Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 43

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. G.o.defroy, 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 ba.s.s 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 n.o.ble artisan and the ecrivain proletaire, as George Sand calls them.

Although some of George Sand's friends were also Chopin's, there can be no doubt that the society which gathered around her was on the whole not congenial to him. Some remarks which Liszt makes with regard to George Sand's salon at Nohant are even more applicable to her salon in Paris.

An author's relations with the representatives of publicity and his dramatic executants, actors and actresses, and with those whom he treats with marked attention on account of their merits or because they please him; the crossing of incidents, the clash and rebound of the infatuations and disagreements which result therefrom; were naturally hateful to him [to Chopin]. For a long time he endeavoured to escape from them by shutting his eyes, by making up his mind not to see anything.

There happened, however, such things, such catastrophes [denouements], as, by shocking too much his delicacy, offending too much his habits of the moral and social comme-il- faut, ended in rendering his presence at Nohant impossible, although he seemed at first to have felt more content [plus de repif] there than elsewhere.

These are, of course, only mere surmises, but Liszt, although often wrong as to incidents, is, thanks to his penetrative genius, generally right as to essences. Indeed, if George Sand's surroundings and Chopin's character and tastes are kept in view nothing seems to be more probable than that his over-delicate susceptibilities may have occasionally been shocked by unrestrained vivacity, loud laughter, and perhaps even coa.r.s.e words; that his uncompromising idealism may have been disturbed by the discordance of literary squabbles, intrigues, and business transactions; that his peaceable, non-speculative, and non-argumentative disposition may have been vexed and wearied by discussions of political, social, religious, literary, and artistic problems. Unless his own art was the subject, Chopin did not take part in discussions. And Liszt tells us that Chopin not only, like most artists, lacked a generalising mind [esprit generalisateur], but showed hardly any inclination for aesthetics, of which he had not even heard much. We may be sure that to Chopin to whom discussions of any kind were distasteful, those of a circle in which, as in that of George Sand, democratic and socialistic, theistic and atheistic views prevailed, were particularly so. For, notwithstanding his bourgeois birth, his sympathies were with the aristocracy; and notwithstanding his neglect of ritual observances, his attachment to the Church of Rome remained unbroken. Chopin does not seem to have concealed his dislike to George Sand's circle; if he did not give audible expression to it, he made it sufficiently manifest by seeking other company. That she was aware of the fact and displeased with it, is evident from what she says of her lover's social habits in Ma Vie. The following excerpt from that work is an important biographical contribution; it is written not without bitterness, but with hardly any exaggeration:--

He was a man of the world par excellence, not of the too formal and too numerous world, but of the intimate world, of the salons of twenty persons, of the hour when the crowd goes away and the habitues crowd round the artist to wrest from him by amiable importunity his purest inspiration. It was then only that he exhibited all his genius and all his talent. It was then also that after having plunged his audience into a profound recueillement or into a painful sadness, for his music sometimes discouraged one's soul terribly, especially when he improvised, he would suddenly, as if to take away the impression and remembrance of his sorrow from others and from himself, turn stealthily to a gla.s.s, arrange his hair and his cravat, and show himself suddenly transformed into a phlegmatic Englishman, into an impertinent old man, into a sentimental and ridiculous Englishwoman, into a sordid Jew.

The types were always sad, however comical they might be, but perfectly conceived and so delicately rendered that one could not grow weary of admiring them.

All these sublime, charming, or bizarre things that he knew how to evolve out of himself made him the soul of select society, and there was literally a contest for his company, his n.o.ble character, his disinterestedness, his self-respect, his proper pride, enemy of every vanity of bad taste and of every insolent reclame, the security of intercourse with him, and the exquisite delicacy of his manners, making him a friend equally serious and agreeable.

