CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS: HIS PREDILECTION FOR THE FASHIONABLE
SALON SOCIETY (ACCOUNTS BY MADAME GIRARDIN AND BERLIOZ); HIS NEGLECT OF
THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS (ARY SCHEFFER, MARMONTEL, HELLER, SCHULHOFF, THE
PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE MUSICAL WORLD); APHORISMS BY LISZT ON CHOPIN
IN HIS SOCIAL ASPECT.--CHOPIN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--GEORGE SAND, LISZT, LENZ,
HELLER, MARMONTEL, AND HILLER ON HIS CHARACTER (IRRITABILITY, FITS OF
ANGER--SCENE WITH MEYERBEER--GAIETY AND RAILLERY, LOVE OF SOCIETY, AND
LITTLE TASTE FOR READING, PREDILECTION FOR THINGS POLISH).--HIS POLISH,
GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND RUSSIAN FRIENDS.--THE PARTY MADE FAMOUS BY LISZT'S
ACCOUNT.--HIS INTERCOURSE WITH MUSICIANS (OSBORNE, BERLIOZ, BAILLOT,
CHERUBINI, KALKBRENNER, FONTANA, SOWINSKI, WOLFF, MEYERBEER, ALKAN,
ETC.).--HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH LISZT.--HIS DISLIKE TO LETTER-WRITING.
George Sand, although one of the cleverest of the literary portrayers
who have tried their hand at Chopin, cannot be regarded as one of the
most impartial; but it must be admitted that in describing her deserted
lover as un homme du monde par excellence, non pas du monde trop
officiel, trop nombreux, she says what is confirmed by all who
have known him, by his friends, foes, and those that are neither.
Aristocratic society, with which he was acquainted from his earliest
childhood, had always a great charm for him. When at the beginning
of 1833, a little more than two years after his arrival in Paris,
he informed his friend Dziewanowski that he moved in the highest
society--among ambassadors, princes, and ministers--it is impossible not
to see that the fact gives him much satisfaction. Without going so far
as to say with a great contemporary of Chopin, Stephen Heller, that the
higher you go in society the greater is the ignorance you find, I
think that little if any good for either heart or mind can come from
intercourse with that section of the people which proudly styles itself
"society" (le monde). Many individuals that belong to it possess, no
doubt, true nobility, wisdom, and learning, nay, even the majority
may possess one or the other or all of them in some degree, but these
qualities are so out of keeping with the prevailing frivolity that few
have the moral courage to show their better nature. If Chopin imagined
that he was fully understood as an artist by society, he was sadly
mistaken. Liszt and Heller certainly held that he was not fully
understood, and they did not merely surmise or speak from hearsay, for
neither of them was a stranger in that quarter, although the latter
avoided it as much as possible. What society could and did appreciate in
Chopin was his virtuosity, his elegance, and his delicacy. It is not my
intention to attempt an enumeration of Chopin's aristocratic friends and
acquaintances, but in the dedications of his works the curious will
find the most important of them. There, then, we read the names of the
Princess Czartoryska, Countess Plater, Countess Potocka, Princesse de
Beauvau, Countess Appony, Countess Esterhazy, Comte and Comtesse de
Perthuis, Baroness Bronicka, Princess Czernicheff, Princess Souzzo,
Countess Mostowska, Countess Czosnowska, Comtesse de Flahault, Baroness
von Billing, Baron and Baroness von Stockhausen, Countess von Lobau,
Mdlle. de Noailles, &c. And in addition to these we have representatives
of the aristocracy of wealth, Madame C. de Rothschild foremost amongst
them. Whether the banker Leo with whom and his family Chopin was on very
friendly terms may be mentioned in this connection, I do not know.
But we must remember that round many of the above names cluster large
families. The names of the sisters Countess Potocka and Princesse de
Beauvau call up at once that of their mother, Countess Komar. Many of
these here enumerated are repeatedly mentioned in the course of this
book, some will receive particular attention in the next chapter. Now we
will try to get a glimpse of Chopin in society.
Madame de Girardin, after having described in one of her "Lettres
parisiennes" (March 7, 1847) [FOOTNOTE: The full title of the work is:
"Le Vicomte de Launay--Lettres parisiennes par Mdme. Emile de Girardin."
(Paris: Michel Levy freres.)] with what success Mdlle. O'Meara
accompanied by her master played his E minor Concerto at a soiree
of Madame de Courbonne, proceeds thus:--
Mdlle. Meara is a pupil of Chopin's. He was there, he was
present at the triumph of his pupil, the anxious audience asked
itself: "Shall we hear him?"
The fact is that it was for passionate admirers 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
upon and then disappears; he was a beautiful talent, monopolised,
worried, tormented, without consideration and scruples, whom one
dared ask for the most beloved airs, and who full of grace and
charity repeated to you the favourite phrase, in order that you
might carry it away correct and pure in your memory, and for a
long time yet feast on it in remembrance. 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 end: "I am practising the grand sonata which
commences 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, one of the most magnificent pieces which he has
composed.
Although Madame Girardin's language and opinions are fair specimens of
those prevalent in the beatified regions in which Chopin delighted to
move, we will not follow her rhapsodic eulogy of his playing. That she
cannot be ranked with the connoisseurs is evident from her statement
that the sonata BEGINS with the funeral march, and that the FINALE is
one of the most magnificent creations of the composer. Notwithstanding
Madame Girardin's subsequent remark that Chopin's playing at Madame de
Courbonne's was quite an exception, her letter may mislead the reader
into the belief that the great pianist was easily induced to sit down
at the piano. A more correct idea may be formed of the real state of
matters from a passage in an article by Berlioz (Feuilleton du Journal
des Debats, October 27, 1849) in which the supremacy of style over
matter is a little less absolute than in the lady's elegant chit-chat:--
A small circle of select auditors, whose real desire to hear
him was beyond doubt, could alone determine him to approach
the piano. What emotions he would then call forth! In what
ardent and melancholy reveries he loved to pour out his soul!
