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Life of Chopin

Franz Lizst

It is the feeling which overflows in all his works, which has
rendered them known and popular; feeling of a character eminently
romantic, subjective individual, peculiar to their author, yet
awakening immediate sympathy; appealing not alone to the heart of
that country indebted to him for yet one glory more, but to all
who can be touched by the misfortunes of exile, or moved by the
tenderness of love. Not content with success in the field in
which he was free to design, with such perfect grace, the
contours chosen by himself, Chopin also wished to fetter his
ideal thoughts with classic chains. His Concertos and Sonatas are
beautiful indeed, but we may discern in them more effort than
inspiration. His creative genius was imperious, fantastic and
impulsive. His beauties were only manifested fully in entire
freedom. We believe he offered violence to the character of his
genius whenever he sought to subject it to rules, to
classifications, to regulations not his own, and which he could
not force into harmony with the exactions of his own mind. He was
one of those original beings, whose graces are only fully
displayed when they have cut themselves adrift from all bondage,
and float on at their own wild will, swayed only by the ever
undulating impulses of their own mobile natures.

He was, perhaps, induced to desire this double success through
the example of his friend, Mickiewicz, who, having been the first
to gift his country with romantic poetry, forming a school in
Sclavic literature by the publication of his Dziady, and his
romantic Ballads, as early as 1818, proved afterwards, by the
publication at his Grazyna and Wallenrod, that he could triumph
over the difficulties that classic restrictions oppose to
inspiration, and that, when holding the classic lyre of the
ancient poets, he was still master. In making analogous attempts,
we do not think Chopin has been equally successful. He could not
retain, within the square of an angular and rigid mould, that
floating and indeterminate contour which so fascinates us in his
graceful conceptions. He could not introduce in its unyielding
lines that shadowy and sketchy indecision, which, disguising the
skeleton, the whole frame-work of form, drapes it in the mist of
floating vapors, such as surround the white-bosomed maids of
Ossian, when they permit mortals to catch some vague, yet lovely
outline, from their home in the changing, drifting, blinding
clouds.

Some of these efforts, however, are resplendent with a rare
dignity of style; and passages of exceeding interest, of
surprising grandeur, may be found among them. As an example of
this, we cite the Adagio of the Second Concerto, for which he
evinced a decided preference, and which he liked to repeat
frequently. The accessory designs are in his best manner, while
the principal phrase is of an admirable breadth. It alternates
with a Recitative, which assumes a minor key, and which seems to
be its Antistrophe. The whole of this piece is of a perfection
almost ideal; its expression, now radiant with light, now full of
tender pathos. It seems as if one had chosen a happy vale of
Tempe, a magnificent landscape flooded with summer glow and
lustre, as a background for the rehearsal of some dire scene of
mortal anguish. A bitter and irreparable regret seizes the
wildly-throbbing human heart, even in the midst of the
incomparable splendor of external nature. This contrast is
sustained by a fusion of tones, a softening of gloomy hues, which
prevent the intrusion of aught rude or brusque that might awaken
a dissonance in the touching impression produced, which, while
saddening joy, soothes and softens the bitterness of sorrow.

It would be impossible to pass in silence the Funeral March
inserted in the first Sonata, which was arranged for the
orchestra, and performed, for the first time, at his own
obsequies. What other accents could have been found capable of
expressing, with the same heart-breaking effect, the emotions,
the tears, which should accompany to the last long sleep, one who
had taught in a manner so sublime, how great losses should be
mourned? We once heard it remarked by a native of his own
country: "these pages could only have been written by a Pole."
All that the funeral train of an entire nation weeping its own
ruin and death can be imagined to feel of desolating woe, of
majestic sorrow, wails in the musical ringing of this passing
bell, mourns in the tolling of this solemn knell, as it
accompanies the mighty escort on its way to the still city of the
Dead. The intensity of mystic hope; the devout appeal to
superhuman pity, to infinite mercy, to a dread justice, which
numbers every cradle and watches every tomb; the exalted
resignation which has wreathed so much grief with halos so
luminous; the noble endurance of so many disasters with the
inspired heroism of Christian martyrs who know not to despair;--
resound in this melancholy chant, whose voice of supplication
breaks the heart. All of most pure, of most holy, of most
believing, of most hopeful in the hearts of children, women, and
priests, resounds, quivers and trembles there with irresistible
vibrations. We feel it is not the death of a single warrior we
mourn, while other heroes live to avenge him, but that a whole
generation of warriors has forever fallen, leaving the death song
to be chanted but by wailing women, weeping children and helpless
priests. Yet this Melopee so funereal, so full of desolating woe,
is of such penetrating sweetness, that we can scarcely deem it of
this earth. These sounds, in which the wild passion of human
anguish seems chilled by awe and softened by distance, impose a
profound meditation, as if, chanted by angels, they floated
already in the heavens: the cry of a nation's anguish mounting to
the very throne of God! The appeal of human grief from the lyre
of seraphs! Neither cries, nor hoarse groans, nor impious
blasphemies, nor furious imprecations, trouble for a moment the
sublime sorrow of the plaint: it breathes upon the ear like the
rhythmed sighs of angels. The antique face of grief is entirely
excluded. Nothing recalls the fury of Cassandra, the prostration
of Priam, the frenzy of Hecuba, the despair of the Trojan
captives. A sublime faith destroying in the survivors of this
Christian Ilion the bitterness of anguish and the cowardice of
despair, their sorrow is no longer marked by earthly weakness.
Raising itself from the soil wet with blood and tears, it springs
forward to implore God; and, having nothing more to hope from
earth, it supplicates the Supreme Judge with prayers so poignant,
that our hearts, in listening, break under the weight of an
august compassion! It would be a mistake to suppose that all the
compositions of Chopin are deprived of the feelings which he has
deemed best to suppress in this great work. Not so. Perhaps human
nature is not capable of maintaining always this mood of
energetic abnegation, of courageous submission. We meet with
breathings of stifled rage, of suppressed anger, in many passages
of his writings: and many of his Studies, as well as his
Scherzos, depict a concentrated exasperation and despair, which
are sometimes manifested in bitter irony, sometimes in intolerant
hauteur. These dark apostrophes of his muse have attracted less
attention, have been less fully understood, than his poems of
more tender coloring. The personal character of Chopin had
something to do with this general misconception. Kind, courteous,
and affable, of tranquil and almost joyous manners, he would not
suffer the secret convulsions which agitated him to be even
suspected.

