DEAREST MR. F. CHOPIN,—Wishing you perfect health I have the honour to write to you through Mr. Eduard Wolf. [FOOTNOTE: The language of the first sentence is neither logical nor otherwise precise. I shall keep throughout as close as possible to the original, and also retain the peculiar spelling of proper names.] I recommend him to your esteemed friendship. Your whole family and I had also the pleasure of hearing at his concert the Adagio and Rondo from your Concerto, which called up in our minds the most agreeable remembrance of you. May God give you every prosperity! We are all well, and wish so much to see you again. Meanwhile I send you through Mr. Wolf my heartiest kiss, and recommending myself to your esteemed friendship, I remain your faithful friend,

ADALBERT ZIWNY.

Warsaw, the 12th of June, 1835.

N.B.—Mr. Kirkow, the merchant, and his son George, who was at Mr. Reinschmid's at your farewell party, recommend themselves to you, and wish you good health. Adieu.

Julius Fontana, the friend and companion of Frederick, after stating (in his preface to Chopin's posthumous works) that Chopin had never another pianoforte teacher than Zywny, observes that the latter taught his pupil only the first principles. "The progress of the child was so extraordinary that his parents and his professor thought they could do no better than abandon him at the age of 12 to his own instincts, and follow instead of directing him." The progress of Frederick must indeed have been considerable, for in Clementina Tanska-Hofmanowa's Pamiatka po dobrej matce (Memorial of a good Mother) [FOOTNOTE: Published in 1819.] the writer relates that she was at a soiree at Gr——'s, where she found a numerous party assembled, and heard in the course of the evening young Chopin play the piano—"a child not yet eight years old, who, in the opinion of the connoisseurs of the art, promises to replace Mozart." Before the boy had completed his ninth year his talents were already so favourably known that he was invited to take part in a concert which was got up by several persons of high rank for the benefit of the poor. The bearer of the invitation was no less a person than Ursin Niemcewicz, the publicist, poet, dramatist, and statesman, one of the most remarkable and influential men of the Poland of that day. At this concert, which took place on February 24, 1818, the young virtuoso played a concerto by Adalbert Gyrowetz, a composer once celebrated, but now ignominiously shelved—sic transit gloria mundi—and one of Riehl's "divine Philistines." An anecdote shows that at that time Frederick was neither an intellectual prodigy nor a conceited puppy, but a naive, modest child that played the pianoforte, as birds sing, with unconscious art. When he came home after the concert, for which of course he had been arrayed most splendidly and to his own great satisfaction, his mother said to him: "Well, Fred, what did the public like best?"—"Oh, mamma," replied the little innocent, "everybody was looking at my collar."

The debut was a complete success, and our Frederick—Chopinek (diminutive of Chopin) they called him—became more than ever the pet of the aristocracy of Warsaw. He was invited to the houses of the Princes Czartoryski, Sapieha, Czetwertynski, Lubecki, Radziwill, the Counts Skarbek, Wolicki, Pruszak, Hussarzewski, Lempicki, and others. By the Princess Czetwertynska, who, says Liszt, cultivated music with a true feeling of its beauties, and whose salon was one of the most brilliant and select of Warsaw, Frederick was introduced to the Princess Lowicka, the beautiful Polish wife of the Grand Duke Constantine, who, as Countess Johanna Antonia Grudzinska, had so charmed the latter that, in order to obtain the Emperor's consent to his marriage with her, he abdicated his right of succession to the throne. The way in which she exerted her influence over her brutal, eccentric, if not insane, husband, who at once loved and maltreated the Poles, gained her the title of "guardian angel of Poland." In her salon Frederick came of course also in contact with the dreaded Grand Duke, the Napoleon of Belvedere (thus he was nicknamed by Niemcewicz, from the palace where he resided in Warsaw), who on one occasion when the boy was improvising with his eyes turned to the ceiling, as was his wont, asked him why he looked in that direction, if he saw notes up there. With the exalted occupants of Belvedere Frederick had a good deal of intercourse, for little Paul, a boy of his own age, a son or adopted son of the Grand Duke, enjoyed his company, and sometimes came with his tutor, Count de Moriolles, to his house to take him for a drive. On these occasions the neighbours of the Chopin family wondered not a little what business brought the Grand Duke's carriage, drawn by four splendid horses, yoked in the Russian fashion—i.e., all abreast—to their quarter.

Chopin's early introduction into aristocratic society and constant intercourse with the aristocracy is an item of his education which must not be considered as of subordinate importance. More than almost any other of his early disciplines, it formed his tastes, or at least strongly assisted in developing certain inborn traits of his nature, and in doing this influenced his entire moral and artistic character. In the proem I mentioned an English traveller's encomiums on the elegance in the houses, and the exquisite refinement in the entertainments, of the wealthy nobles in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. We may be sure that in these respects the present century was not eclipsed by its predecessors, at least not in the third decade, when the salons of Warsaw shone at their brightest. The influence of French thought and manners, for the importation and spreading of which King Stanislas Leszczinski was so solicitous that he sent at his own expense many young gentlemen to Paris for their education, was subsequently strengthened by literary taste, national sympathies, and the political connection during the first Empire. But although foreign notions and customs caused much of the old barbarous extravagance and also much of the old homely simplicity to disappear, they did not annihilate the national distinctiveness of the class that was affected by them. Suffused with the Slavonic spirit and its tincture of Orientalism, the importation assumed a character of its own. Liszt, who did not speak merely from hearsay, emphasises, in giving expression to his admiration of the elegant and refined manners of the Polish aristocracy, the absence of formalism and stiff artificiality:—

In these salons [he writes] the rigorously observed proprieties were not a kind of ingeniously-constructed corsets that served to hide deformed hearts; they only necessitated the spiritualisation of all contacts, the elevation of all rapports, the aristocratisation of all impressions.

But enough of this for the present.

A surer proof of Frederick's ability than the applause and favour of the aristocracy was the impression he made on the celebrated Catalani, who, in January, 1820, gave four concerts in the town-hall of Warsaw, the charge for admission to each of which was, as we may note in passing, no less than thirty Polish florins (fifteen shillings). Hearing much of the musically-gifted boy, she expressed the wish to have him presented to her. On this being done, she was so pleased with him and his playing that she made him a present of a watch, on which were engraved the words: "Donne par Madame Catalani a Frederic Chopin, age de dix ans."

As yet I have said nothing of the boy's first attempts at composition. Little Frederick began to compose soon after the commencement of his pianoforte lessons and before he could handle the pen. His master had to write down what the pupil played, after which the youthful maestro, often dissatisfied with his first conception, would set to work with the critical file, and try to improve it. He composed mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, &c. At the age of ten he dedicated a march to the Grand Duke Constantine, who had it scored for a military band and played on parade (subsequently it was also published, but without the composer's name), and these productions gave such evident proof of talent that his father deemed it desirable to get his friend Elsner to instruct him in harmony and counterpoint. At this time, however, it was not as yet in contemplation that Frederick should become a professional musician; on the contrary, he was made to understand that his musical studies must not interfere with his other studies, as he was then preparing for his entrance into the Warsaw Lyceum. As we know that this event took place in 1824, we know also the approximate time of the commencement of Elsner's lessons. Fontana says that Chopin began these studies when he was already remarkable as a pianist. Seeing how very little is known concerning the nature and extent of Chopin's studies in composition, it may be as well to exhaust the subject at once. But before I do so I must make the reader acquainted with the musician who, as Zyvny was Chopin's only pianoforte teacher, was his only teacher of composition.

Joseph Elsner, the son of a cabinet and musical instrument maker at Grottkau, in Silesia, was born on June 1, 1769. As his father intended him for the medical profession, he was sent in 1781 to the Latin school at Breslau, and some years later to the University at Vienna. Having already been encouraged by the rector in Grottkau to cultivate his beautiful voice, he became in Breslau a chorister in one of the churches, and after some time was often employed as violinist and singer at the theatre. Here, where he got, if not regular instruction, at least some hints regarding harmony and kindred matters (the authorities are hopelessly at variance on this and on many other points), he made his first attempts at composition, writing dances, songs, duets, trios, nay, venturing even on larger works for chorus and orchestra. The musical studies commenced in Breslau were continued in Vienna; preferring musical scores to medical books, the conversations of musicians to the lectures of professors, he first neglected and at last altogether abandoned the study of the healing art. A. Boguslawski, who wrote a biography of Elsner, tells the story differently and more poetically. When, after a long illness during his sojourn in Breslau, thus runs his version, Elsner went, on the day of the Holy Trinity in the year 1789, for the first time to church, he was so deeply moved by the sounds of the organ that he fainted. On recovering he felt his whole being filled with such ineffable comfort and happiness that he thought he saw in this occurrence the hand of destiny. He, therefore, set out for Vienna, in order that he might draw as it were at the fountain-head the great principles of his art. Be this as it may, in 1791 we hear of Elsner as violinist in Brunn, in 1792 as musical conductor at a theatre in Lemberg—where he is busy composing dramatic and other works—and near the end of the last century as occupant of the same post at the National Theatre in Warsaw, which town became his home for the rest of his life. There was the principal field of his labours; there he died, after a sojourn of sixty-two years in Poland, on April 18, 1854, leaving behind him one of the most honoured names in the history of his adopted country. Of the journeys he undertook, the longest and most important was, no doubt, that to Paris in 1805. On the occasion of this visit some of his compositions were performed, and when Chopin arrived there twenty-five years afterwards, Elsner was still remembered by Lesueur, who said: "Et que fait notre bon Elsner? Racontez-moi de ses nouvelles." Elsner was a very productive composer: besides symphonies, quartets, cantatas, masses, an oratorio, &c., he composed twenty-seven Polish operas. Many of these works were published, some in Warsaw, some in various German towns, some even in Paris. But his activity as a teacher, conductor, and organiser was perhaps even more beneficial to the development of the musical art in Poland than that as a composer. After founding and conducting several musical societies, he became in 1821 director of the then opened Conservatorium, at the head of which he continued to the end of its existence in 1830. To complete the idea of the man, we must not omit to mention his essay In how far is the Polish language suitable for music? As few of his compositions have been heard outside of Poland, and these few long ago, rarely, and in few places, it is difficult to form a satisfactory opinion with regard to his position as a composer. Most accounts, however, agree in stating that he wrote in the style of the modern Italians, that is to say, what were called the modern Italians in the later part of the last and the earlier part of this century. Elsner tried his strength and ability in all genres, from oratorio, opera, and symphony, down to pianoforte variations, rondos, and dances, and in none of them did he fail to be pleasing and intelligible, not even where, as especially in his sacred music, he made use—a sparing use—of contrapuntal devices, imitations, and fugal treatment. The naturalness, fluency, effectiveness, and practicableness which distinguish his writing for voices and instruments show that he possessed a thorough knowledge of their nature and capability. It was, therefore, not an empty rhetorical phrase to speak of him initiating his pupils "a la science du contre-point et aux effets d'une savante instrumentation."

