eastward from Paris did not break on Warsaw until November; but as early
as May there were signs on the horizon, and a murmur of expectation in
the air. The Diet, which had not met for five years, was suddenly
convened; the irregularities of the Russian administration were more
freely criticised: and although the Czar had prohibited the publication
of debates, there still remained sufficient means to show the people at
large that its discontent was finding official utterance. Naturally this
assemblage of senators gathered after it all the pomp and circumstance
of Polish society. As the months wore on, the city filled with a crowd
of nobles, and, while the halls of audience were busy with political
intrigue, the ballrooms opened their doors to a music that seemed to
have caught some echo from the night before Waterloo. War was almost
certainly imminent; but until it came the hours uplifted their burden of
song and dance, lest the silence should crave too ominously for the
sound of cannon.
To Chopin, patriot as he was, the musical aspect of the season seems to
have been the most important. Possibly in his seclusion rumours of wars
found no space to enter: at any rate, there is no hint in his letters
that he foresaw the storm, or that he was seriously occupied with
anything more public than his _soirées_ and his concerts. There was,
indeed, plenty to hear and plenty to enjoy. Some of the greatest artists
in Europe presented themselves at Warsaw:--Mdlle. de Belleville,
immortalised by the praise of Schumann; Lipinski, the famous violinist;
Henrietta Sontag, the acknowledged rival of Catalani and Pasta. Of all
these Chopin writes with his usual generous appreciation, unaffectedly
delighted with their successes, and 'not at all surprised' that he is
not asked to play at a Court party when they are present. Then followed
Constance Gladkowska's _début_ as an operatic singer, and the lover is
divided between his pleasure in her triumph and his reawakened
consciousness of a hopeless passion. Once more the old irresolution
returns; he decides to go, but cannot tear himself away; he waits on
aimlessly, wondering from day to day whether the morrow will bring
counsel, despising himself for his chain, yet not strong enough to break
it. The suspense was beginning to tell upon his health. Heller, who
passed through Warsaw in 1830, speaks of him as pale and hollow-eyed,
little more than a shadow of his former, brighter self. And yet it is
uncertain whether he had spent an hour with 'his Constantia' since his
return from Antonin, nearly a year before; while it is quite clear, from
his own letters, that during all that time he had never visited her.[19]
Surely it is one of the most inexplicable of dramas. The whole period
which it occupies is of less than two years: eighteen months have
elapsed, and we have not yet seen the heroine. We only guess at her
darkly from the hero's soliloquies, or the rare secrets which he
commends to the bosom of his confidant. We are in the fourth act, and
have advanced to no further situation than was disclosed in the opening
scene. It is true that for a few weeks in the autumn of 1830 the two
actors are brought into a closer relationship: that she sang for him at
his concert in October, and that she gave him a ring on his departure
from Warsaw: but then, just as we are beginning to attain to some
comprehension of the plot, the curtain falls, and there has been neither
recognition nor catastrophe. Nor is the epilogue any less inconclusive.
The farewell gift, which should have been the beginning of a more
intimate romance, is virtually the end of the whole story. After Chopin
had left his home, he seems to have held no further communication, other
than indirect, with the woman whom he believed himself to love; in a few
months her name has dropped out of his letters: and when she married,
about a year later, he is said to have heard the news with a momentary
outburst of brief anger, and then to have dismissed it from his
recollection. And even during the days of his thraldom, he can forget
his troubles whenever he is interested in his work. It is only when he
is wearied or overwrought that the image of his love recurs, with its
invariable train of forebodings and regrets: forebodings that he will
find inaccessible a height which he never tries to climb: regrets for
lost opportunities which he has never attempted to seize. As to her own
attitude in the matter, we are even more at fault. We have no means of
determining to what extent she looked with favour upon his suit, or to
what extent she even trusted in its sincerity. We have no right to
impute blame to her: we have no standpoint for imputation. All we can
say is, that if Chopin's passion had been wholly visionary, this is the
way in which it would have expressed itself. Of the joy, the hope, the
impetus of true love there is not one recorded word: his highest point
of stimulation is the desire to 'tell his piano' of the sorrow that she
has brought him: his brightest hope of communion with her is that when
he dies his ashes may be spread out under her feet.
