Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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To-day is the first of January. Oh, how sadly this year
begins for me! I love you [his friends] above all things.
Write as soon as possible. Is she at Radom? Have you thrown
up redoubts? My poor parents! How are my friends faring?

I could die for you, for you all! Why am I doomed to be here
so lonely and forsaken? You can at least open your hearts to
each other and comfort each other. Your flute will have
enough to lament! How much more will my piano have to weep!

You write that you and your regiment are going to take the
field; how will you forward the note? Be sure you do not send
it by a messenger; be cautious! The parents might perhaps--
they might perhaps view the matter in a false light.

I embrace you once more. You are going to the war; return as
a colonel. May all pass off well! Why may I not at least be
your drummer?

Forgive the disorder in my letter, I write as if I were
intoxicated.

The disorder of the letters is indeed very striking; it is great
in the foregoing extracts, and of course ten times greater with
the interspersed descriptions, bits of news, and criticisms on
music and musicians. I preferred separating the fundamental and
always-recurring thoughts, the all-absorbing and predominating
feelings, from the more superficial and passing fancies and
affections, and all those matters which were to him, if not of
total indifference, at least of comparatively little moment;
because such a separation enables us to gain a clearer and fuller
view of the inner man and to judge henceforth his actions and
works with some degree of certainty, even where his own accounts
and comments and those of trustworthy witnesses fail us. The
psychological student need not be told to take note of the
disorder in these two letters and of their length (written to the
same person within less than a week, they fill nearly twelve
printed pages in Karasowski's book), he will not be found
neglecting such important indications of the temporary mood and
the character of which it is a manifestation. And now let us take
a glance at Chopin's outward life in Vienna.

I have already stated that Chopin and Woyciechowski lived
together. Their lodgings, for which they had to pay their
landlady, a baroness, fifty florins, were on the third story of a
house in the Kohlmarkt, and consisted of three elegant rooms.
When his friend left, Chopin thought the rent too high for his
purse, and as an English family was willing to pay as much as
eighty florins, he sublet the rooms and removed to the fourth
story, where he found in the Baroness von Lachmanowicz an
agreeable young landlady, and had equally roomy apartments which
cost him only twenty florins and pleased him quite well. The
house was favourably situated, Mechetti being on the right,
Artaria on the left, and the opera behind; and as people were not
deterred by the high stairs from visiting him, not even old Count
Hussarzewski, and a good profit would accrue to him from those
eighty florins, he could afford to laugh at theprobable dismay of
his friends picturing him as "a poor devil living in a garret,"
and could do so the more heartily as there was in reality another
story between him and the roof. He gives his people a very pretty
description of his lodgings and mode of life:--

I live on the fourth story, in a fine street, but I have to
strain my eyes in looking out of the window when I wish to
see what is going on beneath. You will find my room in my new
album when I am at home again. Young Hummel [a son of the
composer] is so kind as to draw it for me. It is large and
has five windows; the bed is opposite to them. My wonderful
piano stands on the right, the sofa on the left; between the
windows there is a mirror, in the middle of the room a fine,
large, round mahogany table; the floor is polished. Hush!
"The gentleman does not receive visitors in the afternoon"--
hence I can be amongst you in my thoughts. Early in the
morning the unbearably-stupid servant wakes me; I rise, get
my coffee, and often drink it cold because I forget my
breakfast over my playing. Punctually at nine o'clock appears
my German master; then I generally write; and after that,
Hummel comes to work at my portrait, while Nidecki studies my
concerto. And all this time I remain in my comfortable
dressing-gown, which I do not take off till twelve o'clock.
At that hour a very worthy German makes his appearance, Herr
Leibenfrost, who works in the law-courts here. If the weather
is fine I take a walk with him on the Glacis, then we dine
together at a restaurant, Zur bohmischen Kochin, which is
frequented by all the university students; and finally we go
(as is the custom here) to one of the best coffee-houses.
After this I make calls, return home in the twilight, throw
myself into evening-dress, and must be off to some soiree: to-
day here, to-morrow there. About eleven or twelve (but never
later) I return home, play, laugh, read, lie down, put out
the light, sleep, and dream of you, my dear ones.

