Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 48

In this year--i.e., 1847--appeared the three last works which Chopin published, although among his posthumous compositions there are two of a later date. The Trois Mazurkas, Op. 63 (dedicated to the Comtesse L.

Czosnowska), and the Trois Valses, Op. 64 (dedicated respectively to Madame la Comtesse Potocka, Madame la Baronne de Rothschild, and Madame la Baronne Bronicka), appeared in September, and the Sonata for piano and violoncello, Op. 65 (dedicated to Franchomme), in October. Now I will say of these compositions only that the mazurkas and waltzes are not inferior to his previous works of this kind, and that the sonata is one of his most strenuous efforts in the larger forms. Mr. Charles Halle remembers going one evening in 1847 with Stephen h.e.l.ler to Chopin, who had invited some friends to let them hear this sonata which he had lately finished. On arriving at his house they found him rather unwell; he went about the room bent like a half-opened penknife. The visitors proposed to leave him and to postpone the performance, but Chopin would not hear of it. He said he would try. Having once begun, he soon became straight again, warming as he proceeded. As will be seen from some remarks of Madame Dubois's, which I shall quote farther on, the sonata did not make an altogether favourable impression on the auditors.

The name of Madame Dubois reminds me of the soiree immortalised by a letter of Madame Girardin (see the one of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV.

of Le Vicomte de Launay), and already several times alluded to by me in preceding chapters. At this soiree Chopin not only performed several of his pieces, but also accompanied on a second piano his E minor Concerto which was played by his pupil, the youthful and beautiful Mdlle. Camille O'Meara. But the musical event par excellence of the period of Chopin's life with which we are concerned in this chapter is his concert, the last he gave in Paris, on February 16, 1848. Before I proceed with my account of it, I must quote a note, enclosing tickets for this concert, which Chopin wrote at this time to Franchomme. It runs thus: "The best places en evidence for Madame D., but not for her cook." Madame D. was Madame Paul Delaroche, the wife of the great painter, and a friend of Franchomme's.

But here is a copy of the original programme:--

FIRST PART.

Trio by Mozart, for piano, violin, and violoncello, performed by MM. Chopin, Alard, and Franchomme.

Aria, sung by Mdlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.

Nocturne, | |--composed and performed by M. Chopin.

Barcarole, |

Air, sung by Mdlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.

Etude, | |--composed and performed by M. Chopin.

Berceuse, |

SECOND PART.

Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale of the Sonata in G minor, for piano and violoncello, composed by M. Chopin, and performed by the author and M. Franchomme.

Air nouveau from Robert le Diable, composed by M. Meyerbeer, sung by M. Roger.

Preludes, | | Mazurkas, |--composed and performed by M. Chopin.

| Valse, |

Accompanists:--MM. Aulary and de Garaude.

The report of "M. S." in the Gazette musicale of February 20, 1848, transports us at once into the midst of the exquisite, perfume-laden atmosphere of Pleyel's rooms on February 16:--

A concert by the Ariel of pianists is a thing too rare to be given, like other concerts, by opening both wings of the doors to whomsoever wishes to enter. For this one a list had been drawn up: everyone inscribed thereon his name: but everyone was not sure of obtaining the precious ticket: patronage was required to be admitted into the holy of holies, to obtain the favour of depositing one's offering, and yet this offering amounted to a louis; but who has not a louis to spare whep Chopin may be heard?

The outcome of all this naturally was that the fine flower of the aristocracy of the most distinguished women, the most elegant toilettes, filled on Wednesday Pleyel's rooms. There was also the aristocracy of artists and amateurs, happy to seize in his flight this musical sylph who had promised to let himself once more and for a few hours be approached, seen, and heard.

The sylph kept his word, and with what success, what enthusiasm! It is easier to tell you of the reception he got, the transport he excited, than to describe, a.n.a.lyse, divulge, the mysteries of an execution which was nothing a.n.a.logous in our terrestrial regions. If we had in our power the pen which traced the delicate marvels of Queen Mab, not bigger than an agate that glitters on the finger of an alderman, of her liny chariot, of her diaphanous team, only then should we succeed in giving an idea of a purely ideal talent into which matter enters hardly at all. Only Chopin can make Chopin understood: all those who were present at the seance of Wednesday are convinced of this as well as we.

The programme announced first a trio of Mozart, which Chopin, Alard, and Franchomme executed in such a manner that one despairs of ever hearing it again so well performed. Then Chopin played studies, preludes, mazurkas, waltzes; he performed afterwards his beautiful sonata with Franchomme. Do not ask us how all these masterpieces small and great were rendered. We said at first we would not attempt to reproduce these thousands and thousands of nuances of an exceptional genius having in his service an organisation of the same kind.

We shall only say that the charm did not cease to act a single instant on the audience, and that it still lasted after the concert was ended.

Let us add that Roger, our brilliant tenor, sang with his most expressive voice the beautiful prayer intercalated in Robert le Diable by the author himself at the debut of Mario at the Opera; that Mdlle. Antonia de Mendi [a niece of Pauline Viardot's; see the spelling of her name in the programme], the young and beautiful singer, carried off her share of bravos by her talent full of hope and promise.

