Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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Chopin must have been back in Paris in the first half or about
the middle of October, for the Gazette musicale of the 18th of
that month contains the following paragraph:--

One of the most eminent pianists of our epoch, M. Chopin, has
returned to Paris, after having made a tour in Germany which
has been for him a real ovation. Everywhere his admirable
talent obtained the most flattering reception and excited
enthusiasm. It was, indeed, as if he had not left our capital
at all.

CHAPTER XVIII

1835--1837.

PUBLICATIONS IN 1835 AND 1836.--FIRST PERFORMANCE OF LES
HUGUENOTS.-- GUSIKOW, LIPINSKI, THALBERG.--CHOPIN'S
IMPRESSIONABLENESS AND FICKLENESS IN REGARD TO THE FAIR SEX.--THE
FAMILY WODZINSKI.--CHOPIN'S LOVE FOR MARIA WODZINSKA (DRESDEN,
1835; MARIENBAD, 1836).--ANOTHER VISIT TO LEIPZIG (1836).--
CHARACTER OF THE CHIEF EVENTS IN 1837.--MENTION OF HIS FIRST
MEETING WITH GEORGE SAND.--HIS VISIT TO LONDON.--NEWSPAPER
ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER VISIT TO MARIENBAD.--STATE OF HIS HEALTH
IN 1837.

IF we leave out of account his playing in the salons, Chopin's
artistic activity during the period comprised in this chapter was
confined to teaching and composition. [Footnote: A Paris
correspondent wrote in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik of May 17,
1836, that Chopin had not been heard at all that winter, meaning,
of course, that he had not been heard in public.] The publication
of his works enables us to form an approximate idea of how he was
occupied as a creative musician. In the year 1835 were published:
in February, Op. 20, Premier Scherzo (in B minor), dedicated to
Mr. T. Albrecht, and in November, Op. 24, Quatre Mazurkas,
dedicated to M. le Comte de Perthuis. In 1836 appeared: in April,
Op. 21, Second Concerto (in F minor), dedicated to Madame la
Comtesse Delphine Potocka: in May, Op. 27, Deux Nocturnes (in C
sharp minor and D flat major), dedicated to Madame la Comtesse
d'Appony; in June, Op. 23, Ballade (in G minor), dedicated to M.
le Baron de Stockhausen; in July, Op. 22, Grande Polonaise
brillante (E flat major) precedee d'un Andante spianato for
pianoforte and orchestra, dedicated to Madame la Baronne d'Est;
and Op. 26, Deux Polonaises (in C sharp minor and E flat minor),
dedicated to Mr. J. Dessauer. It is hardly necessary to point out
that the opus numbers do not indicate the order of succession in
which the works were composed. The Concerto belongs to the year
1830; the above notes show that Op. 24 and 27 were sooner in
print than Op. 23 and 26; and Op. 25, although we hear of its
being played by the composer in 1834 and 1835, was not published
till 1837.

The indubitably most important musical event of the season 1835-
1836, was the production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, which took
place on February 29, 1836, and had an extraordinary success. The
concert-rooms, however, concern us more than the opera-houses.
This year brought to Paris two Polish musicians: Lipinski, the
violinist, and Gusikow, the virtuoso on the Strohfiedel,
[FOOTNOTE: "Straw-fiddle," Gigelira, or Xylophone, an instrument
consisting of a graduated series of bars of wood that lie on
cords of twisted straw and are struck with sticks.] whom
Mendelssohn called "a true genius," and another contemporary
pointed out as one of the three great stars (Paganini and
Malibran were the two others) at that time shining in the musical
heavens. The story goes that Lipinski asked Chopin to prepare the
ground for him in Paris. The latter promised to do all in his
power if Lipinski would give a concert for the benefit of the
Polish refugees. The violinist at first expressed his willingness
to do so, but afterwards drew back, giving as his reason that if
he played for the Polish refugees he would spoil his prospects in
Russia, where he intended shortly to make an artistic tour.
Enraged at this refusal, Chopin declined to do anything to
further his countryman's plans in Paris. But whether the story is
true or not, Lipinski's concert at the Hotel de Ville, on March
3, was one of the most brilliant and best-attended of the season.
[FOOTNOTE: Revue et Gazette musicale of March 13, 1836. Mainzer
had a report to the same effect in the Neue Zeitschrift fur
Musik.]

