4. Adagio and Rondo from the Concerto in F minor, composed
and played by Chopin.
PART II
1. Overture to the Opera "Cecylja Piaseczynska," by Kurpinski.
2. Variations by Paer, sung by Madame Meier.
3. Pot-pourri on national airs, composed and played by Chopin.
Three days before the concert, which took place in the theatre, neither box nor reserved seat was to be had. But Chopin complains that on the whole it did not make the impression he expected. Only the Adagio and Rondo of his Concerto had a decided success. But let us see the concert-giver's own account of the proceedings.
The first Allegro of the F minor Concerto (not intelligible to all) received indeed the reward of a "Bravo," but I believe this was given because the public wished to show that it understands and knows how to appreciate serious music. There are people enough in all countries who like to assume the air of connoisseurs! The Adagio and Rondo produced a very great effect. After these the applause and the "Bravos" came really from the heart; but the Pot-pourri on Polish airs missed its object entirely. There was indeed some applause, but evidently only to show the player that the audience had not been bored.
We now hear again the old complaint that Chopin's playing was too delicate. The opinion of the pit was that he had not played loud enough, whilst those who sat in the gallery or stood in the orchestra seem to have been better satisfied. In one paper, where he got high praise, he was advised to put forth more energy and power in the future; but Chopin thought he knew where this power was to be found, and for the next concert got a Vienna instrument instead of his own Warsaw one. Elsner, too, attributed the indistinctness of the bass passages and the weakness of tone generally to the instrument. The approval of some of the musicians compensated Chopin to some extent for the want of appreciation and intelligence shown by the public at large "Kurpinski thought he discovered that evening new beauties in my Concerto, and Ernemann was fully satisfied with it." Edouard Wolff told me that they had no idea in Warsaw of the real greatness of Chopin. Indeed, how could they? He was too original to be at once fully understood. There are people who imagine that the difficulties of Chopin's music arise from its Polish national characteristics, and that to the Poles themselves it is as easy as their mother-tongue; this, however, is a mistake. In fact, other countries had to teach Poland what is due to Chopin. That the aristocracy of Paris, Polish and native, did not comprehend the whole Chopin, although it may have appreciated and admired his sweetness, elegance, and exquisiteness, has been remarked by Liszt, an eye and ear-witness and an excellent judge. But his testimony is not needed to convince one of the fact. A subtle poet, be he ever so national, has thoughts and corresponding language beyond the ken of the vulgar, who are to be found in all ranks, high and low. Chopin, imbued as he was with the national spirit, did nevertheless not manifest it in a popularly intelligible form, for in passing through his mind it underwent a process of idealisation and individualisation. It has been repeatedly said that the national predominates over the universal in Chopin's music; it is a still less disputable truth that the individual predominates therein over the national. There are artist-natures whose tendency is to expand and to absorb; others again whose tendency is to contract and to exclude. Chopin is one of the most typical instances of the latter; hence, no wonder that he was not at once fully understood by his countrymen. The great success which Chopin's subsequent concerts in Warsaw obtained does not invalidate E. Wolff's statement, which indeed is confirmed by the composer's own remarks on the taste of the public and its reception of his compositions. Moreover, we shall see that those pieces pleased most in which, as in the Fantasia and Krakowiak, the national raw material was merely more or less artistically dressed up, but not yet digested and assimilated; if the Fantasia left the audience cold at the first concert, this was no doubt owing to the inadequacy of the performance.
No sooner was the first concert over than, with his head still full of it, Chopin set about making preparations for a second, which took place within a week after the first. The programme was as follows:—