The Prince bestowed upon him the inappreciable gift of a good education, no part of which remained neglected. His elevated mind enabling him to understand the exigencies of an artist’s career, he, from the time of his protege’s entering the college to the entire completion of his studies, paid the pension through the agency of a friend, M. Antoine Korzuchowski, [FOOTNOTE: Liszt should have called this gentleman Adam Kozuchowski.] who always maintained cordial relations and a constant friendship with Chopin.
Liszt’s informant was no doubt Chopin’s Paris friend Albert Grzymala, [FOOTNOTE: M. Karasowski calls this Grzymala erroneously Francis. More information about this gentleman will be given in a subsequent chapter.] who seems to have had no connection with the Chopin family in Poland. Karasowski thinks that the only foundation of the story is a letter and present from Prince Radziwill–acknowledgments of the dedication to him of the Trio, Op. 8–which Adam Kozuchowski brought to Chopin in 1833. [FOOTNOTE: M. Karasowski, Fryderyk Chopin, vol. i., p. 65.]
Frederick was much liked by his school-fellows, which, as his manners and disposition were of a nature thoroughly appreciated by boys, is not at all to be wondered at. One of the most striking features in the character of young Chopin was his sprightliness, a sparkling effervescence that manifested itself by all sorts of fun and mischief. He was never weary of playing pranks on his sisters, his comrades, and even on older people, and indulged to the utmost his fondness for caricaturing by pictorial and personal imitations. In the course of a lecture the worthy rector of the Lyceum discovered the scapegrace making free with the face and figure of no less a person than his own rectorial self. Nevertheless the irreverent pupil got off easily, for the master, with as much magnanimity as wisdom, abstained from punishing the culprit, and, in a subscript which he added to the caricature, even praised the execution of it. A German Protestant pastor at Warsaw, who made always sad havoc of the Polish language, in which he had every Sunday to preach one of his sermons, was the prototype of one of the imitations with which Frederick frequently amused his friends. Our hero’s talent for changing the expression of his face, of which George Sand, Liszt, Balzac, Hiller, Moscheles, and other personal acquaintances, speak with admiration, seems already at this time to have been extraordinary. Of the theatricals which the young folks were wont to get up at the paternal house, especially on the name-days of their parents and friends, Frederick was the soul and mainstay. With a good delivery he combined a presence of mind that enabled him to be always ready with an improvisation when another player forgot his part. A clever Polish actor, Albert Piasecki, who was stage-manager on these occasions, gave it as his opinion that the lad was born to be a great actor. In after years two distinguished members of the profession in France, M. Bocage and Mdme. Dorval, expressed similar opinions. For their father’s name-day in 1824, Frederick and his sister Emilia wrote conjointly a one-act comedy in verse, entitled THE MISTAKE; OR, THE PRETENDED ROGUE, which was acted by a juvenile company. According to Karasowski, the play showed that the authors had a not inconsiderable command of language, but in other respects could not be called a very brilliant achievement. Seeing that fine comedies are not often written at the ages of fifteen and eleven, nobody will be in the least surprised at the result.
These domestic amusements naturally lead us to inquire who were the visitors that frequented the house. Among them there was Dr. Samuel Bogumil Linde, rector of the Lyceum and first librarian of the National Library, a distinguished philologist, who, assisted by the best Slavonic scholars, wrote a valuable and voluminous “Dictionary of the Polish Language,” and published many other works on the Slavonic languages. After this oldest of Nicholas Chopin’s friends I shall mention Waclaw Alexander Maciejowski, who, like Linde, received his university education in Germany, taught then for a short time at the Lyceum, and became in 1819 a professor at the University of Warsaw. His contributions to various branches of Slavonic history (law, literature, &c.) are very numerous. However, one of the most widely known of those who were occasionally seen at Chopin’s home was Casimir Brodzinski, the poet, critic, and champion of romanticism, a prominent figure in Polish literary history, who lived in Warsaw from about 1815 to 1822, in which year he went as professor of literature to the University of Cracow. Nicholas Chopin’s pupil, Count Frederick Skarbek, must not be forgotten; he had now become a man of note, being professor of political economy at the university, and author of several books that treat of that science. Besides Elsner and Zywny, who have already been noticed at some length, a third musician has to be numbered among friends of the Chopin family–namely, Joseph Javurek, the esteemed composer and professor at the Conservatorium; further, I must yet make mention of Anton Barcinski, professor at the Polytechnic School, teacher at Nicholas Chopin’s institution, and by-and-by his son-in-law; Dr. Jarocki, the zoologist; Julius Kolberg, the engineer; and Brodowski, the painter. These and others, although to us only names, or little more, are nevertheless not without their significance. We may liken them to the supernumeraries on the stage, who, dumb as they are, help to set off and show the position of the principal figure or figures.
The love of literature which we have noticed in the young Chopins, more particularly in the sisters, implanted by an excellent education and fostered by the taste, habits, and encouragement of their father, cannot but have been greatly influenced and strengthened by the characters and conversation of such visitors. Arid let it not be overlooked that this was the time of Poland’s intellectual renascence–a time when the influence of man over man is greater than at other times, he being, as it were, charged with a kind of vivifying electricity. The misfortunes that had passed over Poland had purified and fortified the nation–breathed into it a new and healthier life. The change which the country underwent from the middle of the eighteenth to the earlier part of the nineteenth century was indeed immense. Then Poland, to use Carlyle’s drastic phraseology, had ripened into a condition of “beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap”; now, with an improved agriculture, reviving commerce, and rising industry, it was more prosperous than it had been for centuries. As regards intellectual matters, the comparison with the past was even more favourable to the present. The government that took the helm in 1815 followed the direction taken by its predecessors, and schools and universities flourished; but a most hopeful sign was this, that whilst the epoch of Stanislas Augustus was, as Mickiewicz remarked (in Les Slaves), little Slavonic and not even national, now the national spirit pervaded the whole intellectual atmosphere, and incited workers in all branches of science and art to unprecedented efforts. To confine ourselves to one department, we find that the study of the history and literature of Poland had received a vigorous impulse, folk-songs were zealously collected, and a new school of poetry, romanticism, rose victoriously over the fading splendour of an effete classicism. The literature of the time of Stanislas was a court and salon literature, and under the influence of France and ancient Rome. The literature that began to bud about 1815, and whose germs are to be sought for in the preceding revolutionary time, was more of a people’s literature, and under the influence of Germany, England, and Russia. The one was a hot-house plant, the other a garden flower, or even a wild flower. The classics swore by the precepts of Horace and Boileau, and held that among the works of Shakespeare there was not one veritable tragedy. The romanticists, on the other hand, showed by their criticisms and works that their sympathies were with Schiller, Goethe, Burger, Byron, Shukovski, &c. Wilna was the chief centre from which this movement issued, and Brodziriski one of the foremost defenders of the new principles and the precursor of Mickiewicz, the appearance of whose ballads, romances, “Dziady” and “Grazyna” (1822), decided the war in favour of romanticism. The names of Anton Malczewski, Bogdan Zaleski, Severyn Goszczynski, and others, ought to be cited along with that of the more illustrious Mickiewicz, but I will not weary the reader either with a long disquisition or with a dry enumeration. I have said above that Polish poetry had become more of a people’s poetry. This, however, must not be understood in the sense of democratic poetry.
The Polish poets [says C. Courriere, to whose “Histoire de la litterature chez les Slaves” I am much indebted] ransacked with avidity the past of their country, which appeared to them so much the more brilliant because it presented a unique spectacle in the history of nations. Instead of breaking with the historic traditions they respected them, and gave them a new lustre, a new life, by representing them under a more beautiful, more animated, and more striking form. In short, if Polish romanticism was an evolution of poetry in the national sense, it did not depart from the tendencies of its elder sister, for it saw in the past only the nobility; it was and remained, except in a few instances, aristocratic.
Now let us keep in mind that this contest of classicism and romanticism, this turning away from a dead formalism to living ideals, was taking place at that period of Frederick Chopin’s life when the human mind is most open to new impressions, and most disposed to entertain bold and noble ideas. And, further, let us not undervalue the circumstance that he must have come in close contact with one of the chief actors in this unbloody revolution.
Frederick spent his first school holidays at Szafarnia, in Mazovia, the property of the Dziewanowski family. In a letter written on August 19, 1824, he gives his friend and school-fellow William Kolberg, some account of his doings there–of his strolls and runs in the garden, his walks and drives to the forest, and above all of his horsemanship. He tells his dear Willie that he manages to keep his seat, but would not like to be asked how. Indeed, he confesses that, his equestrian accomplishments amount to no more than to letting the horse go slowly where it lists, and sitting on it, like a monkey, with fear. If he had not yet met with an accident, it was because the horse had so far not felt any inclination to throw him off. In connection with his drives–in britzka and in coach–he does not forget to mention that he is always honoured with a back-seat. Still, life at Szafarnia was not unmixed happiness, although our hero bore the ills with admirable stoicism:–
Very often [he writes] the flies sit on my prominent nose– this, however, is of no consequence, it is the habit of these little animals. The mosquitoes bite me–this too, however, is of no consequence, for they don’t bite me in the nose.
The reader sees from this specimen of epistolary writing that Frederick is still a boy, and if I had given the letter in extenso, the boyishness would have been even more apparent, in the loose and careless style as well as in the frolicsome matter.
His letters to his people at home took on this occasion the form of a manuscript newspaper, called, in imitation of the “Kuryer Warszawski” (“Warsaw Courier”), “Kuryer Szafarski” (“Szafarnia Courier”), which the editor, in imitation of the then obtaining press regulation, did not send off until it had been seen and approved of by the censor, Miss Dziewanowska. One of the numbers of the paper contains among other news the report of a musical gathering of “some persons and demi-persons” at which, on July 15, 1824, Mr. Pichon (anagram of Chopin) played a Concerto of Kalkbrenner’s and a little song, the latter being received by the youthful audience with more applause than the former.
Two anecdotes that relate to this stay at Szafarnia further exemplify what has already been said of Frederick’s love of fun and mischief. Having on one of his visits to the village of Oberow met some Jews who had come to buy grain, he invited them to his room, and there entertained them with music, playing to them “Majufes.”
[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski describes “Majufes” as a kind of Jewish wedding march. Ph. Lobenstein says that it means “the beautiful, the pleasing one.” With this word opened a Hebrew song which dates from the time of the sojourn of the Jews in Spain, and which the orthodox Polish Jews sing on Saturdays after dinner, and whose often-heard melody the Poles imitate as a parody of Jewish singing.]
His guests were delighted–they began to dance, told him that he played like a born Jew, and urged him to come to the next Jewish wedding and play to them there. The other anecdote would be a very ugly story were it not for the redeeming conclusion. Again we meet with one of the numerous, but by no means well-loved, class of Polish citizens. Frederick, having heard that a certain Jew had bought grain from Mr. Romecki, the proprietor of Oberow, sent this gentleman a letter purporting to be written by the grain-dealer in question, in which he informed him that after reconsidering the matter he would rather not take the grain. The imitation of the jargon in use among the Polish Jews was so good, and the spelling and writing so bad, that Mr. Romecki was taken in. Indeed, he flew at once into such a passion that he sent for the Jew with the intention of administering to him a sound thrashing. Only Frederick’s timely confession saved the poor fellow from his undeserved punishment. But enough of Szafarnia, where the young scapegrace paid so long a holiday visit (from his letter to William Kolberg we learn that he would not see his friend for four weeks more), and where, judging from what has already been told, and also from a remark in the same letter, he must have “enjoyed himself pretty well.” And now we will return to Warsaw, to Nicholas Chopin’s boarding-school.
