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Life of Chopin

Franz Lizst

Section 15 of 19 - Table of Contents
More than once in the history of art and literature, a poet has
arisen, embodying in himself the poetic sense of a whole nation,
an entire epoch, representing the types which his contemporaries
pursue and strive to realize, in an absolute manner in his works:
such a poet was Chopin for his country and for the epoch in which
he was born. The poetic sentiments the most widely spread, yet
the most intimate and inherent of his nation, were embodied and
united in his imagination, and represented by his brilliant
genius. Poland has given birth to many bards, some of whom rank
among the first poets of the world.

Its writers are now making strenuous efforts to display in the
strongest light, the most glorious and interesting facts of its
history, the most peculiar and picturesque phases of its manners
and customs. Chopin, differing from them in having formed no
premeditated design, surpasses them all in originality. He did
not determine upon, he did not seek such a result; he created no
ideal a priori. Without having predetermined to transport himself
into the past, he constantly remembered the glories of his
country, he understood and sung the loves and tears of his
contemporaries without having analyzed them in advance. He did not
task himself, nor study to be a national musician. Like all truly
national poets he sang spontaneously without premeditated design
or preconceived choice all that inspiration dictated to him, as
we hear it gushing forth in his songs without labor, almost
without effort. He repeated in the most idealized form the
emotions which had animated and embellished his youth; under the
magic delicacy of his pen he displayed the Ideal, which is, if we
may be permitted so to speak, the Real among his people; an Ideal
really in existence among them, which every one in general and
each one in particular approaches by the one or the other of its
many sides. Without assuming to do so, he collected in luminous
sheaves the impressions felt everywhere throughout his country--
vaguely felt it is true, yet in fragments pervading all hearts.
Is it not by this power of reproducing in a poetic formula,
enchanting to the imagination of all nations, the indefinite
shades of feeling widely scattered but frequently met among their
compatriots, that the artists truly national are distinguished?

Not without reason has the task been undertaken of collecting the
melodies indigenous to every country. It appears to us it would
be of still deeper interest, to trace the influences forming the
characteristic powers of the authors most deeply inspired by the
genius of the nation to which they belong. Until the present
epoch there have been very few distinctive compositions, which
stand out from the two great divisions of the German and Italian
schools of music. But with the immense development which this art
seems destined to attain, perhaps renewing for us the glorious
era of the Painters of the CINQUE CENTO, it is highly probable
that composers will appear whose works will be marked by an
originality drawn from differences of organization, of races, and
of climates. It is to be presumed that we will be able to
recognize the influences of the country in which they were born
upon the great masters in music, as well as in the other arts;
that we will be able to distinguish the peculiar and predominant
traits of the national genius more completely developed, more
poetically true, more interesting to study, in the pages of their
compositions than in the crude, incorrect, uncertain, vague and
tremulous sketches of the uncultured people.

Chopin must be ranked among the first musicians thus
individualizing in themselves the poetic sense of an entire
nation, not because he adopted the rhythm of POLONAISES,
MAZOURKAS, and CRACOVIENNES, and called many of his works by such
names, for in so doing he would have limited himself to the
multiplication of such works alone, and would always have given
us the same mode, the remembrance of the same thing; a
reproduction which would soon have grown wearisome, serving but
to multiply compositions of similar form, which must have soon
grown more or less monotonous. It is because he filled these
forms with the feelings peculiar to his country, because the
expression of the national heart may be found under all the modes
in which he has written, that he is entitled to be considered a
poet essentially Polish. His PRELUDES, his NOCTURNES, his
SCHERZOS, his CONCERTOS, his shortest as well as his longest
compositions, are all filled with the national sensibility,
expressed indeed in different degrees, modified and varied in a
thousand ways, but always bearing the same character. An
eminently subjective author, Chopin has given the same life to
all his productions, animated all his works with his own spirit.
All his writings are thus linked by a marked unity. Their
beauties as well as their defects may be traced to the same order
of emotions, to peculiar modes of feeling. The reproduction of
the feelings of his people, idealized and elevated through his
own subjective genius, is an essential requisite for the national
poet who desires that the heart of his country should vibrate in
unison with his own strains.

By the analogies of words and images, we should like to render it
possible for our readers to comprehend the exquisite yet
irritable sensibility peculiar to ardent yet susceptible hearts,
to haughty yet deeply wounded souls. We cannot flatter ourselves
that in the cold realm of words we have been able to give any
idea of such ethereal odorous flames. In comparison with the
vivid and delicious excitement produced by other arts, words
always appear poor, cold, and arid, so that the assertion seems
just: "that of all modes of expressing sentiments, words are the
most insufficient." We cannot flatter ourselves with having
attained in our descriptions the exceeding delicacy of touch,
necessary to sketch that which Chopin has painted with hues so
ethereal. All is subtle in his compositions, even the source of
excitement, of passion; all open, frank, primitive impressions
disappear in them; before they meet the eye, they have passed
through the prism of an exacting, ingenious, and fertile
imagination, and it has become difficult if not impossible to
resolve them again into their primal elements. Acuteness of
discernment is required to understand, delicacy to describe them.
In seizing such refined impressions with the keenest
discrimination, in embodying them with infinite art, Chopin has
proved himself an artist of the highest order. It is only after
long and patient study, after having pursued his sublimated ideas
through their multiform ramifications, that we learn to admire
sufficiently, to comprehend aright, the genius with which he has
rendered his subtle thoughts visible and palpable, without once
blunting their edge, or ever congealing their fiery flow.

