Several names in the above extract remind me that I ought to say a few words about the young men with whom Chopin at that time associated. Many of them were no doubt companions in the noblest sense of the word. Of this class may have been Celinski, Hube, Eustachius Marylski, and Francis Maciejowski (a nephew of the previously-mentioned Professor Waclaw Maciejowski), who are more or less frequently mentioned in Chopin's correspondence, but concerning whom I have no information to give. I am as badly informed about Dziewanowski, whom a letter quoted by Karasowski shows to have been a friend of Chopin's. Of two other friends, Stanislas Kozmian and William Kolberg, we know at least that the one was a few years ago still living at Posen and occupied the post of President of the Society of the Friends of Science, and that the other, to whom the earliest letters of Chopin that have come down to us are addressed, became, not to mention lesser offices and titles, a Councillor of State, and died on June 4,1877. Whatever the influence of the friends I have thus far named may have been on the man Chopin, one cannot but feel inclined to think that Stephen Witwicki and Dominic Magnuszewski, especially the former, must have had a greater influence on the artist. At any rate, these two poets, who made their mark in Polish literature, brought the musician in closest contact with the strivings of the literary romanticism of those days. In later years Chopin set several of Witwicki's songs to music. Both Magnuszewski and Witwicki lived afterwards, like Chopin, in Paris, where they continued to associate with him. Of the musical acquaintances we have to notice first and foremost Julius Fontana, who himself said that he was a daily visitor at Chopin's house. The latter writes in the above-mentioned letter (December 27, 1828) to Titus Woyciechowski:—
The Rondo for two pianos, this orphan child, has found a step- father in Fontana (you may perhaps have seen him at our house, he attends the university); he studied it for more than a month, but then he did learn it, and not long ago we tried how it would sound at Buchholtz's.
Alexander Rembielinski, described as a brilliant pianist and a composer in the style of Fesca, who returned from Paris to Warsaw and died young, is said to have been a friend of Chopin's. Better musicians than Fontana, although less generally known in the western part of Europe, are Joseph Nowakowski and Thomas Nidecki. Chopin, by some years their junior, had intercourse with them during his residence in Poland as well as afterwards abroad. It does not appear that Chopin had what can rightly be called intimate friends among the young Polish musicians. If we may believe the writer of an article in Sowinski's Dictionary, there was one exception. He tells us that the talented Ignaz Felix Dobrzynski was a fellow-pupil of Chopin's, taking like him private lessons from Elsner. Dobrzynski came to Warsaw in 1825, and took altogether thirty lessons.
Working together under the same master, having the same manner of seeing and feeling, Frederick Chopin and I.F. Dobrzynski became united in a close friendship. The same aims, the same artistic tendency to seek the UNKNOWN, characterised their efforts. They communicated to each other their ideas and impressions, followed different routes to arrive at the same goal.
This unison of kindred minds is so beautiful that one cannot but wish it to have been a fact. Still, I must not hide the circumstance that neither Liszt nor Karasowski mentions Dobrzynski as one of Chopin's friends, and the even more significant circumstance that he is only mentioned twice and en passant in Chopin's letters. All this, however, does not necessarily nullify the lexicographer's statements, and until contradictory evidence is forthcoming we may hold fast by so pleasing and ennobling a creed.
The most intimate of Chopin's early friends, indeed, of all his friends—perhaps the only ones that can be called his bosom friends—have still to be named, Titus Woyciechowski and John Matuszynski. It was to them that Chopin wrote his most interesting and self-revealing letters. We shall meet them and hear of them often in the course of this narrative, for their friendship with the musician was severed only by death. It will therefore suffice to say here that Titus Woyciechowski, who had been Chopin's school-fellow, lived, at the period of the latter's life we have now reached, on his family estates, and that John Matuszynski was then studying medicine in Warsaw.
In his letter of December 27, 1828, Chopin makes some allusions to the Warsaw theatres. The French company had played Rataplan, and at the National Theatre they had performed a comedy of Fredro's, Weber's Preciosa, and Auber's Macon. A musical event whichmust have interested Chopin much more than the performances of the two last-mentioned works took place in the first half of the year 1829—namely, Hummel's appearance in Warsaw. He and Field were, no doubt, those pianists who through the style of their compositions most influenced Chopin. For Hummel's works Chopin had indeed a life-long admiration and love. It is therefore to be regretted that he left in his letters no record of the impression which Hummel, one of the four most distinguished representatives of pianoforte-playing of that time, made upon him. It is hardly necessary to say that the other three representatives—of different generations and schools let it be understood—were Field, Kalkbrenner, and Moscheles. The only thing we learn about this visit of Hummel's to Warsaw is that he and the young Polish pianist made a good impression upon each other. As far as the latter is concerned this is a mere surmise, or rather an inference from indirect proofs, for, strange to say, although Chopin mentions Hummel frequently in his letters, he does not write a syllable that gives a clue to his sentiments regarding him. The older master, on the other hand, shows by his inquiries after his younger brother in art and the visits he pays him that he had a real regard and affection for him.
It is also to be regretted that Chopin says in his letters nothing of Paganini's appearance in Warsaw. The great Italian violinist, who made so deep an impression on, and exercised so great an influence over, Liszt, cannot have passed by without producing some effect on Chopin. That the latter had a high opinion of Paganini may be gathered from later utterances, but what one would like is a description of his feelings and thoughts when he first heard him. Paganini came to Warsaw in 1829, after his visit to Berlin. In the Polish capital he was worshipped with the same ardour as elsewhere, and also received the customary tributes of applause, gold, and gifts. From Oreste Bruni's Niccolo Paganini, celebre violinista Genovese, we learn that his Warsaw worshippers presented him with a gold snuff-box, which bore the following inscription:—Al Cav. Niccolo Paganini. Gli ammiratori del suo talento. Varsovia 19 Luglio 1829.
Some months after this break in what he, no doubt, considered the monotonous routine of Warsaw life, our friend made another excursion, one of far greater importance in more than one respect than that to Berlin. Vienna had long attracted him like a powerful magnet, the obstacles to his going thither were now removed, and he was to see that glorious art-city in which Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and many lesser but still illustrious men had lived and worked.