Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

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If Schiller is right in saying "Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist
die Kunst," then what we find in the Polonaise (in F sharp
minor), Op. 44 (published in November, 1841), cannot be art. We
look in vain for beauty of melody and harmony; dreary unisons,
querulous melodic phrases, hollow-eyed chords, hard progressions
and modulations throughout every part of the polonaise proper. We
receive a pathological rather than aesthetical impression.
Nevertheless, no one can deny the grandeur and originality that
shine through this gloom. The intervening Doppio movimento, tempo
di Mazurka, sends forth soft beneficent rays--reminiscences of
long ago, vague and vanishing, sweet and melancholy. But there is
an end to this as to all such dreams. Those harassing,
exasperating gloomy thoughts (Tempo di Polacca) return. The sharp
corners which we round so pleasantly and beautifully in our
reconstructions of the past make themselves only too soon felt in
the things of the present, and cruelly waken us to reality and
its miseries.

The Polonaise, Op. 53 (in A flat major; published in December,
1843), is one of the most stirring compositions of Chopin,
manifesting an overmastering power and consuming fire. But is it
really the same Chopin, is it the composer of the dreamy
nocturnes, the elegant waltzes, who here fumes and frets,
struggling with a fierce, suffocating rage (mark the rushing
succession of chords of the sixth, the growling semiquaver
figures, and the crashing dissonances of the sixteen introductory
bars), and then shouts forth, sure of victory, his bold and
scornful challenge? And farther on, in the part of the polonaise
where the ostinato semiquaver figure in octaves for the left hand
begins, do we not hear the trampling of horses, the clatter of
arms and spurs, and the sound of trumpets? Do we not hear--yea,
and see too--a high-spirited chivalry approaching and passing?
Only pianoforte giants can do justice to this martial tone-
picture, the physical strength of the composer certainly did not
suffice.

The story goes that when Chopin played one of his polonaises in
the night-time, just after finishing its composition, he saw the
door open, and a long train of Polish knights and ladies, dressed
in antique costumes, enter through it and defile past him. This
vision filled the composer with such terror that he fled through
the opposite door, and dared not return to the room the whole
night. Karasowski says that the polonaise in question is the last-
mentioned one, in A flat major; but from M. Kwiatkowski, who
depicted the scene three times, [FOOTNOTE: "Le Reve de Chopin," a
water-colour, and two sketches in oils representing, according to
Chopin's indication (d'apres l'avis de Chopin), the polonaise.]
learned that it is the one in A major, No. 1 of Op. 40, dedicated
to Fontana.

I know of no more affecting composition among all the productions
of Chopin than the "Polonaise-Fantaisie" (in A flat major), Op.
61 (published in September, 1846). What an unspeakable,
unfathomable wretchedness reveals itself in these sounds! We gaze
on a boundless desolation. These lamentations and cries of
despair rend our heart, these strange, troubled wanderings from
thought to thought fill us with intensest pity. There are
thoughts of sweet resignation, but the absence of hope makes them
perhaps the saddest of all. The martial strains, the bold
challenges, the shouts of triumph, which we heard so often in the
composer's polonaises, are silenced.

An elegiac sadness [says Liszt] predominates, intersected by
wild movements, melancholy smiles, unexpected starts, and
intervals of rest full of dread such as those experience who
have been surprised by an ambuscade, who are surrounded on all
sides, for whom there dawns no hope upon the vast horizon, and
to whose brain despair has gone like a deep draught of Cyprian
wine, which gives a more instinctive rapidity to every
gesture, a sharper point to every emotion, causing the mind to
arrive at a pitch of irritability bordering on madness.

Thus, although comprising thoughts that in beauty and grandeur
equal--I would almost say surpass-anything Chopin has written,
the work stands, on account of its pathological contents, outside
the sphere of art.

