CHOPIN AS A TEACHER: HIS SUCCESS OR WANT OF SUCCESS AS SUCH; HIS
PUPILS, AMATEUR AND PROFESSIONAL; METHOD OF TEACHING; AND
TEACHING REPERTOIRE.
As Chopin rarely played in public and could not make a
comfortable living by his compositions, there remained nothing
for him but to teach, which, indeed, he did till his strength
forsook him. But so far from regarding teaching as a burden, says
his pupil Mikuli, he devoted himself to it with real pleasure. Of
course, a teacher can only take pleasure in teaching when he has
pupils of the right sort. This advantage, however, Chopin may
have enjoyed to a greater extent than most masters, for according
to all accounts it was difficult to be received as a pupil--he by
no means gave lessons to anyone who asked for them. As long as he
was in fair health, he taught during the season from four to five
hours a day, in later years only, or almost only, at home. His
fee for a lesson was twenty francs, which were deposited by the
pupil on the mantelpiece.
Was Chopin a good teacher? His pupils without exception most
positively affirm it. But outsiders ask: How is it, then, that so
great a virtuoso has not trained players who have made the world
ring with their fame? Mr. Halle, whilst pointing out the fact
that Chopin's pupils have not distinguished themselves, did not
wish to decide whether this was owing to a deficiency in the
master or to some other cause. Liszt, in speaking to me on this
subject, simply remarked: "Chopin was unfortunate in his pupils--
none of them has become a player of any importance, although some
of his noble pupils played very well." If we compare Liszt's
pianistic offspring with Chopin's, the difference is indeed
striking. But here we have to keep in mind several considerations-
-Chopin taught for a shorter period than Liszt; most of his
pupils, unlike Liszt's, were amateurs; and he may not have met
with the stuff out of which great virtuosos are made. That Chopin
was unfortunate in his pupils may be proved by the early death of
several very promising ones. Charles Filtsch, born at
Hermannstadt, Transylvania (Hungary), about 1830, of whom Liszt
and Lenz spoke so highly (see Chapter XXVI.), died on May 11,
1845, at Venice, after having in 1843 made a sensation in London
and Vienna, both by the poetical and technical qualities of his
playing. In London "little Filtsch" played at least twice in
public (on June 14 at the St. James's Theatre between two plays,
and on July 4 at a matinee of his own at the Hanover Square
Rooms), repeatedly in private, and had also the honour to appear
before the Queen at Buckingham Palace. J. W. Davison relates in
his preface to Chopin's mazurkas and waltzes (Boosey & Co.) a
circumstance which proves the young virtuoso's musicianship.
"Engaged to perform Chopin's second concerto in public, the
orchestral parts not being obtainable, Filtsch, nothing dismayed,
wrote out the whole of them from memory." Another short-lived
great talent was Paul Gunsberg. "This young man," Madame Dubois
informed me, "was endowed with an extraordinary organisation.
Chopin had made of him an admirable executant. He died of
consumption, otherwise he would have become celebrated." I do not
know in which year Gunsberg died. He was still alive on May 11,
1855. For on that day he played with his fellow-pupil Tellefsen,
at a concert given by the latter in Paris, a duet of Schumann's.
A third pupil of Chopin prematurely snatched away by death was
Caroline Hartmann, the daughter of a manufacturer, born at
Munster, near Colmar, in 1808. She came to Paris in 1833, and
died the year after--of love for Chopin, as Edouard Wolff told
me. Other authorities, however, ascribe the sad effect to a less
romantic cause. They say that through persevering study under the
direction of Chopin and Liszt she became an excellent pianist,
but that the hard work brought on a chest complaint to which she
succumbed on July 30, 1834. The GAZETTE MUSICALE of August 17,
1834, which notices her death, describes her as a pupil of Liszt,
Chopin, and Pixis, without commenting on her abilities. Spohr
admired her as a child. But if Chopin has not turned out
virtuosos of the calibre of Tausig and Hans von Bulow, he has
nevertheless formed many very clever pianists. It would serve no
purpose except that of satisfying idle curiosity to draw up a
list of all the master's ascertainable pupils. Those who wish,
however, to satisfy this idle curiosity can do so to some extent
by scanning the dedications of Chopin's works, as the names
therein to be found--with a few and mostly obvious exceptions--
are those of pupils. The array of princesses, countesses, &c.,
will, it is to be hoped, duly impress the investigator. Let us
hear what the illustrious master Marmontel has to say on this
subject:--
Among the pianist-composers who have had the immense advantage
of taking lessons from Chopin, to impregnate themselves with
his style and manner, we must cite Gutmann, Lysberg, and our
dear colleague G. Mathias. The Princesses de Chimay,
Czartoryska, the Countesses Esterhazy, Branicka, Potocka, de
Kalergis, d'Est; Mdlles. Muller and de Noailles were his
cherished disciples [disciples affectionnees]. Madame Dubois,
nee O'Meara, is also one of his favourite pupils [eleves de
predilection], and numbers among those whose talent has best
preserved the characteristic traditions and procedures
[procedes] of the master.
