CHOPIN IS JOINED AT KALISZ BY TITUS WOYCIECHOWSKI.—FOUR DAYS AT BRESLAU: HIS VISITS TO THE THEATRE; CAPELLMEISTER SCHNABEL; PLAYS AT A CONCERT; ADOLF HESSE.—SECOND VISIT TO DRESDEN: MUSIC AT THEATRE AND CHURCH; GERMAN AND POLISH SOCIETY; MORLACCHI, SIGNORA PALAZZESI, RASTRELLI, ROLLA, DOTZAUER, KUMMER, KLENGEL, AND OTHER MUSICIANS; A CONCERT TALKED ABOUT BUT NOT GIVEN; SIGHT-SEEING.—AFTER A WEEK, BY PRAGUE TO VIENNA.—ARRIVES AT VIENNA TOWARDS THE END OF NOVEMBER, 1830.

Thanks to Chopin's extant letters to his family and friends it is not difficult to give, with the help of some knowledge of the contemporary artists and of the state of music in the towns he visited, a pretty clear account of his experiences and mode of life during the nine or ten months which intervene between his departure from Warsaw and his arrival in Paris. Without the letters this would have been impossible, and for two reasons: one of them is that, although already a notable man, Chopin was not yet a noted man; and the other, that those with whom he then associated have, like himself, passed away from among us.

Chopin, who, as the reader will remember, left Warsaw on November 1, 1830, was joined at Kalisz by Titus Woyciechowski. Thence the two friends travelled together to Vienna. They made their first halt at Breslau, which they reached on November 6. No sooner had Chopin put up at the hotel Zur goldenen Gans, changed his dress, and taken some refreshments, than he rushed off to the theatre. During his stay in Breslau he was present at three performances—at Raimund's fantastical comedy "Der Alpenkonig und der Menschenfeind", Auber's "Maurer und Schlosser (Le Macon)," and Winter's "Das unterbrochene Opferfest", a now superannuated but then still popular opera. The players succeeded better than the singers in gaining the approval of their fastidious auditor, which indeed might have been expected. As both Chopin and Woyciechowski were provided with letters of introduction, and the gentlemen to whom they were addressed did all in their power to make their visitors' sojourn as pleasant as possible, the friends spent in Breslau four happy days. It is characteristic of the German musical life in those days that in the Ressource, a society of that town, they had three weekly concerts at which the greater number of the performers were amateurs. Capellmeister Schnabel, an old acquaintance of Chopin's, had invited the latter to come to a morning rehearsal. When Chopin entered, an amateur, a young barrister, was going to rehearse Moscheles' E flat major Concerto. Schnabel, on seeing the newcomer, asked him to try the piano. Chopin sat down and played some variations which astonished and delighted the Capellmeister, who had not heard him for four years, so much that he overwhelmed him with expressions of admiration. As the poor amateur began to feel nervous, Chopin was pressed on all sides to take that gentleman's place in the evening. Although he had not practised for some weeks he consented, drove to the hotel, fetched the requisite music, rehearsed, and in the evening performed the Romanza and Rondo of his E minor Concerto and an improvisation on a theme from Auber's "La Muette" ("Masaniello"). At the rehearsal the "Germans" admired his playing; some of them he heard whispering "What a light touch he has!" but not a word was said about the composition. The amateurs did not know whether it was good or bad. Titus Woyciechowski heard one of them say "No doubt he can play, but he can't compose." There was, however, one gentleman who praised the novelty of the form, and the composer naively declares that this was the person who understood him best. Speaking of the professional musicians, Chopin remarks that, with the exception of Schnabel, "the Germans" were at a loss what to think of him. The Polish peasants use the word "German" as an invective, believe that the devil speaks German and dresses in the German fashion, and refuse to take medicine because they hold it to be an invention of the Germans and, consequently, unfit for Christians. Although Chopin does not go so far, he is by no means free from this national antipathy. Let his susceptibility be ruffled by Germans, and you may be sure he will remember their nationality. Besides old Schnabel there was among the persons whose acquaintance Chopin made at Breslau only one other who interests us, and interests us more than that respectable composer of church music; and this one was the organist and composer Adolph Frederick Hesse, then a young man of Chopin's age. Before long the latter became better acquainted with him. In his account of his stay and playing in the Silesian capital, he says of him only that "the second local connoisseur, Hesse, who has travelled through the whole of Germany, paid me also compliments."

