The pianist Aloys Schmitt of Frankfort-on-the-Main, famous
for his excellent studies, is at present here; he is a man
above forty. I have made his acquaintance; he promised to
visit me. He intends to give a concert here, and one must
admit that he is a clever musician. I think we shall
understand each other with regard to music.
Having looked at this picture, let the reader look also at this other, dashed off a month later in a letter to Elsner:—
The pianist Aloys Schmitt has been flipped on the nose by the
critics, although he is already over forty years old, and
composes eighty-years-old music.
From the contemporary journals we learn that, at the concert mentioned by Chopin, Schmitt afforded the public of Vienna an opportunity of hearing a number of his own compositions—which were by no means short drawing-room pieces, but a symphony, overture, concerto, concertino, &c.—and that he concluded his concert with an improvisation. One critic, at least, described his style of playing as sound and brilliant. The misfortune of Schmitt was to have come too late into the world—respectable mediocrities like him always do that—he never had any youth. The pianist on whom Chopin called first on arriving in Vienna was Charles Czerny, and he
was, as he is always (and to everybody), very polite, and
asked, "Hat fleissig studirt?" [Have you studied diligently?]
He has again arranged an overture for eight pianos and
sixteen performers, and seems to be very happy over it.
Only in the sense of belonging rather to the outgoing than to the incoming generation can Czerny be reckoned among the aged pianists, for in 1831 he was not above forty years of age and had still an enormous capacity for work in him—hundreds and hundreds of original and transcribed compositions, thousands and thousands of lessons. His name appears in a passage of one of Chopin's letters which deserves to be quoted for various reasons: it shows the writer's dislike to the Jews, his love of Polish music, and his contempt for a kind of composition much cultivated by Czerny. Speaking of the violinist Herz, "an Israelite," who was almost hissed when he made his debut in Warsaw, and whom Chopin was going to hear again in Vienna, he says:—
At the close of the concert Herz will play his own Variations
on Polish airs. Poor Polish airs! You do not in the least
suspect how you will be interlarded with "majufes" [see page
49, foot-note], and that the title of "Polish music" is only
given you to entice the public. If one is so outspoken as to
discuss the respective merits of genuine Polish music and
this imitation of it, and to place the former above the
latter, people declare one to be mad, and do this so much the
more readily because Czerny, the oracle of Vienna, has
hitherto in the fabrication of his musical dainties never
produced Variations on a Polish air.
Chopin had not much sympathy with Czerny the musician, but seems to have had some liking for the man, who indeed was gentle, kind, and courteous in his disposition and deportment.
A much more congenial and intimate connection existed between Chopin, Slavik, and Merk. [FOOTNOTE: Thus the name is spelt in Mendel's Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon and by E. A. Melis, the Bohemian writer on music. Chopin spells it Slawik. The more usual spelling, however, is Slawjk; and in C.F. Whistling's Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1828) it is Slavjk.] Joseph Slavik had come to Vienna in 1825 and had at once excited a great sensation. He was then a young man of nineteen, but technically already superior to all the violinists that had been heard in the Austrian capital. The celebrated Mayseder called him a second Lipinski. Pixis, his master at the Conservatorium in Prague, on seeing some of this extraordinary pupil's compositions—a concerto, variations, &c.—had wondered how anyone could write down such mad, unplayable stuff. But Slavik before leaving Prague proved at a farewell concert that there was at least one who could play the mad stuff. All this, however, was merely the prelude to what was yet to come. The appearance of Paganini in 1828 revealed to him the, till then, dimly-perceived ideal of his dreams, and the great Italian violinist, who took an interest in this ardent admirer and gave him some hints, became henceforth his model. Having saved a little money, he went for his further improvement to Paris, studying especially under Baillot, but soon returned to accept an engagement in the Imperial Band. When after two years of hard practising he reappeared before the public of Vienna, his style was altogether changed; he mastered the same difficulties as Paganini, or even greater ones, not, however, with the same unfailing certainty, nor with an always irreproachable intonation. Still, there can be no doubt that had not a premature death (in 1833, at the age of twenty-seven) cut short his career, he would have spread his fame all over the world. Chopin, who met him first at Wurfel's, at once felt a liking for him, and when on the following day he heard him play after dinner at Beyer's, he was more pleased with his performance than with that of any other violinist except Paganini. As Chopin's playing was equally sympathetic to Slavik, they formed the project of writing a duet for violin and piano. In a letter to his friend Matuszynski (December 25, 1830) Chopin writes:—
I have just come from the excellent violinist Slavik. With
the exception of Paganini, I never heard a violin-player like
him. Ninety-six staccato notes in one bow! It is almost
incredible! When I heard him I felt inclined to return to my
lodgings and sketch variations on an Adagio [which they had
previously agreed to take for their theme] of Beethoven's.