The words "I intend to write a Polonaise with orchestra," contained in a letter dated September 18, 1830, give rise to the interesting question: "Did Chopin realise his intention, and has the work come down to us?" I think both questions can be answered in the affirmative. At any rate, I hold that internal evidence seems to indicate that Op. 22, the "Grande Polonaise brillante precedee d'un Andante spianato avec orchestre," which was published in the summer of 1836, is the work in question. Whether the "Andante" was composed at the same time, and what, if any, alterations were subsequently made in the Polonaise, I do not venture to decide. But the Polonaise has so much of Chopin's early showy virtuosic style and so little of his later noble emotional power that my conjecture seems reasonable. Moreover, the fact that the orchestra is employed speaks in favour of my theory, for after the works already discussed in the tenth chapter, and the concertos with which we shall concern ourselves presently, Chopin did not in any other composition (i.e., after 1830) write for the orchestra. His experiences in Warsaw, Vienna, and Paris convinced him, no doubt, that he was not made to contend with masses, either as an executant or as a composer. Query: Is the Polonaise, of which Chopin says in July, 1831, that he has to leave it to Wurfel, Op. 22 or another work?

Two other projects of Chopin, however, seem to have remained unrealised—a Concerto for two pianos which he intended to play in public at Vienna with his countryman Nidecki (letter of December 21, 1830), and Variations for piano and violin on a theme of Beethoven's, to be written conjointly by himself and Slavik (letters of December 21 and 25, 1830). Fragments of the former of these projected works may, however, have been used in the "Allegro de Concert," Op. 46, published in 1842.

In the letter of December 21, 1830, there is also an allusion to a waltz and mazurkas just finished, but whether they are to be found among the master's printed compositions is more than I can tell.

The three "Ecossaises" of the year 1830, which Fontana published as Op. 72, No. 3, are the least individual of Chopin's compositions, and almost the only dances of his which may be described as dance music pure and simple—rhythm and melody without poetry, matter with a minimum of soul.

The posthumous Mazurka (D major) of 1829-30 is unimportant. It contains nothing notable, except perhaps the descending chromatic successions of chords of the sixth. In fact, we can rejoice in its preservation only because a comparison with a remodelling of 1832 allows us to trace a step in Chopin's development.

And now we come to the concertos, the history of which, as far as it is traceable in the composer's letters, I will here place before the reader. If I repeat in this chapter passages already quoted in previous chapters, it is for the sake of completeness and convenience.

October 3, 1829.—I have—perhaps to my misfortune—already found my ideal, whom I worship faithfully and sincerely. Six months have elapsed and I have not yet exchanged a syllable with her of whom I dream every night. Whilst my thoughts were with her I composed the Adagio of my Concerto.

The Adagio here mentioned is that of the F minor Concerto, Op. 21, which he composed before but published after the F. minor Concerto, Op. 11—the former appearing in print in April, 1836, the latter in September, 1833. [Footnote: The slow movements of Chopin's concertos are marked Larglietto, the composer uses here the word Adagio generically—i.e., in the sense of slow movement generally.] Karasowski says mistakingly that the movement referred to is the Adagio of the E minor Concerto. He was perhaps misled by a mistranslation of his own. In the German version of his Chopin biography he gives the concluding words of the above quotation as "of my new Concerto," but there is no new in the Polish text (na ktorego pamiatke skomponowalem Adagio do mojego Koncertu).

October 20, 1829.—Elsner has praised the Adagio of the Concerto. He says that there is something new in it. As to the Rondo I do not wish yet to hear a judgment, for I am not yet satisfied with it myself. I am curious whether I shall finish this work when I return [from a visit to Prince Radziwill].

November 14, 1829.—I received your last letter at Antonin at Radziwill's. I was there a week; you cannot imagine how quickly and pleasantly the time passed to me. I left by the last coach, and had much trouble in getting away. As for me I should have stayed till they had turned me out; but my occupations and, above all things, my Concerto, which is impatiently waiting for its Finale, have compelled me to take leave of this Paradise.

On March 17, 1830, Chopin played the F minor Concerto at the first concert he gave in Warsaw. How it was received by the public and the critics on this occasion and on that of a second concert has been related in the ninth chapter (p.131).

March 27, 1830.—I hope yet to finish before the holidays the first Allegro of my second Concerto [i.e., the one in E minor], and therefore I should in any case wait till after the holidays [to give a third concert], although I am convinced that I should have this time a still larger audience than formerly; for the haute volee has not yet heard me.

On April 10, 1830, Chopin writes that his Concerto is not yet finished; and on May 15, 1830:—

The Rondo for my Concerto is not yet finished, because the right inspired mood has always beep wanting. If I have only the Allegro and the Adagio completely finished I shall be without anxiety about the Finale. The Adagio is in E major, and of a romantic, calm, and partly melancholy character. It is intended to convey the impression which one receives when the eye rests on a beloved landscape that calls up in one's soul beautiful memories—for instance, on a fine, moonlit spring night. I have written violins with mutes as an accompaniment to it. I wonder if that will have a good effect? Well, time will show.

August 21, 1830.—Next month I leave here; first, however, I must rehearse my Concerto, for the Rondo is now finished.

For an account of the rehearsals of the Concerto and its first public performance at Chopin's third Warsaw concert on October u, 1830, the reader is referred to the tenth chapter (p. 150). [FOOTNOTE: In the following remarks on the concertos I shall draw freely from the critical commentary on the Pianoforte Works of Chopin, which I contributed some years ago (1879) to the Monthly Musical Record.]

Chopin, says Liszt, wrote beautiful concertos and fine sonatas, but it is not difficult to perceive in these productions "plus de volonte que d'inspiration." As for his inspiration it was naturally "imperieuse, fantasque, irreflechie; ses allures ne pouvaient etre que libres." Indeed, Liszt believes that Chopin—

did violence to his genius every time he sought to fetter it by rules, classifications, and an arrangement that was not his own, and could not accord with the exigencies of his spirit, which was one of those whose grace displays itself when they seem to drift along [alter a la derive]....The classical attempts of Chopin nevertheless shine by a rare refinement of style. They contain passages of great interest, parts of surprising grandeur.

With Chopin writing a concerto or a sonata was an effort, and the effort was always inadequate for the attainment of the object—a perfect work of its kind. He lacked the peculiar qualities, natural and acquired, requisite for a successful cultivation of the larger forms. He could not grasp and hold the threads of thought which he found flitting in his mind, and weave them into a strong, complex web; he snatched them up one by one, tied them together, and either knit them into light fabrics or merely wound them into skeins. In short, Chopin was not a thinker, not a logician—his propositions are generally good, but his arguments are poor and the conclusions often wanting. Liszt speaks sometimes of Chopin's science. In doing this, however, he misapplies the word. There was nothing scientific in Chopin's mode of production, and there is nothing scientific in his works. Substitute "ingenious" (in the sense of quick-witted and possessed of genius, in the sense of the German geistreich) for "scientific," and you come near to what Liszt really meant. If the word is applicable at all to art, it can be applicable only to works which manifest a sustained and dominating intellectual power, such, for instance, as a fugue of Bach's, a symphony of Beethoven's, that is, to works radically different from those of Chopin. Strictly speaking, the word, however, is not applicable to art, for art and science are not coextensive; nay, to some extent, are even inimical to each other. Indeed, to call a work of art purely and simply "scientific," is tantamount to saying that it is dry and uninspired by the muse. In dwelling so long on this point my object was not so much to elucidate Liszt's meaning as Chopin's character as a composer.

Notwithstanding their many shortcomings, the concertos may be said to be the most satisfactory of Chopin's works in the larger forms, or at least those that afford the greatest amount of enjoyment. In some respects the concerto-form was more favourable than the sonata-form for the exercise of Chopin's peculiar talent, in other respects it was less so. The concerto-form admits of a far greater and freer display of the virtuosic capabilities of the pianoforte than the sonata-form, and does not necessitate the same strictness of logical structure, the same thorough working-out of the subject-matter. But, on the other hand, it demands aptitude in writing for the orchestra and appropriately solid material. Now, Chopin lacked such aptitude entirely, and the nature of his material accorded little with the size of the structure and the orchestral frame. And, then, are not these confessions of intimate experiences, these moonlight sentimentalities, these listless dreams, &c., out of place in the gaslight glare of concert-rooms, crowded with audiences brought together to a great extent rather by ennui, vanity, and idle curiosity than by love of art?

The concerto is the least perfect species of the sonata genus; practical, not ideal, reasons have determined its form, which owes its distinctive features to the calculations of the virtuoso, not to the inspiration of the creative artist. Romanticism does not take kindly to it. Since Beethoven the form has been often modified, more especially the long introductory tutti omitted or cut short. Chopin, however, adhered to the orthodox form, taking unmistakably Hummel for his model. Indeed, Hummel's concertos were Chopin's model not only as regards structure, but also to a certain extent as regards the character of the several movements. In the tutti's of the first movement, and in the general complexion of the second (the slow) and the third (Rondo) movement, this discipleship is most apparent. But while noting the resemblance, let us not overlook the difference. If the bones are Hummel's (which no doubt is an exaggeration of the fact), the flesh, blood, and soul are Chopin's. In his case adherence to the orthodox concerto-form was so much the more regrettable as writing for the orchestra was one of his weakest points. Indeed, Chopin's originality is gone as soon as he writes for another instrument than the pianoforte. The commencement of the first solo is like the opening of a beautiful vista after a long walk through dreary scenery, and every new entry of the orchestra precipitates you from the delectable regions of imagination to the joyless deserts of the actual. Chopin's inaptitude in writing for the orchestra is, however, most conspicuous where he employs it conjointly with the pianoforte. Carl Klindworth and Carl Tausig have rescored the concertos: the former the one in F minor, the latter the one in E minor. Klindworth wrote his arrangement of the F minor Concerto in 1867-1868 in London, and published it ten years later at Moscow (P. Jurgenson).[FOOTNOTE: The title runs: "Second Concerto de Chopin, Op. 21, avec un nouvel accompagnement d'orchestre d'apres la partition originale par Karl Klindworth. Dedie a Franz Lizt." It is now the property of the Berlin publishers Bote and Bock.] A short quotation from the preface will charactise his work:—

The principal pianoforte part has, notwithstanding the entire remodelling of the score, been retained almost unchanged. Only in some passages, which the orchestra, in consequence of a richer instrumentation, accompanies with greater fulness, the pianoforte part had, on that account, to be made more effective by an increase of brilliance. By these divergences from the original, from the so perfect and beautifully effectuating [effectuirenden] pianoforte style of Chopin, either the unnecessary doubling of the melody already pregnantly represented by the orchestra was avoided, or—in keeping with the now fuller harmonic support of the accompaniment—some figurations of the solo instrument received a more brilliant form.

