 Chapter 1 of Chopin, The Man and His Music This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shili van Walchem. Chopin, The Man and His Music by Jane Tanagher. Part 1, The Man. Chapter 1, Poland, Useful Ideas. Gustave Lobert, pessimist and master of cadence lyric prose, urged young writers to lead ascetic lives that and their art they might be violent. Chopin's violence was psychic, a travailing and croning of the spirit. The bright roughness of adventure was missing from his quotidian existence. The tragedy was within. One recalls Maurice Matling. Whereas most of our lives is passed far from blood, cries and swords, and the tears of men have become silent, invisible and almost spiritual. Chopin went from Poland to France, from Warsaw to Paris, where finally he was born to his grave in Perluches. He lived, loved and died, and not for him were the perilous prizes and fascinations of a hero's career. He fought his battles within the balls of his soul. He may note and enjoys them in his music. His outward state was not negatively of incident, though his inner life was richer, nourished as it was in the silence and a profound unrest of a being that irritably resented every intrusion. There were events that left inereticable impressions upon his nature, upon his work, his early life, his sorrow at parting from parents and home, the shock of the war so revolved, his passion for Georges Saint, the death of his father, and of his friend Matochinsky, and the rupture with Madame Saint—these were crises of his history. All else was but an indeterminate factor in the scheme of his earthly sojourn. Chopin, though not an anchorite, resembled Flaubert, being both proud and timid. He led a detached life, hence his art was bold and violent. A nihilist, he seldom sought the glamour of the seater, and was never in such public view as his maternal admirer, Saint. He was Frédéric François Chopin, composer, teacher of piano, and illiterate genius of the highest range. Recently, the date of his birth has been again discussed by Nathalie Yanocha, the Polish pianist. Chopin was born in Gela Zawawola, 6 March on Warsaw, 1 March 1809. This place is sometimes spelled Gela Zawawolia. The medallion made for the tomb by Clisanger, the Sanelot of Georges Saint, and the watch given by the singer Catalani in 1820, with the inscription, Donné par Madame Catalani, à Frédéric Chopin, âge de dix ans, have incited a conflict of authorities. Karasowski was informed by Chopin's sister that the correct year of his birth was 1809, and Schultz, Zawinski, and Niques agree with him. Schultz asserts that a memorial in the Holy Cross Church, Warsaw, where Chopin's heart is preserved, bears the date of March 2, 1809. Chopin, so Henri Tiffin declares, was twenty-two years of age when he wrote his Teacher Elsner in 1831. List told Niques in 1878 that Karasowski had published the correct date in his biography. Now, let us consider Janoha's arguments. According to her evidence, the composer's date of day was February 22, 1810, and his christening occurred April 28, of the same year. The following baptismal certificate, originally in Latin and translated by think, is it used? It is said to be from the church in which Chopin was christened. I, the above, have performed a ceremony of baptising in water, a boy with a double name, Frédéric François, on the 22nd day of February, son of the musicians Nicolae Chopin, a Frenchman, and Justina de Grisalowska, his legal spouse. Godparents, the musician Francescuk Grimbecki, and Donna Anna Skarpikova, cantess of Gela Zovavola. The wrong date was chiseled upon the monument unveiled October 14, 1894, at Chopin's birthplace, erected recklessly through the efforts of Milia Balagirev, the Russian composer. Janoha, whose father founded the Warsaw Conservatory, informed think that a later date has also been put on other monuments in Poland. Now, Chopin's father was not a musician, neither was his mother. I cannot trace Grimbecki, but we know that a countess, Garbek, mother of Chopin's namesake, was not a musician. However, the title musician and a baptismal certificate may have signified something eulogistic at that time. Besides, the Polish clergy was not a particularly accurate class. But Janoha has more testimony. In his controversy with me in 1896, she quoted Father Bielawski, the present Curie of Brochoparis Church of Gela Zovavola. This reverend person consulted records, and gave us his opinion that 1810 is authentic. Nevertheless, the biography of Wojcinski and the statement of the Chopin family contradict him. And so the case stands. Janoha continues firm in her belief, although authorities do not justify her position. All this petty bother arose since Niek's comprehensive biography appeared, so sure was he of his facts, that he disposed of the pseudo-date in one footnote. Perhaps the composer was to blame. Artists, male as well as female, have been known to make themselves younger in years by conveniently forgetting their birth date, or by attributing the error to carelessness in the registry of dates. Surely the Chopin family could not have been mistaken in such an important matter. Regarding Chopin's ancestry, there is still a moiety of doubt. His father was born August 17th, 1770, the same year as Beethoven, at Nancy, Lorraine. Some claim that he had Polish blood in his veins. Schultz claims that he was the natural son of a Polish nobleman, who followed King Zanlislaw Loscienski to Lorraine, dropping the Chopin, or shop for de Montgalek Chopin. When Friedrich went to Paris, he in turn changed the name from Chopin to Chopin, which is common in France. Chopin's father emigrated to Warsaw in 1787, enticed by the offer of a compatriot there in the Tobacco business, and was a traditional Frenchman of his time, well-bred, agreeable, and more than usually cultivated. He joined at the National Guard during the Kojutsko Revolution in 1794. When business stagnated, he was forced to teach in the family of the Dližinskis. Mary of that name, one of his pupils, being beloved by Napoleon I, became the mother of Count Walevski, a minister of the Second French Empire. Drifting to Rilazovovola, Nicolas Chopin lived in the house of Count Skarbek, acting as tutor to her son Frederick. There he made the acquaintance of Justina Krzyszanowska, born of poor but noble parents. He married her in 1806, and she bore him four children, three girls and the boy Friedrich François. Whistory finds scholarly French father, Polish in political sentiments, and an admirable Polish mother, patriotic to the extreme. Frederick grew to be an intelligent, vivacious, home-loving lad. Never a hearty boy, but never very delicate, he seemed to escape most of the disagreeable ills of childhood. The moon struck pale, sentimental carve of many biographers, he never was. Strong evidence exists that he was merry, pleasure-loving, and fond of practical jokes. While his father was never rich, the family, after the removal to Warsaw, lived at ease. The country was prosperous, and Chopin the Elder became a professor in the Warsaw Lyceum. His children re-brought up in an atmosphere of charming simplicity, love, and refinement. The mother was an ideal mother, and as Georges Saint declared, Chopin's only love. But, as we shall discover later, Lilia was ever jealous, jealous even of Chopin's past. His sisters were gifted, gentle, and disposed to pet him. Niques has killed all the pretty fairy tales of his poverty and suffering. Strong common sensualities the actions of Chopin's parents, and when his love for music revealed itself at an early age, they engaged a teacher named Adalbert Jovne, a Bohemian who played the violin and taught piano. Julius Fontana, one of the first friends of the boy, he committed suicide in Paris December 31st, 1869, says that at the age of twelve, Chopin knew so much that he was left to himself with the usual good and ill results. He first played on February 24th, 1818, a concerto by Girovich, and was so pleased with his new colour, that he naively told his mother, everybody was looking at my colour. His musical precocity, not as marked as Mozart's, but phenomenal was all, brought him into intimacy with Polish aristocracy, and there his taste for fashionable society developed. The Tartaruskys, Rajivils, Skarbeks, Potoskys, Lubekskys, and the Grand Duke Constantine with his princess Lovica, made life pleasant for the talented boy. And then came his lessons with Joseph Elsner in composition, Lessons of Great Value. Elsner saw the material he had to mould, and so daftly did he teach, that his pupil's individuality was never checked, never warped. For Elsner, Chopin entertained love and reverence. To him, he wrote from Paris, asking his advice in the matter of studying with Kalkbrenner, and this advice he took seriously. From Jovner and Elsner, even the greatest-ass must learn something, he's quoted, as having said. Then there are the usual anecdotes, one has tempted to call them the stock stories of the boyhood of any great composer. In infancy Chopin could not hear music without crying. Mozart was morbidly sensitive to his tones of trumpet. Later the Polish leds boarded familiarly with his talents, for he is related to have sent to sleep and awakened a party of unruly boys at his father's