As regards Chopin's male pupils, we have to note George Mathias (born at Paris in 1826), the well-known professor of the piano at the Paris Conservatoire, [FOOTNOTE: He retired a year or two ago.] and still more widely-known composer of more than half-a-hundred important works (sonatas, trios, concertos, symphonic compositions, pianoforte pieces, songs, &c.), who enjoyed the master's teaching from 1839 to 1844; Lysberg (1821-1873), whose real name was Charles Samuel Bovy, for many years professor of the piano at the Conservatoire of his native town, Geneva, and a very fertile composer of salon pieces for the piano (composer also of a one-act comic opera, La Fills du Carillonneur), distinguished by "much poetic feeling, an extremely careful form, an original colouring, and in which one often seems to see pass a breath of Weber or Chopin"; [FOOTNOTE: Supplement et Complement to Fetis' Biographie universelle des Musiciens, published under the direction of Arthur Pougin.] the Norwegian Thomas Dyke Acland Tellefsen (1823-1874), a teacher of the piano in Paris and author of an edition of Chopin's works; Carl Mikuli (born at Czernowitz in 1821), since 1858 artistic director of the Galician Musical Society (conservatoire, concerts, &c.), and author of an edition of Chopin's works; and Adolph Gutmann, the master's favourite pupil par excellence, of whom we must speak somewhat more at length. Karasowski makes also mention of Casimir Wernik, who died at St. Petersburg in 1859, and of Gustav Schumann, a teacher of the piano at Berlin, who, however, was only during the winter of 1840-1841 with the Polish master. For Englishmen the fact of the late Brinley Richards and Lindsay Sloper having been pupils of Chopin—the one for a short, the other for a longer period—will be of special interest.
Adolph Gutmann was a boy of fifteen when in 1834 his father brought him to Paris to place him under Chopin. The latter, however, did not at first feel inclined to accept the proposed trust; but on hearing the boy play he conceived so high an idea of his capacities that he agreed to undertake his artistic education. Chopin seems to have always retained a thorough belief in his muscular pupil, although some of his great pianist friends thought this belief nothing but a strange delusion. There are also piquant anecdotes told by fellow-pupils with the purpose of showing that Chopin did not care very much for him. For instance, the following: Some one asked the master how his pupil was getting on, "Oh, he makes very good chocolate," was the answer. Unfortunately, I cannot speak of Gutmann's playing from experience, for although I spent eight days with him, it was on a mountain-top in the Tyrol, where there were no pianos. But Chopin's belief in Gutmann counts with me for something, and so does Moscheles' reference to him as Chopin's "excellent pupil"; more valuable, I think, than either is the evidence of Dr. A. C. Mackenzie, who at my request visited Gutmann several times in Florence and was favourably impressed by his playing, in which he noticed especially beauty of tone combined with power. As far as I can make out Gutmann planned only once, in 1846, a regular concert-tour, being furnished for it by Chopin with letters of introduction to the highest personages in Berlin, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg. Through the intervention of the Countess Rossi (Henriette Sontag), he was invited to play at a court-concert at Charlottenburg in celebration of the King's birthday. [FOOTNOTE: His part of the programme consisted of his master's E minor Concerto (2nd and 3rd movements) and No. 3 of the first book of studies, and his own tenth study.] But the day after the concert he was seized with such home-sickness that he returned forthwith to Paris, where he made his appearance to the great astonishment of Chopin. The reader may perhaps be interested in what a writer in the Gazette Musicale said about Chopin's favourite pupil on March 24, 1844:—
M. Gutmann is a pianist with a neat but somewhat cold style of
playing; he has what one calls fingers, and uses them with
much dexterity. His manner of proceeding is rather that of
Thalberg than of the clever professor who has given him
lessons. He afforded pleasure to the lovers of the piano
[amateurs de piano] at the musical SOIREE which he gave last
Monday at M. Erard's. Especially his fantasia on the
"Freischutz" was applauded.
Of course, the expression of any individual opinion is no conclusive proof. Gutmann was so successful as a teacher and in a way also as a composer (his compositions, I may say in passing, were not in his master's but in a light salon style) that at a comparatively early period of his life he was able to retire from his profession. After travelling for some time he settled at Florence, where he invented the art, or, at least, practised the art which he had previously invented, of painting with oil-colours on satin. He died at Spezzia on October 27, 1882.
[FOOTNOTE: The short notice of Gutmann in Fetis' Biographie Universelle des Musiciens, and those of the followers of this by no means infallible authority, are very incorrect. Adolfo Gutmann, Riccordi Biografici, by Giulio Piccini (Firenze: Guiseppe Polverini, 1881), reproduces to a great extent the information contained in Der Lieblingsschuler Chopin's in Bernhard Stavenow's Schone Geister (Bremen: Kuhlmann, 1879), both which publications, eulogistic rather than biographical, were inspired by Gutmann.]
Whatever interest the reader may have taken in this survey of Chopin's pupils, he is sure to be more deeply interested by the account of the master's manner and method of teaching. Such an account, which would be interesting in the case of any remarkable virtuoso who devoted himself to instruction, is so in a higher degree in that of Chopin: first, because it may help us to solve the question why so unique a virtuoso did not form a single eminent concert-player; secondly, because it throws still further light on his character as a man and artist; and thirdly, because, as Mikuli thinks may be asserted without exaggeration, "only Chopin's pupils knew the pianist in the fulness of his unrivalled height." The materials at my disposal are abundant and not less trustworthy than abundant. My account is based chiefly on the communications made to me by a number of the master's pupils—notably, Madame Dubois, Madame Rubio, M. Mathias, and Gutmann—and on Mikuli's excellent preface to his edition of Chopin's works. When I have drawn upon other sources, I have not done so without previous examination and verification. I may add that I shall use as far as possible the ipsissima verba of my informants:—
As to Chopin's method of teaching [wrote to me M. Mathias], it
was absolutely of the old legato school, of the school of
Clementi and Cramer. Of course, he had enriched it by a great
variety of touch [d'une grande variete dans l'attaque de la
touche]; he obtained a wonderful variety of tone and NUANCES
of tone; in passing I may tell you that he had an
extraordinary vigour, but only by flashes [ce ne pouvait etre
que par eclairs].
The Polish master, who was so original in many ways, differed from his confreres even in the way of starting his pupils. With him the normal position of the hand was not that above the keys c, d, e, f, g (i.e., above five white keys), but that above the keys e, f sharp, g sharp, a sharp, b (I.E., above two white keys and three black keys, the latter lying between the former). The hand had to be thrown lightly on the keyboard so as to rest on these keys, the object of this being to secure for it not only an advantageous, but also a graceful position:—
[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski, in Chopin: De l'interpretation de ses oeuvres—Trois conferences faites a Varsovie, says that he was told by several of the master's pupils that the latter sometimes held his hands absolutely flat. When I asked Madame Dubois about the correctness of this statement, she replied: "I never noticed Chopin holding his hands flat." In short, if Chopin put his hands at any time in so awkward a position, it was exceptional; physical exhaustion may have induced him to indulge in such negligence when the technical structure of the music he was playing permitted it.]
Chopin [Madame Dubois informed me] made his pupils begin with
the B major scale, very slowly, without stiffness. Suppleness
was his great object. He repeated, without ceasing, during the
lesson: "Easily, easily" [facilement, facilement]. Stiffness
exasperated him.