Chopin's waltzes, the most popular of his compositions, are not
poesie intime like the greater number of his works. [FOOTNOTE:
Op. 34, No. 2, and Op. 64, No. 2, however, have to be excepted,
to some extent at least.] In them the composer mixes with the
world-looks without him rather than within--and as a man of the
world conceals his sorrows and discontents under smiles and
graceful manners. The bright brilliancy and light pleasantness of
the earlier years of his artistic career, which are almost
entirely lost in the later years, rise to the surface in the
waltzes. These waltzes are salon music of the most aristocratic
kind. Schumann makes Florestan say of one of them, and he might
have said it of all, that he would not play it unless one half of
the female dancers were countesses. But the aristocraticalness of
Chopin's waltzes is real, not conventional; their exquisite
gracefulness and distinction are natural, not affected. They are,
indeed, dance-poems whose content is the poetry of waltz-rhythm
and movement, and the feelings these indicate and call forth. In
one of his most extravagantly-romantic critical productions
Schumann speaks, in connection with Chopin's Op. 18, "Grande
Valse brillante," the first-published (in June, 1834) of his
waltzes, of "Chopin's body and mind elevating waltz," and its
"enveloping the dancer deeper and deeper in its floods." This
language is altogether out of proportion with the thing spoken
of; for Op. 18 differs from the master's best waltzes in being,
not a dance-poem, but simply a dance, although it must be
admitted that it is an exceedingly spirited one, both as regards
piquancy and dash. When, however, we come to Op. 34, "Trois
Valses brillantes" (published in December, 1838), Op. 42, "Valse"
(published in July, 1840), and Op. 64, "Trois Valses" (published
in September, 1847), the only other waltzes published by him, we
find ourselves face to face with true dance-poems. Let us tarry
for a moment over Op. 34. How brisk the introductory bars of the
first (in A flat major) of these three waltzes! And what a
striking manifestation of the spirit of that dance all that
follows! We feel the wheeling motions; and where, at the
seventeenth bar of the second part, the quaver figure enters, we
think we see the flowing dresses sweeping round. Again what
vigour in the third part, and how coaxingly tender the fourth!
And, lastly, the brilliant conclusion--the quavers intertwined
with triplets! The second waltz (in A minor; Lento) is of quite
another, of a more retired and private, nature, an exception to
the rule. The composer evidently found pleasure in giving way to
this delicious languor, in indulging in these melancholy thoughts
full of sweetest, tenderest loving and longing. But here words
will not avail. One day when Stephen Heller--my informant--was at
Schlesinger's music-shop in Paris, Chopin entered. The latter,
hearing Heller ask for one of his waltzes, inquired of him which
of them he liked best. "It is difficult to say which I like
best," replied Heller, "for I like them all; but if I were
pressed for an answer I would probably say the one in A minor."
This gave Chopin much pleasure. "I am glad you do," he said; "it
is also my favourite." And in an exuberance of amiability he
invited Heller to lunch with him, an invitation which was
accepted, the two artists taking the meal together at the Cafe
Riche. The third waltz (in F major; Vivace) shows a character
very different from the preceding one. What a stretching of
muscles! What a whirling! Mark the giddy motions of the melody
beginning at bar seventeen! Of this waltz of Chopin's and the
first it is more especially true what Schumann said of all three:
"Such flooding life moves within these waltzes that they seem to
have been improvised in the ball-room." And the words which the
same critic applies to Op. 34 may be applied to all the waltzes
Chopin published himself--"They must please; they are of another
stamp than the usual waltzes, and in the style in which they can
only be conceived by Chopin when he looks in a grandly-artistic
way into the dancing crowd, which he elevates by his playing,
thinking of other things than of what is being danced." In the A
flat major waltz which bears the opus number 42, the duple rhythm
of the melody along with the triple one of the accompaniment
seems to me indicative of the loving nestling and tender
embracing of the dancing couples. Then, after the smooth
gyrations of the first period, come those sweeping motions, free
and graceful like those of birds, that intervene again and again
between the different portions of the waltz. The D flat major
part bubbles over with joyousness. In the sostenuto, on the other
hand, the composer becomes sentimental, protests, and heaves
sighs. But at the very height of his rising ardour he suddenly
plunges back into that wild, self-surrendering, heaven and earth-
forgetting joyousness--a stroke of genius as delightful as it is
clever. If we do not understand by the name of scherzo a fixed
form, but rather a state of mind, we may say that Chopin's
waltzes are his scherzos and not the pieces to which he has given
that name. None of Chopin's waltzes is more popular than the
first of Op. 64 (in D flat major). And no wonder! The life, flow,
and oneness are unique; the charm of the multiform motions is
indescribable. That it has been and why it has been called valse
au petit chien need here only be recalled to the reader's
recollection (see Chapter XXVI., p. 142). No. 2 (in C sharp
minor); different as it is, is in its own way nearly as perfect
as No. 1. Tender, love-sick longing cannot be depicted more
truthfully, sweetly, and entrancingly. The excellent No. 3 (in A
flat major), with the exquisite serpentining melodic lines, which
play so important a part in Chopin's waltzes, and other beautiful
details, is in a somewhat trying position beside the other two
waltzes. The non-publication by the composer of the waltzes which
have got into print, thanks to the zeal of his admirers and the
avidity of publishers, proves to me that he was a good judge of
his own works. Fontana included in his collection of posthumous
compositions five waltzes--"Deux Valses," Op. 69 (in F minor, of
1836; in B minor, of 1829);. and "Trois Valses," Op. 70 (in G
flat major, of 1835; in F minor, of 1843; in D flat major, of
1830). There are further a waltz in E minor and one in E major
(of 1829). [FOOTNOTE: The "Deux Valses melancoliques" (in F minor
and B minor), ecrits sur l'album de Madame la Comtesse P., 1844
(Cracow: J. Wildt), the English edition of which (London: Edwin
Ashdown) is entitled "Une soiree en 1844," "Deux Valses
melancoliques," are Op. 70. No. 2, and Op. 69, No. 2, of the
works of Chopin posthumously published by Fontana.] Some of these
waltzes I discussed already when speaking of the master's early
compositions, to which they belong. The last-mentioned waltz,
which the reader will find in Mikuli's edition (No. 15 of the
waltzes), and also in Breitkopf and Hartel's (No. 22 of the
Posthumous works), is a very weak composition; and of all the
waltzes not published by the composer himself it may be said that
what is good in them has been expressed better in others.