school. Another story is his fooling of a due merchant. He had high spirits, perhaps too high, for his land of physique. He was a fessile mimic, and Liszt, Balzac, Bugaj, Zon, and others, believed that he would have made an actor of ability. With his sister Emilia, he wrote a little comedy. Altogether, he was a clever, if not a brilliant lad. His letter showed that he was not a letter, for while they are lively, they do not reveal much literary ability. Their writer saw with open eyes, eyes that were dispersed to caricature the peculiarities of others. This trade, much clarified and spiritualized in later life, became a distinct, ironic note in his character. Possibly it attracted him, although his irony was on a more intellectual plane. His piano playing at this time was neat and finished, and he had already become those experimentings in technique and tone, that afterward revolutionized the world of music and the keyboard. He being sickly and his sister's health's poor, the pair were sent in 1826 to Reinhard's, a watering-place in Russian Silesia. This was a visit to his godmother, a tidal lady named Vigilovska, and the sister of Kant Friederik Skarbek. The name does not tell you is the one given here to fall, as noted by Yanukha, consumed this year. In 1827 he left his regular studies at the Lyceum, and devoted his time to music. It was much in the country, listening to the fiddling and singing of the peasants, thus laying the cornerstone of his art as a national composer. In the fall of 1828 he went to Berlin, and this trip gave him a foretaste of the outer world. Stephen Heller, who saw Chopin in 1830, described him as pale, of delicate health, and not destined, so they said in Warsaw, for a long life. This must have been during one of his depressed periods, for his stay in Berlin gives a record of unclouded spirits. However, his sister Emilia died young of pulmonary trouble, and doubtless Friederik was predisposed to lung-complaint. He was constantly admonished by his relatives to keep his coat closed. Perhaps, as in Wagner's case, the uncontrollable gaiety and hectic humours were but so many signs of a fatal, disintegrating process. Wagner outlived them until the scriptural age, but Chopin succumbed when grave disappointment and intense feeling had undermined him. For the dissipations of the average central man, he had an abiding contempt. He never smoked, in fact, disliked it. His friend Saint differed greatly in this respect, and one of the saddest anecdotes related by Delent accuses her of calling for a match to light a cigar. Friederik a vudibus, she commanded, and Friederik obeyed. Mr. Philip Hale managed the letter from Balzac to his campus Hanska dated March 15, 1841, which concludes, Jean-Jean did not leave Paris last year, she lives as Rue Pigalle, number 16. Chopin is always there, and the fume que des cigarettes, et pas autre chose. Mr. Hale states that the italics are in the latter, so much for Delent and his filibus. I am impelled here to quote from Mr. Ernest Newman's study of Wagner, because Chopin's exaltation of spirits, alternating with irritability and intense depression, are duplicated in Wagner. Missing Newman writes of Wagner, There have been few men in whom the torch of life has burned so fiercely. In his early days he seems to have had that gauge of temperament, and that apparently boundless energy which men in his case, as in that of N, Nietzsche, Amiel and others have wrongly assumed to be the outcome of harmonious physical and mental health. There is a pathetic exception in the outward lives of so many men and genius, the bloom being to the instructed eye, only the indication of some subtle nervous derangement, only the forerunner of decay. The overmastering cerebral agitation that obsessed Wagner's life was as with Chopin as symptom, not as sickness, but in the latter it had not yet assumed a sinister turn. Chopin's fourteen days in Berlin, he went there under the protection of his father's friend, Professor Jaroski, to attend the great scientific congress, were full of joy unrestrained. The pair left Warsaw September 9th, 1828, and after five days' travel in a diligence arrived at Berlin. This was a period of leisure travelling and living. Friedrich Sauss-Pontini, Mendelssohn and Zelte, at a distance, and heard Freischutz. He attended the congress and made sport of the scientists, Alexander von Humboldt included. On the way home they stopped at a place called Zulekaw, and Chopin improvised some Polish air so charmingly that the stage was delayed, all hands turning in to listen. This is another of the anecdotes of honourable antiquity. Kant Tarnowski relates that Chopin left Warsaw with a light heart, with a mind full of ideas, perhaps full of dreams of fame and happiness. I have only twenty trousers in my pockets, he writes in his notebook, and it seems to me that I am richer than Arso Protoski, whom I met only a moment ago. Besides this, witty conceptions, fun, showing a quiet and cheerful spirit, for example, may it be permitted to me to sign myself as belonging to the circle of your friends, F. Chopin, or, a welcome moment in which I can express to you my friendship, F. Chopin offers clerk, or again, ah, my most lordly sir, I do not myself yet understand the joy which I feel on entering the circle of your real friends, F. Chopin, panellists. These letters have a macabre ring, they indicate Chopin's love of jest. Sikorski tells a story of the last improvising in church, so that a priest, choir, and congregation were forgotten by him. The travellers arrived at Warsaw, October 6, after staying a few days in Posen, where the Prince Rajiviu lived, here Chopin played in private. This Prince composer, despite what list-road, did not contribute a penny to the youth's musical education. They were always treated him in a sympathetic manner. Hummel and Paganini visited Warsaw in 1829. The former he met and admired, the letter he worshipped. This year may have seen the composition, if not the publication, of the Souvenir de Paganini, set to be in the key of a major, and first published in the supplement of the Warsaw Akko Musician. Nicks writes that he never saw a copy of this rare composition. Paderewski tells me he has a piece, and that it is weak, having historic interest only. I cannot find much about the Polish poet Julius Słowewski, who died the same year, 1849, as Edgar Allan Poe. Tarnowski declares him to have been Chopin's warmest friend, and in his poetry a starting point of inspiration for the composer. In July 1829, accompanied by two friends, Chopin started for Vienna. Travelling in a delightful old-fashioned manner, the party saw much of the country, Galicia, Upper Silesia, and Moravia, the Polish Switzerland. On July 31st they arrived in the Austrian capital. Then Chopin first began to enjoy an artistic atmosphere, to live less parochially. His home life, sweet and tranquil, as it was, could not fail to hurt him as artist. He was flattered and cuddled, and doubtless, the touch of effeminacy in his person was fostered. In Vienna the life was gayer, freer, and infinitely more artistic than in Warsaw. He met everyone worse knowing in the artistic world, and his letters at that period are positively brimming over with gossip and pen-pictures of the people he knew. The little drop of malice he injects into his description of the personages he encounters is harmless enough, and proves that a young man had considerable wit. Count Gallenberg, the lassie of the famous Kertner-Toch Theatre, was kind to him, and the publisher Heslinger treated him politely. He had brought with him his variations on Lachiderem la mano, altogether the time seemed propitious and much more so when he was urged to give a concert. This way did to overcome a natural timidity. He made his Vienna debut at this theatre August 11th, 1829, playing on a Stein piano his variations Opus II. His Krakowjak rondo had been announced, but the parts were not legible, so instead he improvised. He had success, being recalled, and his improvisation on the Polish tune called Schmil, and a scene from Ledin Blanche, a stirred up much enthusiasm in which a grumbling orchestra joined. The press was favourable, though Chopin's playing was considered rather light in weight. His style was admired and voted original, here the critics could see through the millstone, while a lady remarked, it's a pity his appearance is so insignificant. This reached the composer's ear and caused him an evil quarter of an hour, for he was morbidly sensitive, but being like most Paul's secretive, managed to hide it. August 18th, encouraged by his drive, Chopin gave a second concert on the same stage. This time he played the Krakowjak, and his talent for composition was discussed by the newspapers. He plays very quietly, without the daring Elan, which distinguishes the artist from the amateur, said one. His defect is the non-observance of the indication of accent at the beginning of musical phrases. What was then admired in Vienna was explosive accentuations and piano drumming. The article continues, as in his playing he was like a beautiful young tree, that stands free and full of fragrant blossoms and thriving fruits, so he manifested as much estimable individuality in his compositions, when