To take away any bad impression that may be left by the last anecdote, I shall tell another of a more pleasing character, which, indeed, has had the honour of being made the subject of a picture. It was often told, says Karasowski, by Casimir Wodzinski, a boarder of Nicholas Chopin’s. One day when the latter was out, Barcinski, the assistant master, could not manage the noisy boys. Seeing this, Frederick, who just then happened to come into the room, said to them that he would improvise a pretty story if they would sit down and be quiet. This quickly restored silence. He thereupon had the lights extinguished, took his seat at the piano, and began as follows:–
Robbers set out to plunder a house. They come nearer and nearer. Then they halt, and put up the ladders they have brought with them. But just when they are about to enter through the windows, they hear a noise within. This gives them a fright. They run away to the woods. There, amidst the stillness and darkness of the night, they lie down and before long fall fast asleep.
When Frederick had got to this part of the story he began to play softer and softer, and ever softer, till his auditors, like the robbers, were fast asleep. Noticing this he stole out of the room, called in the other inmates of the house, who came carrying lights with them, and then with a tremendous, crashing chord disturbed the sweet slumbers of the evil-doers.
Here we have an instance of “la richesse de son improvisation,” by which, as Fontana tells us, Chopin, from his earliest youth, astonished all who had the good fortune to hear him. Those who think that there is no salvation outside the pale of absolute music, will no doubt be horror-stricken at the heretical tendency manifested on this occasion by an otherwise so promising musician. Nay, even the less orthodox, those who do not altogether deny the admissibility of programme-music if it conforms to certain conditions and keeps within certain limits, will shake their heads sadly. The duty of an enthusiastic biographer, it would seem, is unmistakable; he ought to justify, or, at least, excuse his hero–if nothing else availed, plead his youth and inexperience. My leaving the poor suspected heretic in the lurch under these circumstances will draw upon me the reproach of remissness; but, as I have what I consider more important business on hand, I must not be deterred from proceeding to it by the fear of censure.
The year 1825 was, in many respects, a memorable one in the life of Chopin. On May 27 and June 10 Joseph Javurek, whom I mentioned a few pages back among the friends of the Chopin family, gave two concerts for charitable purposes in the large hall of the Conservatorium. At one of these Frederick appeared again in public. A Warsaw correspondent of the “Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung” says in the course of one of his letters:–
The Academist Chopin performed the first Allegro of Moscheles’ Pianoforte Concerto in F [G ?] minor, and an improvisation on the aeolopantaleon. This instrument, invented by the cabinet-maker Dlugosz, of this town, combines the aeolomelodicon [FOOTNOTE: An instrument of the organ species, invented by Professor Hoffmann, and constructed by the mechanician Brunner, of Warsaw.] with the piano- forte….Young Chopin distinguished himself in his improvisation by wealth of musical ideas, and under his hands this instrument, of which he is a thorough master, made a great impression.
Unfortunately we learn nothing of Chopin’s rendering of the movement from Moscheles’ Concerto. Still, this meagre notice, written by a contemporary–an ear-witness, who wrote down his impressions soon after the performance–is very precious, indeed more precious than the most complete and elaborate criticism written fifty years after the occurrence would be. I cannot help thinking that Karasowski somewhat exaggerates when he says that Chopin’s pianoforte playing transported the audience into a state of enthusiasm, and that no concert had a brilliant success unless he took part in it. The biographer seems either to trust too much to the fancy-coloured recollections of his informants, or to allow himself to be carried away by his zeal for the exaltation of his hero. At any rate, the tenor of the above-quoted notice, laudatory as it is, and the absence of Chopin’s name from other Warsaw letters, do not remove the doubts which such eulogistic superlatives raise in the mind of an unbiassed inquirer. But that Chopin, as a pianist and as a musician generally, had attained a proficiency far beyond his years becomes evident if we examine his compositions of that time, to which I shall presently advert. And that he had risen into notoriety and saw his talents appreciated cannot be doubted for a moment after what has been said. Were further proof needed, we should find it in the fact that he was selected to display the excellences of the aeolomelodicon when the Emperor Alexander I, during his sojourn in Warsaw in 1825, [FOOTNOTE: The Emperor Alexander opened the Diet at Warsaw on May 13, 1825, and closed it on June 13.] expressed the wish to hear this instrument. Chopin’s performance is said to have pleased the august auditor, who, at all events, rewarded the young musician with a diamond ring.
A greater event than either the concert or the performance before the Emperor, in fact, THE event of the year 1825, was the publication of Chopin’s Opus 1. Only he who has experienced the delicious sensation of seeing himself for the first time in print can realise what our young author felt on this occasion. Before we examine this work, we will give a passing glance at some less important early compositions of the maestro which were published posthumously.
There is first of all a Polonaise in G sharp minor, said to be of the year 1822, [FOOTNOTE: See No. 15 of the Posthumous Works in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition.] but which, on account of the savoir-faire and invention exhibited in it, I hold to be of a considerably later time. Chopin’s individuality, it is true, is here still in a rudimentary state, chiefly manifested in the light-winged figuration; the thoughts and the expression, however, are natural and even graceful, bearing thus the divine impress. The echoes of Weber should be noted. Of two mazurkas, in G and B flat major, of the year 1825, the first is, especially in its last part, rather commonplace; the second is more interesting, because more suggestive of better things, which the first is only to an inconsiderable extent. In No. 2 we meet already with harmonic piquancies which charmed musicians and lovers of music so much in the later mazurkas. Critics and students will not overlook the octaves between, treble and bass in the second bar of part two in No. 1. A. Polonaise in B flat minor, superscribed “Farewell to William Kolberg,” of the year 1826, has not less naturalness and grace than the Polonaise of 1822, but in addition to these qualities, it has also at least one thought (part 1) which contains something of the sweet ring of Chopinian melancholy. The trio of the Polonaise is headed by the words: “Au revoir! after an aria from ‘Gazza ladra’.” Two foot-notes accompany this composition in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition (No. 16 of the Posthumous Works). The first says that the Polonaise was composed “at Chopin’s departure from [should be ‘for’] Reinerz”; and the second, in connection with the trio, that “some days before Chopin’s departure the two friends had been present at a performance of Rossini’s opera.” There is one other early posthumously-published work of Chopin’s, whose status, however, differs from the above-mentioned ones in this, that the composer seems to have intended to publish it. The composition in question is the Variations sur un air national allemand.
Szulc says that Oskar Kolberg related that he had still in his possession these Variations on the theme of Der Schweizerbub, which Chopin composed between his twelfth and seventeenth years at the house of General Sowinski’s wife in the course of “a few quarter-hours.” The Variations sur un air national allemand were published after the composer’s death along with his Sonata, Op. 4, by Haslinger, of Vienna, in 1851. They are, no doubt, the identical composition of which Chopin in a letter from Vienna (December 1, 1830) writes: “Haslinger received me very kindly, but nevertheless would publish neither the Sonata nor the Second Variations.” The First Variations were those on La ci darem, Op. 2, the first of his compositions that was published in Germany. Without inquiring too curiously into the exact time of its production and into the exact meaning of “a few quarter-hours,” also leaving it an open question whether the composer did or did not revise his first conception of the Variations before sending them to Vienna, I shall regard this unnumbered work–which, by the way, in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition is dated 1824–on account of its greater simplicity and inferior interest, as an earlier composition than the Premier Rondeau (C minor), Op. 1, dedicated to Mdme. de Linde (the wife of his father’s friend and colleague, the rector Dr. Linde), a lady with whom Frederick often played duets. What strikes one at once in both of them is the almost total absence of awkwardness and the presence of a rarely-disturbed ease. They have a natural air which is alike free from affected profundity and insipid childishness. And the hand that wrote them betrays so little inexperience in the treatment of the instrument that they can hold their ground without difficulty and honourably among the better class of light drawing-room pieces. Of course, there are weak points: the introduction to the Variations with those interminable sequences of dominant and tonic chords accompanying a stereotyped run, and the want of cohesiveness in the Rondo, the different subjects of which are too loosely strung together, may be instanced. But, although these two compositions leave behind them a pleasurable impression, they can lay only a small claim to originality. Still, there are slight indications of it in the tempo di valse, the concluding portion of the Variations, and more distinct ones in the Rondo, in which it is possible to discover the embryos of forms–chromatic and serpentining progressions, &c.–which subequently develop most exuberantly. But if on the one hand we must admit that the composer’s individuality is as yet weak, on the other hand we cannot accuse him of being the imitator of any one master–such a dominant influence is not perceptible.
[FOOTNOTE: Schumann, who in 1831 became acquainted with Chopin’s Op. 2, and conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the composer, must have made inquiries after his Op. 1, and succeeded in getting it. For on January 1832, he wrote to Frederick Wieck: “Chopin’s first work (I believe firmly that it is his tenth) is in my hands: a lady would say that it was very pretty, very piquant, almost Moschelesque. But I believe you will make Clara [Wieck’s daughter, afterwards Mdme. Schumann] study it; for there is plenty of Geist in it and few difficulties. But I humbly venture to assert that there are between this composition and Op. 2 two years and twenty works”]
All this, however, is changed in another composition, the Rondeau a la Mazur, Op. 5, dedicated to the Comtesse Alexandrine de Moriolles (a daughter of the Comte de Moriolles mentioned in Chapter II), which, like the Rondo, Op. 1, was first published in Warsaw, and made its appearance in Germany some years later. I do not know the exact time of its composition, but I presume it was a year or two after that of the previously mentioned works. Schumann, who reviewed it in 1836, thought it had perhaps been written in the eighteenth year of the composer, but he found in it, some confused passages excepted, no indications of the author’s youth. In this Rondeau a la Mazur the individuality of Chopin and with it his nationality begin to reveal themselves unmistakably. Who could fail to recognise him in the peculiar sweet and persuasive flows of sound, and the serpent-like winding of the melodic outline, the wide-spread chords, the chromatic progressions, the dissolving of the harmonies and the linking of their constituent parts! And, as I have said elsewhere in speaking of this work: “The harmonies are often novel, and the matter is more homogeneous and better welded into oneness.”
Chopin’s pianoforte lessons, as has already been stated, came to an end when he was twelve years old, and thenceforth he was left to his own resources.
The school of that time [remarks Fontana] could no longer suffice him, he aimed higher, and felt himself impelled towards an ideal which, at first vague, before long grew into greater distinctness. It was then that, in trying his strength, he acquired that touch and style, so different from those of his predecessors, and that he succeeded in creating at last that execution which since then has been the admiration of the artistic world.