Two of Chopin's amateur and a few more of his professional pupils
ought to be briefly noticed here--first and chiefly of the
amateurs, the Princess Marcelline Czartoryska, who has sometimes
played in public for charitable purposes, and of whom it has
often been said that she is the most faithful transmitter of her
master's style. Would the praise which is generally lavished upon
her have been so enthusiastic if the lady had been a professional
pianist instead of a princess? The question is ungracious in one
who has not had the pleasure of hearing her, but not unnaturally
suggests itself. Be this as it may, that she is, or was, a good
player, who as an intimate friend and countrywoman thoroughly
entered into the spirit of her master's music, seems beyond
question.
[FOOTNOTE: "The Princess Marcelline Czartoryska," wrote Sowinski
in 1857 in the article "Chopin" of his "Musicien polonais," "who
has a fine execution, seems to have inherited Chopin's ways of
procedure, especially in phrasing and accentuation. Lately the
Princess performed at Paris with much success the magnificent F
minor Concerto at a concert for the benefit of the poor." A
critic, writing in the Gazette Musicale of March 11, 1855, of a
concert given by the Princess--at which she played an andante
with variations for piano and violoncello by Mozart, a rondo for
piano and orchestra by Mendelssohn, and Chopin's F minor
Concerto, being assisted by Alard as conductor, the violoncellist
Franchomme, and the singers Madame Viardot and M. Fedor--praised
especially her rendering of the ADAGIO in Chopin's Concerto. Lenz
was the most enthusiastic admirer of the Princess I have met
with. He calls her (in the Berliner Musikzeitung, Vol. XXVI) a
highly-gifted nature, the best pupil [Schulerin] of Chopin, and
the incarnation of her master's pianoforte style. At a musical
party at the house of the Counts Wilhorski at St. Petersburg,
where she performed a waltz and the Marche funebre by Chopin, her
playing made such an impression that it was thought improper to
have any more music on that evening, the trio of the march
having, indeed, moved the auditors to tears. The Princess told
Lenz that on one occasion when Chopin played to her this trio,
she fell on her knees before him and felt unspeakably happy.]
G. Chouquet reminded me not to omit to mention among Chopin's
pupils Madame Peruzzi, the wife of the ambassador of the Duke of
Tuscany to the court of Louis Philippe:--
This virtuosa [wrote to me the late keeper of the Musee of the
Paris Conservatoire] had no less talent than the Princess
Marcelline Czartoryska. I heard her at Florence in 1852, and I
can assure you that she played Chopin's music in the true
style and with all the unpublished traits of the master. She
was of Russian origin.