new figures and passages, new forms, unfolded themselves. This rather acute critique, translated by Dr. Nix, is from the Wiener Theaterzeitung of August 20th, 1829. The writer of it cannot be accused of misionism, that hardening of the faculties of curiousness and prophecy, that semi-prerelessness of the organs of hearing, which afflicts critics of music so early in life, and evokes ranker and dislike to novelties. Chopin derived no money from either of his concerts. By this time he was accustomed to being reminded of the likeness and exquisite delicacy of his touch and the originality of his style. It elated him to be no longer mistaking for a pupil, and he writes home that my manner of playing pleases the lady so very much. This manner never lost its hold over female hearts, and the airs, caprices and little struttings of Friedrich are to blame for the widely circulated legend of his effeminate ways. The legend soon absorbed his music, and so it has come to pass that this fiction, begotten of half-fact and half-mental indolence, has taken root like the noxious wheat it is. When Rubenstein, Taussig and List played Chopin in passion of phrases, the public and critics were aghast. This was a transformed Chopin deed, a Chopin transposed to the key of manliness. Yet it is true, Chopin. The young man's manners were a trifle feminine, but his brain was masculine, electric and his soul courageous. His boulonnaires, ballads, cherubzi and études need a mighty grip, a grip mental and physical. Chopin met Czerny. He is a good man, but nothing more, he said of him. Czerny admired the young pianist with the elastic hand, and on his second visit to Vienna, characteristically inquired. I was still industrious. Czerny's brain was a tireless incubate of piano exercises, while Chopin so fused the technical problem with the poetic idea that such a nature as the old pedagogues must have been unattractive to him. He knew Franz, Larkner and other celebrities, and seems to have enjoyed a mild flirtation with Leopoldin Blaetke, a popular young pianist, for he wrote of a sorrow at parting from her. On August 19th he left with friends for Bohemia, arriving at Prague two days later. There he saw everything and met Klengel, of canon fame, a still-graded canon ear than the redoubtable Jardason of Larktzig. Chopin and Klengel liked each other. Three days later the party proceeded to Teplitz, and Chopin played an aristocratic company. He reached Dresden August 26th, had spores foused, and met Capelmeister Morlaki, that's a Morlaki whom Wagner succeeded as a conductor January 10th, 1843, if he thinks Wagner. By September 12th, after a brief surgeon in Breslau, Chopin was again saved at home in Warsaw. About this time he fell in love with Konstantia Gwadovska, a singer and pupil of the Warsaw Conservatory. Niek's dwells gingerly upon his fervour in love and friendship, a passion with him, and things that it gives the key to his life. Of his romantic friendship for Titovsk, for Titovsky, and Jan Modocinski, his Johnny, there are abundant evidences in the letters. They are like the letters of Larktzig maiden. But Chopin's fury of character was marked. He shrank from coarseness of all sorts, and the fate only knew what he must have suffered at times from Georges Jassin and her gallant band of retainers. To this impressionable man, Parisian Bardinard, not to call it anything stronger, was positively antipathetical. Of him we might indeed say in Lafcadie or Hearn's words, every mortal man has been many million times a woman. And was it a joncours who dare to assert that, there are no women of genius, women of genius are men. Chopin needed an outlet for his sentimentalism, his piano was but a sea for some, and we are rather amused than otherwise on reading the romantic nonsense of his boyish letters. After the Vienna trip, his spirit and his health flagged. He was overrode, and Warsaw became hateful to him, for he loved, but had not the courage to tell it to his beloved one. He put it on paper, he played it, but speak it he could not. Here is a point that reveals Chopin's native indecision, his inability to make up his mind. He recalls to me the Friedrich Moreau of Lebers' l'édication sentimental. There is an atrophy of the will, for Chopin can neither propose nor fly from Warsaw. He writes letters that are full of self-reproaches, letters that must have both bored and irritated his friends. Like many other men of genius, he suffered all his life from fully de-dut. Indeed, it was, what specialists call, a beautiful case. This halting and a resolution was a stumbling block in his career, and his faithfully mirrored in his art. Chopin went to Posen in October 1829, and, after ready views, was attracted by the beauty and talent of the princess Elisa, who died young. Georges Jean has noted Chopin's emotional versatility in the matter of falling in and out of love. He could accomplish both of an evening, and a crumpled rose-leaf was sufficient cause to induce frowns and capricious flights. Decidedly, young man, très difficile. He played at the resource in November 1829, the variations opus 2. On March 17, 1830, he gave his first concert in Warsaw, and selected the Adagio and Rondo of his first concerto, the one in F minor, and the Potpourri on Polish airs. His playing was criticised for being too delicate, an old complain, but the musicians, Alsner, Kopinski and the rest were pleased. Edward Wolfe said they had no idea in Warsaw of the real greatness of Chopin. He was Polish, this the public appreciated. But of Chopin the individual, they missed entirely the flavour. A week later, spurred by adverse and favourable criticisms, he gave a second concert, playing the same excerpts from this concerto. The slow movement is consantic for Adovska, musically idolised. The Krakowiek, and an improvisation. The affair was a success. From these concerts he cleared six hundred dollars, not a small sum in those days for an unknown virtuoso. A sonnet was printed in his honour. Champagne was offered him by an enthusiastic prose-bread, but not born pianist named Danst, who for this act will live in all chronicles of piano playing. Worse still, Orlowski served up the seams of his concerto into Modelka's, and had the impudence to publish them. Then came the last blow. He was asked by a music-seller for his portrait, which he refused, having no desire, he said with his shiver, to see his face on cheese and butter-wrappers. Some of the criticisms were glowing, others absurd as criticisms occasionally are. Champagne wrote to Titus, the same rebsodical protestations, and finally declared a meticulous peevishness, I will no longer read what people write about me. This has a familiar ring of the true artist, who cares nothing for the newspapers, but reads them religiously after his own and his rival's concerts. Chopin heard Henrietta Sontag with great joy. He was ever a lover and a connoisseur of singing. He advised young pianists to listen carefully and often to great singers. Manuel de Belleville, the pianist, and Libinsky, the violinist, were admired, and he could try to sound criticism when he chose. But Gradoska is worrying him. Unbearable longing is driving him to exile. He attends her debut as Agnés and Père's opera, with that title, and writes a complete description of the important function to Titus, where he is at his country-seat, where Chopin visits him, at times. Agitated, he thinks of going to Berlin, of Vienna, but after much villundering, remains in Warsaw. On October 11th, 1830, following many preparations and much emotional chile shelling, Chopin gave his third and last Warsaw concert. He played the E minor concerto for the first time in public, but not in sequence. The first and last two movements were separated by an area, such being the custom of those days. Later he gave the Fantasia on Polish airs. Best of all for him, Miss Gradoska sang a Rosini air, wore a wide dress and roses in her hair, and was charmingly beautiful. Thus Chopin, and the details have all the relevancy of a male besiege by Don Cupid. Chopin must have played well, he said to himself, and he was always a cautious self-critic, despite his pride. His vanity and girlishness peep out in his recital, but a response to a quartet of recalls. I believe I did it yesterday, with a certain grace, for Brent had taught me how to do it properly. He is not speaking of his poetic performance, but of his bow to the public. As he formally spoke to his mother of his pretty collar, so as young man, he makes much of his deportment. But it is all quite in the wrong. Scratch an artist, and he surprises child. Of course, Constantia sang wonderfully. Hello Bee came out so magnificently, that Zelinsky declared it alone was worse as Sours and Ducats. Ah, these enamoured ones! Chopin left Warsaw November 1st, 1830, for Vienna, and without declaring his love. Or was he a rejected tutor? History is dumb. He never saw his Gradoska again, for he did not return to Warsaw. The lady was married in 1832, referring a solid certainty to a nebulous genius, to Joseph Grabowski, emergent at Warsaw. Her husband, so cesse a romantic biographer, Count Wojcinski, became blind. Perhaps even a blind country gentleman was preferable to a lecture-merced pianist. Chopin must