If is evident that there was no occasion to fear that Chopin
would kill himself with too hard work. Indeed, the number of
friends, or, not to misuse this sacred name, let us rather say
acquaintances, he had, did not allow him much time for study and
composition. In his letters from Vienna are mentioned more than
forty names of families and single individuals with whom he had
personal intercourse. I need hardly add that among them there was
a considerable sprinkling of Poles. Indeed, the majority of the
houses where he was oftenest seen, and where he felt most happy,
were those of his countrymen, or those in which there was at
least some Polish member, or which had some Polish connection.
Already on December 1, 1830, he writes home that he had been
several times at Count Hussarzewski's, and purposes to pay a
visit at Countess Rosalia Rzewuska's, where he expects to meet
Madame Cibbini, the daughter of Leopold Kozeluch and a pupil of
Clementi, known as a pianist and composer, to whom Moscheles
dedicated a sonata for four hands, and who at that time was first
lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Austria. Chopin had likewise
called twice at Madame Weyberheim's. This lady, who was a sister
of Madame Wolf and the wife of a rich banker, invited him to a
soiree "en petit cercle des amateurs," and some weeks later to a
soiree dansante, on which occasion he saw "many young people,
beautiful, but not antique [that is to say not of the Old
Testament kind], "refused to play, although the lady of the house
and her beautiful daughters had invited many musical personages,
was forced to dance a cotillon, made some rounds, and then went
home. In the house of the family Beyer (where the husband was a
Pole of Odessa, and the wife, likewise Polish, bore the
fascinating Christian name Constantia--the reader will remember
her) Chopin felt soon at his ease. There he liked to dine, sup,
lounge, chat, play, dance mazurkas, &c. He often met there the
violinist Slavik, and the day before Christmas played with him
all the morning and evening, another day staying with him there
till two o'clock in the morning. We hear also of dinners at the
house of his countrywoman Madame Elkan, and at Madame
Schaschek's, where (he writes in July, 1831) he usually met
several Polish ladies, who by their hearty hopeful words always
cheered him, and where he once made his appearance at four
instead of the appointed dinner hour, two o'clock. But one of his
best friends was the medical celebrity Dr. Malfatti, physician-in-
ordinary to the Emperor of Austria, better remembered by the
musical reader as the friend of Beethoven, whom he attended in
his last illness, forgetting what causes for complaint he might
have against the too irritable master. Well, this Dr. Malfatti
received Chopin, of whom he had already heard from Wladyslaw
Ostrowski, "as heartily as if I had been a relation of his"
(Chopin uses here a very bold simile), running up to him and
embracing him as soon as he had got sight of his visiting-card.
Chopin became a frequent guest at the doctor's house; in his
letters we come often on the announcement that he has dined or is
going to dine on such or such a day at Dr. Malfatti's.

December 1, 1830.--On the whole things are going well with
me, and I hope with God's help, who sent Malfatti to my
assistance--oh, excellent Malfatti!--that they will go better
still.

December 25, 1830.--I went to dine at Malfatti's. This
excellent man thinks of everything; he is even so kind as to
set before us dishes prepared in the Polish fashion.

May 14, 1831.--I am very brisk, and feel that good health is
the best comfort in misfortune. Perhaps Malfatti's soups have
strengthened me so much that I feel better than I ever did.
If this is really the case, I must doubly regret that
Malfatti has gone with his family into the country. You have
no idea how beautiful the villa is in which he lives; this
day week I was there with Hummel. After this amiable
physician had taken us over his house he showed us also his
garden. When we stood at the top of the hill, from which we
had a splendid view, we did not wish to go down again. The
Court honours Malfatti every year with a visit. He has the
Duchess of Anhalt-Cothen as a neighbour; I should not wonder
if she envied him his garden. On one side one sees Vienna
lying at one's feet, and in such a way that one might believe
it was joined to Schoenbrunn; on the other side one sees high
mountains picturesquely dotted with convents and villages.
Gazing on this romantic panorama one entirely forgets the
noisy bustle and proximity of the capital.

