I have heard Thalberg in Paris. He made on me the impression of a good little child, very nice and very well-behaved. There are hours when Franz [Liszt], while amusing himself, trifles [badine], like him, on some notes in order to let the furious elements afterwards loose on this gentle breeze.
Liszt, who was at the time of Thalberg's visit to Paris in Switzerland, doubted the correctness of the accounts which reached him of this virtuoso's achievements. Like Thomas he would trust only his own senses; and as his curiosity left him no rest, he betook himself in March, 1836, to Paris. But, unfortunately, he arrived too late, Thalberg having quitted the capital on the preceding day. The enthusiastic praises which were everywhere the answer to his inquiries about Thalberg irritated Liszt, and seemed to him exaggerations based on delusions. To challenge criticism and practically refute the prevalent opinion, he gave two private soirees, one at Pleyel's and another at Erard's, both of which were crowded, the latter being attended by more than four hundred people. The result was a brilliant victory, and henceforth there were two camps. The admiration and stupefaction of those who heard him were extraordinary; for since his last appearance Liszt had again made such enormous progress as to astonish even his most intimate friends. In answer to those who had declared that with Thalberg a new era began, Berlioz, pointing to Liszt's Fantasia on I Pirati and that on themes from La Juive, now made the counter-declaration that "this was the new school of pianoforte-playing." Indeed, Liszt was only now attaining to the fulness of his power as a pianist and composer for his instrument; and when after another sojourn in Switzerland he returned in December, 1836, to Paris, and in the course of the season entered the lists with Thalberg, it was a spectacle for the gods. "Thalberg," writes Leon Escudier, "est la grace, comme Liszt la force; le jeu de l'un est blond, celui de l'autre est brun." A lady who heard the two pianists at a concert for the Italian poor, given in the salons of the Princess Belgiojoso, exclaimed: "Thalberg est le premier pianiste du monde."—"Et Liszt?" asked the person to whom the words were addressed— "Liszt! Liszt—c'est le seul!" was the reply. This is the spirit in which great artists should be judged. It is oftener narrowness of sympathy than acuteness of discrimination which makes people exalt one artist and disparage another who differs from him. In the wide realm of art there are to be found many kinds of excellence; one man cannot possess them all and in the highest degree. Some of these excellences are indeed irreconcilable and exclude each other; most of them can only be combined by a compromise. Hence, of two artists who differ from each other, one is not necessarily superior to the other; and he who is the greater on the whole may in some respects be inferior to the lesser. Perhaps the reader will say that these are truisms. To be sure they are. And yet if he considers only the judgments which are every day pronounced, he may easily be led to believe that these truisms are most recondite truths now for the first time revealed. When Liszt after his first return from Switzerland did not find Thalberg himself, he tried to satisfy his curiosity by a careful examination of that pianist's compositions. The conclusions he came to be set forth in a criticism of Thalberg's Grande Fantaisie, Op. 22, and the Caprices, Op. 15 and 19, which in 1837 made its appearance in the Gazette musicale, accompanied by an editorial foot-note expressing dissent. I called Liszt's article a criticism, but "lampoon" or "libel" would have been a more appropriate designation. In the introductory part Liszt sneers at Thalberg's title of "Pianist to His Majesty the Emperor of Austria," and alludes to his rival's distant (i.e., illegitimate) relationship to a noble family, ascribing his success to a great extent to these two circumstances. The personalities and abusiveness of the criticism remind one somewhat of the manner in which the scholars of earlier centuries, more especially of the sixteenth and seventeenth, dealt critically with each other. Liszt declares that love of truth, not jealousy, urged him to write; but he deceived himself. Nor did his special knowledge and experience as a musician and virtuoso qualify him, as he pretended, above others for the task he had undertaken; he forgot that no man can be a good judge in his own cause. No wonder, therefore, that Fetis, enraged at this unprovoked attack of one artist on a brother-artist, took up his pen in defence of the injured party. Unfortunately, his retort was a lengthy and pedantic dissertation, which along with some true statements contained many questionable, not to say silly, ones. In nothing, however, was he so far off the mark as in his comparative estimate of Liszt and Thalberg. The sentences in which he sums up the whole of his reasoning show this clearly: "You are the pre-eminent man of the school which is effete and which has nothing more to do, but you are not the man of a new school! Thalberg is this man—herein lies the whole difference between you two." Who can help smiling at this combination of pompous authoritativeness and wretched short-sightedness? It has been truly observed by Ambros that there is between Thalberg and Liszt all the difference that exists between a man of talent and a man of genius; indeed, the former introduced but a new fashion, whereas the latter founded really a new school. The one originated a few new effects, the other revolutionised the whole style of writing for the pianoforte. Thalberg was perfect in his genre, but he cannot be compared to an artist of the breadth, universality, and, above all, intellectual and emotional power of Liszt. It is possible to describe the former, but the latter, Proteus-like, is apt to elude the grasp of him who endeavours to catch hold of him. The Thalberg controversy did not end with Fetis's article. Liszt wrote a rejoinder in which he failed to justify himself, but succeeded in giving the poor savant some hard hits. I do not think Liszt would have approved of the republication of these literary escapades if he had taken the trouble to re-read them. It is very instructive to compare his criticism of Thalberg's compositions with what Schumann—who in this case is by no means partial—said of them. In the opinion of the one the Fantaisie sur Les Huguenots is not only one of the most empty and mediocre works, but it is also so supremely monotonous that it produces extreme weariness. In the opinion of the other the Fantaisie deserves the general enthusiasm which it has called forth, because the composer proves himself master of his language and thoughts, conducts himself like a man of the world, binds and loosens the threads with so much ease that it seems quite unintentional, and draws the audience with him wherever he wishes without either over-exciting or wearying it. The truth, no doubt, is rather with Schumann than with Liszt. Although Thalberg's compositions cannot be ranked with the great works of ideal art, they are superior to the morceaux of Czerny, Herz, and hoc genus omne, their appearance marking indeed an improvement in the style of salon music.