Chopin continued his journey on November 10, and on November 12 had already plunged into Dresden life. Two features of this, in some respects quite unique, life cannot but have been particularly attractive to our traveller—namely, its Polish colony and the Italian opera. The former owed its origin to the connection of the house of Saxony with the crown of Poland; and the latter, which had been patronised by the Electors and Kings for hundreds of years, was not disbanded till 1832. In 1817, it is true, Weber, who had received a call for that purpose, founded a German opera at Dresden, but the Italian opera retained the favour of the Court and of a great part of the public, in fact, was the spoiled child that looked down upon her younger sister, poor Cinderella. Even a Weber had to fight hard to keep his own, indeed, sometimes failed to do so, in the rivalry with the ornatissimo Signore Cavaliere Morlacchi, primo maestro della capella Reale.

Chopin's first visit was to Miss Pechwell, through whom he got admission to a soiree at the house of Dr. Kreyssig, where she was going to play and the prima donna of the Italian opera to sing. Having carefully dressed, Chopin made his way to Dr. Kreyssig's in a sedan-chair. Being unaccustomed to this kind of conveyance he had a desire to kick out the bottom of the "curious but comfortable box," a temptation which he, however—to his honour be it recorded—resisted. On entering the salon he found there a great number of ladies sitting round eight large tables:—

The clicking of knitting-needles and the rattling of teacups were suddenly interrupted by the overture to the opera "Fra Diavolo," which was being played in an adjoining room. After the overture Signora Palazzesi sang "with a bell-like, magnificent voice, and great bravura." Chopin asked to be introduced to her. He made likewise the acquaintance of the old composer and conductor Vincent Rastrelli, who introduced him to a brother of the celebrated tenor Rubini.

At the Roman Catholic church, the Court Church, Chopin met Morlacchi, and heard a mass by that excellent artist. The Neapolitan sopranists Sassaroli and Tarquinio sang, and the "incomparable Rolla" played the solo violin. On another occasion he heard a clever but dry mass by Baron von Miltitz, which was performed under the direction of Morlacchi, and in which the celebrated violoncello virtuosos Dotzauer and Kummer played their solos beautifully, and the voices of Sassaroli, Muschetti, Babnigg, and Zezi were heard to advantage. The theatre was, as usual, assiduously frequented by Chopin. After the above-mentioned soiree he hastened to hear at least the last act of "Die Stumme von Portici" ("Masaniello"). Of the performance of Rossini's "Tancredi," which he witnessed on another evening, he praised only the wonderful violin playing of Rolla and the singing of Mdlle. Hahnel, a lady from the Vienna Court Theatre. Rossini's "La Donna del lago," in Italian, is mentioned among the operas about to be performed. What a strange anomaly, that in the year 1830 a state of matters such as is indicated by these names and facts could still obtain in Dresden, one of the capitals of musical Germany! It is emphatically a curiosity of history.

Chopin, who came to Rolla with a letter of introduction from Soliva, was received by the Italian violinist with great friendliness. Indeed, kindness was showered upon him from all sides. Rubini promised him a letter of introduction to his brother in Milan, Rolla one to the director of the opera there, and Princess Augusta, the daughter of the late king, and Princess Maximiliana, the sister-in-law of the reigning king, provided him with letters for the Queen of Naples, the Duchess of Lucca, the Vice-Queen of Milan, and Princess Ulasino in Rome. He had met the princesses and played to them at the house of the Countess Dobrzycka, Oberhofmeisterin of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the late king, Frederick Augustus.

The name of the Oberhofmeisterin brings us to the Polish society of Dresden, into which Chopin seems to have found his way at once. Already two days after his arrival he writes of a party of Poles with whom he had dined. At the house of Mdme. Pruszak he made the acquaintance of no less a person than General Kniaziewicz, who took part in the defence of Warsaw, commanded the left wing in the battle of Maciejowice (1794), and joined Napoleon's Polish legion in 1796. Chopin wrote home: "I have pleased him very much; he said that no pianist had made so agreeable an impression on him."

To judge from the tone of Chopin's letters, none of all the people he came in contact with gained his affection in so high a degree as did Klengel, whom he calls "my dear Klengel," and of whom he says that he esteems him very highly, and loves him as if he had known him from his earliest youth. "I like to converse with him, for from him something is to be learned." The great contrapuntist seems to have reciprocated this affection, at any rate he took a great interest in his young friend, wished to see the scores of his concertos, went without Chopin's knowledge to Morlacchi and to the intendant of the theatre to try if a concert could not be arranged within four days, told him that his playing reminded him of Field's, that his touch was of a peculiar kind, and that he had not expected to find him such a virtuoso. Although Chopin replied, when Klengel advised him to give a concert, that his stay in Dresden was too short to admit of his doing so, and thought himself that he could earn there neither much fame nor much money, he nevertheless was not a little pleased that this excellent artist had taken some trouble in attempting to smooth the way for a concert, and to hear from him that this had been done not for Chopin's but for Dresden's sake; our friend, be it noted, was by no means callous to flattery. Klengel took him also to a soiree at the house of Madame Niesiolawska, a Polish lady, and at supper proposed his health, which was drunk in champagne.