To tear Chopin away from so many gdteries, to a.s.sociate him with a simple, uniform, and constantly studious life, him who had been brought up on the knees of princesses, was to deprive him of that which made him live, of a fact.i.tious life, it is true, for, like a painted woman, he laid aside in the evening, in returning to his home, his verve and his energy, to give the night to fever and sleeplessness; but of a life which would have been shorter and more animated than that of the retirement and of the intimacy restricted to the uniform circle of a single family. In Paris he visited several salons every day, or he chose at least every evening a different one as a milieu. He had thus by turns twenty or thirty salons to intoxicate or to charm with his presence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL RELATIONS: HIS PREDILECTION FOR THE FASHIONABLE SALON SOCIETY (ACCOUNTS BY MADAME GIRARDIN AND BERLIOZ); HIS NEGLECT OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTISTS (ARY SCHEFFER, MARMONTEL, h.e.l.lER, SCHULHOFF, THE PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE MUSICAL WORLD); APHORISMS BY LISZT ON CHOPIN IN HIS SOCIAL ASPECT.--CHOPIN'S FRIENDSHIPS.--GEORGE SAND, LISZT, LENZ, h.e.l.lER, MARMONTEL, AND HILLER ON HIS CHARACTER (IRRITABILITY, FITS OF ANGER--SCENE WITH MEYERBEER--GAIETY AND RAILLERY, LOVE OF SOCIETY, AND LITTLE TASTE FOR READING, PREDILECTION FOR THINGS POLISH).--HIS POLISH, GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND RUSSIAN FRIENDS.--THE PARTY MADE FAMOUS BY LISZT'S ACCOUNT.--HIS INTERCOURSE WITH MUSICIANS (OSBORNE, BERLIOZ, BAILLOT, CHERUBINI, KALKBRENNER, FONTANA, SOWINSKI, WOLFF, MEYERBEER, ALKAN, ETC.).--HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH LISZT.--HIS DISLIKE TO LETTER-WRITING.

George Sand, although one of the cleverest of the literary portrayers who have tried their hand at Chopin, cannot be regarded as one of the most impartial; but it must be admitted that in describing her deserted lover as un homme du monde par excellence, non pas du monde trop officiel, trop nombreux, she says what is confirmed by all who have known him, by his friends, foes, and those that are neither.

Aristocratic society, with which he was acquainted from his earliest childhood, had always a great charm for him. When at the beginning of 1833, a little more than two years after his arrival in Paris, he informed his friend Dziewanowski that he moved in the highest society--among amba.s.sadors, princes, and ministers--it is impossible not to see that the fact gives him much satisfaction. Without going so far as to say with a great contemporary of Chopin, Stephen h.e.l.ler, that the higher you go in society the greater is the ignorance you find, I think that little if any good for either heart or mind can come from intercourse with that section of the people which proudly styles itself "society" (le monde). Many individuals that belong to it possess, no doubt, true n.o.bility, wisdom, and learning, nay, even the majority may possess one or the other or all of them in some degree, but these qualities are so out of keeping with the prevailing frivolity that few have the moral courage to show their better nature. If Chopin imagined that he was fully understood as an artist by society, he was sadly mistaken. Liszt and h.e.l.ler certainly held that he was not fully understood, and they did not merely surmise or speak from hearsay, for neither of them was a stranger in that quarter, although the latter avoided it as much as possible. What society could and did appreciate in Chopin was his virtuosity, his elegance, and his delicacy. It is not my intention to attempt an enumeration of Chopin's aristocratic friends and acquaintances, but in the dedications of his works the curious will find the most important of them. There, then, we read the names of the Princess Czartoryska, Countess Plater, Countess Potocka, Princesse de Beauvau, Countess Appony, Countess Esterhazy, Comte and Comtesse de Perthuis, Baroness Bronicka, Princess Czernicheff, Princess Souzzo, Countess Mostowska, Countess Czosnowska, Comtesse de Flahault, Baroness von Billing, Baron and Baroness von Stockhausen, Countess von Lobau, Mdlle. de Noailles, &c. And in addition to these we have representatives of the aristocracy of wealth, Madame C. de Rothschild foremost amongst them. Whether the banker Leo with whom and his family Chopin was on very friendly terms may be mentioned in this connection, I do not know.

