Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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Your trios, my dear friend, have been finished for a long
time, and, true to my character of a glutton, I have gulped
down your manuscripts into my repertoire. Your concerto will
be performed this month by Adam's pupils at the examination
of the Conservatoire. Mdlle. Lyon plays it very well. La
Tentation, an opera-ballet by Halevy and Gide, has not
tempted any one of good taste, because it has just as little
interest as your German Diet harmony with the spirit of the
age. Maurice, who has returned from London, whither he had
gone for the mise en scene of Robert (which has not had a
very great success), has assured us that Moscheles and Field
will come to Paris for the winter. This is all the news I
have to give you. Osborne has been in London for the last two
months. Pixis is at Boulogne. Kalkbrenner is at Meudon,
Rossini at Bordeaux. All who know you await you with open
arms. Liszt will add a few words below. Farewell, dear
friend.

Yours most truly,

F. CHOPIN.

Paris, 2/8/32

CHAPTER XVI.

1832-1834.

CHOPIN'S SUCCESS IN SOCIETY AND AS A TEACHER.--VARIOUS CONCERTS
AT WHICH HE PLAYED.--A LETTER FROM CHOPIN AND LISZT TO HILLER.--
SOME OF HIS FRIENDS.--STRANGE BEHAVIOUR.--A LETTER TO FRANCHOMME.-
-CHOPIN'S RESERVE.--SOME TRAITS OF THE POLISH CHARACTER.--FIELD.-
-BERLIOZ.--NEO-ROMANTICISM AND CHOPIN'S RELATION TO IT.--WHAT
INFLUENCE HAD LISZT ON CHOPIN'S DEVELOPMENT--PUBLICATION OF
WORKS.--THE CRITICS.--INCREASING POPULARITY.--JOURNEY IN THE
COMPANY OF HILLER TO AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.--A DAY AT DUSSELDORF WITH
MENDELSSOHN.

IN the season 1832-1833 Chopin took his place as one of the
acknowledged pianistic luminaries of the French capital, and
began his activity as a professor par excellence of the
aristocracy. "His distinguished manners, his exquisite
politeness, his studied and somewhat affected refinement in all
things, made Chopin the model professor of the fashionable
nobility." Thus Chopin is described by a contemporary. Now he
shall describe himself. An undated letter addressed to his friend
Dominic Dziewanowski, which, judging from an allusion to the
death of the Princess Vaudemont, [FOOTNOTE: In a necrology
contained in the Moniteur of January 6, 1833, she is praised for
the justesse de son esprit, and described as naive et vraie comme
une femme du peuple, genereuse comme une grande dame. There we
find it also recorded that she saved M. de Vitrolles pendant les
Cent-jours, et M. de Lavalette sous la Restoration.] must have
been written about the second week of January, 1833, gives much
interesting information concerning the writer's tastes and
manners, the degree of success he had obtained, and the kind of
life he was leading. After some jocular remarks on his long
silence--remarks in which he alludes to recollections of
Szafarnia and the sincerity of their friendship, and which he
concludes with the statement that he is so much in demand on all
sides as to betorn to pieces--Chopin proceeds thus:--

I move in the highest society--among ambassadors, princes,
and ministers; and I don't know how I got there, for I did
not thrust myself forward at all. But for me this is at
present an absolute necessity, for thence comes, as it were,
good taste. You are at once credited with more talent if you
are heard at a soiree of the English or Austrian
Ambassador's. Your playing is finer if the Princess Vaudemont
patronises you. "Patronises" I cannot properly say, for the
good old woman died a week ago. She was a lady who reminded
me of the late Kasztelanowa Polaniecka, received at her house
the whole Court, was very charitable, and gave refuge to many
aristocrats in the days of terror of the first revolution.
She was the first who presented herself after the days of
July at the Court of Louis Philippe, although she belonged to
the Montmorency family (the elder branch), whose last
descendant she was. She had always a number of black and
white pet dogs, canaries, and parrots about her; and
possessed also a very droll little monkey, which was
permitted even to...bite countesses and princesses.