He was so entirely filled with the sentiments whose most perfect
types he believed he had known in his own youth, with the ideas
which it alone pleased him to confide to art; he contemplated art
so invariably from the same point of view, that his artistic
preferences could not fail to be influenced by his early
impressions. In the great models and CHEFS-D'OEUVRE, he only
sought that which was in correspondence with his own soul. That
which stood in relation to it pleased him; that which resembled
it not, scarcely obtained justice from him. Uniting in himself
the frequently incompatible qualities of passion and grace he
possessed great accuracy of judgment, and preserved himself from
all petty partiality, but he was but slightly attracted by the
greatest beauties, the highest merits, when they wounded any of
the phases of his poetic conceptions. Notwithstanding the high
admiration which he entertained for the works of Beethoven,
certain portions of them always seemed to him too rudely
sculptured; their structure was too athletic to please him, their
wrath seemed to him too tempestuous, their passion too
overpowering, the lion-marrow which fills every member of his
phases was matter too substantial for his tastes, and the
Raphaelic and Seraphic profiles which are wrought into the midst
of the nervous and powerful creations of this great genius, were
to him almost painful from the force of the cutting contrast in
which they are frequently set.

In spite of the charm which he acknowledged in some of the
melodies of Schubert, he would not willingly listen to those in
which the contours were too sharp for his ear, in which suffering
lies naked, and we can almost feel the flesh palpitate, and hear
the bones crack and crash under the rude embrace of sorrow. All
savage wildness was repulsive to him. In music, in literature, in
the conduct of life, all that approached the melodramatic was
painful to him The frantic and despairing aspects of exaggerated
romanticism were repellent to him, he could not endure the
struggling for wonderful effects, for delicious excesses. "He
loved Shakspeare only under many conditions. He thought his
characters were drawn too closely to the life, and spoke a
language too true; he preferred the epic and lyric syntheses
which leave the poor details of humanity in the shade. For the
same reason he spoke little and listened less, not wishing to
give expression to his own thoughts, or to receive the thoughts
of others, until after they had attained a certain degree of
elevation."

A nature so completely master of itself, so full of delicate
reserve, which loved to divine through glimpses, presentiments,
suppositions, all that had been left untold (a species of
divination always dear to poets who can so eloquently finish the
interrupted words) must have felt annoyed, almost scandalized, by
an audacity which leaves nothing unexpressed, nothing to be
divined. If he had been called upon to express his own views upon
this subject, we believe he would have confessed that in
accordance with his taste, he was only permitted to give vent to
his feelings on condition of suffering much to remain unrevealed,
or only to be divined under the rich veils of broidery in which
he wound his emotions. If that which they agree in calling
classic in art appeared to him too full of methodical
restrictions, if he refused to permit himself to be garroted in
the manacles and frozen in the conventions of systems, if he did
not like confinement although enclosed in the safe symmetry of a
gilded cage, it was not because he preferred the license of
disorder, the confusion of irregularity. It was rather that he
might soar like the lark into the deep blue of the unclouded
heavens. Like the Bird of Paradise, which it was once thought
never slept but while resting upon extended wing, rocked only by
the breath of unlimited space at the sublime height at which it
reposed; he obstinately refused to descend to bury himself in the
misty gloom of the forests, or to surround himself with the
howlings and wailings with which it is filled. He would not leave
the depths of azure for the wastes of the desert, or attempt to
fix pathways over the treacherous waves of sand, which the winds,
in exulting irony, delight to sweep over the traces of the rash
mortal seeking to mark the line of his wandering through the
drifting, blinding swells.

That style of Italian art which is so open, so glaring, so devoid
of the attraction of mystery or of science, with all that which
in German art bears the seal of vulgar, though powerful energy,
was distasteful to him. Apropos of Schubert he once remarked:
"that the sublime is desecrated when followed by the trivial or
commonplace." Among the composers for the piano Hummel was one of
the authors whom he reread with the most pleasure. Mozart was in
his eyes the ideal type, the Poet par excellence, because he,
less rarely than any other author, condescended to descend the
steps leading from the beautiful to the commonplace. The father
of Mozart after having been present at a representation of
IDOMENEE made to his son the following reproach: "You have been
wrong in putting in it nothing for the long ears." It was
precisely for such omissions that Chopin admired him. The gayety
of Papageno charmed him; the love of Tamino with its mysterious
trials seemed to him worthy of having occupied Mozart; he
understood the vengeance of Donna Anna because it cast but a
deeper shade upon her mourning. Yet such was his Sybaritism of
purity, his dread of the commonplace, that even in this immortal
work he discovered some passages whose introduction we have heard
him regret. His worship for Mozart was not diminished but only
saddened by this. He could sometimes forget that which was
repulsive to him, but to reconcile himself to it was impossible.
He seemed to be governed in this by one of those implacable and
irrational instincts, which no persuasion, no effort, can ever
conquer sufficiently to obtain a state of mere indifference
towards the objects of the antipathy; an aversion sometimes so
insurmountable, that we can only account for it by supposing it
to proceed from some innate and peculiar idiosyncrasy.

