Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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Of quite another nature was the music that might be heard in
those winter months in one of the cells of the monastery of
Valdemosa. "With what poesy did his music fill this sanctuary,
even in the midst of his most grievous troubles!" exclaims George
Sand. I like to picture to myself the vaulted cell, in which
Pleyel's piano sounded so magnificently, illumined by a lamp, the
rich traceries of the Gothic chair shadowed on the wall, George
Sand absorbed in her studies, her children at play, and Chopin
pouring out his soul in music.

It would be a mistake to think that those months which the
friends spent in Majorca were for them a time of unintermittent
or even largely-predominating wretchedness. Indeed, George Sand
herself admits that, in spite of the wildness of the country and
the pilfering habits of the people, their existence might have
been an agreeable one in this romantic solitude had it not been
for the sad spectacle of her companion's sufferings and certain
days of serious anxiety about his life. And now I must quote a.
long but very important passage from the "Histoire de ma Vie":--

The poor great artist was a detestable patient. What I had
feared, but unfortunately not enough, happened. He became
completely demoralised. Bearing pain courageously enough, he
could not overcome the disquietude of his imagination. The
monastery was for him full of terrors and phantoms, even when
he was well. He did not say so, and I had to guess it. On
returning from my nocturnal explorations in the ruins with my
children, I found him at ten o'clock at night before his
piano, his face pale, his eyes wild, and his hair almost
standing on end. It was some moments before he could
recognise us.

He then made an attempt to laugh, and played to us sublime
things he had just composed, or rather, to be more accurate,
terrible or heartrending ideas which had taken possession of
him, as it were without his knowledge, in that hour of
solitude, sadness, and terror.

It was there that he composed the most beautiful of those
short pages he modestly entitled "Preludes." They are
masterpieces. Several present to the mind visions of deceased
monks and the sounds of the funeral chants which beset his
imagination; others are melancholy and sweet--they occurred
to him in the hours of sunshine and of health, with the noise
of the children's laughter under the window, the distant
sound of guitars, the warbling of the birds among the humid
foliage, and the sight of the pale little full-blown roses on
the snow.

Others again are of a mournful sadness, and, while charming
the ear, rend the heart. There is one of them which occurred
to him on a dismal rainy evening which produces a terrible
mental depression. We had left him well that day, Maurice and
I, and had gone to Palma to buy things we required for our
encampment. The rain had come on, the torrents had
overflowed, we had travelled three leagues in six hours to
return in the midst of the inundation, and we arrived in the
dead of night, without boots, abandoned by our driver, having
passed through unheard-of dangers. We made haste,
anticipating the anxiety of our invalid. It had been indeed
great, but it had become as it were congealed into a kind of
calm despair, and he played his wonderful prelude weeping. On
seeing us enter he rose, uttering a great cry, then he said
to us, with a wild look and in a strange tone: "Ah! I knew
well that you were dead!"

When he had come to himself again, and saw the state in which
we were, he was ill at the retrospective spectacle of our
dangers; but he confessed to me afterwards that while waiting
for our return he had seen all this in a dream and that, no
longer distinguishing this dream from reality, he had grown
calm and been almost lulled to sleep while playing the piano,
believing that he was dead himself. He saw himself drowned in
a lake; heavy and ice-cold drops of water fell at regular
intervals upon his breast, and when I drew his attention to
those drops of water which were actually falling at regular
intervals upon the roof, he denied having heard them. He was
even vexed at what I translated by the term imitative
harmony. He protested with all his might, and he was right,
against the puerility of these imitations for the ear. His
genius was full of mysterious harmonies of nature, translated
by sublime equivalents into his musical thought, and not by a
servile repetition of external sounds. His composition of
this evening was indeed full of the drops of rain which
resounded on the sonorous tiles of the monastery, but they
were transformed in his imagination and his music into tears
falling from heaven on his heart.