There is a passage in one of Chopin's letters which I must quote; it tells us something of his artistic taste outside his own art:—

Thus our friend spent a week right pleasantly and not altogether unprofitably in the Saxon Athens, and spent it so busily that what with visits, dinners, soirees, operas, and other amusements, he leaving his hotel early in the morning and returning late at night, it passed away he did not know how.

Chopin, who made also a short stay in Prague—of which visit, however, we have no account—arrived in Vienna in the latter part of November, 1830. His intention was to give some concerts, and to proceed in a month or two to Italy. How the execution of this plan was prevented by various circumstances we shall see presently. Chopin flattered himself with the belief that managers, publishers, artists, and the public in general were impatiently awaiting his coming, and ready to receive him with open arms. This, however, was an illusion. He overrated his success. His playing at the two "Academies" in the dead season must have remained unnoticed by many, and was probably forgotten by not a few who did notice it. To talk, therefore, about forging the iron while it was hot proved a misconception of the actual state of matters. It is true his playing and compositions had made a certain impression, especially upon some of the musicians who had heard him. But artists, even when free from hostile jealousy, are far too much occupied with their own interests to be helpful in pushing on their younger brethren. As to publishers and managers, they care only for marketable articles, and until an article has got a reputation its marketable value is very small. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand judge by names and not by intrinsic worth. Suppose a hitherto unknown statue of Phidias, a painting of Raphael, a symphony of Beethoven, were discovered and introduced to the public as the works of unknown living artists, do you think they would receive the same universal admiration as the known works of the immortal masters? Not at all! By a very large majority of the connoisseurs and pretended connoisseurs they would be criticised, depreciated, or ignored. Let, however, the real names of the authors become known, and the whole world will forthwith be thrown into ecstasy, and see in them even more beauties than they really possess. Well, the first business of an artist, then, is to make himself a reputation, and a reputation is not made by one or two successes. A first success, be it ever so great, and achieved under ever so favourable circumstances, is at best but the thin end of the wedge which has been got in, but which has to be driven home with much vigour and perseverance before the work is done. "Art is a fight, not a pleasure-trip," said the French painter Millet, one who had learnt the lesson in the severe school of experience. Unfortunately for Chopin, he had neither the stuff nor the stomach for fighting. He shrank back at the slightest touch like a sensitive plant. He could only thrive in the sunshine of prosperity and protected against all those inimical influences and obstacles that cause hardier natures to put forth their strength, and indeed are necessary for the full unfolding of all their capabilities. Chopin and Titus Woyciechowski put up at the hotel Stadt London, but, finding the charges too high, they decamped and stayed at the hotel Goldenes Lamm till the lodgings which they had taken were evacuated by the English admiral then in possession of them. From Chopin's first letter after his arrival in the Austrian capital his parents had the satisfaction of learning that their son was in excellent spirits, and that his appetite left nothing to be desired, especially when sharpened by good news from home. In his perambulations he took particular note of the charming Viennese girls, and at the Wilde Mann, where he was in the habit of dining, he enjoyed immensely a dish of Strudeln. The only drawback to the blissfulness of his then existence was a swollen nose, caused by the change of air, a circumstance which interfered somewhat with his visiting operations. He was generally well received by those on whom he called with letters of introduction. In one of the two exceptional cases he let it be understood that, having a letter of introduction from the Grand Duke Constantine to the Russian Ambassador, he was not so insignificant a person as to require the patronage of a banker; and in the other case he comforted himself with the thought that a time would come when things would be changed.

