Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Volume 1

by Frederick Niecks

What affected Chopin most and made him feel lonely was the departure of his friend Woyciechowski, who on the first news of the insurrection returned to Poland and joined the insurgents. Chopin wished to do the same, but his parents advised him to stay where he was, telling him that he was not strong enough to bear the fatigues and hardships of a soldier's life. Nevertheless, when Woyciechowski was gone an irresistible home-sickness seized him, and, taking post-horses, he tried to overtake his friend and go with him. But after following him for some stages without making up to him, his resolution broke down, and he returned to Vienna. Chopin's characteristic irresolution shows itself again at this time very strikingly, indeed, his letters are full of expressions indicating and even confessing it. On December 21, 1830, he writes to his parents:—

I do not know whether I ought to go soon to Italy or wait a little longer? Please, dearest papa, let me know your and the best mother's will in this matter.

And four days afterwards he writes to Matuszynski:—

You know, of course, that 1 have letters from the Royal Court of Saxony to the Vice-Queen in Milan, but what shall I do? My parents leave me to choose; I wish they would give me instructions. Shall I go to Paris? My acquaintances here advise me to wait a little longer. Shall I return home? Shall I stay here? Shall I kill myself? Shall I not write to you any more?

Chopin's dearest wish was to be at home again. "How I should like to be in Warsaw!" he writes. But the fulfilment of this wish was out of the question, being against the desire of his parents, of whom especially the mother seems to have been glad that he did not execute his project of coming home.

I would not like to be a burden to my father; were it not for this fear I should return home at once. I am often in such a mood that I curse the moment of my departure from my sweet home! You will understand my situation, and that since the departure of Titus too much has fallen upon me all at once.

The question whether he should go to Italy or to France was soon decided for him, for the suppressed but constantly-increasing commotion which had agitated the former country ever since the July revolution at last vented itself in a series of insurrections. Modena began on February 3,1831, Bologna, Ancona, Parma, and Rome followed. While the "where to go" was thus settled, the "when to go" remained an open question for many months to come. Meanwhile let us try to look a little deeper into the inner and outer life which Chopin lived at Vienna.

The biographical details of this period of Chopin's life have to be drawn almost wholly from his letters. These, however, must be judiciously used. Those addressed to his parents, important as they are, are only valuable with regard to the composer's outward life, and even as vehicles of such facts they are not altogether trustworthy, for it is always his endeavour to make his parents believe that he is well and cheery. Thus he writes, for instance, to his friend Matuszyriski, after pouring forth complaint after complaint:—"Tell my parents that I am very happy, that I am in want of nothing, that I amuse myself famously, and never feel lonely." Indeed, the Spectator's opinion that nothing discovers the true temper of a person so much as his letters, requires a good deal of limitation and qualification. Johnson's ideas on the same subject may be recommended as a corrective. He held that there was no transaction which offered stronger temptations to fallacy and sophistication than epistolary intercourse:—

In the eagerness of conversation the first emotions of the mind burst out before they are considered. In the tumult of business, interest and passion have their genuine effect; but a friendly letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no man sits down by design to depreciate his own character. Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity; for by whom can a man so much wish to be thought better than he is, as by him whose kindness he desires to gain or keep?

These one-sided statements are open to much criticism, and would make an excellent theme for an essay. Here, however, we must content ourselves with simply pointing out that letters are not always calm and deliberate performances, but exhibit often the eagerness of conversation and the impulsiveness of passion. In Chopin's correspondence we find this not unfrequently exemplified. But to see it we must not turn to the letters addressed to his parents, to his master, and to his acquaintances- -there we find little of the real man and his deeper feelings— but to those addressed to his bosom-friends, and among them there are none in which he shows himself more openly than in the two which he wrote on December 25, 1830, and January 1, 1831, to John Matuszynski. These letters are, indeed, such wonderful revelations of their writer's character that I should fail in my duty as his biographer were I to neglect to place before the reader copious extracts from them, in short, all those passages which throw light on the inner working of this interesting personality.