After he had finished his studies in harmony with Professor
Joseph Elsner, who taught him the rarely known and difficult task
of being exacting towards himself, and placing the just value
upon the advantages which are only to be obtained by dint of
patience and labor; and after he had finished his collegiate
course, it was the desire of his parents that he should travel in
order that he might become familiar with the finest works under
the advantage of their perfect execution. For this purpose he
visited many of the German cities. He had left Warsaw upon one of
these short excursions, when the revolution of the 29th of
November broke out in 1830.

Forced to remain in Vienna, he was heard there in some concerts,
but the Viennese public, generally so cultivated, so prompt to
seize the most delicate shades of execution, the finest
subtleties of thought, during this winter were disturbed and
abstracted. The young artist did not produce there the effect he
had the right to anticipate. He left Vienna with the design of
going to London, but he came first to Paris, where he intended to
remain but a short time. Upon his passport drawn up for England,
he had caused to be inserted: "passing through Paris." These
words sealed his fate. Long years afterwards, when he seemed not
only acclimated, but naturalized in France, he would smilingly
say: I am "passing through Paris."

He gave several concerts after his arrival in Paris, where he was
immediately received and admired in the circles of the elite, as
well as welcomed by the young artists. We remember his first
appearance in the saloons of Pleyel, where the most enthusiastic
and redoubled applause seemed scarcely sufficient to express our
enchantment for the genius which had revealed new phases of
poetic feeling, and made such happy yet bold innovations in the
form of musical art.

Unlike the greater part of young debutants, he was not
intoxicated or dazzled for a moment by his triumph, but accepted
it without pride or false modesty, evincing none of the puerile
enjoyment of gratified vanity exhibited by the PARVENUS of
success. His countrymen who were then in Paris gave him a most
affectionate reception. He was intimate in the house of Prince
Czartoryski, of the Countess Plater, of Madame de Komar, and in
that of her daughters, the Princess de Beauveau and the Countess
Delphine Potocka, whose beauty, together with her indescribable
and spiritual grace, made her one of the most admired sovereigns
of the society of Paris. He dedicated to her his second Concerto,
which contains the Adagio we have already described. The ethereal
beauty of the Countess, her enchanting voice enchained him by a
fascination full of respectful admiration. Her voice was destined
to be the last which should vibrate upon the musician's heart.
Perhaps the sweetest sounds of earth accompanied the parting soul
until they blended in his ear with the first chords of the
angels' lyres.

He mingled much with the Polish circle in Paris; with Orda who
seemed born to command the future, and who was however killed in
Algiers at twenty years of age; with Counts Plater, Grzymala,
Ostrowski, Szembeck, with Prince Lubomirski, etc. etc. As the
Polish families who came afterwards to Paris were all anxious to
form acquaintance with him, he continued to mingle principally
with his own people. He remained through them not only AU COURANT
of all that was passing in his own country, but even in a kind of
musical correspondence with it. He liked those who visited Paris
to show him the airs or new songs they had brought with them, and
when the words of these airs pleased him, he frequently wrote a
new melody for them, thus popularizing them rapidly in his
country although the name of their author was often unknown. The
number of these melodies, due to the inspiration of the heart
alone, having become considerable, he often thought of collecting
them for publication. But he thought of it too late, and they
remain scattered and dispersed, like the perfume of the scented
flowers blessing the wilderness and sweetening the "desert air"
around some wandering traveller, whom chance may have led upon
their secluded track. During our stay in Poland we heard some of
the melodies which are attributed to him, and which are truly
worthy of him; but who would now dare to make an uncertain
selection between the inspirations of the national poet, and the
dreams of his people?

Chopin kept for a long time aloof from the celebrities of Paris;
their glittering train repelled him. As his character and habits
had more true originality than apparent eccentricity, he inspired
less curiosity than they did. Besides he had sharp repartees for
those who imprudently wished to force him into a display of his
musical abilities. Upon one occasion after he had just left the
dining-room, an indiscreet host, who had had the simplicity to
promise his guests some piece executed by him as a rare dessert,
pointed to him an open piano. He should have remembered that in
counting without the host, it is necessary to count twice. Chopin
at first refused, but wearied at last by continued persecution,
assuming, to sharpen the sting of his words, a stifled and
languid tone of voice, he exclaimed: "Ah, sir, I have scarcely
dined!"
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