Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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[FOOTNOTE: In the Revue musicale of December 29, 1832. The
criticism is worth reproducing:--"Quiconque n'a point entendu ce
grand pianiste ne peut se faire d'idee du mecanisme admirable de
ses doigts, mecanisme tel que les plus grandes difficultes
semblent etre des choses fort simples, et que sa main n'a point
l'air de se mouvoir. Il n'est d'ailleurs pas mains etonnant dans
l'art d'attaquer la note et de varier a l'infini les diverses
nuances de force, de douceur et d'accent. Un enthousiasme
impossible a decrire, un veritable delire s'est manifeste dans le
public a l'audition de ce concerto plein de charme rendu avec une
perfection de fini, de precision, de nettete et d'expression
qu'il serait impossible de surpasser et que bien peu de pianistes
pourraient egaler." Of a MS. concerto played by Field at his
second concert, given on February 3, 1833, Fetis says that it is
"diffus, peu riche en motifs heureux, peu digne, en un mot, de la
renommee de son auteur," but "la delicieuse execution de M. Field
nous a tres-heureusement servi de compensation"]

Indeed, the contradictory criticisms to be met with in books and
newspapers leave on the reader the impression that Field
disappointed the expectations raised by his fame. The fact that
the second concert he gave was less well attended than the first
cannot but confirm this impression. He was probably no longer
what he had been; and the reigning pianoforte style and musical
taste were certainly no longer what they had been. "His elegant
playing and beautiful manner of singing on the piano made people
admire his talent," wrote Fetis at a later period (in his
"Biographie universelle des Musiciens"), "although his execution
had not the power of the pianists of the modern school." It is
not at all surprising that the general public and the younger
generation of artists, more especially the romanticists, were not
unanimously moved to unbounded enthusiasm by "the clear limpid
flow" and "almost somnolent tranquillity" of Field's playing,
"the placid tenderness, graceful candour, and charming
ingenuousness of his melodious reveries." This characterisation
of Field's style is taken from Liszt's preface to the nocturnes.
Moscheles, with whom Field dined in London shortly before the
latter's visit to Paris, gives in his diary a by no means
flattering account of him. Of the man, the diarist says that he
is good-natured but not educated and rather droll, and that there
cannot be a more glaring contrast than that between Field's
nocturnes and Field's manners, which were often cynical. Of the
artist, Moscheles remarks that while his touch was admirable and
his legato entrancing, his playing lacked spirit and accent,
light and shadow, and depth of feeling. M. Marmontel was not far
wrong when, before having heard Field, he regarded him as the
forerunner of Chopin, as a Chopin without his passion, sombre
reveries, heart-throes, and morbidity. The opinions which the two
artists had of each other and the degree of their mutual sympathy
and antipathy may be easily guessed. We are, however, not put to
the trouble of guessing all. Whoever has read anything about
Chopin knows of course Field's criticism of him--namely, that he
was "un talent de chambre de malade," which, by the by, reminds
one of a remark of Auber's, who said that Chopin was dying all
his life (il se meurt tonte sa vie). It is a pity that we have
not, as a pendant to Field's criticism on Chopin, one of Chopin
on Field. But whatever impression Chopin may have received from
the artist, he cannot but have been repelled by the man. And yet
the older artist's natural disposition was congenial to that of
the younger one, only intemperate habits had vitiated it. Spohr
saw Field in 1802-1803, and describes him as a pale, overgrown
youth, whose dreamy, melancholy playing made people forget his
awkward bearing and badly-fitting clothes. One who knew Field at
the time of his first successes portrays him as a young man with
blonde hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, and pleasing features,
expressive of the mood of the moment--of child-like
ingenuousness, modest good-nature, gentle roguishness, and
artistic aspiration. M. Marmontel, who made his acquaintance in
1832, represents him as a worn-out, vulgar-looking man of fifty,
whose outward appearance contrasted painfully with his artistic
performances, and whose heavy, thick-set form in conjunction with
the delicacy and dreaminess of his musical thoughts and execution
called to mind Rossini's saying of a celebrated singer, "Elle a
l'air d'un elephant qui aurait avale un rossignol." One can
easily imagine the surprise and disillusion of the four pupils of
Zimmermann--MM. Marmontel, Prudent, A. Petit, and Chollet--who,
provided with a letter of introduction by their master, called on
Field soon after his arrival in Paris and beheld the great
pianist--

in a room filled with tobacco smoke, sitting in an easy
chair, an enormous pipe in his mouth, surrounded by large and
small bottles of all sorts [entoure de chopes et bouteilles
de toutes provenances]. His rather large head, his highly-
coloured cheeks, his heavy features gave a Falstaff-like
appearance to his physiognomy.

