CHAPTER XVI.
RETURN TO PARIS. MOSCHELES AND LISZT. CHOPIN AS A PIANOFORTE TEACHER.
FTER spending a fine summer at Nohant, the country residence of George Sand, Chopin returned to Paris in the autumn. His health and spirits had been excellent during the whole time, and if not perfectly restored he was yet sufficiently strong to resume his usual occupations. It appeared that the doctors had been mistaken; what they took for consumption turned out to be bronchitis; they, therefore, strongly advised the artist to spare his strength as much as possible and lead a very regular life.
A tender mother or sister, or a loving and beloved wife, would doubtless have succeeded in inducing Frederic, who was naturally gentle and tractable, to pay more regard to the delicacy of his constitution and pursue quieter habits; but in Paris, where he spent every evening at assemblies which lasted late on into the night, he could not make up his mind to stay at home and go to bed early. This exciting life was very injurious to him; the first symptoms of consumption appeared, and increased in severity year by year.
Chopin lived first in the Rue Tronchet, but he soon moved to the Quai dʼOrleans, where he occupied the “pavilion” of a house inhabited by George Sand. “Chopin was very pleased to have a drawing room in which he could play and dream; but he was very fond of society, and used it chiefly to give lessons in,” says George Sand; “it was only while he was at Nohant that he composed.” His pupils welcomed him back with great pleasure, and were charmed with the preludes and the host of new compositions which he brought with him.[32]
In 1839 Moscheles, who had been desirous of knowing the Polish virtuoso, arrived in Paris from London. The two artists met for the first time at an evening party at the house of Monsieur Leo, to whom Chopin dedicated the Polonaise, op. 53. As polished men of the world, they saluted each other with the utmost courtesy, but went no further. After this first brief meeting they were both invited by King Louis Philippe to a concert at St. Cloud, on November 29th.
A CONCERT AT ST. CLOUD. Chopin played before the royal family a nocturne and some studies, and was, as Moscheles says, “admired and petted as a favourite.” The German artist then played some drawing-room pieces, and, in conclusion, his Duet Sonata, with Chopin. Moscheles thought Chopinʼs playing full of charm and life, and in a letter to his wife he says:—
“Chopinʼs appearance corresponds exactly with his music; both are delicate and fanciful (schwärmerisch.) He played to me at my request, and then for the first time I really understood his music and saw the explanation of the ladiesʼ enthusiasm. The ad libitum which with his interpreters degenerates into bad time, is, when he himself performs, the most charming originality of execution; the harsh and dilettante-like modulations, which I could never get over when playing his compositions, ceased to offend when his delicate fairy-like fingers glided over them; his piano is so delicate that no very strong forte is required to give the desired contrast. Thus we do not miss the orchestral effects which the German school demands from a pianist, but feel ourselves carried away as by a singer who, paying little heed to the accompaniment, abandons himself to his feelings. He is quite unique in the pianistic world. He declared he liked my music very much; at any rate he is well acquainted with it. He played his Studies, and his last new work, the ‘Preludes,’ and I played several of my works to him. Who would have thought that, with all his sentimentality, Chopin had also a comic vein? He was lively, merry, and extremely comic in his mimicry of Pixis, Liszt, and a hunch-backed pianoforte amateur.”
Chopinʼs imitative talent displayed itself, as the reader knows, in early youth, and increased so much in after years that the French players, Boccage and Madame Dorval, declared that they had never seen anything of the kind so excellent before. My friend, Joseph Nowakowski, a fellow-student of Chopin, relates the following anecdotes:—