There is a talk of a second concert which Chopin is to give on the 10th of March, and already more than 600 names are put down on the new list. In this there is nothing astonishing; Chopin owed us this recompense, and he well deserves this eagerness.

As this report, although it enables us to realise the atmosphere, is otherwise lacking in substance, we must try to get further information elsewhere. Happily, there is plenty at our disposal.

Before playing the violoncello sonata in public [wrote Madame Dubois to me], Chopin had tried it before some artists and intimate friends; the first movement, the masterpiece, was not understood. It appeared to the hearers obscure, involved by too many ideas, in short, it had no success. At the last moment Chopin dared not play the whole sonata before so worldly and elegant an audience, but confined himself to the Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale. I shall never forget the manner in which he executed the Barcarole, that adorable composition; the Waltz in D flat (la valse au pet.i.t chien) was encored amidst the acclamations of the public. A grande dame who was present at this concert wished to know Chopin's secret of making the scales so flowing on the piano [faire les gammes si coulees stir le piano]. The expression is good, and this limpidity has never been equalled.

Stephen h.e.l.ler's remark to me, that Chopin became in his last years so weak that his playing was sometimes hardly audible, I have already related in a preceding chapter. There I have also mentioned what Mr.

Charles Halle' told me--namely, that in the latter part of his life Chopin often played forte pa.s.sages piano and even pianissimo, that, for instance, at the concert we are speaking of he played the two forte pa.s.sages towards the end of the Barcarole pianissimo and with all sorts of dynamic finesses. Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, who was present at the concert on February 16, 1848, gave some interesting recollections of it, after the reading of a paper on the subject of Chopin, by Mr. G.

A. Osborne, at one of the meetings of the Musical a.s.sociation (see Proceedings, of the Musical a.s.sociation for the year 1879-80):--

He [Chopin] was extremely weak, but still his playing--by reason of that remarkable quality which he possessed of gradation in touch--betrayed none of the impress of weakness which some attributed to piano playing or softness of touch; and he possessed in a greater degree than any pianoforte- player he [Mr. Goldschmidt] had ever heard, the faculty of pa.s.sing upwards from piano through all gradations of tone...It was extremely difficult to obtain admission, for Chopin, who had been truly described as a most sensitive man--which seemed to be pre-eminently a quality of artistic organisations--not only had a list submitted to him of those who ought to be admitted, but he sifted that list, and made a selection from the selected list; he was, therefore, surrounded by none but friends and admirers. The room was beautifully decorated with flowers of all kinds, and he could truly say that even now, at the distance of thirty years, he had the most vivid recollection of the concert...The audience was so enraptured with his [Chopin's] playing that he was called forward again and again.

In connection with what Mr. Goldschmidt and the writer in the Gazette musicale say about the difficulty of admission and a sifted list, I have to record, and I shall do no more than record, Franchomme's denial.

"I really believe," he said to me, "that this is a mere fiction. I saw Chopin every day; how, then, could I remain ignorant of it?"

To complete my account of Chopin's last concert in Paris, I have yet to add some sc.r.a.ps of information derived from Un nid d'autographes, by Oscar Comettant, who was present at it, and, moreover, reported on it in Le Siecle. The memory of the event was brought back to him when on looking over autographs in the possession of Auguste Wolff, the successor of Camille Pleyel, he found a ticket for the above described concert. As the concert so was also the ticket unlike that of any other artist. "Les lettres d'ecriture anglaise etaient gravees au burin et imprimees en taille-douce sur de beau papier mi-carton glace, d'un carre long elegant et distingue." It bore the following words and figures:--

SOIREE DE M. CHOPIN, DANS L'UN DES SALONS DE MM. PLEYEL ET CIE., 20, Rue Rochechouart, Le mercredi 16 fevrier 1848 a 8 heures 1/2.

Rang....Prix 20 francs....Place reservee.

M. Comettant, in contradiction to what has been said by others about Chopin's physical condition, states that when the latter came on the platform, he walked upright and without feebleness; his face, though pale, did not seem greatly altered; and he played as he had always played. But M. Comettant was told that Chopin, having spent at the concert all his moral and physical energy, afterwards nearly fainted in the artists' room.

In March Chopin and George Sand saw each other once more. We will rest satisfied with the latter's laconic account of the meeting already quoted: "Je serrai sa main tremblante et glacee. Je voulu lui parler, il s'echappa." Karasowski's account of this last meeting is in the feuilleton style and a worthy pendant to that of the first meeting:--

A month before his departure [he writes], in the last days of March, Chopin was invited by a lady to whose hospitable house he had in former times often gone. Some moments he hesitated whether he should accept this invitation, for he had of late years less frequented the salons; at last--as if impelled by an inner voice--he accepted. An hour before he entered the house of Madame H...

And then follow wonderful conversations, sighs, blushes, tears, a lady hiding behind an ivy screen, and afterwards advancing with a gliding step, and whispering with a look full of repentance: "Frederick!" Alas, this was not the way George Sand met her dismissed lovers. Moreover, let it be remembered she was at this time not a girl in her teens, but a woman of nearly forty-four.