This is one of the few descriptive passages to be found in
Chopin's letters--men and their ways interested him more than
natural scenery. But to return from the villa to its owner,
Chopin characterises his relation to the doctor unequivocally in
the following statement:--"Malfatti really loves me, and I am not
a little proud of it." Indeed, the doctor seems to have been a
true friend, ready with act and counsel. He aided him with his
influence in various ways; thus, for instance, we read that he
promised to introduce him to Madame Tatyszczew, the wife of the
Russian Ambassador, and to Baron Dunoi, the president of the
musical society, whom Chopin thought a very useful personage to
know. At Malfatti's he made also the acquaintance of some artists
whom he would, perhaps, have had no opportunity of meeting
elsewhere. One of these was the celebrated tenor Wild. He came to
Malfatti's in the afternoon of Christmas-day, and Chopin, who had
been dining there, says: "I accompanied by heart the aria from
Othello, which he sang in a masterly style. Wild and Miss
Heinefetter are the ornaments of the Court Opera." Of a
celebration of Malfatti's name-day Chopin gives the following
graphic account in a letter to his parents, dated June 25, 1831:-
-

Mechetti, who wished to surprise him [Malfatti], persuaded
the Misses Emmering and Lutzer, and the Messrs. Wild,
Cicimara, and your Frederick to perform some music at the
honoured man's house; almost from beginning to end the
performance was deserving of the predicate "parfait." I never
heard the quartet from Moses better sung; but Miss Gladkowska
sang "O quante lagrime" at my farewell concert at Warsaw with
much more expression. Wild was in excellent voice, and I
acted in a way as Capellmeister.

To this he adds the note:--

Cicimara said there was nobody in Vienna who accompanied so
well as I. And I thought, "Of that I have been long
convinced." A considerable number of people stood on the
terrace of the house and listened to our concert. The moon
shone with wondrous beauty, the fountains rose like columns
of pearls, the air was filled with the fragrance of the
orangery; in short, it was an enchanting night, and the
surroundings were magnificent! And now I will describe to you
the drawing-room in which we were. High windows, open from
top to bottom, look out upon the terrace, from which one has
a splendid view of the whole of Vienna. The walls are hung
with large mirrors; the lights were faint: but so much the
greater was the effect of the moonlight which streamed
through the windows. The cabinet to the left of the drawing-
room and adjoining it gives, on account of its large
dimensions, an imposing aspect to the whole apartment. The
ingenuousness and courtesy of the host, the elegant and
genial society, the generally-prevailing joviality, and the
excellent supper, kept us long together.

Here Chopin is seen at his best as a letter writer; it would be
difficult to find other passages of equal excellence. For,
although we meet frequently enough with isolated pretty bits,
there is not one single letter which, from beginning to end, as a
whole as well as in its parts, has the perfection and charm of
Mendelssohn's letters.

CHAPTER XII

VIENNA MUSICAL LIFE.--KARNTHNERTHOR THEATRE.--SABINE HEINEFETTER.-
-CONCERTS: HESSE, THALBERG, DOHLER, HUMMEL, ALOYS SCHMITT,
CHARLES CZERNY, SLAVIK, MERK, BOCKLET, ABBE STABLER, KIESEWETTER,
KANDLER.--THE PUBLISHERS HASLINGER, DIABELLI, MECHETTI, AND
JOSEPH CZERNY.--LANNER AND STRAUSS.--CHOPIN PLAYS AT A CONCERT
OF MADAME GARZIA-VESTRIS AND GIVES ONE HIMSELF.--HIS STUDIES AND
COMPOSITIONS OF THAT TIME.--HIS STATE OF BODY AND MIND.--
PREPARATIONS FOR AND POSTPONEMENT OF HIS DEPARTURE.--SHORTNESS OF
MONEY.--HIS MELANCHOLY.--TWO EXCURSIONS.--LEAVES FOR MUNICH.--HIS
CONCERT AT MUNICH.--HIS STAY AT STUTTGART.--PROCEEDS TO PARIS.

The allusions to music and musicians lead us naturally to inquire
further after Chopin's musical experiences in Vienna.

January 26, 1831.--If I had not made [he writes] the
exceedingly interesting acquaintance of the most talented
artists of this place, such as Slavik, Merk, Bocklet, and so
forth [this "so forth" is tantalising], I should be very
little satisfied with my stay here. The Opera indeed is good:
Wild and Miss Heinefetter fascinate the Viennese; only it is
a pity that Duport brings forward so few new operas, and
thinks more of his pocket than of art.

What Chopin says here and elsewhere about Duport's stinginess
tallies with the contemporary newspaper accounts. No sooner had
the new manager taken possession of his post than he began to
economise in such a manner that he drove away men like Conradin
Kreutzer, Weigl, and Mayseder. During the earlier part of his
sojourn in Vienna Chopin remarked that excepting Heinefetter and
Wild, the singers were not so excellent as he had expected to
find them at the Imperial Opera. Afterwards he seems to have
somewhat extended his sympathies, for he writes in July, 1831:--

Rossini's "Siege of Corinth" was lately very well performed
here, and I am glad that I had the opportunity of hearing
this opera. Miss Heinefetter and Messrs. Wild, Binder, and
Forti, in short, all the good singers in Vienna, appeared in
this opera and did their best.