Notwithstanding his tipsiness, he received the young gentlemen
kindly, and played to them two studies by Cramer and Clementi
"with rare perfection, admirable finish, marvellous agility, and
exquisiteness of touch." Many anecdotes might be told of Field's
indolence and nonchalance; for instance, how he often fell asleep
while giving his lessons, and on one occasion was asked whether
he thought he was paid twenty roubles for allowing himself to be
played to sleep; or, how, when his walking-stick had slipped out
of his hand, he waited till some one came and picked it up; or,
how, on finding his dress-boots rather tight, he put on slippers,
and thus appeared in one of the first salons of Paris and was led
by the mistress of the house, the Duchess Decazes, to the piano--
but I have said enough of the artist who is so often named in
connection with Chopin.

From placid Field to volcanic Berlioz is an enormous distance,
which, however, we will clear at one leap, and do it too without
hesitation or difficulty. For is not leaping the mind's natural
mode of locomotion, and walking an artificially-acquired and rare
accomplishment? Proceeding step by step we move only with more or
less awkwardness, but aided by ever so slight an association of
ideas we bound with the greatest ease from any point to any other
point of infinitude. Berlioz returned to Paris in the latter part
of 1832, and on the ninth of December of that year gave a concert
at which he produced among other works his "Episode de la vie
d'un artiste" (Part I.--"Symphonic fantastique," for the second
time; Part II--"Lelio, ou le retour a la vie," for the first
time), the subject of which is the history of his love for Miss
Smithson. Chopin, no doubt, made Berlioz's acquaintance through
Liszt, whose friendship with the great French symphonic composer
dated from before the latter's departure for Italy. The
characters of Chopin and Berlioz differed too much for a deep
sympathy to exist between them; their connection was indeed
hardly more than a pleasant social companionship. Liszt tells us
that the constant intercourse with Berlioz, Hiller, and other
celebrities who were in the habit of saying smart things,
developed Chopin's natural talent for incisive remarks, ironical
answers, and ambiguous speeches. Berlioz. I think, had more
affection for Chopin than the latter for Berlioz.

But it is much more the artistic than the social attitude taken
up by Chopin towards Berlioz and romanticism which interests us.
Has Liszt correctly represented it? Let us see. It may be
accepted as in the main true that the nocturnes of Field,
[Footnote: In connection with this, however, Mikuli's remark has
to be remembered.] the sonatas of Dussek, and the "noisy
virtuosities and decorative expressivities" of Kalkbrenner were
either insufficient for or antipathetic to Chopin; and it is
plainly evident that he was one of those who most perseveringly
endeavoured to free themselves from the servile formulas of the
conventional style and repudiated the charlatanisms that only
replace old abuses by new ones. On the other hand, it cannot be
said that he joined unreservedly those who, seeing the fire of
talent devour imperceptibly the old worm-eaten scaffolding,
attached themselves to the school of which Berlioz was the most
gifted, valiant, and daring representative, nor that, as long as
the campaign of romanticism lasted, he remained invariable in his
predilections and repugnances. The promptings of his genius
taught Chopin that the practice of any one author or set of
authors, whatever their excellence might be, ought not to be an
obligatory rule for their successors. But while his individual
requirements led him to disregard use and wont, his individual
taste set up a very exclusive standard of his own. He adopted the
maxims of the romanticists, but disapproved of almost all the
works of art in which they were embodied. Or rather, he adopted
their negative teaching, and like them broke and threw off the
trammels of dead formulas; but at the same time he rejected their
positive teaching, and walked apart from them. Chopin's
repugnance was not confined only to the frantic side and the
delirious excesses of romanticism as Liszt thinks. He presents to
us the strange spectacle of a thoroughly romantic and
emphatically unclassical composer who has no sympathy either with
Berlioz and Liszt, or with Schumann and other leaders of
romanticism, and the object of whose constant and ardent love and
admiration was Mozart, the purest type of classicism. But the
romantic, which Jean Paul Richter defined as "the beautiful
without limitation, or the beautiful infinite" [das Schone ohne
Begrenzung, oder das schone Unendliche], affords more scope for
wide divergence, and allows greater freedom in the display of
individual and national differences, than the classical.

