Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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Chopin did not press me to sit down [says Lenz], I stood as
before a reigning sovereign. "What do you wish? a pupil of
Liszt's, an artist?" "A friend of Liszt's. I wish to have the
happiness of making, under your guidance, acquaintance with
your mazurkas, which I regard as a literature. Some of them I
have already studied with Liszt." I felt I had been
imprudent, but it was too late. "Indeed!" replied Chopin, with
a drawl, but in the politest tone, "what do you want me for
then? Please play to me what you have played with Liszt, I
have still a few minutes at my disposal"--he drew from his
fob an elegant, small watch--"I was on the point of going out,
I had told my servant to admit nobody, pardon me!"

Lenz sat down at the piano, tried the gue of it--an expression at
which Chopin, who was leaning languidly on the piano and looking
with his intelligent eyes straight in his visitor's face, smiled--
and then struck up the Mazurka in B flat major. When he came to
a passage in which Liszt had taught him to introduce a volata
through two octaves, Chopin whispered blandly:--

"This TRAIT is not your own; am I right? HE has shown it you--
he must meddle with everything; well! he may do it, he plays
before THOUSANDS, I rarely before ONE. Well, this will do, I
will give you lessons, but only twice a week, I never give
more, it is difficult for me to find three-quarters of an
hour." He again looked at his watch. "What do you read then?
With what do you occupy yourself generally?" This was a
question for which I was well prepared. "George Sand and Jean
Jacques I prefer to all other writers," said I quickly. He
smiled, he was most beautiful at that moment. "Liszt has told
you this. I see, you are initiated, so much the better. Only
be punctual, with me things go by the clock, my house is a
pigeon-house (pigeonnier). I see already we shall become more
intimate, a recommendation from Liszt is worth something, you
are the first pupil whom he has recommended to me; we are
friends, we were comrades."

Lenz had, of course, too imaginative a turn of mind to leave
facts in their native nakedness, but this tendency of his is too
apparent to need pointing out. What betrays him is the wonderful
family likeness of his portraits, a kind of vapid esprit, not
distantly related to silliness, with which the limner endows his
unfortunate sitters, Chopin as well as Liszt and Tausig. Indeed,
the portraits compared with the originals are like Dresden china
figures compared with Greek statuary. It seems to me also very
improbable that so perfect a gentleman as Chopin was should
subject a stranger to an examination as to his reading and
general occupation. These questions have very much the appearance
of having been invented by the narrator for the sake of the
answers. However, notwithstanding the many unmistakable
embellishments, Lenz's account was worth quoting, for after all
it is not without a basis of fact and truth. The following
reminiscences of the lively Russian councillor, although not
wanting in exaggerations, are less open to objections:--

I always made my appearance long before my hour and waited.
One lady after another came out, one more beautiful than the
other, on one occasion Mdlle. Laure Duperre, the daughter of
the admiral, whom Chopin accompanied to the staircase, she was
the most beautiful of all, and as straight as a palm; to her
Chopin has dedicated two of his most important Nocturnes (in C
minor and F sharp minor, Op. 48); she was at that time his
favourite pupil. In the anteroom I often met little Filtsch,
who, unfortunately, died too young, at the age of thirteen, a
Hungarian and a genius. He knew how to play Chopin! Of Filtsch
Liszt said in my presence at a soiree of the Comtesse
d'Agoult: "When the little one begins to travel, I shall shut
up my shop" (Quand le petit voyagera, je fermerai boutique). I
was jealous of Filtsch, Chopin had eyes only for him.

How high an opinion the master had of this talented pupil appears
from his assertion that the boy played the E minor Concerto
better than he himself. Lenz mentions Filtsch and his playing of
the E minor Concerto only in passing in "Die grossen Pianoforte-
Virtuosen unserer Zeit," but devotes to them more of his leisure
in an article which appeared in the Berliner Musikzeitung (Vol.
XXVI.), the amusing gossip of which deserves notice here on
account of the light thrown by some of its details on Chopin's
ways and the company he received in his salon. On one occasion
when Filtsch had given his master particular satisfaction by a
tasteful rendering of the second solo of the first movement of
the E minor Concerto, Chopin said: "You have played this well, my
boy (mon garcon), I must try it myself." Lenz relates that what
now followed was indescribable: the little one (der Kleine) burst
into tears, and Chopin, who indeed had been telling them the
story of his artist life, said, as if speaking to himself, "I
have loved it! I have already once played it!" Then, turning to
Filtsch, he spoke these words: "Yours is a beautiful artist
nature (une belle nature d'artiste), you will become a great
artist." Whilst the youthful pianist was studying the Concerto
with Chopin, he was never allowed to play more than one solo at a
time, the work affecting too much the feelings of the composer,
who, moreover, thought that the whole was contained in every one
of the solos; and when he at last got leave to perform the whole,
an event for which he prepared himself by fasting and prayers of
the Roman Catholic Church, and by such reading as was pointed out
by his master, practising being forbidden for the time, Chopin
said to him: "As you have now mastered the movement so well, we
will bring it to a hearing."

