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Life of Chopin

Franz Lizst

CHAPTER IV.

Chopin's Mode of Playing--Concerts--The Elite--Fading Bouquets
and Immortal Crowns--Hospitality--Heine--Meyerbeer--Adolphe
Nourrit--Eugene Delacroix--Niemcevicz--Mickiewicz--George Sand.



AFTER having described the compositions palpitating with emotion
in which genius struggles with grief, (grief, that terrible
reality which Art must strive to reconcile with Heaven),
confronting it sometimes as conqueror, sometimes as conquered;
compositions in which all the memories of his youth, the
affections of his heart, the mysteries of his desires, the
secrets of his untold passions, are collected like tears in a
lachrymatory; compositions in which, passing the limits of human
sensations--too dull for his eager fancy, too obtuse for his keen
perceptions--he makes incursions into the realms of Dryads,
Oreads, and Oceanides;--we would naturally be expected to speak
of his talent for execution. But this task we cannot assume. We
cannot command the melancholy courage to exhume emotions linked
with our fondest memories, our dearest personal recollections; we
cannot force ourselves to make the mournful effort to color the
gloomy shrouds, veiling the skill we once loved, with the
brilliant hues they would exact at our hands. We feel our loss
too bitterly to attempt such an analysis. And what result would
it be possible to attain with all our efforts! We could not hope
to convey to those who have never heard him, any just conception
of that fascination so ineffably poetic, that charm subtle and
penetrating as the delicate perfume of the vervain or the
Ethiopian calla, which, shrinking and exclusive, refuses to
diffuse its exquisite aroma in the noisome breath of crowds,
whose heavy air can only retain the stronger odor of the
tuberose, the incense of burning resin.

By the purity of its handling, by its relation with LA FEE AUX
MIETTES and LES LUTINS D'ARGAIL, by its rencounters with the
SERAPHINS and DIANES, who murmur in his ear their most
confidential complaints, their most secret dreams, the style and
the manner of conception of Chopin remind us of Nodier. He knew
that he did not act upon the masses, that he could not warm the
multitude, which is like a sea of lead, and as heavy to set in
motion, and which, though its waves may be melted and rendered
malleable by heat, requires the powerful arm of an athletic
Cyclops to manipulate, fuse, and pour into moulds, where the dull
metal, glowing and seething under the electric fire, becomes
thought and feeling under the new form into which it has been
forced. He knew he was only perfectly appreciated in those
meetings, unfortunately too few, in which ALL his hearers were
prepared to follow him into those spheres which the ancients
imagined to be entered only through a gate of ivory, to be
surrounded by pilasters of diamond, and surmounted by a dome
arched with fawn-colored crystal, upon which played the various
dyes of the prism; spheres, like the Mexican opal, whose
kaleidoscopical foci are dimmed by olive-colored mists veiling
and unveiling the inner glories; spheres, in which all is magical
and supernatural, reminding us of the marvellous worlds of
realized dreams. In such spheres Chopin delighted. He once
remarked to a friend, an artist who has since been frequently
heard: "I am not suited for concert giving; the public intimidate
me; their looks, only stimulated by curiosity, paralyze me; their
strange faces oppress me; their breath stifles me: but you--you
are destined for it, for when you do not gain your public, you
have the force to assault, to overwhelm, to control, to compel
them."

Conscious of how much was necessary for the comprehension of his
peculiar talent, he played but rarely in public. With the
exception of some concerts given at his debut in 1831, in Vienna
and Munich, he gave no more, except in Paris, being indeed not
able to travel on account of his health, which was so precarious,
that during entire months, he would appear to be in an almost
dying state. During the only excursion which he made with a hope
that the mildness of a Southern climate would be more conducive
to his health, his condition was frequently so alarming, that
more than once the hotel keepers demanded payment for the bed and
mattress he occupied, in order to have them burned, deeming him
already arrived at that stage of consumption in which it becomes
so highly contagious We believe, however, if we may be permitted
to say it, that his concerts were less fatiguing to his physical
constitution, than to his artistic susceptibility. We think that
his voluntary abnegation of popular applause veiled an internal
wound. He was perfectly aware of his own superiority; perhaps it
did not receive sufficient reverberation and echo from without to
give him the tranquil assurance that he was perfectly
appreciated. No doubt, in the absence of popular acclamation, he
asked himself how far a chosen audience, through the enthusiasm
of its applause, was able to replace the great public which he
relinquished. Few understood him:--did those few indeed
understand him aright? A gnawing feeling of discontent, of which
he himself scarcely comprehended the cause, secretly undermined
him. We have seen him almost shocked by eulogy. The praise to
which he was justly entitled not reaching him EN MASSE, he looked
upon isolated commendation as almost wounding. That he felt
himself not only slightly, but badly applauded, was sufficiently
evident by the polished phrases with which, like troublesome
dust, he shook such praises off, making it quite evident that he
preferred to be left undisturbed in the enjoyment of his solitary
feelings to injudicious commendation.