It is pleasanter to look upon the more active side of Chopin's last
summer in Warsaw. In spite of the social distractions which the season
inevitably brought in its retinue, he worked away steadily at his E
minor Concerto, finished it by the middle of August, and produced it,
with his usual good fortune, at his third and last concert, on October
11. In addition, he composed what he modestly calls 'a few insignificant
pieces,' and sketched or projected some works of larger scale--a
concerto for two pianos, a polonaise with orchestra, and the like.
Whether these ever came into complete existence is a matter of dispute:
here, as elsewhere, the record of Chopin's life is too broken and
imperfect to admit any tone of certainty: but, in either event, they
testify to some acceptance of the 'beatitude of labour.' The results of
a man's effort are a free gift to succeeding generations; it is in the
effort itself that he finds his own reward.
As the winter approached, plans for departure grew more definite and
more concrete. Chopin had cried 'Wolf' so often that his friends might
well be excused for doubting the reality of his intentions, but this
time it appeared that he was actually in earnest, and at the beginning
of November he started. Even now he had no very clear idea of his
destination. It was to be Vienna first, so much was certain, but after
Vienna it might be Berlin, where Prince Radziwill could ensure him
introductions, or it might be Italy, where he could bear his credentials
to royalty at Milan, or it might be Paris, which was then the goal of
almost every artist in Europe. 'I am going out into the wide world,' he
writes, with a touch of knight-errantry foreign to his usual nature.
Curiously enough, he seems to have had from the beginning a presentiment
that he would never return to Poland; and when, at the first stage from
Warsaw, Elsner met him with the pupils of the Conservatorium, and
presented him with a silver cup full of Polish earth, the strange little
ceremonial must have added force and ratification to his thought.
Moreover, the presentiment came true. The nineteen years of life which
remained to him only widened his separation from his native country; his
exile, though voluntary, proved to be none the less irrevocable; and as
the towers of Warsaw sank behind him on the horizon, there faded with
them all but the memory of a home which he was never to see again.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] So says Karasowski, who was intimately acquainted with the Chopins,
and was entrusted by them with the materials for an authoritative
biography. The monument in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw gives March
2, 1809, as the date. Liszt and Fétis both give 1810. It is a salient
instance of the carelessness with which the records of Chopin's life
have been treated.
[17] The Polonaise in B flat minor, 'Adieu an Wilhelm Kolberg,' appears
to have been written on Chopin's departure for Reinerz in 1826. But
Fontana calls the three, which were published posthumously as Op. 71,
'les trois premières Polonaises.' Two of them were composed in 1827-8
and the third in 1829.
[18] Not the E minor Concerto, as M. Karasowski asserts. The fact is put
beyond dispute by a letter of May 15, 1830, in which Chopin says that
the Adagio of the latter work is still unfinished. Both movements, by
the way, are marked _Larghetto_ in the score.
[19] See the letter of Sept. 4, 1830, quoted by Professor Niecks.
II
PARIS--AND AN EPISODE
After the good leisurely fashion of the time, Chopin took nearly four
weeks over his journey to Vienna. His first halting-place was Kalisz,
where he was joined by his friend Woyciecowski, and thence the two
travelled together through Breslau, Dresden and Prague, enjoying to the
full that highest of human pleasures which is constituted by a clear
road, brisk horses, and a single companion. The incidents, as recorded
in his letters, are not of any great importance--impressions of the
theatre at Breslau, renewal of old acquaintanceships at Dresden, and so
forth--but the letters themselves are interesting, as showing how
entirely he had recovered his spirits under the change of scene and
circumstance. Everything is delightful, everybody is cordial, all
prospects of the future career are painted in rose-colour, and the
darkest moments of uncertainty are caused by his terror at the sight of
the Saxon ladies, in their panoply of knitting-needles, or by the
temptation, which he is at some pains to resist, of 'kicking out the
bottom' from his first sedan chair. In a character so transparent, even
these evanescent bubbles of humour acquire a certain significance. For
the moment, Chopin's tone is equally free from regret or apprehension;
for the moment, this exile from his country has succeeded in escaping
from his recent self.