But enough of amateurs. Mdlle. Friederike Muller, now for many
years married to the Viennese pianoforte-maker J. B. Streicher,
is regarded by many as the most, and is certainly one of the most
gifted of Chopin's favourite pupils. [FOOTNOTE: She played
already in public at Vienna in the fourth decade of this century,
which must have been before her coming to Paris (see Eduard
Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien, p. 326). Marriage
brought the lady's professional career to a close.] That the
composer dedicated to her his Allegro de Concert, Op. 46, may be
regarded as a mark of his love and esteem for her. Carl Mikuli
found her assistance of great importance in the preparation of
his edition of Chopin's works, as she had received lessons from
the master for several years, and, moreover, had had many
opportunities of hearing him on other occasions. The same
authority refers to Madame Dubois (nee O'Meara) [FOOTNOTE: A
relation of Edward Barry O'Meara, physician to the first Napoleon
at St. Helena, and author of "Napoleon in Exile."] and to Madame
Rubio (NEE Vera de Kologrivof) as to "two extremely excellent
pianists [hochst ausgezeichnete Pianistinnen] whose talent
enjoyed the advantage of the master's particular care." The
latter lady was taught by Chopin from 1842 to 1849, and in the
last years of his life assisted him, as we shall see, by taking
partial charge of some of his pupils. Madame Dubois, who studied
under Kalkbrenner from the age of nine to thirteen, became then a
pupil of Chopin, with whom she remained five years. It was very
difficult to obtain his consent to take another pupil, but the
influence of M. Albrecht, a common friend of her father's and
Chopin's, stood her in good stead. Although I heard her play only
one or two of her master's minor pieces, and under very
unfavourable circumstances too--namely, at the end of the
teaching season and in a tropical heat--I may say that her suave
touch, perfect legato, and delicate sentiment seemed to me to
bear out the above-quoted remark of M. Marmontel. Madame Dubois,
who is one of the most highly-esteemed teachers of the piano in
Paris, used to play till recently in public, although less
frequently in later than in earlier years. And here I must
extract a passage from Madame Girardin's letter of March 7, 1847,
in Vol. IV. of "Le Vicomte de Launay," where, after describing
Mdlle. O'Meara's beauty, more especially her Irish look--"that
mixture of sadness and serenity, of profound tenderness and shy
dignity, which you never find in the proud and brilliant looks
which you admire in the women of other nations "--she says:--
We heard her a few hours ago; she played in a really superior
way the beautiful Concerto of Chopin in E flat minor [of
course E minor]; she was applauded with enthusiasm. [FOOTNOTE:
Chopin accompanied on a second piano. The occasion was a
soiree at the house of Madame de Courbonne.] All we can say to
give you an idea of Mdlle. O'Meara's playing is that there is
in her playing all that is in her look, and in addition to it
an admirable method, and excellent fingering. Her success has
been complete; in hearing her, statesmen were moved...and the
young ladies, those who are good musicians, forgave her her
prettiness.
As regards Chopin's male pupils, we have to note George Mathias
(born at Paris in 1826), the well-known professor of the piano at
the Paris Conservatoire, [FOOTNOTE: He retired a year or two
ago.] and still more widely-known composer of more than half-a-
hundred important works (sonatas, trios, concertos, symphonic
compositions, pianoforte pieces, songs, &c.), who enjoyed the
master's teaching from 1839 to 1844; Lysberg (1821-1873), whose
real name was Charles Samuel Bovy, for many years professor of
the piano at the Conservatoire of his native town, Geneva, and a
very fertile composer of salon pieces for the piano (composer
also of a one-act comic opera, La Fills du Carillonneur),
distinguished by "much poetic feeling, an extremely careful form,
an original colouring, and in which one often seems to see pass a
breath of Weber or Chopin"; [FOOTNOTE: Supplement et Complement
to Fetis' Biographie universelle des Musiciens, published under
the direction of Arthur Pougin.] the Norwegian Thomas Dyke Acland
Tellefsen (1823-1874), a teacher of the piano in Paris and author
of an edition of Chopin's works; Carl Mikuli (born at Czernowitz
in 1821), since 1858 artistic director of the Galician Musical
Society (conservatoire, concerts, &c.), and author of an edition
of Chopin's works; and Adolph Gutmann, the master's favourite
pupil par excellence, of whom we must speak somewhat more at
length. Karasowski makes also mention of Casimir Wernik, who died
at St. Petersburg in 1859, and of Gustav Schumann, a teacher of
the piano at Berlin, who, however, was only during the winter of
1840-1841 with the Polish master. For Englishmen the fact of the
late Brinley Richards and Lindsay Sloper having been pupils of
Chopin--the one for a short, the other for a longer period--will
be of special interest.
Adolph Gutmann was a boy of fifteen when in 1834 his father
brought him to Paris to place him under Chopin. The latter,
however, did not at first feel inclined to accept the proposed
trust; but on hearing the boy play he conceived so high an idea
of his capacities that he agreed to undertake his artistic
education. Chopin seems to have always retained a thorough belief
in his muscular pupil, although some of his great pianist friends
thought this belief nothing but a strange delusion. There are
also piquant anecdotes told by fellow-pupils with the purpose of
showing that Chopin did not care very much for him. For instance,
the following: Some one asked the master how his pupil was
getting on, "Oh, he makes very good chocolate," was the answer.
Unfortunately, I cannot speak of Gutmann's playing from
experience, for although I spent eight days with him, it was on a
mountain-top in the Tyrol, where there were no pianos. But
Chopin's belief in Gutmann counts with me for something, and so
does Moscheles' reference to him as Chopin's "excellent pupil";
more valuable, I think, than either is the evidence of Dr. A. C.