Chopin's most considerable criticism of this time is one on Miss
Heinefetter in a letter written on December 25, 1830; it may
serve as a pendant to his criticism on Miss Sontag which I quoted
in a preceding chapter.

Miss Heinefetter has a voice such as one seldom hears; she
sings always in tune; her coloratura is like so many pearls;
in short, everything is faultless. She looks particularly
well when dressed as a man. But she is cold: I got my nose
almost frozen in the stalls. In "Othello" she delighted me
more than in the "Barber of Seville," where she represents a
finished coquette instead of a lively, witty girl. As Sextus
in "Titus" she looks really quite splendid. In a few days she
is to appear in the "Thieving Magpie" ["La Gazza ladra"]. I
am anxious to hear it. Miss Woikow pleased me better as
Rosina in the "Barber"; but, to be sure, she has not such a
delicious voice as the Heinefetter. I wish I had heard Pasta!

The opera at the Karnthnerthor Theatre with all its shortcomings
was nevertheless the most important and most satisfactory musical
institution of the city. What else, indeed, had Vienna to offer
to the earnest musician? Lanner and Strauss were the heroes of
the day, and the majority of other concerts than those given by
them were exhibitions of virtuosos. Imagine what a pass the
musical world of Vienna must have come to when Stadler,
Kiesewetter, Mosel, and Seyfried could be called, as Chopin did
call them, its elite! Abbe Stadler might well say to the stranger
from Poland that Vienna was no longer what it used to be. Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert had shuffled off their mortal
coil, and compared with these suns their surviving contemporaries
and successors--Gyrowetz, Weigl, Stadler, Conradin Kreutzer,
Lachner, &c.--were but dim and uncertain lights.

With regard to choral and orchestral performances apart from the
stage, Vienna had till more recent times very little to boast of.
In 1830-1831 the Spirituel-Concerte (Concerts Spirituels) were
still in existence under the conductorship of Lannoy; but since
1824 their number had dwindled down from eighteen to four yearly
concerts. The programmes were made up of a symphony and some
sacred choruses. Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn predominated among
the symphonists; in the choral department preference was given to
the Austrian school of church music; but Cherubim also was a
great favourite, and choruses from Handel's oratorios, with
Mosel's additional accompaniments, were often performed. The name
of Beethoven was hardly ever absent from any of the programmes.
That the orchestra consisted chiefly of amateurs, and that the
performances took place without rehearsals (only difficult new
works got a rehearsal, and one only), are facts which speak for
themselves. Franz Lachner told Hanslick that the performances of
new and in any way difficult compositions were so bad that
Schubert once left the hall in the middle of one of his works,
and he himself (Lachner) had felt several times inclined to do
the same. These are the concerts of which Beethoven spoke as
Winkelmusik, and the tickets of which he denominated
Abtrittskarten, a word which, as the expression of a man of
genius, I do not hesitate to quote, but which I could not venture
to translate. Since this damning criticism was uttered, matters
had not improved, on the contrary, had gone from bad to worse.
Another society of note was the still existing and flourishing
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. It, too, gave four, or perhaps
five yearly concerts, in each of which a symphony, an overture,
an aria or duet, an instrumental solo, and a chorus were
performed. This society was afflicted with the same evil as the
first-named institution. It was a

gladdening sight [we are told] to see counts and tradesmen,
superiors and subalterns, professors and students, noble
ladies and simple burghers' daughters side by side
harmoniously exerting themselves for the love of art.

