And later
[Illustration: score]
Figure XVIII.
Or again, as in the "Meno mosso" of the Scherzo, opus 39, both hands
first deliver bold, clear chords, and then weave a shimmer of light
above them. In all such cases, it is obvious that the dissonances
in question do not belong to the essential melodic and harmonic
lines of the composition; they are, as Mr. Hadow says, "effects of
superficies, not effects of substance," and may be compared to those
local blurs made by a draughtsman's stump in a charcoal sketch, or, as
before suggested, to those surprisingly rich mixed tints produced in
impressionistic paintings by a multitude of minute brush-strokes.
The at first sight very elaborate modulations of Chopin which have
provoked so much discussion are but a further application of the same
principle. They are really not modulations at all, in the classic sense
of transitions from one key to another having a structural value, but
rather amplifications of the groups of grace-notes that constantly
embroider the tunes. Their function is sensuous rather than structural,
and we might describe them by coining the word "grace-chords." Of the
twelfth measure of the second nocturne, for example, Mr. Hadow well
says that "when we see it on paper it seems to consist of a rapid
series of remote and recondite modulations, but when we hear it played
... we feel that there is only one real modulation, and that the rest
of the passage is an iridescent play of color." Another striking
instance is the following measure in the "Polonaise-Fantaisie," a
composition in which effects of this sort abound.
[Illustration: score]
Figure XIX.
The pedantic scholiast would say that the composer here modulated, with
startling speed, through the keys of B-flat, C, D, and A-minor; but
all that the mind grasps is the two chords at the beginnings of the
measures, connected by a gorgeous pageant of inarticulate sound. The
sketch is being rubbed with the draughtsman's stump again, this time
with even finer temerity and more splendid result than before.
It is a lesson in the meaning of that much-abused word "originality"
to observe that Chopin arrived at all these novel effects, which
differentiate his style so strikingly from those of the conservatives
and the virtuosos of his day, simply by discerning through a superior
sensitiveness, and working out with a matchless skill, the peculiar
potentialities of the medium at his hand. Realizing as no one else had
done that the piano compensates for its inability to bring out the
beauties of pure line (due to the non-sustainment of single tones),
by the wealth of color made available through the pedal's fusion of
many tones, both consonant and dissonant, in one composite impression,
he shrewdly arranged his campaign accordingly. He adjusted all his
technical resources, both as a composer and as a pianist, in the
interests of the greatest possible transfusion and intermixture of
impressions. This is the secret of his harmonic scheme, so chromatic
and full of dissonance; of his lavish melodic embroidery; of his _tempo
rubato_, by which the outline of meter itself, so arithmetical and
inexorable, is gently relaxed; of his curious soft, light touch, which
seemed to glide over rather than strike the keys--"so insinuating
and gossamer a touch," says an ear-witness, "that the crudest and
most chromatic harmonies floated away under his hand, indistinct yet
not unpleasing"; and this is the secret of his lavish use of the
damper pedal, equalled, among his contemporaries, only by that of
Schumann.[24]
The unprecedented individuality of the style he thus developed
profoundly impressed all observers. "In the marvellous art of carrying
and modulating the tone, in the expressive, melancholy manner of
shading it off," says Marmontel in his "Pianistes Célébres," "Chopin
was entirely himself. He had quite an individual way of attacking
the keyboard, a supple, mellow touch, sonorous effects of a vaporous
fluidity of which only he knew the secret." "Imagine," writes Schumann
in the _New Journal of Music_, "an Æolian 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." Liszt's testimony
is that he "imprinted on all his pieces one knows not what nameless
color, what vague appearance, what pulsations akin to vibration," and
that "his modulations were velvety and iridescent as the robe of a
salamander."