Among the Paris artists I enjoy general esteem and
friendship, although I have been here only a year. A proof of
this is that men of great reputation dedicate their
compositions to me, and do so even before I have paid them
the same compliment--for instance, Pixis his last Variations
for orchestra. He is now even composing variations on a theme
of mine. Kalkbrenner improvises frequently on my mazurkas.
Pupils of the Conservatoire, nay, even private pupils of
Moscheles, Herz, and Kalkbrenner (consequently clever
artists), still take lessons from me, and regard me as the
equal of Field. Really, if I were somewhat more silly than I
am, I might imagine myself already a finished artist;
nevertheless, I feel daily how much I have still to learn,
and become the more conscious of it through my intercourse
with the first artists here, and my perception of what every
one, even of them, is lacking in. But I am quite ashamed of
myself for what I have written just now, having praised
myself like a child. I would erase it, but I have no time to
write another letter. Moreover, you will remember my
character as it formerly was; indeed, I have remained quite
the same, only with this one difference, that I have now
whiskers on one side--unfortunately they won't grow at all on
the other side. To-day I have to give five lessons; you will
imagine that I must soon have made a fortune, but the
cabriolet and the white gloves eat the earnings almost up,
and without these things people would deny my bon ton. I love
the Carlists, hate the Philippists, and am myself a
revolutionist; therefore I don't care for money, but only for
friendship, for the preservation of which I earnestly entreat
you.

This letter, and still more the letters which I shall presently
transcribe, afford irrefragable evidence of the baselessness of
the often-heard statement that Chopin's intercourse was in the
first years of his settlement in Paris confined to the Polish
salons. The simple unexaggerated truth is that Chopin had always
a predilection for, and felt more at home among, his compatriots.

In the winter 1832-1833 Chopin was heard frequently in public. At
a concert of Killer's (December 15, 1832) he performed with Liszt
and the concert-giver a movement of Bach's Concerto for three
pianos, the three artists rendering the piece "avec une
intelligence de son caractere et une delicatesse parfaite." Soon
after Chopin and Liszt played between the acts of a dramatic
performance got up for the benefit of Miss Smithson, the English
actress and bankrupt manager, Berlioz's flame, heroine of his
"Episode de la vie d'un artiste," and before long his wife. On
April 3, 1833, Chopin assisted at a concert given by the brothers
Herz, taking part along with them and Liszt in a quartet for
eight hands on two pianos. M. Marmontel, in his silhouette of the
pianist and critic Amedee de Mereaux, mentions that in 1832 this
artist twice played with Chopin a duo of his own on "Le Pre aux
Clercs," but leaves us in uncertainty as to whether they
performed it at public concerts or private parties. M. Franchomme
told me that he remembered something about a concert given by
Chopin in 1833 at the house of one of his aristocratic friends,
perhaps at Madame la Marechale de Lannes's! In summing up, as it
were, Chopin's activity as a virtuoso, I may make use of the
words of the Paris correspondent of the "Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung," who reports in April, 1833, that "Chopin and Osborne,
as well as the other celebrated masters, delight the public
frequently." In short, Chopin was becoming more and more of a
favourite, not, however, of the democracy of large concert-halls,
but of the aristocracy of select salons.

The following letter addressed to Hiller, written by Chopin and
Liszt, and signed by them and Franchomme, brings together
Chopin's most intimate artist friends, and spreads out before us
a vivid picture of their good fellowship and the society in which
they moved. I have put the portions written by Liszt within
brackets [within parentheses in this e-text]. Thus the reader
will see what belongs to each of the two writers, and how they
took the pen out of each other's hand in the middle of a phrase
and even of a word. With regard to this letter I have further to
remark that Hiller, who was again in Germany, had lately lost his
father:--

{This is at least the twentieth time that we have made
arrangements to meet, sometimes at my house, sometimes here,
[Footnote: At Chopin's lodgings mentioned farther on.] with
the intention of writing to you, and some visit, or other
unexpected hindrance, has always prevented us from doing
so!...I don't know whether Chopin will be able to make any
excuses to you; as regards myself it seems to me that we have
been so excessively rude and impertinent that excuses are no
longer either admissible or possible.

We have sympathised deeply with you in your sorrow, and
longed to be with you in order to alleviate as much as
possible the pangs of your heart.}

He has expressed himself so well that I have nothing to add
in excuse of my negligence or idleness, influenza or
distraction, or, or, or--you know I explain myself better in
person; and when I escort you home to your mother's house
this autumn, late at night along the boulevards, I shall try
to obtain your pardon. I write to you without knowing what my
pen is scribbling, because Liszt is at this moment playing my
studies and transports me out of my proper senses. I should
like to rob him of his way of rendering my own studies. As to
your friends who are in Paris, I have seen the Leo family and
their set [Footnote: Chopin's words are et qui s'en suit.' He
refers, no doubt, to the Valentin family, relations of the
Leos, who lived in the same house with them.] frequently this
winter and spring. There have been some soirees at the houses
of certain ambassadresses, and there was not one in which
mention was not made of some one who is at Frankfort. Madame
Eichthal sends you a thousand compliments. The whole Plater
family were much grieved at your departure, and asked me to
express to you their sympathy. (Madame d'Appony has quite a
grudge against me for not having taken you to her house
before your departure; she hopes that when you return you
will remember the promise you made me. I may say as much from
a certain lady who is not an ambassadress. [Footnote: This
certain lady was the Countess d'Agoult.]