have heard of the attachment in 1831. Her name almost disappears from his correspondence. Time as well as other nails drove from his memory her image. If she was fickle, he was inconstant. And so let us waste no pity on this episode, over which lakes of tears have been shed, and rivers of ink have been spilled. Chopin was accompanied by Elsner, and a party of friends as far as Wola, a short distance from Warsaw. There the pupils of the conservatory sang a cantate by Elsner, and after a banquet, he was given a silver goblet filled with Polish earth, being adjured, so Grabowski relates, never to forget his country or his friends, wherever he might wander. Chopin, his heart, full of sorrow, left home, parents, friends, and ideal, severed with his youth, and went forth into the world with a keyboard, and a brain full of beautiful music as its only weapons. At Khalid's, it was joined by the faithful Titus, and the two went to Breslau, where they spent four days going to the theatre, and listening to music. Chopin played, quite impromptu, two movements of his E minor concerto, supplanting a tremulous amulet. In Dresden, where they arrived November 10th, they enjoyed themselves with music. Chopin went to a soirée at Dr. Kreisig's, and was overwhelmed at the sight of a circle of dames, armed with knitting needles, which they used during the intervals of music-making, in the most formidable manner. He heard Aubert, and Rosini operas, and Rola, the Italian violinist, and listened with delight to Dotzauer, and Kummer, the violin cellists, the cello being an instrument for which he had a consuming affection. Rubini, the brother of the great Tina, he met, and was promised important letters of introduction if he desired to visit Italy. He saw Klingel again, who told the young Paul, thereby pleasing him very much, that his playing was like John Fields. Craig was also visited, and he arrived at Vienna in November. There he confidently expected a repetition of his former successes, but was disappointed. A Haslinger received him coldly, and refused to print his variations or concerto, unless he got them for nothing. Chopin's first brush with the hated tribe of publishers begins here, and he adopts as his motto the pleasing device, PAY THOU ANIMAL, a motto he strictly adhered to. In Monimatis Chopin was very particular. The bulk of his extant correspondence is devoted to the exposure of the ways and wiles of music publishers. Animal is a mildest term he applies to them, due the most frequent objurgation. After all, Chopin was very Polish. He missed his friends, the Blyatkas, who had gone to Stuttgart, and altogether did not find things so promising as formerly. No profitable engagement could be secured, and to Capis Miserie, Titus' other self, left him to join the revolutionists in Poland, November 30th, his letters reflect his mental agitation and terror over his barren safety. A thousand times he sought of renouncing his artistic ambitions, and rushing to Poland to fight for his country, he never did, and his indecision, it was not cowardice, is our gain. Chopin put his patriotism, his race and his heroism into his polonises. That is why we have some now, instead of Chopin having him the target of some black drug Russian. Chopin was cyclically brave, had us not cavalled at the almost miraculous delicacy of his organisation. He wrote letters to his parents and to Modudzinski, but they are not despairing, at least not to the former. He pretended gaity, and had great hopes for the future, for he was living entirely on means supplied him by his father. News of Constancia gladdened him, and he decided to go to Italy, but the revolution early in 1831 decided him for France. Dr. Malfatti was good to him, and cheered him, and he managed to accomplish much social visiting. The letters of this period are most interesting. He heard Sarah Heinefetter sing, and listened to Tallembeck's playing of a movement of his own concerto. Tallbeck was three years younger than Chopin, and already famous. Chopin did not admire him. Tallbeck plays famously, but he is not my man. He plays forte and piano with the pedals, but not with a hand, takes tenths as easily as I do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds. Tallbeck was not only too much of a technician for Chopin, but he was also a Jew, and a successful one. In consequence, both Poe and Poe revolted. A Hommel called on Friedrich, but we hear nothing of his opinion of the elder man and his music. This is all the more strange, considering how much Chopin built on Hommel's style. Perhaps that is the cause of the silence. Just as Wagner's dislike for Maierbeer was the result of his obligation to the composer of Lisugno. He heard Alois Schmidt play, and uttered the very heinous criticism, that he is already over forty years old, and composes eighty years old music. This in a letter to Elsner. Our Chopin could be amazingly sarcastic on occasion. In Jeroz Svavik, the violin virtuoso, Merck, the cellist, and all the music publishers, at a concert given by Madame Gadjavestris in April, 1831, he appeared, and in June gave a concert of his own, at which he must have played the E minor concerto, because of a passing mention in a musical paper. He studied much, and it was July 20, 1831, before he left Vienna after a second, last, and thoroughly discouraging visit. Chopin got a passport visit for London, passant par Paris à Londres, and had permission from the Russian ambassador to go as far as Munich. Then the cholera gave him some bother, as he had to secure a clean bill of health, but he finally got away. The romantic story of, I am only passing through Paris, which is reported to have said in after-years, has been ruthlessly shorn of its sentiment. At Munich he played a second concerto, and pleased greatly, but he did not remain in the Bavarian capital, hastening to Stuttgart, where he heard of the capture of Warsaw by the Russians, September 8, 1831. This news, it is said, was a genesis of the great C minor etude in Opus 10, sometimes called the revolutionary. Chopin exclaimed in a letter dated December 16, 1831, all this caused me much pain, who could have foreseen it, and in another letter he wrote, how glad my mama will be that I did not go back. Count Karnowski, in his recollections, print some extracts from a diary said to have been kept by Chopin. According to this, his agitation must have been terrible. Here are several examples. My poor father, my dearest ones, perhaps they hunger. Maybe he has not anything to buy bread for mother. Perhaps my sisters have fallen victims to the fury of Muscovite soldiers. Her father insists the consolation of your old age. Mother, poor suffering mother, is it for this you outlived your daughter? And I here unoccupied, and I am here with empty hands. Sometimes I groan. Suffer and despair at a piano. O God, move the earth, that it may swallow the humanity of the century. May the most cruel fortune fall upon the French, that they did not come to our aid. All this sounded rather melodramatic, and quite unlike Chopin. He did not go to Warsaw, but started for France at the end of September, arriving early in October, 1831. Poland's downfall had aroused him from his apathy, even if it sent him further from her. This journey, as Liszt declares, settled his fate. Chopin was twenty-two years old when he reached Paris. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Chopin, The Man and His Music. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chopin, The Man and His Music, by James Honnaker. Chapter two, Paris, in the Maelstrom. Here, according to Nakes, is the itinerary of Chopin's life for the next eighteen years. In Paris, twenty-seven boulevards poisonary, to five-and-thirty-eight chaussis d'antan, to Ex-La Chapelle, Colt's Bard, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Marien Bard, and London, to Mallorca, to five Rue Tranchet, sixteen Rue Pigalle, and nine Square D'Orléans, to England and Scotland, to nine Square D'Orléans once more, Rue Chao, and then Père Lachaise, the last resting place. It may be seen that Chopin was a restless, though not roving, nature. In later years is an ability to remain settled in one place for a pathological impress. Consumtives are often so. Paris of 1831, the Paris of Arts and Letters, was one of the most delightful cities in the world for the culture-loving. The molten tide of passion and creative extravagance that swept over intellectual Europe, three score years and ten ago, bore on its foaming quest Victor Hugo, Prince of Romanticists. Nearby was Henry Heiner. He left Heinrich across the Rhine, Heiner who dipped his pen in honey and gull, who sneered and wept in the same couplet. The star of classicism had seemingly set. In the rich conflict of genius were Gautier, Schumann and the rest. All as romance, fantasy and passion and the young men heard the moon sing silvery, do you remember Dumusé? and the leaves rustled rhythms to the heartbeats of lovers. Away with the grey beards, quite he of the scarlet waistcoat and all forms applauded Ernani. Pity it was that the romantic infant had to die of intellectual anemia, leaving as a legacy the memories and work of one of the most marvellous groupings of genius since the Athens of Pericles. The revolution