And yet, it was a bold challenge to fortune. On the one side, a world
which is usually too busy to occupy itself with new aspirants, which
grants no favour that cannot be claimed as a right, and is even less
ready to show mercy to the conquered than to offer its applause to the
conqueror: on the other, a boy of twenty-one, with delicate and
fastidious appetites, with no experience of privation, no conception of
the value of money, no settled habits of prudence or circumspection,
equipped, it is true, with a flashing weapon of genius, but singularly
ill provided with the ordinary armour of defence. It would have been no
wonder if he had thought the bastions impregnable and the towers
impossible to scale: if he had looked upon the camp life as coarse and
uncouth, if he had found its discipline intolerable, its hardships
degrading, and its pleasures typified by the rude laughter and
boisterous jests of the canteen. Small wonder, either, if his comrades
had set him down as a carpet-knight; an exquisite, better skilled to pay
compliments to the women than to bear his part among the men; a dandy,
whose chief care was the set of his clothes and the fragrance of his
violets; a precisian, who was altogether devoid of redeeming vices; an
idealist, who spent his days in pursuit of the unattainable, instead of
taking life as it came, and letting ready action compensate for
defective strategy. And in such an estimate there would have been a
certain measure of truth. If, in order to be a good man, it is first
necessary to be a good animal, we may admit at once that Chopin's
virility was imperfect. There is no doubt that, to the end of his life,
he was characterised by a super-sensitive refinement, which, fifty years
ago, would have been described as feminine. But now, at the outset of
his career, it is well to notice that he was by no means unprovided with
the means of success. He was already one of the best pianists in Europe.
He had discovered a secret of musical expression more readily understood
and appreciated than that of any contemporary composer, with the
exception of Mendelssohn. He was gifted with a great charm of manner,
and an unusual power of making friends. And when it is added that he was
only once in any great stress of poverty, it will be seen that his
equipment was less incomplete than is generally imagined. After all, the
dandies have played their part in history. Claverhouse was a dandy;
Lovelace was a dandy; Sir Philip Sydney himself was censured by Milton
for being 'vain and amatorious': and if a man can be something of a fop,
and yet bear himself gallantly in the battle of arms, how much more
shall he do so in the battle of life.
At the same time, we must confess that, in his first encounter with
destiny, the hero was visited with a signal defeat. Before he had been a
week in Vienna, news came that Warsaw had risen in revolt against the
Russians; there was word of riot in the streets, of danger to the house;
and Chopin, after a few hours of irresolution, started off to follow his
friend Woyciecowski, who had gone at once to join the insurgents. On the
way his determination broke down: his presence could avail nothing; it
would only add to the disquietude of his parents; he had better wait for
further tidings, for some message or injunction which would relieve him
from taking the initiative. Without further thought he changed his
plans, and returned to Vienna, waiting there in a transport of grief and
anxiety for the letters which a man of prompter courage would have
forestalled. As the days wore on, the bulletins grew more reassuring;
for a time, at any rate, the cloud of peril rolled away from the city:
the Poles had an army of 60,000 men in the field, and, in spite of the
enormous forces of the Emperor Nicholas, were confident of success.
Still Chopin lingered on, ready to start at the lightest summons, but
not strong enough to take the first step of his own motion, until the
noise of battle had passed to the Russian frontier, and he could write
once more about his life and his surroundings.
Apparently the outlook was less encouraging than it had been in 1828.