Nor do the scholastic musicians of the time fail to pay this pioneer
the eloquent tribute of misunderstanding him. Moscheles, a man of the
old _régime_, writes, after hearing him play, "The harsh modulations
which strike me disagreeably when I am playing his compositions no
longer shock me, because he glides over them in a fairylike way with
his delicate fingers." This comment is most significant. Moscheles
found Chopin's modulations harsh because he played them with the
punctilious accuracy, the absolute literalness, which is appropriate
to the music of line, but not to the music of color. In rendering a
Bach fugue we cannot get each tone too distinct, since it is sure to
be a part of some melody, a clear perception of which is necessary to
our appreciation of the design. But Chopin's polyphony is not Bach's
polyphony, as is illustrated by the former's Prelude, opus 28, no.
1. Both the right- and the left-hand parts here are melodic; but if
both are played with an equally salient touch, the conflicts between
the voices become unpleasant. The proper way is to let the lower part
sink into the background, giving merely a certain depth and opacity to
the general impression; the two melodies are as it were on different
planes, the lower one more remote and heard but dimly as through a
slight haze. So it is everywhere in Chopin. To play him too distinctly
is as fatal an error as to examine a charcoal sketch with a magnifying
glass, or to bend over a canvas of Monet and peer curiously at each
spot of paint. One must stand off, and half close one's eyes, until
the details are lost in the masses. In a word, here is a new type of
art, demanding a new mode of apperception. If a Bach fugue and a Mozart
quartet are the steel engravings of music, Chopin's pieces are its
impressionistic paintings and pastels.
But it is time to pass to some other phases of the extraordinary
sensibility and unerring taste of Chopin, thus evidenced by his
originality in technique, as they showed themselves in his everyday
life and in the more intellectual aspects of his art. The chief
events of his short career may be very summarily recounted. Born in
Zelazowa-Wola, a small village in Poland, in 1809, he studied music in
Warsaw, and at twenty-two established himself as a pianist and teacher
in Paris, where he passed most of his life. In 1837 ill health, which
soon developed into the pulmonary disease of which he died, compelled
him to seek a warmer climate, and he passed the winter in the island of
Majorca with George Sand, the eminent novelist, and her children. Thus
began a connection which lasted for ten years, and which has given rise
to endless discussion. The true inner history of this love-affair will
probably never be known, as the evidence is fragmentary and distorted
by prejudice. It is obvious, however, that neither the composer nor the
novelist (whose real name was Madame Dudevant, but who had obtained
a divorce from her husband before she met Chopin) was sufficiently
unselfish to sustain permanently such a relation; nor were their
temperaments fundamentally congenial. They separated in 1847. By this
time Chopin's consumption was far advanced, and after two more years of
extreme feebleness, complicated by poverty, he died at Paris, October
17, 1849.
In physique Chopin was slender and of middle height, fragile even
before disease had wasted him, but supple and elastic; his hands and
feet were small, his gestures varied and full of grace; with his
pale, almost sallow, complexion, his long, fine, chestnut-brown hair,
parted at one side, his high aquiline nose, limpid yet bright eyes,
and sweet half-melancholy smile, he impressed Moscheles as "exactly
like his music, tender and _schwärmerisch_."[25] Liszt says that the
timbre of his voice was subdued, and that his movements had such a
distinction and his manners such an impress of good society that one
treated him unconsciously like a prince. In the matter of dress he was
as fussy as a woman, sparing no pains (to the friends who served him
in these affairs) to secure just the distinguished mean between the
insignificant and the ostentatious. "I forgot," he writes from Nohant,
George Sand's country estate, to his friend Fontana, "to ask you to
order for me a hat from my Duport, in your street, Chaussée d'Antin.
Let him give the hat of this year's shape, not too much exaggerated,
for I do not know how you are dressing yourself just now.... Call at
my tailor's, on the Boulevards, and order him to make me at once a
pair of gray trousers--something respectable, not striped, but plain
and elastic. Also a quiet black velvet waistcoat, but with very little
and no loud pattern, something very quiet but very elegant. Should he
not have the best velvet of this kind, let him make a quiet, fine silk
waistcoat, but not too much open."