Chopin's and Berlioz's relative positions may be compared to
those of V. Hugo and Alfred de Musset, both of whom were
undeniably romanticists, and yet as unlike as two authors can be.
For a time Chopin was carried away by Liszt's and Killer's
enthusiasm for Berlioz, but he soon retired from his
championship, as Musset from the Cenacle. Franchomme thought this
took place in 1833, but perhaps he antedated this change of
opinion. At any rate, Chopin told him that he had expected better
things from Berlioz, and declared that the latter's music
justified any man in breaking off all friendship with him. Some
years afterwards, when conversing with his pupil Gutmann about
Berlioz, Chopin took up a pen, bent back the point of it, and
then let it rebound, saying: "This is the way Berlioz composes--
he sputters the ink over the pages of ruled paper, and the result
is as chance wills it." Chopin did not like the works of Victor
Hugo, because he felt them to be too coarse and violent. And this
may also have been his opinion of Berlioz's works. No doubt he
spurned Voltaire's maxim, "Le gout n'est autre chose pour la
poesie que ce qu'il est pour les ajustements des femmes," and
embraced V. Hugo's countermaxim, "Le gout c'est la raison du
genie"; but his delicate, beauty-loving nature could feel nothing
but disgust at what has been called the rehabilitation of the
ugly, at such creations, for instance, as Le Roi s'amuse and
Lucrece Borgia, of which, according to their author's own
declaration, this is the essence:--

Take the most hideous, repulsive, and complete physical
deformity; place it where it stands out most prominently, in
the lowest, most subterraneous and despised story of the
social edifice; illuminate this miserable creature on all
sides by the sinister light of contrasts; and then give it a
soul, and place in that soul the purest feeling which is
bestowed on man, the paternal feeling. What will be the
result? This sublime feeling, intensified according to
certain conditions, will transform under your eyes the
degraded creature; the little being will become great; the
deformed being will become beautiful.--Take the most hideous,
repulsive, and complete moral deformity; place it where it
stands out most prominently, in the heart of a woman, with
all the conditions of physical beauty and royal grandeur
which give prominence to crime; and now mix with all this
moral deformity a pure feeling, the purest which woman can
feel, the maternal feeling; place a mother in your monster
and the monster will interest you, and the monster will make
you weep, and this creature which caused fear will cause
pity, and this deformed soul will become almost beautiful in
your eyes. Thus we have in Le Roi s'amuse paternity
sanctifying physical deformity; and in Lucrece Borgia
maternity purifying moral deformity. [FOOTNOTE: from Victor
Hugo's preface to "Lucrece Borgia."]