But we must remember that round many of the above names cl.u.s.ter large families. The names of the sisters Countess Potocka and Princesse de Beauvau call up at once that of their mother, Countess Komar. Many of these here enumerated are repeatedly mentioned in the course of this book, some will receive particular attention in the next chapter. Now we will try to get a glimpse of Chopin in society.

Madame de Girardin, after having described in one of her "Lettres parisiennes" (March 7, 1847) [FOOTNOTE: The full t.i.tle of the work is: "Le Vicomte de Launay--Lettres parisiennes par Mdme. Emile de Girardin."

(Paris: Michel Levy freres.)] with what success Mdlle. O'Meara accompanied by her master played his E minor Concerto at a soiree of Madame de Courbonne, proceeds thus:--

Mdlle. Meara is a pupil of Chopin's. He was there, he was present at the triumph of his pupil, the anxious audience asked itself: "Shall we hear him?"

The fact is that it was for pa.s.sionate admirers the torment of Tantalus to see Chopin going about a whole evening in a salon and not to hear him. The mistress of the house took pity on us; she was indiscreet, and Chopin played, sang his most delicious songs; we set to these joyous or sad airs the words which came into our heads; we followed with our thoughts his melodious caprices.

There were some twenty of us, sincere amateurs, true believers, and not a note was lost, not an intention was misunderstood; it was not a concert, it was intimate, serious music such as we love; he was not a virtuoso who comes and plays the air agreed upon and then disappears; he was a beautiful talent, monopolised, worried, tormented, without consideration and scruples, whom one dared ask for the most beloved airs, and who full of grace and charity repeated to you the favourite phrase, in order that you might carry it away correct and pure in your memory, and for a long time yet feast on it in remembrance. Madame so-and-so said: "Please, play this pretty nocturne dedicated to Mdlle.

Stirling."--The nocturne which I called the dangerous one.--He smiled, and played the fatal nocturne. "I," said another lady, "should like to hear once played by you this mazurka, so sad and so charming." He smiled again, and played the delicious mazurka.

The most profoundly artful among the ladies sought expedients to attain their end: "I am practising the grand sonata which commences with this beautiful funeral march," and "I should like to know the movement in which the finale ought to be played." He smiled a little at the stratagem, and played the finale, of the grand sonata, one of the most magnificent pieces which he has composed.

Although Madame Girardin's language and opinions are fair specimens of those prevalent in the beatified regions in which Chopin delighted to move, we will not follow her rhapsodic eulogy of his playing. That she cannot be ranked with the connoisseurs is evident from her statement that the sonata BEGINS with the funeral march, and that the FINALE is one of the most magnificent creations of the composer. Notwithstanding Madame Girardin's subsequent remark that Chopin's playing at Madame de Courbonne's was quite an exception, her letter may mislead the reader into the belief that the great pianist was easily induced to sit down at the piano. A more correct idea may be formed of the real state of matters from a pa.s.sage in an article by Berlioz (Feuilleton du Journal des Debats, October 27, 1849) in which the supremacy of style over matter is a little less absolute than in the lady's elegant chit-chat:--

A small circle of select auditors, whose real desire to hear him was beyond doubt, could alone determine him to approach the piano. What emotions he would then call forth! In what ardent and melancholy reveries he loved to pour out his soul!