It was usually towards midnight that he gave himself up with
the greatest ABANDON, when the big butterflies of the salon
had left, when the political questions of the day had been
discussed at length, when all the scandal-mongers were at the
end of their anecdotes, when all the snares were laid, all the
perfidies consummated, when one was thoroughly tired of prose,
then, obedient to the mute petition of some beautiful,
intelligent eyes, he became a poet, and sang the Ossianic
loves of the heroes of his dreams, their chivalrous joys, and
the sorrows of the absent fatherland, his dear Poland always
ready to conquer and always defeated. But without these
conditions--the exacting of which for his playing all artists
must thank him for--it was useless to solicit him. The
curiosity excited by his fame seemed even to irritate him, and
he shunned as far as possible the nonsympathetic world when
chance had led him into it. I remember a cutting saying which
he let fly one evening at the master of a house where he had
dined. Scarcely had the company taken coffee when the host,
approaching Chopin, told him that his fellow-guests who had
never heard him hoped that he would be so good as to sit down
at the piano and play them some little thing [quelque petite
chose]. Chopin excused himself from the very first in a way
which left not the slightest doubt as to his inclination. But
when the other insisted, in an almost offensive manner, like a
man who knows the worth and the object of the dinner which he
has given, the artist cut the conversation short by saying
with a weak and broken voice and a fit of coughing: "Ah!
sir...I have... eaten so little!"
Chopin's predilection for the fashionable salon society led him to
neglect the society of artists. That he carried the odi profanum vulgus,
et arceo too far cannot for a moment be doubted. For many of those who
sought to have intercourse with him were men of no less nobility of
sentiment and striving than himself. Chopin offended even Ary Scheffer,
the great painter, who admired him and loved him, by promising to spend
an evening with him and again and again disappointing him. Musicians,
with a few exceptions. Chopin seems always to have been careful to keep
at a distance, at least after the first years of his arrival in Paris.
This is regrettable especially in the case of the young men who looked
up to him with veneration and enthusiasm, and whose feelings were
cruelly hurt by the polite but unsympathetic reception he gave them:--
We have had always a profound admiration for Chopin's talent
[writes M. Marmontel], and, let us add, a lively sympathy for
his person. No artist, the intimate disciples not excepted,
has more studied his compositions, and more caused them to be
played, and yet our relations with this great musician have
only been rare and transient. Chopin was surrounded, fawned
upon, closely watched by a small cenacle of enthusiastic
friends, who guarded him against importunate visitors and
admirers of the second order. It was difficult to get access
to him; and it was necessary, as he said himself to that other
great artist whose name is Stephen Heller, to try several
times before one succeeded in meeting him. These trials
["essais"] being no more to my taste than to Heller's, I could
not belong to that little congregation of faithful ones whose
cult verged on fanaticism.
As to Stephen Heller--who himself told me that he would have liked to
be more with Chopin, but was afraid of being regarded as intrusive--Mr.
Heller thinks that Chopin had an antipathy to him, which considering
the amiable and truly gentlemanly character of this artist seems rather
strange.
If the details of Karasowski's account of Chopin's and Schulhoff's first
meeting are correct, the Polish artist was in his aloofness sometimes
even deficient in that common civility which good-breeding and
consideration for the feelings of others demand. Premising that Fetis
in telling the story is less circumstantial and lays the scene of the
incident in the pianoforte-saloon of Pleyel, I shall quote Karasowski's
version, as he may have had direct information from Schulhoff, who
since 1855 has lived much of his time at Dresden, where Karasowski also
resides:--
Schulhoff came when quite a young man and as yet completely
unknown to Paris. There he learned that Chopin, who was then
already very ailing and difficult of access, was coming to the
pianoforte-manufactory of Mercier to inspect one of the newly-
invented transposing pianofortes. It was in the year 1844.
Schulhoff seized the opportunity to become personally
acquainted with the master, and made his appearance among the
small party which awaited Chopin. The latter came with an old
friend, a Russian Capellmeister [Soliva?]. Taking advantage of
a propitious moment, Schulhoff got himself introduced by one
of the ladies present. On the latter begging Chopin to allow
Schulhoff to play him something, the renowned master, who was
much bothered by dilettante tormentors, signified, somewhat
displeased, his consent by a slight nod of the head. Schulhoff
seated himself at the pianoforte, while Chopin, with his back
turned to him, was leaning against it. But already during the
short prelude he turned his head attentively towards Schulhoff
who now performed an Allegro brillant en forme de Senate (Op.
I), which he had lately composed. With growing interest Chopin
came nearer and nearer the keyboard and listened to the fine,
poetic playing of the young Bohemian; his pale features grew
animated, and by mien and gesture he showed to all who were
present his lively approbation. When Schulhoff had finished,
Chopin held out his hand to him with the words: "Vous etes un
vrai artiste, un collegue!" Some days after Schulhoff paid the
revered master a visit, and asked him to accept the dedication
of the composition he had played to him. Chopin thanked him in
a heart-winning manner, and said in the presence of several
ladies: "Je suis tres flatte de l'honneur que vous me faites."
The behaviour of Chopin during the latter part of this transaction made,
no doubt, amends for that of the earlier. But the ungracious manner
in which he granted the young musician permission to play to him, and
especially his turning his back to Schulhoff when the latter began
to play, are not excused by the fact that he was often bothered by
dilettante tormentors.