Of Tausig's labour [FOOTNOTE: "Grosses Concert in E moll. Op. 11." Bearberet von Carl Tausig. Score, pianoforte, and orchestral parts. Berlin: Ries and Erler.] I shall only say that his cutting-down and patching-up of the introductory tutti, to mention only one thing, are not well enough done to excuse the liberty taken with a great composer's work. Moreover, your emendations cannot reach the vital fault, which lies in the conceptions. A musician may have mastered the mechanical trick of instrumentation, and yet his works may not be at heart orchestral. Instrumentation ought to be more than something that at will can be added or withheld; it ought to be the appropriate expression of something that appertains to the thought. The fact is, Chopin could not think for the orchestra, his thoughts took always the form of the pianoforte language; his thinking became paralysed when he made use of another medium of expression. Still, there have been critics who thought differently. The Polish composer Sowinski declared without circumlocution that Chopin "wrote admirably for the orchestra." Other countrymen of his dwelt at greater length, and with no less enthusiasm, on what is generally considered a weak point in the master's equipment. A Paris correspondent of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (1834) remarked a propos of the F minor Concerto that there was much delicacy in the instrumentation. But what do the opinions of those critics, if they deserve the name, amount to when weighed against that of the rest of the world, nay, even against that of Berlioz alone, who held that "in the compositions of Chopin all the interest is concentrated in the piano part, the orchestra of his concertos is nothing but a cold and almost useless accompaniment"?

All this and much more may be said against Chopin's concertos, yet such is the charm, loveliness, delicacy, elegance, and brilliancy of the details, that one again and again forgives and forgets their shortcomings as wholes. But now let us look at these works a little more closely.

The first-composed and last-published Concerto, the one in F minor, Op. 21 (dedicated to Madame la Comtesse Delphine Potocka), opens with a tutti of about seventy bars. When, after this, the pianoforte interrupts the orchestra impatiently, and then takes up the first subject, it is as if we were transported into another world and breathed a purer atmosphere. First, there are some questions and expostulations, then the composer unfolds a tale full of sweet melancholy in a strain of lovely, tenderly-intertwined melody. With what inimitable grace he winds those delicate garlands around the members of his melodic structure! How light and airy the harmonic base on which it rests! But the contemplation of his grief disturbs his equanimity more and more, and he begins to fret and fume. In the second subject he seems to protest the truthfulness and devotion of his heart, and concludes with a passage half upbraiding, half beseeching, which is quite captivating, nay more, even bewitching in its eloquent persuasiveness. Thus far, from the entrance of the pianoforte, all was irreproachable. How charming if Chopin had allowed himself to drift on the current of his fancy, and had left rules, classifications, &c., to others! But no, he had resolved to write a concerto, and must now put his hand to the rudder, and have done with idle dreaming, at least for the present—unaware, alas, that the idle dreamings of some people are worth more than their serious efforts. Well, what is unpoetically called the working-out section—to call it free fantasia in this instance would be mockery—reminds me of Goethe's "Zauberlehrling," who said to himself in the absence of his master, "I noted his words, works, and procedure, and, with strength of mind, I also shall do wonders." How the apprentice conjured up the spirits, and made them do his bidding; how, afterwards, he found he had forgotten the formula with which to stop and banish them, and what were the consequent sad results, the reader will, no doubt, remember. The customary repetition of the first section of the movement calls for no remark. Liszt cites the second movement (Larghetto, A flat major) of this work as a specimen of the morceaux d'une surprenante grandeur to be found in Chopin's concertos and sonatas, and mentions that the composer had a marked predilection for it, delighting in frequently playing it. And Schumann exclaims: "What are ten editorial crowns compared to one such Adagio as that in the second concerto!" The beautiful deep-toned, love-laden cantilena, which is profusely and exquisitely ornamented in Chopin's characteristic style, is interrupted by a very impressive recitative of some length, after which the cantilena is heard again. But criticism had better be silent, and listen here attentively. And how shall I describe the last movement (Allegro vivace F minor, 3-4)—its feminine softness and rounded contours, its graceful, gyrating, dance-like motions, its sprightliness and frolicsomeness? Unless I quote every part and particle, I feel I cannot do justice to it. The exquisite ease and grace, the subtle spirit that breathes through this movement, defy description, and, more, defy the attempts of most performers to reproduce the original. He who ventures to interpret Chopin ought to have a soul strung with chords which the gentlest breath of feeling sets in vibration, and a body of such a delicate and supple organisation as to echo with equal readiness the music of the soul. As to the listener, he is carried away in this movement from one lovely picture to another, and no time is left him to reflect and make objections with reference to the whole.

The Concerto in E minor, Op. 11, dedicated to Mr. Fred Kalkbrenner, shows more of volonte and less of inspiration than the one in F minor. One can almost read in it the words of the composer, "If I have only the Allegro and the Adagio completely finished, I shall be in no anxiety about the Finale." The elongated form of the first movement—the introductory tutti alone extends to 138 bars—compares disadvantageously with the greater compactness of the corresponding movement in the F minor Concerto, and makes still more sensible the monotony resulting from the key-relation of the constituent parts, the tonic being the same in both subjects. The scheme is this:—First subject in E minor, second subject in E major, working-out section in C major, leading through various keys to the return of the first subject in E minor and of the second subject in G major, followed by a close in E minor. The tonic is not relieved till the commencement of the working-out section. The re-entrance of the second subject brings, at last, something of a contrast. How little Chopin understood the importance or the handling of those powerful levers, key-relation and contrast, may also be observed in the Sonata, Op. 4, where the last movement brings the first subject in C minor and the second in G minor. Here the composer preserves the same mode (minor), there the same tonic, the result being nearly the same in both instances. But, it may be asked, was not this languid monotony which results from the employment of these means just what Chopin intended? The only reply that can be made to this otherwise unanswerable objection is, so much the worse for the artist's art if he had such intentions. Chopin's description of the Adagio quoted above—remember the beloved landscape, the beautiful memories, the moonlit spring night, and the muted violins—hits off its character admirably. Although Chopin himself designates the first Allegro as "vigorous"—which in some passages, at least from the composer's standpoint, we may admit it to be—the fundamental mood of this movement is one closely allied to that which he says he intended to express in the Adagio. Look at the first movement, and judge whether there are not in it more pale moonlight reveries than fresh morning thoughts. Indeed, the latter, if not wholly absent, are confined to the introductory bars of the first subject and some passage-work. Still, the movement is certainly not without beauty, although the themes appear somewhat bloodless, and the passages are less brilliant and piquant than those in the F minor Concerto. Exquisite softness and tenderness distinguish the melodious parts, and Chopin's peculiar coaxing tone is heard in the semiquaver passage marked tranquillo of the first subject. The least palatable portion of the movement is the working-out section. The pianoforte part therein reminds one too much of a study, without having the beauty of Chopin's compositions thus entitled; and the orchestra amuses itself meanwhile with reminiscences of the principal motives. Chopin's procedure in this and similar cases is pretty much the same (F minor Concerto, Krakowiak, &c.), and recalls to my mind—may the manes of the composer forgive me—a malicious remark of Rellstab's. Speaking of the introduction to the Variations, Op. 2, he says: "The composer pretends to be going to work out the theme." It is curious, and sad at the same time, to behold with what distinction Chopin treats the bassoon, and how he is repaid with mocking ingratitude. But enough of the orchestral rabble. The Adagio is very fine in its way, but such is its cloying sweetness that one longs for something bracing and active. This desire the composer satisfies only partially in the last movement (Rondo vivace, 2-4, E major). Nevertheless, he succeeds in putting us in good humour by his gaiety, pretty ways, and tricksy surprises (for instance, the modulations from E major to E flat major, and back again to E major). We seem, however, rather to look on the play of fantoccini than the doings of men; in short, we feel here what we have felt more or less strongly throughout the whole work—there is less intensity of life and consequently less of human interest in this than in the F minor Concerto.

Almost all my remarks on the concertos run counter to those made by W. von Lenz. The F minor Concerto he holds to be an uninteresting work, immature and fragmentary in plan, and, excepting some delicate ornamentation, without originality. Nay, he goes even so far as to say that the passage-work is of the usual kind met with in the compositions of Hummel and his successors, and that the cantilena in the larghetto is in the jejune style of Hummel; the last movement also receives but scanty and qualified praise. On the other hand, he raves about the E minor Concerto, confining himself, however, to the first movement. The second movement he calls a "tiresome nocturne," the Rondo "a Hummel." A tincture of classical soberness and self-possession in the first movement explains Lenz's admiration of this composition, but I fail to understand the rest of his predilections and critical utterances.

In considering these concertos one cannot help exclaiming—What a pity that Chopin should have set so many beautiful thoughts and fancies in such a frame and thereby marred them! They contain passages which are not surpassed in any of his most perfect compositions, yet among them these concertos cannot be reckoned. It is difficult to determine their rank in concerto literature. The loveliness, brilliancy, and piquancy of the details bribe us to overlook, and by dazzling us even prevent us from seeing, the formal shortcomings of the whole. But be their shortcomings ever so great and many, who would dispense with these works? Therefore, let us be thankful, and enjoy them without much grumbling.

