Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 14

Kandler, the Vienna correspondent of the "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung," after discussing in that paper (September 21, 1831) the performances of several artists, among others that of the clever Polish violin-virtuoso Serwaczynski, turns to "Chopin, also from the Sarmatian capital, who already during his visit last year proved himself a pianist of the first rank," and remarks:--

The execution of his newest Concerto in E minor, a serious composition, gave no cause to revoke our former judgment. One who is so upright in his dealings with genuine art is deserving our genuine esteem.

All things considered, I do not hesitate to accept Liszt's statement that the young artist did not produce such a sensation as he had a right to expect. In fact, notwithstanding the many pleasant social connections he had, Chopin must have afterwards looked back with regret, probably with bitterness, on his eight months' sojourn in Vienna. Not only did he add nothing to his fame as a pianist and composer by successful concerts and new publications, but he seems even to have been sluggish in his studies and in the production of new works. How he leisurely whiled away the mornings at his lodgings, and pa.s.sed the rest of the day abroad and in society, he himself has explicitly described. That this was his usual mode of life at Vienna, receives further support from the self-satisfaction with which he on one occasion mentions that he had practised from early morning till two o'clock in the afternoon. In his letters we read only twice of his having finished some new compositions.

On December 21, 1830, he writes:--

I wished to enclose my latest waltz, but the post is about to depart, and I have no longer time to copy it, therefore I shall send it another time. The mazurkas, too, I have first to get copied, but they are not intended for dancing.

And in the month of July, 1831, "I have written a polonaise, which I must leave here for Wurfel." There are two more remarks about compositions, but of compositions which were never finished, perhaps never begun. One of these remarks refers to the variations on a theme of Beethoven's, which he intended to compose conjointly with Slavik, and has already been quoted; the other refers to a grander project. Speaking of Nidecki, who came every morning to his lodgings and practised his (Chopin's) concerto, he says (December 21, 1830):--

If I succeed in writing a concerto for two pianos so as to satisfy myself, we intend to appear at once with it in public; first, however, I wish to play once alone.

What an interesting, but at the same time what a gigantic, subject to write on the history of the unrealised plans of men of genius would be!

The above-mentioned waltz, polonaise, and mazurkas do not, of course, represent the whole of Chopin's output as a composer during the time of his stay in Vienna; but we may surmise with some degree of certainty that few works of importance have to be added to it. Indeed, the multiplicity of his social connections and engagements left him little time for himself, and the condition of his fatherland kept him in a constant state of restlessness. Poland and her struggle for independence were always in his mind; now he laments in his letters the death of a friend, now rejoices at a victory, now asks eagerly if such or such a piece of good news that has reached him is true, now expresses the hope that G.o.d will be propitious to their cause, now relates that he has vented his patriotism by putting on the studs with the Polish eagles and using the pocket-handkerchief with the Kosynier (scythe-man) depicted on it.

What is going on at home? [he writes, on May 28, 1831.] I am always dreaming of you. Is there still no end to the bloodshed? I know your answer: "Patience!" I, too, always comfort myself with that.

But good health, he finds, is the best comfort in misfortune, and if his bulletins to his parents could be trusted he was in full enjoyment of it.

Zacharkiewicz of Warsaw called on me; and when his wife saw me at Szaszek's, she did not know how to sufficiently express her astonishment at my having become such a st.u.r.dy fellow. I have let my whiskers grow only on the right side, and they are growing very well; on the left side they are not needed at all, for one sits always with the right side turned to the public.

Although his "ideal" is not there to retain him, yet he cannot make up his mind to leave Vienna. On May 28, he writes:--

How quickly this dear time pa.s.ses! It is already the end of May, and I am still in Vienna. June will come, and I shall probably be still here, for k.u.melski fell ill and was obliged to take to bed again.

It was not only June but past the middle of July before Chopin left, and I am afraid he would not always have so good an excuse for prolonging his stay as the sickness of his travelling-companion. On June 25, however, we hear of active preparations being made for departure.

I am in good health, that is the only thing that cheers me, for it seems as if my departure would never take place. You all know how irresolute I am, and in addition to this I meet with obstacles at every step. Day after day I am promised my pa.s.sport, and I run from Herod to Pontius Pilate, only to get back what I deposited at the police office. To-day I heard even more agreeable news--namely, that my pa.s.sport has been mislaid, and that they cannot find it; I have even to send in an application for a new one. It is curious how now every imaginable misfortune befalls us poor Poles. Although I am ready to depart, I am unable to set out.