Although George Sand cannot be acquitted of the charge of
exaggerating the weak points in her lover's character, what she
says about his being a detestable patient seems to have a good
foundation in fact. Gutmann, who nursed him often, told me that
his master was very irritable and difficult to manage in
sickness. On the other hand, Gutmann contradicted George Sand's
remarks about the Preludes, saying that Chopin composed them
before starting on his journey. When I mentioned to him that
Fontana had made a statement irreconcilable with his, and
suggested that Chopin might have composed some of the Preludes in
Majorca, Gutmann maintained firmly that every one of them was
composed previously, and that he himself had copied them. Now
with Chopin's letters to Fontana before us we must come to the
conclusion that Gutmann was either under a false impression or
confirmed a rash statement by a bold assertion, unless we prefer
to assume that Chopin's labours on the Preludes in Majorca were
confined to selecting, [FOOTNOTE: Internal evidence suggests that
the Preludes consist (to a great extent at least) of pickings
from the composer's portfolios, of pieces, sketches, and
memoranda written at various times and kept to be utilised when
occasion might offer.] filing, and polishing. My opinion--which
not only has probability but also the low opus number (28) and
the letters in its favour--is that most of the Preludes, if not
all, were finished or sketched before Chopin went to the south,
and that a few, if any, were composed and the whole revised at
Palma and Valdemosa. Chopin cannot have composed many in Majorca,
because a few days after his arrival there he wrote: from Palma
(Nov. 15, 1838) to Fontana that he would send the Preludes soon;
and it was only his illness that prevented him from doing so.
There is one statement in George Sand's above-quoted narrative
which it is difficult to reconcile with other statements in "Un
Hiver a Majorque" and in her and Chopin's letters. In the just-
mentioned book (p. 177) she says that the journey in question was
made for the purpose of rescuing the piano from the hands of the
custom-house officers; and in a letter of January 15, 1839, to
her friend Madame Marliani (quoted on p. 31), which does not
contain a word about adventures on a stormy night, [They are
first mentioned in the letter of January 20, 1839, quoted on p.
32.] she writes that the piano is still in the clutches of the
custom-house officers. From this, I think, we may conclude that
it must have taken place after January 15. But, then, how could
Chopin have composed on that occasion a Prelude included in a
work the manuscript of which he sent away on the lath? Still,
this does not quite settle the question. Is it not possible that
Chopin may have afterwards substituted the new Prelude for one of
those already forwarded to France? To this our answer must be
that it is possible, but that the letters do not give any support
to such an assumption. Another and stronger objection would be
the uncertainty as to the correctness of the date of the letter.
Seeing that so many of Chopin's letters have been published with
wrong dates, why not also that of January 12? Unfortunately, we
cannot in this case prove or disprove the point by internal
evidence. There is, however, one factor we must be especially
careful not to forget in our calculations--namely, George Sand's
habitual unconscientious inaccuracy; but the nature of her
narrative will indeed be a sufficient warning to the reader, for
nobody can read it without at once perceiving that it is not a
plain, unvarnished recital of facts.

It would be interesting to know which were the compositions that
Chopin produced at Valdemosa. As to the Prelude particularly
referred to by George Sand, it is generally and reasonably
believed to be No. 6 (in B minor). [FOOTNOTE: Liszt, who tells
the story differently, brings in the F sharp minor Prelude. (See
Liszt's Chopin, new edition, pp. 273 and 274.)] The only
compositions besides the Preludes which Chopin mentions in his
letters from Majorca are the Ballade, Op, 38, the Scherzo, Op.
39, and the two Polonaises, Op. 40. The peevish, fretful, and
fiercely-scornful Scherzo and the despairingly-melancholy second
Polonaise (in C minor) are quite in keeping with the moods one
imagines the composer to have been in at the time. Nor is there
anything discrepant in the Ballade. But if the sadly-ailing
composer really created, and not merely elaborated and finished,
in Majorca the superlatively-healthy, vigorously-martial,
brilliantly-chivalrous Polonaise in A major, we have here a
remarkable instance of the mind's ascendency over the body, of
its independence of it. This piece, however, may have been
conceived under happier circumstances, just as the gloomy Sonata,
Op. 35 (the one in B flat minor, with the funeral march), and the
two Nocturnes, Op. 37--the one (in G minor) plaintive, longing,
and prayerful; the other (in G major) sunny and perfume-laden--
may have had their origin in the days of Chopin's sojourn in the
Balearic island. A letter of Chopin's, written from Nohant in the
summer of 1839, leaves, as regards the Nocturnes, scarcely room
for such a conjecture. On the other hand, we learn from the same
letter that he composed at Palma the sad, yearning Mazurka in E
minor (No. 2 of Op. 41).