[FOOTNOTE: "The productions of Elsner," says Fetis, "are in the style of Paer and Mayer's music. In his church music there is a little too much of modern and dramatic forms; one finds in them facility and a natural manner of making the parts sing, but little originality and variety in his ideas. Elsner writes with sufficient purity, although he shows in his fugues that his studies have not been severe."]

For the pupils of the Conservatorium he wrote vocal pieces in from one to ten parts, and he composed also a number of canons in four and five parts, which fact seems to demonstrate that he had no ill-will against the scholastic forms. And now I shall quote a passage from an apparently well-informed writer [FOOTNOTE: The writer of the article Elsner in Schilling's Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst] (to whom I am, moreover, otherwise indebted in this sketch), wherein Elsner is blamed for certain shortcomings with which Chopin has been often reproached in a less charitable spirit. The italics, which are mine, will point out the words in question:—

One forgives him readily [in consideration of the general excellence of his style] THE OFFENCES AGAINST THE LAW OF HARMONIC CONNECTION THAT OCCUR HERE AND THERE, AND THE FACILITY WITH WHICH HE SOMETIMES DISREGARDS THE FIXED RULES OF STRICT PART-WRITING, especially in the dramatic works, where he makes effect apparently the ultimate aim of his indefatigable endeavours.

The wealth of melody and technical mastery displayed in "The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ" incline Karasowski to think that it is the composer's best work. When the people at Breslau praised Elsner's "Echo Variations" for orchestra, Chopin exclaimed: "You must hear his Coronation Mass, then only can you judge of him as a composer." To characterise Elsner in a few words, he was a man of considerable musical aptitude and capacity, full of nobleness of purpose, learning, industry, perseverance, in short, possessing all qualities implied by talent, but lacking those implied by genius.

A musician travelling in 1841 in Poland sent at the time to the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik a series of "Reiseblatter" (Notes of Travel), which contain so charming and vivid a description of this interesting personality that I cannot resist the temptation to translate and insert it here almost without any abridgment. Two noteworthy opinions of the writer may be fitly prefixed to this quotation—namely, that Elsner was a Pole with all his heart and soul, indeed, a better one than thousands that are natives of the country, and that, like Haydn, he possessed the quality of writing better the older he grew:—

The first musical person of the town [Warsaw] is still the old, youthful Joseph Elsner, a veteran master of our art, who is as amiable as he is truly estimable. In our day one hardly meets with a notable Polish musician who has not studied composition under Pan [i.e., Mr.] Elsner; and he loves all his pupils, and all speak of him with enthusiasm, and, according to the Polish fashion, kiss the old master's shoulder, whereupon he never forgets to kiss them heartily on both cheeks. Even Charles Kurpinski, the pensioned Capelhneister of the Polish National Theatre, whose hair is already grey, is, if I am not very much misinformed, also a pupil of Joseph Elsner's. One is often mistaken with regard to the outward appearance of a celebrated man; I mean, one forms often a false idea of him before one has seen him and knows a portrait of him. I found Elsner almost exactly as I had imagined him. Wisocki, the pianist, also a pupil of his, took me to him. Pan Elsner lives in the Dom Pyarow [House of Piarists]. One has to start early if one wishes to find him at home; for soon after breakfast he goes out, and rarely returns to his cell before evening. He inhabits, like a genuine church composer, two cells of the old Piarist Monastery in Jesuit Street, and in the dark passages which lead to his rooms one sees here and there faded laid-aside pictures of saints lying about, and old church banners hanging down. The old gentleman was still in bed when we arrived, and sent his servant to ask us to wait a little in the anteroom, promising to be with us immediately. All the walls of this room, or rather cell, were hung to the ceiling with portraits of musicians, among them some very rare names and faces. Mr. Elsner has continued this collection down to the present time; also the portraits of Liszt, Thalberg, Chopin, and Clara Wieck shine down from the old monastic walls. I had scarcely looked about me in this large company for a few minutes, when the door of the adjoining room opened, and a man of medium height (not to say little), somewhat stout, with a round, friendly countenance, grey hair, but very lively eyes, enveloped in a warm fur dressing- gown, stepped up to us, comfortably but quickly, and bade us welcome. Wisocki kissed him, according to the Polish fashion, as a token of respect, on the right shoulder, and introduced me to him, whereupon the old friendly gentleman shook hands with me and said some kindly words.

This, then, was Pan Joseph Elsner, the ancestor of modern Polish music, the teacher of Chopin, the fine connoisseur and cautious guide of original talents. For he does not do as is done only too often by other teachers in the arts, who insist on screwing all pupils to the same turning-lathe on which they themselves were formed, who always do their utmost to ingraft their own I on the pupil, so that he may become as excellent a man as they imagine themselves to be. Joseph Elsner did not proceed thus. When all the people of Warsaw thought Frederick Chopin was entering on a wrong path, that his was not music at all, that he must keep to Himmel and Hummel, otherwise he would never do anything decent—the clever Pan Elsner had already very clearly perceived what a poetic kernel there was in the pale young dreamer, had long before felt very clearly that he had before him the founder of a new epoch of pianoforte-playing, and was far from laying upon him a cavesson, knowing well that such a noble thoroughbred may indeed be cautiously led, but must not be trained and fettered in the usual way if he is to conquer.

Of Chopin's studies under this master we do not know much more than of his studies under Zywny. Both Fontana and Sowinski say that he went through a complete course of counterpoint and composition. Elsner, in a letter written to Chopin in 1834, speaks of himself as "your teacher of harmony and counterpoint, of little merit, but fortunate." Liszt writes:—

Joseph Elsner taught Chopin those things that are most difficult to learn and most rarely known: to be exacting to one's self, and to value the advantages that are only obtained by dint of patience and labour.

What other accounts of the matter under discussion I have got from books and conversations are as general and vague as the foregoing. I therefore shall not weary the reader with them. What Elsner's view of teaching was may be gathered from one of his letters to his pupil. The gist of his remarks lies in this sentence:—

That with which the artist (who learns continually from his surroundings) astonishes his contemporaries, he can only attain by himself and through himself.

Elsner had insight and self-negation (a rare quality with teachers) enough to act up to his theory, and give free play to the natural tendencies of his pupil's powers. That this was really the case is seen from his reply to one who blamed Frederick's disregard of rules and custom:—

Leave him in peace [he said], his is an uncommon way because his gifts are uncommon. He does not strictly adhere to the customary method, but he has one of his own, and he will reveal in his works an originality which in such a degree has not been found in anyone.

The letters of master and pupil testify to their unceasing mutual esteem and love. Those of the master are full of fatherly affection and advice, those of the pupil full of filial devotion and reverence. Allusions to and messages for Elsner are very frequent in Chopin's letters. He seems always anxious that his old master should know how he fared, especially hear of his success. His sentiments regarding Elsner reveal themselves perhaps nowhere more strikingly than in an incidental remark which escapes him when writing to his friend Woyciechowski. Speaking of a new acquaintance he has made, he says, "He is a great friend of Elsner's, which in my estimation means much." No doubt Chopin looked up with more respect and thought himself more indebted to Elsner than to Zywny; but that he had a good opinion of both his masters is evident from his pithy reply to the Viennese gentleman who told him that people were astonished at his having learned all he knew at Warsaw: "From Messrs. Zywny and Elsner even the greatest ass must learn something."



CHAPTER III



FREDERICK ENTERS THE WARSAW LYCEUM.—VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES.—HIS FATHER'S FRIENDS.—RISE OF ROMANTICISM IN POLISH LITERATURE.—FREDERICK'S STAY AT SZAFARNIA DURING HIS FIRST SCHOOL HOLIDAYS.—HIS TALENT FOR IMPROVISATION.—HIS DEVELOPMENT AS A COMPOSER AND PIANIST.—HIS PUBLIC PERFORMANCES.—PUBLICATION OF OP. I.—EARLY COMPOSITIONS.—HIS PIANOFORTE STYLE.



FREDERICK, who up to the age of fifteen was taught at home along with his father's boarders, became in 1824 a pupil of the Warsaw Lyceum, a kind of high-school, the curriculum of which comprised Latin, Greek, modern languages, mathematics, history, &c. His education was so far advanced that he could at once enter the fourth class, and the liveliness of his parts, combined with application to work, enabled him to distinguish himself in the following years as a student and to carry off twice a prize. Polish history and literature are said to have been his favourite studies.