Chopin had been advised by Mr. Beyer to have London instead of Paris put as a visa in his pa.s.sport. The police complied with his request that this should be done, but the Russian Amba.s.sador, after keeping the doc.u.ment for two days, gave him only permission to travel as far as Munich. But Chopin did not care so long as he got the signature of the French Amba.s.sador. Although his pa.s.sport contained the words "pa.s.sant par Paris a Londres," and he in after years in Paris sometimes remarked, in allusion to these words, "I am here only in pa.s.sing," he had no intention of going to London. The fine sentiment, therefore, of which a propos of this circ.u.mstance some writers have delivered themselves was altogether misplaced. When the difficulty about the pa.s.sport was overcome, another arose: to enter Bavaria from cholera-stricken Austria a pa.s.sport of health was required. Thus Chopin had to begin another series of applications, in fact, had to run about for half a day before he obtained this additional doc.u.ment.

Chopin appears to have been rather short of money in the latter part of his stay in Vienna--a state of matters with which the financial failure of the concert may have had something to do. The preparations for his departure brought the pecuniary question still more prominently forward.

On June 25, 1831, he writes to his parents:--

I live as economically as possible, and take as much care of every kreuzer as of that ring in Warsaw [the one given him by the Emperor Alexander]. You may sell it, I have already cost you so much.

He must have talked about his shortness of money to some of his friends in Vienna, for he mentions that the pianist-composer Czapek, who calls on him every day and shows him much kindness, has offered him money for the journey should he stand in need of it. One would hardly have credited Chopin with proficiency in an art in which he nevertheless greatly excelled--namely, in the art of writing begging letters. How well he understood how to touch the springs of the parental feelings the following application for funds will prove.

July, 1831.--But I must not forget to mention that I shall probably be obliged to draw more money from the banker Peter than my dear father has allowed me. I am very economical; but, G.o.d knows, I cannot help it, for otherwise I should have to leave with an almost empty purse. G.o.d preserve me from sickness; were, however, anything to happen to me, you might perhaps reproach me for not having taken more. Pardon me, but consider that I have already lived on this money during May, June, and July, and that I have now to pay more for my dinner than I did in winter. I do not do this only because I myself feel I ought to do so, but also in consequence of the good advice of others. I am very sorry that I have to ask you for it; my papa has already spent more than three groschen for me; I know also very well how difficult it is to earn money.

Believe me, my dearest ones, it is harder for me to ask than for you to give. G.o.d will not fail to a.s.sist us also in the future, punctum!

Chopin was at this time very subject to melancholy, and did not altogether hide the fact even from his parents. He was perhaps thinking of the "lengthening chain" which he would have to drag at this new remove. He often runs into the street to seek t.i.tus Woyciechowski or John Matuszynski. One day he imagines he sees the former walking before him, but on coming up to the supposed friend is disgusted to find "a d---- Prussian."

I lack nothing [he writes in July, 1831] except more life, more spirit! I often feel unstrung, but sometimes as merry as I used to be at home. When I am sad I go to Madame Szaszek's; there I generally meet several amiable Polish ladies who with their hearty, hopeful words always cheer me up, so that I begin at once to imitate the generals here. This is a fresh joke of mine; but those who saw it almost died with laughing.

But alas, there are days when not two words can be got out of me, nor can anyone find out what is the matter with me; then, to divert myself, I generally take a thirty-kreuzer drive to Hietzing, or somewhere else in the neighbourhood of Vienna.

This is a valuable bit of autobiography; it sets forth clearly Chopin's p.r.o.neness to melancholy, which, however, easily gave way to his sportiveness. That low spirits and scantiness of money did not prevent Chopin from thoroughly enjoying himself may be gathered from many indications in his letters; of these I shall select his descriptions of two excursions in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which not only make us better acquainted with the writer, but also are interesting in themselves.

June 25, 1831.--The day before yesterday we were with k.u.melski and Czapek...on the Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. It was a magnificent day; I have never had a finer walk. From the Leopoldsberg one sees all Vienna, Wagram, Aspern, Pressburg, even Kloster-Neuburg, the castle in which Richard the Lion-hearted lived for a long time as a prisoner. Also the whole of the upper part of the Danube lay before our eyes. After breakfast we ascended the Kahlenberg, where King John Sobieski pitched his camp and caused the rockets to be fired which announced to Count Starhemberg, the commandant of Vienna, the approach of the Polish army. There is the Camaldolese Monastery in which the King knighted his son James before the attack on the Turks and himself served as acolyte at the Ma.s.s. I enclose for Isabella a little leaf from that spot, which is now covered with plants. From there we went in the evening to the Krapfenwald, a beautiful valley, where we saw a comical boys' trick. The little fellows had enveloped themselves from head to foot in leaves and looked like walking bushes. In this costume they crept from one visitor to another. Such a boy covered with leaves and his head adorned with twigs is called a "Pfingstkonig"

[Whitsuntide-King]. This drollery is customary here at Whitsuntide.