Schumann in writing of the concertos said that Chopin introduced Beethoven spirit [Beethovenischen Geist] into the concert-room, dressing the master's thoughts, as Hummel had done Mozart's, in brilliant, flowing drapery; and also, that Chopin had instruction from the best, from Beethoven, Schubert, and Field—that the first might be supposed to have educated his mind to boldness, the second his heart to tenderness, the third his fingers to dexterity. Although as a rule a wonderfully acute observer, Schumann was not on this occasion very happy in the few critical utterances which he vouchsafed in the course of the general remarks of which his notice mainly consists. Without congeniality there cannot be much influence, at least not in the case of so exclusive and fastidious a nature as Chopin's. Now, what congeniality could there be between the rugged German and the delicate Pole? All accounts agree in that Chopin was far from being a thorough-going worshipper of Beethoven—he objected to much in his matter and manner, and, moreover, could not by any means boast an exhaustive acquaintance with his works. That Chopin assimilated something of Beethoven is of course more likely than not; but, if a fact, it is a latent one. As to Schubert, I think Chopin knew too little of his music to be appreciably influenced by him. At any rate, I fail to perceive how and where the influence reveals itself. Of Field, on the other hand, traces are discoverable, and even more distinct ones of Hummel. The idyllic serenity of the former and the Mozartian sweetness of the latter were truly congenial to him; but no less, if not more, so was Spohr's elegiac morbidezza. Chopin's affection for Spohr is proved by several remarks in his letters: thus on one occasion (October 3, 1829) he calls the master's Octet a wonderful work; and on another occasion (September 18, 1830) he says that the Quintet for pianoforte, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and horn (Op. 52) is a wonderfully beautiful work, but not suitable for the pianoforte. How the gliding cantilena in sixths and thirds of the minuet and the serpentining chromatic passages in the last movement of the last-mentioned work must have flattered his inmost soul! There can be no doubt that Spohr was a composer who made a considerable impression upon Chopin. In his music there is nothing to hurt the most fastidious sensibility, and much to feed on for one who, like Jaques in "As you like it", could "suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel eggs."

Many other composers, notably the supremely-loved and enthusiastically-admired Mozart and Bach, must have had a share in Chopin's development; but it cannot be said that they left a striking mark on his music, with regard to which, however, it has to be remembered that the degree of external resemblance does not always accurately indicate the degree of internal indebtedness. Bach's influence on Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin, and others of their contemporaries, and its various effects on their styles, is one of the curiosities of nineteenth century musical history; a curiosity, however, which is fully disclosed only by subtle analysis. Field and especially Hummel are those musicians who—more, however, as pianists than as composers (i.e., more by their pianoforte language than by their musical thoughts)—set the most distinct impress on Chopin's early virtuosic style, of which we see almost the last in the concertos, where it appears in a chastened and spiritualised form very different from the materialism of the Fantasia (Op. 13) and the Krakowiak (Op. 14). Indeed, we may say of this style that the germ, and much more than the germ, of almost every one of its peculiarities is to be found in the pianoforte works of Hummel and Field; and this statement the concertos of these masters, more especially those of the former, and their shorter pieces, more especially the nocturnes of the latter, bear out in its entirety. The wide-spread broken chords, great skips, wreaths of rhythmically unmeasured ornamental notes, simultaneous combinations of unequal numbers of notes (five or seven against four, for instance), &c., are all to be found in the compositions of the two above-named pianist-composers. Chopin's style, then, was not original? Most decidedly it was. But it is not so much new elements as the development and the different commixture, in degree and kind, of known elements which make an individual style—the absolutely new being, generally speaking, insignificant compared with the acquired and evolved. The opinion that individuality is a spontaneous generation is an error of the same kind as that imagination has nothing to do with memory. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Individuality should rather be regarded as a feminine organisation which conceives and brings forth; or, better still, as a growing thing which feeds on what is germane to it, a thing with self-acting suctorial organs that operate whenever they come in contact with suitable food. A nucleus is of course necessary for the development of an individuality, and this nucleus is the physical and intellectual constitution of the individual. Let us note in passing that the development of the individuality of an artistic style presupposes the development of the individuality of the man's character. But not only natural dispositions, also acquired dexterities affect the development of the individuality of an artistic style. Beethoven is orchestral even in his pianoforte works. Weber rarely ceases to be operatic. Spohr cannot help betraying the violinist, nor Schubert the song-composer. The more Schumann got under his command the orchestral forces, the more he impressed on them the style which he had formed previously by many years of playing and writing for the pianoforte. Bach would have been another Bach if he had not been an organist. Clementi was and remained all his life a pianist. Like Clementi, so was also Chopin under the dominion of his instrument. How the character of the man expressed itself in the style of the artist will become evident when we examine Chopin's masterpieces. Then will also be discussed the influence on his style of the Polish national music.



CHAPTER XIV.



PARIS IN 1831.—LIFE IN THE STREETS.—ROMANTICISM AND LIBERALISM.—ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE.—CHIEF LITERARY PUBLICATIONS OF THE TIME.—THE PICTORIAL ARTS.—MUSIC AND MUSICIANS.—CHOPIN'S OPINION OF THE GALAXY OF SINGERS THEN PERFORMING AT THE VARIOUS OPERA-HOUSES.



Chopin's sensations on plunging, after his long stay in the stagnant pool of Vienna, into the boiling sea of Paris might have been easily imagined, even if he had not left us a record of them. What newcomer from a place less populous and inhabited by a less vivacious race could help wondering at and being entertained by the vastness, variety, and bustle that surrounded him there?

Paris offers anything you may wish [writes Chopin]. You can amuse yourself, mope, laugh, weep, in short, do whatever you like; no one notices it, because thousands do the same. Everybody goes his own way....The Parisians are a peculiar people. When evening sets in one hears nothing but the crying of titles of little new books, which consist of from three to four sheets of nonsense. The boys know so well how to recommend their wares that in the end—willing or not—one buys one for a sou. They bear titles such as these:—"L'art de faire, des amours, et de les conserver ensuite"; "Les amours des pretres"; "L'Archeveque de Paris avec Madame la duchesse de Berry"; and a thousand similar absurdities which, however, are often very wittily written. One cannot but be astonished at the means people here make use of to earn a few pence.

All this and much more may be seen in Paris every day, but in 1831 Paris life was not an everyday life. It was then and there, if at any time and anywhere, that the "roaring loom of Time" might be heard: a new garment was being woven for an age that longed to throw off the wornout, tattered, and ill-fitting one inherited from its predecessors; and discontent and hopefulness were the impulses that set the shuttle so busily flying hither and thither. This movement, a reaction against the conventional formalism and barren, superficial scepticism of the preceding age, had ever since the beginning of the century been growing in strength and breadth. It pervaded all the departments of human knowledge and activity—politics, philosophy, religion, literature, and the arts. The doctrinaire school in politics and the eclectic school in philosophy were as characteristic products of the movement as the romantic school in poetry and art. We recognise the movement in Lamennais' attack on religious indifference, and in the gospel of a "New Christianity" revealed by Saint Simon and preached and developed by Bazard and Enfantin, as well as in the teaching of Cousin, Villemain, and Guizot, and in the works of V. Hugo, Delacroix, and others. Indeed, unless we keep in view as far as possible all the branches into which the broad stream divides itself, we shall not be able to understand the movement aright either as a whole or in its parts. V. Hugo defines the militant—i.e., negative side of romanticism as liberalism in literature. The positive side of the liberalism of the time might, on the other hand, not inaptly be described as romanticism in speculation and practice. This, however, is matter rather for a history of civilisation than for a biography of an artist. Therefore, without further enlarging on it, I shall let Chopin depict the political aspect of Paris in 1831 as he saw it, and then attempt myself a slight outline sketch of the literary and artistic aspect of the French capital, which signifies France.

Louis Philippe had been more than a year on the throne, but the agitation of the country was as yet far from being allayed:—

There is now in Paris great want and little money in circulation. One meets many shabby individuals with wild physiognomies, and sometimes one hears an excited, menacing discussion on Louis Philippe, who, as well as his ministers, hangs only by a single hair. The populace is disgusted with the Government, and would like to overthrow it, in order to make an end of the misery; but the Government is too well on its guard, and the least concourse of people is at once dispersed by the mounted police.

Riots and attentats were still the order of the day, and no opportunity for a demonstration was let slip by the parties hostile to the Government. The return of General Ramorino from Poland, where he had taken part in the insurrection, offered such an opportunity. This adventurer, a natural son of Marshal Lannes, who began his military career in the army of Napoleon, and, after fighting wherever fighting was going on, ended it on the Piazza d'Armi at Turin, being condemned by a Piedmontese court-martial to be shot for disobedience to orders, was hardly a worthy recipient of the honours bestowed upon him during his journey through Germany and France. But the personal merit of such popular heroes of a day is a consideration of little moment; they are mere counters, counters representative of ideas and transient whims.

The enthusiasm of the populace for our general is of course known to you [writes Chopin to his friend Woyciechowski]. Paris would not be behind in this respect. [Footnote: The Poles and everything Polish were at that time the rage in Paris; thus, for instance, at one of the theatres where dramas were generally played, they represented now the whole history of the last Polish insurrection, and the house was every night crammed with people who wished to see the combats and national costumes.] The Ecole de Medecine and the jeune France, who wear their beards and cravats according to a certain pattern, intend to honour him with a great demonstration. Every political party—I speak of course only of the ultras—has its peculiar badge: the Carlists have green waistcoats, the Republicans and Napoleonists (and these form the jeune France) [red], [Footnote: Chopin has omitted this word, which seems to be necessary to complete the sentence; at least, it is neither in the Polish nor German edition of Karasowski's book.] the Saint-Simonians who profess a new religion, wear blue, and so forth. Nearly a thousand of these young people marched with a tricolour through the town in order to give Ramorino an ovation. Although he was at home, and notwithstanding the shouting of "Vive les Polonais!" he did not show himself, not wishing to expose himself to any unpleasantness on the part of the Government. His adjutant came out and said that the general was sorry he could not receive them and begged them to return some other day. But the next day he took other lodgings. When some days afterwards an immense mass of people—not only young men, but also rabble that had congregated near the Pantheon—proceeded to the other side of the Seine to Ramorino's house, the crowd increased like an avalanche till it was dispersed by several charges of the mounted police who had stationed themselves at the Pont Neuf. Although many were wounded, new masses of people gathered on the Boulevards under my windows in order to join those who were expected from the other side of the Seine. The police was now helpless, the crowd increased more and more, till at last a body of infantry and a squadron of hussars advanced; the commandant ordered the municipal guard and the troops to clear the footpaths and street of the curious and riotous mob and to arrest the ringleaders. (This is the free nation!) The panic spread with the swiftness of lightning: the shops were closed, the populace flocked together at all the corners of the streets, and the orderlies who galloped through the streets were hissed. All windows were crowded by spectators, as on festive occasions with us at home, and the excitement lasted from eleven o'clock in the morning till eleven o'clock at night. I thought that the affair would have a bad end; but towards midnight they sang "Allons enfants de la patrie!" and went home. I am unable to describe to you the impression which the horrid voices of this riotous, discontented mob made upon me! Everyone was afraid that the riot would be continued next morning, but that was not the case. Only Grenoble has followed the example of Lyons; however, one cannot tell what may yet come to pass in the world!