The first stages of the development of his peculiar style may be traced in the compositions we have just now discussed. In the variations and first Rondo which Chopin wrote at or before the age of fifteen, the treatment of the instrument not only proves that he was already as much in his element on the pianoforte as a fish in the water, but also shows that an as yet vaguely- perceived ideal began to beckon him onward. Karasowski, informed by witnesses of the boy’s studies in pianoforte playing, relates that Frederick, being struck with the fine effect of a chord in extended harmony, and unable, on account of the smallness of his hands, to strike the notes simultaneously, set about thinking how this physical obstacle could be overcome. The result of his cogitations was the invention of a contrivance which he put between his fingers and kept there even during the night, by this means endeavouring to increase the extensibility and flexibility of his hands. Who, in reading of this incident in Chopin’s life, is not reminded of Schumann and his attempt to strengthen his fingers, an attempt that ended so fatally for his prospects as a virtuoso! And the question, an idle one I admit, suggests itself: Had Chopin been less fortunate than he was, and lost, like Schumann, the command of one of his hands before he had formed his pianoforte style, would he, as a composer, have risen to a higher position than we know him to have attained, or would he have achieved less than he actually did? From the place and wording of Karasowski’s account it would appear that this experiment of Chopin’s took place at or near the age of ten. Of course it does not matter much whether we know or do not know the year or day of the adoption of the practice, what is really interesting is the fact itself. I may, however, remark that Chopin’s love of wide-spread chords and skips, if marked at all, is not strongly marked in the Variations on the German air and the first Rondo. Let the curious examine with regard to this matter the Tempo di Valse of the former work, and bars 38-43 of the Piu lento of the latter. In the Rondeau a la Mazur, the next work in chronological order, this peculiarity begins to show itself distinctly, and it continues to grow in the works that follow. It is not my intention to weaiy the reader with microscopical criticism, but I thought the first manifestations of Chopin’s individuality ought not to be passed over in silence. As to his style, it will be more fully discussed in a subsequent chapter, where also the seeds from which it sprang will be pointed out.
CHAPTER IV.
FREDERICK WORKS TOO HARD.–PASSES PART OF HIS HOLIDAYS (1826) IN REINERZ.–STAYS ALSO AT STRZYZEWO, AND PAYS A VISIT TO PRINCE RADZIWILL.–HE TERMINATES HIS STUDIES AT THE LYCEUM (1827). ADOPTION OF MUSIC AS HIS PROFESSION.–EXCURSIONS.–FOLK-MUSIC AND THE POLISH PEASANTRY.–SOME MORE COMPOSITIONS.–PROJECTED TRAVELS FOR HIS IMPROVEMENT.–HIS OUTWARD APPEARANCE AND STATE OF HEALTH.
THE art which had attracted the child took every day a stronger hold of the youth. Frederick was not always in that sportive humour in which we have seen him repeatedly. At times he would wander about silent and solitary, wrapped in his musical meditations. He would sit up late, busy with his beloved music, and often, after lying down, rise from his bed in the middle of the night in order, to strike a few chords or try a short phrase- -to the horror of the servants, whose first thought was of ghosts, the second that their dear young master was not quite right in his mind. Indeed, what with his school-work and his musical studies, our young friend exerted himself more than was good for him. When, therefore, in the holidays of 1826 his youngest sister, Emilia, was ordered by the physicians to go to Reinerz, a watering-place in Prussian Silesia, the parents thought it advisable that the too diligent Frederick should accompany her, and drink whey for the benefit of his health. The travelling party consisted of the mother, two sisters, and himself. A letter which he wrote on August 28, 1826, to his friend William Kolberg, furnishes some information about his doings there. It contains, as letters from watering-places usually do, criticisms of the society and accounts of promenadings, excursions, regular meals, and early hours in going to bed and in rising. As the greater part of the contents can be of no interest to us, I shall confine myself to picking up what seems to me worth preserving. He had been drinking whey and the waters for a fortnight and found he was getting somewhat stouter and at the same time lazy. People said he began to look better. He enjoyed the sight of the valleys from the hills which surround Reinerz, but the climbing fatigued him, and he had sometimes to drag himself down on all-fours. One mountain, the rocky Heuscheuer, he and other delicate persons were forbidden to ascend, as the doctor was afraid that the sharp air at the top would do his patients harm. Of course, Frederick tried to make fun of everything and everyone–for instance, of the wretched wind-band, which consisted of about a dozen “caricatures,” among whom a lean bassoon-player with a snuffy hook-nose was the most notable. To the manners of the country, which in some respects seem to have displeased him, he got gradually accustomed.
At first I was astonished that in Silesia the women work generally more than the men, but as I am doing nothing myself just now I have no difficulty in falling in with this arrangement.
During his stay at Reinerz he gave also a concert on behalf of two orphans who had come with their sick mother to this watering- place, and at her death were left so poor as to be unable even to pay the funeral expenses and to return home with the servant who took care of them.
From Reinerz Frederick went to Strzyzewo, the property of Madame Wiesiolowska, his godmother, and sister of his godfather, Count Frederick Skarbek. While he was spending here the rest of his holidays, he took advantage of an invitation he had received from Prince Radziwill (governor of the grand duchy of Posen, and, through his wife, a daughter of Prince Ferdinand, related to the royal family of Prussia) to visit him at his country-seat Antonin, which was not very far from Strzyzewo. The Prince, who had many relations in Poland, and paid frequent visits to that country, must on these occasions have heard of and met with the musical prodigy that was the pet of the aristocracy. Moreover, it is on record that he was present at the concert at Warsaw in 1825 at which Frederick played. We have already considered and disposed of the question whether the Prince, as has been averred by Liszt, paid for young Chopin’s education. As a dilettante Prince Radziwill occupied a no less exalted position in art and science than as a citizen and functionary in the body politic. To confine ourselves to music, he was not only a good singer and violoncellist, but also a composer; and in composition he did not confine himself to songs, duets, part-songs, and the like, but undertook the ambitious and arduous task of writing music to the first part of Goethe’s Faust. By desire of the Court the Berlin Singakademie used to bring this work to a hearing once every year, and they gave a performance of it even as late as 1879. An enthusiastic critic once pronounced it to be among modern works one of those that evince most genius. The vox populi seems to have repealed this judgment, or rather never to have taken cognisance of the case, for outside Berlin the work has not often been heard. Dr. Langhans wrote to me after the Berlin performance in 1879:–
I heard yesterday Radziwill’s Faust for the first time, and, I may add, with much satisfaction; for the old-fashioned things to be found in it (for instance, the utilisation of Mozart’s C minor Quartet fugue as overture, the strictly polyphonous treatment of the choruses, &c.) are abundantly compensated for by numerous traits of genius, and by the thorough knowledge and the earnest intention with which the work is conceived and executed. He dares incredible things in the way of combining speech and song. That this combination is an inartistic one, on that point we are no doubt at one, but what he has effected by this means is nevertheless in the highest degree remarkable….
By-and-by Chopin will pay the Prince a longer visit, and then we shall learn what he thought of Faust, and how he enjoyed himself at this nobleman’s house.
Chopin’s studies at the Lyceum terminated in the year 1827. Through his final examination, however, he did not pass so brilliantly as through his previous ones; this time he carried off no prize. The cause of this falling-off is not far to seek; indeed, has already been hinted at. Frederick’s inclination and his successes as a pianist and composer, and the persuasions of Elsner and other musical friends, could not but lessen and at last altogether dispel any doubts and misgivings the parents may at first have harboured. And whilst in consequence of this change of attitude they became less exacting with their son in the matter of school-work, the latter, feeling the slackening of the reins, would more and more follow his natural bent. The final examination was to him, no doubt, a kind of manumission which freed him from the last remnant of an oppressive bondage. Henceforth, then, Chopin could, unhindered by disagreeable tasks or other obstacles, devote his whole time and strength to the cultivation of his chosen art. First, however, he spent now, as in the preceding year, some weeks with his friends in Strzyzewo, and afterwards travelled to Danzig, where he visited Superintendent von Linde, a brother of the rector of the Warsaw Lyceum.
Chopin was fond of listening to the singing and fiddling of the country people; and everyone acquainted with the national music of Poland as well as with the composer’s works knows that he is indebted to it for some of the most piquant rhythmic, melodic, and even harmonic peculiarities of his style. These longer stays in the country would offer him better opportunities for the enjoyment and study of this land of music than the short excursions which he occasionally made with his father into the neighbourhood of Warsaw. His wonder always was who could have composed the quaint and beautiful strains of those mazurkas, polonaises, and krakowiaks, and who had taught these simple men and women to play and sing so truly in tune. The conditions then existing in Poland were very favourable to the study of folk-lore of any kind. Art-music had not yet corrupted folk-music; indeed, it could hardly be said that civilisation had affected the lower strata of society at all. Notwithstanding the emancipation of the peasants in 1807, and the confirmation of this law in 1815–a law which seems to have remained for a long time and in a great measure a dead letter–the writer of an anonymous book, published at Boston in 1834, found that the freedom of the wretched serfs in Russian Poland was much the same as that of their cattle, they being brought up with as little of human cultivation; nay, that the Polish peasant, poor in every part of the country, was of all the living creatures he had met with in this world or seen described in books, the most wretched. From another publication we learn that the improvements in public instruction, however much it may have benefited the upper classes, did not affect the lowest ones: the parish schools were insufficient, and the village schools not numerous enough. But the peasants, although steeped in superstition and ignorance, and too much addicted to brandy-drinking with its consequences–quarrelsomeness and revengefulness–had not altogether lost the happier features of their original character–hospitality, patriotism, good- naturedness, and, above all, cheerfulness and love of song and dance. It has been said that a simple Slavonic peasant can be enticed by his national songs from one end of the world to the other. The delight which the Slavonic nations take in dancing seems to be equally great. No other nation, it has been asserted, can compare with them in ardent devotion to this amusement. Moreover, it is noteworthy that song and dance were in Poland–as they were of course originally everywhere–intimately united. Heine gives a pretty description of the character of the Polish peasant:–
It cannot be denied [he writes] that the Polish peasant has often more head and heart than the German peasant in some districts. Not infrequently did I find in the meanest Pole that original wit (not Gemuthswitz, humour) which on every occasion bubbles forth with wonderful iridescence, and that dreamy sentimental trait, that brilliant flashing of an Ossianic feeling for nature whose sudden outbreaks on passionate occasions are as involuntary as the rising of the blood into the face.
The student of human nature and its reflex in art will not call these remarks a digression; at least, not one deserving of censure.
We may suppose that Chopin, after his return to Warsaw and during the following winter, and the spring and summer of 1828, continued his studies with undiminished and, had this been possible, with redoubled ardour. Some of his compositions that came into existence at this time were published after his death by his friend Julius Fontana, who was a daily visitor at his parents’ house. We have a Polonaise (D minor) and a Nocturne (E minor) of 1827, and another Polonaise (B flat) and the Rondo for two pianos of 1828. The Sonata, Op. 4, and La ci darem la mano, varie for pianoforte, with orchestral accompaniments, belong also to this time. The Trio (Op. 8), although not finished till 1829, was begun and considerably advanced in 1828. Several of the above compositions are referred to in a letter written by him on September 9, 1828, to one of his most intimate friends, Titus Woyciechowski. The Rondo in C had originally a different form and was recast by him for two pianos at Strzyzewo, where he passed the whole summer of 1828. He tried it with Ernemann, a musician living in Warsaw, at the warehouse of the pianoforte-manufacturer Buchholtz, and was pretty well pleased with his work.
We intend to play it some day at the Ressource. As to my new compositions, I have nothing to show except the as yet unfinished Trio (G minor), which I began after your departure. The first Allegro I have already tried with accompaniment. It appears to me that this trio will have the same fate as my sonata and the variations. Both works are now in Vienna; the first I have, as a pupil of Elsner’s, dedicated to him, and on the second I have placed (perhaps too boldly) your name. I followed in this the impulse of my heart and you will not take it unkindly.
