Banished from his home by political events, separated from his family, led into the thorny paths of unhappy love, bowed down by illness, his life was brought to an early close, but in his sublime creations he has left us a portion of his own rich spirit.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHOPIN AS A COMPOSER.
S a creative artist, Chopin holds a unique position. Confining himself to the comparatively restricted limits of a single instrument, it is, in the opinion of competent judges, his especial merit to have been not only a thoroughly scientific musician, but also a true poet, whose productions have had the most wide-spread influence on all modern pianoforte composers, an influence not unlike that of Heine in the domain of poetry. Poet and musician alike give us the most perfect emotional pictures in the smallest forms, but with this difference, that while Heineʼs scepticism had a blighting effect on these miniatures, Chopinʼs harmonious disposition was a fructifying energy. How strongly convinced must Chopin have been that his special mission was the embellishment of pianoforte literature, to be able to resist the tempting and seemingly effective help of an orchestra, and to voluntarily restrict himself to one instrument, for which he wrote masterpieces, of their kind incomparable. Liszt justly observes,
"LARGE AND SMALL ART FORMS.We are too much accustomed at the present day to consider great only those composers who have written at least half a dozen Operas and Oratorios, besides Symphonies; demanding, in our folly, everything and more than everything of one musician. However universal this idea may be, its reasonableness is very problematical. We have no wish to contest the hardly won glory or the real superiority of the composers who have adopted the largest forms; all we desire is that, in music, size should be estimated in the same way as in the other arts: a painting, such as the ‘Vision of Ezekiel,’ or ‘The Churchyard,’ by Ruysdaël, twenty inches square, is placed among the chefs-dʼœuvre, and ranks higher than many larger pictures by a Rubens or a Tintoretto. Is Beranger less of a poet because he poured all his thoughts into the narrow limits of a song? Is not Petrarch known chiefly by his sonnets? How many of his readers are acquainted with his poem on Africa? We cannot but believe that the criticism which denies the superiority of an artist like Schubert over one who occupies himself in scoring tame operatic melodies, will disappear; and that, henceforth, we shall consider the quality of the expression whatever may be the size of the form chosen for its vehicle.”