The reader must understand that I do not vouch for the strict
correctness of Lenz's somewhat melodramatic narrative; and having
given this warning I shall, to keep myself free from all
responsibility, simply translate the rest of what is yet to be
told:--

Chopin invited a party of ladies, George Sand was one of them,
and was as quiet as a mouse; moreover, she knew nothing of
music. The favoured pupils from the highest aristocracy
appeared with modest demeanour and full of the most profound
devotion, they glided silently, like gold-fishes in a vase,
one after another into the salon, and sat down as far as
possible from the piano, as Chopin liked people to do. Nobody
spoke, Chopin only nodded, and shook hands with one here and
there, not with all of them. The square pianoforte, which
stood in his cabinet, he had placed beside the Pleyel concert
grand in the salon, not without the most painful embarras to
him. The most insignificant trifle affected him; he was a noli
me tangere. He had said once, or rather had thought aloud: "If
I saw a crack more in the ceiling, I should not be able to
bring out a note." Chopin poured the whole dreamy, vaporous
instrumentation of the work into his incomparable
accompaniment. He played without book. I have never heard
anything that could be compared to the first tutti, which he
played alone on the piano. The little one did wonders. The
whole was an impression for all the rest of one's life. After
Chopin had briefly dismissed the ladies (he loved praise
neither for himself nor for others, and only George Sand was
permitted to embrace Filtsch), he said to the latter, his
brother, who always accompanied the little one, and me: "We
have yet to take a walk." It was a command which we received
with the most respectful bow.

The destination of this walk was Schlesinger's music-shop, where
Chopin presented his promising young pupil with the score of
Beethoven's "Fidelio":--

"I am in your debt, you have given me much pleasure to-day. I
wrote the Concerto in happier days. Receive, my dear little
friend, this great master-work; read therein as long as you
live, and remember me also sometimes." The little one was as
if stunned, and kissed Chopin's hand. We were all deeply
moved, Chopin himself was so. He disappeared immediately
through the glass door on a level with the Rue Richelieu, into
which it leads.

A scene of a very different nature which occurred some years
later was described to me by Madame Dubois. This lady, then still
Mdlle. O'Meara and a pupil of Chopin's, had in 1847 played,
accompanied on a second piano by her master, the latter's
Concerto in E minor at a party of Madame de Courbonne's. Madame
Girardin, who was among the guests, afterwards wrote most
charmingly and eulogistically about the young girl's beauty and
talent in one of her Lettres parisiennes, which appeared in La
Presse and were subsequently published in a collected form under
the title of "Le Vicomte de Launay." Made curious by Madame
Girardin's account, and probably also by remarks of Chopin and
others, George Sand wished to see the heroine of that much-talked-
of letter. Thus it came to pass that one day when Miss O'Meara
was having her lesson, George Sand crossed the Square d'Orleans
and paid Chopin a visit in his apartments. The master received
her with all the grace and amiability he was capable of. Noticing
that her pardessus was bespattered with mud, he seemed to be much
vexed, and the exquisitely-elegant gentleman (l'homme de toutes
les elegances ) began to rub off with his small, white hands the
stains which on any other person would have caused him disgust.
And Mdlle. O'Meara, child as she still was, watched what was
going on from the corner of her eye and thought: "Comme il aime
cette femme!" [FOOTNOTE: Madame A. Audley gives an altogether
incorrect account of this incident in her FREDERIC CHOPIN. Madame
Girardin was not one of the actors, and Mdlle. O'Meara did not
think the thoughts attributed to her.]

