IV
There is little to be said of the quality of Chopin’s music in general, and that little has often been fervidly spoken, now in praise, now in blame. His music may be variously classified. There are works of his young manhood, works of more mature stamp, finally works written in the last years of his relatively short life which are very noticeably more profound and more involved than earlier ones. To study his music in the order of its creation is to trace the deepening and the sobering of his emotional life. An intensity is common to it all, a fervor which a long and painful illness had not the power to assuage. Neither the Ballade in F minor nor the Polonaise-Fantaisie is less impassioned than the study in C minor, opus 10, No. 12. Outwardly they all show the same restlessness and tumultuousness. But the passion of the later works is deeper if not more calm than that of the earlier, and the expression of it is more varied and full of contrasts. Works like the fourth Scherzo, the fourth Ballade, and the Barcarolle have an under meaning so hard to grasp that perhaps the majority of those who study them or hear them find fault with the structure and say they are rambling. There is in all his music a reserve which puts it beyond the touch of most who would play it. In these last great pieces one discerns vaguely something of the holiness of that inner life of his which no one ever heard him speak of, of the intense, yearning idealism that tortured him. His was a spirit that underwent the chastening brought upon us by suffering in body and mind in silence, this fastidious, dainty, malicious, little man, for ever suffering, for ever unconquerable in pride.
But the compositions may be more definitely classified than by the signs they show of Chopin’s general development. There are, for example, three distinct groups: salon pieces, such as the Waltzes and Nocturnes; pieces in which he speaks as it were his native Polish language, such as the Mazurkas and the Polonaises, and finally works which seem the unrestricted expression of his emotions: the Ballades, Scherzos, Sonatas, Preludes, and Études.
All the salon pieces are characterized by elegance. In addition, the Waltzes have in most cases a sparkle, the Nocturnes a discrete melancholy. Yet Chopin is full of surprises, and there are waltzes like that in A minor and that in C-sharp minor which pass out of the category of elegant salon music based on dance rhythms, and may be treated as among the most thoughtful and the sad expressions of his experience. The first two waltzes, and the great waltz in A-flat major, opus 42, reveal him delighting in poignant and lively rhythms, in a grace from which a certain chivalric gallantry is not lacking, and above all in the captivating qualities of his instrument.
Perhaps the majority of the Nocturnes show a sentiment a little too much perfumed for the salon. They are commonly considered the weakest of his compositions; and it can hardly be denied that some of them lack virility and health. On the other hand, one like that in C minor is fit to stand among the most impassioned and noble of his compositions; and those in G major and in D-flat major must long be redeemed from commonplaceness by the perfection of their style as pianoforte music.
In the Mazurkas, harmonies, rhythm, and melodies have a distinctly Polish character. In the Polonaises only the rhythm is national; and this has been so long in the favor of the international world of music that it carries with it little of Polish spirit. Most of the Mazurkas and the Polonaises never shake off an under mood of deep sadness, and there is none of them, however gracious, which does not sing of a national pride. Pride and sorrow are the keynote to them, sorrow that is often hopeless, pride that rises to anger and defiance. There are among the Mazurkas many which have an elegiac sadness, which are poems of meditation and lamentation, as if by the ruins of his beloved country he, like the great prophet, sat down and wept. They are often as short as the short preludes, but share with them a vividness and intenseness that place them among the most remarkable of compositions for the instrument.
The Polonaises are in broad form. Those in A major, A-flat major, and F-sharp minor are truly colossal works, ringing, clashing, marching music, without a touch of bombast. It is astonishing how all polonaises, polaccas, and even marches by other composers lose their light beside them. Those in C minor and in E-flat minor are sombre and gloomy, the former full of heaviness, the latter of mysterious agitation as of a band of conspirators, in the apt phrase of Professor Niecks. That in C-sharp minor lacks the dignity of its companion pieces. The first part is fretful and nervous. The Trio section in D-flat has, however, a more measured, though an effeminate speech.