The opportunities which Warsaw offered being considered insufficient for the completion of his artistic education, ways and means were discussed as to how his wants could be best provided for. The upshot of the discussions was the project of excursions to Berlin and Vienna. As, however, this plan was not realised till the autumn of 1828, and no noteworthy incidents or interesting particulars concerning the intervening period of his life have become known, I shall utilise this break in the narrative by trying my hand at a slight sketch of that terra incognita, the history of music in Poland, more particularly the history of the musical life in Warsaw, shortly before and in Chopin’s time. I am induced to undertake this task by the consideration that a knowledge of the means of culture within the reach of Chopin during his residence in the Polish capital is indispensable if we wish to form a clear and complete idea of the artist’s development, and that such a knowledge will at the same time help us to understand better the contents of some of the subsequent portions of this work. Before, however, I begin a new chapter and with it the above-mentioned sketch, I should like to advert to a few other matters.
The reader may perhaps already have asked the question–What was Chopin like in his outward appearance? As I have seen a daguerreotype from a picture painted when he was seventeen, I can give some sort of answer to this question. Chopin’s face was clearly and finely cut, especially the nose with its wide nostrils; the forehead was high, the eyebrows delicate, the lips thin, and the lower one somewhat protruding. For those who know A. Bovy’s medallion I may add that the early portrait is very like it; only, in the latter, the line formed by the lower jawbone that runs from the chin towards the ear is more rounded, and the whole has a more youthful appearance. As to the expression, it is not only meditative but even melancholy. This last point leads me naturally to another question. The delicate build of Chopin’s body, his early death preceded by many years of ill-health, and the character of his music, have led people into the belief that from childhood he was always sickly in body, and for the most part also melancholy in disposition. But as the poverty and melancholy, so also disappears on closer investigation the sickliness of the child and youth. To jump, however, from this to the other extreme, and assert that he enjoyed vigorous health, would be as great a mistake. Karasowski, in his eagerness to controvert Liszt, although not going quite this length, nevertheless overshoots the mark. Besides it is a misrepresentation of Liszt not to say that the passage excerpted from his book, and condemned as not being in accordance with the facts of the case, is a quotation from G. Sand’s novel Lucrezia Floriani (of which more will be said by-and-by), in which the authoress is supposed, although this was denied by her, to have portrayed Chopin. Liszt is a poet, not a chronicler; he must be read as such, and not be taken au pied de la lettre. However, even Karasowski, in whom one notices a perhaps unconscious anxiety to keep out of sight anything which might throw doubt on the health and strength of his hero, is obliged to admit that Chopin was “delicate,” although he hastens to add, “but nevertheless healthy and pretty strong.” It seems to me that Karasowski makes too much of the statement of a friend of Chopin’s–namely, that the latter was, up to manhood, only once ill, and then with nothing worse than a cold. Indeed, in Karasowski’s narrative there are not wanting indications that the health of Chopin cannot have been very vigorous; nor his strength have amounted to much; for in one place we read that the youth was no friend of long excursions on foot, and preferred to lie down and dream under beautiful trees; in another place, that his parents sent him to Reinerz and some years afterwards to Vienna, because they thought his studies had affected his health, and that rest and change of air and scene would restore his strength. Further, we are told that his mother and sisters never tired of recommending him to wrap up carefully in cold and wet weather, and that, like a good son and brother, he followed their advice. Lastly, he objected to smoking. Some of the items of this evidence are very trivial, but taken collectively they have considerable force. Of greater significance are the following additional items. Chopin’s sister Emilia was carried off at the age of fourteen by pulmonary disease, and his father, as a physician informed me, died of a heart and chest complaint. Stephen Heller, who saw Chopin in 1830 in Warsaw, told me that the latter was then in delicate health, thin and with sunken cheeks, and that the people of Warsaw said that he could not live long, but would, like so many geniuses, die young. The real state of the matter seems to me to have been this. Although Chopin in his youth was at no time troubled with any serious illness, he enjoyed but fragile health, and if his frame did not alreadv contain the seeds of the disease to which he later fell a prey, it was a favourable soil for their reception. How easily was an organisation so delicately framed over-excited and disarranged! Indeed, being vivacious, active, and hard-working, as he was, he lived on his capital. The fire of youth overcame much, not, however, without a dangerous waste of strength, the lamentable results of which we shall see before we have gone much farther. This statement of the case we find, I think, confirmed by Chopin’s correspondence–the letter written at Reinerz is in this respect noteworthy.
CHAPTER V.
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS IN POLAND BEFORE AND IN CHOPIN’S TIME.
THE golden age of Polish music, which coincides with that of Polish literature, is the sixteenth century, the century of the Sigismonds. The most remarkable musician of that time, and probably the greatest that Poland produced previous to the present century, was Nicolas Gomolka, who studied music in Italy, perhaps under Palestrina, in whose style he wrote. Born in or about the beginning of the second half of the sixteenth century, he died on March 5, 1609. During the reigns of the kings of the house of Saxony (1697-1763) instrumental music is said to have made much progress. Be this as it may, there was no lack of opportunities to study good examples. Augustus the Strong (I. of Saxony and II of Poland) established a special Polish band, called, in contradistinction to the Grosse Kammermusik (Great Chamber-band) in Dresden, Kleine Kammermusik (Little Chamber- band), whose business it was to be in attendance when his majesty went to Poland. These visits took place usually once a year, and lasted from, August to December, but sometimes were more frequent, and shorter or longer, just as occasion might call for. Among the members of the Polish band–which consisted of a leader (Premier), four violins, one oboe, two French horns, three bassoons, and one double bass–we meet with such well-known men as Johann Joachim Quanz and Franz Benda. Their conductor was Alberto Ristori, who at the same time held the post of composer to the Italian actors, a company that, besides plays, performed also little operas, serenades, intermezzi, &c. The usual retinue of the King on his visits to Poland included also a part of the French ballet and comedy. These travels of the artistic forces must have been rich in tragic, comic, and tragi-comic incidents, and would furnish splendid material for the pen of a novelist. But such a journey from the Saxon capital to Warsaw, which took about eight days, and cost on an average from 3,000 to 3,500 thalers (450 to 525 pounds), was a mere nothing compared with the migration of a Parisian operatic company in May, 1700. The ninety- three members of which it was composed set out in carriages and drove by Strasburg to Ulm, there they embarked and sailed to Cracow, whence the journey was continued on rafts. [FOOTNOTE: M. Furstenau, Zur Geschichte der Music und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden.] So much for artistic tours at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Frederick Augustus (II of Saxony and III of Poland, 1733-1763) dissolved the Polish band, and organised a similar body which was destined solely for Poland, and was to be resident there. It consisted in 1753 of an organist, two singers, twenty instrumentalists (almost all Germans), and a band-servant, their salary amounting to 5,383 thalers, 10 groschen (a little more than 805 pounds). Notwithstanding this new arrangement, the great Dresden band sometimes accompanied the King to Poland, and when it did not, some of its members at least had to be in attendance for the performance of the solos at the chamber concerts and in the operas. Also such singers, male and female, as were required for the operas proposed for representation had to take to the road. Hasse and his wife Faustina came several times to Poland. That the constellation of the Dresden musical establishment, in its vocal as well as instrumental department, was one of the most brilliant imaginable is sufficiently proved by a glance at the names which we meet with in 1719: Lotti, Heinichen, Veracini, Volumier, Senesino, Tesi, Santa Stella Lotti, Durastanti, &c. Rousseau, writing in 1754, calls the Dresden orchestra the first in Europe. And Burney says in 1772 that the instrumental performers had been some time previously of the first class. No wonder, then, if the visits of such artists improved the instrumental music of Poland.
From Sowinski’s Les Musiciens Polonais we learn that on great occasions the King’s band was reinforced by those of Prince Czartoryski and Count Wielhorski, thus forming a body of 100 executants. This shows that outside the King’s band good musicians were to be found in Poland. Indeed, to keep in their service private bands of native and foreign singers and players was an ancient custom among the Polish magnates; it obtained for a long time, and had not yet died out at the beginning of this century. From this circumstance, however, we must not too rashly conclude that these wealthy noblemen were all animated by artistic enthusiasm. Ostentatiousness had, I am afraid, more to do with it than love of art for art’s sake. Music was simply one of the indispensable departments of their establishments, in the splendour and vastness of which they tried to outdo each other and vie with sovereign rulers. The promiscuous enumeration of musicians, cooks, footmen, &c., in the lady’s description of a nobleman’s court which I referred to in the proem, is in this respect very characteristic. Towards the middle of the last century Prince Sanguszko, who lived at Dubno, in Volhynia, had in his service no less than two bands, to which was sometimes joined a third belonging to Prince Lubomirski. But, it will be asked, what music did they play? An author of Memoirs of the reign of Augustus III tells us that, according to the Polish fashion, they had during meal-times to play national airs, polonaises, mazurkas, &c., arranged for wind-instruments, with or without violins. For special occasions the Prince got a new kind of music, then much in favour–viz., a band of mountaineers playing on flutes and drums. And while the guests were sitting at the banquet, horns, trumpets, and fifes sounded fanfares. Besides the ordinary and extraordinary bands, this exalted personage had among his musical retainers a drummer who performed solos on his instrument. One is glad to learn that when the Prince was alone or had little company, he took delight in listening to trios for two violins and bass, it being then the fashion to play such ensemble pieces. Count Ilinski, the father of the composer John Stanislas Ilinski, engaged for his private theatre two companies, one from Germany and one from Italy. The persons employed in the musical department of his household numbered 124. The principal band, conducted by Dobrzyrnski pere, a good violinist and conductor, consisted of four violins, one viola, one violoncello, one double bass, one flute, one oboe, one clarinet, and one bassoon. Villagers were trained by these players to assist them. Then there was yet another band, one of wind instruments, under the direction of Karelli, a pupil of the Russian composer Bartnianski [Footnote: The Russian Palestrina, whose name is oftener met with in the forms of Bortnianski and Bortniansky]. The chorus was composed of twenty four voices, picked from the young people on Count Ilinski’s estates. However questionable the taste of many of these noble art patrons may have been, there were not wanting some who cultivated music with a purer spirit. Some of the best bands were those of the Princes D. Radziwill, Adam Czartoryski, F. Sulkowski, Michael Lubomirski, Counts Ilinski, Oginski, and Wielhorski. Our inquiry into the cultivation of music at the courts of the Polish magnates has carried us beyond the point we had reached in our historical survey. Let us now retrace our steps.
The progress of music above spoken of was arrested by the anarchy and the civil and other wars that began to rage in Poland with such fury in the middle of the last century. King Stanislas Poniatowski (1764-1795) is credited with having exercised great influence on the music of Poland; at any rate, he patronised the arts and sciences right royally. The Italian opera at Warsaw cannot have been of mean standing, seeing that artists such as the composers Paisiello and Cimarosa, and the great violinist, composer, and conductor Pugnani, with his pupil Viotti (the latter playing second violin in the orchestra), were members of the company. And the King’s band of foreign and native players has been called one of the best in Europe. Still, all this was but the hothouse bloom of exotics. To bring about a natural harvest of home produce something else was wanted than royal patronage, and this something sprang from the series of disasters that befell the nation in the latter half of the last century, and by shaking it to its very heart’s core stirred up its nobler self. As in literature, so in music, the national element came now more and more into action and prominence.
Up to 1778 there had been heard in Poland only Italian and French operas; in this year, for the first time, a Polish opera was put on the stage. It is true the beginning was very modest. The early attempts contained few ensemble pieces, no choruses, and no complex finales. But a new art does not rise from the mind of a nation as Minerva is said to have risen from the head of Jupiter. Nay, even the fact that the first three composers of Polish operas (Kamienski, Weynert, and Kajetani) were not Poles, but foreigners endeavouring to write in the Polish style, does not destroy the significance of the movement. The following statistics will, no doubt, take the reader by surprise:–From the foundation of the national Polish opera in 1778 till April 20, 1859, 5,917 performances of 285 different operas with Polish words took place in Poland. Of these 92 were national Polish operas, the remaining 193 by Italian, French, and German composers; 1,075 representations being given of the former, 4,842 of the latter. The libretti of 41 of the 92 Polish operas were originals, the other 51 were translations. And, lastly, the majority of the 16 musicians who composed the 92 Polish operas were not native Poles, but Czechs, Hungarians, and Germans [FOOTNOTE: Ladislas von Trocki, Die Entwickelung der Oper in Polen. (Leipzig, 1867.)]