The Paris correspondent of the Musical World, writing immediately after
the death of the composer, describes the feeling which existed among the
musicians in the French capital, and also suggests an explanation and
excuse. In the number of the paper bearing date November 10, 1849, we
read as follows:--
Owing to his retired way of living and his habitual reserve,
Chopin had few friends in the profession; and, indeed, spoiled
from his original nature by the caprice of society, he was too
apt to treat his brother-artists with a supercilious hauteur,
which many, his equals, and a few, his superiors, were wont to
stigmatise as insulting. But from want of sympathy with the
man, they overlooked the fact that a pulmonary complaint,
which for years had been gradually wasting him to a shadow,
rendered him little fit for the enjoyments of society and the
relaxations of artistic conviviality. In short, Chopin, in
self-defence, was compelled to live in comparative seclusion,
but we wholly disbelieve that this isolation had its source in
unkindness or egotism. We are the more inclined to this
opinion by the fact that the intimate friends whom he
possessed in the profession (and some of them were pianists)
were as devotedly attached to him as the most romantic of his
aristocratic worshippers.
The reasoning does not seem to me quite conclusive. Would it not have
been possible to live in retirement without drawing upon himself the
accusation of supercilious hauteur? Moreover, as Chopin was strong
enough to frequent fashionable salons, he cannot have been altogether
unable to hold intercourse with his brother-artists. And, lastly, who
are the pianist friends that were as devotedly attached to him as the
most romantic of his aristocratic worshippers? The fact that Chopin
became subsequently less social and more reticent than he had been
in his early Paris days, confined himself to a very limited number of
friends and families, and had relations of an intimate nature with only
a very few musicians, cannot, therefore, be attributable to ill-health
alone, although that too had, no doubt, something to do with it,
directly or indirectly. In short, the allegation that Chopin was
"spoiled by the caprice of society," as the above-quoted correspondent
puts it, is not only probable, but even very likely. Fastidious by
nature and education, he became more so, partly in consequence of his
growing physical weakness, and still more through the influence of the
society with which, in the exercise of his profession and otherwise,
he was in constant contact. His pupils and many of his other admirers,
mostly of the female sex and the aristocratic class, accustomed him
to adulation and adoration to such an extent as to make these to be
regarded by him as necessaries of life. Some excerpts from Liszt's book,
which I shall quote here in the form of aphorisms, will help to bring
Chopin, in his social aspect, clearly before the reader's eyes:--
As he did not confound his time, thought, and ways with those
of anyone, the society of women was often more convenient to
him in that it involved fewer subsequent relations.
He carried into society the uniformity of temper of people
whom no annoyance troubles because they expect no interest.
His conversation dwelt little on stirring subjects. He glided
over them; as he was not at all lavish of his time, the talk
was easily absorbed by the details of the day.
He loved the unimportant talk [les causeries sans portee] of
people whom he esteemed; he delighted in the childish
pleasures of young people. He passed readily whole evenings in
playing blind-man's-buff with young girls, in telling them
amusing or funny little stories, in making them laugh the mad
laughter of youth, which it gives even more pleasure to hear
than the singing of the warbler. [FOOTNOTE: This, I think,
must refer to the earlier years of Chopin's residence in
Paris.]
In his relations and conversations he seemed to take an
interest in what preoccupied the others; he took care not to
draw them out of the circle of their personality inorder to
lead them into his. If he gave up little of his time, he, to
make up for it, reserved to himself nothing of that which he
granted.
The presence of Chopin was, therefore, always heartily welcome
[fetee]. Not hoping to be understood [devine], disdaining to
speak of himself [de se raconter lui-meme], he occupied
himself so much with everything that was not himself that his
intimate personality remained aloof, unapproached and
unapproachable, under this polite and smooth [glissant]
surface where it was impossible to get a footing.
He pleased too much to make people reflect.
He hardly spoke either of love or of friendship.
He was not exacting like those whose rights and just demands
surpass by far what one would have to offer them. The most
intimate acquaintances did not penetrate to this sacred recess
where, withdrawn from all the rest of his life, dwelt the
secret motive power of his soul: a recess so concealed that
one scarcely suspected its existence.
Ready to give everything, he did not give himself.
The last dictum and part of the last but one were already quoted by
me in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completeness, and
also because they form an excellent starting-point for the following
additional remarks on Chopin's friendships, I have repeated them here.
First of all, I venture to make the sweeping assertion that Chopin had
among his non-Polish friends none who could be called intimate in the
fullest sense of the word, none to whom he unbosomed himself as he
did to Woyciechowski and Matuszynski, the friends of his youth,
and Grzymala, a friend of a later time. Long cessation of personal
intercourse together with the diverging development of their characters
in totally unlike conditions of life cannot but have diminished the
intimacy with the first named. [FOOTNOTE: Titus Woyciechowski continued
to live on his estate Poturzyn, in the kingdom of Poland.] With
Matuszyriski Chopin remained in close connection till this friend's
death. [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says in the first volume of his Polish
biography of Chopin that Matuszynski died on April 20, 1842; and in the
second that he died after Chopin's father, but in the same year--that
is, in 1844.] How he opened his whole heart to Grzymala we shall see
in a subsequent chapter. That his friendship with Fontana was of a
less intimate character becomes at once apparent on comparing Chopin's
letters to him with those he wrote to the three other Polish friends.
Of all his connections with non-Poles there seems to be only one which
really deserves the name of friendship, and that is his connection with
Franchomme. Even here, however, he gave much less than he received.
Indeed, we may say--speaking generally, and not only with a view to
Franchomme--that Chopin was more loved than loving. But he knew well how
to conceal his deficiencies in this respect under the blandness of
his manners and the coaxing affectionateness of his language. There is
something really tragic, and comic too, in the fact that every friend of
Chopin's thought that he had more of the composer's love and confidence
than any other friend. Thus, for instance, while Gutmann told me that
Franchomme was not so intimate with Chopin that the latter would confide
any secrets to him, Franchomme made to me a similar statement with
regard to Gutmann. And so we find every friend of Chopin declaring that
every other friend was not so much of a friend as himself. Of Chopin's
procedures in friendship much may be learned from his letters; in
them is to be seen something of his insinuating, cajoling ways, of his
endeavours to make the person addressed believe himself a privileged
favourite, and of his habit of speaking not only ungenerously and
unlovingly, but even unjustly of other persons with whom he was
apparently on cordial terms. In fact, it is only too clear that Chopin
spoke differently before the faces and behind the backs of people. You
remember how in his letters to Fontana he abuses Camille Pleyel in a
manner irreconcilable with genuine love and esteem. Well, to this same
Camille Pleyel, of whom he thus falls foul when he thinks himself in the
slightest aggrieved, he addresses on one occasion the following note.