Do you know Chopin's wonderful studies?) They are admirable--
and yet they will only last till the moment yours appear (a
little bit of authorial modesty!!!). A little bit of rudeness
on the part of the tutor--for, to explain the matter better
to you, he corrects my orthographical mistakes (after the
fashion of M. Marlet.

You will come back to us in the month of September, will you
not? Try to let us know the day as we have resolved to give
you a serenade (or charivari). The most distinguished artists
of the capital--M. Franchomme (present), Madame Petzold, and
the Abbe Bardin, the coryphees of the Rue d'Amboise (and my
neighbours), Maurice Schlesinger, uncles, aunts, nephews,
nieces, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, &c., &c.) en plan du
troisieme, &c. [Footnote: I give the last words in the
original French, because I am not sure of their meaning.
Hiller, to whom I applied for an explanation, was unable to
help me. Perhaps Chopin uses here the word plan in the
pictorial sense (premier plan, foreground; second plan,
middle distance).]

The responsible editors,

(F. LISZT.) F. CHOPIN. (Aug. FRANCHOMME.)

A Propos, I met Heine yesterday, who asked me to grussen you
herzlich und herzlich. [Footnote: To greet you heartily and
heartily.] A propos again, pardon me for all the "you's"--I
beg you to forgive me them. If you have a moment to spare let
us have news of you, which is very precious to us.

Paris: Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, No. 5.

At present I occupy Franck's lodgings--he has set out for
London and Berlin; I feel quite at home in the rooms which
were so often our place of meeting. Berlioz embraces you. As
to pere Baillot, he is in Switzerland, at Geneva, and so you
will understand why I cannot send you Bach's Concerto.

June 20, 1833.

Some of the names that appear in this letter will give occasion
for comment. Chopin, as Hiller informed me, went frequently to
the ambassadors Appony and Von Kilmannsegge, and still more
frequently to his compatriots, the Platers. At the house of the
latter much good music was performed, for the countess, the Pani
Kasztelanowa (the wife of the castellan), to whom Liszt devotes
an eloquent encomium, "knew how to welcome so as to encourage all
the talents that then promised to take their upward flight and
form une lumineuse pleiade," being

in turn fairy, nurse, godmother, guardian angel, delicate
benefactress, knowing all that threatens, divining all that
saves, she was to each of us an amiable protectress, equally
beloved and respected, who enlightened, warmed, and elevated
his [Chopin's] inspiration, and left a blank in his life when
she was no more.

It was she who said one day to Chopin: "Si j'etais jeune et
jolie, mon petit Chopin, je te prendrais pour mari, Hiller pour
ami, et Liszt pour amant." And it was at her house that the
interesting contention of Chopin with Liszt and Hiller took
place. The Hungarian and the German having denied the assertion
of the Pole that only he who was born and bred in Poland, only he
who had breathed the perfume of her fields and woods, could fully
comprehend with heart and mind Polish national music, the three
agreed to play in turn, by way of experiment, the mazurka "Poland
is not lost yet." Liszt began, Hiller followed, and Chopin came
last and carried off the palm, his rivals admitting that they had
not seized the true spirit of the music as he had done. Another
anecdote, told me by Hiller, shows how intimate the Polish artist
was with this family of compatriots, the Platers, and what
strange whims he sometimes gave way to. One day Chopin came into
the salon acting the part of Pierrot, and, after jumping and
dancing about for an hour, left without having spoken a single
word.

Abbe Bardin was a great musical amateur, at whose weekly
afternoon gatherings the best artists might be seen and heard,
Mendelssohn among the rest when he was in Paris in 1832-1833. In
one of the many obituary notices of Chopin which appeared in
French and other papers, and which are in no wise distinguished
by their trustworthiness, I found the remark that the Abbe Bardin
and M.M. Tilmant freres were the first to recognise Chopin's
genius. The notice in question is to be found in the Chronique
Musicale of November 3, 1849.