Too fine a connoisseur in raillery, too ingenious satirist ever
to expose himself to sarcasm, he never assumed the role of a
"genius misunderstood." With a good grace and under an apparent
satisfaction, he concealed so entirely the wound given to his
just pride, that its very existence was scarcely suspected. But
not without reason, might the gradually increasing rarity
[Footnote: Sometimes he passed years without giving a single
concert. We believe the one given by him in Pleyel's room, in
1844, was after an interval of nearly ten years] of his concerts
be attributed rather to the wish he felt to avoid occasions which
did not bring him the tribute he merited, than to physical
debility. Indeed, he put his strength to rude proofs in the many
lessons which he always gave, and the many hours he spent at his
own Piano.

It is to be regretted that the indubitable advantage for the
artist resulting from the cultivation of only a select audience,
should be so sensibly diminished by the rare and cold expression
of its sympathies. The GLACE which covers the grace of the ELITE,
as it does the fruit of their desserts; the imperturbable calm of
their most earnest enthusiasm, could not be satisfactory to
Chopin. The poet, torn from his solitary inspiration, can only
find it again in the interest, more than attentive, vivid and
animated of his audience. He can never hope to regain it in the
cold looks of an Areopagus assembled to judge him. He must FEEL
that he moves, that he agitates those who hear him, that his
emotions find in them the responsive sympathies of the same
intuitions, that he draws them on with him in his flight towards
the infinite: as when the leader of a winged train gives the
signal of departure, he is immediately followed by the whole
flock in search of milder shores.

But had it been otherwise--had Chopin everywhere received the
exalted homage and admiration he so well deserved; had he been
heard, as so many others, by all nations and in all climates; had
ho obtained those brilliant ovations which make a Capitol every
where, where the people salute merit or honor genius had he been
known and recognized by thousands in place of the hundreds who
acknowledged him--we would not pause in this part of his career
to enumerate such triumphs.

What are the dying bouquets of an hour to those whose brows claim
the laurel of immortality? Ephemeral sympathies, transitory
praises, are not to be mentioned in the presence of the august
Dead, crowned with higher glories. The joys, the consolations,
the soothing emotions which the creations of true art awaken in
the weary, suffering, thirsty, or persevering and believing
hearts to whom they are dedicated, are destined to be borne into
far countries and distant years, by the sacred works of Chopin.
Thus an unbroken bond will be established between elevated
natures, enabling them to understand and appreciate each other,
in whatever part of the earth or period of time they may live.
Such natures are generally badly divined by their contemporaries
when they have been silent, often misunderstood when they have
spoken the most eloquently!

"There are different crowns," says Goethe, "there are some which
may be readily gathered during a walk." Such crowns charm for the
moment through their balmy freshness, but who would think of
comparing them with those so laboriously gained by Chopin by
constant and exemplary effort, by an earnest love of art, and by
his own mournful experience of the emotions which he has so
truthfully depicted?

As he sought not with a mean avidity those crowns so easily won,
of which more than one among ourselves has the modesty to be
proud; as he was a pure, generous, good and compassionate man,
filled with a single sentiment, and that one of the most noble of
feelings, the love of country; as he moved among us like a spirit
consecrated by all that Poland possesses of poetry; let us
approach his sacred grave with due reverence! Let us adorn it
with no artificial wreaths! Let us cast upon it no trivial
crowns! Let us nobly elevate our thoughts before this consecrated
shroud! Let us learn from him to repulse all but the highest
ambition, let us try to concentrate our labor upon efforts which
will leave more lasting effects than the vain leading of the
fashions of the passing hour. Let us renounce the corrupt spirit
of the times in which we live, with all that is not worthy of
art, all that will not endure, all that does not contain in
itself some spark of that eternal and immaterial beauty, which it
is the task of art to reveal and unveil as the condition of its
own glory! Let us remember the ancient prayer of the Dorians
whose simple formula is so full of pious poetry, asking only of
their gods: "To give them the Good, in return for the Beautiful!"
In place of laboring so constantly to attract auditors, and
striving to please them at whatever sacrifice, let us rather aim,
like Chopin, to leave a celestial and immortal echo of what we
have felt, loved, and suffered! Let us learn, from his revered
memory, to demand from ourselves works which will entitle us to
some true rank in the sacred city of art! Let us not exact from
the present with out regard to the future, those light and vain
wreath which are scarcely woven before they are faded and
forgotten!...

