Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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Another prejudice, wide-spread, almost universal, is that
Chopin's music is all languor and melancholy, and, consequently,
wanting in variety. Now, there can be no greater error than this
belief. As to variety, we should be obliged to wonder at its
infiniteness if he had composed nothing but the pieces to which
are really applicable the epithets dreamy, pensive, mournful, and
despondent. But what vigour, what more than manly vigour,
manifests itself in many of his creations! Think only of the
Polonaises in A major (Op. 40, No. 1) and in A flat major (Op.
53), of many of his studies, the first three of his ballades, the
scherzos, and much besides! To be sure, a great deal of this
vigour is not natural, but the outcome of despair and maddening
passion. Still, it is vigour, and such vigour as is not often to
be met with. And, then, it is not the only kind to be found in
his music. There is also a healthy vigour, which, for instance,
in the A major Polonaise assumes a brilliantly-heroic form. Nor
are serene and even joyous moods so rare that it would be
permissible to ignore them. While thus controverting the so-
called vox Dei (are not popular opinions generally popular
prejudices?) and the pseudo-critics who create or follow it, I
have no intention either to deny or conceal the Polish master's
excess of languor and melancholy. I only wish to avoid vulgar
exaggeration, to keep within the bounds of the factual. In art as
in life, in biography as in history, there are not many questions
that can be answered by a plain "yea" or "nay. It was, indeed,
with Chopin as has been said of him, "his heart was sad, his mind
was gay. "One day when Chopin, Liszt, and the Comtesse d'Agoult
spent the after-dinner hours together, the lady, deeply moved by
the Polish composer's playing, ventured to ask him "by what name
he called the extraordinary feeling which he enclosed in his
compositions, like unknown ashes in superb urns of most
exquisitely-chiselled alabaster? "He answered her that--

her heart had not deceived her in its melancholy saddening,
for whatever his moments of cheerfulness might be, he never
for all that got rid of a feeling which formed, as it were,
the soil of his heart, and for which he found a name only in
his mother-tongue, no other possessing an equivalent to the
Polish word zal [sadness, pain, sorrow, grief, trouble,
repentance, &c.]. Indeed, he uttered the word repeatedly, as
if his ear had been eager for this sound, which for him
comprised the whole scale of the feelings which is produced by
an intense plaint, from repentance to hatred, blessed or
poisoned fruits of this acrid root.

After a long dissertation on the meaning of the word zal, Liszt,
from whose book this quotation is taken, proceeds thus:--

Yes, truly, the zal colours with a reflection now argent, now
ardent, the whole of Chopin's works. It is not even absent
from his sweetest reveries. These impressions had so much the
more importance in the life of Chopin that they manifested
themselves distinctly in his last works. They little by little
attained a kind of sickly irascibility, reaching the point of
feverish tremulousness. This latter reveals itself in some of
his last writings by a distortion of his thought which one is
sometimes rather pained than surprised to meet. Suffocating
almost under the oppression of his repressed transports of
passion, making no longer use of the art except to rehearse to
himself his own tragedy, he began, after having sung his
feeling, to tear it to pieces.

Read together with my matter-of-fact statements, Liszt's
hyperbolical and circumlocutional poetic prose will not be
misunderstood by the reader. The case may be briefly summed up
thus. Zal is not to be found in every one of Chopin's
compositions, but in the greater part of them: sometimes it
appears clearly on the surface, now as a smooth or lightly-
rippled flow, now as a wildly-coursing, fiercely-gushing torrent;
sometimes it is dimly felt only as an undercurrent whose presence
not unfrequently becomes temporarily lost to ear and eye. We
must, however, take care not to overlook that this zal is not
exclusively individual, although its width and intensity are so.

The key-note [of Polish songs] [says the editor and translator
into German of an interesting collection of Folk-songs of the
Poles][FOOTNOTE: Volkslieder der Polen. Gesammelt und
ubersetzt von W. P. (Leipzig,1833).] is melancholy--even in
playful and naive songs something may be heard which reminds
one of the pain of past sorrows; a plaintive sigh, a death-
groan, which seems to accuse the Creator, curses His
existence, and, as Tieck thinks, cries to heaven out of the
dust of annihilation:

"What sin have I committed?"