We have of Chopin 27 studies: Op. 10, "Douze Etudes," published
in July, 1833; Op. 25, "Douze Etudes," published in October,
1837; and "Trois nouvelles Etudes," which, before being
separately published, appeared in 1840 in the "Methode des
Methodes pour le piano" by F. J. Fetis and I. Moscheles. The
dates of their publication, as in the case of many other works,
do not indicate the approximate dates of their composition.
Sowinski tells us, for instance, that Chopin brought the first
book of his studies with him to Paris in 1831. A Polish musician
who visited the French capital in 1834 heard Chopin play the
studies contained in Op. 25. And about the last-mentioned opus we
read in a critical notice by Schumann, who had, no doubt, his
information directly from Chopin: "The studies which have now
appeared [that is, those of Op. 25] were almost all composed at
the same time as the others [that is, those of Op. 10] and only
some of them, the greater masterliness of which is noticeable,
such as the first, in A flat major, and the splendid one in C
minor [that is, the twelfth] but lately." Regarding the Trois
nouvelles Etudes without OPUS number we have no similar
testimony. But internal evidence seems to show that these weakest
of the master's studies--which, however, are by no means
uninteresting, and certainly very characteristic--may be regarded
more than Op. 25 as the outcome of a gleaning. In two of Chopin's
letters of the year 1829, we meet with announcements of his
having composed studies. On the 2Oth of October he writes: "I
have composed a study in my own manner"; and on the 14th of
November: "I have written some studies." From Karasowski learn
that the master composed the twelfth study of Op. 10 during his
stay in Stuttgart, being inspired by the capture of Warsaw by the
Russians, which took place on September 8, 1831. Whether looked
at from the aesthetical or technical point of view, Chopin's
studies will be seen to be second to those of no composer. Were
it not wrong to speak of anything as absolutely best, their
excellences would induce one to call them unequalled. A striking
feature in them compared with Chopin's other works is their
healthy freshness and vigour. Even the slow, dreamy, and elegiac
ones have none of the faintness and sickliness to be found in not
a few of the composer's pieces, especially in several of the
nocturnes. The diversity of character exhibited by these studies
is very great. In some of them the aesthetical, in others the
technical purpose predominates; in a few the two are evenly
balanced: in none is either of them absent. They give a summary
of Chopin's ways and means, of his pianoforte language: chords in
extended positions, wide-spread arpeggios, chromatic progressions
(simple, in thirds, and in octaves), simultaneous combinations of
contrasting rhythms, &c--nothing is wanting. In playing them or
hearing them played Chopin's words cannot fail to recur to one's
mind: "I have composed a study in my own manner." Indeed, the
composer's demands on the technique of the executant were so
novel at the time when the studies made their first public
appearance that one does not wonder at poor blind Rellstab being
staggered, and venting his feelings in the following uncouthly-
jocular manner: "Those who have distorted fingers may put them
right by practising these studies; but those who have not, should
not play them, at least not without having a surgeon at hand." In
Op. 10 there are three studies especially noteworthy for their
musical beauty. The third (Lento ma non troppo, in E major) and
the sixth (Andante, in E flat minor) may be reckoned among
Chopin's loveliest compositions. They combine classical
chasteness of contour with the fragrance of romanticism. And the
twelfth study (Allegro con fuoco, in C minor), the one composed
at Stuttgart after the fall of Warsaw, how superbly grand! The
composer seems to be fuming with rage: the left hand rushes
impetuously along and the right hand strikes in with passionate
ejaculations. With regard to the above-named Lento ma non troppo
(Op. 10, No. 3), Chopin said to Gutmann that he had never in his
life written another such beautiful melody (CHANT); and on one
occasion when Gutmann was studying it the master lifted up his
arms with his hands clasped and exclaimed: "O, my fatherland!"
("O, me patrie!") I share with Schumann the opinion that the
total weight of Op. 10 amounts to more than that of Op. 25. Like
him I regard also Nos. 1 and 12 as the most important items of
the latter collection of studies: No. 1 (Allegro sostenuto, in A
flat major)--a tremulous mist below, a beautiful breezy melody
floating above, and once or twice a more opaque body becoming
discernible within the vaporous element--of which Schumann says
that "after listening to the study one feels as one does after a
blissful vision, seen in a dream, which, already half-awake, one
would fain bring back": [FOOTNOTE: See the whole quotation, Vol.
I., p. 310.] and No. 12 (in C minor, Allegro molto con fuoco), in
which the emotions rise not less than the waves of arpeggios (in
both hands) which symbolise them. Stephen Heller's likings differ
from Schumann's. Discussing Chopin's Op. 25 in the Gazette
musicale of February 24, 1839, he says:--