of 1848 called from the mud the sewer men. Flaubert, his face to the past gave sorrowfully at Carthage and wrote an epic of the French bourgeois. Zola and his crowd delved into a moral morass and the world grew weary of them. And then the faint fading flowers of romanticism were put into albums where their purple harmonies and subtle sayings are pressed into sweet twilight forgetfulness. Berlio, mad hector of the flaming locks whose orchestral ozone vivified the scores of Wagner and Dürger began to sound garishly empty, brilliantly superficial. The colossal Nightingale is difficult to classify even today. A romantic by temperament he unquestionably was but then his music, all colour, nuance and brilliancy was not genuinely romantic in its themes. Compare him with Schumann and the genuine romanticist which tops the virtuoso. Berlio, I suspect was a magnified virtuoso. His orchestral technique is supreme but his music fails to force its way into my soul. It pricks the nerves it pleases the sense of the gigantic the strange, the formless but there is something uncanny about it all like some huge prehistoric bird an awful pterodactyl with goggle eyes horrid snout and scream Berlio, like Baudelaire has the power of evoking the shudder but as John Addington Simon wrote the shams of the classicists the spasms of the romanticists have a like to be abandoned neither on a mock parnassus or on a paste board Blocksberg can the poet of the age now worship the artist walks the world at large beneath the light of natural day all this was before the Polish charmer distilled his sugared wormwood his sweet exasperated poison for thirsty souls in morbid Paris think of the men and women with whom the newcomer associated for his genius was quickly divine Hugo, Lamartine Ah, what balm for those troubled days was in his parole d'un crayon Chateaubriand, Saint Simon Mérimie, Gauthier Liste, Victor Cousin Baudelaire Adi Schaeffel Berlio Heine who was the bold news of his news the laughing nymph if you still continue to drape her silvery veil around the flowing locks the cockatry so enticing if the old sea-god with the long white beard still pursued his mischievous made with this ridiculous love Dumusé, Dumini Rossini Mayor Bear Aubert Saint Bou Adolf Noury Ferdinand Hiller Balzac Duma Michelin Guiseaux Thiers Niemczewicz and Mckiewicz the Polish Bards and George Sand the quintessence of the Paris art and literature the most eloquent page in Liste's Chopin is the narrative of an evening in the Chosse d'Anton for it demonstrates the Hungarian literary gifts and feeling for the right phrase this description of Paris has a hypnotizing effect on me the very furnishings of the chamber seem vocal under Liste's fanciful pen in more doubtful taste is a statement that the glaze which covers the grace of the elite as it does the fruit of their desserts could not have been satisfactory to Chopin Liste, despite his tendency to idealise Chopin after his death is our most trustworthy witness at this period Chopin was an ideal to Liste though he has not left us a record of his defects the Paul was ombrazier and easily offended he disliked democracies in fact mankind in the bulk stunned him this is one reason combined with the frail physique of his inability to conquer the larger public Thalberg could do it his aristocratic turner imperturbility beautiful touch and polished mechanism won the suffrage of his audiences Liste never stooped to cajol he came he played he overwhelmed Chopin knew all this knew his weaknesses and fought to overcome them but failed another crumpled rose leaf since told of Liste and first related by him is the anecdote of Chopin refusing to play on being unconsciously pressed after dinner giving us a reason ah sir I have eaten so little even though his host was gauche it cannot be denied but the retort was rude Chopin met Osborn Mendelssohn who rather patronised him with the Chopin et al with the latter he contracted a lasting friendship often playing duos with him and dedicating to him his G minor cello sonata he called on Kalkbrenner then the first pianist of his day who was puzzled by the prodigious novelty of the young Pauls playing having heard heads and Hilla Chopin did not fear to perform his E minor concerto for him he tells all about the interview are you a pupil of fields was asked by Kalkbrenner who remarked that Chopin had the style of Kramer and the touch of field not having a standard by which to gauge the new phenomenon Kalkbrenner was forced to fall back on the playing of men he knew he then begged Chopin to study three years with him only three but Esner in an earnest letter dissuaded his pupil from making any experiments that might hurt his originality of style Chopin actually attended the class of Kalkbrenner but soon quit for he had nothing to learn of the pompous, penurious pianist the Hilla story of how Mendelssohn, Chopin least and heller teased this grotty old gentleman on the boulevard Chopin admired Kalkbrenner's finished technique despite his platitudinous manner Heiner said or rather coated coref that Kalkbrenner looked like a bonbon that had been in the mud neaks things Chopin might have learned of Kalkbrenner on the mechanical side Chopin in public was modest about his attainments looking upon himself as self taught I cannot create a new school because I do not even know the old he said it is this very absence of scholasticism that is both the power and weakness of his music in reality his true technical ancestor was Hummel he played the E minor concert of first in Paris February 26, 1832 and some smaller pieces Kalkbrenner, Beyo and others participated Chopin was the hero of the evening the affair was a financial failure the audience consisting mostly of distinguished and aristocratic faults Mendelssohn who disliked Kalkbrenner and was angered at his arrogance in asking Chopin to study with him applauded furiously after this heller writes nothing more was heard the criticisms were favourable on May 20, 1832 Chopin appeared at a charity concert organised by Prince Zilla Moskova he was lionised in society and he wrote to Titus that his heart beat in syncopation so exciting was all this adulation, social excitement and rapid gate of living but he still sentimentalises to Titus and wishes him in Paris a flirtation of no moment with Franz Zilla Pixis the adopted daughter of Pixis the hunchback pianist cruelly mimicked by Chopin aroused the jealousy of the elder artist Chopin was delighted for he was malicious in a dainty way what do you think of this he writes I, a dangerous sedictor the Paris letters to his parents were unluckily destroyed as Kurosowski relates Russian soldiers in Warsaw September 19, 1863 and with them were burned his portrait by Ari Sheffer and his first piano the loss of the letters is irremediable Kurosowski who saw some of them says they were tinged with melancholy despite his artistic success Chopin needed money and began to consider again his projected trip to America luckily he met Prince Valentin Racheval on the street so it is said and was persuaded to play at a rochelle soiree from that moment his prospects brightened for he secured paying pupils Nix, the iconoclast has run the story to earth and finds it built on airy romantic foundations Least, Hiller, Franchon and Sovinsky never heard of it although it was a stock anecdote of Chopin Chopin must have broadened mentally as well as musically in this congenial artistic environment he went about hobnobbed with princesses and of the effect of this upon his compositions there can be no doubt if he became more cosmopolitan he also became more artificial and for a time the salon elegant atmosphere threatened to drug his talent into forgetfulness of loftier aims luckily the master sculptor life intervened and real troubles chiseled this character on tragic, broader and more passionate lines he played frequently in public during 1832-1833 with Hiller Least and Osborn in private there was some rivalry in this parterre of pianists Least Chopin and Hiller indulged in friendly contests and Chopin always came off winner when polish music was essayed he delighted in imitating his colleagues Thalberg especially Adolf Brisson tells of a meeting of Sand, Chopin and Thalberg where Asmatias says and Thalberg after being congratulated by Chopin on its magnificent virtuosity wheeled off polite phrases in return doubtless he valued the poles compliments for what they were worth the moment his back was presented Chopin at the keyboard was mocking him it was then Chopin told Sand of his pupil Georges Matias Thalberg took his revenge whenever he could after a concert by Chopin he astonished Hiller by shouting on the way home in reply to questions he slightly answered that he needed a forte as he had heard nothing but pianissimo the entire evening Chopin was never a hearty partisan of the Roman movement its extravagance misplaced enthusiasm turbulence attacks on church state and tradition while noise, reclaim and poisonousness chilled and repulsed him he wished to be the Ulland of Poland but he objected to smashing idols and refused to wade in gutters to reach his ideal he was not a fighter yet as one reviews the past half century it is a still small voice that has emerged from the din the