Whenever Chopin's connection with George Sand is mentioned, one
hears a great deal of the misery and nothing or little of the
happiness which accrued to him out of it. The years of tenderness
and devotion are slurred over and her infidelities, growing
indifference, and final desertion are dwelt upon with undue
emphasis. Whatever those of Chopin's friends who were not also
George Sand's friends may say, we may be sure that his joys
outweighed his sorrows. Her resoluteness must have been an
invaluable support to so vacillating a character as Chopin's was;
and, although their natures were in many respects discordant, the
poetic element of hers cannot but have found sympathetic chords
in his. Every character has many aspects, but the world is little
disposed to see more than one side of George Sand's--namely, that
which is most conspicuous by its defiance of law and custom, and
finds expression in loud declamation and denunciation. To observe
her in one of her more lovable attitudes of mind, we will
transport ourselves from Chopin's to her salon.

Louis Enault relates how one evening George Sand, who sometimes
thought aloud when with Chopin--this being her way of chatting--
spoke of the peacefulness of the country and unfolded a picture
of the rural harmonies that had all the charming and negligent
grace of a village idyl, bringing, in fact, her beloved Berry to
the fireside of the room in the Square d'Orleans.

"How well you have spoken!" said Chopin naively.

"You think so?" she replied. "Well, then, set me to music!"
Hereupon Chopin improvised a veritable pastoral symphony, and
George Sand placing herself beside him and laying her hand
gently on his shoulder said: "Go on, velvet fingers [courage,
doigts de velour]!"

Here is another anecdote of quiet home-life. George Sand had a
little dog which was in the habit of turning round and round in
the endeavour to catch its tail. One evening when it was thus
engaged, she said to Chopin: "If I had your talent, I would
compose a pianoforte piece for this dog." Chopin at once sat down
at the piano, and improvised the charming Waltz in D flat (Op.
64), which hence has obtained the name of Valse du petit chien.
This story is well known among the pupils and friends of the
master, but not always told in exactly the same way. According to
another version, Chopin improvised the waltz when the little dog
was playing with a ball of wool. This variation, however, does
not affect the pith of the story.

The following two extracts tell us more about the intimate home-
life at Nohant and in the Court d'Orleans than anything we have
as yet met with.

Madame Sand to her son; October 17, 1843:--

Tell me if Chopin is ill; his letters are short and sad. Take
care of him if he is ailing. Take a little my place. He would
take my place with so much zeal if you were ill.

Madame Sand to her son; November 16, 1843:--

If you care for the letter which I have written you about her
[Solange], ask Chopin for it. It was for both of you, and it
has not given him much pleasure. He has taken it amiss, and
yet I did not wish to annoy him, God forbid! We shall all see
each other soon again, and hearty embraces [de bonnes
bigeades] [FOOTNOTE: Biger is in the Berry dialect "to kiss."]
all round shall efface all my sermons.

In another of George Sand's letters to her son--it is dated
November 28, 1843--we read about Chopin's already often-mentioned
valet. Speaking of the foundation of a provincial journal,
"L'Eclaireur de l'Indre," by herself and a number of her friends,
and of their being on the look-out for an editor who would be
content with the modest salary of 2,000 francs, she says:--

This is hardly more than the wages of Chopin's domestic, and
to imagine that for this it is possible to find a man of
talent! First measure of the Committee of Public Safety: we
shall outlaw Chopin if he allows himself to have lackeys
salaried like publicists.

Chopin treated George Sand with the greatest respect and
devotion; he was always aux petits soins with her. It is
characteristic of the man and exemplifies strikingly the delicacy
of his taste and feeling that his demeanour in her house showed
in no way the intimate relation in which he stood to the mistress
of it: he seemed to be a guest like any other occasional visitor.
Lenz wishes to make us believe that George Sand's treatment of
Chopin was unworthy of the great artist, but his statements are
emphatically contradicted by Gutmann, who says that her behaviour
towards him was always respectful. If the lively Russian
councillor in the passages I am going to translate describes
correctly what he heard and saw, he must have witnessed an
exceptional occurrence; it is, however, more likely that the bad
reception he received from the lady prejudiced him against her.

Lenz relates that one day Chopin took him to the salon of Madame
Marliani, where there was in the evening always a gathering of
friends.

George Sand [thus runs his account of his first meeting with
the great novelist] did not say a word when Chopin introduced
me. This was rude. Just for that reason I seated myself beside
her. Chopin fluttered about like a little frightened bird in
its cage, he saw something was going to happen. What had he
not always feared on this terrain? At the first pause in the
conversation, which was led by Madame Sand's friend, Madame
Viardot, the great singer whose acquaintance I was later to
make in St. Petersburg, Chopin put his arm through mine and
led me to the piano. Reader! if you play the piano you will
imagine how I felt! It was an upright or cottage piano [Steh-
oder Stutzflugel] of Pleyel's, which people in Paris regard as
a pianoforte. I played the Invitation in a fragmentary
fashion, Chopin gave me his hand in the most friendly manner,
George Sand did not say a word. I seated myself once more
beside her. I had obviously a purpose. Chopin looked anxiously
at us across the table, on which was burning the inevitable
carcel.