The length and nature of Chopin's account show what a lively interest he took in the occurrences of which he was in part an eye and ear-witness, for he lived on the fourth story of a house (No. 27) on the Boulevard Poissonniere, opposite the Cite Bergere, where General Ramorino lodged. But some of his remarks show also that the interest he felt was by no means a pleasurable one, and probably from this day dates his fear and horror of the mob. And now we will turn from politics, a theme so distasteful to Chopin that he did not like to hear it discussed and could not easily be induced to take part in its discussion, to a theme more congenial, I doubt not, to all of us.

Literary romanticism, of which Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael were the harbingers, owed its existence to a longing for a greater fulness of thought, a greater intenseness of feeling, a greater appropriateness and adequateness of expression, and, above all, a greater truth to life and nature. It was felt that the degenerated classicists were "barren of imagination and invention," offered in their insipid artificialities nothing but "rhetoric, bombast, fleurs de college, and Latin-verse poetry," clothed "borrowed ideas in trumpery imagery," and presented themselves with a "conventional elegance and noblesse than which there was nothing more common." On the other hand, the works of the master-minds of England, Germany, Spain, and Italy, which were more and more translated and read, opened new, undreamt-of vistas. The Bible, Homer, and Shakespeare began now to be considered of all books the most worthy to be studied. And thus it came to pass that in a short time a most complete revolution was accomplished in literature, from abject slavery to unlimited freedom.

There are neither rules nor models [says V. Hugo, the leader of the school, in the preface to his Cromwell (1827)], or rather there are no other rules than the general laws of nature which encompass the whole art, and the special laws which for every composition result from the conditions of existence peculiar to each subject. The former are eternal, internal, and remain; the latter variable, external, and serve only once.

Hence theories, poetics, and systems were to be broken up, and the old plastering which covered the fagade of art was to be pulled down. From rules and theories the romanticists appealed to nature and truth, without forgetting, however, that nature and art are two different things, and that the truth of art can never be absolute reality. The drama, for instance, must be "a concentrating mirror which, so far from enfeebling, collects and condenses the colouring rays and transforms a glimmer into a light, a light into a flame." To pass from form to matter, the attention given by the romanticists to history is particularly to be noted. Pierre Dubois, the director of the philosophical and literary journal "Le Globe," the organ of romanticism (1824-1832), contrasts the poverty of invention in the works of the classicists with the inexhaustible wealth of reality, "the scenes of disorder, of passion, of fanaticism, of hypocrisy, and of intrigue," recorded in history. What the dramatist has to do is to perform the miracle "of reanimating the personages who appear dead on the pages of a chronicle, of discovering by analysis all the shades of the passions which caused these hearts to beat, of recreating their language and costume." It is a significant fact that Sainte-Beuve opened the campaign of romanticism in "Le Globe" with a "Tableau de la poesie francaise au seizieme siecle," the century of the "Pleiade," and of Rabelais and Montaigne. It is a still more significant fact that the members of the "Cenacle," the circle of kindred minds that gathered around Victor Hugo—Alfred de Vigny, Emile Deschamps, Sainte-Beuve, David d'Angers, and others—"studied and felt the real Middle Ages in their architecture, in their chronicles, and in their picturesque vivacity." Nor should we overlook in connection with romanticism Cousin's aesthetic teaching, according to which, God being the source of all beauty as well as of all truth, religion, and morality, "the highest aim of art is to awaken in its own way the feeling of the infinite." Like all reformers the romanticists were stronger in destruction than in construction. Their fundamental doctrines will hardly be questioned by anyone in our day, but the works of art which they reared on them only too often give just cause for objection and even rejection. However, it is not surprising that, with the physical and spiritual world, with time and eternity at their arbitrary disposal, they made themselves sometimes guilty of misrule. To "extract the invariable laws from the general order of things, and the special from the subject under treatment," is no easy matter. V. Hugo tells us that it is only for a man of genius to undertake such a task, but he himself is an example that even a man so gifted is fallible. In a letter written in the French capital on January 14, 1832, Mendelssohn says of the "so-called romantic school" that it has infected all the Parisians, and that on the stage they think of nothing but the plague, the gallows, the devil, childbeds, and the like. Nor were the romances less extravagant than the dramas. The lyrical poetry, too, had its defects and blemishes. But if it had laid itself open to the blame of being "very unequal and very mixed," it also called for the praise of being "rich, richer than any lyrical poetry France had known up to that time." And if the romanticists, as one of them, Sainte-Beuve, remarked, "abandoned themselves without control and without restraint to all the instincts of their nature, and also to all the pretensions of their pride, or even to the silly tricks of their vanity," they had, nevertheless, the supreme merit of having resuscitated what was extinct, and even of having created what never existed in their language. Although a discussion of romanticism without a characterisation of its specific and individual differences is incomplete, I must bring this part of my remarks to a close with a few names and dates illustrative of the literary aspect of Paris in 1831. I may, however, inform the reader that the subject of romanticism will give rise to further discussion in subsequent chapters.

The most notable literary events of the year 1831 were the publication of Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris," "Feuilles d'automne," and "Marion Delorme"; Dumas' "Charles VII"; Balzac's "La peau de chagrin"; Eugene Sue's "Ata Gull"; and George Sand's first novel, "Rose et Blanche," written conjointly with Sandeau. Alfred de Musset and Theophile Gautier made their literary debuts in 1830, the one with "Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie," the other with "Poesies." In the course of the third decade of the century Lamartine had given to the world "Meditations poetiques," "Nouvelles Meditations poetiques," and "Harmonies poetiques et religieuses"; Victor Hugo, "Odes et Ballades," "Les Orientales," three novels, and the dramas "Cromwell" and "Hernani"; Dumas, "Henri III et sa Cour," and "Stockholm, Fontainebleau et Rome"; Alfred de Vigny, "Poemes antiques et modernes" and "Cinq-Mars"; Balzac, "Scenes de la vie privee" and "Physiologie du Mariage." Besides the authors just named there were at this time in full activity in one or the other department of literature, Nodier, Beranger, Merimee, Delavigne, Scribe, Sainte-Beuve, Villemain, Cousin, Michelet, Guizot, Thiers, and many other men and women of distinction.

A glance at the Salon of 1831 will suffice to give us an idea of the then state of the pictorial art in France. The pictures which attracted the visitors most were: Delacroix's "Goddess of Liberty on the barricades"; Delaroche's "Richelieu conveying Cinq-Mars and De Thou to Lyons," "Mazarin on his death-bed," "The sons of Edward in the Tower," and "Cromwell beside the coffin of diaries I."; Ary Scheffer's "Faust and Margaret," "Leonore," "Talleyrand," "Henri IV.," and "Louis Philippe"; Robert's "Pifferari," "Burial," and "Mowers"; Horace Vernet's "Judith," "Capture of the Princes Conde," "Conti, and Longueville," "Camille Desmoulins," and "Pius VIII" To enumerate only a few more of the most important exhibitors I shall yet mention Decamps, Lessore, Schnetz, Judin, and Isabey. The dry list will no doubt conjure up in the minds of many of my readers vivid reproductions of the masterpieces mentioned or suggested by the names of the artists.

Romanticism had not invaded music to the same extent as the literary and pictorial arts. Berlioz is the only French composer who can be called in the fullest sense of the word a romanticist, and whose genius entitles him to a position in his art similar to those occupied by V. Hugo and Delacroix in literature and painting. But in 1831 his works were as yet few in number and little known. Having in the preceding year obtained the prix de Rome, he was absent from Paris till the latter part of 1832, when he began to draw upon himself the attention, if not the admiration, of the public by the concerts in which he produced his startlingly original works. Among the foreign musicians residing in the French capital there were many who had adopted the principles of romanticism, but none of them was so thoroughly imbued with its spirit as Liszt—witness his subsequent publications. But although there were few French composers who, strictly speaking, could be designated romanticists, it would be difficult to find among the younger men one who had not more or less been affected by the intellectual atmosphere.

