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."