Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete

by Frederick Niecks

The whole evening of the 16th passed in litanies; we gave the
responses, but Chopin remained silent. Only from his difficult
breathing could one perceive that he was still alive. That
evening two doctors examined him. One of them, Dr. Cruveille,
took a candle, and, holding it before Chopin's face, which had
become quite black from suffocation, remarked to us that the
senses had already ceased to act. But when he asked Chopin
whether he suffered, we heard, still quite distinctly, the
answer "No longer" [Plus]. This was the last word I heard from
his lips. He died painlessly between three and four in the
morning [of October 17, 1849]. When I saw him some hours
afterwards, the calm of death had given again to his
countenance the grand character which we find in the mould
taken the same day [by Clesinger], and still more in the
simple pencil sketch which was drawn by the hand of a friend,
M. Kwiatkowski. This picture of Chopin is the one I like best.

Liszt, too, reports that Chopin's face resumed an unwonted youth, purity, and calm; that his youthful beauty so long eclipsed by suffering reappeared. Common as the phenomenon is, there can be nothing more significant, more impressive, more awful, than this throwing-off in death of the marks of care, hardship, vice, and disease—the corruption of earthly life; than this return to the innocence, serenity, and loveliness of a first and better nature; than this foreshadowing of a higher and more perfect existence. Chopin's love of flowers was not forgotten by those who had cherished and admired him now when his soul and body were parted. "The bed on which he lay," relates Liszt, "the whole room, disappeared under their varied colours; he seemed to repose in a garden." It was a Polish custom, which is not quite obsolete even now, for the dying to choose for themselves the garments in which they wished to be dressed before being laid in the coffin (indeed, some people had their last habiliments prepared long before the approach of their end); and the pious, more especially of the female sex, affected conventual vestments, men generally preferring their official attire. That Chopin chose for his grave-clothes his dress-suit, his official attire, in which he presented himself to his audiences in concert-hall and salon, cannot but be regarded as characteristic of the man, and is perhaps more significant than appears at first sight. But I ought to have said, it would be if it were true that Chopin really expressed the wish. M. Kwiatkowski informed me that this was not so.

For some weeks after, from the 18th October onwards, the French press occupied itself a good deal with the deceased musician. There was not, I think, a single Paris paper of note which did not bring one or more long articles or short notes regretting the loss, describing the end, and estimating the man and artist. But the phenomenal ignorance, exuberance of imagination, and audacity of statement, manifested by almost every one of the writers of these articles and notes are sufficient to destroy one's faith in journalism completely and for ever. Among the offenders were men of great celebrity, chief among them Theophile Gautier (Feuilleton de la Presse, November 5, 1849) and Jules Janin (Feuilleton du Journal des Debuts, October 22, 1849), the latter's performance being absolutely appalling. Indeed, if we must adjudge to French journalists the palm for gracefulness and sprightliness, we cannot withhold it from them for unconscientiousness. Some of the inventions of journalism, I suspect, were subsequently accepted as facts, in some cases perhaps even assimilated as items of their experience, by the friends of the deceased, and finally found their way into AUTHENTIC biography. One of these myths is that Chopin expressed the wish that Mozart's Requiem should be performed at his funeral. Berlioz, one of the many journalists who wrote at the time to this effect, adds (Feuilleton du Journal des Debuts, October 27, 1849) that "His [Chopin's] worthy pupil received this wish with his last sigh." Unfortunately for Berlioz and this pretty story, Gutmann told me that Chopin did not express such a wish; and Franchomme made to me the same statement. I must, [I must, however, not omit to mention here that M. Charles Gavard says that Chopin drew up the programme of his funeral, and asked that on that occasion Mozart's Requiem should be performed.] Also the story about Chopin's wish to be buried beside Bellini is, according to the latter authority, a baseless invention. This is also the place to dispose of the question: What was done with Chopin's MSS.? The reader may know that the composer is said to have caused all his MSS. to be burnt. Now, this is not true. From Franchomme I learned that what actually took place was this. Pleyel asked Chopin what was to be done with the MSS. Chopin replied that they were to be distributed among his friends, that none were to be published, and that fragments were to be destroyed. Of the pianoforte school which Chopin is said to have had the intention to write, nothing but scraps, if anything, can have been found.

M. Gavard pere made the arrangements for the funeral, which, owing to the extensiveness of the preparations, did not take place till the 30th of October. Ready assistance was given by M. Daguerry, the curate of the Madeleine, where the funeral service was to be held; and thanks to him permission was received for the introduction of female singers into the church, without whom the performance of Mozart's Requiem would have been an impossibility.

Numerous equipages [says Eugene Guinot in the Feuilleton du
Siecle of November 4] encumbered last Tuesday the large
avenues of the Madeleine church, and the crowd besieged the
doors of the Temple where one was admitted only on presenting
a letter of invitation. Mourning draperies announced a funeral
ceremony, and in seeing this external pomp, this concourse of
carriages and liveried servants, and this privilege which
permitted only the elect to enter the church, the curious
congregated on the square asked: "Who is the great lord [grand
seigneur] whom they are burying?" As if there were still
grands seigneurs! Within, the gathering was brilliant; the
elite of Parisian society, all the strangers of distinction
which Paris possesses at this moment, were to be found
there...

Many writers complain of the exclusiveness which seems to have presided at the sending out of invitations. M. Guinot remarks in reference to this point:

His testamentary executors [executrices] organised this
solemnity magnificently. But, be it from premeditation or from
forgetfulness, they completely neglected to invite to the
ceremony most of the representatives of the musical world.
Members of the Institute, celebrated artists, notable writers,
tried in vain to elude the watch-word [consigne] and penetrate
into the church, where the women were in a very great
majority. Some had come from London, Vienna, and Berlin.

In continuation of my account of the funeral service I shall quote from a report in the Daily News of November 2, 1849:—

The coffin was under a catafalque which stood in the middle of
the area. The semicircular space behind the steps of the altar
was screened by a drapery of black cloth, which being
festooned towards the middle, gave a partial view of the vocal
and instrumental orchestra, disposed not in the usual form of
a gradual ascent from the front to the back, but only on the
level of the floor....
The doors of the church were opened at eleven o'clock, and at
noon (the time fixed for the commencement of the funeral
service) the vast area was filled by an assembly of nearly
three thousand persons, all of whom had received special
invitations, as being entitled from rank, from station in the
world of art and literature, or from friendship for the
lamented deceased, to be present on so solemn and melancholy
an occasion.

A trustworthy account of the whole ceremony, and especially a clear and full report of the musical part of the service, we find in a letter from the Paris correspondent of The Musical World (November 10, 1849). I shall quote some portions of this letter, accompanying them with elucidatory and supplementary notes:—