Vienna, since the death of Schubert, was passing through a period of
musical inactivity, and the prospects of concert-giving were not very
bright. Managers who had been ready enough to welcome Chopin when he
played gratuitously, began to hang back now that he demanded payment;
and the public, after its golden age of the classics, professed itself
satisfied with the _kapellmeistermusik_ of Seyfried, and the dance-tunes
of Strauss and Lanner. During the whole six months of Chopin's stay in
the Austrian capital, he only gave one concert, and that, as we learn
from M. Karasowski, was thinly attended and poorly paid. For the
rest, his letters contain little more than the diary of a casual
visitor:--operas at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre, dinners with his friend
Dr Malfatti, a few criticisms of Thalberg, a few words of enthusiasm
for Slavik; the whole lightened, every now and again, by some amusing
story or some half-dozen lines of quaint description. His tone changes
with every varying mood: at one moment he breaks into passionate regret
that he is still absent from his home: at another he speaks of himself
as enjoying his enforced idleness, as wonderfully restored in health,
and as finding many acquaintances and much pleasant companionship. But
it is clear that, whatever his temper, he was in no way to replenish his
resources or advance his existing reputation.
By the middle of 1831 he had made up his mind to proceed to Paris. To
return home would be merely to confess himself beaten: Italy was put out
of the question by its political troubles; Berlin, with all its
opportunities, was hardly the ideal residence for a Polish artist. All
reasons pointed to the land with which he was in the closest sympathy:
the land which had given birth to his father, which had been the ally of
his nation, which had always shown its warmest hospitality to his
countrymen. Accordingly he started on July 20, travelled slowly through
Munich and Stuttgart, and finally arrived at his destination about the
end of the autumn. His two halting-places are both of some moment in the
history of his life. At Munich he gave his last public concert to a
German-speaking audience, playing his E minor Concerto and his Fantasia
on Polish Airs: at Stuttgart he heard the news that Warsaw had been
captured by the Russians, and that the hopes of the revolution were
lying under the ruin of its walls. Fortunately his parents were safe.
There was no personal anxiety to embitter his grief at the national
disaster. But, none the less, the blow sank deep, and left a scar which
lasted indelibly. With all his weakness, Chopin had an intense love for
his country, and the dirge[20] in which he mourned her downfall remains
as one of the truest and saddest utterances of despairing patriotism.
So ends a year which, on its artistic side, is little more than a line
of cleavage between the two main divisions of the story. Before it,
Chopin is a boy, studying with his masters, secure under the protection
of his home, and looking with expectant eyes upon a great world of which
he hardly knows the outskirts: after it, he is a man, holding his fate
in his own hands, living in a foreign city, surrounded with new hopes,
new occupations, and new friendships. As Warsaw in the first period, so
Paris in the second is the centre on which every aspect of the life is
focussed. Poland has played her part--she has ceased to be counted among
the nations: for the future, it is French blood that claims its kindred,
and French loyalty that offers its allegiance.
And, indeed, Chopin could have chosen no city which would give him less
feeling of transference. He found Paris full of a cordial sympathy with
everything Polish: dramas, founded on the insurrection, drawing crowds
to the theatres; cries of '_Vive les Polonais_' echoing in the streets;
ovations to General Ramorino, who had taken arms against Russia, and had
not despaired of the Republic. A few letters of introduction served to
open the doors of artistic society: Paër, Baillot, even Cherubini
offered a kindly welcome to the newcomer: Hiller and Franchomme were
soon among his fast friends: and the early days were passed in a rush of
concert and opera, in admiration of the fine Conservatoire Orchestra, or
in open-eyed wonder at the roulades of Pasta and Malibran.
A short time after his arrival, he went to call upon Kalkbrenner, in
hopes that the great teacher would consent to give him lessons.