It was usually towards midnight that he gave himself up with the greatest ABANDON, when the big b.u.t.terflies of the salon had left, when the political questions of the day had been discussed at length, when all the scandal-mongers were at the end of their anecdotes, when all the snares were laid, all the perfidies consummated, when one was thoroughly tired of prose, then, obedient to the mute pet.i.tion of some beautiful, intelligent eyes, he became a poet, and sang the Ossianic loves of the heroes of his dreams, their chivalrous joys, and the sorrows of the absent fatherland, his dear Poland always ready to conquer and always defeated. But without these conditions--the exacting of which for his playing all artists must thank him for--it was useless to solicit him. The curiosity excited by his fame seemed even to irritate him, and he shunned as far as possible the nonsympathetic world when chance had led him into it. I remember a cutting saying which he let fly one evening at the master of a house where he had dined. Scarcely had the company taken coffee when the host, approaching Chopin, told him that his fellow-guests who had never heard him hoped that he would be so good as to sit down at the piano and play them some little thing [quelque pet.i.te chose]. Chopin excused himself from the very first in a way which left not the slightest doubt as to his inclination. But when the other insisted, in an almost offensive manner, like a man who knows the worth and the object of the dinner which he has given, the artist cut the conversation short by saying with a weak and broken voice and a fit of coughing: "Ah!

sir...I have... eaten so little!"

Chopin's predilection for the fashionable salon society led him to neglect the society of artists. That he carried the odi profanum vulgus, et arceo too far cannot for a moment be doubted. For many of those who sought to have intercourse with him were men of no less n.o.bility of sentiment and striving than himself. Chopin offended even Ary Scheffer, the great painter, who admired him and loved him, by promising to spend an evening with him and again and again disappointing him. Musicians, with a few exceptions. Chopin seems always to have been careful to keep at a distance, at least after the first years of his arrival in Paris.

This is regrettable especially in the case of the young men who looked up to him with veneration and enthusiasm, and whose feelings were cruelly hurt by the polite but unsympathetic reception he gave them:--

We have had always a profound admiration for Chopin's talent [writes M. Marmontel], and, let us add, a lively sympathy for his person. No artist, the intimate disciples not excepted, has more studied his compositions, and more caused them to be played, and yet our relations with this great musician have only been rare and transient. Chopin was surrounded, fawned upon, closely watched by a small cenacle of enthusiastic friends, who guarded him against importunate visitors and admirers of the second order. It was difficult to get access to him; and it was necessary, as he said himself to that other great artist whose name is Stephen h.e.l.ler, to try several times before one succeeded in meeting him. These trials ["essais"] being no more to my taste than to h.e.l.ler's, I could not belong to that little congregation of faithful ones whose cult verged on fanaticism.

As to Stephen h.e.l.ler--who himself told me that he would have liked to be more with Chopin, but was afraid of being regarded as intrusive--Mr.

h.e.l.ler thinks that Chopin had an antipathy to him, which considering the amiable and truly gentlemanly character of this artist seems rather strange.

If the details of Karasowski's account of Chopin's and Schulhoff's first meeting are correct, the Polish artist was in his aloofness sometimes even deficient in that common civility which good-breeding and consideration for the feelings of others demand. Premising that Fetis in telling the story is less circ.u.mstantial and lays the scene of the incident in the pianoforte-saloon of Pleyel, I shall quote Karasowski's version, as he may have had direct information from Schulhoff, who since 1855 has lived much of his time at Dresden, where Karasowski also resides:--

Schulhoff came when quite a young man and as yet completely unknown to Paris. There he learned that Chopin, who was then already very ailing and difficult of access, was coming to the pianoforte-manufactory of Mercier to inspect one of the newly- invented transposing pianofortes. It was in the year 1844.

Schulhoff seized the opportunity to become personally acquainted with the master, and made his appearance among the small party which awaited Chopin. The latter came with an old friend, a Russian Capellmeister [Soliva?]. Taking advantage of a propitious moment, Schulhoff got himself introduced by one of the ladies present. On the latter begging Chopin to allow Schulhoff to play him something, the renowned master, who was much bothered by dilettante tormentors, signified, somewhat displeased, his consent by a slight nod of the head. Schulhoff seated himself at the pianoforte, while Chopin, with his back turned to him, was leaning against it. But already during the short prelude he turned his head attentively towards Schulhoff who now performed an Allegro brillant en forme de Senate (Op.