Liszt relates that Chopin was placed at an early age in one of the first colleges of Warsaw, "thanks to the generous and intelligent protection which Prince Anton Radziwill always bestowed upon the arts and upon young men of talent." This statement, however, has met with a direct denial on the part of the Chopin family, and may, therefore, be considered as disposed of. But even without such a denial the statement would appear suspicious to all but those unacquainted with Nicholas Chopin's position. Surely he must have been able to pay for his son's schooling! Moreover, one would think that, as a professor at the Lyceum, he might even have got it gratis. As to Frederick's musical education in Warsaw, it cannot have cost much. And then, how improbable that the Prince should have paid the comparatively trifling school-fees and left the young man when he went abroad dependent upon the support of his parents! The letters from Vienna (1831) show unmistakably that Chopin applied to his father repeatedly for money, and regretted being such a burden to him. Further, Chopin's correspondence, which throws much light on his relation to Prince Radziwili, contains nothing which would lead one to infer any such indebtedness as Liszt mentions. But in order that the reader may be in possession of the whole evidence and able to judge for himself, I shall place before him Liszt's curiously circumstantial account in its entirety:—

The Prince bestowed upon him the inappreciable gift of a good education, no part of which remained neglected. His elevated mind enabling him to understand the exigencies of an artist's career, he, from the time of his protege's entering the college to the entire completion of his studies, paid the pension through the agency of a friend, M. Antoine Korzuchowski, [FOOTNOTE: Liszt should have called this gentleman Adam Kozuchowski.] who always maintained cordial relations and a constant friendship with Chopin.

Liszt's informant was no doubt Chopin's Paris friend Albert Grzymala, [FOOTNOTE: M. Karasowski calls this Grzymala erroneously Francis. More information about this gentleman will be given in a subsequent chapter.] who seems to have had no connection with the Chopin family in Poland. Karasowski thinks that the only foundation of the story is a letter and present from Prince Radziwill—acknowledgments of the dedication to him of the Trio, Op. 8—which Adam Kozuchowski brought to Chopin in 1833. [FOOTNOTE: M. Karasowski, Fryderyk Chopin, vol. i., p. 65.]

Frederick was much liked by his school-fellows, which, as his manners and disposition were of a nature thoroughly appreciated by boys, is not at all to be wondered at. One of the most striking features in the character of young Chopin was his sprightliness, a sparkling effervescence that manifested itself by all sorts of fun and mischief. He was never weary of playing pranks on his sisters, his comrades, and even on older people, and indulged to the utmost his fondness for caricaturing by pictorial and personal imitations. In the course of a lecture the worthy rector of the Lyceum discovered the scapegrace making free with the face and figure of no less a person than his own rectorial self. Nevertheless the irreverent pupil got off easily, for the master, with as much magnanimity as wisdom, abstained from punishing the culprit, and, in a subscript which he added to the caricature, even praised the execution of it. A German Protestant pastor at Warsaw, who made always sad havoc of the Polish language, in which he had every Sunday to preach one of his sermons, was the prototype of one of the imitations with which Frederick frequently amused his friends. Our hero's talent for changing the expression of his face, of which George Sand, Liszt, Balzac, Hiller, Moscheles, and other personal acquaintances, speak with admiration, seems already at this time to have been extraordinary. Of the theatricals which the young folks were wont to get up at the paternal house, especially on the name-days of their parents and friends, Frederick was the soul and mainstay. With a good delivery he combined a presence of mind that enabled him to be always ready with an improvisation when another player forgot his part. A clever Polish actor, Albert Piasecki, who was stage-manager on these occasions, gave it as his opinion that the lad was born to be a great actor. In after years two distinguished members of the profession in France, M. Bocage and Mdme. Dorval, expressed similar opinions. For their father's name-day in 1824, Frederick and his sister Emilia wrote conjointly a one-act comedy in verse, entitled THE MISTAKE; OR, THE PRETENDED ROGUE, which was acted by a juvenile company. According to Karasowski, the play showed that the authors had a not inconsiderable command of language, but in other respects could not be called a very brilliant achievement. Seeing that fine comedies are not often written at the ages of fifteen and eleven, nobody will be in the least surprised at the result.

These domestic amusements naturally lead us to inquire who were the visitors that frequented the house. Among them there was Dr. Samuel Bogumil Linde, rector of the Lyceum and first librarian of the National Library, a distinguished philologist, who, assisted by the best Slavonic scholars, wrote a valuable and voluminous "Dictionary of the Polish Language," and published many other works on the Slavonic languages. After this oldest of Nicholas Chopin's friends I shall mention Waclaw Alexander Maciejowski, who, like Linde, received his university education in Germany, taught then for a short time at the Lyceum, and became in 1819 a professor at the University of Warsaw. His contributions to various branches of Slavonic history (law, literature, &c.) are very numerous. However, one of the most widely known of those who were occasionally seen at Chopin's home was Casimir Brodzinski, the poet, critic, and champion of romanticism, a prominent figure in Polish literary history, who lived in Warsaw from about 1815 to 1822, in which year he went as professor of literature to the University of Cracow. Nicholas Chopin's pupil, Count Frederick Skarbek, must not be forgotten; he had now become a man of note, being professor of political economy at the university, and author of several books that treat of that science. Besides Elsner and Zywny, who have already been noticed at some length, a third musician has to be numbered among friends of the Chopin family—namely, Joseph Javurek, the esteemed composer and professor at the Conservatorium; further, I must yet make mention of Anton Barcinski, professor at the Polytechnic School, teacher at Nicholas Chopin's institution, and by-and-by his son-in-law; Dr. Jarocki, the zoologist; Julius Kolberg, the engineer; and Brodowski, the painter. These and others, although to us only names, or little more, are nevertheless not without their significance. We may liken them to the supernumeraries on the stage, who, dumb as they are, help to set off and show the position of the principal figure or figures.

The love of literature which we have noticed in the young Chopins, more particularly in the sisters, implanted by an excellent education and fostered by the taste, habits, and encouragement of their father, cannot but have been greatly influenced and strengthened by the characters and conversation of such visitors. And let it not be overlooked that this was the time of Poland's intellectual renascence—a time when the influence of man over man is greater than at other times, he being, as it were, charged with a kind of vivifying electricity. The misfortunes that had passed over Poland had purified and fortified the nation—breathed into it a new and healthier life. The change which the country underwent from the middle of the eighteenth to the earlier part of the nineteenth century was indeed immense. Then Poland, to use Carlyle's drastic phraseology, had ripened into a condition of "beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap"; now, with an improved agriculture, reviving commerce, and rising industry, it was more prosperous than it had been for centuries. As regards intellectual matters, the comparison with the past was even more favourable to the present. The government that took the helm in 1815 followed the direction taken by its predecessors, and schools and universities flourished; but a most hopeful sign was this, that whilst the epoch of Stanislas Augustus was, as Mickiewicz remarked (in Les Slaves), little Slavonic and not even national, now the national spirit pervaded the whole intellectual atmosphere, and incited workers in all branches of science and art to unprecedented efforts. To confine ourselves to one department, we find that the study of the history and literature of Poland had received a vigorous impulse, folk-songs were zealously collected, and a new school of poetry, romanticism, rose victoriously over the fading splendour of an effete classicism. The literature of the time of Stanislas was a court and salon literature, and under the influence of France and ancient Rome. The literature that began to bud about 1815, and whose germs are to be sought for in the preceding revolutionary time, was more of a people's literature, and under the influence of Germany, England, and Russia. The one was a hot-house plant, the other a garden flower, or even a wild flower. The classics swore by the precepts of Horace and Boileau, and held that among the works of Shakespeare there was not one veritable tragedy. The romanticists, on the other hand, showed by their criticisms and works that their sympathies were with Schiller, Goethe, Burger, Byron, Shukovski, &c. Wilna was the chief centre from which this movement issued, and Brodziriski one of the foremost defenders of the new principles and the precursor of Mickiewicz, the appearance of whose ballads, romances, "Dziady" and "Grazyna" (1822), decided the war in favour of romanticism. The names of Anton Malczewski, Bogdan Zaleski, Severyn Goszczynski, and others, ought to be cited along with that of the more illustrious Mickiewicz, but I will not weary the reader either with a long disquisition or with a dry enumeration. I have said above that Polish poetry had become more of a people's poetry. This, however, must not be understood in the sense of democratic poetry.

The Polish poets [says C. Courriere, to whose "Histoire de la litterature chez les Slaves" I am much indebted] ransacked with avidity the past of their country, which appeared to them so much the more brilliant because it presented a unique spectacle in the history of nations. Instead of breaking with the historic traditions they respected them, and gave them a new lustre, a new life, by representing them under a more beautiful, more animated, and more striking form. In short, if Polish romanticism was an evolution of poetry in the national sense, it did not depart from the tendencies of its elder sister, for it saw in the past only the nobility; it was and remained, except in a few instances, aristocratic.

Now let us keep in mind that this contest of classicism and romanticism, this turning away from a dead formalism to living ideals, was taking place at that period of Frederick Chopin's life when the human mind is most open to new impressions, and most disposed to entertain bold and noble ideas. And, further, let us not undervalue the circumstance that he must have come in close contact with one of the chief actors in this unbloody revolution.

Frederick spent his first school holidays at Szafarnia, in Mazovia, the property of the Dziewanowski family. In a letter written on August 19, 1824, he gives his friend and school-fellow William Kolberg, some account of his doings there—of his strolls and runs in the garden, his walks and drives to the forest, and above all of his horsemanship. He tells his dear Willie that he manages to keep his seat, but would not like to be asked how. Indeed, he confesses that, his equestrian accomplishments amount to no more than to letting the horse go slowly where it lists, and sitting on it, like a monkey, with fear. If he had not yet met with an accident, it was because the horse had so far not felt any inclination to throw him off. In connection with his drives—in britzka and in coach—he does not forget to mention that he is always honoured with a back-seat. Still, life at Szafarnia was not unmixed happiness, although our hero bore the ills with admirable stoicism:—

Very often [he writes] the flies sit on my prominent nose— this, however, is of no consequence, it is the habit of these little animals. The mosquitoes bite me—this too, however, is of no consequence, for they don't bite me in the nose.

The reader sees from this specimen of epistolary writing that Frederick is still a boy, and if I had given the letter in extenso, the boyishness would have been even more apparent, in the loose and careless style as well as in the frolicsome matter.