As far as choral singing is concerned the example deserves to be
followed, but the matter stands differently with regard to
instrumental music, a branch of the art which demands not only
longer and more careful, but also constant, training. Although
the early custom of drawing lots, in order to determine who were
to sing the solos, what places the players were to occupy in the
orchestra, and which of the four conductors was to wield the
baton, had already disappeared before 1831, yet in 1841 the
performances of the symphonies were still so little "in the
spirit of the composers" (a delicate way of stating an ugly fact)
that a critic advised the society to imitate the foreign
conservatoriums, and reinforce the band with the best musicians
of the capital, who, constantly exercising their art, and
conversant with the works of the great masters, were better able
to do justice to them than amateurs who met only four times a
year. What a boon it would be to humanity, what an increase of
happiness, if amateurs would allow themselves to be taught by
George Eliot, who never spoke truer and wiser words than when she
said:--"A little private imitation of what is good is a sort of
private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practise art only
in the light of private study--preparation to understand and
enjoy what the few can do for us." In addition to the above I
shall yet mention a third society, the Tonkunstler-Societat,
which, as the name implies, was an association of musicians. Its
object was the getting-up and keeping-up of a pension fund, and
its artistic activity displayed itself in four yearly concerts.
Haydn's "Creation" and "Seasons" were the stock pieces of the
society's repertoire, but in 1830 and 1831 Handel's "Messiah" and
"Solomon" and Lachner's "Die vier Menschenalter" were also
performed.

These historical notes will give us an idea of what Chopin may
have heard in the way of choral and orchestral music. I say "may
have heard," because not a word is to be found in his extant
letters about the concerts of these societies. Without exposing
ourselves to the reproach of rashness, we may, however, assume
that he was present at the concert of the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde on March 20, 1831, when among the items of the
programme were Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and the first
movement of a concerto composed and played by Thalberg. On seeing
the name of one of the most famous pianists contemporary with
Chopin, the reader has, no doubt, at once guessed the reason why
I assumed the latter's presence at the concert. These two
remarkable, but in their characters and aims so dissimilar, men
had some friendly intercourse in Vienna. Chopin mentions Thalberg
twice in his letters, first on December 25, 1830, and again on
May 28, 1831. On the latter occasion he relates that he went with
him to an organ recital given by Hesse, the previously-mentioned
Adolf Hesse of Breslau, of whom Chopin now remarked that he had
talent and knew how to treat his instrument. Hesse and Chopin
must have had some personal intercourse, for we learn that the
former left with the latter an album leaf. A propos of this
circumstance, Chopin confesses in a letter to his people that he
is at a loss what to write, that he lacks the requisite wit. But
let us return to the brilliant pianist, who, of course, was a
more interesting acquaintance in Chopin's, eyes than the great
organist. Born in 1812, and consequently three years younger than
Chopin, Sigismund Thalberg had already in his fifteenth year
played with success in public, and at the age of sixteen
published Op. 1, 2, and 3. However, when Chopin made his
acquaintance, he had not yet begun to play only his own
compositions (about that time he played, for instance,
Beethoven's C minor Concerto at one of the Spirituel-Concerte,
where since 1830 instrumental solos were occasionally heard), nor
had he attained that in its way unique perfection of beauty of
tone and elegance of execution which distinguished him
afterwards. Indeed, the palmy days of his career cannot be dated
farther back than the year 1835, when he and Chopin met again in
Paris; but then his success was so enormous that his fame in a
short time became universal, and as a virtuoso only one rival was
left him--Liszt, the unconquered. That Chopin and Thalberg
entertained very high opinions of each other cannot be asserted.
Let the reader judge for himself after reading what Chopin says
in his letter of December 25, 1830:--

Thalberg plays famously, but he is not my man. He is younger
than I, pleases the ladies very much, makes pot-pourris on
"La Muette" ["Masaniello"], plays the forte and piano with
the pedal, but not with the hand, takes tenths as easily as I
do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds. Moscheles does not
at all astonish him; therefore it is no wonder that only the
tuttis of my concerto have pleased him. He, too, writes
concertos.

Chopin was endowed with a considerable power of sarcasm, and was
fond of cultivating and exercising it. This portraiture of his
brother-artist is not a bad specimen of its kind, although we
shall meet with better ones.

Another, but as yet unfledged, celebrity was at that time living
in Vienna, prosecuting his studies under Czerny--namely, Theodor
Dohler. Chopin, who went to hear him play some compositions of
his master's at the theatre, does not allude to him again after
the concert; but if he foresaw what a position as a pianist and
composer he himself was destined to occupy, he could not suspect
that this lad of seventeen would some day be held up to the
Parisian public by a hostile clique as a rival equalling and even
surpassing his peculiar excellences. By the way, the notion of
anyone playing compositions of Czerny's at a concert cannot but
strangely tickle the fancy of a musician who has the privilege of
living in the latter part of the nineteenth century.