As soon as fair weather set in and the steamer resumed its.
weekly courses to Barcelona, George Sand and her party hastened
to leave the island. The delightful prospects of spring could not
detain them.

Our invalid (she says) did not seem to be in a state to stand
the passage, but he seemed equally incapable of enduring
another week in Majorca. The situation was frightful; there
were days when I lost hope and courage. To console us, Maria
Antonia and her village gossips repeated to us in chorus the
most edifying discourses on the future life. "This consumptive
person," they said, "is going to hell, first because he is
consumptive, secondly, because he does not confess. If he is
in this condition when he dies, we shall not bury him in
consecrated ground, and as nobody will be willing to give him
a grave, his friends will have to manage matters as well as
they can. It remains to be seen how they will get out of the
difficulty; as for me, I will have Inothing to do with it,--
Nor I--Nor I: and Amen!"

In fact, Valdemosa, which at first was enchanting to them, lost
afterwards much of its poesy in their eyes. George Sand, as we
have seen, said that their sojourn was I in many respects a
frightful fiasco; it was so certainly as far as Chopin was
concerned, for he arrived with a cough and left the place
spitting blood.

The passage from Palma to Barcelona was not so pleasant as that
from Barcelona to Palma had been. Chopin suffered much from
sleeplessness, which was caused by the noise and bad smell of the
most favoured class of passengers on board the Mallorquin--i.e.,
pigs. "The captain showed us no other attention than that of
begging us not to let the invalid lie down on the best bed of the
cabin, because according to Spanish prejudice every illness is
contagious; and as our man thought already of burning the couch
on which the invalid reposed, he wished it should be the worst."
[FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Majorque," pp. 24--25.]

On arriving at Barcelona George Sand wrote from the Mallorquin
and sent by boat a note to M. Belves, the officer in command at
the station, who at once came in his cutter to take her and her
party to the Meleagre, where they were well received by the
officers, doctor, and all the crew. It seemed to them as if they
had left the Polynesian savages and were once more in civilised
society. When they shook hands with the French consul they could
contain themselves no longer, but jumped for joy and cried "Vive
La France!"

A fortnight after their leaving Palma the Phenicien landed them
at Marseilles. The treatment Chopin received from the French
captain of this steamer differed widely from that he had met with
at the hands of the captain of the Mallorquin; for fearing that
the invalid was not quite comfortable in a common berth, he gave
him his own bed. [FOOTNOTE: "Un Hiver a Majorque," p. 183.]

An extract from a letter written by George Sand from Marseilles
on March 8, 1839, to her friend Francois Rollinat, which contains
interesting details concerning Chopin in the last scenes of the
Majorca intermezzo, may fitly conclude this chapter.

Chopin got worse and worse, and in spite of all offers of
service which were made to us in the Spanish manner, we should
not have found a hospitable house in all the island. At last
we resolved to depart at any price, although Chopin had not
the strength to drag himself along. We asked only one--a first
and a last service--a carriage to convey him to Palma, where
we wished to embark. This service was refused to us, although
our FRIENDS had all equipages and fortunes to correspond. We
were obliged to travel three leagues on the worst roads in a
birlocho [FOOTNOTE: A cabriolet. In a Spainish Dictionary I
find a birlocho defined as a vehicle open in front, with two
seats, and two or four wheels. A more detailed description is
to be found on p. 101 of George Sand's "Un Hiver a
Marjorque."] that is to say, a brouette.

On arriving at Palma, Chopin had a frightful spitting of
blood; we embarked the following day on the only steamboat of
the island, which serves to transport pigs to Barcelona. There
is no other way of leaving this cursed country. We were in
company of 100 pigs, whose continual cries and foul odour left
our patient no rest and no respirable air. He arrived at
Barcelona still spitting basins full of blood, and crawling
along like a ghost. There, happily, our misfortunes were
mitigated! The French consul and the commandant of the French
maritime station received us with a hospitality and grace
which one does not know in Spain. We were brought on board a
fine brig of war, the doctor of which, an honest and worthy
man, came at once to the assistance of the invalid, and
stopped the hemorrhage of the lung within twenty-four hours.

From that moment he got better and better. The consul had us
driven in his carriage to an hotel. Chopin rested there a
week, at the end of which the same vessel which had conveyed
us to Spain brought us back to France. When we left the hotel
at Barcelona the landlord wished to make us pay for the bed in
which Chopin had slept, under the pretext that it had been
infected, and that the police regulations obliged him to burn
it.