A step hardly less important than the foundation of a national opera was the formation, in 1805, of a Musical Society, which had for its object the improvement as well as the amusement of its members. The idea, which originated in the head of one of the Prussian officials then in Warsaw, finding approval, and the pecuniary supplies flowing in abundantly, the Oginski Palace was rented and fitted up, two masters were engaged for the teaching of solo and choral singing, and a number of successful concerts were given. The chief promoters seem to have been Count Krasinski and the two Prussian officials Mosqua and E. Th. A. Hoffmann. In the last named the reader will recognise the famous author of fantastic tales and of no less fantastic musical criticisms, the conductor and composer of operas and other works, &c. According to his biographer, J. E. Hitzig, Hoffmann did not take much interest in the proceedings of the Musical Ressource (that was the name of the society) till it bought the Mniszech Palace, a large building, which, having been damaged by fire, had to undergo extensive repairs. Then, indeed, he set to work with a will, planned the arrangement and fitting-up of the rooms, designed and partly painted the decorations–not without freely indulging his disposition for caricature–and when all was ready, on August 3, 1806 (the King of Prussia’s birthday), conducted the first concert in the splendid new hall. The activity of the society was great, and must have been beneficial; for we read that they had every Sunday performances of quartets and other kinds of chamber music, that ladies frequently came forward with pianoforte sonatas, and that when the celebrated violinist Moser, of Berlin, visited Warsaw, he made them acquainted with the finest quartets of Mozart and Haydn. Still, I should not have dwelt so long on the doings of the Musical Ressource were it not that it was the germ of, or at least gave the impulse to, even more influential associations and institutions that were subsequently founded with a view to the wider diffusion and better cultivation of the musical art in Poland. After the battle of Jena the French were not long in making their appearance in Warsaw, whereby an end was put to Prussia’s rule there, and her officials were sent about, or rather sent out of, their business. Thus the Musical Ressource lost many of its members, Hoffmann and Mosqua among others. Still, it survived, and was reconstructed with more national elements. In Frederick Augustus of Saxony’s reign it is said to have been transformed into a school of singing.
The year 1815 brought into existence two musical institutions that deserve to be noticed–society for the cultivation of church music, which met at the College of the Pianists, and had at its head Count Zabiello as president and Elsner as conductor; and an association, organised by the last-named musician, and presided over by the Princess Sophia Zamoyska, which aimed at the advancement of the musical art in Poland, and provided for the education of music teachers for schools, organists for churches, and singers for the stage. Although I try to do my best with the unsatisfactory and often contradictory newspaper reports and dictionary articles from which I have to draw my data, I cannot vouch for the literal correctness of my notes. In making use of Sowinski’s work I am constantly reminded of Voltaire’s definition of dictionaries: “Immenses archives de mensonges et d’un peu de verite.” Happy he who need not consult them! In 1816 Elsner was entrusted by the minister Staszyc with the direction of a school of dramatic singing and recitation; and in 1821, to crown all previous efforts, a conservatorium was opened, the programme of which might almost have satisfied a Berlioz. The department of instrumental music not only comprised sections for the usual keyed, stringed, and wind instruments, but also one for instruments of percussion. Solo and choral singing were to be taught with special regard to dramatic expression. Besides these and the theoretical branches of music, the curriculum included dancing, Polish literature, French, and Italian. After reading the programme it is superfluous to be informed that the institution was chiefly intended for the training of dramatic artists. Elsner, who was appointed director, selected the teaching staff, with one exception, however, that of the first singing-master, for which post the Government engaged the composer Carlo Evasio Soliva, a pupil of Asioli and Frederici.
The musical taste and culture prevailing in Poland about 1819 is pretty accurately described by a German resident at Cracow. So far as music was concerned Poland had hitherto been ignored by the rest of Europe, and indeed could lay no claim to universal notice in this respect. But the improved culture and greater insight which some had acquired in foreign lands were good seeds that began to bear fruit. As yet, however, the greater part of the public took little or no interest in the better class of music, and was easily pleased and satisfied with polonaises, mazurkas, and other trivial things. In fact, the music in Cracow, notwithstanding the many professional musicians and amateurs living there, was decidedly bad, and not comparable to the music in many a small German town. In Warsaw, where the resources were more plentiful, the state of music was of course also more prosperous. Still, as late as 1815 we meet with the complaint that what was chiefly aimed at in concerts was the display of virtuosity, and that grand, serious works were neglected, and complete symphonies rarely performed. To remedy this evil, therefore, 150 amateurs combined and organised in 1818 a concert institution. Their concerts took place once a week, and at every meeting a new and entire symphony, an overture, a concerto, an aria, and a finale, were performed. The names of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Cherubini, Spohr, Mehul, Romberg, &c., were to be found on their programmes. Strange to say, there were no less than seven conductors: Lessel, Lentz, Wurfel, Haase, Javurek, Stolpe, and Peschke, all good musicians. The orchestra consisted in part of amateurs, who were most numerous among the violins, tenors, and violoncellos. The solo department seems to have been well stocked. To confine ourselves to one instrument, they could pride themselves on having four excellent lady pianists, one of whom distinguished herself particularly by the wonderful dexterity with which she played the most difficult compositions of Beethoven, Field, Ries, and Dussek. Another good sign of the improving taste was a series of twenty-four matinees given on Sundays from twelve to two during the winter of 1818-1819 by Carl Arnold, and much patronised by the highest nobility. The concert- giver, a clever pianist and composer, who enjoyed in his day a good reputation in Germany, Russia, and Poland, produced at every matinee a new pianoforte concerto by one of the best composers– sometimes one of his own–and was assisted by the quartet party of Bielawski, a good violinist, leader in the orchestra, and professor at the Conservatorium. Although Arnold’s stay was not of long duration, his departure did not leave the town without good pianists. Indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that Warsaw was badly off with regard to musicians. This will be evident to the reader as soon as I have named some of those living there in the time of Chopin. Wenzel W. Wurfel, one of the professors at the Conservatorium, who stayed in Warsaw from 1815 to 1824, and afterwards went to Vienna, where he became conductor at the Karnthnerthor Theater, was an esteemed pianist and composer, and frequently gave concerts, at one of which he played Field’s Concerto in C.
[FOOTNOTE: Wenzel Wilhelm Wurfel, in most dictionaries called Wilhelm Wurfel (exceptions are: E. Bernsdorf’s “Neues Universal- Lexikon der Tonkunst”, and Dr. Hugo Riemann’s “Opern-Handbuch”). A Warsaw correspondent of a German musical paper called him Waclaw Wurfel. In Whistling’s “Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur” his Christian names are only indicated by initials–W. W.]
If we scan the list of professors at the Conservatorium we find other musicians whose reputation was not confined to the narrow limits of Warsaw or even Poland. There was, for instance, the pianist and composer Franz Lessel, the favourite pupil of Haydn; and, further, that interesting character Heinrich Gerhard Lentz, who, born and educated at Cologne, went in 1784 to Paris, played with success his first concerto at the Concert Spirituel, published some of his compositions and taught in the best families, arrived in London in 1791, lived in friendly intercourse with Clementi and Haydn, and had compositions of his performed at Solomon’s concerts, returned to Germany in 1795, stayed with Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia till Dussek supplanted him, and so, wandering about, reached Warsaw, where he gave lessons, founded a pianoforte manufactory, became professor of the organ at the Conservatorium, married twice, and died in 1839. The only other professor at the Conservatorium about whom I shall say a few words is C. E. Soliva, whose name and masters I have already mentioned. Of his works the opera “La testa di bronzo” is the best known. I should have said “was,” for nobody now knows anything of his. That loud, shallow talker Count Stendhal, or, to give him his real name, Marie Henry Beyle, heard it at Milan in 1816, when it was first produced. He had at first some difficulty in deciding whether Soliva showed himself in that opera a plagiarist of Mozart or a genius. Finally he came to the conclusion that–
there is in it a warmth, a dramatic life, and a strength in all its effects, which are decidedly not in the style of Mozart. But Soliva, who is a young man and full of the warmest admiration for Mozart, has imbibed certain tints of his colouring.
The rest is too outrageously ridiculous to be quoted. Whatever Beyle’s purely literary merits and his achievements in fiction may be, I quite agree with Berlioz, who remarks, a propos of this gentleman’s Vie de Rossini, that he writes “les plus irritantes stupidites sur la musique, dont il croyait avoir le secret.” To which cutting dictum may be added a no less cutting one of M. Lavoix fils, who, although calling Beyle an “ecrivain d’esprit,” applies to him the appellation of “fanfaron d’ignorance en musique.” I would go a step farther than either of these writers. Beyle is an ignorant braggart, not only in music, but in art generally, and such esprit as his art criticisms exhibit would be even more common than it unfortunately now is, if he were oftener equalled in conceit and arrogance. The pillorying of a humbug is so laudable an object that the reader will excuse the digression, which, moreover, may show what miserable instruments a poor biographer has sometimes to make use of. Another informant, unknown to fame, but apparently more trustworthy, furnishes us with an account of Soliva in Warsaw. The writer in question disapproves of the Italian master’s drill-method in teaching singing, and says that as a composer his power of invention was inferior to his power of construction; and, further, that he was acquainted with the scores of the best musicians of all times, and an expert in accompanying on the pianoforte. As Elsner, Zywny, and the pianist and composer Javurek have already been introduced to the reader, I shall advert only to one other of the older Warsaw musicians–namely, Charles Kurpinski, the most talented and influential native composer then living in Poland. To him and Elsner is chiefly due the progress which Polish music made in the first thirty years of this century. Kurpinski came to Warsaw in 1810, was appointed second conductor at the National Opera-house, afterwards rose to the position of first conductor, was nominated maitre de chapelle de la cour de Varsovie, was made a Knight of the St. Stanislas Order, &c. He is said to have learnt composition by diligently studying Mozart’s scores, and in 1811 began to supply the theatre with dramatic works. Besides masses, symphonies, &c., he composed twenty-four operas, and published also some theoretical works and a sketch of the history of the Polish opera. Kurpinski was by nature endowed with fine musical qualities, uniting sensibility and energy with easy productivity. Chopin did homage to his distinguished countryman in introducing into his Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais, Op. 13, a theme of Kurpinski’s. Two younger men, both born in 1800, must yet be mentioned to compete the picture. One of them, Moritz Ernemann, a pupil of Mendelssohn’s pianoforte-master, L. Berger, played with success in Poland and Germany, and has been described by contemporaries as a finished and expressive, but not brilliant, pianist. His pleasing compositions are of an instructive and mildly-entertaining character. The other of the two was Joseph Christoph Kessler, a musician of very different mettle. After studying philosophy in Vienna, and composing at the house of Count Potocki in Lemberg his celebrated Etudes, Op. 20 (published at Vienna, reprinted at Paris, recommended by Kalkbrenner in his Methode, quoted by Fetis and Moscheles in their Methode des Methodes, and played in part by Liszt at his concerts), he tried in 1829 his luck in Warsaw. Schumann thought (in 1835) that Kessler had the stuff in him to do something great, and always looked forward with expectation to what he would yet accomplish. Kessler’s studies might be dry, but he was assuredly a “Mann von Geist und sogar poetischem Geist.” He dedicated his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin, and Chopin his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28, to him–that is to say, the German edition.