An opera, "La Marquise de Brinvilliers," produced in 1831 at the Opera-Comique, introduces to us no less than nine dramatic composers, the libretto of Scribe and Castil-Blaze being set to music by Cherubini, Auber, Batton, Berton, Boieldieu, Blangini, Carafa, Herold, and Paer. [Footnote: Chopin makes a mistake, leaving out of account Boieldieu, when he says in speaking of "La Marquise de Brinvilliers" that the opera was composed by eight composers.] Cherubini, who towers above all of them, was indeed the high-priest of the art, the grand-master of the craft. Although the Nestor of composers, none equalled him in manly vigour and perennial youth. When seventy-six years of age (in 1836) he composed his fine Requiem in D minor for three-part male chorus, and in the following year a string quartet and quintet. Of his younger colleagues so favourable an account cannot be given. The youngest of them, Batton, a grand prix, who wrote unsuccessful operas, then took to the manufacturing of artificial flowers, and died as inspector at the Conservatoire, need not detain us. Berton, Paer, Blangini, Carafa (respectively born in 1767, 1771, 1781, and 1785), once composers who enjoyed the public's favour, had lost or were losing their popularity at the time we are speaking of; Rossini, Auber, and others having now come into fashion. They present a saddening spectacle, these faded reputations, these dethroned monarchs! What do we know of Blangini, the "Musical Anacreon," and his twenty operas, one hundred and seventy two-part "Notturni," thirty-four "Romances," &c.? Where are Paer's oratorios, operas, and cantatas performed now? Attempts were made in later years to revive some of Carafa's earlier works, but the result was on each occasion a failure. And poor Berton? He could not bear the public's neglect patiently, and vented his rage in two pamphlets, one of them entitled "De la musique mecanique et de la musique philosophique," which neither converted nor harmed anyone. Boieldieu, too, had to deplore the failure of his last opera, "Les deux nuits" (1829), but then his "La Dame blanche," which had appeared in 1825, and his earlier "Jean de Paris" were still as fresh as ever. Herold had only in this year (1831) scored his greatest success with "Zampa." As to Auber, he was at the zenith of his fame. Among the many operas he had already composed, there were three of his best—"Le Macon," "La Muette," and "Fra Diavolo"—and this inimitable master of the genre sautillant had still a long series of charming works in petto. To exhaust the list of prominent men in the dramatic department we have to add only a few names. Of the younger masters I shall mention Halevy, whose most successful work, "La Juive," did not come out till 1835, and Adam, whose best opera, "Le postilion de Longjumeau," saw the foot-lights in 1836. Of the older masters we must not overlook Lesueur, the composer of "Les Bardes," an opera which came out in 1812, and was admired by Napoleon. Lesueur, distinguished as a composer of dramatic and sacred music, and a writer on musical matters, had, however, given up all professional work with the exception of teaching composition at the Conservatoire. In fact, almost all the above-named old gentlemen, although out of fashion as composers, occupied important positions in the musical commonwealth as professors at that institution. Speaking of professors I must not forget to mention old Reicha (born in 1770), the well-known theorist, voluminous composer of instrumental music, and esteemed teacher of counterpoint and composition.

But the young generation did not always look up to these venerable men with the reverence due to their age and merit. Chopin, for instance, writes:—

Reicha I know only by sight. You can imagine how curious I am to make his personal acquaintance. I have already seen some of his pupils, but from them I have not obtained a favourable opinion of their teacher. He does not love music, never frequents the concerts of the Conservatoire, will not speak with anyone about music, and, when he gives lessons, looks only at his watch. Cherubini behaves in a similar manner; he is always speaking of cholera and the revolution. These gentlemen are mummies; one must content one's self with respectfully lookingat them from afar, and studying their works for instruction.

In these remarks of Chopin the concerts of the Conservatoire are made mention of; they were founded in 1828 by Habeneck and others and intended for the cultivation of the symphonic works of the great masters, more especially of Beethoven. Berlioz tells us in his Memoires, with his usual vivacity and causticity, what impressions the works of Beethoven made upon the old gentlemen above-named. Lesueur considered instrumental music an inferior genre, and although the C minor Symphony quite overwhelmed him, he gave it as his opinion that "one ought not to write such music." Cherubini was profoundly irritated at the success of a master who undermined his dearest theories, but he dared not discharge the bile that was gathering within him. That, however, he had the courage of his opinion may be gathered from what, according to Mendelssohn, he said of Beethoven's later works: "Ca me fait eternuer." Berton looked down with pity on the whole modern German school. Boieldieu, who hardly knew what to think of the matter, manifested "a childish surprise at the simplest harmonic combinations which departed somewhat from the three chords which he had been using all his life." Paer, a cunning Italian, was fond of letting people know that he had known Beethoven, and of telling stories more or less unfavourable to the great man, and flattering to the narrator. The critical young men of the new generation were, however, not altogether fair in their judgments; Cherubini, at least, and Boieldieu too, deserved better treatment at their hands.

In 1830 Auber and Rossini (who, after his last opera "Guillaume Tell," was resting on his laurels) were the idols of the Parisians, and reigned supreme on the operatic stage. But in 1831 Meyerbeer established himself as a third power beside them, for it was in that year that "Robert le Diable" was produced at the Academic Royale de Musique. Let us hear what Chopin says of this event. Speaking of the difficulties with which composers of operas have often to contend he remarks:—

Even Meyerbeer, who for ten years had been favourably known in the musical world, waited, worked, and paid in Paris for three years in vain before he succeeded in bringing about the performance of his opera "Robert le Diable," which now causes such a furore. Auber had got the start of Meyerbeer with his works, which are very pleasing to the taste of the people, and he did not readily make room for the foreigner at the Grand Opera.

And again:—

If there was ever a brilliant mise en scene at the Opera- Italien, I cannot believe that it equalled that of Robert le Diable, the new five-act opera of Meyerbeer, who has also written "Il Crociato." "Robert" is a masterpiece of the new school, where the devils sing through speaking-trumpets and the dead rise from their graves, but not as in "Szarlatan" [an opera of Kurpinski's], only from fifty to sixty persons all at once! The stage represents the interior of a convent ruin illuminated by the clear light of the full moon whose rays fall on the graves of the nuns. In the last act appear in brilliant candle-light monks with ancense, and from behind the scene are heard the solemn tones of the organ. Meyerbeer has made himself immortal by this work; but he had to wait more than three years before he could get it performed. People say that he has spent more than 20,000 francs for the organ and other things made use of in the opera.

[Footnote: This was the current belief at the time, which Meyerbeer, however, declares to be false in a letter addressed to Veron, the director of the Opera:—"L'orgue a ete paye par vous, fourni par vous, comme toutes les choses que reclamait la mise en scene de Robert, et je dois declarer que loin de vous tenir au strict neccessaire, vous avez depasse de bcaucoup les obligations ordinaires d'un directeur envers les auteurs et le public."]

The creative musicians having received sufficient attention, let us now turn for a moment to the executive ones. Of the pianists we shall hear enough in the next chapter, and therefore will pass them by for the present. Chopin thought that there were in no town more pianists than in Paris, nor anywhere more asses and virtuosos. Of the many excellent virtuosos on stringed and wind-instruments only a few of the most distinguished shall be mentioned. Baillot, the veteran violinist; Franchomme, the young violoncellist; Brod, the oboe-player; and Tulou, the flutist. Beriot and Lafont, although not constant residents like these, may yet be numbered among the Parisian artists. The French capital could boast of at least three first-rate orchestras—that of the Conservatoire, that of the Academic Royale, and that of the Opera-Italien. Chopin, who probably had on December 14 not yet heard the first of these, takes no notice of it, but calls the orchestra of the theatre Feydeau (Opera-Comique) excellent. Cherubini seems to have thought differently, for on being asked why he did not allow his operas to be performed at that institution, he answered:—"Je ne fais pas donner des operas sans choeur, sans orchestre, sans chanteurs, et sans decorations." The Opera-Comique had indeed been suffering from bankruptcy; still, whatever its shortcomings were, it was not altogether without good singers, in proof of which assertion may be named the tenor Chollet, Madame Casimir, and Mdlle. Prevost. But it was at the Italian Opera that a constellation of vocal talent was to be found such as has perhaps at no time been equalled: Malibran-Garcia, Pasta, Schroder-Devrient, Rubini, Lablache, and Santini. Nor had the Academic, with Nourrit, Levasseur, Derivis, Madame Damoreau-Cinti, and Madame Dorus, to shrink from a comparison. Imagine the treat it must have been to be present at the concert which took place at the Italian Opera on December 25, 1831, and the performers at which comprised artists such as Malibran, Rubini, Lablache, Santini, Madame Raimbaux, Madame Schroder-Devrient, Madame Casadory, Herz, and De Beriot!

Chopin was so full of admiration for what he had heard at the three operatic establishments that he wrote to his master Elsner:—

It is only here that one can learn what singing is. I believe that not Pasta, but Malibran-Garcia is now the greatest singer in Europe. Prince Valentin Radziwill is quite enraptured by her, and we often wish you were here, for you would be charmed with her singing.

The following extracts from a letter to his friend Woyciechowski contain some more of Chopin's criticism:—

As regards the opera, I must tell you that I never heard so fine a performance as I did last week, when the "Barber of Seville" was given at the Italian Opera, with Lablache, Rubini, and Malibran-Garcia in the principal parts. Of "Othello" there is likewise an excellent rendering in prospect, further also of "L'Italiana in Algeri." Paris has in this respect never offered so much as now. You can have no idea of Lablache. People say that Pasta's voice has somewhat failed, but I never heard in all my life such heavenly singing as hers. Malibran embraces with her wonderful voice a compass of three octaves; her singing is quite unique in its way, enchanting! Rubini, an excellent tenor, makes endless roulades, often too many colorature, vibrates and trills continually, for which he is rewarded with the greatest applause. His mezza voce is incomparable. A Schroder-Devrient is now making her appearance, but she does not produce such a furore here as in Germany. Signora Malibran personated Othello, Schroder-Devrient Desdemona. Malibran is little, the German lady taller. One thought sometimes that Desdemona was going to strangle Othello. It was a very expensive performance; I paid twenty-four francs for my seat, and did so because I wished to see Malibran play the part of the Moor, which she did not do particularly well. The orchestra was excellent, but the mise en scene in the Italian Opera is nothing compared with that of the French Academie Royale...Madame Damoreau-Cinti sings also very beautifully; I prefer her singing to that of Malibran. The latter astonishes one, but Cinti charms. She sings the chromatic scales and colorature almost more perfectly than the famous flute-player Tulou plays them. It is hardly possible to find a more finished execution. In Nourrit, the first tenor of the Grand Opera, [Footnote: It may perhaps not be superfluous to point out that Academie Royale (Imperial, or Nationale, as the case may be) de Musique, or simply Academie de Musique, and Grand Opera, or simply Opera, are different names for one and the same thing—namely, the principal opera-house in France, the institution whose specialties are grand opera and ballet.] one admires the warmth of feeling which speaks out of his singing. Chollet, the first tenor of the Opera-Comique, the best performer of Fra Diavolo, and excellent in the operas "Zampa" and "Fiancee," has a manner of his own in conceiving the parts. He captivates all with his beautiful voice, and is the favourite of the public.



CHAPTER XV.