Mackenzie, who at my request visited Gutmann several times in
Florence and was favourably impressed by his playing, in which he
noticed especially beauty of tone combined with power. As far as
I can make out Gutmann planned only once, in 1846, a regular
concert-tour, being furnished for it by Chopin with letters of
introduction to the highest personages in Berlin, Warsaw, and St.
Petersburg. Through the intervention of the Countess Rossi
(Henriette Sontag), he was invited to play at a court-concert at
Charlottenburg in celebration of the King's birthday. [FOOTNOTE:
His part of the programme consisted of his master's E minor
Concerto (2nd and 3rd movements) and No. 3 of the first book of
studies, and his own tenth study.] But the day after the concert
he was seized with such home-sickness that he returned forthwith
to Paris, where he made his appearance to the great astonishment
of Chopin. The reader may perhaps be interested in what a writer
in the Gazette Musicale said about Chopin's favourite pupil on
March 24, 1844:--
M. Gutmann is a pianist with a neat but somewhat cold style of
playing; he has what one calls fingers, and uses them with
much dexterity. His manner of proceeding is rather that of
Thalberg than of the clever professor who has given him
lessons. He afforded pleasure to the lovers of the piano
[amateurs de piano] at the musical SOIREE which he gave last
Monday at M. Erard's. Especially his fantasia on the
"Freischutz" was applauded.
Of course, the expression of any individual opinion is no
conclusive proof. Gutmann was so successful as a teacher and in a
way also as a composer (his compositions, I may say in passing,
were not in his master's but in a light salon style) that at a
comparatively early period of his life he was able to retire from
his profession. After travelling for some time he settled at
Florence, where he invented the art, or, at least, practised the
art which he had previously invented, of painting with oil-
colours on satin. He died at Spezzia on October 27, 1882.
[FOOTNOTE: The short notice of Gutmann in Fetis' Biographie
Universelle des Musiciens, and those of the followers of this by
no means infallible authority, are very incorrect. Adolfo
Gutmann, Riccordi Biografici, by Giulio Piccini (Firenze:
Guiseppe Polverini, 1881), reproduces to a great extent the
information contained in Der Lieblingsschuler Chopin's in
Bernhard Stavenow's Schone Geister (Bremen: Kuhlmann, 1879), both
which publications, eulogistic rather than biographical, were
inspired by Gutmann.]
Whatever interest the reader may have taken in this survey of
Chopin's pupils, he is sure to be more deeply interested by the
account of the master's manner and method of teaching. Such an
account, which would be interesting in the case of any remarkable
virtuoso who devoted himself to instruction, is so in a higher
degree in that of Chopin: first, because it may help us to solve
the question why so unique a virtuoso did not form a single
eminent concert-player; secondly, because it throws still further
light on his character as a man and artist; and thirdly, because,
as Mikuli thinks may be asserted without exaggeration, "only
Chopin's pupils knew the pianist in the fulness of his unrivalled
height." The materials at my disposal are abundant and not less
trustworthy than abundant. My account is based chiefly on the
communications made to me by a number of the master's pupils--
notably, Madame Dubois, Madame Rubio, M. Mathias, and Gutmann--
and on Mikuli's excellent preface to his edition of Chopin's
works. When I have drawn upon other sources, I have not done so
without previous examination and verification. I may add that I
shall use as far as possible the ipsissima verba of my
informants:--
As to Chopin's method of teaching [wrote to me M. Mathias], it
was absolutely of the old legato school, of the school of
Clementi and Cramer. Of course, he had enriched it by a great
variety of touch [d'une grande variete dans l'attaque de la
touche]; he obtained a wonderful variety of tone and NUANCES
of tone; in passing I may tell you that he had an
extraordinary vigour, but only by flashes [ce ne pouvait etre
que par eclairs].
The Polish master, who was so original in many ways, differed
from his confreres even in the way of starting his pupils. With
him the normal position of the hand was not that above the keys
c, d, e, f, g (i.e., above five white keys), but that above the
keys e, f sharp, g sharp, a sharp, b (I.E., above two white keys
and three black keys, the latter lying between the former). The
hand had to be thrown lightly on the keyboard so as to rest on
these keys, the object of this being to secure for it not only an
advantageous, but also a graceful position:--
[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski, in Chopin: De l'interpretation de ses
oeuvres--Trois conferences faites a Varsovie, says that he was
told by several of the master's pupils that the latter sometimes
held his hands absolutely flat. When I asked Madame Dubois about
the correctness of this statement, she replied: "I never noticed
Chopin holding his hands flat." In short, if Chopin put his hands
at any time in so awkward a position, it was exceptional;
physical exhaustion may have induced him to indulge in such
negligence when the technical structure of the music he was
playing permitted it.]