His letters to his people at home took on this occasion the form of a manuscript newspaper, called, in imitation of the "Kuryer Warszawski" ("Warsaw Courier"), "Kuryer Szafarski" ("Szafarnia Courier"), which the editor, in imitation of the then obtaining press regulation, did not send off until it had been seen and approved of by the censor, Miss Dziewanowska. One of the numbers of the paper contains among other news the report of a musical gathering of "some persons and demi-persons" at which, on July 15, 1824, Mr. Pichon (anagram of Chopin) played a Concerto of Kalkbrenner's and a little song, the latter being received by the youthful audience with more applause than the former.

Two anecdotes that relate to this stay at Szafarnia further exemplify what has already been said of Frederick's love of fun and mischief. Having on one of his visits to the village of Oberow met some Jews who had come to buy grain, he invited them to his room, and there entertained them with music, playing to them "Majufes."

[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski describes "Majufes" as a kind of Jewish wedding march. Ph. Lobenstein says that it means "the beautiful, the pleasing one." With this word opened a Hebrew song which dates from the time of the sojourn of the Jews in Spain, and which the orthodox Polish Jews sing on Saturdays after dinner, and whose often-heard melody the Poles imitate as a parody of Jewish singing.]

His guests were delighted—they began to dance, told him that he played like a born Jew, and urged him to come to the next Jewish wedding and play to them there. The other anecdote would be a very ugly story were it not for the redeeming conclusion. Again we meet with one of the numerous, but by no means well-loved, class of Polish citizens. Frederick, having heard that a certain Jew had bought grain from Mr. Romecki, the proprietor of Oberow, sent this gentleman a letter purporting to be written by the grain-dealer in question, in which he informed him that after reconsidering the matter he would rather not take the grain. The imitation of the jargon in use among the Polish Jews was so good, and the spelling and writing so bad, that Mr. Romecki was taken in. Indeed, he flew at once into such a passion that he sent for the Jew with the intention of administering to him a sound thrashing. Only Frederick's timely confession saved the poor fellow from his undeserved punishment. But enough of Szafarnia, where the young scapegrace paid so long a holiday visit (from his letter to William Kolberg we learn that he would not see his friend for four weeks more), and where, judging from what has already been told, and also from a remark in the same letter, he must have "enjoyed himself pretty well." And now we will return to Warsaw, to Nicholas Chopin's boarding-school.

To take away any bad impression that may be left by the last anecdote, I shall tell another of a more pleasing character, which, indeed, has had the honour of being made the subject of a picture. It was often told, says Karasowski, by Casimir Wodzinski, a boarder of Nicholas Chopin's. One day when the latter was out, Barcinski, the assistant master, could not manage the noisy boys. Seeing this, Frederick, who just then happened to come into the room, said to them that he would improvise a pretty story if they would sit down and be quiet. This quickly restored silence. He thereupon had the lights extinguished, took his seat at the piano, and began as follows:—

Robbers set out to plunder a house. They come nearer and nearer. Then they halt, and put up the ladders they have brought with them. But just when they are about to enter through the windows, they hear a noise within. This gives them a fright. They run away to the woods. There, amidst the stillness and darkness of the night, they lie down and before long fall fast asleep.

When Frederick had got to this part of the story he began to play softer and softer, and ever softer, till his auditors, like the robbers, were fast asleep. Noticing this he stole out of the room, called in the other inmates of the house, who came carrying lights with them, and then with a tremendous, crashing chord disturbed the sweet slumbers of the evil-doers.

Here we have an instance of "la richesse de son improvisation," by which, as Fontana tells us, Chopin, from his earliest youth, astonished all who had the good fortune to hear him. Those who think that there is no salvation outside the pale of absolute music, will no doubt be horror-stricken at the heretical tendency manifested on this occasion by an otherwise so promising musician. Nay, even the less orthodox, those who do not altogether deny the admissibility of programme-music if it conforms to certain conditions and keeps within certain limits, will shake their heads sadly. The duty of an enthusiastic biographer, it would seem, is unmistakable; he ought to justify, or, at least, excuse his hero—if nothing else availed, plead his youth and inexperience. My leaving the poor suspected heretic in the lurch under these circumstances will draw upon me the reproach of remissness; but, as I have what I consider more important business on hand, I must not be deterred from proceeding to it by the fear of censure.

The year 1825 was, in many respects, a memorable one in the life of Chopin. On May 27 and June 10 Joseph Javurek, whom I mentioned a few pages back among the friends of the Chopin family, gave two concerts for charitable purposes in the large hall of the Conservatorium. At one of these Frederick appeared again in public. A Warsaw correspondent of the "Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung" says in the course of one of his letters:—

The Academist Chopin performed the first Allegro of Moscheles' Pianoforte Concerto in F G minor, and an improvisation on the aeolopantaleon. This instrument, invented by the cabinet-maker Dlugosz, of this town, combines the aeolomelodicon [FOOTNOTE: An instrument of the organ species, invented by Professor Hoffmann, and constructed by the mechanician Brunner, of Warsaw.] with the piano- forte....Young Chopin distinguished himself in his improvisation by wealth of musical ideas, and under his hands this instrument, of which he is a thorough master, made a great impression.

Unfortunately we learn nothing of Chopin's rendering of the movement from Moscheles' Concerto. Still, this meagre notice, written by a contemporary—an ear-witness, who wrote down his impressions soon after the performance—is very precious, indeed more precious than the most complete and elaborate criticism written fifty years after the occurrence would be. I cannot help thinking that Karasowski somewhat exaggerates when he says that Chopin's pianoforte playing transported the audience into a state of enthusiasm, and that no concert had a brilliant success unless he took part in it. The biographer seems either to trust too much to the fancy-coloured recollections of his informants, or to allow himself to be carried away by his zeal for the exaltation of his hero. At any rate, the tenor of the above-quoted notice, laudatory as it is, and the absence of Chopin's name from other Warsaw letters, do not remove the doubts which such eulogistic superlatives raise in the mind of an unbiassed inquirer. But that Chopin, as a pianist and as a musician generally, had attained a proficiency far beyond his years becomes evident if we examine his compositions of that time, to which I shall presently advert. And that he had risen into notoriety and saw his talents appreciated cannot be doubted for a moment after what has been said. Were further proof needed, we should find it in the fact that he was selected to display the excellences of the aeolomelodicon when the Emperor Alexander I, during his sojourn in Warsaw in 1825, [FOOTNOTE: The Emperor Alexander opened the Diet at Warsaw on May 13, 1825, and closed it on June 13.] expressed the wish to hear this instrument. Chopin's performance is said to have pleased the august auditor, who, at all events, rewarded the young musician with a diamond ring.

A greater event than either the concert or the performance before the Emperor, in fact, THE event of the year 1825, was the publication of Chopin's Opus 1. Only he who has experienced the delicious sensation of seeing himself for the first time in print can realise what our young author felt on this occasion. Before we examine this work, we will give a passing glance at some less important early compositions of the maestro which were published posthumously.

There is first of all a Polonaise in G sharp minor, said to be of the year 1822, [FOOTNOTE: See No. 15 of the Posthumous Works in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition.] but which, on account of the savoir-faire and invention exhibited in it, I hold to be of a considerably later time. Chopin's individuality, it is true, is here still in a rudimentary state, chiefly manifested in the light-winged figuration; the thoughts and the expression, however, are natural and even graceful, bearing thus the divine impress. The echoes of Weber should be noted. Of two mazurkas, in G and B flat major, of the year 1825, the first is, especially in its last part, rather commonplace; the second is more interesting, because more suggestive of better things, which the first is only to an inconsiderable extent. In No. 2 we meet already with harmonic piquancies which charmed musicians and lovers of music so much in the later mazurkas. Critics and students will not overlook the octaves between, treble and bass in the second bar of part two in No. 1. A. Polonaise in B flat minor, superscribed "Farewell to William Kolberg," of the year 1826, has not less naturalness and grace than the Polonaise of 1822, but in addition to these qualities, it has also at least one thought (part 1) which contains something of the sweet ring of Chopinian melancholy. The trio of the Polonaise is headed by the words: "Au revoir! after an aria from 'Gazza ladra'." Two foot-notes accompany this composition in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition (No. 16 of the Posthumous Works). The first says that the Polonaise was composed "at Chopin's departure from [should be 'for'] Reinerz"; and the second, in connection with the trio, that "some days before Chopin's departure the two friends had been present at a performance of Rossini's opera." There is one other early posthumously-published work of Chopin's, whose status, however, differs from the above-mentioned ones in this, that the composer seems to have intended to publish it. The composition in question is the Variations sur un air national allemand.

Szulc says that Oskar Kolberg related that he had still in his possession these Variations on the theme of Der Schweizerbub, which Chopin composed between his twelfth and seventeenth years at the house of General Sowinski's wife in the course of "a few quarter-hours." The Variations sur un air national allemand were published after the composer's death along with his Sonata, Op. 4, by Haslinger, of Vienna, in 1851. They are, no doubt, the identical composition of which Chopin in a letter from Vienna (December 1, 1830) writes: "Haslinger received me very kindly, but nevertheless would publish neither the Sonata nor the Second Variations." The First Variations were those on La ci darem, Op. 2, the first of his compositions that was published in Germany. Without inquiring too curiously into the exact time of its production and into the exact meaning of "a few quarter-hours," also leaving it an open question whether the composer did or did not revise his first conception of the Variations before sending them to Vienna, I shall regard this unnumbered work—which, by the way, in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition is dated 1824—on account of its greater simplicity and inferior interest, as an earlier composition than the Premier Rondeau (C minor), Op. 1, dedicated to Mdme. de Linde (the wife of his father's friend and colleague, the rector Dr. Linde), a lady with whom Frederick often played duets. What strikes one at once in both of them is the almost total absence of awkwardness and the presence of a rarely-disturbed ease. They have a natural air which is alike free from affected profundity and insipid childishness. And the hand that wrote them betrays so little inexperience in the treatment of the instrument that they can hold their ground without difficulty and honourably among the better class of light drawing-room pieces. Of course, there are weak points: the introduction to the Variations with those interminable sequences of dominant and tonic chords accompanying a stereotyped run, and the want of cohesiveness in the Rondo, the different subjects of which are too loosely strung together, may be instanced. But, although these two compositions leave behind them a pleasurable impression, they can lay only a small claim to originality. Still, there are slight indications of it in the tempo di valse, the concluding portion of the Variations, and more distinct ones in the Rondo, in which it is possible to discover the embryos of forms—chromatic and serpentining progressions, &c.—which subequently develop most exuberantly. But if on the one hand we must admit that the composer's individuality is as yet weak, on the other hand we cannot accuse him of being the imitator of any one master—such a dominant influence is not perceptible.