His character was indeed not easily understood. A thousand subtle
shades, mingling, crossing, contradicting and disguising each
other, rendered it almost undecipherable at a first view. As is
usually the case with the Sclaves, it was difficult to read the
recesses of his mind. With them, loyalty and candor, familiarity
and the most captivating ease of manner, by no means imply
confidence, or impulsive frankness. Like the twisted folds of a
serpent rolled upon itself, their feelings are half hidden, half
revealed. It requires a most attentive examination to follow the
coiled linking of the glittering rings. It would be naive to
interpret literally their courtesy full of compliment, their
assumed humility. The forms of this politeness, this modesty,
have their solution in their manners, in which their ancient
connection with the East may be strangely traced. Without having
in the least degree acquired the taciturnity of the Mussulman,
they have yet learned from it a distrustful reserve upon all
subjects which touch upon the more delicate and personal chords
of the heart. When they speak of themselves, we may almost always
be certain that they keep some concealment in reserve, which
assures them the advantage in intellect, or feeling. They suffer
their interrogator to remain in ignorance of some circumstance,
some mobile secret, through the unveiling of which they would be
more admired, or less esteemed, and which they well know how to
hide under the subtle smile of an almost imperceptible mockery.
Delighting in the pleasure of mystification, from the most
spiritual or comic to the most bitter and melancholy, they may
perhaps find in this deceptive raillery an external formula of
disdain for the veiled expression of the superiority which they
internally claim, but which claim they veil with the caution and
astuteness natural to the oppressed.

The frail and sickly organization of Chopin, not permitting him
the energetic expression of his passions, he gave to his friends
only the gentle and affectionate phase of his nature. In the
busy, eager life of large cities, where no one has time to study
the destiny of another, where every one is judged by his external
activity, very few think it worth while to attempt to penetrate
the enigma of individual character. Those who enjoyed familiar
intercourse with Chopin, could not be blind to the impatience and
ennui he experienced in being, upon the calm character of his
manners, so promptly believed. And may not the artist revenge the
man? As his health was too frail to permit him to give vent to
his impatience through the vehemence of his execution, he sought
to compensate himself by pouring this bitterness over those pages
which he loved to hear performed with a vigor [Footnote: It was
his delight to hear them executed by the great Liszt himself.--
Translator.] which he could not himself always command: pages
which are indeed full of the impassioned feelings of a man
suffering deeply from wounds which he does not choose to avow.
Thus around a gaily flagged, yet sinking ship, float the fallen
spars and scattered fragments, torn by warring winds and surging
waves from its shattered sides.

Such emotions have been of so much the more importance in the
life of Chopin, because they have deeply influenced the character
of his compositions. Among the pages published under such
influences, may be traced much analogous to the wire-drawn
subtleties of Jean Paul, who found it necessary, in order to move
hearts macerated by passion, blazes through suffering, to make
use of the surprises caused by natural and physical phenomena; to
evoke the sensations of luxurious terrors arising from
occurrences not to be foreseen in the natural order of things; to
awaken the morbid excitements of a dreamy brain. Step by step the
tortured mind of Chopin arrived at a state of sickly
irritability; his emotions increased to a feverish tremor,
producing that involution, that tortuosity of thought, which mark
his latest works. Almost suffocating under the oppression of
repressed feelings, using art only to repeat and rehearse for
himself his own internal tragedy, after having wearied emotion,
he began to subtilize it. His melodies are actually tormented; a
nervous and restless sensibility leads to an obstinate
persistence in the handling and rehandling and a reiterated
pursuit of the tortured motifs, which impress us as painfully as
the sight of those physical or mental agonies which we know can
find relief only in death. Chopin was a victim to a disease
without hope, which growing more envenomed from year to year,
took him, while yet young, from those who loved him, and laid him
in his still grave. As in the fair form of some beautiful victim,
the marks of the grasping claws of the fierce bird of prey which
has destroyed it, may be found; so, in the productions of which
we have just spoken, the traces of the bitter sufferings which
devoured his heart, are painfully visible.
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