These are the after-throes of whole races; these are the pains
of whole centuries, which in these melodies entwine themselves
in an infinite sigh. One is tempted to call them sentimental,
because they seem to reflect sometimes on their own feeling;
but, on the other hand, they are not so, for the impulse to an
annihilating outpouring of feeling expresses itself too
powerfully for these musical poems to be products of conscious
creativeness. One feels when one hears these songs that the
implacable wheel of fate has only too often rolled over the
terrene happiness of this people, and life has turned to them
only its dark side. Therefore, the dark side is so
conspicuous; therefore, much pain and poetry--unhappiness and
greatness.

The remarks on Polish folk-music lead us naturally to the
question of Chopin's indebtedness to it, which, while in one
respect it cannot be too highly rated, is yet in another respect
generally overrated. The opinion that every peculiarity which
distinguishes his music from that of other masters is to be put
to the account of his nationality, and may be traced in Polish
folk-music, is erroneous. But, on the other hand, it is
emphatically true that this same folk-music was to him a potent
inspirer and trainer. Generally speaking, however, Chopin has
more of the spirit than of the form of Polish folk-music. The
only two classes of his compositions where we find also something
of the form are his mazurkas and polonaises; and, what is
noteworthy, more in the former, the dance of the people, than in
the latter, the dance of the aristocracy. In Chopin's mazurkas we
meet not only with many of the most characteristic rhythms, but
also with many equally characteristic melodic and harmonic traits
of this chief of all the Polish dances.

Polish national music conforms in part to the tonality prevailing
in modern art-music, that is, to our major and minor modes; in
part, however, it reminds one of other tonalities--for instance,
of that of the mediaeval church modes, and of that or those
prevalent in the music of the Hungarians, Wallachians, and other
peoples of that quarter.

[FOOTNOTE: The strictly diatonic church modes (not to be
confounded with the ancient Greek modes bearing the same names)
differ from each other by the position of the two semitones: the
Ionian is like our C major; the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian,
Mixolydian, Aeolian. &c., are like the series of natural notes
starting respectively from d, c, f, g, a, &c. The characteristic
interval of the Hungarian scale is the augmented second (a, b, c,
d#, e, f, g#, a).]

The melodic progression, not always immediate, of an augmented
fourth and major seventh occurs frequently, and that of an
augmented second occasionally. Skips of a third after or before
one or more steps of a second are very common. In connection with
these skips of a third may be mentioned that one meets with
melodies evidently based on a scale with a degree less than our
major and minor scales, having in one place a step of a third
instead of a second. [FOOTNOTE: Connoisseurs of Scotch music, on
becoming acquainted with Polish music, will be incited by many
traits of the latter to undertake a comparative study of the
two.] The opening and the closing note stand often to each other
in the relation of a second, sometimes also of a seventh. The
numerous peculiarities to be met with in Polish folkmusic with
regard to melodic progression are not likely to be reducible to
one tonality or a simple system of tonalities. Time and district
of origin have much to do with the formal character of the
melodies. And besides political, social, and local influences
direct musical ones--the mediaeval church music, eastern secular
music, &c.--have to be taken into account. Of most Polish
melodies it may be said that they are as capricious as they are
piquant. Any attempt to harmonise them according to our tonal
system must end in failure. Many of them would, indeed, be
spoiled by any kind of harmony, being essentially melodic, not
outgrowths of harmony.

[FOOTNOTE: To those who wish to study this subject may be
recommended Oskar Kolberg's Piesni Ludu Polskiego (Warsaw, 1857),
the best collection of Polish folk-songs. Charles Lipinski's
collection, Piesni Polskie i Ruskie Luttu Galicyjskiego, although
much less interesting, is yet noteworthy.]

To treat, however, this subject adequately, one requires volumes,
not pages; to speak on it authoritatively, one must have studied
it more thoroughly than I have done. The following melodies and
snatches of melodies will to some extent illustrate what I have
said, although they are chosen with a view rather to illustrate
Chopin's indebtedness to Polish folk-music than Polish folk-music
itself:--

[11 music score excerpts illustrated here]

Chopin, while piquantly and daringly varying the tonality
prevailing in art-music, hardly ever departs from it altogether--
he keeps at least in contact with it, however light that contact
may be now and then in the mazurkas.

[FOOTNOTE: One of the most decided exceptions is the Mazurka, Op.
24, No. 2, of which only the A fiat major part adheres frankly to
our tonality. The portion beginning with the twenty-first bar and
extending over that and the next fifteen bars displays, on the
other hand, the purest Lydian, while the other portions, although
less definite as regards tonality, keep in closer touch with the
mediaeval church smode [sic: mode] than with our major and
minor.]