Another letter of the same time amply proves the truth of
his biographer's statement that he had the "_coquetterie des
appartements_." "Select wall-paper," he directs, "such as I had
formerly, dove-color, only bright and glossy, for the two rooms, also
dark green with not too broad stripes. For the anteroom something
else, but still _respectable_. If there are any nicer and more
fashionable papers that are to your liking, take them. I prefer the
plain, unpretending, and neat ones to the shopkeeper's staring colors.
Therefore pearl-color pleases me, for it is neither too loud nor does
it look vulgar." In his later years, as health waned, the habit of
luxury grew upon him. Near the end, just before leaving London for
home, he writes another of his willing servitors, this time his friend
Grzymala: "Please see that the sheets and pillows are quite dry, and
cause fir-nuts to be bought; Madame Étienne is not to spare anything,
so that I may warm myself when I arrive. I have written to D---- that
he is to provide carpets and curtains. I shall pay the paper-hanger at
once after my arrival. Tell Pleyel to send me a piano on Thursday; let
it be closed and a nosegay of violets be bought, so that there may be a
nice fragrance in the _salon_. I should like to find a little poesy in
my rooms and in my bedroom, where in all probability I shall lie down
for a long time."
The same fastidiousness is discernible in his musical and intellectual
tastes. Liszt says that he ranked Mozart above all other masters,
"because Mozart condescended more rarely than any other composer to
cross the steps which separate refinement from vulgarity." "Yet,"
adds Liszt, "his sybaritism of purity, his apprehension of what was
commonplace, were such that even in 'Don Giovanni' he discovered
passages the presence of which we have heard him regret." Next to
Mozart came Bach, whose works were the only music he carried with him
to Majorca, and whose exquisitely lucid style exercised an important
formative influence on his own. His pupil Mikuli says it was difficult
to tell which of the two composers he loved better. Beethoven he
accepted only with reservations. "Certain parts of Beethoven's works,"
says Liszt, "seemed to him too rudely fashioned. Their structure was
too athletic to please him; their wraths seemed to him too violent."
Mendelssohn he considered "common"; of Schumann's "Carnaval" he
remarked that it was not music; Meyerbeer and Berlioz he heartily
disliked, though for different reasons; Liszt, according to Niecks, he
often found "guilty of making concessions to bad taste for the sake of
success," a sin which he "viewed with the greatest indignation." On the
other hand, he liked the music of Bellini and Rossini, on account of
its southern suavity and grace.
Chopin took slight interest in philosophy and literature, and
detested argument, whether political or religious. "Of universality"
says Niecks, "there was not a trace in him;" and the composer
Stephen Heller, himself a man of marked cultivation, pronounced him
"uneducated." What little we do learn of his reading, however, is
most characteristic. His friend Gavard, who read to him, in his last
illness, out of Voltaire's "Dictionnaire Philosophique," remarks:
"He valued very highly the finished form of that clear and concise
language, and that so sure judgment on questions of taste. Thus, for
instance, I remember that the article on taste was one of the last I
read to him." The graphologist will supplement these bits of evidence
with the testimony of his handwriting, inimitably neat and small. His
manuscripts are marvels of penmanship: the notes like pin-points, the
slurs mere filaments of spider's web, the stems painstakingly vertical,
even the erasures ornamental latticework, so that the whole is as much
a drawing as a writing.