The second excursion is thus described:--

July, 1831.--The day before yesterday honest Wurfel called on me; Czapek, k.u.melski, and many others also came, and we drove together to St. Veil--a beautiful place; I could not say the same of Tivoli, where they have constructed a kind ol caroitsscl, or rather a track with a sledge, which is called Rutsch. It is a childish amus.e.m.e.nt, but a great number of grown-up people have themselves rolled down the hill in this carriage just for pastime. At first I did not feel inclined to try it, but as there were eight of us, all good friends, we began to vie with each other in sliding down. It was folly, and yet we all laughed heartily. I myself joined in the sport with much satisfaction until it struck me that healthy and strong men could do something better--now, when humanity calls to them for protection and defence. May the devil take this frivolity!

In the same letter Chopin expresses the hope that his use of various, not quite un.o.bjectionable, words beginning with a "d" may not give his parents a bad opinion of the culture he has acquired in Vienna, and removes any possible disquietude on their part by a.s.suring them that he has adopted nothing that is Viennese in its nature, that, in fact, he has not even learnt to play a Tanzwalzer (a dancing waltz). This, then, is the sad result of his sojourn in Vienna.

On July 20, 1831, Chopin, accompanied by his friend k.u.melski, left Vienna and travelled by Linz and Salzburg to Munich, where he had to wait some weeks for supplies from home. His stay in the capital of Bavaria, however, was not lost time, for he made there the acquaintance of several clever musicians, and they, charmed by his playing and compositions, induced him to give a concert. Karasowski tells us that Chopin played his E minor Concerto at one of the Philharmonic Society's concerts--which is not quite correct, as we shall see presently--and adds that

the audience, carried away by the beauty of the composition and his excellent, poetic rendering, overwhelmed the young virtuoso with loud applause and sincere admiration.

In writing this the biographer had probably in his mind the following pa.s.sage from Chopin's letter to t.i.tus Woyciechowski, dated Paris, December 16, 1831:--"I played [to Kalkbrenner, in Paris] the E minor Concerto, which charmed the people of the Bavarian capital so much." The two statements are not synonymous. What the biographer says may be true, and if it is not, ought to be so; but I am afraid the existing doc.u.ments do not bear it out in its entirety. Among the many local and other journals which I have consulted, I have found only one notice of Chopin's appearance at Munich, and when I expectantly scanned a resume of Munich musical life, from the spring to the end of the year 1831, in the "Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung," I found mention made of Mendelssohn and Lafont, but not of Chopin. Thus, unless we a.s.sume that Karasowski--true to his mission as a eulogising biographer, and most vigorous when unfettered by definite data--indulged in exaggeration, we must seek for a reconciliation of the enthusiasm of the audience with the silence of the reporter in certain characteristics of the Munich public. Mendelssohn says of it:--

The people here [in Munich] have an extraordinary receptivity for music, which is much cultivated. But it appears to me that everything makes an impression and that the impressions do not last.

Speaking of Mendelssohn, it is curious to note how he and Chopin were again and again on the point of meeting, and again and again failed to meet. In Berlin Chopin was too bashful and modest to address his already famous young brother-artist, who in 1830 left Vienna shortly before Chopin arrived, and in 1831 arrived in Munich shortly after Chopin had left. The only notice of Chopin's public appearance in Munich I have been able to discover, I found in No. 87 (August 30, 1831) of the periodical "Flora", which contains, under the heading "news," a pretty full account of the "concert of Mr. Chopin of Warsaw." From this account we learn that Chopin was a.s.sisted by the singers Madame Pellegrini and Messrs. Bayer, Lenz, and Harm, the clarinet-player Barmann, jun., and Capellmeister Stunz. The singers performed a four-part song, and Barmann took part in a cavatina (sung by Bayer, the first tenor at the opera) with clarinet and pianoforte accompaniment by Schubert (?). What the writer of the account says about Chopin shall be quoted in full:--

On the 28th August, Mr. F. Chopin, of Warsaw, gave a morning concert [Mittags Concert] in the hall of the Philharmonic Society, which was attended by a very select audience. Mr.

Chopin performed on the pianoforte a Concerto in E minor of his own composition, and showed an excellent virtuosity in the treatment of his instrument; besides a developed technique, one noticed especially a charming delicacy of execution, and a beautiful and characteristic rendering of the motives. The composition was, on the whole, brilliantly and well written, without surprising, however, by extraordinary novelty or a particular profundity, with the exception of the Rondo, whose princ.i.p.al thought as well as the florid middle sections, through an original combination of a melancholy trait with a capriccio, evolved a peculiar charm, on which account it particularly pleased. The concert- giver performed in conclusion a fantasia on Polish national songs. There is a something in the Slavonic songs which almost never fails in its effect, the cause of which, however, is difficult to trace and explain; for it is not only the rhythm and the quick change from minor to major which produce this charm. No one has probably understood better how to combine the national character of such folk- songs with a brilliant concert style than Bernhard Romberg [Footnote: The famous violoncellist], who by his compositions of this kind, put in a favourable light by his masterly playing, knew how to exercise a peculiar fascination. Quite of this style was the fantasia of Mr. Chopin, who gained unanimous applause.