1831-1832.



ACQUAINTANCES AND FRIENDS: CHERUBINI, BAILLOT, FRANCHOMME, LISZT, MILLER, OSBORNE, MENDELSSOHN.—CHOPIN AND KALKBRENNER.—CHOPIN'S AIMS AS AN ARTIST.—KALKBRENNER'S CHARACTER AS A MAN AND ARTIST.—CHOPIN'S FIRST PARIS CONCERT.—FETIS.—CHOPIN PLAYS AT A CONCERT GIVEN BY THE PRINCE DE LA MOSKOWA.—HIS STATE OF MIND.—LOSS OF HIS POLISH LETTERS.—TEMPORARILY STRAITENED CIRCUMSTANCES AND BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS.—PATRONS AND WELL-WISHERS.—THE "IDEAL."—A LETTER TO HILLER.



Chopin brought only a few letters of introduction with him to Paris: one from Dr. Malfatti to Paer, and some from others to music-publishers. Through Paer he was made acquainted with Cherubini, Rossini, Baillot, and Kalkbrenner. Although Chopin in one of his early Paris letters calls Cherubini a mummy, he seems to have subsequently been more favourably impressed by him. At any rate, Ferdinand Hiller—who may have accompanied the new-comer, if he did not, as he thinks he did, introduce him, which is not reconcilable with his friend's statement that Paer made him acquainted with Cherubini—told me that Chopin conceived a liking for the burbero maestro, of whom Mendelssohn remarked that he composed everything with his head without the help of his heart.

The house of Cherubini [writes Veron in his "Memoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris"] was open to artists, amateurs, and people of good society; and every Monday a numerous assembly thronged his salons. All foreign artists wished to be presented to Cherubini. During these last years one met often at his house Hummel, Liszt, Chopin, Moscheles, Madame Grassini, and Mademoiselle Falcon, then young and brilliant in talent and beauty; Auber and Halevy, the favourite pupils of the master; and Meyerbeer and Rossini.

As evidence of the younger master's respect for the older one may be adduced a copy made by Chopin of one of Cherubini's fugues. This manuscript, which I saw in the possession of M. Franchomme, is a miracle of penmanship, and surpasses in neatness and minuteness everything I have seen of Chopin's writing, which is always microscopic.

From Dr. Hiller I learnt also that Chopin went frequently to Baillot's house. It is very probable that he was present at the soirees which Mendelssohn describes with his usual charming ease in his Paris letters. Baillot, though a man of sixty, still knew how to win the admiration of the best musicians by his fine, expressive violin-playing. Chopin writes in a letter to Elsner that Baillot was very amiable towards him, and had promised to take part with him in a quintet of Beethoven's at his concert; and in another letter Chopin calls Baillot "the rival of Paganini."

As far as I can learn there was not much intercourse between Chopin and Rossini. Of Kalkbrenner I shall have presently to speak at some length; first, however, I shall say a few words about some of the most interesting young artists whose acquaintance Chopin made.

One of these young artists was the famous violoncellist Franchomme, who told me that it was Hiller who first spoke to him of the young Pole and his unique compositions and playing. Soon after this conversation, and not long after the new-comer's arrival in Paris, Chopin, Liszt, Hiller, and Franchomme dined together. When the party broke up, Chopin asked Franchomme what he was going to do. Franchomme replied he had no particular engagement. "Then," said Chopin, "come with me and spend an hour or two at my lodgings." "Well," was the answer of Franchomme, "but if I do you will have to play to me." Chopin had no objection, and the two walked off together. Franchomme thought that Chopin was at that time staying at an hotel in the Rue Bergere. Be this as it may, the young Pole played as he had promised, and the young Frenchman understood him at once. This first meeting was the beginning of a life-long friendship, a friendship such as is rarely to be met with among the fashionable musicians of populous cities.

Mendelssohn, who came to Paris early in December, 1831, and stayed there till about the middle of April, 1832, associated a good deal with this set of striving artists. The diminutive "Chopinetto," which he makes use of in his letters to Hiller, indicates not only Chopin's delicate constitution of body and mind and social amiability, but also Mendelssohn's kindly feeling for him. [Footnote: Chopin is not mentioned in any of Mendelssohn's Paris letters. But the following words may refer to him; for although Mendelssohn did not play at Chopin's concert, there may have been some talk of his doing so. January 14, 1832: "Next week a Pole gives a concert; in it I have to play a piece for six performers with Kalkbrenner, Hiller and Co." Osborne related in his "Reminiscences of Frederick Chopin," a paper read before a meeting of the Musical Association (April 5, 1880), that he, Chopin, Hiller, and Mendelssohn, during the latter's stay in Paris, frequently dined together at a restaurant. They ordered and paid the dinner in turn. One evening at dessert they had a very animated conversation about authors and their manuscripts. When they were ready to leave Osborne called the waiter, but instead of asking for la note a payer, he said "Garcon, apportez-moi votre manuscrit." This sally of the mercurial Irishman was received with hearty laughter, Chopin especially being much tickled by the profanation of the word so sacred to authors. From the same source we learn also that Chopin took delight in repeating the criticisms on his performances which he at one time or other had chanced to overhear.

Not the least interesting and significant incident in Chopin's life was his first meeting and early connection with Kalkbrenner, who at that time—when Liszt and Thalberg had not yet taken possession of the commanding positions they afterwards occupied—enjoyed the most brilliant reputation of all the pianists then living. On December 16, 1831, Chopin writes to his friend Woyciechowski:—

You may easily imagine how curious I was to hear Herz and Hiller play; they are ciphers compared with Kalkbrenner. Honestly speaking, I play as well as Herz, but I wish I could play as well as Kalkbrenner. If Paganini is perfect, so also is he, but in quite another way. His repose, his enchanting touch, the smoothness of his playing, I cannot describe to you, one recognises the master in every note—he is a giant who throws all other artists into the shade. When I visited him, he begged me to play him something. What was I to do? As I had heard Herz, I took courage, seated myself at the instrument, and played my E minor Concerto, which charmed the people of the Bavarian capital so much. Kalkbrenner was astonished, and asked me if I were a pupil of Field's. He remarked that I had the style of Cramer, but the touch of Field. It amused me that Kalkbrenner, when he played to me, made a mistake and did not know how to go on; but it was wonderful to hear how he found his way again. Since this meeting we see each other daily, either he calls on me or I on him. He proposed to teach me for three years and make a great artist of me. I told him that I knew very well what I still lacked; but I will not imitate him, and three years are too much for me. He has convinced me that I play well only when I am in the right mood for it, but less well when this is not the case. This cannot be said of Kalkbrenner, his playing is always the same. When he had watched me for a long time, he came to the conclusion that I had no method; that I was indeed on a very good path, but might easily go astray; and that when he ceased to play, there would no longer be a representative of the grand pianoforte school left. I cannot create a new school, however much I may wish to do so, because I do not even know the old one; but I know that my tone-poems have some individuality in them, and that I always strive to advance.

If you were here, you would say "Learn, young man, as long as you have an opportunity to do so!" But many dissuade me from taking lessons, are of opinion that I play as well as Kalkbrenner, and that it is only vanity that makes him wish to have me for his pupil. That is nonsense. Whoever knows anything of music must think highly of Kalkbrenner's talent, although he is disliked as a man because he will not associate with everybody. But I assure you there is in him something higher than in all the virtuosos whom I have as yet heard. I have said this in a letter to my parents, who quite understand it. Elsner, however, does not comprehend it, and regards it as jealousy on Kalkbrenner's part that he not only praises me, but also wishes that my playing were in some respects different from what it is. In spite of all this I may tell you confidentially that I have already a distinguished name among the artists here.

Elsner expressed his astonishment that Kalkbrenner should require three years to reveal to Chopin the secrets of his art, and advised his former pupil not to confine the exercise of his musical talent to pianoforte-playing and the composition of pianoforte music. Chopin replies to this in a letter written on December 14, 1831, as follows:—

In the beginning of last year, although I knew what I yet lacked, and how very far I still was from equalling the model I have in you, I nevertheless ventured to think, "I will approach him, and if I cannot produce, a Lokietek ["the short," surname of a king of Poland; Elsner had composed an opera of that name], I may perhaps give to the world a Laskonogi ["the thin-legged," surname of another king of Poland]." To-day all such hopes are annihilated; I am forced to think of making my way in the world as a pianist. For some time I must keep in the background the higher artistic aim of which you wrote to me. In order to be a great composer one must possess, in addition to creative power, experience and the faculty of self-criticism, which, as you have taught me, one obtains not only by listening to the works of others, but still more by means of a careful critical examination of one's own.

After describing the difficulties which lie in the way of the opera composer, he proceeds:—

It is my conviction that he is the happier man who is able to execute his compositions himself. I am known here and there in Germany as a pianist; several musical journals have spoken highly of my concerts, and expressed the hope of seeing me soon take a prominent position among the first pianoforte- virtuosos. I had to-day anopportunity or fulfilling the promise I had made to myself. Why should I not embrace it?... I should not like to learn pianoforte-playing in Germany, for there no one could tell me precisely what it was that I lacked. I, too, have not seen the beam in my eye. Three years' study is far too much. Kalkbrenner, when he had heard me repeatedly, came to see that himself. From this you may see that a true meritorious virtuoso does not know the feeling of envy. I would certainly make up my mind to study for three years longer if I were certain that I should then reach the aim which I have kept in view. So much is clear to me, I shall never become a copy of Kalkbrenner; he will not be able to break my perhaps bold but noble resolve—TO CREATE A NEW ART-ERA. If I now continue my studies, I do so only in order to stand at some future time on my own feet. It was not difficult for Ries, who was then already recognised as a celebrated pianist, to win laurels at Berlin, Frankfort-on- the-Main, Dresden, &c., by his opera Die Rauberbraut. And how long was Spohr known as an excellent violinist before he had written Faust, Jessonda, and other works? I hope you will not deny me your blessing when you see on what grounds and with what intentions I struggle onwards.