[FOOTNOTE: Schumann, who in 1831 became acquainted with Chopin's Op. 2, and conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the composer, must have made inquiries after his Op. 1, and succeeded in getting it. For on January 1832, he wrote to Frederick Wieck: "Chopin's first work (I believe firmly that it is his tenth) is in my hands: a lady would say that it was very pretty, very piquant, almost Moschelesque. But I believe you will make Clara [Wieck's daughter, afterwards Mdme. Schumann] study it; for there is plenty of Geist in it and few difficulties. But I humbly venture to assert that there are between this composition and Op. 2 two years and twenty works"]

All this, however, is changed in another composition, the Rondeau a la Mazur, Op. 5, dedicated to the Comtesse Alexandrine de Moriolles (a daughter of the Comte de Moriolles mentioned in Chapter II), which, like the Rondo, Op. 1, was first published in Warsaw, and made its appearance in Germany some years later. I do not know the exact time of its composition, but I presume it was a year or two after that of the previously mentioned works. Schumann, who reviewed it in 1836, thought it had perhaps been written in the eighteenth year of the composer, but he found in it, some confused passages excepted, no indications of the author's youth. In this Rondeau a la Mazur the individuality of Chopin and with it his nationality begin to reveal themselves unmistakably. Who could fail to recognise him in the peculiar sweet and persuasive flows of sound, and the serpent-like winding of the melodic outline, the wide-spread chords, the chromatic progressions, the dissolving of the harmonies and the linking of their constituent parts! And, as I have said elsewhere in speaking of this work: "The harmonies are often novel, and the matter is more homogeneous and better welded into oneness."

Chopin's pianoforte lessons, as has already been stated, came to an end when he was twelve years old, and thenceforth he was left to his own resources.

The school of that time [remarks Fontana] could no longer suffice him, he aimed higher, and felt himself impelled towards an ideal which, at first vague, before long grew into greater distinctness. It was then that, in trying his strength, he acquired that touch and style, so different from those of his predecessors, and that he succeeded in creating at last that execution which since then has been the admiration of the artistic world.

The first stages of the development of his peculiar style may be traced in the compositions we have just now discussed. In the variations and first Rondo which Chopin wrote at or before the age of fifteen, the treatment of the instrument not only proves that he was already as much in his element on the pianoforte as a fish in the water, but also shows that an as yet vaguely-perceived ideal began to beckon him onward. Karasowski, informed by witnesses of the boy's studies in pianoforte playing, relates that Frederick, being struck with the fine effect of a chord in extended harmony, and unable, on account of the smallness of his hands, to strike the notes simultaneously, set about thinking how this physical obstacle could be overcome. The result of his cogitations was the invention of a contrivance which he put between his fingers and kept there even during the night, by this means endeavouring to increase the extensibility and flexibility of his hands. Who, in reading of this incident in Chopin's life, is not reminded of Schumann and his attempt to strengthen his fingers, an attempt that ended so fatally for his prospects as a virtuoso! And the question, an idle one I admit, suggests itself: Had Chopin been less fortunate than he was, and lost, like Schumann, the command of one of his hands before he had formed his pianoforte style, would he, as a composer, have risen to a higher position than we know him to have attained, or would he have achieved less than he actually did? From the place and wording of Karasowski's account it would appear that this experiment of Chopin's took place at or near the age of ten. Of course it does not matter much whether we know or do not know the year or day of the adoption of the practice, what is really interesting is the fact itself. I may, however, remark that Chopin's love of wide-spread chords and skips, if marked at all, is not strongly marked in the Variations on the German air and the first Rondo. Let the curious examine with regard to this matter the Tempo di Valse of the former work, and bars 38-43 of the Piu lento of the latter. In the Rondeau a la Mazur, the next work in chronological order, this peculiarity begins to show itself distinctly, and it continues to grow in the works that follow. It is not my intention to weary the reader with microscopical criticism, but I thought the first manifestations of Chopin's individuality ought not to be passed over in silence. As to his style, it will be more fully discussed in a subsequent chapter, where also the seeds from which it sprang will be pointed out.



CHAPTER IV.



FREDERICK WORKS TOO HARD.—PASSES PART OF HIS HOLIDAYS (1826) IN REINERZ.—STAYS ALSO AT STRZYZEWO, AND PAYS A VISIT TO PRINCE RADZIWILL.—HE TERMINATES HIS STUDIES AT THE LYCEUM (1827). ADOPTION OF MUSIC AS HIS PROFESSION.—EXCURSIONS.—FOLK-MUSIC AND THE POLISH PEASANTRY.—SOME MORE COMPOSITIONS.—PROJECTED TRAVELS FOR HIS IMPROVEMENT.—HIS OUTWARD APPEARANCE AND STATE OF HEALTH.



THE art which had attracted the child took every day a stronger hold of the youth. Frederick was not always in that sportive humour in which we have seen him repeatedly. At times he would wander about silent and solitary, wrapped in his musical meditations. He would sit up late, busy with his beloved music, and often, after lying down, rise from his bed in the middle of the night in order, to strike a few chords or try a short phrase—to the horror of the servants, whose first thought was of ghosts, the second that their dear young master was not quite right in his mind. Indeed, what with his school-work and his musical studies, our young friend exerted himself more than was good for him. When, therefore, in the holidays of 1826 his youngest sister, Emilia, was ordered by the physicians to go to Reinerz, a watering-place in Prussian Silesia, the parents thought it advisable that the too diligent Frederick should accompany her, and drink whey for the benefit of his health. The travelling party consisted of the mother, two sisters, and himself. A letter which he wrote on August 28, 1826, to his friend William Kolberg, furnishes some information about his doings there. It contains, as letters from watering-places usually do, criticisms of the society and accounts of promenadings, excursions, regular meals, and early hours in going to bed and in rising. As the greater part of the contents can be of no interest to us, I shall confine myself to picking up what seems to me worth preserving. He had been drinking whey and the waters for a fortnight and found he was getting somewhat stouter and at the same time lazy. People said he began to look better. He enjoyed the sight of the valleys from the hills which surround Reinerz, but the climbing fatigued him, and he had sometimes to drag himself down on all-fours. One mountain, the rocky Heuscheuer, he and other delicate persons were forbidden to ascend, as the doctor was afraid that the sharp air at the top would do his patients harm. Of course, Frederick tried to make fun of everything and everyone—for instance, of the wretched wind-band, which consisted of about a dozen "caricatures," among whom a lean bassoon-player with a snuffy hook-nose was the most notable. To the manners of the country, which in some respects seem to have displeased him, he got gradually accustomed.

At first I was astonished that in Silesia the women work generally more than the men, but as I am doing nothing myself just now I have no difficulty in falling in with this arrangement.

During his stay at Reinerz he gave also a concert on behalf of two orphans who had come with their sick mother to this watering-place, and at her death were left so poor as to be unable even to pay the funeral expenses and to return home with the servant who took care of them.

From Reinerz Frederick went to Strzyzewo, the property of Madame Wiesiolowska, his godmother, and sister of his godfather, Count Frederick Skarbek. While he was spending here the rest of his holidays, he took advantage of an invitation he had received from Prince Radziwill (governor of the grand duchy of Posen, and, through his wife, a daughter of Prince Ferdinand, related to the royal family of Prussia) to visit him at his country-seat Antonin, which was not very far from Strzyzewo. The Prince, who had many relations in Poland, and paid frequent visits to that country, must on these occasions have heard of and met with the musical prodigy that was the pet of the aristocracy. Moreover, it is on record that he was present at the concert at Warsaw in 1825 at which Frederick played. We have already considered and disposed of the question whether the Prince, as has been averred by Liszt, paid for young Chopin's education. As a dilettante Prince Radziwill occupied a no less exalted position in art and science than as a citizen and functionary in the body politic. To confine ourselves to music, he was not only a good singer and violoncellist, but also a composer; and in composition he did not confine himself to songs, duets, part-songs, and the like, but undertook the ambitious and arduous task of writing music to the first part of Goethe's Faust. By desire of the Court the Berlin Singakademie used to bring this work to a hearing once every year, and they gave a performance of it even as late as 1879. An enthusiastic critic once pronounced it to be among modern works one of those that evince most genius. The vox populi seems to have repealed this judgment, or rather never to have taken cognisance of the case, for outside Berlin the work has not often been heard. Dr. Langhans wrote to me after the Berlin performance in 1879:—

I heard yesterday Radziwill's Faust for the first time, and, I may add, with much satisfaction; for the old-fashioned things to be found in it (for instance, the utilisation of Mozart's C minor Quartet fugue as overture, the strictly polyphonous treatment of the choruses, &c.) are abundantly compensated for by numerous traits of genius, and by the thorough knowledge and the earnest intention with which the work is conceived and executed. He dares incredible things in the way of combining speech and song. That this combination is an inartistic one, on that point we are no doubt at one, but what he has effected by this means is nevertheless in the highest degree remarkable....

By-and-by Chopin will pay the Prince a longer visit, and then we shall learn what he thought of Faust, and how he enjoyed himself at this nobleman's house.