Of his other great works one would be glad to say nothing. We have already attempted to analyze the perfection of their style, the richness of their harmonies, the firm proportions of their form. To the discovery of their particular beauties each lover must be led by his own enthusiasm. The rapture they may charm him to is his own joy. Chopin the artist may be held up to the critical inspection of the whole world, and in such an inspection few will pass with higher praise than his.
But Chopin the musician speaks to each ear apart. His music is a fervid, aristocratic, essentially noble soul made audible, if so we may translate Balzac’s remark that he was une âme qui se rendait sensible. Illness held him in an inexorable grip during those years of his life when he wrote many of his greatest works. His pride, which no one may measure, made his life one agony with that of his broken country. Yet there was the saving streak of iron in him, and that is in his music behind all the vehemence, the fever, and the passion.
And what may not be overlooked is his love of gaiety. His wit was malicious and keen, but he had a pleasing humor as well, one that overflowed in mimicry and an almost childish love of fun. This too is constantly coming to the surface in his music. It would be wholly mistaken to think of Chopin as a composer of only sad or turbulent music. A whole list of masterpieces could be chosen from those of his compositions which are gay without arrière-pensée, which are witty and vivacious, and clear as happy laughter. It is perhaps this very spirit which saves his music always from heaviness, which makes it in the last analysis more healthy and more sane than much of that of Schumann or Brahms. Never are his moods heavy, stagnant, or inert. Intense as they may be they are swift-changing and vivid.
Are they not thus in their nature suited to the piano more than to all other instruments? To the piano, the sounds of which are no sooner struck than they float away, the very breath of whose being is in constant movement?
The mass of Chopin’s compositions remains unique in the literature of pianoforte music as an expression of emotion that is without alloy. There is no trace in it of experiment, of theory, or of symbolism. Its idealism is the idealism of beauty of sound, both in form and detail. If we call it poetical it is because it seems a fire of the imagination. Yet here is a faculty in Chopin which deals only with sound. His music is most decidedly abstract and absolute. Poetical as it may be, there is no meaning in it but the meaning of sound. Not only does it not call for supplementary explanations in terms of another art or of definite, emotional activities in life; it defies the effort that would so relate it to a world of perceptions. Like fire it burns the thought that would frame it.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] ‘Chopin the Composer.’ New York, 1914.
[36] Professor Frederick Niecks in his ‘Frederic Chopin’ (1888) has presented practically all that is known of Chopin to the public, in a manner that is no less accurate than it is wholly just and impartial. Needless to say that we are greatly indebted for this chapter to that excellent and wise book, especially in the matter of biographical and personal details.
CHAPTER VIII
HERZ, THALBERG, AND LISZT
The career of Henri Herz, his compositions and his style; virtuosity and sensationalism; means of effect—Sigismund Thalberg: his playing; the ‘Moses’ fantasia, etc.; relation of Herz and Thalberg to the public—Franz Liszt: his personality and its influence; his playing; his expansion of pianoforte technique; difficulties of his music estimated—Liszt’s compositions: transcriptions; fantasia on Don Giovanni—Realistic pieces, Années de pèlerinage—Absolute music: sonata in B minor; Hungarian Rhapsodies; Conclusion.
There is no doubt that Chopin was one of the greatest players of his day. In some respects he was probably the greatest, for it is hard to believe that he could have been matched in delicacy, in beauties of veiled harmony and melody, and in poetry. Yet as far as playing was concerned his life was spent virtually in retirement; and this was, as we have hinted in the preceding chapter, bitter to him. It was not easy for him, we may be sure, to hear from the outer world the echoes of uproarious applause raised to greet one battling virtuoso after another. These men strode like conquering heroes over the earth. The years Chopin spent in Paris were the very hey-day of the virtuosi. He was excluded from such public triumphs as they enjoyed, partly because he was too nervous and too sensitive to endure contact with great audiences, partly because he lacked physical strength, and partly, also, because to the general taste at that time his style of playing and his music were too fine to be palatable. Mendelssohn wondered whether or not Herz was prejudiced when he said that the Parisians could understand and appreciate nothing but variations.
HENRI HERZ