Mark the last sentence:--
Dearest friend [Cherissime],--Here is what Onslow has written
to me. I wished to call on you and tell you, but I feel very
feeble and am going to lie down. I love you always more, if
this is possible [je vous aime toujours plus si c'est
possible].
CHOPIN.
[FOOTNOTE: To the above, unfortunately undated, note, which
was published for the first time in the Menestrel of February
15, 1885, and reprinted in "Un nid d'autographes," lettres
incites recueillies et annotees par Oscar Comettant (Paris: E.
Dentu), is appended the following P.S.:--"Do not forget,
please, friend Herbeault. Till to-morrow, then; I expect you
both."
La Mara's Musikerbriefe (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hartel)
contains likewise a friendly letter of Chopin to Camille
Pleyel. It runs thus:
"Dearest friend,--I received the other day your piano, and
give you my best thanks. It arrived in good tune, and is
exactly at concert-pitch. As yet I have not played much on it,
for the weather is at present so fine that I am almost always
in the open air. I wish you as pleasant weather for your
holidays. Write me a few words (if you find that you have not
sufficiently exercised your pen in the course of the day). May
you all remain well--and lay me at the feet of your mother and
sister.--Your devoted, "F. CHOPIN."
The date given by La Mara is "Monday [May 20, 1842], Nohant,
near La Chatre, Indre." This, however, cannot be right, for
the 20th of May in 1842 was a Friday.]
And, again, how atrociously he reviles in the same letters the banker
Leo, who lends him money, often takes charge of his manuscripts,
procures payment for them, and in whose house he has been for years
a frequent visitor. Mr. Ch. Halle informed me that Chopin was on
particularly good terms with the Leos. From Moscheles' diary we learn
that the writer made Chopin's acquaintance at the banker's house.
Stephen Heller told me that he met Chopin several times at Leo's, and
that the Polish composer visited there often, and continued to go there
when he had given up going to many other houses. And from the same
informant I learned also that Madame Leo as well as her husband took a
kindly interest in Chopin, showing this, for instance, by providing him
with linen. And yet Leo, this man who does him all sorts of services,
and whose smiling guest he is before and after, is spoken of by Chopin
as if he were the most "despicable wretch imaginable"; and this for no
other reason than that everything has not been done exactly as he wished
it to be done. Unless we assume these revilings to be no more than
explosions of momentary ill-humour, we must find Chopin convicted of
duplicity and ingratitude. In the letters to Fontana there are also
certain remarks about Matuszynski which I do not like. Nor can they be
wholly explained away by saying that they are in part fun and in part
indirect flattery of his correspondent. It would rather seem that
Chopin's undoubtedly real love for Matuszynski was not unmixed with a
certain kind of contempt. And here I must tell the reader that while
Poles have so high an opinion of their nation in comparison with other
nations, and of their countrymen with other countrymen, they have
generally a very mean opinion of each other. Indeed, I never met with a
Pole who did not look down with a self-satisfied smile of pity on any
of his fellow-countrymen, even on his best friend. It seems that their
feeling of individual superiority is as great as that of their national
superiority. Liszt's observations (see Vol. I., p. 259) and those of
other writers (Polish as well as non-Polish) confirm mine, which else
might rightly be supposed to be based on too limited an experience. To
return to Matuszynski, he may have been too ready to advise and censure
his friend, and not practical enough to be actively helpful. After
reading the letters addressed to them one comes to the conclusion that
Fontana's and Franchomme's serviceableness and readiness to serve went
for something in his appreciation of them as friends. At any rate, he
did not hesitate to exploiter them most unconscionably. Taking a general
view of the letters written by him during the last twelve years of his
life, one is struck by the absence of generous judgments and the extreme
rareness of sympathetic sentiments concerning third persons. As this
was not the case in his earlier letters, ill-health and disappointments
suggest themselves naturally as causes of these faults of character
and temper. To these principal causes have, however, to be added his
nationality, his originally delicate constitution, and his cultivation
of salon manners and tastes. His extreme sensitiveness, fastidiousness,
and irritability may be easily understood to derive from one or the
other of these conditions.
George Sand's Ma Vie throws a good deal of light on Chopin's character;
let us collect a few rays from it:--
He [Chopin] was modest on principle and gentle [doux] by
habit, but he was imperious by instinct, and full of a
legitimate pride that did not know itself.
He was certainly not made to live long in this world, this
extreme type of an artist. He was devoured by the dream of an
ideal which no practical philosophic or compassionate
tolerance combated. He would never compound with human nature.
He accepted nothing of reality. This was his vice and his
virtue, his grandeur and his misery. Implacable to the least
blemish, he had an immense enthusiasm for the least light, his
excited imagination doing its utmost to see in it a sun.
He was the same in friendship [as in love], becoming
enthusiastic at first sight, getting disgusted, and correcting
himself [se reprenant] incessantly, living on infatuations
full of charms for those who were the object of them, and on
secret discontents which poisoned his dearest affections.
Chopin accorded to me, I may say honoured me with, a kind of
friendship which was an exception in his life. He was always
the same to me.
The friendship of Chopin was never a refuge for me in sadness.
He had enough of his own ills to bear.
We never addressed a reproach to each other, except once,
which, alas! was the first and the last time.