Chopin [Madame Dubois informed me] made his pupils begin with
the B major scale, very slowly, without stiffness. Suppleness
was his great object. He repeated, without ceasing, during the
lesson: "Easily, easily" [facilement, facilement]. Stiffness
exasperated him.
How much stiffness and jerkiness exasperated him may be judged
from what Madame Zaleska related to M. Kleczynski. A pupil having
played somewhat carelessly the arpeggio at the beginning of the
first study (in A flat major) of the second book of Clementi's
Preludes et Exercices, the master jumped from his chair and
exclaimed: "What is that? Has a dog been barking?" [Qu'est-ce?
Est-ce un chien qui vient d'aboyer?] The rudeness of this
exclamation will, no doubt, surprise. But polite as Chopin
generally was, irritation often got the better of him, more
especially in later years when bad health troubled him. Whether
he ever went the length of throwing the music from the desk and
breaking chairs, as Karasowski says, I do not know and have not
heard confirmed by any pupil. Madame Rubio, however, informed me
that Chopin was very irritable, and when teaching amateurs used
to have always a packet of pencils about him which, to vent his
anger, he silently broke into bits. Gutmann told me that in the
early stages of his discipleship Chopin sometimes got very angry,
and stormed and raged dreadfully; but immediately was kind and
tried to soothe his pupil when he saw him distressed and weeping.
To be sure [writes Mikuli], Chopin made great demands on the
talent and diligence of the pupil. Consequently, there were
often des lecons orageuses, as it was called in the school
idiom, and many a beautiful eye left the high altar of the
Cite d'Orleans, Rue St. Lazare, bedewed with tears, without,
on that account, ever bearing the dearly-beloved master the
least grudge. For was not the severity which was not easily
satisfied with anything, the feverish vehemence with which the
master wished to raise his disciples to his own stand-point,
the ceaseless repetition of a passage till it was understood,
a guarantee that he had at heart the progress of the pupil? A
holy artistic zeal burnt in him then, every word from his lips
was incentive and inspiring. Single lessons often lasted
literally for hours at a stretch, till exhaustion overcame
master and pupil.
Indeed, the pupils were so far from bearing their master the
least grudge that, to use M. Marmontel's words, they had more for
him than admiration: a veritable idolatry. But it is time that
after this excursion--which hardly calls for an excuse--we return
to the more important part of our subject, the master's method of
teaching.
What concerned Chopin most at the commencement of his
instruction [writes Mikuli] was to free the pupil from every
stiffness and convulsive, cramped movement of the hand, and to
give him thus the first condition of a beautiful style of
playing, souplesse (suppleness), and with it independence of
the fingers. He taught indefatigably that the exercises in
question were no mere mechanical ones, but called for the
intelligence and the whole will of the pupil, on which account
twenty and even forty thoughtless repetitions (up to this time
the arcanum of so many schools) do no good at all, still less
the practising during which, according to Kalkbrenner's
advice, one may occupy one's self simultaneously with some
kind of reading(!).
He feared above all [remarked Madame Dubois to me] the
abrutissement of the pupils. One day he heard me say that I
practised six hours a day. He became quite angry, and forbade
me to practise more than three hours. This was also the advice
of Hummel in his pianoforte school.
To resume Mikuli's narrative:--
Chopin treated very thoroughly the different kinds of touch,
especially the full-toned [tonvolle] legato.
[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says that Chopin demanded absolutely
from his pupils that they should practise the exercises, and
especially the scales in major and minor, from piano to
fortissimo, staccato as well as legato, and also with a change
of accent, which was to be now on the second, now on the
third, now on the fourth note. Madame Dubois, on the other
hand, is sure she was never told by her master to play the
scales staccato.]
"As gymnastic helps he recommended the bending inward and
outward of the wrist, the repeated touch from the wrist, the
extending of the fingers, but all this with the earnest
warning against over-fatigue. He made his pupils play the
scales with a full tone, as connectedly as possible, very
slowly and only gradually advancing to a quicker TEMPO, and
with metronomic evenness. The passing of the thumb under the
other fingers and the passing of the latter over the former
was to be facilitated by a corresponding turning inward of the
hand. The scales with many black keys (B, F sharp, and D flat)
were first studied, and last, as the most difficult, C major.