Chopin's studies at the Lyceum terminated in the year 1827. Through his final examination, however, he did not pass so brilliantly as through his previous ones; this time he carried off no prize. The cause of this falling-off is not far to seek; indeed, has already been hinted at. Frederick's inclination and his successes as a pianist and composer, and the persuasions of Elsner and other musical friends, could not but lessen and at last altogether dispel any doubts and misgivings the parents may at first have harboured. And whilst in consequence of this change of attitude they became less exacting with their son in the matter of school-work, the latter, feeling the slackening of the reins, would more and more follow his natural bent. The final examination was to him, no doubt, a kind of manumission which freed him from the last remnant of an oppressive bondage. Henceforth, then, Chopin could, unhindered by disagreeable tasks or other obstacles, devote his whole time and strength to the cultivation of his chosen art. First, however, he spent now, as in the preceding year, some weeks with his friends in Strzyzewo, and afterwards travelled to Danzig, where he visited Superintendent von Linde, a brother of the rector of the Warsaw Lyceum.

Chopin was fond of listening to the singing and fiddling of the country people; and everyone acquainted with the national music of Poland as well as with the composer's works knows that he is indebted to it for some of the most piquant rhythmic, melodic, and even harmonic peculiarities of his style. These longer stays in the country would offer him better opportunities for the enjoyment and study of this land of music than the short excursions which he occasionally made with his father into the neighbourhood of Warsaw. His wonder always was who could have composed the quaint and beautiful strains of those mazurkas, polonaises, and krakowiaks, and who had taught these simple men and women to play and sing so truly in tune. The conditions then existing in Poland were very favourable to the study of folk-lore of any kind. Art-music had not yet corrupted folk-music; indeed, it could hardly be said that civilisation had affected the lower strata of society at all. Notwithstanding the emancipation of the peasants in 1807, and the confirmation of this law in 1815—a law which seems to have remained for a long time and in a great measure a dead letter—the writer of an anonymous book, published at Boston in 1834, found that the freedom of the wretched serfs in Russian Poland was much the same as that of their cattle, they being brought up with as little of human cultivation; nay, that the Polish peasant, poor in every part of the country, was of all the living creatures he had met with in this world or seen described in books, the most wretched. From another publication we learn that the improvements in public instruction, however much it may have benefited the upper classes, did not affect the lowest ones: the parish schools were insufficient, and the village schools not numerous enough. But the peasants, although steeped in superstition and ignorance, and too much addicted to brandy-drinking with its consequences—quarrelsomeness and revengefulness—had not altogether lost the happier features of their original character—hospitality, patriotism, good-naturedness, and, above all, cheerfulness and love of song and dance. It has been said that a simple Slavonic peasant can be enticed by his national songs from one end of the world to the other. The delight which the Slavonic nations take in dancing seems to be equally great. No other nation, it has been asserted, can compare with them in ardent devotion to this amusement. Moreover, it is noteworthy that song and dance were in Poland—as they were of course originally everywhere—intimately united. Heine gives a pretty description of the character of the Polish peasant:—

It cannot be denied [he writes] that the Polish peasant has often more head and heart than the German peasant in some districts. Not infrequently did I find in the meanest Pole that original wit (not Gemuthswitz, humour) which on every occasion bubbles forth with wonderful iridescence, and that dreamy sentimental trait, that brilliant flashing of an Ossianic feeling for nature whose sudden outbreaks on passionate occasions are as involuntary as the rising of the blood into the face.

The student of human nature and its reflex in art will not call these remarks a digression; at least, not one deserving of censure.

We may suppose that Chopin, after his return to Warsaw and during the following winter, and the spring and summer of 1828, continued his studies with undiminished and, had this been possible, with redoubled ardour. Some of his compositions that came into existence at this time were published after his death by his friend Julius Fontana, who was a daily visitor at his parents' house. We have a Polonaise (D minor) and a Nocturne (E minor) of 1827, and another Polonaise (B flat) and the Rondo for two pianos of 1828. The Sonata, Op. 4, and La ci darem la mano, varie for pianoforte, with orchestral accompaniments, belong also to this time. The Trio (Op. 8), although not finished till 1829, was begun and considerably advanced in 1828. Several of the above compositions are referred to in a letter written by him on September 9, 1828, to one of his most intimate friends, Titus Woyciechowski. The Rondo in C had originally a different form and was recast by him for two pianos at Strzyzewo, where he passed the whole summer of 1828. He tried it with Ernemann, a musician living in Warsaw, at the warehouse of the pianoforte-manufacturer Buchholtz, and was pretty well pleased with his work.

We intend to play it some day at the Ressource. As to my new compositions, I have nothing to show except the as yet unfinished Trio (G minor), which I began after your departure. The first Allegro I have already tried with accompaniment. It appears to me that this trio will have the same fate as my sonata and the variations. Both works are now in Vienna; the first I have, as a pupil of Elsner's, dedicated to him, and on the second I have placed (perhaps too boldly) your name. I followed in this the impulse of my heart and you will not take it unkindly.

The opportunities which Warsaw offered being considered insufficient for the completion of his artistic education, ways and means were discussed as to how his wants could be best provided for. The upshot of the discussions was the project of excursions to Berlin and Vienna. As, however, this plan was not realised till the autumn of 1828, and no noteworthy incidents or interesting particulars concerning the intervening period of his life have become known, I shall utilise this break in the narrative by trying my hand at a slight sketch of that terra incognita, the history of music in Poland, more particularly the history of the musical life in Warsaw, shortly before and in Chopin's time. I am induced to undertake this task by the consideration that a knowledge of the means of culture within the reach of Chopin during his residence in the Polish capital is indispensable if we wish to form a clear and complete idea of the artist's development, and that such a knowledge will at the same time help us to understand better the contents of some of the subsequent portions of this work. Before, however, I begin a new chapter and with it the above-mentioned sketch, I should like to advert to a few other matters.

The reader may perhaps already have asked the question—What was Chopin like in his outward appearance? As I have seen a daguerreotype from a picture painted when he was seventeen, I can give some sort of answer to this question. Chopin's face was clearly and finely cut, especially the nose with its wide nostrils; the forehead was high, the eyebrows delicate, the lips thin, and the lower one somewhat protruding. For those who know A. Bovy's medallion I may add that the early portrait is very like it; only, in the latter, the line formed by the lower jawbone that runs from the chin towards the ear is more rounded, and the whole has a more youthful appearance. As to the expression, it is not only meditative but even melancholy. This last point leads me naturally to another question. The delicate build of Chopin's body, his early death preceded by many years of ill-health, and the character of his music, have led people into the belief that from childhood he was always sickly in body, and for the most part also melancholy in disposition. But as the poverty and melancholy, so also disappears on closer investigation the sickliness of the child and youth. To jump, however, from this to the other extreme, and assert that he enjoyed vigorous health, would be as great a mistake. Karasowski, in his eagerness to controvert Liszt, although not going quite this length, nevertheless overshoots the mark. Besides it is a misrepresentation of Liszt not to say that the passage excerpted from his book, and condemned as not being in accordance with the facts of the case, is a quotation from G. Sand's novel Lucrezia Floriani (of which more will be said by-and-by), in which the authoress is supposed, although this was denied by her, to have portrayed Chopin. Liszt is a poet, not a chronicler; he must be read as such, and not be taken au pied de la lettre. However, even Karasowski, in whom one notices a perhaps unconscious anxiety to keep out of sight anything which might throw doubt on the health and strength of his hero, is obliged to admit that Chopin was "delicate," although he hastens to add, "but nevertheless healthy and pretty strong." It seems to me that Karasowski makes too much of the statement of a friend of Chopin's—namely, that the latter was, up to manhood, only once ill, and then with nothing worse than a cold. Indeed, in Karasowski's narrative there are not wanting indications that the health of Chopin cannot have been very vigorous; nor his strength have amounted to much; for in one place we read that the youth was no friend of long excursions on foot, and preferred to lie down and dream under beautiful trees; in another place, that his parents sent him to Reinerz and some years afterwards to Vienna, because they thought his studies had affected his health, and that rest and change of air and scene would restore his strength. Further, we are told that his mother and sisters never tired of recommending him to wrap up carefully in cold and wet weather, and that, like a good son and brother, he followed their advice. Lastly, he objected to smoking. Some of the items of this evidence are very trivial, but taken collectively they have considerable force. Of greater significance are the following additional items. Chopin's sister Emilia was carried off at the age of fourteen by pulmonary disease, and his father, as a physician informed me, died of a heart and chest complaint. Stephen Heller, who saw Chopin in 1830 in Warsaw, told me that the latter was then in delicate health, thin and with sunken cheeks, and that the people of Warsaw said that he could not live long, but would, like so many geniuses, die young. The real state of the matter seems to me to have been this. Although Chopin in his youth was at no time troubled with any serious illness, he enjoyed but fragile health, and if his frame did not alreadv contain the seeds of the disease to which he later fell a prey, it was a favourable soil for their reception. How easily was an organisation so delicately framed over-excited and disarranged! Indeed, being vivacious, active, and hard-working, as he was, he lived on his capital. The fire of youth overcame much, not, however, without a dangerous waste of strength, the lamentable results of which we shall see before we have gone much farther. This statement of the case we find, I think, confirmed by Chopin's correspondence—the letter written at Reinerz is in this respect noteworthy.



CHAPTER V.



MUSIC AND MUSICIANS IN POLAND BEFORE AND IN CHOPIN'S TIME.