What more do we require to pass one or several evenings in as
perfect a happiness as possible? As for me, I seek in this
collection of poesy (this is the only name appropriate to the
works of Chopin) some favourite pieces which I might fix in my
memory rather than others. Who could retain everything? For
this reason I have in my note book quite particularly marked
the numbers 4, 5, and 7 of the present poems. Of these twelve
much-loved studies (every one of which has a charm of its own)
these three numbers are those I prefer to all the rest.

In connection with the fourth, Heller points out that it reminds
him of the first bar of the Kyrie (rather the Requiem aeternam)
of Mozart's Requiem. And of the seventh study he remarks:--

It engenders the sweetest sadness, the most enviable torments;
and if in playing it one feels one's self insensibly drawn
towards mournful and melancholy ideas, it is a disposition of
the soul which I prefer to all others. Alas! how I love these
sombre and mysterious dreams, and Chopin is the god who
creates them.

This No. 7 (in C sharp minor, lento), a duet between a HE and a
SHE, of whom the former shows himself more talkative and emphatic
than the latter, is, indeed, very sweet, but perhaps, also
somewhat tiresomely monotonous, as such tete-a-tete naturally are
to third parties. As a contrast to No. 7, and in conclusion--
leaving several aerial flights and other charming conceptions
undiscussed--I will yet mention the octave study, No. 10, which
is a real pandemonium; for a while holier sounds intervene, but
finally hell prevails.

The genesis of the Vingt-quatre Preludes, Op. 28, published in
September, 1839, I have tried to elucidate in the twenty-first
chapter. I need, therefore, not discuss the question here. The
indefinite character and form of the prelude, no doubt,
determined the choice of the title which, however, does not
describe the contents of this OPUS. Indeed, no ONE name could do
so. This heterogeneous collection of pieces reminds me of nothing
so much as of an artist's portfolio filled with drawings in all
stages of advancement--finished and unfinished, complete and
incomplete compositions, sketches and mere memoranda, all mixed
indiscriminately together. The finished works were either too
small or too slight to be sent into the world separately, and the
right mood for developing, completing, and giving the last touch
to the rest was gone, and could not be found again. Schumann,
after expressing his admiration for these preludes, as well he
might, adds: "This book contains morbid, feverish, and repellent
matter." I do not think that there is much that could justly be
called repellent; but the morbidity and feverishness of a
considerable portion must be admitted.

I described the preludes [writes Schumann] as remarkable. To
confess the truth, I expected they would be executed like the
studies, in the grandest style. Almost the reverse is the
case; they are sketches, commencements of studies, or, if you
will, ruins, single eagle-wings, all strangely mixed together.
But in his fine nonpareil there stands in every piece:--
"Frederick Chopin wrote it." One recognises him by the violent
breathing during the rests. He is, and remains, the proudest
poet-mind of the time.