In fact, Chopin assimilated nothing or infinitely little of the
ideas that were surging around him. His ambition was, as he
confided to his friend Hiller, to become to his countrymen as a
musician what Uhland was to the Germans as a poet. Nevertheless,
the intellectual activity of the French capital and its
tendencies had a considerable influence on Chopin. They
strengthened the spirit of independence in him, and were potent
impulses that helped to unfold his individuality in all its width
and depth. The intensification of thought and feeling, and the
greater fulness and compactness of his pianoforte style in his
Parisian compositions, cannot escape the attentive observer. The
artist who contributed the largest quotum of force to this
impulse was probably Liszt, whose fiery passions, indomitable
energy, soaring enthusiasm, universal tastes, and capacity of
assimilation, mark him out as the very opposite of Chopin. But,
although the latter was undoubtedly stimulated by Liszt's style
of playing the piano and of writing for this instrument, it is
not so certain as Miss L. Ramann, Liszt's biographer, thinks,
that this master's influence can be discovered in many passages
of Chopin's music which are distinguished by a fiery and
passionate expression, and resemble rather a strong, swelling
torrent than a gently-gliding rivulet. She instances Nos. 9 and
12 of "Douze Etudes," Op. 10; Nos. 11 and 12 of "Douze Etudes,"
Op. 25; No. 24 of "Vingt-quatre Preludes," Op. 28; "Premier
Scherzo," Op. 20; "Polonaise" in A flat major, Op. 53; and the
close of the "Nocturne" in A flat major, Op. 32. All these
compositions, we are told, exhibit Liszt's style and mode of
feeling. Now, the works composed by Chopin before he came to
Paris and got acquainted with Liszt comprise not only a sonata, a
trio, two concertos, variations, polonaises, waltzes, mazurkas,
one or more nocturnes, &c., but also--and this is for the
question under consideration of great importance--most of, if not
all, the studies of Op. 10, [FOOTNOTE: Sowinski says that Chopin
brought with him to Paris the MS. of the first book of his
studies.] and some of Op. 25; and these works prove decisively
the inconclusiveness of the lady's argument. The twelfth study of
Op. 10 (composed in September, 1831) invalidates all she says
about fire, passion, and rushing torrents. In fact, no cogent
reason can be given why the works mentioned by her should not be
the outcome of unaided development.[FOONOTE: That is to say,
development not aided in the way indicated by Miss Ramann.
Development can never be absolutely unaided; it always
presupposes conditions--external or internal, physical or
psychical, moral or intellectual--which induce and promote it.
What is here said may be compared with the remarks about style
and individuality on p. 214.] The first Scherzo alone might make
us pause and ask whether the new features that present themselves
in it ought not to be fathered on Liszt. But seeing that Chopin
evolved so much, why should he not also have evolved this?
Moreover, we must keep in mind that Liszt had, up to 1831,
composed almost nothing of what in after years was considered
either by him or others of much moment, and that his pianoforte
style had first to pass through the state of fermentation into
which Paganini's, playing had precipitated it (in the spring of
1831) before it was formed; on the other hand, Chopin arrived in
Paris with his portfolios full of masterpieces, and in possession
of a style of his own, as a player of his instrument as well as a
writer for it. That both learned from each other cannot be
doubted; but the exact gain of each is less easily determinable.
Nevertheless, I think I may venture to assert that whatever be
the extent of Chopin's indebtedness to Liszt, the latter's
indebtedness to the former is greater. The tracing of an
influence in the works of a man of genius, who, of course,
neither slavishly imitates nor flagrantly appropriates, is one of
the most difficult tasks. If Miss Ramann had first noted the
works produced by the two composers in question before their
acquaintance began, and had carefully examined Chopin's early
productions with a view to ascertain his capability of growth,
she would have come to another conclusion, or, at least, have
spoken less confidently. [FOOTNOTE: Schumann, who in 1839
attempted to give a history of Liszt's development (in the "Neue
Zeitschrift fur Musik"), remarked that when Liszt, on the one
hand, was brooding over the most gloomy fancies, and indifferent,
nay, even blase, and, on the other hand, laughing and madly
daring, indulged in the most extravagant virtuoso tricks, "the
sight of Chopin, it seems, first brought him again to his
senses."]

It was not till 1833 that Chopin became known to the musical
world as a composer. For up to that time the "Variations," Op. 2,
published in 1830, was the only work in circulation; the
compositions previously published in Warsaw--the "Rondo," Op. 1,
and the "Rondeau a la Mazur," Op. 5--may be left out of account,
as they did not pass beyond the frontier of Poland till several
years afterwards, when they were published elsewhere. After the
publication, in December, 1832, of Op. 6, "Quatre Mazurkas,"
dedicated to Mdlle. la Comtesse Pauline Plater, and Op. 7, "Cinq
Mazurkas," dedicated to Mr. Johns, Chopin's compositions made
their appearance in quick succession. In the year 1833 were
published: in January, Op. 9, "Trois Nocturnes," dedicated to
Mdme. Camille Pleyel; in March, Op. 8, "Premier Trio," dedicated
to M. le Prince Antoine Radziwill; in July, Op. 10, "Douze
Grandes Etudes," dedicated to Mr. Fr. Liszt; and Op. 11, "Grand
Concerto" (in E minor), dedicated to Mr. Fr. Kalkbrenner; and in
November, Op. 12, "Variations brillantes" (in B flat major),
dedicated to Mdlle. Emma Horsford. In 1834 were published: in
January, Op. 15, "Trois Nocturnes," dedicated to Mr. Ferd.
Hiller; in March, Op. 16, "Rondeau" (in E flat major), dedicated
to Mdlle. Caroline Hartmann; in April, Op. 13, "Grande Fantaisie
sur des airs polonais," dedicated to Mr. J. P. Pixis; and in May,
Op. 17, "Quatre Mazurkas," dedicated to Mdme. Lina Freppa; in
June, Op. 14, "Krakowiak, grand Rondeau de Concert," dedicated to
Mdme. la Princesse Adam Czartoryska; and Op. 18, "Grande Valse
brillante," dedicated to Mdlle. Laura Horsford; and in October,
Op. 19, "Bolero" (in C major), dedicated to Mdme. la Comtesse E.
de Flahault. [FOOTNOTE: The dates given are those when the
pieces, as far as I could ascertain, were first heard of as
published. For further information see "List of Works" at the end
of the second volume, where my sources of information are
mentioned, and the divergences of the different original
editions, as regards time of publication, are indicated.]