But if Chopin was with me devotion, kind attention, grace,
obligingness, and deference in person, he had not for all that
abjured the asperities of his character towards those who were
about me. With them the inequality of his soul, in turn
generous and fantastic, gave itself full course, passing
always from infatuation to aversion, and vice versa.
Chopin when angry was alarming, and as, with me, he always
restrained himself, he seemed almost to choke and die.
The following extracts from Liszt's book partly corroborate, partly
supplement, the foregoing evidence:--
His imagination was ardent, his feelings rose to violence,--
his physical organisation was feeble and sickly! Who can sound
the sufferings proceeding from this contrast? They must have
been poignant, but he never let them be seen.
The delicacy of his constitution and of his heart, in imposing
upon him the feminine martyrdom of for ever unavowed tortures,
gave to his destiny some of the traits of feminine destinies.
He did not exercise a decisive influence on any existence. His
passion never encroached upon any of his desires; he neither
pressed close nor bore down [n'a etreint ni masse] any mind by
the domination of his own.
However rarely, there were nevertheless instances when we
surprised him profoundly moved. We have seen him turn pale
[palir et blemir] to such a degree as to assume green and
cadaverous tints. But in his intensest emotions he remained
concentrated. He was then, as usually, chary of words about
what he felt; a minute's reflection [recueillement] always hid
the secret of his first impression...This constant control
over the violence of his character reminded one of the
melancholy superiority of certain women who seek their
strength in reticence and isolation, knowing the uselessness
of the explosions of their anger, and having a too jealous
care of the mystery of their passion to betray it
gratuitously.
Chopin, however, did not always control his temper. Heller remembers
seeing him more than once in a passion, and hearing him speak very
harshly to Nowakowski. The following story, which Lenz relates in "Die
grossen Pianoforte-Virtuosen unserer Zeit," is also to the point.
On one occasion Meyerbeer, whom I had not yet seen, entered
Chopin's room when I was getting a lesson. Meyerbeer was not
announced, he was king. I was playing the Mazurka in C (Op.
33), printed on one page which contains so many hundreds--I
called it the epitaph of the idea [Grabschrift des Begriffs],
so full of distress and sadness is the composition, the
wearied flight of an eagle.
Meyerbeer had taken a seat, Chopin made me go on.
"This is two-four time," said Meyerbeer. Chopin denied this,
made me repeat the piece, and beat time aloud with the pencil
on the piano--his eyes were glowing.
"Two crotchets," repeated Meyerbeer, calmly.
Only once I saw Chopin angry, it was at this moment. It was
beautiful to see how a light red coloured his pale cheeks.
"These are three crotchets," he said with a loud voice, he who
spoke always so low
"Give it me," replied Meyerbeer, "for a ballet in my opera
("L'Africaine," at that time kept a secret), I shall show it
you then."
"These are three crotchets," Chopin almost shouted, and played
it himself. He played the mazurka several times, counted
aloud, stamped time with his foot, was beside himself. But all
was of no use, Meyerbeer insisted on TWO crotchets. They
parted very angrily. I found it anything but agreeable to have
been a witness of this angry scene. Chopin disappeared into
his cabinet without taking leave of me. The whole thing lasted
but a few minutes.
Exhibitions of temper like this were no doubt rare, indeed, hardly ever
occurred except in his intercourse with familiars and, more especially,
fellow-countrymen--sometimes also with pupils. In passing I may remark
that Chopin's Polish vocabulary was much less choice than his French
one. As a rule, Chopin's manners were very refined and aristocratic, Mr.
Halle thinks they were too much so. For this refinement resulted in
a uniform amiability which left you quite in the dark as to the real
nature of the man. Many people who made advances to Chopin found like
M. Marmontel--I have this from his own mouth--that he had a temperament
sauvage and was difficult to get at. And all who came near him learned
soon from experience that, as Liszt told Lenz, he was ombrageux. But
while Chopin would treat outsiders with a chilly politeness, he charmed
those who were admitted into his circle both by amiability and wit.
"Usually," says Liszt, "he was lively, his caustic mind unearthed
quickly the ridiculous far below the surface where it strikes all eyes."
And again, "the playfulness of Chopin attacked only the superior keys of
the mind, fond of witticism as he was, recoiling from vulgar joviality,
gross laughter, common merriment, as from those animals more abject
than venomous, the sight of which causes the most nauseous aversion
to certain sensitive and delicate natures." Liszt calls Chopin "a fine
connoisseur in raillery and an ingenious mocker." The testimony of other
acquaintances of Chopin and that of his letters does not allow us to
accept as holding good generally Mr. Halle's experience, who, mentioning
also the Polish artist's wit, said to me that he never heard him utter a
sarcasm or use a cutting expression.
Fondness of society is a characteristic trait in Chopin's mental
constitution. Indeed, Hiller told me that his friend could not be
without company. For reading, on the other hand, he did not much
care. Alkan related to me that Chopin did not even read George Sand's
works--which is difficult to believe--and that Pierre Leroux, who liked
Chopin and always brought him his books, might have found them any time
afterwards uncut on the pianist's table, which is not so difficult to
believe, as philosophy and Chopin are contraries. According to what I
learned from Hiller, Chopin took an interest in literature but read very
little. To Heller it seemed that Chopin had no taste for literature,
indeed, he made on him the impression of an uneducated man. Heller, I
must tell the reader parenthetically, was both a great reader and an
earnest thinker, over whom good books had even the power of making
him neglect and forget mistress Musica without regret and with little
compunction. But to return to Chopin. Franchomme excused his friend
by saying that teaching and the claims of society left him no time for
reading. But if Chopin neglected French literature--not to speak of
other ancient and modern literatures--he paid some attention to that of
his native country; at any rate, new publications of Polish books were
generally to be found on his table. The reader will also remember that
Chopin, in his letters to Fontana, alludes twice to books of poetry--one
by Mickiewicz which was sent him to Majorca, the other by Witwicki which
he had lost sight of.
