From Carlsbad Chopin went to Dresden. His doings there were of great importance to him, and are of great interest to us. In fact, a new love-romance was in progress. But the story had better be told consecutively, for which reason I postpone my account of his stay in the Saxon capital till the next chapter.
Frederick Wieck, the father and teacher of Clara, who a few years later became the wife of Robert Schumann, sent the following budget of Leipzig news to Nauenburg, a teacher of music in Halle, in the autumn of 1835:—
The first subscription concert will take place under the direction of Mendelssohn on October 4, the second on October 4. To-morrow or the day after to-morrow Chopin will arrive here from Dresden, but will probably not give a concert, for he is very lazy. He could stay here for some time, if false friends (especially a dog of a Pole) did not prevent him from making himself acquainted with the musical side of Leipzig. But Mendelssohn, who is a good friend of mine and Schumann's, will oppose this. Chopin does not believe, judging from a remark he made to a colleague in Dresden, that there is any lady in Germany who can play his compositions—we will see what Clara can do.
The Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, Schumann's paper, of September 29, 1835, contained the following announcement:—
Leipzig will soon be able to show a Kalisz [Footnote: An allusion to the encampment of Russian and Prussian troops and friendly meeting of princes which took place there in 1835.] as regards musical crowned heads. Herr Mendelssohn has already arrived. Herr Moscheles comes this week; and besides him there will be Chopin, and later, Pixis and Franzilla. [Footnote: Franzilla (or Francilla) Pixis, the adopted daughter of Peter Pixis, whose acquaintance the reader made in one of the preceding chapters (p. 245).]
The details of the account of Chopin's visit to Leipzig which I
am now going to give, were communicated to me by Ernst Ferdinand
Wenzel, the well-known professor of pianoforte-playing at the
Leipzig Conservatorium, who died in 1880.
In the middle of the year 1835 the words "Chopin is coming" were passing from mouth to mouth, and caused much stir in the musical circles of Leipzig. Shortly after this my informant saw Mendelssohn in the street walking arm in arm with a young man, and he knew at once that the Polish musician had arrived, for this young man could be no other than Chopin. From the direction in which the two friends were going, he guessed whither their steps were tending. He, therefore, ran as fast as his legs would carry him to his master Wieck, to tell him that Chopin would be with him in another moment. The visit had been expected, and a little party was assembled, every one of which was anxious to see and hear the distinguished artist. Besides Wieck, his wife, daughter, and sister-in-law, there were present Robert Schumann and Wieck's pupils Wenzel, Louis Rakemann, and Ulex. But the irascible pedagogue, who felt offended because Chopin had not come first to him, who had made such efforts for the propagation of his music, would not stay and welcome his visitor, but withdrew sulkily into the inner apartments. Wieck had scarcely left the room when Mendelssohn and Chopin entered. The former, who had some engagement, said, "Here is Chopin!" and then left, rightly thinking this laconic introduction sufficient. Thus the three most distinguished composers of their time were at least for a moment brought together in the narrow space of a room. [Footnote: This dictum, like all superlatives and sweeping assertions, will no doubt raise objectors; but, I think, it may be maintained, and easily maintained with the saving clause "apart from the stage.">[ Chopin was in figure not unlike Mendelssohn, but the former was more lightly built and more graceful in his movements. He spoke German fluently, although with a foreign accent. The primary object of Chopin's visit was to make the acquaintance of Clara Wieck, who had already acquired a high reputation as a pianist. She played to him among other things the then new and not yet published Sonata in F sharp minor (Op. 11) by Schumann, which she had lately been studying. The gentlemen dared not ask Chopin to play because of the piano, the touch of which was heavy and which consequently would not suit him. But the ladies were bolder, and did not cease entreating him till he sat down and played his Nocturne in E flat (Op. 9, No. 2). After the lapse of forty-two years Wenzel was still in raptures about the wonderful, fairy-like lightness and delicacy of Chopin's touch and style. The conversation seems to have turned on Schubert, one of Schumann's great favourites, for Chopin, in illustration of something he said, played the commencement of Schubert's Alexander March. Meanwhile Wieck was sorely tried by his curiosity when Chopin was playing, and could not resist the temptation of listening in the adjoining room, and even peeping through the door that stood slightly ajar. When the visit came to a close; Schumann conducted Chopin to the house of his friend Henrietta Voigt, a pupil of Louis Berger's, and Wenzel, who accompanied them to the door, heard Schumann say to Chopin: "Let us go in here where we shall find a thorough, intelligent pianist and a good piano." They then entered the house, and Chopin played and also stayed for dinner. No sooner had he left, than the lady, who up to that time had been exceedingly orthodox in her musical opinions and tastes, sent to Kistner's music-shop, and got all the compositions by Chopin which were in stock.
The letter of Mendelssohn which I shall quote presently and an entry in Henrietta Voigt's diary of the year 1836, which will be quoted in the next chapter, throw some doubt on the latter part of Herr Wenzel's reminiscences. Indeed, on being further questioned on the subject, he modified his original information to this, that he showed Chopin, unaccompanied by Schumann, the way to the lady's house, and left him at the door. As to the general credibility of the above account, I may say that I have added nothing to my informant's communications, and that in my intercourse with him I found him to be a man of acute observation and tenacious memory. What, however, I do not know, is the extent to which the mythopoeic faculty was developed in him.
[Footnote: Richard Pohl gave incidentally a characterisation of this exceedingly interesting personality in the Signale of September, 1886, No. 48. Having been personally acquainted with Wenzel and many of his friends and pupils, I can vouch for its truthfulness. He was "one of the best and most amiable men I have known," writes R. Pohl, "full of enthusiasm for all that is beautiful, obliging, unselfish, thoroughly kind, and at the same time so clever, so cultured, and so many-sided as—excuse me, gentlemen—I have rarely found a pianoforte-teacher. He gave pianoforte lessons at the Conservatorium and in many private houses; he worked day after day, year after year, from morning till night, and with no other outcome as far as he himself was concerned than that all his pupils—especially his female pupils—loved him enthusiastically. He was a pupil of Friedrich Wieck and a friend of Schumann.">[
In a letter dated October 6, 1835, and addressed to his family, Mendelssohn describes another part of Chopin's sojourn in Leipzig and gives us his opinion of the Polish artist's compositions and playing:—