Further, he adopted only some of the striking peculiarities of
the national music, and added to them others which were
individual. These individual characteristics--those audacities of
rhythm, melody, and harmony (in progressions and modulations, as
well as in single chords)--may, however, be said to have been
fathered by the national ones. As to the predominating
chromaticism of his style, it is not to be found in Polish folk-
music; although slight rudiments are discoverable (see Nos. 6-12
of the musical illustrations). Of course, no one would seek there
his indescribably-exquisite and highly-elaborate workmanship,
which alone enabled him to give expression to the finest shades
and most sudden changes of gentle feelings and turbulent
passions. Indeed, as I have already said, it is rather the
national spirit than the form which manifests itself in Chopin's
music. The writer of the article on Polish music in Mendel's
Conversations-Lexikon remarks:--

What Chopin has written remains for all times the highest
ideal of Polish music. Although it would be impossible to
point out in a single bar a vulgar utilisation of a national
theme, or a Slavonic aping of it, there yet hovers over the
whole the spirit of Polish melody, with its chivalrous, proud,
and dreamy accents; yea, even the spirit of the Polish
language is so pregnantly reproduced in the musical diction as
perhaps in no composition of any of his countrymen; unless it
be that Prince Oginski with his polonaises and Dobrzynski in
his happiest moments have approached him.

Liszt, as so often, has also in connection with this aspect of
the composer Chopin some excellent remarks to offer.

He neither applied himself nor exerted himself to write Polish
music; it is possible that he would have been astonished to
hear himself called a Polish musician.

[FOOTNOTE: Liszt decidedly overshoots here the mark, and does
so in a less degree in the rest of these observations. Did not
Chopin himself say to Hiller that he wished to be to his
countrymen what Uhland was to the Germans? And did he not
write in one of his letters (see p. 168): "You know how I wish
to understand, and how I have in part succeeded in
understanding, our national music"?]

Nevertheless, he was a national musician par excellence...He
summed up in his imagination, he represented in his talent, a
poetic feeling inherent in his nation and diffused there among
all his contemporaries. Like the true national poets, Chopin
sang, without a fixed design, without a preconceived choice,
what inspiration spontaneously dictated to him; it is thus
that there arose in his music, without solicitation, without
effort, the most idealised form of the emotions which had
animated his childhood, chequered his adolescence, and
embellished his youth...Without making any pretence to it, he
collected into a luminous sheaf sentiments confusedly felt by
all in his country, fragmentarily disseminated in their
hearts, vaguely perceived by some.

George Sand tells us that Chopin's works were the mysterious and
vague expression of his inner life. That they were the expression
of his inner life is indeed a fact which no attentive hearer can
fail to discover without the aid of external evidence. For the
composer has hardly written a bar in which, so to speak, the
beating of his heart may not be felt. Chopin revealed himself
only in his music, but there he revealed himself fully. And was
this expression of his inner life really "mysterious and vague"?
I think not! At least, no effusion of words could have made
clearer and more distinct what he expressed. For the
communications of dreams and visions such as he dreamt and saw,
of the fluctuating emotional actualities such as his sensitive
heart experienced, musical forms are, no doubt, less clumsy than
verbal and pictorial ones. And if we know something of his
history and that of his nation, we cannot be at a loss to give
names and local habitations to the impalpable, but emotionally
and intellectually-perceptible contents of his music. We have to
distinguish in Chopin the personal and the national tone-poet,
the singer of his own joys and sorrows and that of his country's.
But, while distinguishing these two aspects, we must take care
not to regard them as two separate things. They were a duality
the constitutive forces of which alternately assumed supremacy.
The national poet at no time absorbed the personal, the personal
poet at no time disowned the national. His imagination was always
ready to conjure up his native atmosphere, nay, we may even say
that, wherever he might be, he lived in it. The scene of his
dreams and visions lay oftenest in the land of his birth. And
what did the national poet dream and see in these dreams and
visions? A past, present, and future which never existed and
never will exist, a Poland and a Polish people glorified. Reality
passed through the refining fires of his love and genius and
reappeared in his music sublimated as beauty and poetry. No other
poet has like Chopin embodied in art the romance of the land and
people of Poland. And, also, no other poet has like him embodied
in art the romance of his own existence. But whereas as a
national poet he was a flattering idealist, he was as a personal
poet an uncompromising realist.