Kalkbrenner heard him play, approved, noted some deviations from the
established method, and offered to take him as a pupil if he would
promise to serve a full apprenticeship of three years. The condition was
somewhat prohibitive, for Chopin had his own way to make, and his own
living to earn; but with characteristic docility he undertook to
consider the proposal, and wrote off at once to Elsner for advice. The
old master's answer was, on the whole, dissuasive. It was unadvisable,
he said, that Chopin should restrict himself too closely to the piano:
there were other forms of the art--quartetts, symphonies, and, above
all, operas--which might establish his name on a more lasting
foundation. Besides, a too continuous adherence to one method, however
perfect, would tend to destroy individuality of touch and substitute a
mere mechanical proficiency for the freedom of original thought. A
genius 'should be allowed to follow his own path and make his own
discoveries.' So, fortunately for Music, Chopin decided to decline the
offer; though the cordiality of his relation with Kalkbrenner is
testified by many passages of intimacy, and by the dedication of the E
minor Concerto. There can be no doubt that the proposal was made in good
faith, and that it was rejected with some hesitation. The only matters
of comment are the modesty with which Chopin suggested a new period of
studentship, and the grounds on which Elsner recommended him to dismiss
the idea.
Early in 1832 Chopin made his first appearance before a Parisian public.
The concert, organised for the benefit of the Polish refugees, was no
great financial success, but it served to bring into notice the second
concerto and some of the early mazurkas and nocturnes. One of the most
interesting features in the programme was an enormous work of
Kalkbrenner's for six pianofortes, played by the composer and Chopin in
_concertino_, together with Hiller, Osborne, Stamaty and Sowinski as
accompanists: a disposition of forces which plainly indicates that the
newcomer was already recognised as a leader by some of the best
executants in Paris. We may add that, artistically speaking, the _début_
was a veritable triumph. The audience applauded heartily, Mendelssohn
offered his warmest congratulations, even Fétis grew genial and
appreciative; and when, at a charity concert in March, Chopin succeeded
in scoring a second victory, it is little wonder that he found his
position established beyond dispute. He might well write to his friends
at home,--'_Me voilà lancé._' The society of Paris lionised him with the
same fervour as the society of Warsaw: evening after evening was
occupied with visitors or filled with invitations: pupils began to
present themselves; concert managers solicited his services; and before
long he shared with Liszt the honour of being the most fashionable
musician of the day. 'I move in the highest circles,' he writes, 'and I
don't know how I got there. But you are credited with more talent if
you have been heard at a _soirée_ of the English or Austrian Ambassador.
Among the Paris artists I enjoy general esteem and friendship; men of
reputation dedicate their compositions to me even before I have paid
them the same compliment. Pupils from the Conservatoire--even private
pupils of Moscheles, Herz and Kalkbrenner--come to me to take lessons.
Really, if I were more silly than I am, I might imagine myself a
finished artist; but I feel daily how much I have still to learn. Don't
imagine that I am making a fortune: my carriage and my white gloves eat
up most of the earnings. However, I am a revolutionary, and so don't
care for money.'[21] Clearly, we are some way from the timid,
apprehensive stranger, doubtful of his direction, uncertain of his
future, who entered Paris a year before, with his country's sorrow still
heavy upon his heart.
This fresh impulse of activity bore ample fruit, also, in composition.
During the winter of 1832 were published the first two sets of Mazurkas;
next year followed the first three Nocturnes, the first set of
Études,[22] and the Variations on Herold's _Je vends des Scapulaires_,
graceful embroideries of an exceedingly poor texture: while in 1834 came
three more Nocturnes, another set of Mazurkas, a _Grande Valse
Brilliante_ (Op. 18), and a Bolero. Besides these, Chopin arranged with
Schlesinger for the publication of some of his existing manuscripts: the
Pianoforte Trio, the Concerto in E minor, the Fantasia on Polish Airs,
and the Krakowiak. Their success was almost instantaneous. No doubt
there were a few dissentient voices: Field, the great burly Englishman,
laid aside his pipe to growl out that his new rival had '_un talent de
chambre de malade_:' Rellstab, the editor of the Berlin _Iris_,
practised a few of the vitriolic epigrams which he was afterwards going
to launch at Schumann: but beyond these there was very little doubt
expressed by any musician who read the works, and none at all by any who
heard their composer play them.