The outbreak of the revolution on February 22, 1848, upset the arrangements for the second concert, which was to take place on the 10th of March, and, along with the desire to seek forgetfulness of the grievous loss he had sustained in a change of scene, decided him at last to accept the pressing and unwearied invitations of his Scotch and English friends to visit Great Britain. On April 2 the Gazette musicale announced that Chopin would shortly betake himself to London and pa.s.s the season there. And before many weeks had pa.s.sed he set out upon his journey. But the history of his doings in the capital and in other parts of the United Kingdom shall be related in another chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

DIFFERENCE OF STYLE IN CHOPIN'S WORKS.----THEIR CHARACTERISTICS DISCUSSED, AND POPULAR PREJUDICES CONTROVERTED.----POLISH NATIONAL MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CHOPIN.----CHOPIN A PERSONAL AS WELL AS NATIONAL TONE-POET.--A REVIEW OF SOME OF HIS LESS PERFECT COMPOSITIONS AND OF HIS MASTERPIECES: BOLERO; RONDEAU; VARIATIONS; TARANTELLE; ALLEGRO DE CONCERT; TWO SONATAS FOR PIANOFORTE (OP. 38 AND 58); SONATA (OP. 65) AND GRAND DUO CONCERTANT FOR PIANOFORTE AND VIOLONCELLO; FANTAISIE; MAZURKAS; POLONAISES; VALSES; ETUDES; PRELUDES; SCHERZI; IMPROMPTUS; NOCTURNES; BERCEUSE; BARCAROLE; AND BALLADES-----THE SONGS.----VARIOUS EDITIONS.

Before we inquire into the doings and sufferings of Chopin in England and Scotland, let us take a general survey of his life-work as a composer. We may fitly do so now; as at the stage of his career we have reached, his creative activity had come to a close. The last composition he published, the G minor Sonata for piano and violoncello, Op. 65, appeared in October, 1847; and among his posthumous compositions published by Fontana there are only two of later date--namely, the mazurkas, No. 2 of Op. 67 (G minor) and No. 4 of Op. 68 (F minor), which came into existence in 1849. Neither of these compositions can be numbered with the master's best works, but the latter of them is interesting, because it seems in its tonal writhings and wailings a picture of the bodily and mental torments Chopin was at the time enduring.

A considerable number of the master's works I have already discussed in Chapters III., VIII., and XIII. These, if we except the two Concertos, Op. II and 21 (although they, too, do not rank with his chefs-d'oeuvre), are, however, for us of greater importance biographically, perhaps also historically, than otherwise. It is true, we hear now and then of some virtuoso playing the Variations, Op. 2, or the Fantasia on Polish airs, Op. 13, nay, we may hear even of the performance of the Trio, Op. 8; but such occurrences are of the rarest rarity, and, considering how rich musical literature is in unexceptionable concert-pieces and chamber compositions, one feels on the whole pleased that these enterprising soloists and trio-players find neither much encouragement nor many imitators. While in examining the earlier works, the praise bestowed on them was often largely mixed with censure, and the admiration felt for them tempered by dissatisfaction; we shall have little else than pure praise and admiration for the works that remain to be considered, at least for the vast majority of them. One thing, however, seems to me needful before justice can be done to the composer Chopin: certain prejudices abroad concerning him have to be combated. I shall, therefore, preface my remarks on particular compositions and groups of compositions by some general observations.

It is sometimes said that there are hardly any traces of a development in the productions of Chopin, and that in this respect he is unlike all the other great masters. Such an opinion cannot be the result of a thorough and comprehensive study of the composer's works. So far from agreeing with those who hold it, I am tempted to a.s.sert that the difference of style between Chopin's early and latest works (even when juvenile compositions like the first two Rondos are left out of account) is as great as that between Beethoven's first and ninth Symphony. It would be easy to cla.s.sify the Polish master's works according to three and even four (with the usual exceptions) successive styles, but I have no taste for this cheap kind of useless ingenuity. In fact, I shall confine myself to saying that in Chopin's works there are clearly distinguishable two styles--the early virtuosic and the later poetic style. The latter is in a certain sense also virtuosic, but with this difference, that its virtuosity is not virtuosity for virtuosity's sake. The poetic style which has thrown off the tinsel showiness of its predecessor does not, however, remain unchanged, for its texture becomes more and more close, and affords conclusive evidence of the increasing influence of Johann Sebastian Bach. Of course, the grand master of fugue does not appear here, as it were, full life-size, in peruke, knee-breeches, and shoe-buckles, but his presence in spite of transformation and attenuation is unmistakable. It is, however, not only in the closeness and complexity of texture that we notice Chopin's style changing: a striving after greater breadth and fulness of form are likewise apparent, and, alas! also an increase in sombreness, the result of deteriorating health. All this the reader will have to keep in mind when he pa.s.ses in review the master's works, for I shall marshal them by groups, not chronologically.

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 pa.s.sion. 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 a.s.sumes 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--