The virtuoso, however, whose appearance caused the greatest
sensation was Thalberg. The Gazette musicale announced his
arrival on November 8, 1835. He was first heard at M.
Zimmermann's; Madame Viardot-Garcia, Duprez, and De Beriot being
the other artists that took active parts in the soiree. The
enthusiasm which Thalberg on this occasion as well as
subsequently excited was immense. The Menestrel expressed the all
but unanimous opinion when, on March 13, 1836, it said: "Thalberg
is not only the first pianist in the world, but he is also a most
distinguished composer." His novel effects astonished and
delighted his hearers. The pianists showed their appreciation by
adopting their confrere's manipulations and treatment of the
piano as soon as these ceased to puzzle them; the great majority
of the rising Parisian pianists became followers of Thalberg, nor
were some of the older ones slow in profiting by his example. The
most taking of the effects which Thalberg brought into vogue was
the device of placing the melody in the middle--i.e., the most
sonorous part of the instrument--and dividing it so between the
hands that they could at the same time accompany it with full
chords and brilliant figures. Even if he borrowed the idea from
the harpist Parish-Alvars, or from the pianist Francesco G.
Pollini, there remains to him the honour of having improved the
invention of his forerunners and applied it with superior
ability. His greatness, however, does not solely or even mainly
rest on this or any other ingeniously-contrived and cleverly-
performed trick. The secret of his success lay in the
aristocratic nature of his artistic personality, in which
exquisite elegance and calm self-possession reigned supreme. In
accordance with this fundamental disposition were all the details
of his style of playing. His execution was polished to the
highest degree; the evenness of his scales and the clearness of
his passages and embellishments could not be surpassed. If
sensuous beauty is the sole end of music, his touch must be
pronounced the ideal of perfection, for it extracted the essence
of beauty. Strange as the expression "unctuous sonorousness" may
sound, it describes felicitously a quality of a style of playing
from which roughness, harshness, turbulence, and impetuosity were
altogether absent. Thalberg has been accused of want of
animation, passion, in short, of soul; but as Ambros remarked
with great acuteness--

Thalberg's compositions and playing had soul, a salon soul to
be sure, somewhat like that of a very elegant woman of the
world, who, nevertheless, has really a beautiful disposition
[Gemueth], which, however, is prevented from fully showing
itself by the superexquisiteness of her manners.

This simile reminds me of a remark of Heine's, who thought that
Thalberg distinguished himself favourably from other pianists by
what he (Heine) felt inclined to call "his musical conduct
[Betragen]." Here are some more of the poet-critic's remarks on
the same subject:--

As in life so also in art, Thalberg manifests innate tact;
his execution is so gentlemanlike, so opulent, so decorous,
so entirely without grimace, so entirely without forced
affectation of genius [forcirtes Genialthun], so entirely
without that boastful boorishness which badly conceals the
inner pusillanimity...He enchants by balsamic euphony, by
sobriety and gentleness....There is only one I prefer. That
is Chopin.

As a curiosity I must quote a passage from a letter dated July
10, 1836, and addressed by George Sand to the Comtesse d'Agoult.
Feelings of friendship, and, in one case at least, of more than
friendship, made these ladies partial to another prince of the
keyboard:--

I have heard Thalberg in Paris. He made on me the impression
of a good little child, very nice and very well-behaved.
There are hours when Franz [Liszt], while amusing himself,
trifles [badine], like him, on some notes in order to let the
furious elements afterwards loose on this gentle breeze.