By this time the reader must have found out that Warsaw was not such a musical desert as he may at first have imagined. Perfect renderings of great orchestral works, it is true, seem to have been as yet unattainable, and the performances of operas failed likewise to satisfy a pure and trained taste. Nay, in 1822 it was even said that the opera was getting worse. But when the fruits of the Conservatorium had had time to ripen and could be gathered in, things would assume a more promising aspect. Church music, which like other things had much deteriorated, received a share of the attention which in this century was given to the art. The best singing was in the Piarist and University churches. In the former the bulk of the performers consisted of amateurs, who, however, were assisted by members of the opera. They sang Haydn’s masses best and oftenest. In the other church the executants were students and professors, Elsner being the conductor. Besides these choirs there existed a number of musical associations in connection with different churches in Warsaw. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that great progress was made in the first thirty years of this century, and had it not been for the unfortunate insurrection of 1830, Poland would have succeeded in producing a national art and taking up an honourable position among the great musical powers of Europe, whereas now it can boast only of individual artists of more or less skill and originality. The musical events to which the death of the Emperor Alexander I. gave occasion in 1826, show to some extent the musical capabilities of Warsaw. On one day a Requiem by Kozlowski (a Polish composer, then living in St. Petersburg; b. 1757, d. 1831), with interpolations of pieces by other composers, was performed in the Cathedral by two hundred singers and players under Soliva. On another day Mozart’s Requiem, with additional accompaniments by Kurpinski (piccolos, flutes, oboes, clarinets, and horns to the Dies irae and Sanctus; harps to the Hostias and Benedictus; and a military brass-band to the closing chorus!!!), was given in the same place by two hundred and fifty executants under the last-mentioned musician. And in the Lutheran church took place a performance of Elsner’s Requiem for male voices, violoncellos, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, and drums.
Having made the reader acquainted with the musical sphere in which Chopin moved, I shall take up the thread of the narrative where I left it, and the reader may follow without fear of being again detained by so long an interruption.
CHAPTER VI
Fourteen days in Berlin (From September 14 to 28, 1828).–Return by Posen (Prince Radziwill) and Zullichau (anecdotes) to Warsaw.– Chopin’s doings there in the following winter and spring.–his home-life, companions, and preparations for a journey to Vienna.
Chopin, leaving his apprenticeship behind him, was now entering on that period of his life which we may call his Wanderjahre (years of travel). This change in his position and circumstances demands a simultaneous change in the manner of the biographical treatment. Hitherto we have been much occupied with the agencies that made and moulded the man, henceforth we shall fix our main attention on his experiences, actions, and utterances. The materials at our disposal become now more abundant and more trustworthy. Foremost in importance among them, up to Chopin’s arrival in Paris, are the letters he wrote at that time, the publication of which we owe to Karasowski. As they are, however, valuable only as chronicles of the writer’s doings and feelings, and not, like Mendelssohn’s and Berlioz’s, also as literary productions, I shall, whilst fully availing myself of the information they contain, confine my quotations from them to the characteristic passages.
Chopin’s long-projected and much-desired visit to Berlin came about in this way. In 1828 Frederick William III of Prussia requested the Berlin University to invite the most eminent natural philosophers to take part in a congress to be held in that city under the presidency of Alexander von Humboldt. Nicholas Chopin’s friend Dr. Jarocki, the zoologist and professor at the Warsaw University, who had studied and obtained his degree at Berlin, was one of those who were honoured with an invitation. The favourable opportunity which thus presented itself to the young musician of visiting in good company one of the centres of civilisation–for the professor intended to comply with the invitation, and was willing to take his friend’s son under his wing–was not allowed to slip by, on the contrary, was seized eagerly. With what feelings, with what an infinitude of youthful hopes and expectations, Chopin looked forward to this journey may be gathered from some expressions in a letter of his (September 9, 1828) addressed to Titus Woyciechowski, where he describes himself as being at the time of writing “like a madman,” and accounts for his madness by the announcement: “For I am going to- day to Berlin.” To appear in public as a pianist or composer was not one of the objects he had in view. His dearest wishes were to make the acquaintance of the musical celebrities of Berlin, and to hear some really good music. From a promised performance of Spontini’s Ferdinand Cortez he anticipated great things.
Professor Jarocki and Chopin left Warsaw on the 9th of September, 1828, and after five days’ posting arrived in Berlin, where they put up at the Kronprinz. Among the conveniences of this hotel our friend had the pleasant surprise of finding a good grand piano. He played on it every day, and was rewarded for his pains not only by the pleasure it gave him, but also by the admiration of the landlord. Through his travelling companion’s friend and teacher, M. H. K. Lichtenstein, professor of zoology and director of the Zoological Museum, who was a member of the Singakademie and on good terms with Zelter, the conductor of that society, he hoped to be made acquainted with the most distinguished musicians of the Prussian capital, and looked to Prince Radziwill for an introduction to the musical autocrat Spontini, with whom Lichtenstein was not on a friendly footing. In these hopes, however, Chopin was disappointed, and had to content himself with looking at the stars from afar. Speaking of a performance of the Singakademie at which he was present, he says:–
Spontini, Zelter, and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy were also there; but I spoke to none of these gentlemen, as I did not think it becoming to introduce myself.
It is not difficult to discover the circumstances that in this respect caused matters to turn out so little in accordance with the young man’s wishes. Prince Radziwill was not in Berlin when Chopin arrived, and, although he was expected, perhaps never came, or came too late to be of any use. As to Lichtenstein, his time was too much taken up by his duties as secretary to the congress. Had this not been so, the professor could not only have brought the young artist in contact with many of the musical celebrities in Berlin, but also have told him much about his intimate friend Carl Maria von Weber, who had died little more than two years before. Lichtenstein’s connection with Weber was probably the cause of his disagreement with Spontini, alluded to by Chopin. The latter relates in an off-hand way that he was introduced to and exchanged a few words with the editor of the Berliner Musikzeitung, without mentioning that this was Marx. The great theorist had of course then still to make his reputation.
One cannot help wondering at the absence from Chopin’s Berlin letters of the name of Ludwig Berger, who, no doubt, like Bernhard Klein, Rungenhagen, the brothers Ganz, and many another composer and virtuoso in Berlin, was included in the collective expression “distinguished musicians.” But one would have thought that the personality of the pupil of Clementi, the companion of A. Klengel, the friend of Steibelt, Field, and Crotch, and the teacher of Mendelssohn and Taubert, would have particularly interested a young pianist. Berger’s compositions cannot have been unknown to Chopin, who, moreover, must have heard of him from his Warsaw acquaintance Ernemann. However, be this as it may, our friend was more fortunate as regards hearing good music, which certainly was a more important business than interviewing celebrities, often, alas, so refrigerating in its effect on enthusiastic natures. Before his departure from Warsaw Chopin wrote:–“It is much to hear a really good opera, were it only once; it enables one to form an idea of what a perfect performance is like.” Although the most famous singers were on leave of absence, he greatly enjoyed the performances of Spontini’s “Ferdinand Cortez”, Cimarosa’s “Die heimliche Eke” (“Il Matrimonio segreto”), Onslow’s “Der Hausirer” (“Le colporteur”), and Winter’s “Das unterbrochene Opferfest.” Still, they gave rise to some “buts,” which he thought would be wholly silenced only in Paris; nay, one of the two singers he liked best, Fraulein von Schatzel (Signora Tibaldi was the other), reminded him by her omissions of chromatic scales even of Warsaw. What, however, affected him more than anything else was Handel’s “Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day,” which he heard at the Singakademie; it came nearest, he said, to the ideal of sublime music which he harboured in his soul. A propos of another musical event he writes:–
To-morrow the “Freischutz” will be performed; this is the fulfilment of my most ardent wish. When I hear it I shall be able to make a comparison between the singers here and our own.
The “Freischutz” made its first appearance on the Warsaw stage in 1826, and therefore was known to Chopin; whereas the other operas were either unknown to him or were not considered decisive tests.
Music and things connected with music, such as music-shops and pianoforte-manufactories, took up Chopin’s attention almost exclusively. He declines with thanks the offer of a ticket for the meetings of the congress:–
I should gain little or nothing for my mind from these discussions, because I am too little of a savant; and, moreover, the professional gentlemen might perhaps look at me, the layman, and think: “How comes Saul among the prophets?”
Of the Royal Library, to which he went with Professor Jarocki, he has no more to say than that “it is very large, but contains few musical works”; and when he visits the Zoological Museum, he thinks all the time what a bore it is, and how he would rather be at Schlesinger’s, the best music-shop in the town, and an enterprising publishing house. That he neglects many things which educated men generally prize, he feels himself, and expresses the fear that his father will reproach him with one-sidedness. In his excuse he says:–
I have come to Berlin for my musical education, and the library of Schlesinger, consisting of the most interesting works of the composers of all countries and times, must interest me more than any other collections.
The words, he adds, add nothing to the strength of his argument.
It is a comfort to think that I, too, shall yet come to Schlesinger’s, and that it is always good for a young man to see much, as from everything something may be learnt.
According to Karasowski, who reports, no doubt faithfully, what he has heard, Chopin was so well versed in all the branches of science, which he cultivated at the Lyceum, that all who knew him were astonished at his attainments, and prognosticated for him a brilliant future. I am afraid the only authorities for this statement were the parents, the sisters, and other equally indiscriminately-admiring connections, who often discover genius where it is hidden from the cold, unfeeling world outside this sympathetic circle. Not that I would blame an amiable weakness without which love, friendship, in short, happiness were well- nigh impossible. Only a biographer who wishes to represent a man as he really was, and not as he appeared to be to one or more individuals, has to be on his guard against it. Let us grant at once that Chopin made a good figure at the Lyceum–indeed, a quick-witted boy who found help and encouragement at home (the secret of almost all successful education) could hardly do otherwise. But from this to a master of all the arts, to an admirable Crichton, is a great step. Where there is genius there is inclination. Now, however well Chopin acquitted himself of his school-tasks–and even therein you will remember a falling-off was noticeable when outward pressure ceased–science and kindred subjects were subsequently treated by him with indifference. The thorough training which he received in general knowledge entirely failed to implant in him the dispositions of a scholar or thinker. His nature was perhaps a soil unfavourable to such growths, and certainly already preoccupied by a vegetation the luxuriance of which excluded, dwarfed, or crushed everything else. The truth of these remarks is proved by Chopin’s letters and his friends’ accounts of his tastes and conversation. In connection with this I may quote a passage from a letter which Chopin wrote immediately before starting on his Berlin trip. Jedrzejewicz, a gentleman who by-and-by became Chopin’s brother- in-law, and was just then staying in Paris, made there the acquaintance of the Polish musician Sowinski. The latter hearing thus of his talented countryman in Warsaw, and being co-editor with Fetis of the “Revue musicale” (so at least we read in the letter in question, but it is more likely that Sowinski was simply a contributor to the paper), applied to him for a description of the state of music in Poland, and biographical notes on the most celebrated executants and composers. Now let us see what Chopin says in reference to this request.
All these are things with which I have no intention to meddle. I shall write to him from Berlin that this affair is not in my line, and that, moreover, I cannot yet form a judgment such as would be worthy of a Parisian journal, which must contain only mature and competent opinions, &c.