golden voice of a poet demagogues of his day Liszt's influence was stimulating but what did not Chopin do for Liszt? read Schuma he managed in 1834 to go to Exla Chapelle to attend the Lower Renish Music Festival there he met Hiller and Mendelssohn at the painter's shadows and improvised marvelously so Hiller writes returning home Professor Nyx has a deep spring of personal humour which he taps at rare intervals he remarks that the coming to Paris and settlement there of his friend Matuchinsky must have been very gratifying to Chopin who felt so much the want of one with whom to sigh this slanting allusion is matched by his treatment thoroughly ratting her in a separate chapter he winds up his work with the solemn assurance that he abstains from pronouncing judgement because the complete evidence did not seem to me to warrant by doing so this is positively delicious when I met his biographer at Beirut in 1896 I told him how much I had enjoyed his work Professor Nyx gazed at me blandly he is most amiable and scholarly looking and remarked you are not the only one he was probably thinking of the many who have had recourse to his human documents of Chopin but Nyx in 1888 built on Karazovsky least Schumann, Sand and others so the process is bound to continue much has been written of Chopin much surmised with Matuchinsky the composer was happier he devoutly loved his country and despite his sarcasm was fond of his countrymen never an extravagant man he invariably assisted the Poles after 1834 to 5 Chopin's activity as a public pianist began to wane he was not always understood and was not so warmly welcomed as he deserved to be on one occasion when he played the large eto of his F minor concerto in a conservatoire concert its frigid reception annoyed him very much nevertheless he appeared at a benefit concert at Habinix April 26, 1835 the papers praised but his irritability increased with every public performance about this time in his sensuous melodies he had a peculiar predilection in July 1835 Chopin met his father at Karlsbad then he went to Dresden and later to Leipzig playing privately for Schumann Clara Wieck Wenzel and Mendelssohn Schumann gushes over Chopin but his friendliness was never reciprocated on his return to Paris his father of his pupil Adolf Gutmann and reached the capital of the civilized world the middle of October meanwhile a love affair had occupied his attention in Dresden in September 1835 Chopin met his old school friends the Wachinski's former pupils at his father's school he fell in love with their sister Marie and they became engaged in Paris and his ambitions were forgotten he enjoyed a brief dream of marrying and of settling near Warsaw teaching and composing the occasional dream that tempts most active artists soothing them with the notion that there is really a haven of rest from the world's buffets again the gods intervened in the interest of music the father of the girl objected on the score of Chopin's means and the social position of the ladies in those days although the mother favoured the romance the Wachinski's were noble and wealthy in the summer of 1836 at Marienbad Chopin met Marie again in 1837 the engagement was broken and the following year the inconstant beauty married the son of Chopin's godfather as the marriage did not prove a success perhaps the lady played too much a divorce ensued and later she married a gentleman by the name of Orpichevsky Count Wachinski wrote that through our romance the Friedrich Chopin in which he asserts that his sister rejected Chopin at Marienbad in 1836 but Chopin survived the shock he went back to Paris and in July 1837 accompanied by Camille Plale and Stanislas Kosmin for the first time his stay was shot only 11 days and his church trouble dates from this time he played at the house of James Broadwood the piano manufacturer being introduced by Plale as Mazir Fritz but his performance betrayed his identity his music was already admired by amateurs but the critics with a few exceptions were unfavourable to him Chopin now sounds for the first time the sinister motive of the George Sand Affair in deference to Mr. Hader I shall not call it a liaison it was not in the vulgar sense Chopin might have been petty a common failing of artistic men but he was never vulgar in word or deed he disliked the woman with the somber eye before he had met her her reputation was not good George Elliot Matthew Arnold Elizabeth Barrett Browning and others believed her an endured saint Mr. Hader indignantly repudiates anything that savours of irregularity in the relations of Chopin and Aurore Doudibon if he honestly believes that their contemporaries flagrantly lied and that the woman's words are to be credited why by all means has her maline why should not Sand boast of at least one apologist for her life besides herself I do not say this with cynical intent nor do I propose to discuss the details of the affair which has been dwelt upon ad nauseam by every twanger of the romantic string the idealist will always see a union of souls the realists and there were plenty of them in Paris taking notes to view the alliance as a matter of gossip the truth lies midway Chopin a neurotic being met the polyandrous Sand a trampler on all the social and ethical conventions albeit a woman of great gifts repelled at first he gave way before the ardent passion she manifested toward him she was his elder so could veil the situation with the maternal mask more celebrated Chopin was but a pianist in the eyes of the many and so won by her magnetism the man she desired Paris artistic Paris was full of such situations least protected the Countess de Gaulle who bore him children Cosima von Buller Wagner among the rest Balzac that magnificent combination of Bonaparte and Byron and the life of a saint but his most careful student Viscount Spellborg de Lovengel whose name is veritably Balzacian tells us some different stories even Gustav Flöber the ascetic giant of ruin had a romance with Madame Louise Collet a mediocre writer and imitator of sand as was Countess de Gaulle the Frankfurt Jewish better known as Daniel Stern that lasted from 1846 to 1854 according to Emile Fagheth here then was a medium which was the other side of good and evil a new transvaluation of morals as Nietzsche would say Frederick deplored the union for he was theoretically a Catholic did he not once resent the visit of least and the companion to his apartments when he was absent indeed he may be fairly called a moralist carefully reared in the Roman Catholic religion he died confessing that faith with the exception of the sand episode his life was not any regular one he abhorred the vulgar and tried to conceal his infatuation from his parents this intimacy however did the pair no harm artistically not withstanding the inevitable sorrow and heart burnings at the close Chopin had someone to look after him he needed it and in the society of this brilliant French woman he throw up amazingly his best work may be traced to Nohant and Mallorca she on her side profited also after the bitterness of a separation from Alfred de Musée about 1833 she had been lonely for the Pageldo Intermezzo was of short duration the de Musée sand story was not known in its entirety until 1896 again M. Spellborg de L'Ovangel must be consulted as he possessed a bundle of letters that were written by George Sand and M. Boulot the editor of the review de Del Monte in 1858 de Musée went to Venice with sand in the fall of 1833 they had the maternal sanction and means supplied by Madame de Musée the story gives forth the true Gallic resonance on being critically tapped de Musée returned alone sick in body and soul and then forth absent was his constant solace there had been references vague and disquieting of a doctor Pageldo for whom sand had suddenly manifested one of her extraordinary fancies this she denied but de Musée's brother plainly intimated that the aggravating cause of de Musée's illness had been the unexpected vision of sand copulating with the young medical man called in to prescribe for Alfred Dr. Pageldo in 1896 was interviewed by Dr. Cabana of the Paris Figaro and here is a story of what had happened in 1833 this story will explain the later behavior of La Merle Blanche toward Chopin full of poetry and inspiration took an unaddressed envelope placed therein the poetic declaration and handed it to Dr. Pageldo he, seeing no address did not or faint not to understand for whom the letter was intended and asked George Sand what he should do with it snatching the letter from his hands she wrote upon the envelope to the stupid Pageldo some days afterward George Sand frankly told de Musée that hand forth she could be to him only a friend de Musée died in 1857 and after his death Sand startled Paris with L. Louis an obvious answer to confessions of a child of the age de Musée's version an uncomplimentary one to himself of their separation the poet's brother Paul rallied to his memory with Louis L. and even Louisa Collette ventured into the fracas with a trashy novel called Louis during all this mud throwing the cause of the trouble calmly lived in the little Italian town of Beluno it was Dr. Giuseppe Pageldo who will go down in literary history as the one man that played Joseph to