But what did Chopin think of Thalberg? He shared the opinion of Liszt, whose side he took. In fact, Edouard Wolff told me that Chopin absolutely despised Thalberg. To M. Mathias I owe the following communication, which throws much light on Chopin's attitude:—
I saw Chopin with George Sand at the house of Louis Viardot, before the marriage of the latter with Pauline Garcia. I was very young, being only twelve years old, but I remember it as though it had been yesterday. Thalberg was there, and had played his second fantasia on Don Giovanni (Op. 42), and upon my word Chopin complimented him most highly and with great gravity; nevertheless, God knows what Chopin thought of it in his heart, for he had a horror of Thalberg's arrangements, which I have seen and heard him parody in the most droll and amusing manner, for Chopin had the sense of parody and ridicule in a high degree.
Thalberg had not much intercourse with Chopin, nor did he exercise the faintest shadow of an influence over him; but as one of the foremost pianist-composers—indeed, one of the most characteristic phenomena of the age—he could not be passed by in silence. Moreover, the noisy careers of Liszt and Thalberg serve as a set-off to the noiseless one of Chopin.
I suspect that Chopin was one of that race of artists and poets "qui font de la passion un instrument de l'art et de la poesie, et dont l'esprit n'a d'activite qu'autant qu'il est mis en mouvement par les forces motrices du coeur." At any rate, the tender passion was a necessary of his existence. That his disappointed first love did not harden his heart and make him insensible to the charms of the fair sex is apparent from some remarks of George Sand, who says that although his heart was ardent and devoted, it was not continuously so to any one person, but surrendered itself alternately to five or six affections, each of which, as they struggled within it, got by turns the mastery over all the others. He would passionately love three women in the course of one evening party and forget them as soon as he had turned his back, while each of them imagined that she had exclusively charmed him. In short, Chopin was of a very impressionable nature: beauty and grace, nay, even a mere smile, kindled his enthusiasm at first sight, and an awkward word or equivocal glance was enough to disenchant him. But although he was not at all exclusive in his own affections, he was so in a high degree with regard to those which he demanded from others. In illustration of how easily Chopin took a dislike to anyone, and how little he measured what he accorded of his heart with what he exacted from that of others, George Sand relates a story which she got from himself. In order to avoid misrepresenting her, I shall translate her own words:—
He had taken a great fancy to the granddaughter of a celebrated master. He thought of asking her in marriage at the same time that he entertained the idea of another marriage in Poland—his loyalty being engaged nowhere, and his fickle heart floating from one passion to the other. The young Parisian received him very kindly, and all went as well as could be till on going to visit her one day in company with another musician, who was of more note in Paris than he at that time, she offered a chair to this gentleman before thinking of inviting Chopin to be seated. He never called on her again, and forgot her immediately.
The same story was told me by other intimate friends of Chopin's, who evidently believed in its genuineness; their version differed from that of George Sand only in this, that there was no allusion to a lady-love in Poland. Indeed, true as George Sand's observations are in the main, we must make allowance for the novelist's habit of fashioning and exaggerating, and the woman's endeavour to paint her dismissed and aggrieved lover as black as possible. Chopin may have indulged in innumerable amorous fancies, but the story of his life furnishes at least one instance of his having loved faithfully as well as deeply. Nor will it be denied that Chopin's love for Constantia Gladkowska was a serious affair, whether the fatal end be attributable to him or her, or both. And now I have to give an account of another love-affair which deserves likewise the epithet "serious."
As a boy Chopin contracted a friendship with the brothers Wodzinski, who were boarders at his father's establishment. With them he went repeatedly to Sluzewo, the property of their father, and thus became also acquainted with the rest of the family. The nature of the relation in which Chopin and they stood to each other is shown by a letter written by the former on July 18, 1834, to one of the brothers who with his mother and other members of the family was at that time staying at Geneva, whither they had gone after the Polish revolution of 1830-31, in which the three brothers—Anthony, Casimir, and Felix—had taken part:- -
My dear Felix,—Very likely you thought "Fred must be moping that he does not answer my letter!" But you will remember that it was always my habit to do everything too late. Thus I went also too late to Miss Fanche, and consequently was obliged to wait till honest Wolf had departed. Were it not that I have only recently come back from the banks of the Rhine and have an engagement from which I cannot free myself just now, I would immediately set out for Geneva to thank your esteemed mamma and at the same time accept her kind invitation. But cruel fate—in one word, it cannot be done. Your sister was so good as to send me her composition. It gives me the greatest pleasure, and happening to improvise the veryevening of its arrival in one of our salons, I took for my subject the pretty theme by a certain Maria with whom in times gone by I played at hide and seek in the house of Mr. Pszenny…To-day! Je prends la liberte d'envoyer a mon estimable collegue Mile Marie une petite valse que je viens de publier. May it afford her a hundredth part of the pleasure which I felt on receiving her variations. In conclusion, I once more thank your mamma most sincerely for kindly remembering her old and faithful servant in whose veins also there run some drops of Cujavian blood. [Footnote: Cujavia is the name of a Polish district.]