I), which he had lately composed. With growing interest Chopin came nearer and nearer the keyboard and listened to the fine, poetic playing of the young Bohemian; his pale features grew animated, and by mien and gesture he showed to all who were present his lively approbation. When Schulhoff had finished, Chopin held out his hand to him with the words: "Vous etes un vrai artiste, un collegue!" Some days after Schulhoff paid the revered master a visit, and asked him to accept the dedication of the composition he had played to him. Chopin thanked him in a heart-winning manner, and said in the presence of several ladies: "Je suis tres flatte de l'honneur que vous me faites."

The behaviour of Chopin during the latter part of this transaction made, no doubt, amends for that of the earlier. But the ungracious manner in which he granted the young musician permission to play to him, and especially his turning his back to Schulhoff when the latter began to play, are not excused by the fact that he was often bothered by dilettante tormentors.

The Paris correspondent of the Musical World, writing immediately after the death of the composer, describes the feeling which existed among the musicians in the French capital, and also suggests an explanation and excuse. In the number of the paper bearing date November 10, 1849, we read as follows:--

Owing to his retired way of living and his habitual reserve, Chopin had few friends in the profession; and, indeed, spoiled from his original nature by the caprice of society, he was too apt to treat his brother-artists with a supercilious hauteur, which many, his equals, and a few, his superiors, were wont to stigmatise as insulting. But from want of sympathy with the man, they overlooked the fact that a pulmonary complaint, which for years had been gradually wasting him to a shadow, rendered him little fit for the enjoyments of society and the relaxations of artistic conviviality. In short, Chopin, in self-defence, was compelled to live in comparative seclusion, but we wholly disbelieve that this isolation had its source in unkindness or egotism. We are the more inclined to this opinion by the fact that the intimate friends whom he possessed in the profession (and some of them were pianists) were as devotedly attached to him as the most romantic of his aristocratic worshippers.

The reasoning does not seem to me quite conclusive. Would it not have been possible to live in retirement without drawing upon himself the accusation of supercilious hauteur? Moreover, as Chopin was strong enough to frequent fashionable salons, he cannot have been altogether unable to hold intercourse with his brother-artists. And, lastly, who are the pianist friends that were as devotedly attached to him as the most romantic of his aristocratic worshippers? The fact that Chopin became subsequently less social and more reticent than he had been in his early Paris days, confined himself to a very limited number of friends and families, and had relations of an intimate nature with only a very few musicians, cannot, therefore, be attributable to ill-health alone, although that too had, no doubt, something to do with it, directly or indirectly. In short, the allegation that Chopin was "spoiled by the caprice of society," as the above-quoted correspondent puts it, is not only probable, but even very likely. Fastidious by nature and education, he became more so, partly in consequence of his growing physical weakness, and still more through the influence of the society with which, in the exercise of his profession and otherwise, he was in constant contact. His pupils and many of his other admirers, mostly of the female s.e.x and the aristocratic cla.s.s, accustomed him to adulation and adoration to such an extent as to make these to be regarded by him as necessaries of life. Some excerpts from Liszt's book, which I shall quote here in the form of aphorisms, will help to bring Chopin, in his social aspect, clearly before the reader's eyes:--

As he did not confound his time, thought, and ways with those of anyone, the society of women was often more convenient to him in that it involved fewer subsequent relations.

He carried into society the uniformity of temper of people whom no annoyance troubles because they expect no interest.

His conversation dwelt little on stirring subjects. He glided over them; as he was not at all lavish of his time, the talk was easily absorbed by the details of the day.

He loved the unimportant talk [les causeries sans portee] of people whom he esteemed; he delighted in the childish pleasures of young people. He pa.s.sed readily whole evenings in playing blind-man's-buff with young girls, in telling them amusing or funny little stories, in making them laugh the mad laughter of youth, which it gives even more pleasure to hear than the singing of the warbler. [FOOTNOTE: This, I think, must refer to the earlier years of Chopin's residence in Paris.]

