This Concerto [the E minor] has been made known to the amateurs of music in England by the artist-like performance of Messrs. W. H. Holmes, F. B. Jewson, H. B. Richards, R. Barnett, and other distinguished members of the Royal Academy, where it is a stock piece…The Concerto [in F minor] has been made widely known of late by the clever performance of that true little prodigy Demoiselle Sophie Bohrer….These charming bagatelles [the Mazurkas] have been made widely known in England through the instrumentality of Mr. Moscheles, Mr. Cipriani Potter, Mr. Kiallmark, Madame de Belleville-Oury, Mr. Henry Field (of Bath), Mr. Werner, and other eminent pianists, who enthusiastically admire and universally recommend them to their pupils…To hear one of those eloquent streams of pure loveliness [the nocturnes] delivered by such pianists as Edouard Pirkhert, William Holmes, or Henry Field, a pleasure we frequently enjoyed, is the very transcendency of delight.
[FOOTNOTE: Information about the above-named pianists may be found in the musical biographical dictionaries, with three exceptions-namely, Kiallmark, Werner, and Pirkhert. George Frederick Kiallmark (b. November 7, 1804; d. December 13, 1887), a son of the violinist and composer George Kiallmark, was for many years a leading professor in London. He is said to have had a thorough appreciation and understanding of Chopin's genius, and even in his last years played much of that master's music. He took especial delight in playing Chopin's Nocturnes, no Sunday ever passed without his family hearing him play two or three of them.—Louis Werner (whose real name was Levi) was the son of a wealthy and esteemed Jewish family living at Clapham. He studied music in London under Moscheles, and, though not an eminent pianist, was a good teacher. His amiability assured him a warm welcome in society.—Eduard Pirkhert died at Vienna, aged 63, on February 28, 1881. To Mr. Ernst Pauer, who is never appealed to in vain, I am indebted for the following data as well as for the subject—matter of my notice on Werner: "Eduard Pirkhert, born at Graz in 1817, was a pupil of Anton Halm and Carl Czerny. He was a shy and enormously diligent artist, who, however, on account of his nervousness, played, like Henselt, rarely in public. His execution was extraordinary and his tone beautiful. In 1855 he became professor at the Vienna Conservatorium." Mr. Pauer never heard him play Chopin.]
After this historical excursus let us take up again the record of our hero's doings and sufferings in London.
Chopin seems to have gone to a great many parties of various kinds, but he could not always be prevailed upon to give the company a taste of his artistic quality. Brinley Richards saw him at an evening party at the house of the politician Milner Gibson, where he did not play, although he was asked to do so. According to Mr. Hueffer, [FOOTNOTE: Chopin in Fortnightly Review of September, 1877, reprinted in Musical Studies (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1880).] he attended, likewise without playing, an evening party (May 6) at the house of the historian Grote. Sometimes ill- health prevented him from fulfilling his engagements; this, for instance, was the case on the occasion of a dinner which Macready is said to have given in his honour, and to which Thackeray, Mrs. Procter, Berlioz, and Julius Benedict were invited. On the other hand, Chopin was heard at the Countess of Blessington's (Gore House, Kensington) and the Duchess of Sutherland's (Stafford House). On the latter occasion Benedict played with him a duet of Mozart's. More than thirty years after, Sir Julius had still a clear recollection of "the great pains Chopin insisted should be taken in rehearsing it, to make the rendering of it at the concert as perfect as possible." John Ella heard Chopin play at Benedict's. Of another of Chopin's private performances in the spring of 1848 we read in the Supplement du Dictionnaire de la Conversation, where Fiorentino writes:
We were at most ten or twelve in a homely, comfortable little salon, equally propitious to conversation and contemplation. Chopin took the place of Madame Viardot at the piano, and plunged us into ineffable raptures. I do not know what he played to us; I do not know how long our ecstasy lasted: we were no longer on earth; he had transported us into unknown regions, into a sphere of flame and azure, where the soul, freed from all corporeal bonds, floats towards the infinite. This was, alas! the song of the swan.
The sequel will show that the concluding sentence is no more than a flourish of the pen. Whether Chopin played at Court, as he says in a letter to Gutmann he expected to do, I have not ascertained. Nor have I been able to get any information about a dinner which, Karasowski relates, some forty countrymen of Chopin's got up in his honour when they heard of his arrival in London. According to this authority the pianist-composer rose when the proceedings were drawing to an end, and many speeches extolling him as a musician and patriot had been made, and spoke, if not these words, to this effect: "My dear countrymen! The proofs of your attachment and love which you have just given me have truly moved me. I wish to thank you, but lack the talent of expressing my feelings in words; I invite you therefore to accompany me to my lodgings and to receive there my thanks at the piano." The proposal was received with enthusiasm, and Chopin played to his delighted and insatiable auditors till two o'clock in the morning. What a crush, these forty or more people in Chopin's lodgings! However, that is no business of mine.
[FOOTNOTE: After reading the above, Mr. Hipkins remarked: "I fancy this dinner resembled the dinner which will go down to posterity as given by the Hungarians of London to Liszt in [1886], which was really a private dinner given by Mrs. Bretherton to fifteen people, of whom her children and mine were four. NO Hungarians.">[
The documents—letters and newspaper advertisements and notices— bearing on this period of Chopin's life are so plentiful that they tell the story without the help of many additions and explanatory notes. This is satisfactory, for one grain of fact is more precious than a bushel of guesses and hearsays.
Chopin to Gutmann; London, 48, Dover Street, Piccadilly,
Saturday, May 6, 1848:—
Dear friend,—Here I am at last, settled in this whirlpool of London. It is only a few days since I began to breathe; for it is only a few days since the sun showed itself. I have seen M. D'Orsay, and notwithstanding all the delay of my letter he received me very well. Be so good as to thank the duchess for me and him. I have not yet made all my calls, for many persons to whom I have letters of introduction are not yet here. Erard was charming; he sent me a piano. I have a Broadwood and a Pleyel, which makes three, and yet I do not find time to play them. I have many visitors, and my days pass like lightning—I have not even had a moment to write to Pleyel. Let me know how you are getting on. In what state of mind are you? How are your people? With my people things are not going well. I am much vexed about this. In spite of that I must think of making a public appearance; a proposal has been made to me to play at the Philharmonic, [FOOTNOTE: "Chopin, we are told," says the Musical World of May 27, 1848, "was invited to play at the Philharmonic, but declined.">[ but I would rather not. I shall apparently finish off, after playing at Court before the Queen [chez la reine], by giving a matinee, limited to a number of persons, at a private residence [hotel particulier]. I wish that this would terminate thus. But these projects are only projects in the air. Write to me a great deal about yourself. —Yours ever, my old Gut.,