Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete

by Frederick Niecks

If Schiller is right in saying "Ernst ist das Leben, heiter ist die Kunst," then what we find in the Polonaise (in F sharp minor), Op. 44 (published in November, 1841), cannot be art. We look in vain for beauty of melody and harmony; dreary unisons, querulous melodic phrases, hollow-eyed chords, hard progressions and modulations throughout every part of the polonaise proper. We receive a pathological rather than aesthetical impression. Nevertheless, no one can deny the grandeur and originality that shine through this gloom. The intervening Doppio movimento, tempo di Mazurka, sends forth soft beneficent rays—reminiscences of long ago, vague and vanishing, sweet and melancholy. But there is an end to this as to all such dreams. Those harassing, exasperating gloomy thoughts (Tempo di Polacca) return. The sharp corners which we round so pleasantly and beautifully in our reconstructions of the past make themselves only too soon felt in the things of the present, and cruelly waken us to reality and its miseries.

The Polonaise, Op. 53 (in A flat major; published in December, 1843), is one of the most stirring compositions of Chopin, manifesting an overmastering power and consuming fire. But is it really the same Chopin, is it the composer of the dreamy nocturnes, the elegant waltzes, who here fumes and frets, struggling with a fierce, suffocating rage (mark the rushing succession of chords of the sixth, the growling semiquaver figures, and the crashing dissonances of the sixteen introductory bars), and then shouts forth, sure of victory, his bold and scornful challenge? And farther on, in the part of the polonaise where the ostinato semiquaver figure in octaves for the left hand begins, do we not hear the trampling of horses, the clatter of arms and spurs, and the sound of trumpets? Do we not hear—yea, and see too—a high-spirited chivalry approaching and passing? Only pianoforte giants can do justice to this martial tone-picture, the physical strength of the composer certainly did not suffice.

The story goes that when Chopin played one of his polonaises in the night-time, just after finishing its composition, he saw the door open, and a long train of Polish knights and ladies, dressed in antique costumes, enter through it and defile past him. This vision filled the composer with such terror that he fled through the opposite door, and dared not return to the room the whole night. Karasowski says that the polonaise in question is the last-mentioned one, in A flat major; but from M. Kwiatkowski, who depicted the scene three times, [FOOTNOTE: "Le Reve de Chopin," a water-colour, and two sketches in oils representing, according to Chopin's indication (d'apres l'avis de Chopin), the polonaise.] learned that it is the one in A major, No. 1 of Op. 40, dedicated to Fontana.

I know of no more affecting composition among all the productions of Chopin than the "Polonaise-Fantaisie" (in A flat major), Op. 61 (published in September, 1846). What an unspeakable, unfathomable wretchedness reveals itself in these sounds! We gaze on a boundless desolation. These lamentations and cries of despair rend our heart, these strange, troubled wanderings from thought to thought fill us with intensest pity. There are thoughts of sweet resignation, but the absence of hope makes them perhaps the saddest of all. The martial strains, the bold challenges, the shouts of triumph, which we heard so often in the composer's polonaises, are silenced.

An elegiac sadness [says Liszt] predominates, intersected by
wild movements, melancholy smiles, unexpected starts, and
intervals of rest full of dread such as those experience who
have been surprised by an ambuscade, who are surrounded on all
sides, for whom there dawns no hope upon the vast horizon, and
to whose brain despair has gone like a deep draught of Cyprian
wine, which gives a more instinctive rapidity to every
gesture, a sharper point to every emotion, causing the mind to
arrive at a pitch of irritability bordering on madness.

Thus, although comprising thoughts that in beauty and grandeur equal—I would almost say surpass-anything Chopin has written, the work stands, on account of its pathological contents, outside the sphere of art.