THE golden age of Polish music, which coincides with that of Polish literature, is the sixteenth century, the century of the Sigismonds. The most remarkable musician of that time, and probably the greatest that Poland produced previous to the present century, was Nicolas Gomolka, who studied music in Italy, perhaps under Palestrina, in whose style he wrote. Born in or about the beginning of the second half of the sixteenth century, he died on March 5, 1609. During the reigns of the kings of the house of Saxony (1697-1763) instrumental music is said to have made much progress. Be this as it may, there was no lack of opportunities to study good examples. Augustus the Strong (I. of Saxony and II of Poland) established a special Polish band, called, in contradistinction to the Grosse Kammermusik (Great Chamber-band) in Dresden, Kleine Kammermusik (Little Chamber-band), whose business it was to be in attendance when his majesty went to Poland. These visits took place usually once a year, and lasted from, August to December, but sometimes were more frequent, and shorter or longer, just as occasion might call for. Among the members of the Polish band—which consisted of a leader (Premier), four violins, one oboe, two French horns, three bassoons, and one double bass—we meet with such well-known men as Johann Joachim Quanz and Franz Benda. Their conductor was Alberto Ristori, who at the same time held the post of composer to the Italian actors, a company that, besides plays, performed also little operas, serenades, intermezzi, &c. The usual retinue of the King on his visits to Poland included also a part of the French ballet and comedy. These travels of the artistic forces must have been rich in tragic, comic, and tragi-comic incidents, and would furnish splendid material for the pen of a novelist. But such a journey from the Saxon capital to Warsaw, which took about eight days, and cost on an average from 3,000 to 3,500 thalers (450 to 525 pounds), was a mere nothing compared with the migration of a Parisian operatic company in May, 1700. The ninety-three members of which it was composed set out in carriages and drove by Strasburg to Ulm, there they embarked and sailed to Cracow, whence the journey was continued on rafts. [FOOTNOTE: M. Furstenau, Zur Geschichte der Music und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden.] So much for artistic tours at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Frederick Augustus (II of Saxony and III of Poland, 1733-1763) dissolved the Polish band, and organised a similar body which was destined solely for Poland, and was to be resident there. It consisted in 1753 of an organist, two singers, twenty instrumentalists (almost all Germans), and a band-servant, their salary amounting to 5,383 thalers, 10 groschen (a little more than 805 pounds). Notwithstanding this new arrangement, the great Dresden band sometimes accompanied the King to Poland, and when it did not, some of its members at least had to be in attendance for the performance of the solos at the chamber concerts and in the operas. Also such singers, male and female, as were required for the operas proposed for representation had to take to the road. Hasse and his wife Faustina came several times to Poland. That the constellation of the Dresden musical establishment, in its vocal as well as instrumental department, was one of the most brilliant imaginable is sufficiently proved by a glance at the names which we meet with in 1719: Lotti, Heinichen, Veracini, Volumier, Senesino, Tesi, Santa Stella Lotti, Durastanti, &c. Rousseau, writing in 1754, calls the Dresden orchestra the first in Europe. And Burney says in 1772 that the instrumental performers had been some time previously of the first class. No wonder, then, if the visits of such artists improved the instrumental music of Poland.

From Sowinski's Les Musiciens Polonais we learn that on great occasions the King's band was reinforced by those of Prince Czartoryski and Count Wielhorski, thus forming a body of 100 executants. This shows that outside the King's band good musicians were to be found in Poland. Indeed, to keep in their service private bands of native and foreign singers and players was an ancient custom among the Polish magnates; it obtained for a long time, and had not yet died out at the beginning of this century. From this circumstance, however, we must not too rashly conclude that these wealthy noblemen were all animated by artistic enthusiasm. Ostentatiousness had, I am afraid, more to do with it than love of art for art's sake. Music was simply one of the indispensable departments of their establishments, in the splendour and vastness of which they tried to outdo each other and vie with sovereign rulers. The promiscuous enumeration of musicians, cooks, footmen, &c., in the lady's description of a nobleman's court which I referred to in the proem, is in this respect very characteristic. Towards the middle of the last century Prince Sanguszko, who lived at Dubno, in Volhynia, had in his service no less than two bands, to which was sometimes joined a third belonging to Prince Lubomirski. But, it will be asked, what music did they play? An author of Memoirs of the reign of Augustus III tells us that, according to the Polish fashion, they had during meal-times to play national airs, polonaises, mazurkas, &c., arranged for wind-instruments, with or without violins. For special occasions the Prince got a new kind of music, then much in favour—viz., a band of mountaineers playing on flutes and drums. And while the guests were sitting at the banquet, horns, trumpets, and fifes sounded fanfares. Besides the ordinary and extraordinary bands, this exalted personage had among his musical retainers a drummer who performed solos on his instrument. One is glad to learn that when the Prince was alone or had little company, he took delight in listening to trios for two violins and bass, it being then the fashion to play such ensemble pieces. Count Ilinski, the father of the composer John Stanislas Ilinski, engaged for his private theatre two companies, one from Germany and one from Italy. The persons employed in the musical department of his household numbered 124. The principal band, conducted by Dobrzyrnski pere, a good violinist and conductor, consisted of four violins, one viola, one violoncello, one double bass, one flute, one oboe, one clarinet, and one bassoon. Villagers were trained by these players to assist them. Then there was yet another band, one of wind instruments, under the direction of Karelli, a pupil of the Russian composer Bartnianski [Footnote: The Russian Palestrina, whose name is oftener met with in the forms of Bortnianski and Bortniansky]. The chorus was composed of twenty four voices, picked from the young people on Count Ilinski's estates. However questionable the taste of many of these noble art patrons may have been, there were not wanting some who cultivated music with a purer spirit. Some of the best bands were those of the Princes D. Radziwill, Adam Czartoryski, F. Sulkowski, Michael Lubomirski, Counts Ilinski, Oginski, and Wielhorski. Our inquiry into the cultivation of music at the courts of the Polish magnates has carried us beyond the point we had reached in our historical survey. Let us now retrace our steps.

The progress of music above spoken of was arrested by the anarchy and the civil and other wars that began to rage in Poland with such fury in the middle of the last century. King Stanislas Poniatowski (1764-1795) is credited with having exercised great influence on the music of Poland; at any rate, he patronised the arts and sciences right royally. The Italian opera at Warsaw cannot have been of mean standing, seeing that artists such as the composers Paisiello and Cimarosa, and the great violinist, composer, and conductor Pugnani, with his pupil Viotti (the latter playing second violin in the orchestra), were members of the company. And the King's band of foreign and native players has been called one of the best in Europe. Still, all this was but the hothouse bloom of exotics. To bring about a natural harvest of home produce something else was wanted than royal patronage, and this something sprang from the series of disasters that befell the nation in the latter half of the last century, and by shaking it to its very heart's core stirred up its nobler self. As in literature, so in music, the national element came now more and more into action and prominence.

Up to 1778 there had been heard in Poland only Italian and French operas; in this year, for the first time, a Polish opera was put on the stage. It is true the beginning was very modest. The early attempts contained few ensemble pieces, no choruses, and no complex finales. But a new art does not rise from the mind of a nation as Minerva is said to have risen from the head of Jupiter. Nay, even the fact that the first three composers of Polish operas (Kamienski, Weynert, and Kajetani) were not Poles, but foreigners endeavouring to write in the Polish style, does not destroy the significance of the movement. The following statistics will, no doubt, take the reader by surprise:—From the foundation of the national Polish opera in 1778 till April 20, 1859, 5,917 performances of 285 different operas with Polish words took place in Poland. Of these 92 were national Polish operas, the remaining 193 by Italian, French, and German composers; 1,075 representations being given of the former, 4,842 of the latter. The libretti of 41 of the 92 Polish operas were originals, the other 51 were translations. And, lastly, the majority of the 16 musicians who composed the 92 Polish operas were not native Poles, but Czechs, Hungarians, and Germans [FOOTNOTE: Ladislas von Trocki, Die Entwickelung der Oper in Polen. (Leipzig, 1867.)]

A step hardly less important than the foundation of a national opera was the formation, in 1805, of a Musical Society, which had for its object the improvement as well as the amusement of its members. The idea, which originated in the head of one of the Prussian officials then in Warsaw, finding approval, and the pecuniary supplies flowing in abundantly, the Oginski Palace was rented and fitted up, two masters were engaged for the teaching of solo and choral singing, and a number of successful concerts were given. The chief promoters seem to have been Count Krasinski and the two Prussian officials Mosqua and E. Th. A. Hoffmann. In the last named the reader will recognise the famous author of fantastic tales and of no less fantastic musical criticisms, the conductor and composer of operas and other works, &c. According to his biographer, J. E. Hitzig, Hoffmann did not take much interest in the proceedings of the Musical Ressource (that was the name of the society) till it bought the Mniszech Palace, a large building, which, having been damaged by fire, had to undergo extensive repairs. Then, indeed, he set to work with a will, planned the arrangement and fitting-up of the rooms, designed and partly painted the decorations—not without freely indulging his disposition for caricature—and when all was ready, on August 3, 1806 (the King of Prussia's birthday), conducted the first concert in the splendid new hall. The activity of the society was great, and must have been beneficial; for we read that they had every Sunday performances of quartets and other kinds of chamber music, that ladies frequently came forward with pianoforte sonatas, and that when the celebrated violinist Moser, of Berlin, visited Warsaw, he made them acquainted with the finest quartets of Mozart and Haydn. Still, I should not have dwelt so long on the doings of the Musical Ressource were it not that it was the germ of, or at least gave the impulse to, even more influential associations and institutions that were subsequently founded with a view to the wider diffusion and better cultivation of the musical art in Poland. After the battle of Jena the French were not long in making their appearance in Warsaw, whereby an end was put to Prussia's rule there, and her officials were sent about, or rather sent out of, their business. Thus the Musical Ressource lost many of its members, Hoffmann and Mosqua among others. Still, it survived, and was reconstructed with more national elements. In Frederick Augustus of Saxony's reign it is said to have been transformed into a school of singing.

The year 1815 brought into existence two musical institutions that deserve to be noticed—society for the cultivation of church music, which met at the College of the Pianists, and had at its head Count Zabiello as president and Elsner as conductor; and an association, organised by the last-named musician, and presided over by the Princess Sophia Zamoyska, which aimed at the advancement of the musical art in Poland, and provided for the education of music teachers for schools, organists for churches, and singers for the stage. Although I try to do my best with the unsatisfactory and often contradictory newspaper reports and dictionary articles from which I have to draw my data, I cannot vouch for the literal correctness of my notes. In making use of Sowinski's work I am constantly reminded of Voltaire's definition of dictionaries: "Immenses archives de mensonges et d'un peu de verite." Happy he who need not consult them! In 1816 Elsner was entrusted by the minister Staszyc with the direction of a school of dramatic singing and recitation; and in 1821, to crown all previous efforts, a conservatorium was opened, the programme of which might almost have satisfied a Berlioz. The department of instrumental music not only comprised sections for the usual keyed, stringed, and wind instruments, but also one for instruments of percussion. Solo and choral singing were to be taught with special regard to dramatic expression. Besides these and the theoretical branches of music, the curriculum included dancing, Polish literature, French, and Italian. After reading the programme it is superfluous to be informed that the institution was chiefly intended for the training of dramatic artists. Elsner, who was appointed director, selected the teaching staff, with one exception, however, that of the first singing-master, for which post the Government engaged the composer Carlo Evasio Soliva, a pupil of Asioli and Frederici.