In the letter above alluded to (December 1, 1830) Chopin speaks of one of the projected concerts as if it were to take place shortly; that is to say, he is confident that, such being his pleasure, this will be the natural course of events. His Warsaw acquaintance Orlowski, the perpetrator of mazurkas on his concerto themes, was accompanying the violinist Lafont on a concert-tour. Chopin does not envy him the honour:—

Wurfel has conversations with him about the arrangements for a concert, and Graff, the pianoforte-maker, advises him to give it in the Landstandische Saal, the finest and most convenient hall in Vienna. Chopin even asks his people which of his Concertos he should play, the one in F or the one in E minor. But disappointments were not long in coming. One of his first visits was to Haslinger, the publisher of the Variations on "La ci darem la mano," to whom he had sent also a sonata and another set of variations. Haslinger received him very kindly, but would print neither the one nor the other work. No wonder the composer thought the cunning publisher wished to induce him in a polite and artful way to let him have his compositions gratis. For had not Wurfel told him that his Concerto in F minor was better than Hummel's in A flat, which Haslinger had just published, and had not Klengel at Dresden been surprised to hear that he had received no payment for the Variations? But Chopin will make Haslinger repent of it. "Perhaps he thinks that if he treats my compositions somewhat en bagatelle, I shall be glad if only he prints them; but henceforth nothing will be got from me gratis; my motto will be 'Pay, animal!'" But evidently the animal wouldn't pay, and in fact did not print the compositions till after Chopin's death. So, unless the firm of Haslinger mentioned that he will call on him as soon as he has a room wherein he can receive a visit in return, the name of Lachner does not reappear in the correspondence.

In the management of the Karnthnerthor Theatre, Louis Duport had succeeded, on September 1, 1830, Count Gallenberg, whom severe losses obliged to relinquish a ten years' contract after the lapse of less than two years. Chopin was introduced to the new manager by Hummel.

But the niggardly manager offered him nothing at all, and Chopin did not give a concert either in the Redoutensaal or elsewhere, at least not for a long time. Chopin's last-quoted remark is difficult to reconcile with what he tells his friend Matuszyriski four days later: "I have no longer any thought of giving a concert." In a letter to Elsner, dated January 26, 1831, he writes:—

It would, however, be a great mistake to ascribe the failure of Chopin's projects solely to the adverse circumstances pointed out by him. The chief causes lay in himself. They were his want of energy and of decision, constitutional defects which were of course intensified by the disappointment of finding indifference and obstruction where he expected enthusiasm and furtherance, and by the outbreak of the revolution in Poland (November 30, 1830), which made him tremble for the safety of his beloved ones and the future of his country. In the letter from which I have last quoted Chopin, after remarking that he had postponed writing till he should be able to report some definite arrangement, proceeds to say:—

What affected Chopin most and made him feel lonely was the departure of his friend Woyciechowski, who on the first news of the insurrection returned to Poland and joined the insurgents. Chopin wished to do the same, but his parents advised him to stay where he was, telling him that he was not strong enough to bear the fatigues and hardships of a soldier's life. Nevertheless, when Woyciechowski was gone an irresistible home-sickness seized him, and, taking post-horses, he tried to overtake his friend and go with him. But after following him for some stages without making up to him, his resolution broke down, and he returned to Vienna. Chopin's characteristic irresolution shows itself again at this time very strikingly, indeed, his letters are full of expressions indicating and even confessing it. On December 21, 1830, he writes to his parents:—

And four days afterwards he writes to Matuszynski:—

Chopin's dearest wish was to be at home again. "How I should like to be in Warsaw!" he writes. But the fulfilment of this wish was out of the question, being against the desire of his parents, of whom especially the mother seems to have been glad that he did not execute his project of coming home.

The question whether he should go to Italy or to France was soon decided for him, for the suppressed but constantly-increasing commotion which had agitated the former country ever since the July revolution at last vented itself in a series of insurrections. Modena began on February 3,1831, Bologna, Ancona, Parma, and Rome followed. While the "where to go" was thus settled, the "when to go" remained an open question for many months to come. Meanwhile let us try to look a little deeper into the inner and outer life which Chopin lived at Vienna.

The biographical details of this period of Chopin's life have to be drawn almost wholly from his letters. These, however, must be judiciously used. Those addressed to his parents, important as they are, are only valuable with regard to the composer's outward life, and even as vehicles of such facts they are not altogether trustworthy, for it is always his endeavour to make his parents believe that he is well and cheery. Thus he writes, for instance, to his friend Matuszyriski, after pouring forth complaint after complaint:—"Tell my parents that I am very happy, that I am in want of nothing, that I amuse myself famously, and never feel lonely." Indeed, the Spectator's opinion that nothing discovers the true temper of a person so much as his letters, requires a good deal of limitation and qualification. Johnson's ideas on the same subject may be recommended as a corrective. He held that there was no transaction which offered stronger temptations to fallacy and sophistication than epistolary intercourse:—

These one-sided statements are open to much criticism, and would make an excellent theme for an essay. Here, however, we must content ourselves with simply pointing out that letters are not always calm and deliberate performances, but exhibit often the eagerness of conversation and the impulsiveness of passion. In Chopin's correspondence we find this not unfrequently exemplified. But to see it we must not turn to the letters addressed to his parents, to his master, and to his acquaintances—there we find little of the real man and his deeper feelings—but to those addressed to his bosom-friends, and among them there are none in which he shows himself more openly than in the two which he wrote on December 25, 1830, and January 1, 1831, to John Matuszynski. These letters are, indeed, such wonderful revelations of their writer's character that I should fail in my duty as his biographer were I to neglect to place before the reader copious extracts from them, in short, all those passages which throw light on the inner working of this interesting personality.

