We reproduce the charming picture by a German painter, which, entitled "Song without Words," is said to represent the young Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny seated at the piano, side by side. Poetzelberger's other works, which he has named "Con Amore," "Old Songs," and "Trifling," are also distinguished by their graceful sentiment.
CHOPIN.
Liszt, the friend and rival of Chopin, wrote a biography of him which may almost be ranked among the curiosities of literature. Liszt was a genius, but not a good biographer, and his life of Chopin is largely a rhapsody.
For instance, Liszt writes thus about Chopin's short-lived passion for the singer Constantia Gladkowska. "The tempest, which, in one of its sudden gusts, tore Chopin from his native soil, like a bird dreamy and abstracted, surprised by the storm, upon the branches of a foreign tree, sundered the ties of this first love and robbed the exile of a faithful and devoted wife, as well as disinherited him of a country." And the same tendency to "gush" is here again apparent. "Chopin," he says, "could easily read the hearts which were attracted to him by friendship and the grace of his youth, and thus was enabled early to learn of what a strange mixture of leaven and cream of roses, of gunpowder and tears of angels, the poetic ideal of his nation is formed. When his wandering fingers ran over the keys, suddenly touching some moving chords, he could see how the furtive tears coursed down the cheeks of the loving girl, or the young, neglected wife; how they moistened the eyes of the young man, enamoured of and eager for glory. Can we not fancy some young beauty asking him to play a simple prelude, then, softened by the tones, leaning her rounded arms upon the instrument to support her dreaming head, while she suffered the young artist to divine in the dewy glitter of her lustrous eyes the song sung by her youthful heart?"
It has been asserted both by Liszt and others that Chopin owed his musical education to the generosity of Prince Anton Radziwill, but the statement is untrue. That wealthy and cultured nobleman was, however, always a warm friend and helpful patron of the great Polish pianist, who often visited the prince at his country-seat. Prince Radziwill was a musician himself,—a good singer and "cellist," and the composer of numerous pieces, among them being the first portions of Goethe's "Faust." To him Chopin dedicated his first trio for pianoforte, violin, and violoncello, published in 1833. Chopin seems to have passed a very pleasant time with the prince and his family, and, indeed, not to have been blind to the fascinations of the prince's charming daughters, one of whom was an excellent pianist. The prince himself was no mean performer on the violoncello, and he and Chopin played a good deal together. Writing from Antonin, Chopin says: "I have written during my stay here an Alla Polacca with violoncello. It is nothing more than a brilliant salon piece, such as pleases ladies. I should like the Princess Wanda to practise it. She is only seventeen years of age, and very beautiful; it would be delightful to have the pleasure of placing her pretty fingers upon the keys." Chopin was a susceptible being and ever a victim to the latest impression, so it is not strange that the lovely Wanda was soon forgotten.
Chopin at Prince Radziwill's. From painting by H. Siemiradski.
A countryman of Chopin's, the distinguished artist, Siemiradski, has produced a picture of the young pianist playing in the salon of Prince Radziwill, which itself convinces us of its truthfulness. The painter (born in 1843, and a pupil of Piloty) secured a wide renown through his painting of "The Living Torches of Nero." From a long list of notable pictures by Siemiradski, we select for mention "Phryne at Eleusis," "The Sword Dance," and "The Cremation of a Russian Chieftain in the Tenth Century."