Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete

by Frederick Niecks

In his playing the great artist rendered exquisitely that kind
of agitated trepidation, timid or breathless, which seizes the
heart when one believes one's self in the vicinity of
supernatural beings, in presence of those whom one does not
know either how to divine or to lay hold of, to embrace or to
charm. He always made the melody undulate like a skiff borne
on the bosom of a powerful wave; or he made it move vaguely
like an aerial apparition suddenly sprung up in this tangible
and palpable world. In his writings he at first indicated this
manner which gave so individual an impress to his virtuosity
by the term tempo rubato: stolen, broken time—a measure at
once supple, abrupt, and languid, vacillating like the flame
under the breath which agitates it, like the corn in a field
swayed by the soft pressure of a warm air, like the top of
trees bent hither and thither by a keen breeze.
But as the term taught nothing to him who knew, said nothing
to him who did not know, understand, and feel, Chopin
afterwards ceased to add this explanation to his music, being
persuaded that if one understood it, it was impossible not to
divine this rule of irregularity. Accordingly, all his
compositions ought to be played with that kind of accented,
rhythmical balancement, that morbidezza, the secret of which
it was difficult to seize if one had not often heard him play.

Let us try if it is not possible to obtain a clearer notion of this mysterious tempo rubato. Among instrumentalists the "stolen time" was brought into vogue especially by Chopin and Liszt. But it is not an invention of theirs or their time. Quanz, the great flutist (see Marpurg: "Kritische Beitrage." Vol. I.), said that he heard it for the first time from the celebrated singer Santa Stella Lotti, who was engaged in 1717 at the Dresden Opera, and died in 1759 at Venice. Above all, however, we have to keep in mind that the tempo rubato is a genus which comprehends numerous species. In short, the tempo rubato of Chopin is not that of Liszt, that of Liszt is not that of Henselt, and so on. As for the general definitions we find in dictionaries, they can afford us no particular enlightenment. But help comes to us from elsewhere. Liszt explained Chopin's tempo rubato in a very poetical and graphic manner to his pupil the Russian pianist Neilissow:—"Look at these trees!" he said, "the wind plays in the leaves, stirs up life among them, the tree remains the same, that is Chopinesque rubato." But how did the composer himself describe it? From Madame Dubois and other pupils of Chopin we learn that he was in the habit of saying to them: "Que votre main gauche soit votre maitre de chapelle et garde toujours la mesure" (Let your left hand be your conductor and always keep time). According to Lenz Chopin taught also: "Angenommen, ein Stuck dauert so und so viel Minuten, wenn das Ganze nur so lange gedauert hat, im Einzelnen kann's anders sein!" (Suppose a piece lasts so and so many minutes, if only the whole lasts so long, the differences in the details do not matter). This is somewhat ambiguous teaching, and seems to be in contradiction to the preceding precept. Mikuli, another pupil of Chopin's, explains his master's tempo rubato thus:—"While the singing hand, either irresolutely lingering or as in passionate speech eagerly anticipating with a certain impatient vehemence, freed the truth of the musical expression from all rhythmical fetters, the other, the accompanying hand, continued to play strictly in time." We get a very lucid description of Chopin's tempo rubato from the critic of the Athenaeum who after hearing the pianist-composer at a London matinee in 1848 wrote:—"He makes free use of tempo rubato; leaning about within his bars more than any player we recollect, but still subject to a presiding measure such as presently habituates the ear to the liberties taken." Often, no doubt, people mistook for tempo rubato what in reality was a suppression or displacement of accent, to which kind of playing the term is indeed sometimes applied. The reader will remember the following passage from a criticism in the "Wiener Theaterzeitung" of 1829:—"There are defects noticeable in the young man's [Chopin's] playing, among which is perhaps especially to be mentioned the non-observance of the indication by accent of the commencement of musical phrases." Mr. Halle related to me an interesting dispute bearing on this matter. The German pianist told Chopin one day that he played in his mazurkas often 4/4 instead of 3/4 time. Chopin would not admit it at first, but when Mr. Halle proved his case by counting to Chopin's playing, the latter admitted the correctness of the observation, and laughing said that this was national. Lenz reports a similar dispute between Chopin and Meyerbeer. In short, we may sum up in Moscheles' words, Chopin's playing did not degenerate into Tactlosigkeit [lit., timelessness], but it was of the most charming originality. Along with the above testimony we have, however, to take note of what Berlioz said on the subject: "Chopin supportait mal le frein de la mesure; il a pousse beaucoup trap loin, selon moi, l'independance rhythmique." Berlioz even went so far as to say that "Chopin could not play strictly in time [ne pouvait pas jouer regulierement]."