In the same sequence he took up Clementi's Preludes et
Exercices, a work which for its utility he esteemed very
highly."
[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski writes that whatever the degree of
instruction was which Chopin's pupils brought with them, they
had all to play carefully besides the scales the second book
of Clementi's Preludes et Exercices, especially the first in A
flat major.]
According to Chopin the evenness of the scales (also of the
arpeggios) not merely depended on the utmost equal
strengthening of all fingers by means of five-finger exercises
and on a thumb entirely free at the passing under and over,
but rather on a lateral movement (with the elbow hanging quite
down and always easy) of the hand, not by jerks, but
continuously and evenly flowing, which he tried to illustrate
by the glissando over the keyboard. Of studies he gave after
this a selection of Cramer's Etudes, Clementi's Gradus ad
Parnassum, Moscheles' style-studies for the higher development
(which were very sympathetic to him), and J. S. Bach's suites
and some fugues from Das wohltemperirte Clavier. In a certain
way Field's and his own nocturnes numbered likewise with the
studies, for in them the pupil was--partly by the apprehension
of his explanations, partly by observation and imitation (he
played them to the pupil unweariedly)--to learn to know, love,
and execute the beautiful smooth [gebundene] vocal tone and
the legato.
[FOOTNOTE: This statement can only be accepted with much
reserve. Whether Chopin played much or little to his pupil
depended, no doubt, largely on the mood and state of health he
was in at the time, perhaps also on his liking or disliking
the pupil. The late Brinley Richards told me that when he had
lessons from Chopin, the latter rarely played to him, making
his corrections and suggestions mostly by word of mouth.]
With double notes and chords he demanded most strictly
simultaneous striking, breaking was only allowed when it was
indicated by the composer himself; shakes, which he generally
began with the auxiliary note, had not so much to be played
quick as with great evenness the conclusion of the shake
quietly and without precipitation. For the turn (gruppetto)
and the appoggiatura he recommended the great Italian singers
as models. Although he made his pupils play octaves from the
wrist, they must not thereby lose in fulness of tone.
All who have had the good fortune to hear Chopin play agree in
declaring that one of the most distinctive features of his style
of execution was smoothness, and smoothness, as we have seen in
the foregoing notes, was also one of the qualities on which he
most strenuously insisted in the playing of his pupils. The
reader will remember Gutmann's statement to me, mentioned in a
previous chapter, that all his master's fingering was calculated
for the attainment of this object. Fingering is the mainspring,
the determining principle, one might almost say the life and
soul, of the pianoforte technique. We shall, therefore, do well
to give a moment's consideration to Chopin's fingering,
especially as he was one of the boldest and most influential
revolutionisers of this important department of the pianistic
art. His merits in this as in other respects, his various claims
to priority of invention, are only too often overlooked. As at
one time all ameliorations in the theory and practice of music
were ascribed to Guido of Arezzo, so it is nowadays the fashion
to ascribe all improvements and extensions of the pianoforte
technique to Liszt, who more than any other pianist drew upon
himself the admiration of the world, and who through his pupils
continued to make his presence felt even after the close of his
career as a virtuoso. But the cause of this false opinion is to
be sought not so much in the fact that the brilliancy of his
artistic personality threw all his contemporaries into the shade,
as in that other fact, that he gathered up into one web the many
threads new and old which he found floating about during the
years of his development. The difference between Liszt and Chopin
lies in this, that the basis of the former's art is universality,
that of the latter's, individuality. Of the fingering of the one
we may say that it is a system, of that of the other that it is a
manner. Probably we have here also touched on the cause of
Liszt's success and Chopin's want of success as a teacher. I
called Chopin a revolutioniser of fingering, and, I think, his
full enfranchisement of the thumb, his breaking-down of all
distinctions of rank between the other fingers, in short, the
introduction of a liberty sometimes degenerating into licence,
justifies the expression. That this master's fingering is
occasionally eccentric (presupposing peculiarly flexible hands
and a peculiar course of study) cannot be denied; on the whole,
however, it is not only well adapted for the proper rendering of
his compositions, but also contains valuable contributions to a
universal system of fingering. The following particulars by
Mikuli will be read with interest, and cannot be misunderstood
after what has just now been said on the subject:--
In the notation of fingering, especially of that peculiar to
himself, Chopin was not sparing. Here pianoforte-playing owes
him great innovations which, on account of their expedience,
were soon adopted, notwithstanding the horror with which
authorities like Kalkbrenner at first regarded them. Thus, for
instance, Chopin used without hesitation the thumb on the
black keys, passed it even under the little finger (it is
true, with a distinct inward bend of the wrist), if this could
facilitate the execution and give it more repose and evenness.