From Munich Chopin proceeded to Stuttgart, and during his stay there learnt the sad news of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians (September 8, 1831). It is said that this event inspired him to compose the C minor study (No. 12 of Op. 10), with its pa.s.sionate surging and impetuous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. Writing from Paris on December 16, 1831, Chopin remarks, in allusion to the traeic denouement of the Polish revolution: "All this has caused me much pain. Who could have foreseen it!"

With his visits to Stuttgart Chopin's artist-life in Germany came to a close, for, although he afterwards repeatedly visited the country, he never played in public or made a lengthened stay there. Now that Chopin is nearing Paris, where, occasional sojourns elsewhere (most of them of short duration) excepted, he will pa.s.s the rest of his life, it may interest the reader to learn that this change of country brought with it also a change of name, at least as far as popular p.r.o.nunciation and spelling went. We may be sure that the Germans did not always give to the final syllable the appropriate nasal sound. And what the Polish p.r.o.nunciation was is sufficiently indicated by the spelling "Szopen,"

frequently to be met with. I found it in the Polish ill.u.s.trated journal "Kiosy," and it is also to be seen in Joseph Sikorski's "Wspomnienie Szopena" ("Reminiscences of Chopin"). Szulc and Karasowski call their books and hero "Fryderyk Chopin."

CHAPTER XIII

CHOPIN'S PRODUCTIONS FROM THE SPRING OF 1829 TO THEEND OF 1831.--THE CHIEF INFLUENCES THAT HELPED TO FORM HIS STYLE OF COMPOSITION.

Let us pause for a little in our biographical inquiries and critically examine what Chopin had achieved as a composer since the spring of 1829.

At the very first glance it becomes evident that the works of the last two years (1829-1831) are decidedly superior to those he wrote before that time. And this advance was not due merely to the increased power derived from practice; it was real growth, which a Greek philosopher describes as penetration of nourishment into empty places, the nourishment being in Chopin's case experience of life's joys and sorrows. In most of the works of what I call his first period, the composer luxuriates, as it were, in language. He does not regard it solely or chiefly as the interpreter of thoughts and feelings, he loves it for its own sake, just as children, small and tall, prattle for no other reason than the pleasure of prattling. I closed the first period when a new element entered Chopin's life and influenced his artistic work. This element was his first love, his pa.s.sion for Constantia Gtadkowska. Thenceforth Chopin's compositions had in them more of humanity and poetry, and the improved subject-matter naturally, indeed necessarily, chastened, enn.o.bled, and enriched the means and ways of expression. Of course no hard line can be drawn between the two periods--the distinctive quality of the one period appears sometimes in the work of the other: a work of the earlier period foreshadows the character of the later; one of the later re-echoes that of the earlier.

The compositions which we know to have been written by Chopin between 1829 and 1831 are few in number. This may be partly because Chopin was rather idle from the autumn of 1830 to the end of 1831, partly because no account of the production of other works has come down to us. In fact, I have no doubt that other short pieces besides those mentioned by Chopin in his letters were composed during those years, and subsequently published by him. The compositions oftenest and most explicitly mentioned in the letters are also the most important ones--namely, the concertos. As I wish to discuss them at some length, we will keep them to the last, and see first what allusions to other compositions we can find, and what observations these latter give rise to.

On October 3, 1829, Chopin sends his friend t.i.tus Woyciechowski a waltz which, he says, was, like the Adagio of the F minor Concerto, inspired by his ideal, Constantia Gladkowska:--

Pay attention to the pa.s.sage marked with a +; n.o.body, except you, knows of this. How happy would I be if I could play my newest compositions to you! In the fifth bar of the trio the ba.s.s melody up to E flat dominates, which, however, I need not tell you, as you are sure to feel it without being told.

The remark about the ba.s.s melody up to E flat in the trio gives us a clue to which of Chopin's waltzes this is. It can be no other than the one in D flat which Fontana published among his friend's posthumous works as Op. 70, No. 3. Although by no means equal to any of the waltzes published by Chopin himself, one may admit that it is pretty; but its chief claim to our attention lies in the fact that it contains germs which reappear as fully-developed flowers in other examples of this cla.s.s of the master's works--the first half of the first part reappears in the opening (from the ninth bar onward) of Op. 42 (Waltz in A flat major); and the third part, in the third part (without counting the introductory bars) of Op. 34, No. 1 (Waltz in A flat major).

On October 20, 1829, Chopin writes:--"During my visit at Prince Radziwill's [at Antonin] I wrote an Alla Polacca. It is nothing more than a brilliant salon piece, such as pleases ladies"; and on April 10, 1830:--