V
CHOPIN, THE POET OF THE PIANOFORTE
I must ask the reader still to imagine that he is at a pianoforte recital, although I frankly admit that I have been guilty of many digressions, so that it must appear to him as if he had been whisked from Mendelssohn Hall up to Carnegie Hall, then down to the Metropolitan Opera House and back to Mendelssohn Hall again. This, however, as I have sought to make clear before, is due to the universality of the pianoforte as an instrument and to the comprehensiveness of pianoforte music, which in itself illustrates in great part the development of the art.
At this point, then, of our imaginary pianoforte recital there is likely to be a group of compositions by Chopin; and the larger the group, or the more groups by this composer on the program, the better satisfied the audience is apt to be. Baker calls Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) the “incomparable composer for the pianoforte.” But he was more. He was an incomparable composer from every point of view, great, unique, a tone poet, as well as the first composer who searched the very soul of the instrument for which he specialized. Extraordinary as is his significance for that instrument, his influence extends through it into other realms of music, and his art is making itself felt to 117 this day in orchestra, opera and music-drama as well as in pianoforte music. For he was an innovator in form, an intrepid adventurer in harmony and a sublime singer of melody.
Tempo Rubato.
Before the pianist whose recital we are supposed to be attending will have played many bars of the first piece in the Chopin group, the individuality of this composer will become apparent. Melody will pervade the recital hall like the fragrance of flowers. At the same time there will be an iridescence not noticeable in any of the music that preceded Chopin, and produced as if by cascades of jewels—those remarkable ornamental notes which yet are not ornamental, but, in spite of all their light and shade, and their play of changeable colors, part of the great undercurrent of melody itself. Here we have then, nearly at the very outset of the first Chopin piece, the famous tempo rubato, so-called, which has been explained in various ways, but which with Chopin really means that while the rhythm goes calmly on with one hand, the other weaves a veil of iridescent notes around the melodic idea. Liszt expressed it exactly when he said: “You see that tree? Its leaves move to and fro in the wind and follow the gentle motion of the air; but its trunk stands there immovable in its form.” Or the tempo rubato is like a shower of petals from a tree in full bloom; the firm outline of the tree, its foliage are there, while we see the delicately tinted blossoms falling from the branches and filling the air with color and fragrance; or like the myriad shafts from the facets of a 118 jewel, piercing in all directions while the jewel itself remains immovable, the centre of its own rays; or like the crisp ripple on a river, while the stream itself flows on in majesty; or, in one or two passages when Chopin becomes a cynic, like the twaddle of critics while the person they criticise calmly goes about his mission.
The Soul of the Pianoforte.
What you will notice about these compositions of Chopin—and I say “these compositions” deliberately, although I have not named any (for it makes no difference what pieces of his are on the program, the effect will be the same)—is the fact that in none of them is there the slightest suggestion of anything but pianoforte music. Chopin’s great achievement so far as the pianoforte is concerned is the fact that he liberated it completely from orchestral and choral influences, and made it an instrument sufficient unto itself, brought it into its own in all its beauty of tone and expression and enlarged its capacity; sought out its soul and reproduced it in tone, as no other composer had done before him or has done since. The recognition of the true piano tone seems to have been instinctive with him. It appears in his earliest works. Nothing he ever wrote suggests orchestra or voice. For the beautiful singing quality he brings out in much of his music is a singing quality which belongs to the noble instrument to which he devoted himself. Not once while listening to a Chopin composition do you think to yourself, as you do so often with classical works, like the Beethoven sonatas, “How well this would sound on the orchestra!” 119 Yet Chopin is as sonorous, as passionate, as pleading, as melancholy and as rich in effect, although he is played only on the black and white keys of the pianoforte, as if he were given forth by a hundred instrumentalists, so thoroughly did he understand the instrument for which he wrote. He was the Wagner of the pianoforte.
A Clear Melodic Line.
What you will notice, too, about his music is the general distinctness of his melody. There may be times, as in some of his arabesque compositions, like the “F Minor Étude,” when the effect is slightly blurred. But this is done purposely, and as a rule there will be found a clear melodic line running through everything he wrote. Combined with this melody are weird, exquisite, entrancing harmonies, and those showers of tempo rubato notes which glitter like a veil of mist in the sunlight and yet, although a veil, allow you to see what is beneath it, like a delicate fabric which seems rather to emphasize and reveal the very things it is intended to conceal.