The least pleasing of all the manifestations of Chopin's exquisiteness
is seen in his social habits. Here his refinement, his shrinking
aversion to all that was crude, ugly, or grotesque, his sybaritic
love of ease and elegance, made of him an ultra-aristocrat, a
_précieux_,--one is often tempted to say, in good round English, a
"snob." Dazzled by the brilliance and poisoned by the perfume of those
_salons_ to which his talent gave him access, his taste, so unerring in
matters of art, failed to distinguish between the genuine aristocracy
of mind and the spurious aristocracy of wealth and fashion. It is
at once pathetic and exasperating to see such a genius, of whom an
honest, simple man like Delacroix could say, "he was the most true
artist I have met," anxiously striving to be borne aloft by that _haute
volée_ which was so immeasurably beneath him, limiting his society
to that small section of humankind which proudly styled itself "_le
monde_," and dedicating his leisure and his compositions, not to
brother artists, but to the baronesses, countesses, and princesses who
gave him their half-patronizing homage.[26] In his letters one too
frequently comes upon passages like this, from Vienna: I have pleased
the nobility here exceedingly. As a proof I may mention the visit which
Count Dietrichstein paid me on the stage," or this from Paris, on his
first arrival: "I move in the highest society--among ambassadors,
princes, and ministers."
There is in the "Lettres Parisiennes" of Madame de Girardin a
description of a _soirée_ at Madame de Courbonne's, which brings
this whole nauseous atmosphere with painful vividness under our very
nostrils. "It was for passionate admirers," writes Madame de Girardin,
"the torment of Tantalus to see Chopin going about a whole evening in
a _salon_, and not to hear him. The mistress of the house took pity
on us; she was indiscreet, and Chopin played, sang his most delicious
songs; we set to these joyous or sad airs the words which came into
our heads; we followed with our thoughts his melodious caprices.
There were some twenty of us, sincere amateurs, true believers, and
not a note was lost, not an intention was misunderstood; it was not a
concert, it was intimate, serious music such as we love; he was not a
virtuoso who comes and plays the air agreed up and then disappears;
he was a beautiful talent, monopolized, worried, tormented, without
consideration and scruples, whom one dared to ask for the most beloved
airs.... Madame So-and-so said, 'Please, play this pretty nocturne
dedicated to Mdlle. Stirling.'--The nocturne which I called the
dangerous one.--He smiled, and played the fatal nocturne. 'I,' said
another lady, 'should like to hear once played by you this mazurka,
so sad and so charming.' He smiled again, and played the delicious
mazurka. The most profoundly artful among the ladies sought expedients
to attain their ends: 'I am practising the grand sonata which commences
[_sic_] with this beautiful funeral march,' and 'I should like to know
the movement in which the finale ought to be played.' He smiled a
little at the stratagem, and played the finale of the grand sonata."
Decidedly, there is too sickly a flavor of the boudoir about the
_salons_ in which "this beautiful talent ... whom one dared to ask for
the most beloved airs" deigned to spend his time. We cannot wonder that
in such a hothouse atmosphere the ugly weeds of his character throve
almost as well as the delicate flowers, that under such long-continued
coddling he grew vain, captious, pettily egotistical. It is distressing
to note how much he is willing to ask of his friends Fontana and
Grzymala, in the way of laborious and disagreeable commissions--errands
to tailors, landlords, paper-hangers, and furniture-makers, and
bickerings with publishers--and how he is content to repay them with a
few perfunctory protestations of regard, nicely proportioned, in each
case, to the magnitude of the favor exacted. Nor does he hesitate to
speak slightingly, behind their backs, of such associates as Pleyel the
publisher, Leo the banker, and even his fellow-countryman Matuszynski,
at the same time that he is addressing them directly in the most
cordial and even affectionate language. In short, it is impossible
to deny that he was exacting, ungenerous, and disingenuous in his
relations with comrades and friends.
In the more casual relations the same shortcomings revealed themselves
in a malicious wit which was quite devoid of the magnanimity and
exuberance of humor. His description of Thalberg, his rival as a
virtuoso, is a little masterpiece of irony: "He is younger than I,
pleases the ladies very much, makes potpourris on 'Masaniello,' plays
the _forte_ and _piano_ with the pedal but not with the hand, takes
tenths as easily as I do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds."