With one and the same finger he took often two consecutive
keys (and this not only in gliding down from a black to the
next white key) without the least interruption of the sequence
being noticeable. The passing over each other of the longer
fingers without the aid of the thumb (see Etude, No. 2, Op.
10) he frequently made use of, and not only in passages where
the thumb stationary on a key made this unavoidably necessary.
The fingering of the chromatic thirds based on this (as he
marked it in Etude, No. 5, Op. 25) affords in a much higher
degree than that customary before him the possibility of the
most beautiful legato in the quickest tempo and with a
perfectly quiet hand.
But if with Chopin smoothness was one of the qualities upon which
he insisted strenuously in the playing of his pupils, he was by
no means satisfied with a mere mechanical perfection. He advised
his pupils to undertake betimes thorough theoretical studies,
recommending his friend, the composer and theorist Henri Reber as
a teacher. He advised them also to cultivate ensemble playing--
trios, quartets, &c., if first-class partners could be had,
otherwise pianoforte duets. Most urgent, however, he was in his
advice to them to hear good singing, and even to learn to sing.
To Madame Rubio he said: "You must sing if you wish to play"; and
made her take lessons in singing and hear much Italian opera--
this last, the lady remarked, Chopin regarded as positively
necessary for a pianoforte-player. In this advice we recognise
Chopin's ideal of execution: beauty of tone, intelligent
phrasing, truthfulness and warmth of expression. The sounds which
he drew from the pianoforte were pure tone without the least
admixture of anything that might be called noise. "He never
thumped," was Gutmann's remark to me. Chopin, according to
Mikuli, repeatedly said that when he heard bad phrasing it
appeared to him as if some one recited, in a language he did not
know, a speech laboriously memorised, not only neglecting to
observe the right quantity of the syllables, but perhaps even
making full stops in the middle of words. "The badly-phrasing
pseudo-musician," he thought, "showed that music was not his
mother-tongue, but something foreign, unintelligible to him," and
that, consequently, "like that reciter, he must altogether give
up the idea of producing any effect on the auditor by his
rendering." Chopin hated exaggeration and affectation. His
precept was: "Play as you feel." But he hated the want of feeling
as much as false feeling. To a pupil whose playing gave evidence
of nothing but the possession of fingers, he said emphatically,
despairingly: "METTEZ-Y DONc TOUTE VOTRE AME!" (Do put all your
soul into it!)
[FOOTNOTE: "In dynamical shading [im nuanciren]," says Mikuli,
"he was exceedingly particular about a gradual increase and
decrease of loudness." Karasowski writes: "Exaggeration in
accentuation was hateful to him, for, in his opinion, it took
away the poesy from playing, and gave it a certain didactic
pedantry."]
On declamation, and rendering in general [writes Mikuli], he
gave his pupils invaluable and significant instructions and
hints, but, no doubt, effected more certain results by
repeatedly playing not only single passages, but whole pieces,
and this he did with a conscientiousness and enthusiasm that
perhaps he hardly gave anyone an opportunity of hearing when
he played in a concert-room. Frequently the whole hour passed
without the pupil having played more than a few bars, whilst
Chopin, interrupting and correcting him on a Pleyel cottage
piano (the pupil played always on an excellent grand piano;
and it was enjoined upon him as a duty to practise only on
first-class instruments), presented to him for his admiration
and imitation the life-warm ideal of the highest beauty.
With regard to Chopin's playing to his pupils we must keep in
mind what was said in foot-note 12 on page 184. On another point
in the above quotation one of Madame Dubois's communications to
me throws some welcome light:--
Chopin [she said] had always a cottage piano [pianino] by the
side of the grand piano on which he gave his lessons. It was
marvellous to hear him accompany, no matter what compositions,
from the concertos of Hummel to those of Beethoven. He
performed the role of the orchestra most wonderfully [d'une
facon prodigieuse]. When I played his own concertos, he
accompanied me in this way.
Judging from various reports, Chopin seems to have regarded his
Polish pupils as more apt than those of other nationalities to do
full justice to his compositions. Karasowski relates that when
one of Chopin's French pupils played his compositions and the
auditors overwhelmed the performer with their praise, the master
used often to remark that his pupil had done very well, but that
the Polish element and the Polish enthusiasm had been wanting.