Chapter XXII.

STAY AT MARSEILLES (FROM MARCH TO MAY, 1839) AS DESCRIBED IN
CHOPIN'S AND MADAME SAND'S LETTERS.--HIS STATE OF HEALTH.--
COMPOSITIONS AND THEIR PUBLICATION.--PLAYING THE ORGAN AT A
FUNERAL SERVICE FOR NOURRIT.--AN EXCURSION TO GENOA.--DEPARTURE
FOR NOHANT.

As George Sand and her party were obliged to stop at Marseilles,
she had Chopin examined by Dr. Cauviere. This celebrated
physician thought him in great danger, but, on seeing him recover
rapidly, augured that with proper care his patient might
nevertheless live a long time. Their stay at Marseilles was more
protracted than they intended and desired; in fact, they did not
start for Nohant till the 22nd of May. Dr. Cauviere would not
permit Chopin to leave Marseilles before summer; but whether this
was the only cause of the long sojourn of the Sand party in the
great commercial city, or whether there were others, I have not
been able to discover. Happily, we have first-hand information--
namely, letters of Chopin and George Sand--to throw a little
light on these months of the pianist-composer's life. As to his
letters, their main contents consist of business matters--
wranglings about terms, abuse of publishers, &c. Here and there,
however, we find also a few words about his health,
characteristic remarks about friends and acquaintances,
interesting hints about domestic arrangements and the like--the
allusion (in the letter of March 2, 1839) to a will made by him
some time before, and which he wishes to be burned, will be read
with some curiosity.

An extract or two from the letter which George Sand wrote on
March 8, 1839, to Francois Rollinat, launches us at once in
medias res.

At last we are in Marseilles. Chopin has stood the passage
very well. He is very weak here, but is doing infinitely
better in all respects, and is in the hands of Dr. Cauviere,
an excellent man and excellent physician, who takes a paternal
care of him, and who answers for his recovery. We breathe at
last, but after how many troubles and anxieties!...Write to me
here to the address of Dr. Cauviere, Rue de Rome, 71.

Chopin charges me to shake you heartily by the hand for him.
Maurice and Solange embrace you. They are wonderfully well.
Maurice has completely recovered.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 2, 1839:--

You no doubt learned from Grzymala of the state of my health
and my manuscripts. Two months ago I sent you from Palma my
Preludes. After making a copy of them for Probst and getting
the money from him, you were to give to Leo 1,000 francs; and
out of the 1,500 francs which Pleyel was to give you for the
Preludes I wrote you to pay Nougi and one term to the
landlord. In the same letter, if I am not mistaken, I asked
you to give notice of my leaving the apartments; for were this
not done before April, I should be obliged to retain them for
the next quarter, till July.

The second batch of manuscripts may have now reached you; for
it must have remained a long time at the custom-house, on the
sea, and again at the custom-house.

I also wrote to Pleyel with the Preludes that I give him the
Ballade (which I sold to Probst for Germany) for 1,000 francs.
For the two Polonaises I asked 1,500 francs for France,
England, and Germany (the right of Probst is confined to the
Ballade). It seems to me that this is not too dear.

In this way you ought to get, on receiving the second batch of
manuscripts, from Pleyel 2,500 francs, and from Probst, for
the Ballade, 500 or 600 francs, I do not quite remember, which
makes altogether 3,000 francs.

I asked Grzymala if he could send me immediately at least 500
francs, which need not prevent him from sending me soon the
rest. Thus much for business.

Now if, which I doubt, you succeed in getting apartments from
next month, divide my furniture amongst you three: Grzymala,
Johnnie, and you. Johnnie has the most room, although not the
most sense, judging from the childish letter he wrote to me.
For his telling me that I should become a Camaldolite, let him
take all the shabby things. Do not overload Grzymala too much,
and take to your house what you judge necessary and
serviceable to you, as I do not know whether I shall return to
Paris in summer (keep this to yourself). At all events, we
will always write one another, and if, as I expect, it be
necessary to keep my apartments till July, I beg of you to
look after them and pay the quarterly rent.