The masterpieces of Chopin consist of mazurkas, polonaises,
waltzes, etudes, preludes, nocturnes (with which we will class
the berceuse and barcarole), scherzos and impromptus, and
ballades. They do not, however, comprise all his notable
compositions. And about these notable compositions which do not
rank with his masterpieces, either because they are of less
significance or otherwise fail to reach the standard of requisite
perfectness, I shall first say a few words.

Chopin's Bolero, Op. 19, may be described as a Bolero a la
polonaise. It is livelier in movement and more coquettish in
character than the compositions which he entitles polonaises, but
for all that its physiognomy does not on the whole strike one as
particularly Spanish, certainly not beyond the first section of
the Bolero proper and the seductive strains of the Pililento, the
second tempo of the introduction. And in saying this I am not
misled by the points of resemblance in the rhythmical
accompaniment of these dances. Chopin published the Bolero in
1834, four years before he visited Spain, but one may doubt
whether it would have turned out less Polish if he had composed
it subsequently. Although an excellent imitator in the way of
mimicry, he lacked the talent of imitating musical thought and
character; at any rate, there are no traces of it in his works.
The cause of this lack of talent lies, of course, in the strength
of his subjectivism in the first place, and of his nationalism in
the second. I said the Bolero was published four years before his
visit to Spain. But how many years before this visit was it
composed? I think a good many years earlier; for it has so much
of his youthful style about it, and not only of his youthful
style, but also of his youthful character--by which I mean that
it is less intensely poetic. It is not impossible that Chopin was
instigated to write it by hearing the Bolero in Auber's "La
Muette de Portici" ("Masaniello"), which opera was first
performed on February 28, 1828. These remarks are thrown out
merely as hints. The second composition which we shall consider
will show how dangerous it is to dogmatise on the strength of
internal evidence.

Op. 16, a lightsome Rondeau with a dramatic Introduction, is,
like the Bolero, not without its beauties; but in spite of
greater individuality, ranks, like it, low among the master's
works, being patchy, unequal, and little poetical.

If ever Chopin is not Chopin in his music, he is so in his
Variations brillantes (in B flat major) sur le Rondeau favori:
"Je vends des Scapulaires" de Ludovic, de Herold et Halevy, Op.
12. Did we not know that he must have composed the. work about
the middle of 1833, we should be tempted to class it with the
works which came into existence when his individuality was as yet
little developed. [FOOTNOTE: The opera Ludovic, on which Herold
was engaged when he died on January 19, 1833, and which Halevy
completed, was produced in Paris on May 16, 1833. From the German
publishers of Chopin's Op. 12 I learned that it appeared in
November, 1833. In the Gazette musicale of January 26, 1834, may
be read a review of it.] But knowing what we do, we can only
wonder at the strange phenomenon. It is as if Chopin had here
thrown overboard the Polish part of his natal inheritance and
given himself up unrestrainedly and voluptuously to the French
part. Besides various diatonic runs of an inessential and purely
ornamental character, there is in the finale actually a plain and
full-toned C flat major scale. What other work of the composer
could be pointed out exhibiting the like feature? Of course,
Chopin is as little successful in entirely hiding his
serpentining and chromaticising tendency as Mephistopheles in
hiding the limp arising from his cloven foot. Still, these
fallings out of the role are rare and transient, and, on the
whole, Chopin presents himself as a perfect homme du monde who
knows how to say the most insignificant trifles with the most
exquisite grace imaginable. There can. be nothing more amusing
than the contemporary critical opinions regarding this work,
nothing more amusing than to see the at other times censorious
Philistines unwrinkle their brows, relax generally the sternness
of their features, and welcome, as it were, the return of the
prodigal son. We wiser critics of to-day, who, of course, think
very differently about this matter, can, nevertheless, enjoy and
heartily applaud the prettiness and elegance of the simple first
variation, the playful tripping second, the schwarmerische
melodious third, the merry swinging fourth, and the brilliant
finale.