This is one of the most important letters we have of Chopin; it brings before us, not the sighing lover, the sentimental friend, but the courageous artist. On no other occasion did he write so freely and fully of his views and aims. What heroic self-confidence, noble resolves, vast projects, flattering dreams! And how sad to think that most of them were doomed to end in failure and disappointment! But few are the lives of true artists that can really be called happy! Even the most successful have, in view of the ideally conceived, to deplore the quantitative and qualitative shortcomings of the actually accomplished. But to return to Kalkbrenner. Of him Chopin said truly that he was not a popular man; at any rate, he was not a popular man with the romanticists. Hiller tells us in his "Recollections and Letters of Mendelssohn" how little grateful he and his friends, Mendelssohn included, were for Kalkbrenner's civilities, and what a wicked pleasure they took in worrying him. Sitting one day in front of a cafe on the Boulevard des Italiens, Hiller, Liszt, and Chopin saw the prim master advancing, and knowing how disagreeable it would be to him to meet such a noisy company, they surrounded him in the friendliest manner, and assailed him with such a volley of talk that he was nearly driven to despair, which, adds Hiller, "of course delighted us." It must be confessed that the great Kalkbrenner, as M. Marmontel in his "Pianistes celebres" remarks, had "certaines etroitesses de caractere," and these "narrownesses" were of a kind that particularly provokes the ridicule of unconventional and irreverent minds. Heine is never more biting than when he speaks of Kalkbrenner. He calls him a mummy, and describes him as being dead long ago and having lately also married. This, however, was some years after the time we are speaking of. On another occasion Heine writes that Kalkbrenner is envied

for his elegant manners, for his polish and sweetishness, and for his whole marchpane-like appearance, in which, however, ihe calm observer discovers a shabby admixture of involuntary Berlinisms of the lowest class, so that Koreff could say of the man as wittily as correctly: "He looks like a bon-bon that has been in the mud."

A thorough belief in and an unlimited admiration of himself form the centre of gravity upon which the other qualities of Kalkbrenner's character balance themselves. He prided himself on being the pattern of a fine gentleman, and took upon him to teach even his oldest friends how to conduct themselves in society and at table. In his gait he was dignified, in his manners ceremonious, and in his speech excessively polite. He was addicted to boasting of honours offered him by the King, and of his intimacy with the highest aristocracy. That he did not despise popularity with the lower strata of society is evidenced by the anecdote (which the virtuoso is credited with having told himself to his guests) of the fish-wife who, on reading his card, timidly asks him to accept as a homage to the great Kalkbrenner a splendid fish which he had selected for his table. The artist was the counterpart of the man. He considered every success as by right his due, and recognised merit only in those who were formed on his method or at least acknowledged its superiority. His artistic style was a chastened reflex of his social demeanour.

It is difficult to understand how the Kalkbrenner-Chopin affair could be so often misrepresented, especially since we are in possession of Chopin's clear statements of the facts. [FOOTNOTE: Statements which are by no means invalidated by the following statement of Lenz:—"On my asking Chopin 'whether Kalkbrenner had understood much about it' [i.e. the art of pianoforte-playing], followed the answer: 'It was at the beginning of my stay in Paris.'"]. There are no grounds whatever to justify the assumption that Kalkbrenner was actuated by jealousy, artfulness, or the like, when he proposed that the wonderfully-gifted and developed Chopin should become his pupil for three years. His conceit of himself and his method account fully for the strangeness of the proposal. Moreover, three years was the regulation time of Kalkbrenner's course, and it was much that he was willing to shorten it in the case of Chopin. Karasowski, speaking as if he had the gift of reading the inmost thoughts of men, remarks: "Chopin did not suspect what was passing in Kalkbrenner's mind when he was playing to him." After all, I should like to ask, is there anything surprising in the fact that the admired virtuoso and author of a "Methode pour apprendre le Piano a l'aide du Guide-mains; contenant les principes de musique; un systems complet de doigter; des regles sur l'expression," &c., found fault with Chopin's strange fingering and unconventional style? Kalkbrenner could not imagine anything superior to his own method, anything finer than his own style. And this inability to admit the meritoriousness or even the legitimacy of anything that differed from what he was accustomed to, was not at all peculiar to this great pianist; we see it every day in men greatly his inferiors. Kalkbrenner's lament that when he ceased to play there would be no representative left of the grand pianoforte school ought to call forth our sympathy. Surely we cannot blame him for wishing to perpetuate what he held to be unsurpassable! According to Hiller, Chopin went a few times to the class of advanced pupils which Kalkbrenner had advised him to attend, as he wished to see what the thing was like. Mendelssohn, who had a great opinion of Chopin and the reverse of Kalkbrenner, was furious when he heard of this. But were Chopin's friends correct in saying that he played better than Kalkbrenner, and could learn nothing from him? That Chopin played better than Kalkbrenner was no doubt true, if we consider the emotional and intellectual qualities of their playing. But I think it was not correct to say that Chopin could learn nothing from the older master. Chopin was not only a better judge of Kalkbrenner than his friends, who had only sharp eyes for his short-comings, and overlooked or undervalued his good qualities, but he was also a better judge of himself and his own requirements. He had an ideal in his mind, and he thought that Kalkbrenner's teaching would help him to realise it. Then there is also this to be considered: unconnected with any school, at no time guided by a great master of the instrument, and left to his own devices at a very early age, Chopin found himself, as it were, floating free in the air without a base to stand on, without a pillar to lean against. The consequent feeling of isolation inspires at times even the strongest and most independent self-taught man—and Chopin, as a pianist, may almost be called one—with distrust in the adequacy of his self-acquired attainments, and an exaggerated idea of the advantages of a school education. "I cannot create a new school, because I do not even know the old one." This may or may not be bad reasoning, but it shows the attitude of Chopin's mind. It is also possible that he may have felt the inadequacy and inappropriateness of his technique and style for other than his own compositions. And many facts in the history of his career as an executant would seem to confirm the correctness of such a feeling. At any rate, after what we have read we cannot attribute his intention of studying under Kalkbrenner to undue self-depreciation. For did he not consider his own playing as good as that of Herz, and feel that he had in him the stuff to found a new era in music? But what was it then that attracted him to Kalkbrenner, and made him exalt this pianist above all the pianists he had heard? If the reader will recall to mind what I said in speaking of Mdlles. Sontag and Belleville of Chopin's love of beauty of tone, elegance, and neatness, he cannot be surprised at the young pianist's estimate of the virtuoso of whom Riehl says: "The essence of his nature was what the philologists call elegantia—he spoke the purest Ciceronian Latin on the piano." As a knowledge of Kalkbrenner's artistic personality will help to further our acquaintance with Chopin, and as our knowledge of it is for the most part derived from the libels and caricatures of well-intentioned critics, who in their zeal for a nobler and more glorious art overshoot the mark of truth, it will be worth our while to make inquiries regarding it.

Kalkbrenner may not inaptly be called the Delille of pianist-composers, for his nature and fate remind us somewhat of the poet. As to his works, although none of them possessed stamina enough to be long-lived, they would have insured him a fairer reputation if he had not published so many that were written merely for the market. Even Schumann confessed to having in his younger days heard and played Kalkbrenner's music often and with pleasure, and at a maturer age continued to acknowledge not only the master's natural virtuoso amiability and clever manner of writing effectively for fingers and hands, but also the genuinely musical qualities of his better works, of which he held the Concerto in D minor to be the "bloom," and remarks that it shows the "bright sides" of Kalkbrenner's "pleasing talent." We are, however, here more concerned with the pianist than with the composer. One of the best sketches of Kalkbrenner as a pianist is to be found in a passage which I shall presently quote from M. Marmontel's collection of "Silhouettes et Medaillons" of "Les Pianistes celebres." The sketch is valuable on account of its being written by one who is himself a master, one who does not speak from mere hearsay, and who, whilst regarding Kalkbrenner as an exceptional virtuoso, the continuator of Clementi, the founder ("one of the founders" would be more correct) of modern pianoforte-playing, and approving of the leading principle of his method, which aims at the perfect independence of the fingers and their preponderant action, does not hesitate to blame the exclusion of the action of the wrist, forearm, and arm, of which the executant should not deprive himself "dans les accents de legerete, d'expression et de force." But here is what M. Marmontel says:—

The pianoforte assumed under his fingers a marvellous and never harsh sonorousness, for he did not seek forced effects. His playing, smooth, sustained, harmonious, and of a perfect evenness, charmed even more than it astonished; moreover, a faultless neatness in the most difficult passages, and a left hand of unparalleled bravura, made Kalkbrenner an extraordinary virtuoso. Let us add that the perfect independence of the fingers, the absence of the in our day so frequent movements of the arms, the tranquillity of the hands and body, a perfect bearing—all these qualities combined, and many others which we forget, left the auditor free to enjoy the pleasure of listening without having his attention diverted by fatiguing gymnastics. Kalkbrenner's manner of phrasing was somewhat lacking in expression and communicative warmth, but the style was always noble, true, and of the grand school.

We now know what Chopin meant when he described Kalkbrenner as "perfect and possessed of something that raised him above all other virtuosos"; we now know also that Chopin's admiration was characteristic and not misplaced. Nevertheless, nobody will think for a moment of disagreeing with those who advised Chopin not to become a pupil of this master, who always exacted absolute submission to his precepts; for it was to be feared that he would pay too dear for the gain of inferior accomplishments with the loss of his invaluable originality. But, as we have seen, the affair came to nothing, Chopin ceasing to attend the classes after a few visits. What no doubt influenced his final decision more than the advice of his friends was the success which his playing and compositions met with at the concert of which I have now to tell the history. Chopin's desertion as a pupil did not terminate the friendly relation that existed between the two artists. When Chopin published his E minor Concerto he dedicated it to Kalkbrenner, and the latter soon after composed "Variations brillantes (Op. 120) pour le piano sur une Mazourka de Chopin," and often improvised on his young brother-artist's mazurkas. Chopin's friendship with Camille Pleyel helped no doubt to keep up his intercourse with Kalkbrenner, who was a partner of the firm of Pleyel & Co.