For your sincere and truly affectionate letter you have an
answer in the second Polonaise. [FOOTNOTE: See next foot-
note.] It is not my fault that I am like a mushroom that
poisons when you unearth and taste it. I know I have never in
anything been of service to anyone, but also not of much to
myself.

I told you that in the first drawer of my writing-desk near
the door there was a paper which you or Grzymala or Johnnie
might unseal on a certain occasion. Now I beg of you to take
it out and, WITHOUT READING IT, BURN IT. Do this, I entreat
you, for friendship's sake. This paper is now of no use.

If Anthony leaves without sending you the money, it is very
much in the Polish style; nota bene, do not say to him a word
about it. Try to see Pleyel; tell him I have received no word
from him, and that his pianino is entrusted to safe hands.
Does he agree to the transaction I proposed to him?

The letters from home reached me all three together, with
yours, before going on board the vessel. I again send you one.

I thank you for the friendly help you give me, who am not
strong. My love to Johnnie, tell him that I did not allow
them, or rather that they were not permitted, to bleed me;
that I wear vesicatories, that I am coughing a very little in
the morning, and that I am not yet at all looked upon as a
consumptive person. I drink neither coffee nor wine, but milk.
Lastly, I keep myself warm, and look like a girl.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 6, 1839:--

My health is still improving; I begin to play, eat, walk, and
speak, like other men; and when you receive these few words
from me you will see that I again write with ease. But once
more of business. I would like very much that my Preludes
should be dedicated to Pleyel (surely there is still time, for
they are not yet printed) and the Ballade to Robert Schumann.
The Polonaises, as they are, to you and to Kessler. If Pleyel
does not like to give up the dedication of the Ballade, you
will dedicate the Preludes to Schumann.

[FOOTNOTE: The final arrangement was that Op. 38, the
"Deuxieme Ballade," was dedicated to Robert Schumann; Op. 40,
the "Deux Polonaises," to Julius Fontana; the French and the
English edition of Op. 28, "Vingt-quatre Preludes," to Camille
Pleyel, and the German editon to J. C. Kessler.]

Garczynski called upon me yesterday on his way back from Aix;
he is the only person that I have received, for I keep the
door well shut to all amateurs of music and literature.

Of the change of dedication you will inform Probst as soon as
you have arranged with Pleyel.

From the money obtained you will give Grzymala 500 francs, the
rest, 2,500 francs, you will send me as soon as possible.

Love me and write.

Pardon me if I overwhelm you too much with commissions, but do
not be afraid, these are not the last. I think you do
willingly what I ask you.

My love to Johnnie.

Chopin to Fontana; Marseilles, March 10, 1839:--

Thanks for your trouble. I did not expect Jewish tricks from
Pleyel; but if it is so, I beg of you to give him the enclosed
letter, unless he makes no difficulties about the Ballade and
the Polonaises. On the other hand, on receiving for the
Ballade 500 francs from Probst, you will take it to
Schlesinger. If one has to deal with Jews, let it at least be
with orthodox ones. Probst may cheat me still worse; he is a
bird you will not catch. Schlesinger used to cheat me, he
gained enough by me, and he will not reject new profit, only
be polite to him. Though a Jew, he nevertheless wishes to pass
for something better.

Thus, should Pleyel make the least difficulties, you will go
to Schlesinger, and tell him that I give him the Ballade for
France and England for 800 francs, and the Polonaises for
Germany, England, and France for 1,500 francs (should he not
be inclined to give so much, give them for 1,400, 1,300, and
even for 1,200 francs). If he mentions the Preludes, you may
say that it is a thing long ago promised to Pleyel--he wished
to be the publisher of them; that he asked them from me as a
favour before my departure from Paris--as was really the case.
You see, my very dear friend, for Pleyel I could break with
Schlesinger, but for Probst I cannot. What is it to me if
Schlesinger makes Probst pay dearer for my manuscripts? If
Probst pays dear for them to Schlesinger, it shows that the
latter cheats me, paying me too little. After all, Probst has
no establishment in Paris. For all my printed things
Schlesinger paid me at once, and Probst very often made me
wait for money. If he will not have them all, give him the
Ballade separately, and the Polonaises separately, but at the
latest within two weeks. If he does not accept the offer, then
apply to Probst. Being such an admirer of mine, he must not
pay less than Pleyel. You will deliver my letter to Pleyel
only if he makes any difficulties.