The almost infinite and infinitely-varied beauties collected in
this treasure-trove denominated Vingt-quatre Preludes could only
be done justice to by a minute analysis, for which, however,
there is no room here. I must content myself with a word or two
about a few of them, picked out at random. No. 4 is a little poem
the exquisitely-sweet languid pensiveness of which defies
description. The composer seems to be absorbed in the narrow
sphere of his ego, from which the wide, noisy world is for the
time being shut out. In No. 6 we have, no doubt, the one of which
George Sand said that it occurred to Chopin one evening while
rain was falling, and that it "precipitates the soul into a
frightful depression."30 [FOOTNOTE: See George Sand's account and
description in Chapter XXI., p. 43.] How wonderfully the
contending rhythms of the accompaniment, and the fitful, jerky
course of the melody, depict in No. 8 a state of anxiety and
agitation! The premature conclusion of that bright vivacious
thing No. 11 fills one with regret. Of the beautifully-melodious
No. 13, the piu lento and the peculiar closing bars are
especially noteworthy. No. 14 invites a comparison with the
finale of the B flat minor Sonata. In the middle section (in C
sharp minor) of the following number (in D flat major), one of
the larger pieces, rises before one's mind the cloistered court
of the monastery of Valdemosa, and a procession of monks chanting
lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their
departed brother to his last resting-place. It reminds one of the
words of George Sand, that the monastery was to Chopin full of
terrors and phantoms. This C sharp minor portion of No. 15
affects one like an oppressive dream; the re-entrance of the
opening D flat major, which dispels the dreadful nightmare, comes
upon one with the smiling freshness of dear, familiar nature--
only after these horrors of the imagination can its serene beauty
be fully appreciated. No. 17, another developed piece, strikes
one as akin to Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. I must not omit
to mention No. 21, one of the finest of the collection, with its
calming cantilena and palpitating quaver figure. Besides the set
of twenty-four preludes, Op. 28, Chopin published a single one,
Op. 45, which appeared in December, 1841. This composition
deserves its name better than almost anyone of the twenty-four;
still, I would rather call it an improvisata. It seems
unpremeditated, a heedless outpouring when sitting at the piano
in a lonely, dreary hour, perhaps in the twilight. The quaver
figure rises aspiringly, and the sustained parts swell out
proudly. The piquant cadenza forestalls in the progression of
diminished chords favourite effects of some of our more modern
composers. The modulation from C sharp minor to D major and back
again (after the cadenza) is very striking and equally beautiful.

It can hardly be said, although Liszt seemed to be of a different
opinion, that Chopin created a new type by his preludes--they are
too unlike each other in form and character. On the other hand,
he has done so by his four scherzos--Op. 20 (in B minor),
published in February, 1835; Op. 31 (B flat minor), published in
December, 1837; Op. 39 (C sharp minor), published in October,
1840; and Op. 54 (in E major), published in December, 1843. "How
is 'gravity' to clothe itself, if 'jest' goes about in dark
veils?" exclaims Schumann. No doubt, scherzo, if we consider the
original meaning of the word, is a misnomer. But are not
Beethoven's scherzos, too, misnamed? To a certain extent they
are. But if Beethoven's scherzos often lack frolicsomeness, they
are endowed with humour, whereas Chopin's have neither the one
nor the other. Were it not that we attach, especially since
Mendelssohn's time, the idea of lightness and light-heartedness
to the word capriccio, this would certainly be the more
descriptive name for the things Chopin entitled SCHERZO. But what
is the use of carping at a name? Let us rather look at the
things, and thus employ our time better. Did ever composer begin
like Chopin in his Premier Scherzo, Op. 20? Is this not like a
shriek of despair? and what follows, bewildered efforts of a soul
shut in by a wall of circumstances through which it strives in
vain to break? at last sinking down with fatigue, dreaming a
dream of idyllic beauty? but beginning the struggle again as soon
as its strength is recruited? Schumann compared the second
SCHERZO, Op. 31, to a poem of Byron's, "so tender, so bold, as
full of love as of scorn." Indeed, scorn--an element which does
not belong to what is generally understood by either
frolicsomeness or humour--plays an important part in Chopin's
scherzos. The very beginning of Op. 31 offers an example.

[FOOTNOTE: "It must be a question [the doubled triplet figure A,
B flat, d flat, in the first bar], taught Chopin, and for him it
was never question enough, never piano enough, never vaulted
(tombe) enough, as he said, never important enough. It must be a
charnel-house, he said on one occasion." (W. von Lenz, in Vol.
XXVI. of the Berliner Musikzeitung.)]