In his relations and conversations he seemed to take an interest in what preoccupied the others; he took care not to draw them out of the circle of their personality inorder to lead them into his. If he gave up little of his time, he, to make up for it, reserved to himself nothing of that which he granted.

The presence of Chopin was, therefore, always heartily welcome [fetee]. Not hoping to be understood [devine], disdaining to speak of himself [de se raconter lui-meme], he occupied himself so much with everything that was not himself that his intimate personality remained aloof, unapproached and unapproachable, under this polite and smooth [glissant]

surface where it was impossible to get a footing.

He pleased too much to make people reflect.

He hardly spoke either of love or of friendship.

He was not exacting like those whose rights and just demands surpa.s.s by far what one would have to offer them. The most intimate acquaintances did not penetrate to this sacred recess where, withdrawn from all the rest of his life, dwelt the secret motive power of his soul: a recess so concealed that one scarcely suspected its existence.

Ready to give everything, he did not give himself.

The last dictum and part of the last but one were already quoted by me in an earlier chapter, but for the sake of completeness, and also because they form an excellent starting-point for the following additional remarks on Chopin's friendships, I have repeated them here.

First of all, I venture to make the sweeping a.s.sertion that Chopin had among his non-Polish friends none who could be called intimate in the fullest sense of the word, none to whom he unbosomed himself as he did to Woyciechowski and Matuszynski, the friends of his youth, and Grzymala, a friend of a later time. Long cessation of personal intercourse together with the diverging development of their characters in totally unlike conditions of life cannot but have diminished the intimacy with the first named. [FOOTNOTE: t.i.tus Woyciechowski continued to live on his estate Poturzyn, in the kingdom of Poland.] With Matuszyriski Chopin remained in close connection till this friend's death. [FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says in the first volume of his Polish biography of Chopin that Matuszynski died on April 20, 1842; and in the second that he died after Chopin's father, but in the same year--that is, in 1844.] How he opened his whole heart to Grzymala we shall see in a subsequent chapter. That his friendship with Fontana was of a less intimate character becomes at once apparent on comparing Chopin's letters to him with those he wrote to the three other Polish friends.

Of all his connections with non-Poles there seems to be only one which really deserves the name of friendship, and that is his connection with Franchomme. Even here, however, he gave much less than he received.

Indeed, we may say--speaking generally, and not only with a view to Franchomme--that Chopin was more loved than loving. But he knew well how to conceal his deficiencies in this respect under the blandness of his manners and the coaxing affectionateness of his language. There is something really tragic, and comic too, in the fact that every friend of Chopin's thought that he had more of the composer's love and confidence than any other friend. Thus, for instance, while Gutmann told me that Franchomme was not so intimate with Chopin that the latter would confide any secrets to him, Franchomme made to me a similar statement with regard to Gutmann. And so we find every friend of Chopin declaring that every other friend was not so much of a friend as himself. Of Chopin's procedures in friendship much may be learned from his letters; in them is to be seen something of his insinuating, cajoling ways, of his endeavours to make the person addressed believe himself a privileged favourite, and of his habit of speaking not only ungenerously and unlovingly, but even unjustly of other persons with whom he was apparently on cordial terms. In fact, it is only too clear that Chopin spoke differently before the faces and behind the backs of people. You remember how in his letters to Fontana he abuses Camille Pleyel in a manner irreconcilable with genuine love and esteem. Well, to this same Camille Pleyel, of whom he thus falls foul when he thinks himself in the slightest aggrieved, he addresses on one occasion the following note.

Mark the last sentence:--

Dearest friend [Cherissime],--Here is what Onslow has written to me. I wished to call on you and tell you, but I feel very feeble and am going to lie down. I love you always more, if this is possible [je vous aime toujours plus si c'est possible].

CHOPIN.