Liszt, who was at the time of Thalberg's visit to Paris in
Switzerland, doubted the correctness of the accounts which
reached him of this virtuoso's achievements. Like Thomas he would
trust only his own senses; and as his curiosity left him no rest,
he betook himself in March, 1836, to Paris. But, unfortunately,
he arrived too late, Thalberg having quitted the capital on the
preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which were everywhere the
answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated Liszt, and
seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge
criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave
two private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both
of which were crowded, the latter being attended by more than
four hundred people. The result was a brilliant victory, and
henceforth there were two camps. The admiration and stupefaction
of those who heard him were extraordinary; for since his last
appearance Liszt had again made such enormous progress as to
astonish even his most intimate friends. In answer to those who
had declared that with Thalberg a new era began, Berlioz,
pointing to Liszt's Fantasia on I Pirati and that on themes from
La Juive, now made the counter-declaration that "this was the new
school of pianoforte-playing." Indeed, Liszt was only now
attaining to the fulness of his power as a pianist and composer
for his instrument; and when after another sojourn in Switzerland
he returned in December, 1836, to Paris, and in the course of the
season entered the lists with Thalberg, it was a spectacle for
the gods. "Thalberg," writes Leon Escudier, "est la grace, comme
Liszt la force; le jeu de l'un est blond, celui de l'autre est
brun." A lady who heard the two pianists at a concert for the
Italian poor, given in the salons of the Princess Belgiojoso,
exclaimed: "Thalberg est le premier pianiste du monde."--"Et
Liszt?" asked the person to whom the words were addressed--
"Liszt! Liszt--c'est le seul!" was the reply. This is the spirit
in which great artists should be judged. It is oftener narrowness
of sympathy than acuteness of discrimination which makes people
exalt one artist and disparage another who differs from him. In
the wide realm of art there are to be found many kinds of
excellence; one man cannot possess them all and in the highest
degree. Some of these excellences are indeed irreconcilable and
exclude each other; most of them can only be combined by a
compromise. Hence, of two artists who differ from each other, one
is not necessarily superior to the other; and he who is the
greater on the whole may in some respects be inferior to the
lesser. Perhaps the reader will say that these are truisms. To be
sure they are. And yet if he considers only the judgments which
are every day pronounced, he may easily be led to believe that
these truisms are most recondite truths now for the first time
revealed. When Liszt after his first return from Switzerland did
not find Thalberg himself, he tried to satisfy his curiosity by a
careful examination of that pianist's compositions. The
conclusions he came to be set forth in a criticism of Thalberg's
Grande Fantaisie, Op. 22, and the Caprices, Op. 15 and 19, which
in 1837 made its appearance in the Gazette musicale, accompanied
by an editorial foot-note expressing dissent. I called Liszt's
article a criticism, but "lampoon" or "libel" would have been a
more appropriate designation. In the introductory part Liszt
sneers at Thalberg's title of "Pianist to His Majesty the Emperor
of Austria," and alludes to his rival's distant (i.e.,
illegitimate) relationship to a noble family, ascribing his
success to a great extent to these two circumstances. The
personalities and abusiveness of the criticism remind one
somewhat of the manner in which the scholars of earlier
centuries, more especially of the sixteenth and seventeenth,
dealt critically with each other. Liszt declares that love of
truth, not jealousy, urged him to write; but he deceived himself.
Nor did his special knowledge and experience as a musician and
virtuoso qualify him, as he pretended, above others for the task
he had undertaken; he forgot that no man can be a good judge in
his own cause. No wonder, therefore, that Fetis, enraged at this
unprovoked attack of one artist on a brother-artist, took up his
pen in defence of the injured party. Unfortunately, his retort
was a lengthy and pedantic dissertation, which along with some
true statements contained many questionable, not to say silly,
ones. In nothing, however, was he so far off the mark as in his
comparative estimate of Liszt and Thalberg. The sentences in
which he sums up the whole of his reasoning show this clearly:
"You are the pre-eminent man of the school which is effete and
which has nothing more to do, but you are not the man of a new
school! Thalberg is this man--herein lies the whole difference
between you two." Who can help smiling at this combination of
pompous authoritativeness and wretched short-sightedness? It has
been truly observed by Ambros that there is between Thalberg and
Liszt all the difference that exists between a man of talent and
a man of genius; indeed, the former introduced but a new fashion,
whereas the latter founded really a new school. The one
originated a few new effects, the other revolutionised the whole
style of writing for the pianoforte. Thalberg was perfect in his
genre, but he cannot be compared to an artist of the breadth,
universality, and, above all, intellectual and emotional power of
Liszt. It is possible to describe the former, but the latter,
Proteus-like, is apt to elude the grasp of him who endeavours to
catch hold of him. The Thalberg controversy did not end with
Fetis's article. Liszt wrote a rejoinder in which he failed to
justify himself, but succeeded in giving the poor savant some
hard hits. I do not think Liszt would have approved of the
republication of these literary escapades if he had taken the
trouble to re-read them. It is very instructive to compare his
criticism of Thalberg's compositions with what Schumann--who in
this case is by no means partial--said of them. In the opinion of
the one the Fantaisie sur Les Huguenots is not only one of the
most empty and mediocre works, but it is also so supremely
monotonous that it produces extreme weariness. In the opinion of
the other the Fantaisie deserves the general enthusiasm which it
has called forth, because the composer proves himself master of
his language and thoughts, conducts himself like a man of the
world, binds and loosens the threads with so much ease that it
seems quite unintentional, and draws the audience with him
wherever he wishes without either over-exciting or wearying it.
The truth, no doubt, is rather with Schumann than with Liszt.
Although Thalberg's compositions cannot be ranked with the great
works of ideal art, they are superior to the morceaux of Czerny,
Herz, and hoc genus omne, their appearance marking indeed an
improvement in the style of salon music.