Indeed, so strange was Chopin's style that when Mr. Charles Halle first heard him play his compositions he could not imagine how what he heard was represented by musical signs. But strange as Chopin's style of playing was he thinks that its peculiarities are generally exaggerated. The Parisians said of Rubinstein's playing of compositions of Chopin: "Ce n'est pas ca!" Mr. Halle himself thinks that Rubinstein's rendering of Chopin is clever, but not Chopinesque. Nor do Von Bulow's readings come near the original. As for Chopin's pupils, they are even less successful than others in imitating their master's style. The opinion of one who is so distinguished a pianist and at the same time was so well acquainted with Chopin as Mr. Halle is worth having. Hearing Chopin often play his compositions he got so familiar with that master's music and felt so much in sympathy with it that the composer liked to have it played by him, and told him that when he was in the adjoining room he could imagine he was playing himself.

But it is time that we got off the shoals on which we have been lying so long. Well, Lenz shall set us afloat:—

In the undulation of the motion, in that suspension and unrest
[Hangen und Bangen], in the rubato as he understood it, Chopin
was captivating, every note was the outcome of the best taste
in the best sense of the word. If he introduced an
embellishment, which happened only rarely, it was always a
kind of miracle of good taste. Chopin was by his whole nature
unfitted to render Beethoven or Weber, who paint on a large
scale and with a big brush. Chopin was an artist in crayons
[Pastellmaler], but an INCOMPARABLE one! By the side of Liszt
he might pass with honour for that master's well-matched wife
[ebenburtige Frau, i.e., wife of equal rank]. Beethoven's B
flat major Sonata, Op. 106, and Chopin exclude each other.

One day Chopin took Lenz with him to the Baronne Krudner and her friend the Countess Scheremetjew to whom he had promised to play the variations of Beethoven's Sonata in A flat major (Op. 26). And how did he play them?

Beautifully [says Lenz], but not so beautifully as his own
things, not enthrallingly [packend], not en relief, not as a
romance increasing in interest from variation to variation. He
whispered it mezza voce, but it was incomparable in the
cantilena, infinitely perfect in the phrasing of the
structure, ideally beautiful, but FEMININE! Beethoven is a man
and never ceases to be one!
Chopin played on a Pleyel, he made it a point never to give
lessons on another instrument; they were obliged to get a
Pleyel. All were charmed, I also was charmed, but only with
the tone of Chopin, with his touch, with his sweetness and
grace, with the purity of his style.

Chopin's purity of style, self-command, and aristocratic reserve have to be quite especially noted by us who are accustomed to hear the master's compositions played wildly, deliriously, ostentatiously. J. B. Cramer's remarks on Chopin are significant. The master of a bygone age said of the master of the then flourishing generation:—

I do not understand him, but he plays beautifully and
correctly, oh! very correctly, he does not give way to his
passion like other young men, but I do not understand him.

What one reads and hears of Chopin's playing agrees with the account of his pupil Mikuli, who remarks that, with all the warmth which Chopin possessed in so high a degree, his rendering was nevertheless temperate [massvoll], chaste, nay, aristocratic, and sometimes even severely reserved. When, on returning home from the above-mentioned visit to the Russian ladies, Lenz expressed his sincere opinion of Chopin's playing of Beethoven's variations, the master replied testily: "I indicate (j'indique); the hearer must complete (parachever) the picture." And when afterwards, while Chopin was changing his clothes in an adjoining room, Lenz committed the impertinence of playing Beethoven's theme as he understood it, the master came in in his shirt-sleeves, sat down beside him, and at the end of the theme laid his hand on Lenz's shoulder and said: "I shall tell Liszt of it; this has never happened to me before; but it is beautiful—well, BUT MUST ONE THEN ALWAYS SPEAK SO PASSIONATELY (si declamatoirement)?" The italics in the text, not those in parentheses, are mine. I marked some of Chopin's words thus that they might get the attention they deserve. "Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are." Parodying this aphorism one might say, not without a good deal of truth: Tell me what piano you use, and I will tell you what sort of a pianist you are. Liszt gives us all the desirable information as to Chopin's predilection in this respect. But Lenz too has, as we have seen, touched on this point. Liszt writes:—