Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete

by Frederick Niecks

Instead of commenting on the improbability of a generous artist thus cruelly taunting his sensitive rival, I shall simply say that Liszt had not the slightest recollection of ever having imitated Chopin's playing in a darkened room. There may be some minute grains of truth mixed up with all this chaff of fancy—Chopin's displeasure at the liberties Liszt took with his compositions was no doubt one of them—but it is impossible to separate them.

M. Rollinat relates also how in 184-, when Chopin, Liszt, the Comtesse d'Agoult, Pauline Garcia, Eugene Delacroix, the actor Bocage, and other celebrities were at Nohant, the piano was one moonlit night carried out to the terrace; how Liszt played the hunting chorus from Weber's Euryanthe, Chopin some bars from an impromptu he was then composing; how Pauline Garcia sang Nel cor piu non mi sento, and a niece of George Sand a popular air; how the echo answered the musicians; and how after the music the company, which included also a number of friends from the neighbouring town, had punch and remained together till dawn. But here again M. Rollinat's veracity is impugned on all sides. Madame Viardot-Garcia declares that she was never at Nohant when Liszt was there; and Liszt did not remember having played on the terrace of the chateau. Moreover, seeing that the first performance of the Prophete took place on April 16, 1849, is it likely that Madame Pauline Garcia was studying her part before or in 1846? And unless she did so she could not meet Chopin at Nohant when she was studying it.

M. Rollinat is more trustworthy when he tells us that there was a pretty theatre and quite an assortment of costumes at the chateau; that the dramas and comedies played there were improvised by the actors, only the subject and the division into scenes being given; and that on two pianos, concealed by curtains, one on the right and one on the left of the stage, Chopin and Liszt improvised the musical part of the entertainment. All this is, however, so much better and so much more fully told by George Sand (in Dernieres Pages: Le Theatre des Marionnettes de Nohant) that we will take our information from her. It was in the long nights of a winter that she conceived the plan of these private theatricals in imitation of the comedia dell' arte—namely, of "pieces the improvised dialogue of which followed a written sketch posted up behind the scenes."

They resembled the charades which are acted in society and
which are more or less developed according to the ensemble and
the talent of the performers. We had begun with these. By
degrees the word of the charade disappeared and we played
first mad saynetes, then comedies of intrigues and adventures,
and finally dramas of incidents and emotions. The whole thing
began by pantomime, and this was of Chopin's invention; he
occupied the place at the piano and improvised, while the
young people gesticulated scenes and danced comic ballets. I
leave you to imagine whether these now wonderful, now charming
improvisations quickened the brains and made supple the legs
of our performers. He led them as he pleased and made them
pass, according to his fancy, from the droll to the severe,
from the burlesque to the solemn, from the graceful to the
passionate. We improvised costumes in order to play
successively several roles. As soon as the artist saw them
appear, he adapted his theme and his accent in a marvellous
manner to their respective characters. This went on for three
evenings, and then the master, setting out for Paris, left us
thoroughly stirred up, enthusiastic, and determined not to
suffer the spark which had electrified us to be lost.

To get away from the quicksands of Souvenirs—for George Sand's pages, too, were written more than thirty years after the occurrences she describes, and not published till 1877—I shall make some extracts from the contemporaneous correspondence of George Sand's great friend, the celebrated painter Eugene Delacroix. [FOOTNOTE: Lettres de Eugene Delacroix (1815 a 1863) recucillies et publiees par M. Philippe Burty. Paris, 1878.] The reader cannot fail to feel at once the fresh breeze of reality that issues from these letters, which contain vivid sketches full of natural beauties and free from affectation and striving after effect:—

Nohant, June 7, 1842.
...The place is very pleasant, and the hosts do their utmost to
please me. When we are not assembled to dine, breakfast, play at
billiards, or walk, we are in our rooms, reading, or resting on
our sofas. Now and then there come to you through the window
opening on the garden, whiffs of the music of Chopin, who is
working in his room; this mingles with the song of the
nightingales and the odour of the roses. You see that so far I am
not much to be pitied, and, nevertheless, work must come to give
the grain of salt to all this. This life is too easy, I must
purchase it with a little racking of my brains; and like the
huntsman who eats with more appetite when he has got his skin
torn by bushes, one must strive a little after ideas in order to
feel the charm of doing nothing.

Nohant, June 14, 1842.
...Although I am in every respect most agreeably circumstanced,
both as regards body and mind, for I am in much better health, I
have not been able to prevent myself from thinking of work. How
strange! this work is fatiguing, and yet the species of activity
it gives to the mind is necessary to the body itself. In vain did
I try to get up a passion for billiards, in which I receive a
lesson every day, in vain have I good conversations on all the
subjects that please me, music that I seize on the wing and by
whiffs, I have felt the need of doing something. I have begun a
Sainte-Anne for the parish, and I have already set it agoing.

Nohant, June 22, 1842.
...Pen and ink certainly become more and more repugnant to me. I
have no more than you any event to record. I lead a monastic
life, and as monotonous as it well can be. No event varies the
course of it. We expected Balzac, who has not come, and I am not
sorry. He is a babbler who would have destroyed this harmony of
NONCHALANCE which I am enjoying thoroughly; at intervals a little
painting, billiards, and walking, that is more than is necessary
to fill up the days. There is not even the distraction of
neighbours and friends from the environs; in this part of the
country everyone remains at home and occupies him self with his
oxen and his land. One would become a fossil here in a very short
time.
I have interminable private interviews with Chopin, whom I
love much, and who is a man of a rare distinction; he is the
most true artist I have met. He is one of the few one can
admire and esteem. Madame Sand suffers frequently from violent
headaches and pains in her eyes, which she tries to master as
much as possible and with much strength of will, so as not to
weary us with what she suffers.
The greatest event of my stay has been a peasants' ball on the
lawn of the chateau with the best bagpipers of the place. The
people of this part of the country present a remarkable type
of gentleness and good nature; ugliness is rare here, though
beauty is not often seen, but there is not that kind of fever
which is observable in the peasants of the environs of Paris.
All the women have the appearance of those sweet faces one
sees only in the pictures of the old masters. They are all
Saint Annes.

Amidst the affectations, insincerities, and superficialities of Chopin's social intercourse, Delacroix's friendship—we have already seen that the musician reciprocated the painter's sentiments—stands out like a green oasis in a barren desert. When, on October 28, 1849, a few days after Chopin's death, Delacroix sent a friend a ticket for the funeral service of the deceased, he speaks of him as "my poor and dear Chopin." But the sincerity of Delacroix's esteem and the tenderness of his love for Chopin are most fully revealed in some lines of a letter which he wrote on January 7, 1861, to Count Czymala [Grzymala]:—

When I have finished [the labours that took up all his time],
I shall let you know, and shall see you again, with the
pleasure I have always had, and with the feelings your kind
letter has reanimated in me. With whom shall I speak of the
incomparable genius whom heaven has envied the earth, and of
whom I dream often, being no longer able to see him in this
world nor to hear his divine harmonies.
If you see sometimes the charming Princess Marcelline
[Czartoryska], another object of my respect, place at her feet
the homage of a poor man who has not ceased to be full of the
memory of her kindnesses and of admiration for her talent,
another bond of union with the seraph whom we have lost and
who, at this hour, charms the celestial spheres.