But what did Chopin think of Thalberg? He shared the opinion of
Liszt, whose side he took. In fact, Edouard Wolff told me that
Chopin absolutely despised Thalberg. To M. Mathias I owe the
following communication, which throws much light on Chopin's
attitude:--

I saw Chopin with George Sand at the house of Louis Viardot,
before the marriage of the latter with Pauline Garcia. I was
very young, being only twelve years old, but I remember it as
though it had been yesterday. Thalberg was there, and had
played his second fantasia on Don Giovanni (Op. 42), and upon
my word Chopin complimented him most highly and with great
gravity; nevertheless, God knows what Chopin thought of it in
his heart, for he had a horror of Thalberg's arrangements,
which I have seen and heard him parody in the most droll and
amusing manner, for Chopin had the sense of parody and
ridicule in a high degree.

Thalberg had not much intercourse with Chopin, nor did he
exercise the faintest shadow of an influence over him; but as one
of the foremost pianist-composers--indeed, one of the most
characteristic phenomena of the age--he could not be passed by in
silence. Moreover, the noisy careers of Liszt and Thalberg serve
as a set-off to the noiseless one of Chopin.

I suspect that Chopin was one of that race of artists and poets
"qui font de la passion un instrument de l'art et de la poesie,
et dont l'esprit n'a d'activite qu'autant qu'il est mis en
mouvement par les forces motrices du coeur." At any rate, the
tender passion was a necessary of his existence. That his
disappointed first love did not harden his heart and make him
insensible to the charms of the fair sex is apparent from some
remarks of George Sand, who says that although his heart was
ardent and devoted, it was not continuously so to any one person,
but surrendered itself alternately to five or six affections,
each of which, as they struggled within it, got by turns the
mastery over all the others. He would passionately love three
women in the course of one evening party and forget them as soon
as he had turned his back, while each of them imagined that she
had exclusively charmed him. In short, Chopin was of a very
impressionable nature: beauty and grace, nay, even a mere smile,
kindled his enthusiasm at first sight, and an awkward word or
equivocal glance was enough to disenchant him. But although he
was not at all exclusive in his own affections, he was so in a
high degree with regard to those which he demanded from others.
In illustration of how easily Chopin took a dislike to anyone,
and how little he measured what he accorded of his heart with
what he exacted from that of others, George Sand relates a story
which she got from himself. In order to avoid misrepresenting
her, I shall translate her own words:--

He had taken a great fancy to the granddaughter of a
celebrated master. He thought of asking her in marriage at
the same time that he entertained the idea of another
marriage in Poland--his loyalty being engaged nowhere, and
his fickle heart floating from one passion to the other. The
young Parisian received him very kindly, and all went as well
as could be till on going to visit her one day in company
with another musician, who was of more note in Paris than he
at that time, she offered a chair to this gentleman before
thinking of inviting Chopin to be seated. He never called on
her again, and forgot her immediately.

The same story was told me by other intimate friends of Chopin's,
who evidently believed in its genuineness; their version differed
from that of George Sand only in this, that there was no allusion
to a lady-love in Poland. Indeed, true as George Sand's
observations are in the main, we must make allowance for the
novelist's habit of fashioning and exaggerating, and the woman's
endeavour to paint her dismissed and aggrieved lover as black as
possible. Chopin may have indulged in innumerable amorous
fancies, but the story of his life furnishes at least one
instance of his having loved faithfully as well as deeply. Nor
will it be denied that Chopin's love for Constantia Gladkowska
was a serious affair, whether the fatal end be attributable to
him or her, or both. And now I have to give an account of another
love-affair which deserves likewise the epithet "serious."

As a boy Chopin contracted a friendship with the brothers
Wodzinski, who were boarders at his father's establishment. With
them he went repeatedly to Sluzewo, the property of their father,
and thus became also acquainted with the rest of the family. The
nature of the relation in which Chopin and they stood to each
other is shown by a letter written by the former on July 18,
1834, to one of the brothers who with his mother and other
members of the family was at that time staying at Geneva, whither
they had gone after the Polish revolution of 1830-31, in which
the three brothers--Anthony, Casimir, and Felix--had taken part:-
-