Chopin's waltzes, the most popular of his compositions, are not poesie intime like the greater number of his works. [FOOTNOTE: Op. 34, No. 2, and Op. 64, No. 2, however, have to be excepted, to some extent at least.] In them the composer mixes with the world-looks without him rather than within—and as a man of the world conceals his sorrows and discontents under smiles and graceful manners. The bright brilliancy and light pleasantness of the earlier years of his artistic career, which are almost entirely lost in the later years, rise to the surface in the waltzes. These waltzes are salon music of the most aristocratic kind. Schumann makes Florestan say of one of them, and he might have said it of all, that he would not play it unless one half of the female dancers were countesses. But the aristocraticalness of Chopin's waltzes is real, not conventional; their exquisite gracefulness and distinction are natural, not affected. They are, indeed, dance-poems whose content is the poetry of waltz-rhythm and movement, and the feelings these indicate and call forth. In one of his most extravagantly-romantic critical productions Schumann speaks, in connection with Chopin's Op. 18, "Grande Valse brillante," the first-published (in June, 1834) of his waltzes, of "Chopin's body and mind elevating waltz," and its "enveloping the dancer deeper and deeper in its floods." This language is altogether out of proportion with the thing spoken of; for Op. 18 differs from the master's best waltzes in being, not a dance-poem, but simply a dance, although it must be admitted that it is an exceedingly spirited one, both as regards piquancy and dash. When, however, we come to Op. 34, "Trois Valses brillantes" (published in December, 1838), Op. 42, "Valse" (published in July, 1840), and Op. 64, "Trois Valses" (published in September, 1847), the only other waltzes published by him, we find ourselves face to face with true dance-poems. Let us tarry for a moment over Op. 34. How brisk the introductory bars of the first (in A flat major) of these three waltzes! And what a striking manifestation of the spirit of that dance all that follows! We feel the wheeling motions; and where, at the seventeenth bar of the second part, the quaver figure enters, we think we see the flowing dresses sweeping round. Again what vigour in the third part, and how coaxingly tender the fourth! And, lastly, the brilliant conclusion—the quavers intertwined with triplets! The second waltz (in A minor; Lento) is of quite another, of a more retired and private, nature, an exception to the rule. The composer evidently found pleasure in giving way to this delicious languor, in indulging in these melancholy thoughts full of sweetest, tenderest loving and longing. But here words will not avail. One day when Stephen Heller—my informant—was at Schlesinger's music-shop in Paris, Chopin entered. The latter, hearing Heller ask for one of his waltzes, inquired of him which of them he liked best. "It is difficult to say which I like best," replied Heller, "for I like them all; but if I were pressed for an answer I would probably say the one in A minor." This gave Chopin much pleasure. "I am glad you do," he said; "it is also my favourite." And in an exuberance of amiability he invited Heller to lunch with him, an invitation which was accepted, the two artists taking the meal together at the Cafe Riche. The third waltz (in F major; Vivace) shows a character very different from the preceding one. What a stretching of muscles! What a whirling! Mark the giddy motions of the melody beginning at bar seventeen! Of this waltz of Chopin's and the first it is more especially true what Schumann said of all three: "Such flooding life moves within these waltzes that they seem to have been improvised in the ball-room." And the words which the same critic applies to Op. 34 may be applied to all the waltzes Chopin published himself—"They must please; they are of another stamp than the usual waltzes, and in the style in which they can only be conceived by Chopin when he looks in a grandly-artistic way into the dancing crowd, which he elevates by his playing, thinking of other things than of what is being danced." In the A flat major waltz which bears the opus number 42, the duple rhythm of the melody along with the triple one of the accompaniment seems to me indicative of the loving nestling and tender embracing of the dancing couples. Then, after the smooth gyrations of the first period, come those sweeping motions, free and graceful like those of birds, that intervene again and again between the different portions of the waltz. The D flat major part bubbles over with joyousness. In the sostenuto, on the other hand, the composer becomes sentimental, protests, and heaves sighs. But at the very height of his rising ardour he suddenly plunges back into that wild, self-surrendering, heaven and earth-forgetting joyousness—a stroke of genius as delightful as it is clever. If we do not understand by the name of scherzo a fixed form, but rather a state of mind, we may say that Chopin's waltzes are his scherzos and not the pieces to which he has given that name. None of Chopin's waltzes is more popular than the first of Op. 64 (in D flat major). And no wonder! The life, flow, and oneness are unique; the charm of the multiform motions is indescribable. That it has been and why it has been called valse au petit chien need here only be recalled to the reader's recollection (see Chapter XXVI., p. 142). No. 2 (in C sharp minor); different as it is, is in its own way nearly as perfect as No. 1. Tender, love-sick longing cannot be depicted more truthfully, sweetly, and entrancingly. The excellent No. 3 (in A flat major), with the exquisite serpentining melodic lines, which play so important a part in Chopin's waltzes, and other beautiful details, is in a somewhat trying position beside the other two waltzes. The non-publication by the composer of the waltzes which have got into print, thanks to the zeal of his admirers and the avidity of publishers, proves to me that he was a good judge of his own works. Fontana included in his collection of posthumous compositions five waltzes—"Deux Valses," Op. 69 (in F minor, of 1836; in B minor, of 1829);. and "Trois Valses," Op. 70 (in G flat major, of 1835; in F minor, of 1843; in D flat major, of 1830). There are further a waltz in E minor and one in E major (of 1829). [FOOTNOTE: The "Deux Valses melancoliques" (in F minor and B minor), ecrits sur l'album de Madame la Comtesse P., 1844 (Cracow: J. Wildt), the English edition of which (London: Edwin Ashdown) is entitled "Une soiree en 1844," "Deux Valses melancoliques," are Op. 70. No. 2, and Op. 69, No. 2, of the works of Chopin posthumously published by Fontana.] Some of these waltzes I discussed already when speaking of the master's early compositions, to which they belong. The last-mentioned waltz, which the reader will find in Mikuli's edition (No. 15 of the waltzes), and also in Breitkopf and Hartel's (No. 22 of the Posthumous works), is a very weak composition; and of all the waltzes not published by the composer himself it may be said that what is good in them has been expressed better in others.