In Franck, whose lodgings Chopin had taken, the reader will
recognise the "clever [geistreiche], musical Dr. Hermann Franck,"
the friend of many musical and other celebrities, the same with
whom Mendelssohn used to play at chess during his stay in Paris.
From Hiller I learned that Franck was very musical, and that his
attainments in the natural sciences were considerable; but that
being well-to-do he was without a profession. In the fifth decade
of this century he edited for a year Brockhaus's Deutsche
allgemeine Zeitung.

In the following letter which Chopin wrote to Franchomme--the
latter thinks in the autumn of 1833--we meet with some new names.
Dr. Hoffmann was a good friend of the composer's, and was
frequently found at his rooms smoking. I take him to have been
the well-known litterateur Charles Alexander Hoffmann, [Footnote:
This is the usual German, French, and English spelling. The
correct Polish spelling is Hofman. The forms Hoffman and Hofmann
occur likewise.] the husband of Clementina Tanska, a Polish
refugee who came to Paris in 1832 and continued to reside there
till 1848. Maurice is of course Schlesinger the publisher. Of
Smitkowski I know only that he was one of Chopin's Polish
friends, whose list is pretty long and comprised among others
Prince Casimir Lubomirski, Grzymala, Fontana, and Orda.

[Footnote: Of Grzymala and Fontana more will be heard in the
sequel. Prince Casimir Lubomirski was a passionate lover of
music, and published various compositions. Liszt writes that
Orda, "who seemed to command a future," was killed at the age of
twenty in Algiers. Karasowski gives the same information,
omitting, however, the age. My inquiries about Orda among French
musicians and Poles have had no result. Although the data do not
tally with those of Liszt and Karasowski, one is tempted to
identify Chopin's friend with the Napoleon Orda mentioned in
Sowinski's Musiciens polonais et slaves--"A pianist-composer who
had made himself known since the events of 1831. One owes to him
the publication of a Polish Album devoted to the composers of
this nation, published at Paris in 1838. M. Orda is the author of
several elegantly-written pianoforte works." In a memoir prefixed
to an edition of Chopin's mazurkas and waltzes (Boosey & Co.),
J.W. Davison mentions a M. Orda (the "M." stands, I suppose, for
Monsieur) and Charles Filtsch as pupils of Chopin.]

It was well for Chopin that he was so abundantly provided with
friends, for, as Hiller told me, he could not do without company.
But here is Chopin's letter to Franchomme:--

Begun on Saturday, the 14th, and finished on Wednesday, the
18th.

DEAR FRIEND,--It would be useless to excuse myself for my
silence. If my thoughts could but go without paper to the
post-office! However, you know me too well not to know that
I, unfortunately, never do what I ought to do. I got here
very comfortably (except for a little disagreeable episode,
caused by an excessively odoriferous gentleman who went as
far as Chartres--he surprised me in the night-time). I have
found more occupation in Paris than I left behind me, which
will, without doubt, hinder me from visiting you at Coteau.
Coteau! oh Coteau! Say, my child, to the whole family at
Coteau that I shall never forget my stay in Touraine--that so
much kindness has made me for ever grateful. People think I
am stouter and look very well, and I feel wonderfully well,
thanks to the ladies that sat beside me at dinner, who
bestowed truly maternal attentions upon me. When I think of
all this the whole appears to me such an agreeable dream that
I should like to sleep again. And the peasant-girls of
Pormic! [FOOTNOTE: A village near the place where Chopin had
been staying.] and the flour! or rather your graceful nose
which you were obliged to plunge into it.

[FOOTNOTE: The remark about the "flour" and Franchomme's "nez
en forme gracieuse" is an allusion to some childish game in
which Chopin, thanks to his aquiline nose, got the better of
his friend, who as regards this feature was less liberally
endowed.]

A very interesting visit has interrupted my letter, which was
begun three days ago, and which I have not been able to
finish till to-day.

Hiller embraces you, Maurice, and everybody. I have delivered
your note to his brother, whom I did not find at home.

Paer, whom I saw a few days ago, spoke to me of your return.
Come back to us stout and in good health like me. Again a
thousand messages to the estimable Forest family. I have
neither words nor powers to express all I feel for them.
Excuse me. Shake hands with me--I pat you on the shoulder--I
hug you--I embrace you. My friend--au revoir.

Hoffmann, the stout Hoffmann, and the slim Smitkowski also,
embrace you.