"Are you not coming sometime to St. Petersburg," said I to
George Sand in the most polite tone, "where you are so much
read, so highly admired?"

"I shall never lower myself by visiting a country of slaves!"
answered George Sand shortly.

This was indecorous [unanstandig] after she had been uncivil.

"After all, you are right NOT to come," I replied in the same
tone; "you might find the door closed! I was thinking of the
Emperor Nicholas."

George Sand looked at me in astonishment, I plunged boldly
into her large, beautiful, brown, cow-like eyes. Chopin did
not seem displeased, I knew the movements of his head.

Instead of giving any answer George Sand rose in a theatrical
fashion, and strode in the most manly way through the salon to
the blazing fire. I followed her closely, and seated myself
for the third time beside her, ready for another attack.

She would be obliged at last to say something.

George Sand drew an enormously thick Trabucco cigar out of her
apron pocket, and called out "Frederic! un fidibus!"

This offended me for him, that perfect gentleman, my master; I
understood Liszt's words: "Pauvre Frederic!" in all their
significance.

Chopin immediately came up with a fidibus.

As she was sending forth the first terrible cloud of smoke,
George Sand honoured me with a word:

"In St. Petersburg," she began, "I could not even smoke a
cigar in a drawing-room?"

"In NO drawing-room have I ever seen anyone smoke a cigar,
Madame," I answered, not without emphasis, with a bow!

George Sand fixed her eyes sharply upon me--the thrust had
gone home! I looked calmly around me at the good pictures in
the salon, each of which was lighted up by a separate lamp.
Chopin had probably heard nothing; he had returned to the
hostess at the table.

Pauvre Frederic! How sorry I was for him, the great artist!
The next day the Suisse [hall-porter] in the hotel, Mr.
Armand, said to me: "A gentleman and a lady have been here, I
said you were not at home, you had not said you would receive
visitors; the gentleman left his name, he had no card with
him." I read: Chopin et Madame Sand. After this I quarrelled
for two months with Mr. Armand.

George Sand was probably out of humour on the evening in
question; that it was not her usual manner of receiving visitors
may be gathered from what Chopin said soon after to Lenz when the
latter came to him for a lesson. "George Sand," he said, "called
with me on you. What a pity you were not at home! I regretted it
very much. George Sand thought she had been uncivil to you. You
would have seen how amiable she can be. You have pleased her."

Alexander Chodzko, the learned professor of Slavonic literature
at the College de France, told me that he was half-a-dozen times
at George Sand's house. Her apartments were furnished in a style
in favour with young men. First you came into a vestibule where
hats, coats, and sticks were left, then into a large salon with a
billiard-table. On the mantel-piece were to be found the
materials requisite for smoking. George Sand set her guests an
example by lighting a cigar. M. Chodzko met there among others
the historian and statesman Guizot, the litterateur Francois, and
Madame Marliani. If Chopin was not present, George Sand would
often ask the servant what he was doing, whether he was working
or sleeping, whether he was in good or bad humour. And when he
came in all eyes were directed towards him. If he happened to be
in good humour George Sand would lead him to the piano, which
stood in one of the two smaller apartments adjoining the salon.
These smaller apartments were provided with couches for those who
wished to talk. Chopin began generally to prelude apathetically
and only gradually grew warm, but then his playing was really
grand. If, however, he was not in a playing mood, he was often
asked to give some of his wonderful mimetic imitations. On such
occasions Chopin retired to one of the side-rooms, and when he
returned he was irrecognisable. Professor Chodzko remembers
seeing him as Frederick the Great.