When Liszt, who in the consciousness of his splendor was inclined to
patronize, volunteered to write a review of one of his concerts, he
said, "He will give me a little kingdom in his empire." To a wealthy
Philistine who invited him to dinner, and as soon as the coffee was
removed requested him to play, he responded sweetly, "Ah, but I have
eaten so little!" Obviously Liszt is right in describing him as "a fine
connoisseur in raillery and an ingenious mocker."
But just as the sneer is physiologically the incipient uncovering
of the teeth, in self-defence, of the animal at bay, so Chopin's
sarcasms are the retaliations of a man constantly harassed, upon a
dull and cruel world. He had to resort to innuendo because he was
too fragile for rougher warfare. The needles of his wit had to be
sharply pointed and dipped in venom, to make any impression on
people accustomed to fight with sledge-hammers. All his weaknesses of
character, indeed,--his malice, his extreme caution, his secretiveness,
his vanity, even his snobbishness,--are in large measure but the
necessary reflexes of inherent weaknesses of constitution, and may be
explained, if not altogether condoned, as the normal reactions of a too
sensitive nature, placed without protection in a sordid, difficult,
phlegmatic world. Never, surely, was human being more delicately
adjusted than Chopin to receive painful impressions at every point.
His senses were so keen that as a child he cried at the mere sound of
music; disease made him shrink from minute changes of temperature or
slightly unfavorable conditions of weather, of which ordinary people
are unconscious; imperious pride made him similarly susceptible to his
social climate; and his high artistic ideal condemned him to constant
disappointment even with his work. Peculiarly pathetic is the story
of the last year of his life, when, unable to compose or to teach,
almost penniless, and so weak that he had to be carried upstairs by
his valet, he undertook an ill-fated concert tour in Scotland and
England. It was a sad jest of destiny to bring this subtle artist,
dying of consumption, into contact with a Manchester audience, in a
large hall which his tone could not fill. He begged his friend Osborne
not to be present--"My playing will be lost in such a large room, and
my compositions will be ineffective." Hueffer describes a similar
scene in London, a Grand Polish Ball, at which "the people, hot from
dancing, who went into the room where he played, were but little in
the humor to pay attention, and anxious to return to their amusement.
He was in the last stage of exhaustion, and the affair resulted in
disappointment." It was an excusable bitterness with which, on the way
back to Paris, pointing at the cattle by the wayside, he murmured "Ça a
plus d'intelligence que les Anglais." But, alas! to a temperament, like
his, too delicately strung, the whole world, always and everywhere, is
somewhat British.
The single, but perhaps sufficing, good fortune in Chopin's in many
ways unhappy lot was that he was able to find a refuge from the
irritations, failures, and disappointments of everyday existence in
artistic expression. However stubborn an aspect life presented to him,
in art at least he was successful. The great law of compensation never
wrought more subtly than when it made the very qualities which defeated
him in the one realm the sources of his joyful conquest in the other.
The keenness of sense which found in the hurly-burly of the world so
many painful impressions, also discovered, as we have seen, wonderful
new possibilities of tonal coloring in pianoforte music. The minute
discrimination which made him unpleasantly conscious of all that was
vulgar, crude, and ugly in human nature, also enabled him to winnow
out unerringly, from his musical resources, all trite formulæ, all
hackneyed conventional progressions, all threadbare adornments, and
so to attain a marvellous individuality and distinction of style. The
very exclusiveness which condemned the man to solitude, safeguarded the
artist against dissipation of energy and futile eclecticisms of method.
Finally, his ideal of perfection, a cruel autocrat to serve in a world
so imperfect, proved the best of guides in the less refractory medium
of art, and led him near to the verge of complete realization. In a
word, the paradox of Chopin is that his fastidious taste--the radical,
fundamental trait of his nature--plunges him, as a human being, into a
jungle of distresses, but guides him, as a musician, to a mountain-top
of commanding superiority.