[FOOTNOTE: The orthography of the French original is very
careless. Thus one finds frequent omissions and misplacements
of accents and numerous misspellings, such as trouvais
instead of trouve, engresse instead of engraisse, plonge
instead of plonger. Of course, these mistakes have to be
ascribed to negligence not to ignorance. I must mention yet
another point which the English translation does not bring
out--namely, that in addressing Franchomme Chopin makes use
of the familiar form of the second person singular.]

The last-quoted letter adds a few more touches to the portraiture
of Chopin which has been in progress in the preceding pages. The
insinuating affectionateness and winning playfulness had hitherto
not been brought out so distinctly. There was then, and there
remained to the end of his life, something of a woman and of a
boy in this man. The sentimental element is almost wholly absent
from Chopin's letters to his non-Polish friends. Even to
Franchomme, the most intimate among these, he shows not only less
of his inmost feelings and thoughts than to Titus Woyciechowski
and John Matuszyriski, the friends of his youth, but also less
than to others of his countrymen whose acquaintance he made later
in life, and of whom Grzymala may be instanced. Ready to give
everything, says Liszt, Chopin did not give himself--

his most intimate acquaintances did not penetrate into the
sacred recess where, apart from the rest of his life, dwelt
the secret spring of his soul: a recess so well concealed
that one hardly suspected its existence.

Indeed, you could as little get hold of Chopin as, to use L.
Enault's expression, of the scaly back of a siren. Only after
reading his letters to the few confidants to whom he freely gave
his whole self do we know how little of himself he gave to the
generality of his friends, whom he pays off with affectionateness
and playfulness, and who, perhaps, never suspected, or only
suspected, what lay beneath that smooth surface. This kind of
reserve is a feature of the Slavonic character, which in Chopin's
individuality was unusually developed.

The Slavonians [says Enault pithily] lend themselves, they do
not give themselves; and, as if Chopin had wished to make his
country-men pardon him the French origin of his family, he
showed himself more Polish than Poland.

Liszt makes some very interesting remarks on this point, and as
they throw much light on the character of the race, and on that
of the individual with whom we are especially concerned in this
book, I shall quote them:--

With the Slavonians, the loyalty and frankness, the
familiarity and captivating desinvoltura of their manners, do
not in the least imply trust and effusiveness. Their feelings
reveal and conceal themselves like the coils of a serpent
convoluted upon itself; it is only by a very attentive
examination that one discovers the connection of the rings.
It would be naive to take their complimentary politeness,
their pretended modesty literally. The forms of this
politeness and this modesty belong to their manners, which
bear distinct traces of their ancient relations with the
East. Without being in the least infected by Mussulmanic
taciturnity, the Slavonians have learned from it a defiant
reserve on all subjects which touch the intimate chords of
the heart. One may be almost certain that, in speaking of
themselves, they maintain with regard to their interlocutor
some reticence which assures them over him an advantage of
intelligence or of feeling, leaving him in ignorance of some
circumstance or some secret motive by which they would be the
most admired or the least esteemed; they delight in hiding
themselves behind a cunning interrogatory smile of
imperceptible mockery. Having on every occasion a taste for
the pleasure of mystification, from the most witty and droll
to the most bitter and lugubrious kinds, one would say that
they see in this mocking deceit a form of disdain for the
superiority which they inwardly adjudge to themselves, but
which they veil with the care and cunning of the oppressed.

And now we will turn our attention once more to musical matters.
In the letter to Hiller (August 2, 1832) Chopin mentioned the
coming of Field and Moscheles, to which, no doubt, he looked
forward with curiosity. They were the only eminent pianists whom
he had not yet heard. Moscheles, however, seems not to have gone
this winter to Paris; at any rate, his personal acquaintance with
the Polish artist did not begin till 1839. Chopin, whose playing
had so often reminded people of Field's, and who had again and
again been called a pupil of his, would naturally take a
particular interest in this pianist. Moreover, he esteemed him
very highly as a composer. Mikuli tells us that Field's A flat
Concerto and nocturnes were among those compositions which he
delighted in playing (spielte mit Vorliebe). Kalkbrenner is
reported [FOOTNOTE: In the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of
April 3, 1833.] to have characterised Field's performances as
quite novel and incredible; and Fetis, who speaks of them in the
highest terms, relates that on hearing the pianist play a
concerto of his own composition, the public manifested an
indescribable enthusiasm, a real delirium. Not all accounts,
however, are equally favourable.