Chopin's talent for mimicry, which even such distinguished actors
as Bocage and Madame Dorval regarded with admiration, is alluded
to by Balzac in his novel "Un Homme d'affaires," where he says of
one of the characters that "he is endowed with the same talent
for imitating people which Chopin, the pianist, possesses in so
high a degree; he represents a personage instantly and with
astounding truth." Liszt remarks that Chopin displayed in
pantomime an inexhaustible verve drolatique, and often amused
himself with reproducing in comical improvisations the musical
formulas and peculiar ways of certain virtuosos, whose faces and
gestures he at the same time imitated in the most striking
manner. These statements are corroborated by the accounts of
innumerable eye and ear-witnesses of such performances. One of
the most illustrative of these accounts is the following very
amusing anecdote. When the Polish musician Nowakowski [FOOTNOTE:
He visited Paris in 1838, 1841, and 1846, partly for the purpose
of making arrangements for the publication of his compositions,
among which are Etudes dedicated to Chopin.] visited Paris, he
begged his countryman to bring him in contact with Kalkbrenner,
Liszt, and Pixis. Chopin, replying that he need not put himself
to the trouble of going in search of these artists if he wished
to make their acquaintance, forthwith sat down at the piano and
assumed the attitude, imitated the style of playing, and mimicked
the mien and gestures, first of Liszt and then of Pixis. Next
evening Chopin and Nowakowski went together to the theatre. The
former having left the box during one of the intervals, the
latter looked round after awhile and saw Pixis sitting beside
him. Nowakowski, thinking Chopin was at his favourite game,
clapped Pixis familiarly on the shoulder and said: "Leave off,
don't imitate now!" The surprise of Pixis and the subsequent
confusion of Nowakowski may be easily imagined. When Chopin, who
at this moment returned, had been made to understand what had
taken place, he laughed heartily, and with the grace peculiar to
him knew how to make his friend's and his own excuses. One thing
in connection with Chopin's mimicry has to be particularly noted-
-it is very characteristic of the man. Chopin, we learn from
Liszt, while subjecting his features to all kinds of
metamorphoses and imitating even the ugly and grotesque, never
lost his native grace, "la grimace ne parvenait meme pas a
l'enlaidir."

We shall see presently what George Sand has to say about her
lover's imitative talent; first, however, we will make ourselves
acquainted with the friends with whom she especially associated.
Besides Pierre Leroux, Balzac, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and others
who have already been mentioned in the foregoing chapters, she
numbered among her most intimate friends the Republican
politician and historian Louis Blanc, the Republican litterateur
Godefroy Cavaignac, the historian Henri Martin, and the
litterateur Louis Viardot, the husband of Pauline Garcia.

[FOOTNOTE: This name reminds me of a passage in Louis Blanc's
"Histoire de la Revolution de 1840" (p. 210 of Fifth Edition.
Paris, 1880). "A short time before his [Godefroy Cavaignac's]
end, he was seized by an extraordinary desire to hear music once
more. I knew Chopin. I offered to go to him, and to bring him
with me, if the doctor did not oppose it. The entreaties
thereupon took the character of a supplication. With the consent,
or rather at the urgent prayer, of Madame Cavaignac, I betook
myself to Chopin. Madame George Sand was there. She expressed in
a touching manner the lively interest with which the invalid
inspired her; and Chopin placed himself at my service with much
readiness and grace. I conducted him then into the chamber of the
dying man, where there was a bad piano. The great artist
begins...Suddenly he is interrupted by sobs. Godefroy, in a
transport of sensibility which gave him a moment's physical
strength, had quite unexpectedly raised himself in his bed of
suffering, his face bathed in tears. Chopin stopped, much
disturbed; Madame Cavaignac, leaning towards her son, anxiously
interrogated him with her eyes. He made an effort to become self-
possessed; he attempted to smile, and with a feeble voice said,
'Do not be uneasy, mamma, it is nothing; real childishness...Ah!
how beautiful music is, understood thus!' His thought was--we
had no difficulty in divining it--that he would no longer hear
anything like it in this world, but he refrained from saying
so."]

Friends not less esteemed by her than these, but with whom she
was less intimate, were the Polish poet Mickiewicz, the famous
bass singer Lablache, the excellent pianist and composer Alkan
aine, the Italian composer and singing-master Soliva (whom we met
already in Warsaw), the philosopher and poet Edgar Quinet,
General Guglielmo Pepe (commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan
insurrectionary army in 1820-21), and likewise the actor Bocage,
the litterateur Ferdinand Francois, the German musician Dessauer,
the Spanish politician Mendizabal, the dramatist and journalist
Etienne Arago, [FOOTNOTE: The name of Etienne Arago is mentioned
in "Ma Vie," but it is that of Emmanuel Arago which occurs
frequently in the "Corrcspcndance."] and a number of literary and
other personages of less note, of whom I shall mention only
Agricol Perdiguier and Gilland, the noble artisan and the
ecrivain proletaire, as George Sand calls them.