We have of Chopin 27 studies: Op. 10, "Douze Etudes," published in July, 1833; Op. 25, "Douze Etudes," published in October, 1837; and "Trois nouvelles Etudes," which, before being separately published, appeared in 1840 in the "Methode des Methodes pour le piano" by F. J. Fetis and I. Moscheles. The dates of their publication, as in the case of many other works, do not indicate the approximate dates of their composition. Sowinski tells us, for instance, that Chopin brought the first book of his studies with him to Paris in 1831. A Polish musician who visited the French capital in 1834 heard Chopin play the studies contained in Op. 25. And about the last-mentioned opus we read in a critical notice by Schumann, who had, no doubt, his information directly from Chopin: "The studies which have now appeared [that is, those of Op. 25] were almost all composed at the same time as the others [that is, those of Op. 10] and only some of them, the greater masterliness of which is noticeable, such as the first, in A flat major, and the splendid one in C minor [that is, the twelfth] but lately." Regarding the Trois nouvelles Etudes without OPUS number we have no similar testimony. But internal evidence seems to show that these weakest of the master's studies—which, however, are by no means uninteresting, and certainly very characteristic—may be regarded more than Op. 25 as the outcome of a gleaning. In two of Chopin's letters of the year 1829, we meet with announcements of his having composed studies. On the 20th of October he writes: "I have composed a study in my own manner"; and on the 14th of November: "I have written some studies." From Karasowski learn that the master composed the twelfth study of Op. 10 during his stay in Stuttgart, being inspired by the capture of Warsaw by the Russians, which took place on September 8, 1831. Whether looked at from the aesthetical or technical point of view, Chopin's studies will be seen to be second to those of no composer. Were it not wrong to speak of anything as absolutely best, their excellences would induce one to call them unequalled. A striking feature in them compared with Chopin's other works is their healthy freshness and vigour. Even the slow, dreamy, and elegiac ones have none of the faintness and sickliness to be found in not a few of the composer's pieces, especially in several of the nocturnes. The diversity of character exhibited by these studies is very great. In some of them the aesthetical, in others the technical purpose predominates; in a few the two are evenly balanced: in none is either of them absent. They give a summary of Chopin's ways and means, of his pianoforte language: chords in extended positions, wide-spread arpeggios, chromatic progressions (simple, in thirds, and in octaves), simultaneous combinations of contrasting rhythms, &c—nothing is wanting. In playing them or hearing them played Chopin's words cannot fail to recur to one's mind: "I have composed a study in my own manner." Indeed, the composer's demands on the technique of the executant were so novel at the time when the studies made their first public appearance that one does not wonder at poor blind Rellstab being staggered, and venting his feelings in the following uncouthly-jocular manner: "Those who have distorted fingers may put them right by practising these studies; but those who have not, should not play them, at least not without having a surgeon at hand." In Op. 10 there are three studies especially noteworthy for their musical beauty. The third (Lento ma non troppo, in E major) and the sixth (Andante, in E flat minor) may be reckoned among Chopin's loveliest compositions. They combine classical chasteness of contour with the fragrance of romanticism. And the twelfth study (Allegro con fuoco, in C minor), the one composed at Stuttgart after the fall of Warsaw, how superbly grand! The composer seems to be fuming with rage: the left hand rushes impetuously along and the right hand strikes in with passionate ejaculations. With regard to the above-named Lento ma non troppo (Op. 10, No. 3), Chopin said to Gutmann that he had never in his life written another such beautiful melody (CHANT); and on one occasion when Gutmann was studying it the master lifted up his arms with his hands clasped and exclaimed: "O, my fatherland!" ("O, me patrie!") I share with Schumann the opinion that the total weight of Op. 10 amounts to more than that of Op. 25. Like him I regard also Nos. 1 and 12 as the most important items of the latter collection of studies: No. 1 (Allegro sostenuto, in A flat major)—a tremulous mist below, a beautiful breezy melody floating above, and once or twice a more opaque body becoming discernible within the vaporous element—of which Schumann says that "after listening to the study one feels as one does after a blissful vision, seen in a dream, which, already half-awake, one would fain bring back": [FOOTNOTE: See the whole quotation, Vol. I., p. 310.] and No. 12 (in C minor, Allegro molto con fuoco), in which the emotions rise not less than the waves of arpeggios (in both hands) which symbolise them. Stephen Heller's likings differ from Schumann's. Discussing Chopin's Op. 25 in the Gazette musicale of February 24, 1839, he says:—

What more do we require to pass one or several evenings in as
perfect a happiness as possible? As for me, I seek in this
collection of poesy (this is the only name appropriate to the
works of Chopin) some favourite pieces which I might fix in my
memory rather than others. Who could retain everything? For
this reason I have in my note book quite particularly marked
the numbers 4, 5, and 7 of the present poems. Of these twelve
much-loved studies (every one of which has a charm of its own)
these three numbers are those I prefer to all the rest.

In connection with the fourth, Heller points out that it reminds him of the first bar of the Kyrie (rather the Requiem aeternam) of Mozart's Requiem. And of the seventh study he remarks:—