In place of such crowns, the most glorious palms which it is
possible for an artist to receive during his lifetime, have been
placed in the hands of Chopin by ILLUSTRIOUS EQUALS. An
enthusiastic admiration was given him by a public still more
limited than the musical aristocracy which frequented his
concerts. This public was formed of the most distinguished names
of men, who bowed before him as the kings of different empires
bend before a monarch whom they have assembled to honor. Such men
rendered to him, individually, due homage. How could it have been
otherwise in France, where the hospitality, so truly national,
discerns with such perfect taste the rank and claims of the
guests?

The most eminent minds in Paris frequently met in Chopin's
saloon. Not in reunions of fantastic periodicity, such as the
dull imaginations of ceremonious and tiresome circles have
arranged, and which they have never succeeded in realizing in
accordance with their wishes, for enjoyment, ease, enthusiasm,
animation, never come at an hour fixed upon before hand. They can
be commanded less by artists than by other men, for they are all
more or less struck by some sacred malady whose paralyzing torpor
they must shake off, whose benumbing pain they must forget, to be
joyous and amused by those pyrotechnic fires which startle the
bewildered guests, who see from time to time a Roman candle, a
rose-colored Bengal light, a cascade whose waters are of fire, or
a terrible, yet quite innocent dragon! Gayety and the strength
necessary to be joyous, are, unfortunately things only
accidentally to be encountered among poets and artists! It is
true some of the more privileged among them have the happy gift
of surmounting internal pain, so as to bear their burden always
lightly, able to laugh with their companions over the toils of
the way, or at least always able to preserve a gentle and calm
serenity which, like a mute pledge of hope and consolation,
animates, elevates, and encourages their associates, imparting to
them, while they remain under the influence of this placid
atmosphere, a freedom of spirit which appears so much the more
vivid, the more strongly it contrasts with their habitual ennui,
their abstraction, their natural gloom, their usual indifference.

Chopin did not belong to either of the above mentioned classes;
he possessed the innate grace of a Polish welcome, by which the
host is not only bound to fulfill the common laws and duties of
hospitality, but is obliged to relinquish all thought of himself,
to devote all his powers to promote the enjoyment of his guests.
It was a pleasant thing to visit him; his visitors were always
charmed; he knew how to put them at once at ease, making them
masters of every thing, and placing every thing at their
disposal. In doing the honors of his own cabin, even the simple
laborer of Sclavic race never departs from this munificence; more
joyously eager in his welcome than the Arab in his tent, he
compensates for the splendor which may be wanting in his
reception by an adage which he never fails to repeat, and which
is also repealed by the grand seignior after the most luxurious
repasts served under gilded canopies: CZYM BOHAT, TYM RAD--which
is thus paraphrased for foreigners: "Deign graciously to pardon
all that is unworthy of you, it is all my humble riches which I
place at your feet." This formula [Footnote: All the Polish
formulas of courtesy retain the strong impress of the
hyperbolical expressions of the Eastern languages. The titles of
"very powerful and very enlightened seigniors" are still
obligatory. The Poles, in conversation, constantly name each
other Benefactor (DOBRODZIJ). The common salutation between men,
and of men to women, is PADAM DO NOG: "I fall at your feet." The
greeting of the people possesses a character of ancient solemnity
and simplicity: SLAWA BOHU: "Glory to God."] is still pronounced
with a national grace and dignity by all masters of families who
preserve the picturesque customs which distinguished the ancient
manners of Poland.

Having thus described something of the habits of hospitality
common in his country, the ease which presided over our reunions
with Chopin will be readily understood. The flow of thought, the
entire freedom from restraint, were of a character so pure that
no insipidity or bitterness ever ensued, no ill humor was ever
provoked. Though he avoided society, yet when his saloon was
invaded, the kindness of his attention was delightful; without
appearing to occupy himself with any one, he succeeded in finding
for all that which was most agreeable; neglecting none, he
extended to all the most graceful courtesy.

It was not without a struggle, without a repugnance slightly
misanthropic, that Chopin could be induced to open his doors and
piano, even to those whose friendship, as respectful as faithful,
gave them a claim to urge such a request with eagerness. Without
doubt more than one of us can still remember our first improvised
evening with him, in spite of his refusal, when he lived at
Chaussee d'Antin.

His apartment, invaded by surprise, was only lighted by some wax
candles, grouped round one of Pleyel's pianos, which he
particularly liked for their slightly veiled, yet silvery
sonorousness, and easy touch, permitting him to elicit tones
which one might think proceeded from one of those harmonicas of
which romantic Germany has preserved the monopoly, and which were
so ingeniously constructed by its ancient masters, by the union
of crystal and water.
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