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.