Indeed, anything Polish had an especial charm and value for Chopin.
Absence from his native country so far from diminishing increased his
love for it. The words with which he is reported to have received the
pianist Mortier de Fontaine, who came to Paris in 1833 and called on him
with letters of introduction, are characteristic in this respect: "It
is enough that you have breathed the air of Warsaw to find a friend
and adviser in me." There is, no doubt, some exaggeration in Liszt's
statement that whoever came to Chopin from Poland, whether with or
without letters of introduction, was sure of a hearty welcome, of being
received with open arms. On the other hand, we may fully believe the
same authority when he says that Chopin often accorded to persons of his
own country what he would not accord to anyone else--namely, the right
of disturbing his habits; that he would sacrifice his time, money,
and comfort to people who were perhaps unknown to him the day before,
showing them the sights of the capital, having them to dine with him,
and taking them in the evening to some theatre. We have already seen
that his most intimate friends were Poles, and this was so in the
aristocratic as well as in the conventionally less-elevated circles.
However pleasant his relations with the Rothschilds may have
been--indeed, Franchomme told me that his friend loved the house of
Rothschild and that this house loved him, and that more especially
Madame Nathaniel Rothschild preserved a touching remembrance of him
[FOOTNOTE: Chopin dedicated to Madame la Baronne C. Rothschild the
Waltz, Op. 64, No. 2 (Parisian Edition), and the Ballade, Op. 52.]--they
can have been but of small significance in comparison with the almost
passionate attachment he had to Prince Alexander Czartoryski and his
wife the Princess Marcelline. And if we were to compare his friendship
for any non-Polish gentleman or lady with that which he felt for the
Countess Delphine Potocka, to whom he dedicated two of his happiest
inspirations in two very different genres (the F minor Concerto, Op. 21,
and the D flat major Waltz, Op. 64, No. I), the result would be again in
favour of his compatriot. There were, indeed, some who thought that he
felt more than friendship for this lady; this, however, he energetically
denied.
[FOOTNOTE: Of this lady Kwiatkowski said that she took as much trouble
and pride in giving choice musical entertainments as other people did in
giving choice dinners. In Sowinski's Musiciens polonais we read that
she had a beautiful soprano voice and occupied the first place among the
amateur ladies of Paris. "A great friend of the illustrious Chopin, she
gave formerly splendid concerts at her house with the old company of
the Italians, which one shall see no more in Paris. To cite the names of
Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, Malibran, Grisi, Persiani, is to give
the highest idea of Italian singing. The Countess Potocka sang herself
according to the method of the Italian masters."]
But although Chopin was more devoted and more happy in his Polish
friendships, he had beloved as well as loving friends of all
nationalities--Germans, English, and even Russians. That as a good
Pole he hated the Russians as a nation may be taken for granted. Of his
feelings and opinions with regard to his English friends and the English
in general, information will be forthcoming in a subsequent chapter.
The Germans Chopin disliked thoroughly, partly, no doubt, from political
reasons, partly perhaps on account of their inelegance and social
awkwardness. Still, of this nation were some of his best friends, among
them Hiller, Gutmann, Albrecht, and the Hanoverian ambassador Baron von
Stockhausen.
[FOOTNOTE: Gutmann, in speaking to me of his master's dislike,
positively ascribed it to the second of the above causes. In connection
with this we must, however, not forget that the Germans of to-day differ
from the Germans of fifty years ago as much socially as politically.
Nor have the social characters of their neighbours, the French and the
English, remained the same.]
Liszt has given a glowing description of an improvised soiree at
Chopin's lodgings in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin--that is, in the
years before the winter in Majorca. At this soiree, we are told, were
present Liszt himself, Heine, Meyerbeer, Nourrit, Hiller, Delacroix,
Niemcewicz, Mickiewicz, George Sand, and the Comtesse d'Agoult. Of
course, this is a poetic licence: these men and women cannot have been
at one and the same time in Chopin's salon. Indeed, Hiller informed me
that he knew nothing of this party, and that, moreover, as long as
he was in Paris (up to 1836) there were hardly ever more numerous
gatherings at his friend's lodgings than of two or three. Liszt's
group, however, brings vividly before us one section of Chopin's social
surroundings: it shows us what a poetic atmosphere he was breathing,
amidst what a galaxy of celebrities he was moving. A glimpse of the real
life our artist lived in the early Paris years this extravagant effort
of a luxuriant imagination does not afford. Such glimpses we got in his
letters to Hiller and Franchomme, where we also met with many friends
and acquaintances with less high-sounding names, some of whom Chopin
subsequently lost by removal or death. In addition to the friends who
were then mentioned, I may name here the Polish poet Stephen Witwicki,
the friend of his youth as well as of his manhood, to whom in 1842 he
dedicated his Op. 41, three mazurkas, and several of whose poems he set
to music; and the Polish painter Kwiatkowski, an acquaintance of a later
time, who drew and painted many portraits of the composer, and more than
one of whose pictures was inspired by compositions of his friend. I have
not been able to ascertain what Chopin's sentiments were with regard to
Kwiatkowski, but the latter must have been a frequent visitor, for after
relating to me that the composer was fond of playing in the dusk, he
remarked that he heard him play thus almost all his works immediately
after they were composed.
As we have seen in the chapters treating of Chopin's first years
in Paris, there was then a goodly sprinkling of musicians among his
associates--I use the word "associates" advisedly, for many of them
could not truly be called friends. When he was once firmly settled,
artistically and socially, not a few of these early acquaintances
lapsed. How much this was due to the force of circumstances, how much to
the choice of Chopin, is difficult to determine. But we may be sure that
his distaste to the Bohemianism, the free and easy style that obtains
among a considerable portion of the artistic tribe, had at least as much
to do with the result as pressure of engagements. Of the musicians of
whom we heard so much in the first years after his coming to Paris,
he remained in close connection only with one-namely, with Franchomme.
