Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Volume 1

by Frederick Niecks

she never sang so well as on that evening (except the aria in "Agnese"). You know "O! quante lagrime per te versai." The tutto detesto down to the lower b came out so magnificently that Zielinski declared this b alone was worth a thousand ducats.

In Vienna the score and parts of the Krakowiak had been found to be full of mistakes, it was the same with the Concerto in Warsaw. Chopin himself says that if Soliva had not taken the score with him in order to correct it, he (Chopin) did not know what might have become of the Concerto on the evening of the concert. Carl Mikuli, who, as well as his fellow-pupil Tellefsen, copied many of Chopin's MSS., says that they were full of slips of the pen, such as wrong notes and signatures, omissions of accidentals, dots, and intervals of chords, and incorrect markings of slurs and 8va's.

Although Chopin wrote on October 5, 1830, that eight days after the concert he would certainly be no longer in Warsaw, that his trunk was bought, his whole outfit ready, the scores corrected, the pocket-handkerchiefs hemmed, the new trousers and the new dress-coat tried on, &c., that, in fact, nothing remained to be done but the worst of all, the leave-taking, yet it was not till the 1st of November, 1830, that he actually did take his departure. Elsner and a number of friends accompanied him to Wola, the first village beyond Warsaw. There the pupils of the Conservatorium awaited them, and sang a cantata composed by Elsner for the occasion. After this the friends once more sat down together to a banquet which had been prepared for them. In the course of the repast a silver goblet filled with Polish earth was presented to Chopin in the name of all.

May you never forget your country [said the speaker, according to Karasowski], wherever you may wander or sojourn, may you never cease to love it with a warm, faithful heart! Remember Poland, remember your friends, who call you with pride their fellow-countryman, who expect great things of you, whose wishes and prayers accompany you!

How fully Chopin realised their wishes and expectations the sequel will show: how much such loving words must have affected him the reader of this chapter can have no difficulty in understanding. But now came pitilessly the dread hour of parting. A last farewell is taken, the carriage rolls away, and the traveller has left behind him all that is dearest to him— parents, sisters, sweetheart, and friends. "I have always a presentiment that I am leaving Warsaw never to return to it; I am convinced that I shall say an eternal farewell to my native country." Thus, indeed, destiny willed it. Chopin was never to tread again the beloved soil of Poland, never to set eyes again on Warsaw and its Conservatorium, the column of King Sigismund opposite, the neighbouring church of the Bernardines (Constantia's place of worship), and all those things and places associated in his mind with the sweet memories of his youth and early manhood.

CHAPTER XI.

CHOPIN IS JOINED AT KALISZ BY TITUS WOYCIECHOWSKI.—FOUR DAYS AT BRESLAU: HIS VISITS TO THE THEATRE; CAPELLMEISTER SCHNABEL; PLAYS AT A CONCERT; ADOLF HESSE.—SECOND VISIT TO DRESDEN: MUSIC AT THEATRE AND CHURCH; GERMAN AND POLISH SOCIETY; MORLACCHI, SIGNORA PALAZZESI, RASTRELLI, ROLLA, DOTZAUER, KUMMER, KLENGEL, AND OTHER MUSICIANS; A CONCERT TALKED ABOUT BUT NOT GIVEN; SIGHT-SEEING.— AFTER A WEEK, BY PRAGUE TO VIENNA.—ARRIVES AT VIENNA TOWARDS THE END OF NOVEMBER, 1830.

Thanks to Chopin's extant letters to his family and friends it is not difficult to give, with the help of some knowledge of the contemporary artists and of the state of music in the towns he visited, a pretty clear account of his experiences and mode of life during the nine or ten months which intervene between his departure from Warsaw and his arrival in Paris. Without the letters this would have been impossible, and for two reasons: one of them is that, although already a notable man, Chopin was not yet a noted man; and the other, that those with whom he then associated have, like himself, passed away from among us.

Chopin, who, as the reader will remember, left Warsaw on November 1, 1830, was joined at Kalisz by Titus Woyciechowski. Thence the two friends travelled together to Vienna. They made their first halt at Breslau, which they reached on November 6. No sooner had Chopin put up at the hotel Zur goldenen Gans, changed his dress, and taken some refreshments, than he rushed off to the theatre. During his stay in Breslau he was present at three performances— at Raimund's fantastical comedy "Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind", Auber's "Maurer und Schlosser (Le Macon)," and Winter's "Das unterbrochene Opferfest", a now superannuated but then still popular opera. The players succeeded better than the singers in gaining the approval of their fastidious auditor, which indeed might have been expected. As both Chopin and Woyciechowski were provided with letters of introduction, and the gentlemen to whom they were addressed did all in their power to make their visitors' sojourn as pleasant as possible, the friends spent in Breslau four happy days. It is characteristic of the German musical life in those days that in the Ressource, a society of that town, they had three weekly concerts at which the greater number of the performers were amateurs. Capellmeister Schnabel, an old acquaintance of Chopin's, had invited the latter to come to a morning rehearsal. When Chopin entered, an amateur, a young barrister, was going to rehearse Moscheles' E flat major Concerto. Schnabel, on seeing the newcomer, asked him to try the piano. Chopin sat down and played some variations which astonished and delighted the Capellmeister, who had not heard him for four years, so much that he overwhelmed him with expressions of admiration. As the poor amateur began to feel nervous, Chopin was pressed on all sides to take that gentleman's place in the evening. Although he had not practised for some weeks he consented, drove to the hotel, fetched the requisite music, rehearsed, and in the evening performed the Romanza and Rondo of his E minor Concerto and an improvisation on a theme from Auber's "La Muette" ("Masaniello"). At the rehearsal the "Germans" admired his playing; some of them he heard whispering "What a light touch he has!" but not a word was said about the composition. The amateurs did not know whether it was good or bad. Titus Woyciechowski heard one of them say "No doubt he can play, but he can't compose." There was, however, one gentleman who praised the novelty of the form, and the composer naively declares that this was the person who understood him best. Speaking of the professional musicians, Chopin remarks that, with the exception of Schnabel, "the Germans" were at a loss what to think of him. The Polish peasants use the word "German" as an invective, believe that the devil speaks German and dresses in the German fashion, and refuse to take medicine because they hold it to be an invention of the Germans and, consequently, unfit for Christians. Although Chopin does not go so far, he is by no means free from this national antipathy. Let his susceptibility be ruffled by Germans, and you may be sure he will remember their nationality. Besides old Schnabel there was among the persons whose acquaintance Chopin made at Breslau only one other who interests us, and interests us more than that respectable composer of church music; and this one was the organist and composer Adolph Frederick Hesse, then a young man of Chopin's age. Before long the latter became better acquainted with him. In his account of his stay and playing in the Silesian capital, he says of him only that "the second local connoisseur, Hesse, who has travelled through the whole of Germany, paid me also compliments."

Chopin continued his journey on November 10, and on November 12 had already plunged into Dresden life. Two features of this, in some respects quite unique, life cannot but have been particularly attractive to our traveller—namely, its Polish colony and the Italian opera. The former owed its origin to the connection of the house of Saxony with the crown of Poland; and the latter, which had been patronised by the Electors and Kings for hundreds of years, was not disbanded till 1832. In 1817, it is true, Weber, who had received a call for that purpose, founded a German opera at Dresden, but the Italian opera retained the favour of the Court and of a great part of the public, in fact, was the spoiled child that looked down upon her younger sister, poor Cinderella. Even a Weber had to fight hard to keep his own, indeed, sometimes failed to do so, in the rivalry with the ornatissimo Signore Cavaliere Morlacchi, primo maestro della capella Reale.