How much of this is self-knowledge, modesty, or disinclination, I leave the reader to decide, who, no doubt, will smile at the young man’s innocence in imagining that Parisian, or, indeed, any journals distinguish themselves generally by maturity and competence of judgment.
At the time of the Berlin visit Chopin was a lively, well- educated, and well-mannered youth, who walked through life pleased and amused with its motley garb, but as yet unconscious of the deeper truths, and the immensities of joy and sadness, of love and hate, that lie beneath. Although the extreme youthfulness, nay boyishness, of the letters written by him at that time, and for some time after, makes him appear younger than he really was, the criticisms and witticisms on what is going on around which they contain, show incontestably that he had more than the usual share of clear and quick-sightedness. His power of observation, however, was directed rather to dress, manners, and the peculiarities and eccentricities of outward appearance generally, than to the essentials which are not always indicated and are often hidden by them. As to his wit, it had a decided tendency towards satire and caricature. He notices the pleasing orderliness and cleanliness of the otherwise not well-favoured surroundings of Berlin as he approaches, considers the city itself too much extended for the number of its inhabitants, of whom it could hold twice as many, is favourably impressed by the fine large palace, the spacious well-built streets, the picturesque bridges, and congratulates himself that he and his fellow-traveller did not take lodgings in the broad but rather too quiet Franzosische Strasse. Yes, our friend is fond of life and society. Whether he thought man the proper study of mankind or not, as Pope held, he certainly found it the most attractive. The passengers in the stage-coach were to him so many personages of a comedy. There was an advocate who tried to shine with his dull jokes, an agriculturist to whom travelling had given a certain varnish of civilisation, and a German Sappho who poured forth a stream of pretentious and at the same time ludicrous complaints. The play unwittingly performed by these unpaid actors was enjoyed by our friend with all the zest the feeling of superiority can give. What a tragi-comical arrangement it is that in this world of ours everybody is laughing at everybody else! The scientists of the congress afforded Chopin an almost unlimited scope for the exercise of his wit. Among them he found so many curious and various specimens that he was induced not only to draw but also to classify them. Having already previously sent home some sketches, he concludes one of his letters with the words “the number of caricatures is increasing.” Indeed, there seems to have been only one among these learned gentlemen who impressed him with a feeling of respect and admiration–namely, Alexander von Humboldt. As Chopin’s remarks on him are the best part of his three Berlin letters, I shall quote them in full. On seeing Von Humboldt at Lichtenstein’s he writes:–
He is not above middle height, and his countenance cannot be called beautiful; but the somewhat protruding, broad, and well-moulded forehead, and the deep inquiring eye, announce the all-embracing mind which animates this humane as well as much-travelled savant. Humboldt spoke French, and as well as his mother-tongue.
One of the chief events of Chopin’s visit to Berlin was, according to his own account, his second dinner with the natural philosophers, which took place the day before the close of the congress, and was very lively and entertaining:–
Many appropriate songs were sung in which every one joined with more or less energy. Zelter conducted; he had standing before him on a red pedestal as a sign of his exalted musical dignity a large gilt goblet, which seemed to give him much pleasure. On this day the food was much better than usual. People say the natural philosophers had at their meetings been specially occupied with the amelioration of roasts, sauces, soups, and the like.
“The Berliners are such an impertinent race,” says Goethe, “that to keep one’s self above water one must have Haare auf den Zahnen, and at times be rude.” Such a judgment prepares one for much, but not for what Chopin dares to say:–
Marylski [one of his Warsaw friends] has not the faintest shadow of taste if he asserts that the ladies of Berlin dress prettily. They deck themselves out, it is true; but it is a pity for the fine stuffs which are cut up for such puppets!
What blasphemy!
After a fortnight’s stay in the Prussian capital Professor Jarocki and Chopin turned homeward on September 28, 1828. They did not, however, go straight to Warsaw, but broke their journey at Posen, where they remained two days “in gratiam of an invitation from Archbishop Wolicki.” A great part of the time he was at Posen he spent at the house of Prince Radziwill, improvising and playing sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven, and Hummel, either alone or with Capellmeister Klingohr. On October 6 the travellers arrived in Warsaw, which Chopin was so impatient to reach that the professor was prevailed upon to take post-horses from Lowicz. Before I have done with this trip to Berlin I must relate an incident which occurred at a stage between Frankfort on the Oder and Posen.
On arriving at Zullichau our travellers were informed by the postmaster that they would have to wait an hour for horses. This announcement opened up an anything but pleasing prospect. The professor and his companion did the best that could be done in these distressing circumstances–namely, took a stroll through the small town, although the latter had no amenities to boast of, and the fact of a battle having been fought there between the Russians and Prussians in 1759 would hardly fire their enthusiasm. Matters, however, became desperate when on their return there was still neither sign nor sound of horses. Dr. Jarocki comforted himself with meat and drink, but Chopin began to look uneasily about him for something to while away the weariness of waiting. His search was not in vain, for in an adjoining room he discovered an old piano of unpromising appearance, which, on being opened and tried, not only turned out to be better than it looked, but even in tune. Of course our artist did not bethink himself long, but sat down at once, and launched out into an improvisation on a Polish air. One of his fellow-passengers, a German, and an inveterate smoker, attracted by the music, stepped in, and was soon so wrapped up in it that he forgot even his pipe. The other passengers, the postmaster, his buxom wife, and their pretty daughters, came dropping in, one after the other. But when this peaceful conventicle had for some time been listening silently, devoutly, and admiringly, lo, they were startled by a stentorian voice bawling into the room the words:–“Gentlemen, the horses are put in.” The postmaster, who was indignant at this untimely interruption, begged the musician to continue. But Chopin said that they had already waited too long, it was time to depart. Upon this there was a general commotion; the mistress of the house solicited and cajoled, the young ladies bashfully entreated with their eyes, and all pressed around the artist and supported the request, the postmaster even offering extra horses if Chopin would go on with his playing. Who could resist? Chopin sat down again, and resumed his fantasia. When he had ended, a servant brought in wine, the postmaster proposed as a toast “the favourite of Polyhymnia,” and one of the audience, an old musician, gave voice to his feelings by telling the hero that, “if Mozart had heard you, he would have shaken hands with you and exclaimed ‘Bravo!’ An insignificant man like me dare not do that.” After Chopin had played a mazurka as a wind- up, the tall postmaster took him in his arms, carried him to the coach–the pockets of which the ladies had already filled with wine and eatables–and, bidding him farewell, said that as long as he lived he would think with enthusiasm of Frederick Chopin.
We can have no difficulty in believing the statement that in after-life our artist recalled with pleasure this incident at the post-house of Zullichau, and that his success among these unsophisticated people was dearer to him than many a more brilliant one in the great world of art and fashion. But, it may be asked, did all this happen in exactly the same way in which it is told here? Gentle reader, let us not inquire too curiously into this matter. Of course you have heard of myth-making and legend-making. Well, anecdote-making is a process of a similar nature, a process of accumulation and development. The only difference between the process in the first two cases and that in the third is, that the former is carried on by races, the latter by individuals. A seed-corn of fact falls on the generous soil of the poetic imagination, and forthwith it begins to expand, to sprout, and to grow into flower, shrub, or tree. But there are well and ill-shapen plants, and monstrosities too. The above anecdote is a specimen of the first kind. As a specimen of the last kind may be instanced an undated anecdote told by Sikorski and others. It is likewise illustrative of Chopin’s power and love of improvisation. The seed-corn of fact in the case seems to be that one Sunday, when playing during divine service in the Wizytek Church, Chopin, taking for his subjects some motives of the part of the Mass that had just been performed, got so absorbed in his improvisation that he entirely forgot all his surroundings, and turned a deaf ear to the priest at the altar, who had already for the second time chanted ‘Per omnia saecula saeculurum.’ This is a characteristic as well as a pretty artist- story, which, however, is marred, I think, by the additions of a choir that gathers round the organist and without exception forgets like him time and place, and of a mother superior who sends the sacristan to remind those music-enthusiasts in the organ-gallery of the impatiently waiting priest and acolyte, &c. Men willingly allow themselves to be deceived, but care has to be taken that their credulity be not overtaxed. For if the intention is perceived, it fails in its object; as the German poet says:– “So fuehrt man Absicht und man ist verstimmt.”
On the 6th of October, as has already been said, Chopin returned to Warsaw. Judging from a letter written by him at the end of the year (December 27, 1828) to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, he was busy composing and going to parties. The “Rondeau a la Krakowiak,” Op. 14, was now finished, and the Trio, Op. 8, was nearly so. A day on which he had not been musically productive seems to have been regarded by him as a lost day. The opening phrase of the following quotation reminds one of the famous exclamation of the Emperor Titus:–
During the last week I have composed nothing worthy either of God or of man. I run from Ananias to Caiaphas; to-night I shall be at Madame Wizegerod’s, from there I shall drive to a musical soiree at Miss Kicka’s. You know how pleasant it is to be forced to improvise when one is tired! I have not often such happy thoughts as come sometimes under my fingers when I am with you. And then the miserable instruments!
In the same letter he relates that his parents are preparing a small room for him:–
A staircase leads from the entrance directly into it; there I shall have an old writing-desk, and this nook will be my retreat.
This remark calls up a passage in a letter written two years later from Vienna to his friend John Matuszynski:–
When your former colleagues, for instance, Rostkowski, Schuch, Freyer, Kyjewski, Hube, &c., are holding merry converse in my room, then think that I am laughing and enjoying myself with you.
A charming little genre picture of Chopin’s home-life is to be found in one of his letters from Vienna (December 1, 1830) Having received news from Warsaw, he writes:–
The joy was general, for Titus also had letters from home. I thank Celinski lor the enclosed note; it brought vividly back to me the time when I was still amongst you: it seemed to me as if I were sitting at the piano and Celinski standing opposite me looking at Mr. Zywny, who just then treated Linowski to a pinch of snuff. Only Matuszynski was wanting to make the group complete.
Several names in the above extract remind me that I ought to say a few words about the young men with whom Chopin at that time associated. Many of them were no doubt companions in the noblest sense of the word. Of this class may have been Celinski, Hube, Eustachius Marylski, and Francis Maciejowski (a nephew of the previously-mentioned Professor Waclaw Maciejowski), who are more or less frequently mentioned in Chopin’s correspondence, but concerning whom I have no information to give. I am as badly informed about Dziewanowski, whom a letter quoted by Karasowski shows to have been a friend of Chopin’s. Of two other friends, Stanislas Kozmian and William Kolberg, we know at least that the one was a few years ago still living at Posen and occupied the post of President of the Society of the Friends of Science, and that the other, to whom the earliest letters of Chopin that have come down to us are addressed, became, not to mention lesser offices and titles, a Councillor of State, and died on June 4,1877. Whatever the influence of the friends I have thus far named may have been on the man Chopin, one cannot but feel inclined to think that Stephen Witwicki and Dominic Magnuszewski, especially the former, must have had a greater influence on the artist. At any rate, these two poets, who made their mark in Polish literature, brought the musician in closest contact with the strivings of the literary romanticism of those days. In later years Chopin set several of Witwicki’s songs to music. Both Magnuszewski and Witwicki lived afterwards, like Chopin, in Paris, where they continued to associate with him. Of the musical acquaintances we have to notice first and foremost Julius Fontana, who himself said that he was a daily visitor at Chopin’s house. The latter writes in the above-mentioned letter (December 27, 1828) to Titus Woyciechowski:–
The Rondo for two pianos, this orphan child, has found a step- father in Fontana (you may perhaps have seen him at our house, he attends the university); he studied it for more than a month, but then he did learn it, and not long ago we tried how it would sound at Buchholtz’s.