Osborne soon disappeared from his circle. Chopin's intercourse with
Berlioz was in after years so rare that some of their common friends
did not even know of its existence. The loosening of this connection
was probably brought about by the departure of Hiller in 1836 and the
quarrel with Liszt some time after, which broke two links between the
sensitive Pole and the fiery Frenchman. The ageing Baillot and Cherubini
died in 1842. Kalkbrenner died but a short time before Chopin, but the
sympathy existing between them was not strong enough to prevent their
drifting apart. Other artists to whom the new-comer had paid due homage
may have been neglected, forgotten, or lost sight of when success was
attained and the blandishments of the salons were lavished upon him.
Strange to say, with all his love for what belonged to and came from
Poland, he kept compatriot musicians at a distance. Fontana was an
exception, but him he cherished, no doubt, as a friend of his youth in
spite of his profession, or, if as a musician at all, chiefly because
of his handiness as a copyist. For Sowinski, who was already settled
in Paris when Chopin arrived there, and who assisted him at his first
concert, he did not care. Consequently they had afterwards less and less
intercourse, which, indeed, in the end may have ceased altogether.
An undated letter given by Count Wodziriski in "Les trois Romans de
Frederic Chopin," no doubt originally written in Polish, brings the
master's feelings towards his compatriot, and also his irritability,
most vividly before the reader.
Here he is! He has just come in to see me--a tall strong
individual who wears moustaches; he sits down at the piano and
improvises, without knowing exactly what. He knocks, strikes,
and crosses his hands, without reason; he demolishes in five
minutes a poor helpless key; he has enormous fingers, made
rather to handle reins and whip somewhere on the confines of
Ukraine. Here you have the portrait of S... who has no other
merit than that of having small moustaches and a good heart.
If I ever thought of imagining what stupidity and charlatanism
in art are, I have now the clearest perception of them. I run
through my room with my ears reddening; I have a mad desire to
throw the door wide open; but one has to spare him, to show
one's self almost affectionate. No, you cannot imagine what it
is: here one sees only his neckties; one does him the honour
of taking him seriously....There remains, therefore, nothing
but to bear him. What exasperates me is his collection of
little songs, compositions in the most vulgar style, without
the least knowledge of the most elementary rules of harmony
and poetry, concluding with quadrille ritornelli, and which he
calls Recueil de Chants Polonais. You know how I wished to
understand, and how I have in part succeeded in understanding,
our national music. Therefore you will judge what pleasure I
experience when, laying hold of a motive of mine here and
there, without taking account of the fact that all the beauty
of a melody depends on the accompaniment, he reproduces it
with the taste of a frequenter of suburban taverns
(guinguettes) and public-houses (cabarets). And one cannot say
anything to him, for he comprehends nothing beyond what he has
taken from you.
Edouard Wolff came to Paris in 1835, provided with a letter of
introduction from Chopin's master Zywny; [FOOTNOTE: See Vol. I., p. 31.]
but, notwithstanding this favourable opening of their acquaintanceship,
he was only for some time on visiting terms with his more distinguished
compatriot. Wolff himself told me that Chopin would never hear one of
his compositions. From any other informant I would not have accepted
this statement as probable, still less as true. [FOOTNOTE: Wolff
dedicated in 1841 his Grand Allegro de Concert pour piano still, Op. 59,
a son ami Chopin; but the latter never repaid him the compliment.] These
remarks about Wolff remind me of another piece of information I got from
this pianist-composer a few months before his death--namely, that Chopin
hated all Jews, Meyerbeer and Halevy among the rest. What Pole does not
hate the Jews? That Chopin was not enamoured of them we have seen in his
letters. But that he hated Meyerbeer is a more than doubtful statement.
Franchomme said to me that Meyerbeer was not a great friend of Chopin's;
but that the latter, though he did not like his music, liked him as a
man. If Lenz reports accurately, Meyerbeer's feelings towards Chopin
were, no doubt, warmer than Chopin's towards Meyerbeer. When after
the scene about the rhythm of a mazurka Chopin had left the room, Lenz
introduced himself to Meyerbeer as a friend of the Counts Wielhorski,
of St. Petersburg. On coming to the door, where a coupe was waiting, the
composer offered to drive him home, and when they were seated said:--
I had not seen Chopin for a long time, I love him very much. I
know no pianist like him, no composer for the piano like him.
The piano lives on nuances and on cantilena; it is an
instrument of intimacy [ein Intimitalsinstrument], I also was
once a pianist, and there was a time when I trained myself to
be a virtuoso. Visit me when you come to Berlin. Are we not
now comrades? When one has met at the house of so great a man,
it was for life.
Kwiatkowski told me a pretty story which se non vero is certainly ben
trovato. When on one occasion Meyerbeer had fallen out with his wife,
he sat down to the piano and played a nocturne or some other composition
which Chopin had sent him. And such was the effect of the music on his
helpmate that she came and kissed him. Thereupon Meyerbeer wrote Chopin
a note telling him of what had taken place, and asking him to come and
see their conjugal happiness. Among the few musicians with whom Chopin
had in later years friendly relations stands out prominently, both by
his genius and the preference shown him, the pianist and composer Alkan
aine (Charles Henri Valentine), who, however, was not so intimate
with the Polish composer as Franchomme, nor on such easy terms of
companionship as Hiller and Liszt had been. The originality of the
man and artist, his high aims and unselfish striving, may well have
attracted Chopin; but as an important point in Alkan's favour must be
reckoned the fact that he was also a friend of George Sand's. Indeed,
some of the limitations of Chopin's intercourse were, no doubt, made on
her account. Kwiatkowski told me that George Sand hated Chopin's Polish
friends, and that some of them were consequently not admitted at all and
others only reluctantly. Now suppose that she disliked also some of the
non-Polish friends, musicians as well as others, would not her influence
act in the same way as in the case of the Poles?
