CHAPTER XXXI.
CHOPIN'S ARRIVAL IN LONDON.—MUSICAL ASPECT OF THE BRITISH METROPOLIS IN 1848.—CULTIVATION OF CHOPIN'S MUSIC IN ENGLAND.—CHOPIN AT EVENING PARTIES, &C.—LETTERS GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS DOINGS AND FEELINGS.—TWO MATINEES MUSICALES GIVEN BY CHOPIN; CRITICISMS ON THEM.—ANOTHER LETTER.—KINDNESS SHOWN HIM.—CHOPIN STARTS FOR SCOTLAND.—A LETTER WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH AND CALDER HOUSE.—HIS SCOTCH FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.—HIS STAY AT DR. LYSCHINSKl'S.—PLAYS AT A CONCERT IN MANCHESTER.—RETURNS TO SCOTLAND, AND GIVES A MATINEE MUSICALE IN GLASGOW AND IN EDINBURGH.—MORE LETTERS FROM SCOTLAND.—BACK TO LONDON.—OTHER LETTERS.—PLAYS AT A "GRAND POLISH BALL AND CONCERT" IN THE GUILDHALL.—LAST LETTER FROM LONDON, AND JOURNEY AND RETURN TO PARIS.
CHOPIN arrived in London, according to Mr. A. J. Hipkins, on April 21, 1848.
[FOOTNOTE: The indebtedness of two writers on Chopin to Mr. Hipkins has already been adverted to in the Preface. But his vivid recollection of Chopin's visit to London in this year, and of the qualities of his playing, has been found of great value also in other published notices dealing with this period. The present writer has to thank Mr. Hipkins, apart from second-hand obligations, for various suggestions, answers to inquiries, and reading the proof-sheets of this chapter.]
He took up his quarters first at 10, Bentinck Street, but soon removed to the house indicated in the following letter, written by him to Franchomme on May 1, 1848:—
Dearest friend,—Here I am, just settled. I have at last a
room—fine and large—where I shall be able to breathe and
play, and the sun visits me to-day for the first time. I feel
less suffocated this morning, but all last week I was good for
nothing. How are you and your wife and the dear children? You
begin at last to become more tranquil, [FOOTNOTE: This, I
think, refers to some loss Franchomme had sustained in his
family] do you not? I have some tiresome visits; my letters of
introduction are not yet delivered. I trifle away my time, and
VOILA. I love you, and once more VOILA.
Yours with all my heart.
My kindest regards to Madame Franchomme.
48, Dover Street.
Write to me, I will write to you also.
Were Chopin now to make his appearance in London, what a stir there would be in musical society! In 1848 Billet, Osborne, Kalkbrenner, Halle, and especially Thalberg, who came about the same time across the channel, caused more curiosity. By the way, England was just then heroically enduring an artistic invasion such as had never been seen before; not only from France, but also from Germany and other musical countries arrived day after day musicians who had found that their occupation was gone on the Continent, where people could think of nothing but politics and revolutions. To enumerate all the celebrities then congregated in the British Metropolis would be beyond my power and the scope of this publication, but I must at least mention that among them was no less eminent a creative genius than Berlioz, no less brilliant a vocal star than Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Of other high-priests and high-priestesses of the art we shall hear in the sequel. But although Chopin did not set the Thames on fire, his visit was not altogether ignored by the press. Especially the Athenaeum (H. F. Chorley) and the Musical World (J. W. Davison) honoured themselves by the notice they took of the artist. The former journal not only announced (on April 29) his arrival, but also some weeks previously (on April 8) his prospective advent, saying: "M. Chopin's visit is an event for which we most heartily thank the French Republic."
In those days, and for a long time after, the appreciation and cultivation of Chopin's music was in England confined to a select few. Mr. Hipkins told me that he "had to struggle for years to gain adherents to Chopin's music, while enduring the good-humoured banter of Sterndale Bennett and J. W. Davison." The latter—the author of An Essay on the Works of Frederic Chopin (London, 1843), the first publication of some length on the subject, and a Preface to, or, to be more precise, a Memoir prefixed to Boosey & Co.'s The Mazurkas and Valses of F. Chopin—seems to have in later years changed his early good opinion of the Polish master.
[FOOTNOTE: Two suggestions have been made to me in explanation of this change of opinion: it may have been due to the fear that the rising glory of Chopin might dim that of Mendelssohn; or Davison may have taken umbrage at Chopin's conduct in an affair relative to Mendelssohn. I shall not discuss the probability of these suggestions, but will say a few words with regard to the last-mentioned matter. My source of information is a Paris letter in the Musical World of December 4, 1847. After the death of Mendelssohn some foreign musicians living in Paris proposed to send a letter of condolence to Mrs. Mendelssohn. One part of the letter ran thus: "May it be permitted to us, German artists, far from our country, to offer," &c. The signatures to it were: Rosenhain, Kalkbrenner, Panofka, Heller, Halle, Pixis, and Wolff. Chopin when applied to for his signature wrote: "La lettre venant des Allemands, comment voulez-vous que je m'arroge le droit de la signer?" One would think that no reasonable being could take exception to Chopin's conduct in this affair, and yet the writer in the Musical World comments most venomously on it.]