Sonata.
Had our Romanticist but given to the pianoforte Sonatas of Beethoven
somewhat of those hours devoted to «The Well-tempered Clavichord,»
the effect on op. 35 and op. 58, probably had been an enrichment of
our repertory of high-class piano Sonatas. After all, the Sonata is a
perfected growth of Classicism, and so lends itself most ungraciously
to the looser treatment of the Romanticist, for it demands not only
sequence of ideas and systematic development of themes, but also a
unification of its constituent movements that as a whole it shall be
homogeneous.
During his Parisian career, Chopin composed three Sonatas, op. 35 and
op. 58, for piano, and op. 65, for piano and violoncello. This last,
a most unequal work, has provoked more of adverse criticism than any
other bearing his name.
Chopin's chief defect, one almost always apparent, originated in his
somewhat narrow sympathies, which, though deep, did yet by no means
fathom the joys underlying and destined to outlast the waves of sorrow,
which, to his circumscribed vision, were sufficient for the engulfing
of the world. What, we ask, was the partition, the virtual obliteration
of Poland, to that universal freedom, which, since the Napoleonic days,
was known as a blessing yet to be? As already said, Chopin allowed
these earth-clouds of sorrow to darken greatly the radiance of his
ideal world. The pessimist could not sink himself in the deeper and
wider optimist. We suspect his predilection for the gay and thoughtless
dwellers on the surface of life, to be but desire to rid himself of a
weight of sadness engendered by solitary musings.
The Sonata should be the outpouring of a heart attuned to every chord
of life; a heart capable of universal sympathies. Nevertheless, the
supreme expression of that heart is joy, a prophecy hopeful as a
Christmas greeting to the world. Let us turn to a consideration of op.
35 in B flat minor, for there, as nowhere else, Chopin betrays the
defects of his qualities.
The four vague introductory measures, «Grave,» attempt the expression
of unutterable woe whose painful fullness is yet relieved by this
anguished cry. During the next four measures the soul, still
overburdened, meditates a more adequate expression, and, at the
Agitato, again attempts its story in what proves but an interrupted and
broken eloquence of grief whose poignancy soon softens to tender, sweet
regret. This presently swells to passionate longing as for some far-off
good. But alas for expectance! Alas for every looked-for happiness
gilded by the sunlight of a day that shall not be! This last mood, so
characteristic of Chopin, ends the first section of the first movement,
and then suddenly but inevitably come back the old brooding and the
tearful, sob-choked utterance. And now a calmer moment for, as from
the Sun of all being, a ray of heaven-born cheer finds the darkened
chambers of the heart; but whatsoever of hope is there enkindled, is,
by sorrow's unstayable fountain, soon made cold again.
In almost no one succeeding bar of the four movements comprised in this
so-called Sonata, does a note of real joy leap forth from the funereal
throng. Even the più lento of the Scherzo seems to say, «Whatever we
feel, let us be outwardly cheerful!» Ah yes! But then this outwardness
misleads no observer, for the suffused eye betrays the smiling lips,
and laughter is the adroit but ineffectual turning of a sigh.
The Presto was abhorrent to Mendelssohn. A normal, happy being, he was
born into the sunshine and green of a happy world, and his heart had
not been plowed and harrowed, and then planted with the black-berried
nightshade and all the baneful things of death. So he turned from this
«Dark tarn of Auber» to the Chopin of meads and banks where no bird of
midnight mood is croaking and the wholesome winds blow never from the
«ghoul haunted woodland of Weir,» and the lithe branches are waving
æolian at eve.
In the Sonata op. 26 in A flat, Beethoven rightly placed amidst a
contrasting environment the immortal «Marcia funebre sulla morte d'un
Eroe.» Amidst the almost unmitigated gloom of the B flat minor Sonata,
Chopin has inserted a commemoration worthy of many heroes. But who
were the heroes inspiring the Polish composer to one of his grandest
thoughts, the unsurpassable Funeral March? Yes, who in truth were those
dedicated heroes? Surely not the great achievers whom the wide world
esteems, but rather those losing heroes hopeful in a hopeless cause;
those fallen patriots of Polish blood whose mangled forms the iron
hoofs of war had trampled in the mire of battle.
In the prevailing key of his Sonata, the key of B flat minor, one of
the most sombre in all the realms of tone, Chopin's Funeral March at
once reveals itself as no chapter of private sorrows; the mourning
of a multitude is in its deep-voiced chords telling the burial of a
people's loss. Fit for the final pageant of emperors and kings, yet
little varied as the monotone of some grave discourse, the weighty
measures move majestically and slow while everywhere bared heads
are bending, and the dull, despondent look is downward for now the
dust shall hide yon poor reminder of a vanished life. Ah, how those
earth-bound chords, for less than two brief measures, struggle free
and lift us on their glorious, upward wings! Alas, they falter ere yet
they attain, and then, in feebler soaring, turn and sink exhausted to
the very charnel place of Death. Once more with mighty final strength
the massive chords are mounting only to falter and attempt and fall
again even to the dismal housing of the dead. Then, suddenly unto that
comfortless abode a song of heaven is wafted from her angel choir. At
once complaining Doubt is dumb, and Sorrow hath her respite, and Hope
her sweet uplooking to the rest of heroes from their finished days.
Long afterward, when acute grief has changed to pensive musing, that
song in tones of unforgettable beauty steals upon the silence of the
soul; a tender message from the never-dying dead.
But whatever of balm in such serene outpouring, the torn heart must
look for ease to Time the great healer, and so the deep wounds reopen,
the insurmountable doubt and grief again are undergone, and in this
wise the sublime march, so masterfully epitomizing certain human
experiences, draws to its pathetic close and ends on the sombre chord
which characterized its beginning.