Here it is impossible not to be reminded of the contention
between Chopin on the one hand and Liszt and Hiller on the other
hand about the possibility of foreigners comprehending Polish
national music (See Vol. 1., p. 256). After revealing the mystery
of Chopin's tempo rubato, Liszt writes in his book on this
master:--
All his compositions have to be played with this sort of
balancement accentue et prosodie, this morbidezza, of which it
was difficult to seize the secret when one had not heard him
often. He seemed desirous to teach this manner to his numerous
pupils, especially to his compatriots, to whom he wished, more
than to others, to communicate the breath of his inspiration.
These [ceux-ci, ou plutot celles-la] seized it with that
aptitude which they have for all matters of sentiment and
poesy. An innate comprehension of his thought permitted them
to follow all the fluctuations of his azure wave.
There is one thing which is worth inquiring into before we close
this chapter, for it may help us to a deeper insight into
Chopin's character as a teacher--I mean his teaching repertoire.
Mikuli says that, carefully arranged according to their
difficulty, Chopin placed before his pupils the following
compositions: the concertos and sonatas of Clementi, Mozart,
Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Dussek, Field, Hummel, Ries, Beethoven;
further, Weber, Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Hiller, Schumann, and his
own works. This enumeration, however, does not agree with
accounts from other equally authentic sources. The pupils of
Chopin I have conversed and corresponded with never studied any
Schumann under their master. As to the cultivation of Beethoven,
it was, no doubt, limited. M. Mathias, it is true, told me that
Chopin showed a preference for Clementi (Gradus ad Parnassum),
Bach, Field (of him much was played, notably his concertos), and
naturally for Beethoven, Weber, &c.--Clementi, Bach, and Field
being always the composers most laid under contribution in the
case of debutants. Madame Rubio, on the other hand, confined
herself to stating that Chopin put her through Hummel, Moscheles,
and Bach; and did not mention Beethoven at all. Gutmann's
statements concerning his master's teaching contain some positive
evidence with regard to the Beethoven question. What he said was
this: Chopin held that dementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, Bach's
pianoforte fugues, and Hummel's compositions were the key to
pianoforte-playing, and he considered a training in these
composers a fit preparation for his own works. He was
particularly fond of Hummel and his style. Beethoven he seemed to
like less. He appreciated such pieces as the first movement of
the Moonlight Sonata (C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2). Schubert was
a favourite with him. This, then, is what I learned from Gutmann.
In parenthesis, as it were, I may ask: Is it not strange that no
pupil, with the exception of Mikuli, mentions the name of Mozart,
the composer whom Chopin is said to have so much admired? Thanks
to Madame Dubois, who at my request had the kindness to make out
a list of the works she remembers having studied under Chopin, we
shall be able to form a pretty distinct idea of the master's
course of instruction, which, to be sure, would be modified
according to the capacities of his pupils and the objects they
had in view. Well, Madame Dubois says that Chopin made her begin
with the second book of Clementi's Preludes et Exercices, and
that she also studied under him the same composer's Gradus ad
Parnassum and Bach's forty-eight preludes and fugues. Of his high
opinion of the teaching qualities of Bach's compositions we may
form an idea from the recommendation to her at their last meeting-
-already mentioned in an earlier chapter--to practise them
constantly, "ce sera votre meilleur moyen de progresser" (this
will be your best means to make progress). The pieces she studied
under him included the following ones: Of Hummel, the Rondo
brillant sur un theme russe (Op. 98), La Bella capricciosa, the
Sonata in F sharp minor (Op. 81), the Concertos in A minor and B
minor, and the Septet; of Field, several concertos (the one in E
flat among others) and several nocturnes ("Field" she says, "lui
etait tres sympathique"); of Beethoven, the concertos and several
sonatas (the Moonlight, Op. 27, No. 2; the one with the Funeral
March, Op. 26; and the Appassionata, Op. 57); of Weber, the
Sonatas in C and A flat major (Chopin made his pupils play these
two works with extreme care); of Schubert, the Landler and all
the waltzes and some of the duets (the marches, polonaises, and
the Divertissement hongrois, which last piece he admired sans
reserve); of Mendelssohn, only the G minor Concerto and the Songs
without Words; of Liszt, no more than La Tarantelle de Rossini
and the Septet from Lucia ("mais ce genre de musique ne lui
allait pas," says my informant); and of Schumann, NOTHING.
Madame Streicher's interesting reminiscences, given in Appendix
III., form a supplement to this chapter.