George Sand now do you ask why I believe that Sand left Chopin when she was bored with him the words some days afterwards are significant I print the Pageldo story not only because it is new but as a reminder that George Sand in her love affairs was always the man she treated Chopin as a child a toy used him for literary copy Pace Mr. Haddow and threw him over after she had wrung out all the emotional possibilities of the problem she was true to herself but she did not evaluate her want of heart beware of the woman who punctuates the pages of her life with heart and maternal feelings if I do not believe any more in tears it is because I saw the crying exclaimed Chopin Sand was the product of abnormal forces she herself was abnormal under mental activity while it created no permanent types in literary fiction she was abnormal she dominated Chopin as she had dominated Jules Sandel Kalmata the Metzotinter Dumusé France Least Delcruis Michel de Bourges I have not the exact chronological order and later Flaubert the most lovable event in the life of this much loved woman was her old age affair purely platonic with Gustave Flaubert in the recently published Lateral Attranger of Honore de Balzac this about Sand is very apropos a visit paid to George Sand at Nohond in March 1838 brought the following to Madame Hanska it was rather well that I saw her for we exchanged confidences regarding Sandel I who blamed her to the last meeting now feel only a deep compassion for her as you will have for me when you learn with whom we have had relations she of love I of friendship but she has been even more unhappy with Musée so here she is in retreat denouncing both marriage and love because in both she has found nothing but delusion I will tell you of her immense and secret devotion to these two men and you will agree that there is nothing in common between angels and devils all the follies she has committed are claims to glory in the eyes of great and beautiful souls she has been the dupe of La Dorval Boccage, Lamne etc through the same sentiment she is the dupe of least and Madame de Gaulle so let us accept without too much questioning as did Balzac he had signed Chopin's partnership and followed its sinuous course until 1847 Chopin met Saint at a musical matinee in 1837 Nique throttles every romantic yarn about the pair that has been spoken or printed he got his facts Viva Vosie from François Ma Saint was antipathetic to Chopin but her technique for overcoming masculine coiness was as remarkable in its particular fashion as Chopin's proficiency at the keyboard they were soon seen together and everywhere she was not musical not a trained musician but her appreciation for all art forms was highly sympathetic not a beautiful woman being swarthy and rather heavyset and figure this is what she was as seen by Edward Renier she was short and stout but her face attracted all my attention the eyes especially there were wonderful eyes a little too close together it may be large with full eyelids and black very black but my no means lustrous they reminded me of unpolished marble or rather of velvet and this gave a strange, dull even cold expression to her countenance her fine eyebrows and these great placid eyes gave her an air of strength and dignity which was not borne out by the lower part of her face her nose was rather thick and not over shapely her mouth was also rather coarse and her chin small she spoke with great simplicity and her manners were very quiet but she attracted with imperious power all that she met least felt this attraction at one time and it is whispered of him Puff the woman who could conquer France least in his youth must have been a sorceress he too was versatile in 1838 Saint's boy Morris being ill she proposed a visit to Mallorca Chopin went with the party in November and full accounts of the Mediterranean trip Chopin's illness the bad weather, discomforts and all the rest was the Histoire du Mavi by Saint it was a time of torment Chopin is a detestable invalid said Saint and so they returned to Noha in July 1839 they saw Gino for a few days in May but that is as far as Chopin ever penetrated into the promised land Italy at one time a passion for him Saint enjoyed the subtle and truly feminine pleasure of again entering the city which six years before she had visited in company with another man the former lover of Rachel Chopin's health in 1839 was a source of alarm to himself and his friends he had been dangerously ill at Mallorca and Marcel's fever and severe coughing proved to be the dread forerunners of the disease that killed him ten years later with his habits resting more giving fewer lessons playing but little in private or public and becoming frugal of his emotions now Saint began to cool though her lively imagination never ceased making graceful touching pictures of herself in the roles of sister of mercy mother and discreet friend all merged into one sentimental composite her invalid was her one thought and for an active mind it must have been irksome to submit to the caprices of the moody ailing man he composed at Nohan and she has told us all about it how he groaned wrote and rewrote and tore to pieces draft after draft of his work this brings to memory another martyr to style Gustave Flaubert who for forty years in a room at Crozet near Rouen resolved with the devils of his ancient nervous disposition all the more remarkable then his capacity for taking infinite pains like Balzac he was never pleased with the final revise of his work he must need aim at finishing touches his letters at this period are interesting for the shoponist but for the most part they consist of requests made to his pupils to get him new apartments to buy him many things Wagner was not more important or minatory than this Paul who depended on others for the material comforts and necessities of his existence nor is his abuse of friends and patrons the leos and others indicative of an altogether frank sincere nature he did not hesitate to lump them all as pigs choose if anything happened to jar his nerves money, money is the leading theme of the paris and malorian letters sand was a spent thrift and shopon had often to put his hands in his pocket for her he charged twenty francs a lesson but was not a machine and for at least four months of the year he earned nothing hence his anxiety to get all he could for his compositions heaven born geniuses in financial transactions and indeed why should they not be in 1839 shopon met musklies they appeared together at saint cloud playing for the royal family shopon received a gold cup musklies a travelling case the king gave him this said the amiable fraderick to get the sooner rid of him there were two public concerts in 1841 and 1842 the first on April 26 at plale's rooms the second on February 20 at the same hall nix devotes an engrossing chapter to the public accounts and the general style of shopon's playing of this more hereafter from 1843 to 1847 shopon taught and spent the vacations at noha to which charming retreat least matthew ornald delkrua and other scheme his life was apparently happy he composed and amused himself with morris and solange the terrible children of this bohemian household there according to reports shopon and least were in friendly rivalry are two pianist ever friendly least imitating shopon's style and once in the dark they exchanged places and fooled their listeners least denied this another story is of one or the other working the pedal rods the pedals being broken this too has been laughed to scorn by least nor could he recall having played while veer dot garcia sang out on the terrace of the chateau garcia's memory is also short about this event rolinat, delkrua and sand have written abundant souvenirs of noha and its distinguished gatherings so let us not attempt to impugn the details of the shopon legend that legend which coughs deprecatingly as it points to its oriold alabaster bro due lengths should be consulted for an account of this period he will add the finishing touches of unreality that may be missing shopon knew every one of note in paris the best salons were open to him some of his confres have not hesitated to describe him as a bit snobbish for during the last ten years of his life he was generally inaccessible but consider his retiring nature his suspicious lavic temperament above all his delicate health where one accuses him of indifference and selfishness there are ten who praise his unfaltering kindness, generosity and forbearance he was as a rule a kind and patient teacher and where talent was displayed can you fancy this aerial of the piano giving lessons to humdrum pupils playing in a charmed and barricing circle of countesses surrounded by the luxury and the praise that kills shopon is a much more natural figure yet he gave lessons regularly and appeared to relish them he had not much taste for literature he liked waltair though he read but little that was not polish did he really enjoy sans novels but composed symphonies or operas answered that his metier was the piano and to it he would stick he spoke French though with a polish accent and also German but did not care much for German music except Bach and Mozart Beethoven save in the C-sharp minor and several other sonatas was