But now I must say a few words about Chopin and Liszt's friendship, and
how it came to an end. This connection of the great pianists has been
the subject of much of that sentimental talk of which writers on music
and of musical biography are so fond. This, however, which so often has
been represented as an ideal friendship, was really no friendship
at all, but merely comradeship. Both admired each other sincerely as
musicians. If Chopin did not care much for Liszt's compositions, he had
the highest opinion of him as a pianist. We have seen in the letter of
June 20, 1833, addressed to Hiller and conjointly written by Chopin
and Liszt, how delighted Chopin was with Liszt's manner of playing his
studies, and how he wished to be able to rob him of it. He said on one
occasion to his pupil Mdlle. Kologrivof [FOOTNOTE: Afterwards Madame
Rubio.]: "I like my music when Liszt plays it." No doubt, it was Liszt's
book with its transcendentally-poetic treatment which induced the false
notion now current. Yet whoever keeps his eyes open can read between the
lines what the real state of matters was. The covert sneers at and the
openly-expressed compassion for his comrade's whims, weaknesses, and
deficiencies, tell a tale. Of Chopin's sentiments with regard to Liszt
we have more than sufficient evidence. Mr. Halle, who arrived in Paris
at the end of 1840, was strongly recommended to the banker Mallet. This
gentleman, to give him an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the
Polish pianist, invited both to dinner. On this occasion Mr. Halle asked
Chopin about Liszt, but the reticent answer he got was indicative rather
of dislike than of anything else. When in 1842 Lenz took lessons from
Chopin, the latter defined his relations with Liszt thus: "We are
friends, we were comrades." What he meant by the first half of
the statement was, no doubt: "Now we meet only on terms of polite
acquaintanceship." When the comradeship came to an end I do not know,
but I think I do know how it came to an end. When I asked Liszt
about the cause of the termination of their friendship, he said: "Our
lady-loves had quarrelled, and as good cavaliers we were in duty bound
to side with them." [FOOTNOTE: Liszt's words in describing to me his
subsequent relation with Chopin were similar to those of Chopin to Lenz.
He said: "There was a cessation of intimacy, but no enmity. I left Paris
soon after, and never saw him again."] This, however, was merely a way
to get rid of an inconvenient question. Franchomme explained the mystery
to me, and his explanation was confirmed by what I learned from Madame
Rubio. The circumstances are of too delicate a nature to be set forth in
detail. But the long and short of the affair is that Liszt, accompanied
by another person, invaded Chopin's lodgings during his absence, and
made himself quite at home there. The discovery of traces of the use to
which his rooms had been put justly enraged Chopin. One day, I do not
know how long after the occurrence, Liszt asked Madame Rubio to tell
her master that he hoped the past would be forgotten and the young man's
trick (Junggesellenstuck) wiped out. Chopin then said that he could not
forget, and was much better as he was; and further, that Liszt was not
open enough, having always secrets and intrigues, and had written
in some newspapers feuilleton notices unfavourable to him. This last
accusation reminds one at once of the remark he made when he heard
that Liszt intended to write an account of one of his concerts for the
Gazette musicale. I have quoted the words already, but may repeat them
here: "Il me donnera un petit royaume dans son empire" (He will give me
a little kingdom in his empire). In this, as in most sayings of Chopin
regarding Liszt, irritation against the latter is distinctly noticeable.
The cause of this irritation may be manifold, but Liszt's great success
as a concert-player and his own failure in this respect [FOOTNOTE: I
speak here only of his inability to impress large audiences, to move
great masses.] have certainly something to do with it. Liszt, who
thought so likewise, says somewhere in his book that Chopin knew how to
forgive nobly. Whether this was so or not, I do not venture to decide.
But I am sure if he forgave, he never forgot. An offence remained for
ever rankling in his heart and mind.
From Chopin's friends to his pupils is but one step, and not even that,
for a great many of his pupils were also his friends; indeed, among them
were some of those who were nearest to his heart, and not a few in whose
society he took a particular delight. Before I speak, however, of his
teaching, I must say a few words about a subject which equally relates
to our artist's friends and pupils, and to them rather than to any other
class of people with whom he had any dealings.
One of his [Chopin's] oddities [writes Liszt] consisted in
abstaining from every exchange of letters, from every sending
of notes; one could have believed that he had made a vow never
to address letters to strangers. It was a curious thing to see
him have recourse to all kinds of expedients to escape from
the necessity of tracing a few lines. Many times he preferred
traversing Paris from one end to the other in order to decline
a dinner or give some slight information, to saving himself
the trouble by means of a little sheet of paper. His
handwriting remained almost unknown to most of his friends. It
is said that he sometimes deviated from this habit in favour
of his fair compatriots settled at Paris, of whom some are in
possession of charming autographs of his, all written in
Polish. This breach of what one might have taken as a rule may
be explained by the pleasure he took in speaking his language,
which he employed in preference, and whose most expressive
idioms he delighted in translating to others. Like the Slaves
generally, he mastered the French language very well;
moreover, owing to his French origin, it had been taught him
with particular care. But he accommodated himself badly to it,
reproaching it with having little sonority and being of a cold
genius.
[FOOTNOTE: Notwithstanding his French origin, Chopin spoke
French with a foreign accent, some say even with a strong
foreign accent. Of his manner of writing French I spoke when
quoting his letters to Franchomme (see Vol. I., p. 258).]
Liszt's account of Chopin's bizarrerie is in the main correct, although
we have, of course, to make some deduction for exaggeration. In fact,
Gutmann told me that his master sometimes began a letter twenty times,
and finally flung down the pen and said: "I'll go and tell her [or
"him," as the case might be] myself."