From Chopin's letters we see that the publication of the
Tarantelle, Op. 43, which took place in the latter part of 1841,
was attended with difficulties and annoyances. [FOOTNOTE: Herr
Schuberth, of Leipzig, informed me that a honorarium of 500
francs was paid to Chopin for this work on July 1, 1841. The
French publisher deposited the work at the library of the
Conservatoire in October, 1841.] What these difficulties and
annoyances were, is, however, only in part ascertainable. To turn
from the publication to the composition itself, I may say that it
is full of life, indeed, spirited in every respect, in movement
and in boldness of harmonic and melodic conception. The
Tarantelle is a translation from Italian into Polish, a
transmutation of Rossini into Chopin, a Neapolitan scene painted
with opaque colours, the south without its transparent sky, balmy
air, and general brightness. That this composition was inspired
by impressions received from Rossini's Tarantella, and not from
impressions received in Italy (of which, as has already been
related, he had a short glimpse in 1839), is evident. A
comparison of Chopin's Op. 43 with Liszt's glowing and
intoxicating transcription of Rossini's composition may be
recommended as a study equally pleasant and instructive. Although
not an enthusiastic admirer of Chopin's Tarantelle, I protest in
the interest of the composer and for justice's sake against
Schumann's dictum: "Nobody can call that beautiful music; but we
pardon the master his wild fantasies, for once he may let us see
also the dark sides of his inner life."

The Allegro de Concert, Op. 46, which was published in November,
1841, although written for the pianoforte alone, contains,
nevertheless, passages which are more distinctly orchestral than
anything Chopin ever wrote for the orchestra. The form resembles
somewhat that of the concerto. In the first section, which
occupies the place of the opening tutti, we cannot fail to
distinguish the entrances of single instruments, groups of
instruments, and the full orchestra. The soloist starts in the
eighty-seventh bar, and in the following commences a cadenza.
With the a tempo comes the first subject (A major), and the
passage-work which brings up the rear leads to the second subject
(E major), which had already appeared in the first section in A
major. The first subject, if I may dignify the matter in question
with that designation, does not recur again, nor was it
introduced by the tutti. The central and principal thought is
what I called the second subject. The second section concludes
with brilliant passage-work in E major, the time--honoured shake
rousing the drowsy orchestra from its sweet repose. The hint is
not lost, and the orchestra, in the disguise of the pianoforte,
attends to its duty right vigorously. With the poco rit. the
soloist sets to work again, and in the next bar takes up the
principal subject in A minor. After that we have once more
brilliant passage-work, closing this time in A major, and then a
final tutti. The Allegro de Concert gives rise to all sorts of
surmises. Was it written first for the pianoforte and orchestra,
as Schumann suspects? Or may we make even a bolder guess, and
suppose that the composer, at a more advanced age, worked up into
this Allegro de Concert a sketch for the first movement of a
concerto conceived in his younger days? Have we, perhaps, here a
fragment or fragments of the Concerto for two pianos which
Chopin, in a letter written at Vienna on December 21, 1830, said
he would play in public with his friend Nidecki, if he succeeded
in writing it to his satisfaction? And is there any significance
in the fact that Chopin, when (probably in the summer of 1841)
sending the manuscript of this work to Fontana, calls it a
Concerto? Be this as it may, the principal subject and some of
the passage-work remind one of the time of the concertos; other
things, again, belong undoubtedly to a later period. The tutti
and solo parts are unmistakable, so different is the treatment of
the pianoforte: in the former the style has the heaviness of an
arrangement, in the latter it has Chopin's usual airiness. The
work, as a whole, is unsatisfactory, nay, almost indigestible.
The subjects are neither striking nor important. Of the passage-
work, that which follows the second subject contains the most
interesting matter. Piquant traits and all sorts of fragmentary
beauties are scattered here and there over the movement. But
after we have considered all, we must confess that this opus adds
little or nothing to the value of our Chopin inheritance.

[FOOTNOTE: In justice to the composer I must here quote a
criticism which since I wrote the above appeared in the Athenaum
(January 21, 1888):--"The last-named work [the Allegro de
Concert, Op. 46] is not often heard, and is generally regarded as
one of Chopin's least interesting and least characteristic
pieces. Let us hasten to say that these impressions are
distinctly wrong; the executive difficulties of the work are
extremely great, and a mere mastery of them is far from all that
is needed. When M. de Pachmann commenced to play it was quickly
evident that his reading would be most remarkable, and in the end
it amounted to an astounding revelation. That which seemed dry
and involved became under his fingers instinct with beauty and
feeling; the musicians and amateurs present listened as if
spellbound, and opinion was unanimous that the performance was
nothing short of an artistic creation. For the sake of the
composer, if not for his own reputation, the pianist should
repeat it, not once, but many times." Notwithstanding this
decided judgment of a weighty authority--for such everyone will,
without hesitation, acknowledge the critic in question to be--I
am unable, after once more examining the work, to alter my
previously formed opinion.]