Chopin's first visit was to Miss Pechwell, through whom he got admission to a soiree at the house of Dr. Kreyssig, where she was going to play and the prima donna of the Italian opera to sing. Having carefully dressed, Chopin made his way to Dr. Kreyssig's in a sedan-chair. Being unaccustomed to this kind of conveyance he had a desire to kick out the bottom of the "curious but comfortable box," a temptation which he, however—to his honour be it recorded—resisted. On entering the salon he found there a great number of ladies sitting round eight large tables:—
No sparkling of diamonds met my eye, but the more modest glitter of a host of steel knitting-needles, which moved ceaselessly in the busy hands of these ladies. The number of ladies and knitting-needles was so large that if the ladies had planned an attack upon the gentlemen that were present, the latter would have been in a sorry plight. Nothing would have been left to them but to make use of their spectacles as weapons, for there was as little lack of eye-glasses as of bald heads.
The clicking of knitting-needles and the rattling of teacups were suddenly interrupted by the overture to the opera "Fra Diavolo," which was being played in an adjoining room. After the overture Signora Palazzesi sang "with a bell-like, magnificent voice, and great bravura." Chopin asked to be introduced to her. He made likewise the acquaintance of the old composer and conductor Vincent Rastrelli, who introduced him to a brother of the celebrated tenor Rubini.
At the Roman Catholic church, the Court Church, Chopin met Morlacchi, and heard a mass by that excellent artist. The Neapolitan sopranists Sassaroli and Tarquinio sang, and the "incomparable Rolla" played the solo violin. On another occasion he heard a clever but dry mass by Baron von Miltitz, which was performed under the direction of Morlacchi, and in which the celebrated violoncello virtuosos Dotzauer and Kummer played their solos beautifully, and the voices of Sassaroli, Muschetti, Babnigg, and Zezi were heard to advantage. The theatre was, as usual, assiduously frequented by Chopin. After the above- mentioned soiree he hastened to hear at least the last act of "Die Stumme von Portici" ("Masaniello"). Of the performance of Rossini's "Tancredi," which he witnessed on another evening, he praised only the wonderful violin playing of Rolla and the singing of Mdlle. Hahnel, a lady from the Vienna Court Theatre. Rossini's "La Donna del lago," in Italian, is mentioned among the operas about to be performed. What a strange anomaly, that in the year 1830 a state of matters such as is indicated by these names and facts could still obtain in Dresden, one of the capitals of musical Germany! It is emphatically a curiosity of history.
Chopin, who came to Rolla with a letter of introduction from Soliva, was received by the Italian violinist with great friendliness. Indeed, kindness was showered upon him from all sides. Rubini promised him a letter of introduction to his brother in Milan, Rolla one to the director of the opera there, and Princess Augusta, the daughter of the late king, and Princess Maximiliana, the sister-in-law of the reigning king, provided him with letters for the Queen of Naples, the Duchess of Lucca, the Vice-Queen of Milan, and Princess Ulasino in Rome. He had met the princesses and played to them at the house of the Countess Dobrzycka, Oberhofmeisterin of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the late king, Frederick Augustus.
The name of the Oberhofmeisterin brings us to the Polish society of Dresden, into which Chopin seems to have found his way at once. Already two days after his arrival he writes of a party of Poles with whom he had dined. At the house of Mdme. Pruszak he made the acquaintance of no less a person than General Kniaziewicz, who took part in the defence of Warsaw, commanded the left wing in the battle of Maciejowice (1794), and joined Napoleon's Polish legion in 1796. Chopin wrote home: "I have pleased him very much; he said that no pianist had made so agreeable an impression on him."
To judge from the tone of Chopin's letters, none of all the people he came in contact with gained his affection in so high a degree as did Klengel, whom he calls "my dear Klengel," and of whom he says that he esteems him very highly, and loves him as if he had known him from his earliest youth. "I like to converse with him, for from him something is to be learned." The great contrapuntist seems to have reciprocated this affection, at any rate he took a great interest in his young friend, wished to see the scores of his concertos, went without Chopin's knowledge to Morlacchi and to the intendant of the theatre to try if a concert could not be arranged within four days, told him that his playing reminded him of Field's, that his touch was of a peculiar kind, and that he had not expected to find him such a virtuoso. Although Chopin replied, when Klengel advised him to give a concert, that his stay in Dresden was too short to admit of his doing so, and thought himself that he could earn there neither much fame nor much money, he nevertheless was not a little pleased that this excellent artist had taken some trouble in attempting to smooth the way for a concert, and to hear from him that this had been done not for Chopin's but for Dresden's sake; our friend, be it noted, was by no means callous to flattery. Klengel took him also to a soiree at the house of Madame Niesiolawska, a Polish lady, and at supper proposed his health, which was drunk in champagne.
There is a passage in one of Chopin's letters which I must quote; it tells us something of his artistic taste outside his own art:- -
The Green Vault I saw last time I was here, and once is enough for me; but I revisited with great interest the picture gallery. If I lived here I would go to it every week, for there are pictures in it at the sight of which I imagine I hear music.
Thus our friend spent a week right pleasantly and not altogether unprofitably in the Saxon Athens, and spent it so busily that what with visits, dinners, soirees, operas, and other amusements, he leaving his hotel early in the morning and returning late at night, it passed away he did not know how.