The arrangements for his concert gave Chopin much trouble, and had they not been taken in hand by Paer, Kalkbrenner, and especially Norblin, he would not have been able to do anything in Paris, where one required at least two months to get up a concert. This is what Chopin tells Elsner in the letter dated December 14, 1831. Notwithstanding such powerful assistance he did not succeed in giving his concert on the 25th of December, as he at first intended. The difficulty was to find a lady vocalist. Rossini, the director of the Italian Opera, was willing to help him, but Robert, the second director, refused to give permission to any of the singers in his company to perform at the concert, fearing that, if he did so once, there would be no end of applications. As Veron, the director of the Academie Royale likewise refused Chopin's request, the concert had to be put off till the 15th of January, 1832, when, however, on account of Kalkbrenner's illness or for some other reason, it had again to be postponed. At last it came off on February 26, 1832. Chopin writes on December 16, 1831, about the arrangements for the concert:—

Baillot, the rival of Paganini, and Brod, the celebrated oboe- player, will assist me with their talent. I intend to play my F minor Concerto and the Variations in B flat...I shall play not only the concerto and the variations, but also with Kalkbrenner his duet "Marche suivie d'une Polonaise" for two pianos, with the accompaniment of four others. Is this not an altogether mad idea? One of the grand pianos is very large, and is for Kalkbrenner; the other is small (a so-called mono- chord), and is for me. On the other large ones, which are as loud as an orchestra, Hiller, Osborne, Stamati, and Sowinski are to play. Besides these performers, Norblin, Vidal, and the celebrated viola-player Urban will take part in the concert.

The singers of the evening were Mdlles. Isambert and Tomeoni, and M. Boulanger. I have not been able to discover the programme of the concert. Hiller says that Chopin played his E minor Concerto and some of his mazurkas and nocturnes. Fetis, in the Revue musicale (March 3, 1832), mentions only in a general way that there were performed a concerto by Chopin, a composition for six pianos by Kalkbrenner, some vocal pieces, an oboe solo, and "a quintet for violin [sic], executed with that energy of feeling and that variety of inspiration which distinguish the talent of M. Baillot." The concert, which took place in Pleyel's rooms, was financially a failure; the receipts did not cover the expenses. The audience consisted chiefly of Poles, and most of the French present had free tickets. Hiller says that all the musical celebrities of Paris were there, and that Chopin's performances took everybody by storm. "After this," he adds, "nothing more was heard of want of technique, and Mendelssohn applauded triumphantly." Fetis describes this soiree musicale as one of the most pleasant that had been given that year. His criticism contains such interesting and, on the whole, such excellent remarks that I cannot resist the temptation to quote the more remarkable passages:—

Here is a young man who, abandoning himself to his natural impressions and without taking a model, has found, if not a complete renewal of pianoforte music, at least a part of what has been sought in vain for a long time—namely, an abundance of original ideas of which the type is to be found nowhere. We do not mean by this that M. Chopin is endowed with a powerful organisation like that of Beethoven, nor that there are in his music such powerful conceptions as one remarks in that of this great man. Beethoven has composed pianoforte music, but I speak here of pianists' music, and it is by comparison with the latter that I find in M. Chopin's inspirations the indication of a renewal of forms which may exercise in time much influence over this department of the art.

Of Chopin's concerto Fetis remarks that it:—

equally astonished and surprised his audience, as much by the novelty of the melodic ideas as by the figures, modulations, and general disposition of the movements. There is soul in these melodies, fancy in these figures, and originality in everything. Too much luxuriance in the modulations, disorder in the linking of the phrases, so that one seems sometimes to hear an improvisation rather than written music, these are the defects which are mixed with the qualities I have just now pointed out. But these defects belong to the age of the artist; they will disappear when experience comes. If the subsequent works of M. Chopin correspond to his debut, there can be no doubt but that he will acquire a brilliant and merited reputation.

As an executant also the young artist deserves praise. His playing is elegant, easy, graceful, and possesses brilliance and neatness. He brings little tone out of the instrument, and resembles in this respect the majority of German pianists. But the study which he is making of this part of his art, under the direction of M. Kalkbrenner, cannot fail to give him an important quality on which the nerf of execution depends, and without which the accents of the instrument cannot be modified.

Of course dissentient voices made themselves heard who objected to this and that; but an overwhelming majority, to which belonged the young artists, pronounced in favour of Chopin. Liszt says that he remembers his friend's debut:—

The most vigorous applause seemed not to suffice to our enthusiasm in the presence of this talented musician, who revealed a new phase of poetic sentiment combined with such happy innovations in the form of his art.

The concluding remark of the above-quoted criticism furnishes an additional proof that Chopin went for some time to Kalkbrenner's class. As Fetis and Chopin were acquainted with each other, we may suppose that the former was well informed on this point. In passing, we may take note of Chopin's account of the famous historian and theorist's early struggles:—

Fetis [Chopin writes on December 14, 1831], whom I know, and from whom one can learn much, lives outside the town, and comes to Paris only to give his lessons. They say he is obliged to do this because his debts are greater than the profits from his "Revue musicale." He is sometimes in danger of making intimate acquaintance with the debtors' prison. You must know that according to the law of the country a debtor can only be arrested in his dwelling. Fetis has, therefore, left the town and lives in the neighbourhood of Paris, nobody knows where.

On May 20, 1832, less than three months after his first concert, Chopin made his second public appearance in Paris, at a concert given by the Prince de la Moskowa for the benefit of the poor. Among the works performed was a mass composed by the Prince. Chopin played the first movement of:—

the concerto, which had already been heard at Pleyel's rooms, and had there obtained a brilliant success. On this occasion it was not so well received, a fact which, no doubt, must be attributed to the instrumentation, which is lacking in lightness, and to the small volume of tone which M. Chopin draws from the piano. However, it appears to us that the music of this artist will gain in the public opinion when it becomes better known. [FOOTNOTE: From the "Revue musicale."]

The great attraction of the evening was not Chopin, but Brod, who "enraptured" the audience. Indeed, there were few virtuosos who were as great favourites as this oboe-player; his name was absent from the programme of hardly any concert of note.

In passing we will note some other musical events of interest which occurred about the same time that Chopin made his debut. On March 18 Mendelssohn played Beethoven's G major Concerto with great success at one of the Conservatoire concerts, [FOOTNOTE: It was the first performance of this work in Paris.] the younger master's overture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream" had been heard and well received at the same institution in the preceding month, and somewhat later his "Reformation Symphony" was rehearsed, but laid aside. In the middle of March Paganini, who had lately arrived, gave the first of a series of concerts, with what success it is unnecessary to say. Of Chopin's intercourse with Zimmermann, the distinguished pianoforte-professor at the Conservatoire, and his family we learn from M. Marmontel, who was introduced to Chopin and Liszt, and heard them play in 1832 at one of his master's brilliant musical fetes, and gives a charming description of the more social and intimate parties at which Chopin seems to have been occasionally present.

Madame Zimmermann and her daughters did the honours to a great number of artists. Charades were acted; the forfeits that were given, and the rebuses that were not guessed, had to be redeemed by penances varying according to the nature of the guilty ones. Gautier, Dumas, and Musset were condemned to recite their last poem. Liszt or Chopin had to improvise on a given theme, Mesdames Viardot, Falcon, and Euggnie Garcia had also to discharge their melodic debts, and I myself remember having paid many a forfeit.

The preceding chapter and the foregoing part of this chapter set forth the most important facts of Chopin's social and artistic life in his early Paris days. The following extract from a letter of his to Titus Woyciechowski, dated December 25, 1831, reveals to us something of his inward life, the gloom of which contrasts violently with the outward brightness:—

Ah, how I should like to have you beside me!... You cannot imagine how sad it is to have nobody to whom I can open my troubled heart. You know how easily I make acquaintances, how I love human society—such acquaintances I make in great numbers—but with no one, no one can I sigh. My heart beats as it were always "in syncopes," therefore I torment myself and seek for a rest—for solitude, so that the whole day nobody may look at me and speak to me. It is too annoying to me when there is a pull at the bell, and a tedious visit is announced while I am writing to you. At the moment when I was going to describe to you the ball, at which a divine being with a rose in her black hair enchanted me, arrives your letter. All the romances of my brain disappear? my thoughts carry me to you, I take your hand and weep...When shall we see each other again?...Perhaps never, because, seriously, my health is very bad. I appear indeed merry, especially when I am among my fellow-countrymen; but inwardly something torments me—a gloomy presentiment, unrest, bad dreams, sleeplessness, yearning, indifference to everything, to the desire to live and the desire to die. It seems to me often as if my mind were benumbed, I feel a heavenly repose in my heart, in my thoughts I see images from which I cannot tear myself away, and this tortures me beyond all measure. In short, it is a combination of feelings that are difficult to describe...Pardon me, dear Titus, for telling you of all this; but now I have said enough...I will dress now and go, or rather drive, to the dinner which our countrymen give to- day to Ramorino and Langermann...Your letter contained much that was news to me; you have written me four pages and thirty-seven lines—in all my life you have never been so liberal to me, and I stood in need of something of the kind, I stood indeed very much in need of it.

What you write about my artistic career is very true, and I myself am convinced of it.

I drive in my own equipage, only the coachman is hired.

I shall close, because otherwise I should be too late for the post, for I am everything in one person, master and servant. Take pity on me and write as often as possible!—Yours unto death,

FREDERICK.

In the postscript of this letter Chopin's light fancy gets the better of his heavy heart; in it all is fun and gaiety. First he tells his friend of a pretty neighbour whose husband is out all day and who often invites him to visit and comfort her. But the blandishments of the fair one were of no avail; he had no taste for adventures, and, moreover, was afraid to be caught and beaten by the said husband. A second love-story is told at greater length. The dramatis personae are Chopin, John Peter Pixis, and Francilla Pixis, a beautiful girl of sixteen, a German orphan whom the pianist-composer, then a man of about forty-three, had adopted, and who afterwards became known as a much-admired singer. Chopin made their acquaintance in Stuttgart, and remarks that Pixis said that he intended to marry her. On his return to Paris Pixis invited Chopin to visit him; the latter, who had by this time forgotten pretty Francilla, was in no hurry to call. What follows must be given in Chopin's own words:—