not sympathetic Schubert he found rough Weber in his piano music without a word he told Heller that the carnival was really not music at all this remark is one of the curiosities of musical anecdotage but he had his gay moments when he would gossip chatter, imitate everyone cut up all manner of tricks and like Wagner stand on his head perhaps it was feverish agitated gaiety yet somehow it seemed more human but it was a chaos of Warsaw melancholy and regret for the vanished greatness and happiness of Poland a greatness and happiness that never had existed Chopin disliked letter writing and would go miles to answer one in person he did not hate anyone in particular being rather indifferent to everyone and to political events except where Poland was concerned theoretically he hated Jews yet associated with both he was, like his music a bundle of unreconciled affirmations and evasions and never could have been contented anywhere or with anyone of himself he said that he was in this world like the east ring of a violin on a contrabass this divine dissatisfaction led him to extremes to the flirting of friends for fancied affronts and loving of artists who sometimes visited him he grew suspicious of least and for ten years was not on terms of intimacy with him although they never openly quarreled the breach which had been very perceptibly widening became hopeless in 1847 when Sand and Chopin parted forever a literature has grown up on the subject Chopin never had much to say but Sand did so did Chopin's pupils that she killed their master the break had to come it was the inevitable end of such a friendship the dynamics of free love have yet to be formulated this much we know two such natures could never entirely cohere when the novelty wore off the stronger of the two the one least in love took the initial step it was George Sand who took it with Chopin the causes are not very interesting Neeks has sifted all the evidence before the court and jury of scandal mongers the main quarrel was about the marriage of Solange Sand with Klesinger the sculptor her mother did not oppose the match but later she resented Klesinger's actions he was chorus and violent she said with the true mother-in-law spirit and when Chopin received the young woman and her husband after a terrible scene at Noha it was a good excuse he had only read her for several years and as he had completed his artistic work on this planet and there was nothing more to be studied the psychological portrait was supposedly painted Madame George got rid of him the dark stories of maternal jealousy of Chopin's preference for Solange the visit to Chopin of the concierge's wife to complain of her mistresses behaviour and the breaking I leave to others it was a treased affair and I do not doubt in the least that it undermined Chopin's feeble health why not? animals die of broken hearts and this emotional product of Poland deprived of affection home and careful attention may well as Dolin swears have died of heartbreak recent gossip declares that Sand was jealous of Chopin's friendships this is silly Mr. A. B. Walkway the English dramatic critic after declaring that he would rather have lived during the Balzac Epoch in Paris continues in this entertaining vein and then one might have had a chance of seeing George Sand in the thick of her emorisms for my part I would certainly rather have met her than Pontius Pilate the people who saw her in her old age there Gauthier and Concordes have left us copious records of her odd appearance her perpetual cigarette smoking and her whimsical life at no-hunt but then she was only an extinct volcano she must have been much more interesting in full eruption of her earlier career the period of Musée and Piguello she herself told us something in L. L. Louis and correspondence published a year or so ago to my mind the most fascinating chapter in this part of her history is the Chopin chapter covering the next decade or roughly speaking the forties she has revealed something of this time naturally from her own point of view in Lucrezia Floriana 1847 for it is of course one of the most notorious characteristics of George Sand that she invariably turned her loves into copy fashion and printers ink in this lady's composition is surely one of the most curious blends ever offered to the palette of the Epicure but it was a blend which gave the lady an unfair advantage for posterity we hear too much of her side of the matter this one feels especially as regards her affair with Chopin with Musée she had to reckon a writer like herself and against her L. L. Louis but for Chopin being a musician was not good at copy the emotions she gave him he had to pour out in music which delightful as sound is unfortunately vague as a literary document how one longs to have is full true and particular account of the six months he spent with George Sand in Mallorca who has just published the review blue some letters of Chopin first printed it seems in a Warsaw newspaper would have us believe that the lady was really the masculine partner we are to understand that it was Chopin who did the weeping and pouting and scene making where George Sand did the consoling the poo-pooing and the protecting these had already given us we see George Sand in sheer exuberance of health and animal spirits wandering out into the storm while Chopin stays at home to have an attack of nerves to give vent to his anxiety oh artistic temperament by composing a prelude and to fall fainting at the lady's feet when she returns safe and sound there is no doubt that the lady had enough temper in her to be the first to get tired and as poor Chopin was coughing and swooning most of the time this is scarcely surprising but she did not leave him forthwith she kept up the pretence of loving him in a maternal protecting sort of way out of pity as it were for a sick child so much the published letters clearly show themselves the letters are dull enough Chopin composed with the keyboard of a piano with ink and paper he could do little probably his love letters were wooden productions and George Sand we know was a fastidious critic in that matter she had received and written so many but any rate Chopin did not write his real view of her we shall never know and if you like you may say it is no business of ours she once uttered a truth about that though not a purpose of Chopin there are so many things between two lovers of which they alone can be the judges Chopin gave his last concert in Paris February 16, 1848 he was ill but played beautifully Oscar Comitant said he fainted in the artist's room Sand and Chopin met but once again she took his hand which was trembling and cold but he escaped without saying a word he permitted himself in a letter to Jimala from London dated November 17 to 18 1848 to speak of Sand I have never cursed anyone but now I am so weary of life that I am near cursing Lucretia but she suffers too and suffers more because she grows older in wickedness what a pity about Soley alas everything goes wrong with the world I wonder what Mr. Haddo thinks of this reference to Sand Soley is Solange Sand who was forced to leave her husband because of ill treatment as her mother once boxed Klesinger's ears at Noha she followed the example in trying to settle the affair Sand quarreled hopelessly with her daughter that energetic descendant of emancipated woman formed a partnership literary of course with the Marquis Alfieri the nephew of the Italian poet her salon was as much in vogue as her mother's politics revolutionary politics preferred she had for associates Gambetta, Jules Ferry Flocke, Thayne Herve, Weiss the critic of the deba Henry Foucais and many others she had the curved hebraic nose of her mother and hair cold black she died in her chateau at Montgivre and was buried March 20, 1899 at Noha there as my informant says her mother died of over much cigarette smoking she was a clever woman and wrote a book masks and buffoons Morris Sand died in 1883 he was the son of his mother who was gathered to her heterogeneous ancestors June 8, 1876 in literature George Sand is a feminine pendant to Jean-Jacques Roseau full of ill digested experimenting social political philosophical and religious speculations and theories she wrote picturesque French smooth flowing and full of color the sketches of nature of country life have positive value but where has vanished her gallery of bironic passion pursued women where are the lilias the indianas the rodolstarts she had not as Flaubert wrote her in spite of your great sphinx eyes you have always seen the world as through a golden mist she dealt in vague vast figures and so her Prince Carol in Lucretia Floriana unquestionably intended for Chopin is a burlesque little wonder he was angered when the precious children asked him share Monsieur Chopin have you read Lucretia in it of all persons Sand was pre-elected to give to the world a true a sympathetic picture of her friend she understood him but she had not the power of putting him between the covers of a book if Flaubert or better still Pierre Lotti could have known Chopin so intimately we should possess a memoir in which every vibration of emotion would be recorded and all pinned with the precise adjective the phrase exquisite end of chapter 2