The "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" notices several of Chopin's
compositions with great praise in the course of 1833; in the year
after the notices became more frequent. But the critic who
follows Chopin's publications with the greatest attention and
discusses them most fully is Rellstab, the editor of the Iris.
Unfortunately, he is not at all favourably inclined towards the
composer. He occasionally doles out a little praise, but usually
shows himself a spendthrift in censure and abuse. His most
frequent complaints are that Chopin strives too much after
originality, and that his music is unnecessarily difficult for
the hands. A few specimens of Rellstab's criticism may not be out
of place here. Of the "Mazurkas," Op. 7, he says:--

In the dances before us the author satisfies the passion [of
writing affectedly and unnaturally] to a loathsome excess. He
is indefatigable, and I might say inexhaustible [sic], in his
search for ear-splitting discords, forced transitions, harsh
modulations, ugly distortions of melody and rhythm.
Everything it is possible to think of is raked up to produce
the effect of odd originality, but especially strange keys,
the most unnatural positions of chords, the most perverse
combinations with regard to fingering.

After some more discussion of the same nature, he concludes thus:-
-

If Mr. Chopin had shown this composition to a master, the
latter would, it is to be hoped, have torn it and thrown it
at his feet, which we hereby do symbolically.

In his review of the "Trois Nocturnes," Op. 9, occurs the
following pretty passage:--

Where Field smiles, Chopin makes a grinning grimace: where
Field sighs, Chopin groans; where Field shrugs his shoulders,
Chopin twists his whole body; where Field puts some seasoning
into the food, Chopin empties a handful of Cayenne
pepper...In short, if one holds Field's charming romances
before a distorting concave mirror, so that every delicate
expression becomes coarse, one gets Chopin's work...We
implore Mr. Chopin to return to nature.

I shall quote one more sentence; it is from a notice of the
"Douze Etudes," Op. 10:--

Those who have distorted fingers may put them right by
practising these studies; but those who have not, should not
play them, at least, not without having a surgeon at hand.

[FOOTNOTE: In the number of the Iris in which this criticism
appeared (No. 5 of Vol. V., 1834 Rellstab inserts the
following letter, which he says he received from Leipzig:--

"P. P.

"You are really a very bad man, and not worthy that God's
earth either knows (sic) or bears you. The King of Prussia
should have imprisoned you in a fortress; in that case he
would have removed from the world a rebel, a disturber of the
peace, and an infamous enemy of humanity, who probably will
yet be choked in his own blood. I have noticed a great number
of enemies, not only in Berlin, but in all towns which I
visited last summer on my artistic tour, especially very many
here in Leipzig, where I inform you of this, in order--that
you may in future change your disposition, and not act so
uncharitably towards others. Another bad, bad trick, and you
are done for! Do you understand me, you little man, you
loveless and partial dog of a critic, you musical snarler
[Schnurrbart], you Berlin wit-cracker [Witzenmacher], &c.

"Your most obedient Servant,

"CHOPIN."

To this Rellstab adds: "Whether Mr. Chopin has written this
letter himself, I do not know, and will not assert it, but
print the document that he may recognise or repudiate it."
The letter was not repudiated, but I do not think that it was
written by Chopin. Had he written a letter, he surely would
have written a less childish one, although the German might
not have been much better than that of the above. But my
chief reasons for doubting its genuineness are that Chopin
made no artistic tour in Germany after 1831, and is not known
to have visited Leipzig either in 1833 or 1834.]

However, we should not be too hard upon Rellstab, seeing that one
of the greatest pianists and best musicians of the time made in
the same year (in 1833, and not in 1831, as we read in
Karasowski's book) an entry in his diary, which expresses an
opinion not very unlike his. Moscheles writes thus:--

I like to employ some free hours in the evening in making
myself acquainted with Chopin's studies and his other
compositions, and find much charm in the originality and
national colouring of their motivi; but my fingers always
stumble over certain hard, inartistic, and to me
incomprehensible modulations, and the whole is often too
sweetish for my taste, and appears too little worthy of a man
and a trained musician.

And again--

I am a sincere admirer of Chopin's originality; he has
furnished pianists with matter of the greatest novelty and
attractiveness. But personally I dislike the artificial,
often forced modulations; my fingers stumble and fall over
such passages; however much I may practise them, I cannot
execute them without tripping.