My dear Felix,--Very likely you thought "Fred must be moping
that he does not answer my letter!" But you will remember
that it was always my habit to do everything too late. Thus I
went also too late to Miss Fanche, and consequently was
obliged to wait till honest Wolf had departed. Were it not
that I have only recently come back from the banks of the
Rhine and have an engagement from which I cannot free myself
just now, I would immediately set out for Geneva to thank
your esteemed mamma and at the same time accept her kind
invitation. But cruel fate--in one word, it cannot be done.
Your sister was so good as to send me her composition. It
gives me the greatest pleasure, and happening to improvise
the veryevening of its arrival in one of our salons, I took
for my subject the pretty theme by a certain Maria with whom
in times gone by I played at hide and seek in the house of
Mr. Pszenny...To-day! Je prends la liberte d'envoyer a mon
estimable collegue Mile Marie une petite valse que je viens
de publier. May it afford her a hundredth part of the
pleasure which I felt on receiving her variations. In
conclusion, I once more thank your mamma most sincerely for
kindly remembering her old and faithful servant in whose
veins also there run some drops of Cujavian blood.
[Footnote: Cujavia is the name of a Polish district.]

F. CHOPIN.

P.S.--Embrace Anthony, stifle Casimir with caresses if you
can. as for Miss Maria make her a graceful and respectful
bow. Be surprised and say in a whisper, "Dear me, how tall
she has grown!"

The Wodzinskis, with the exception of Anthony, returned in the
summer of 1835 to Poland, making on their way thither a stay at
Dresden. Anthony, who was then in Paris and in constant intercourse
with Chopin, kept the latter informed of his people's movements and
his people of Chopin's. Thus it came about that they met at Dresden
in September, 1835, whither the composer went after his meeting
with his parents at Carlsbad, mentioned in the preceding chapter
(p. 288). Count Wodzinski says in his Les trois Romans de Frederic
Chopin that Chopin had spoken to his father about his project of
marrying Maria Wodzinska, and that this idea had sprung up in his
soul by the mere force of recollections. The young lady was then
nineteen years of age, and, according to the writer just mentioned,
tall and slender in figure, and light and graceful in gait. The
features, he tells us, were distinguished neither by regularity nor
classical beauty, but had an indefinable charm. Her black eyes were
full of sweetness, reverie, and restrained fire; a smile of
ineffable voluptuousness played around her lips; and her
magnificent hair was as dark as ebony and long enough to serve her
as a mantle. Chopin and Maria saw each other every evening at the
house of her uncle, the Palatine Wodzinski. The latter concluded
from their frequent tete-a-tete at the piano and in corners that
some love-making was going on between them. When he found that his
monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on his niece, he
warned his sister-in-law. She, however, took the matter lightly,
saying that it was an amitie d'enfance, that Maria was fond of
music, and that, moreover, there would soon be an end to all
this--their ways lying in opposite directions, hers eastward to
Poland, his westward to France. And thus things were allowed to go
on as they had begun, Chopin passing all his evenings with the
Wodzinskis and joining them in all their walks. At last the time of
parting came, the clock of the Frauenkirche struck the hour of ten,
the carriage was waiting at the door, Maria gave Chopin a rose from
a bouquet on the table, and he improvised a waltz which he
afterwards sent her from Paris, and which she called L'Adieu.
Whatever we may think of the details of this scene of parting, the
waltz composed for Maria at Dresden is an undeniable fact.
Facsimiles may be seen in Szulc's Fryderyk Chopin and Count
Wodziriski's Les trois Romans de Frederic Chopin. The manuscript
bears the superscription: "Tempo de Valse" on the left, and "pour
Mile. Marie" on the right; and the subscription: "F. Chopin, Drezno
[Dresden], September, 1835." [FOOTNOTE: It is Op. 69, No. 1, one of
the posthumous works published by Julius Fontana.]

The two met again in the following summer, this time at
Marienbad, where he knew she and her mother were going. They
resumed their walks, music, and conversations. She drew also his
portrait. And then one day Chopin proposed. Her answer was that
she could not run counter to her parents' wishes, nor could she
hope to be able to bend their will; but she would always preserve
for him in her heart a grateful remembrance.[FOOTNOTE: Count
Wodzinski relates on p. 255 of his book that at a subsequent
period of her life the lady confided to him the above-quoted
answer.] This happened in August, 1836; and two days after mother
and daughter left Marienbad. Maria Wodzinska married the next
year a son of Chopin's godfather, Count Frederick Skarbek. The
marriage turned but an unhappy one, and was dissolved.
Subsequently the Countess married a Polish gentleman of the name
of Orpiszewski, who died some years ago in Florence. She, I
think, is still alive.