The musical taste and culture prevailing in Poland about 1819 is pretty accurately described by a German resident at Cracow. So far as music was concerned Poland had hitherto been ignored by the rest of Europe, and indeed could lay no claim to universal notice in this respect. But the improved culture and greater insight which some had acquired in foreign lands were good seeds that began to bear fruit. As yet, however, the greater part of the public took little or no interest in the better class of music, and was easily pleased and satisfied with polonaises, mazurkas, and other trivial things. In fact, the music in Cracow, notwithstanding the many professional musicians and amateurs living there, was decidedly bad, and not comparable to the music in many a small German town. In Warsaw, where the resources were more plentiful, the state of music was of course also more prosperous. Still, as late as 1815 we meet with the complaint that what was chiefly aimed at in concerts was the display of virtuosity, and that grand, serious works were neglected, and complete symphonies rarely performed. To remedy this evil, therefore, 150 amateurs combined and organised in 1818 a concert institution. Their concerts took place once a week, and at every meeting a new and entire symphony, an overture, a concerto, an aria, and a finale, were performed. The names of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Cherubini, Spohr, Mehul, Romberg, &c., were to be found on their programmes. Strange to say, there were no less than seven conductors: Lessel, Lentz, Wurfel, Haase, Javurek, Stolpe, and Peschke, all good musicians. The orchestra consisted in part of amateurs, who were most numerous among the violins, tenors, and violoncellos. The solo department seems to have been well stocked. To confine ourselves to one instrument, they could pride themselves on having four excellent lady pianists, one of whom distinguished herself particularly by the wonderful dexterity with which she played the most difficult compositions of Beethoven, Field, Ries, and Dussek. Another good sign of the improving taste was a series of twenty-four matinees given on Sundays from twelve to two during the winter of 1818-1819 by Carl Arnold, and much patronised by the highest nobility. The concert-giver, a clever pianist and composer, who enjoyed in his day a good reputation in Germany, Russia, and Poland, produced at every matinee a new pianoforte concerto by one of the best composers—sometimes one of his own—and was assisted by the quartet party of Bielawski, a good violinist, leader in the orchestra, and professor at the Conservatorium. Although Arnold's stay was not of long duration, his departure did not leave the town without good pianists. Indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that Warsaw was badly off with regard to musicians. This will be evident to the reader as soon as I have named some of those living there in the time of Chopin. Wenzel W. Wurfel, one of the professors at the Conservatorium, who stayed in Warsaw from 1815 to 1824, and afterwards went to Vienna, where he became conductor at the Karnthnerthor Theater, was an esteemed pianist and composer, and frequently gave concerts, at one of which he played Field's Concerto in C.

[FOOTNOTE: Wenzel Wilhelm Wurfel, in most dictionaries called Wilhelm Wurfel (exceptions are: E. Bernsdorf's "Neues Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst", and Dr. Hugo Riemann's "Opern-Handbuch"). A Warsaw correspondent of a German musical paper called him Waclaw Wurfel. In Whistling's "Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur" his Christian names are only indicated by initials—W. W.]

If we scan the list of professors at the Conservatorium we find other musicians whose reputation was not confined to the narrow limits of Warsaw or even Poland. There was, for instance, the pianist and composer Franz Lessel, the favourite pupil of Haydn; and, further, that interesting character Heinrich Gerhard Lentz, who, born and educated at Cologne, went in 1784 to Paris, played with success his first concerto at the Concert Spirituel, published some of his compositions and taught in the best families, arrived in London in 1791, lived in friendly intercourse with Clementi and Haydn, and had compositions of his performed at Solomon's concerts, returned to Germany in 1795, stayed with Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia till Dussek supplanted him, and so, wandering about, reached Warsaw, where he gave lessons, founded a pianoforte manufactory, became professor of the organ at the Conservatorium, married twice, and died in 1839. The only other professor at the Conservatorium about whom I shall say a few words is C. E. Soliva, whose name and masters I have already mentioned. Of his works the opera "La testa di bronzo" is the best known. I should have said "was," for nobody now knows anything of his. That loud, shallow talker Count Stendhal, or, to give him his real name, Marie Henry Beyle, heard it at Milan in 1816, when it was first produced. He had at first some difficulty in deciding whether Soliva showed himself in that opera a plagiarist of Mozart or a genius. Finally he came to the conclusion that—

there is in it a warmth, a dramatic life, and a strength in all its effects, which are decidedly not in the style of Mozart. But Soliva, who is a young man and full of the warmest admiration for Mozart, has imbibed certain tints of his colouring. The rest is too outrageously ridiculous to be quoted. Whatever Beyle's purely literary merits and his achievements in fiction may be, I quite agree with Berlioz, who remarks, a propos of this gentleman's Vie de Rossini, that he writes "les plus irritantes stupidites sur la musique, dont il croyait avoir le secret." To which cutting dictum may be added a no less cutting one of M. Lavoix fils, who, although calling Beyle an "ecrivain d'esprit," applies to him the appellation of "fanfaron d'ignorance en musique." I would go a step farther than either of these writers. Beyle is an ignorant braggart, not only in music, but in art generally, and such esprit as his art criticisms exhibit would be even more common than it unfortunately now is, if he were oftener equalled in conceit and arrogance. The pillorying of a humbug is so laudable an object that the reader will excuse the digression, which, moreover, may show what miserable instruments a poor biographer has sometimes to make use of. Another informant, unknown to fame, but apparently more trustworthy, furnishes us with an account of Soliva in Warsaw. The writer in question disapproves of the Italian master's drill-method in teaching singing, and says that as a composer his power of invention was inferior to his power of construction; and, further, that he was acquainted with the scores of the best musicians of all times, and an expert in accompanying on the pianoforte. As Elsner, Zywny, and the pianist and composer Javurek have already been introduced to the reader, I shall advert only to one other of the older Warsaw musicians—namely, Charles Kurpinski, the most talented and influential native composer then living in Poland. To him and Elsner is chiefly due the progress which Polish music made in the first thirty years of this century. Kurpinski came to Warsaw in 1810, was appointed second conductor at the National Opera-house, afterwards rose to the position of first conductor, was nominated maitre de chapelle de la cour de Varsovie, was made a Knight of the St. Stanislas Order, &c. He is said to have learnt composition by diligently studying Mozart's scores, and in 1811 began to supply the theatre with dramatic works. Besides masses, symphonies, &c., he composed twenty-four operas, and published also some theoretical works and a sketch of the history of the Polish opera. Kurpinski was by nature endowed with fine musical qualities, uniting sensibility and energy with easy productivity. Chopin did homage to his distinguished countryman in introducing into his Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais, Op. 13, a theme of Kurpinski's. Two younger men, both born in 1800, must yet be mentioned to compete the picture. One of them, Moritz Ernemann, a pupil of Mendelssohn's pianoforte-master, L. Berger, played with success in Poland and Germany, and has been described by contemporaries as a finished and expressive, but not brilliant, pianist. His pleasing compositions are of an instructive and mildly-entertaining character. The other of the two was Joseph Christoph Kessler, a musician of very different mettle. After studying philosophy in Vienna, and composing at the house of Count Potocki in Lemberg his celebrated Etudes, Op. 20 (published at Vienna, reprinted at Paris, recommended by Kalkbrenner in his Methode, quoted by Fetis and Moscheles in their Methode des Methodes, and played in part by Liszt at his concerts), he tried in 1829 his luck in Warsaw. Schumann thought (in 1835) that Kessler had the stuff in him to do something great, and always looked forward with expectation to what he would yet accomplish. Kessler's studies might be dry, but he was assuredly a "Mann von Geist und sogar poetischem Geist." He dedicated his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 31, to Chopin, and Chopin his twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28, to him—that is to say, the German edition.

By this time the reader must have found out that Warsaw was not such a musical desert as he may at first have imagined. Perfect renderings of great orchestral works, it is true, seem to have been as yet unattainable, and the performances of operas failed likewise to satisfy a pure and trained taste. Nay, in 1822 it was even said that the opera was getting worse. But when the fruits of the Conservatorium had had time to ripen and could be gathered in, things would assume a more promising aspect. Church music, which like other things had much deteriorated, received a share of the attention which in this century was given to the art. The best singing was in the Piarist and University churches. In the former the bulk of the performers consisted of amateurs, who, however, were assisted by members of the opera. They sang Haydn's masses best and oftenest. In the other church the executants were students and professors, Elsner being the conductor. Besides these choirs there existed a number of musical associations in connection with different churches in Warsaw. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that great progress was made in the first thirty years of this century, and had it not been for the unfortunate insurrection of 1830, Poland would have succeeded in producing a national art and taking up an honourable position among the great musical powers of Europe, whereas now it can boast only of individual artists of more or less skill and originality. The musical events to which the death of the Emperor Alexander I. gave occasion in 1826, show to some extent the musical capabilities of Warsaw. On one day a Requiem by Kozlowski (a Polish composer, then living in St. Petersburg; b. 1757, d. 1831), with interpolations of pieces by other composers, was performed in the Cathedral by two hundred singers and players under Soliva. On another day Mozart's Requiem, with additional accompaniments by Kurpinski (piccolos, flutes, oboes, clarinets, and horns to the Dies irae and Sanctus; harps to the Hostias and Benedictus; and a military brass-band to the closing chorus!!!), was given in the same place by two hundred and fifty executants under the last-mentioned musician. And in the Lutheran church took place a performance of Elsner's Requiem for male voices, violoncellos, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, and drums.