Alexander Rembielinski, described as a brilliant pianist and a composer in the style of Fesca, who returned from Paris to Warsaw and died young, is said to have been a friend of Chopin’s. Better musicians than Fontana, although less generally known in the western part of Europe, are Joseph Nowakowski and Thomas Nidecki. Chopin, by some years their junior, had intercourse with them during his residence in Poland as well as afterwards abroad. It does not appear that Chopin had what can rightly be called intimate friends among the young Polish musicians. If we may believe the writer of an article in Sowinski’s Dictionary, there was one exception. He tells us that the talented Ignaz Felix Dobrzynski was a fellow-pupil of Chopin’s, taking like him private lessons from Elsner. Dobrzynski came to Warsaw in 1825, and took altogether thirty lessons.
Working together under the same master, having the same manner of seeing and feeling, Frederick Chopin and I.F. Dobrzynski became united in a close friendship. The same aims, the same artistic tendency to seek the UNKNOWN, characterised their efforts. They communicated to each other their ideas and impressions, followed different routes to arrive at the same goal.
This unison of kindred minds is so beautiful that one cannot but wish it to have been a fact. Still, I must not hide the circumstance that neither Liszt nor Karasowski mentions Dobrzynski as one of Chopin’s friends, and the even more significant circumstance that he is only mentioned twice and en passant in Chopin’s letters. All this, however, does not necessarily nullify the lexicographer’s statements, and until contradictory evidence is forthcoming we may hold fast by so pleasing and ennobling a creed.
The most intimate of Chopin’s early friends, indeed, of all his friends–perhaps the only ones that can be called his bosom friends–have still to be named, Titus Woyciechowski and John Matuszynski. It was to them that Chopin wrote his most interesting and self-revealing letters. We shall meet them and hear of them often in the course of this narrative, for their friendship with the musician was severed only by death. It will therefore suffice to say here that Titus Woyciechowski, who had been Chopin’s school-fellow, lived, at the period of the latter’s life we have now reached, on his family estates, and that John Matuszynski was then studying medicine in Warsaw.
In his letter of December 27, 1828, Chopin makes some allusions to the Warsaw theatres. The French company had played Rataplan, and at the National Theatre they had performed a comedy of Fredro’s, Weber’s Preciosa, and Auber’s Macon. A musical event whichmust have interested Chopin much more than the performances of the two last-mentioned works took place in the first half of the year 1829–namely, Hummel’s appearance in Warsaw. He and Field were, no doubt, those pianists who through the style of their compositions most influenced Chopin. For Hummel’s works Chopin had indeed a life-long admiration and love. It is therefore to be regretted that he left in his letters no record of the impression which Hummel, one of the four most distinguished representatives of pianoforte-playing of that time, made upon him. It is hardly necessary to say that the other three representatives–of different generations and schools let it be understood–were Field, Kalkbrenner, and Moscheles. The only thing we learn about this visit of Hummel’s to Warsaw is that he and the young Polish pianist made a good impression upon each other. As far as the latter is concerned this is a mere surmise, or rather an inference from indirect proofs, for, strange to say, although Chopin mentions Hummel frequently in his letters, he does not write a syllable that gives a clue to his sentiments regarding him. The older master, on the other hand, shows by his inquiries after his younger brother in art and the visits he pays him that he had a real regard and affection for him.
It is also to be regretted that Chopin says in his letters nothing of Paganini’s appearance in Warsaw. The great Italian violinist, who made so deep an impression on, and exercised so great an influence over, Liszt, cannot have passed by without producing some effect on Chopin. That the latter had a high opinion of Paganini may be gathered from later utterances, but what one would like is a description of his feelings and thoughts when he first heard him. Paganini came to Warsaw in 1829, after his visit to Berlin. In the Polish capital he was worshipped with the same ardour as elsewhere, and also received the customary tributes of applause, gold, and gifts. From Oreste Bruni’s Niccolo Paganini, celebre violinista Genovese, we learn that his Warsaw worshippers presented him with a gold snuff-box, which bore the following inscription:–Al Cav. Niccolo Paganini. Gli ammiratori del suo talento. Varsovia 19 Luglio 1829.
Some months after this break in what he, no doubt, considered the monotonous routine of Warsaw life, our friend made another excursion, one of far greater importance in more than one respect than that to Berlin. Vienna had long attracted him like a powerful magnet, the obstacles to his going thither were now removed, and he was to see that glorious art-city in which Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and many lesser but still illustrious men had lived and worked.
CHAPTER VII
CHOPIN JOURNEYS TO VIENNA BY WAY OF CRACOW AND OJCOW.–STAYS THERE FOR SOME WEEKS, PLAYING TWICE IN PUBLIC.–RETURNS TO WARSAW BY WAY OF PRAGUE, DRESDEN, AND BRESLAU.
IT was about the middle of July, 1829, that Chopin, accompanied by his friends Celinski, Hube, and Francis Maciejowski, set out on his journey to Vienna. They made a week’s halt at the ancient capital of the Polish Republic, the many-towered Cracow, which rises picturesquely in a landscape of great loveliness. There they explored the town and its neighbourhood, both of which are rich in secular and ecclesiastical buildings, venerable by age and historical associations, not a few of them remarkable also as fine specimens of architecture. Although we have no detailed account of Chopin’s proceedings, we may be sure that our patriotic friend did not neglect to look for and contemplate the vestiges of his nation’s past power and greatness: the noble royal palace, degraded, alas, into barracks for the Austrian soldiery; the grand, impressive cathedral, in which the tombs of the kings present an epitome of Polish history; the town-hall, a building of the 14th century; the turreted St. Florian’s gate; and the monumental hillock, erected on the mountain Bronislawa in memory of Kosciuszko by the hands of his grateful countrymen, of which a Frenchman said:–“Void une eloquence touts nouvelle: un peuple qui ne peut s’exprimer par la parole ou par les livres, et qui parle par des montagnes.” On a Sunday afternoon, probably on the 24th of July, the friends left Cracow, and in a rustic vehicle drove briskly to Ojcow. They were going to put up not in the place itself, but at a house much patronised by tourists, lying some miles distant from it and the highway. This circumstance led to something like a romantic incident, for as the driver was unacquainted with the bye-roads, they got into a small brook, “as clear and silvery bright as brooks in fairytales,” and having walls of rock on the right and left, they were unable to extricate themselves “from this labyrinth.” Fortunately they met towards nine o’clock in the evening two peasants who conducted them to their destination, the inn of Mr. Indyk, in which also the Polish authoress Clementina Tanska, who has described this district in one of her works, had lodged–a fact duly reported by Chopin to his sister Isabella and friend Titus. Arriving not only tired but also wet to above the knees, his first business was to guard against taking a cold. He bought a Cracow double-woven woollen night-cap, which he cut in two pieces and wrapped round his feet. Then he sat down by the fire, drank a glass of red wine, and, after talking for a little while longer, betook himself to bed, and slept the sleep of the just. Thus ended the adventure of that day, and, to all appearance, without the dreaded consequences of a cold. The natural beauties of the part of the country where Chopin now was have gained for it the name of Polish Switzerland. The principal sights are the Black Cave, in which during the bloody wars with the Turks and Tartars the women and children used to hide themselves; the Royal Cave, in which, about the year 1300, King Wladyslaw Lokietek sought refuge when he was hardly pressed by the usurper Wenceslas of Bohemia; and the beautifully-situated ruins of Ojcow Castle, once embowered in thick forests. Having enjoyed to the full the beauties of Polish Switzerland, Chopin continued his journey merrily and in favourable weather through the picturesque countries of Galicia, Upper Silesia, and Moravia, arriving in Vienna on July 31.
Chopin’s letters tell us very little of his sight-seeing in the Austrian capital, but a great deal of matters that interest us far more deeply. He brought, of course, a number of letters of introduction with him. Among the first which he delivered was one from Elsner to the publisher Hashnger, to whom Chopin had sent a considerable time before some of his compositions, which, however, still remained in manuscript. Haslinger treated Elsner’s pupil with an almost embarrassing politeness, and, without being reminded of the MSS. in question, informed his visitor that one of them, the variations on La ci darem la mano, would before long appear in the Odeon series. “A great honour for me, is it not?” writes the happy composer to his friend Titus. The amiable publisher, however, thought that Chopin would do well to show the people of Vienna what his difficult and by no means easily comprehensible composition was like. But the composer was not readily persuaded. The thought of playing in the city where Mozart and Beethoven had been heard frightened him, and then he had not touched a piano for a whole fortnight. Not even when Count Gallenberg entered and Haslinger presented Chopin to him as a coward who dare not play in public was the young virtuoso put on his mettle. In fact, he even declined with thanks the theatre which was placed at his disposal by Count Gallenberg, who was then lessee of the Karnthnerthor Theatre, and in whom the reader has no doubt recognised the once celebrated composer of ballets, or at least the husband of Beethoven’s passionately-loved Countess Giulia Guicciardi. Haslinger and Gallenberg were not the only persons who urged him to give the Viennese an opportunity to hear him. Dining at the house of Count Hussarzewski, a worthy old gentleman who admired his young countryman’s playing very much, Chopin was advised by everybody present–and the guests belonged to the best society of Vienna–to give a concert. The journalist Blahetka, best known as the father of his daughter, was not sparing in words of encouragement; and Capellmeister Wurfel, who had been kind to Chopin in Warsaw, told him plainly that it would be a disgrace to himself, his parents, and his teachers not to make a public appearance, which, he added, was, moreover, a politic move for this reason, that no one who has composed anything new and wishes to make a noise in the world can do so unless he performs his works himself. In fact, everybody with whom he got acquainted was of the same opinion, and assured him that the newspapers would say nothing but what was flattering. At last Chopin allowed himself to be persuaded, Wurfel took upon him the care of making the necessary arrangements, and already the next morning the bills announced the coming event to the public of Vienna. In a long postscript of a long and confused letter to his people he writes: “I have made up my mind. Blahetka asserts that I shall create a furore, ‘being,’ as he expressed it, ‘an artist of the first rank, and occupying an honourable place by the side of Moscheles, Herz, and Kalkbrenner.'” To all appearance our friend was not disposed to question the correctness of this opinion; indeed, we shall see that although he had his moments of doubting, he was perfectly conscious of his worth. No blame, however, attaches to him on this account; self-respect and self- confidence are not only irreprehensible but even indispensable– that is, indispensable for the successful exercise of any talent. That our friend had his little weaknesses shall not be denied nor concealed. I am afraid he cannot escape the suspicion of having possessed a considerable share of harmless vanity. “All journalists,” he writes to his parents and sisters, “open their eyes wide at me, and the members of the orchestra greet me deferentially because I walk with the director of the Italian opera arm-in-arm.” Two pianoforte-manufacturers–in one place Chopin says three–offered to send him instruments, but he declined, partly because he had not room enough, partly because he did not think it worth while to begin to practise two days before the concert. Both Stein and Graff were very obliging; as, however, he preferred the latter’s instruments, he chose one of this maker’s for the concert, and tried to prevent the other from taking offence by speaking him fair.
Chopin made his first public appearance in Vienna at the Karnthnerthor Theatre on August 11, 1829. The programme comprised the following items: Beethoven’s Overture to Prometheus; arias of Rossini’s and Vaccaj’s, sung by Mdlle. Veltheim, singer to the