The disorder of the letters is indeed very striking; it is great in the foregoing extracts, and of course ten times greater with the interspersed descriptions, bits of news, and criticisms on music and musicians. I preferred separating the fundamental and always-recurring thoughts, the all-absorbing and predominating feelings, from the more superficial and passing fancies and affections, and all those matters which were to him, if not of total indifference, at least of comparatively little moment; because such a separation enables us to gain a clearer and fuller view of the inner man and to judge henceforth his actions and works with some degree of certainty, even where his own accounts and comments and those of trustworthy witnesses fail us. The psychological student need not be told to take note of the disorder in these two letters and of their length (written to the same person within less than a week, they fill nearly twelve printed pages in Karasowski's book), he will not be found neglecting such important indications of the temporary mood and the character of which it is a manifestation. And now let us take a glance at Chopin's outward life in Vienna.

I have already stated that Chopin and Woyciechowski lived together. Their lodgings, for which they had to pay their landlady, a baroness, fifty florins, were on the third story of a house in the Kohlmarkt, and consisted of three elegant rooms. When his friend left, Chopin thought the rent too high for his purse, and as an English family was willing to pay as much as eighty florins, he sublet the rooms and removed to the fourth story, where he found in the Baroness von Lachmanowicz an agreeable young landlady, and had equally roomy apartments which cost him only twenty florins and pleased him quite well. The house was favourably situated, Mechetti being on the right, Artaria on the left, and the opera behind; and as people were not deterred by the high stairs from visiting him, not even old Count Hussarzewski, and a good profit would accrue to him from those eighty florins, he could afford to laugh at theprobable dismay of his friends picturing him as "a poor devil living in a garret," and could do so the more heartily as there was in reality another story between him and the roof. He gives his people a very pretty description of his lodgings and mode of life:—

If is evident that there was no occasion to fear that Chopin would kill himself with too hard work. Indeed, the number of friends, or, not to misuse this sacred name, let us rather say acquaintances, he had, did not allow him much time for study and composition. In his letters from Vienna are mentioned more than forty names of families and single individuals with whom he had personal intercourse. I need hardly add that among them there was a considerable sprinkling of Poles. Indeed, the majority of the houses where he was oftenest seen, and where he felt most happy, were those of his countrymen, or those in which there was at least some Polish member, or which had some Polish connection. Already on December 1, 1830, he writes home that he had been several times at Count Hussarzewski's, and purposes to pay a visit at Countess Rosalia Rzewuska's, where he expects to meet Madame Cibbini, the daughter of Leopold Kozeluch and a pupil of Clementi, known as a pianist and composer, to whom Moscheles dedicated a sonata for four hands, and who at that time was first lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Austria. Chopin had likewise called twice at Madame Weyberheim's. This lady, who was a sister of Madame Wolf and the wife of a rich banker, invited him to a soiree "en petit cercle des amateurs," and some weeks later to a soiree dansante, on which occasion he saw "many young people, beautiful, but not antique [that is to say not of the Old Testament kind], "refused to play, although the lady of the house and her beautiful daughters had invited many musical personages, was forced to dance a cotillon, made some rounds, and then went home. In the house of the family Beyer (where the husband was a Pole of Odessa, and the wife, likewise Polish, bore the fascinating Christian name Constantia—the reader will remember her) Chopin felt soon at his ease. There he liked to dine, sup, lounge, chat, play, dance mazurkas, &c. He often met there the violinist Slavik, and the day before Christmas played with him all the morning and evening, another day staying with him there till two o'clock in the morning. We hear also of dinners at the house of his countrywoman Madame Elkan, and at Madame Schaschek's, where (he writes in July, 1831) he usually met several Polish ladies, who by their hearty hopeful words always cheered him, and where he once made his appearance at four instead of the appointed dinner hour, two o'clock. But one of his best friends was the medical celebrity Dr. Malfatti, physician-in-ordinary to the Emperor of Austria, better remembered by the musical reader as the friend of Beethoven, whom he attended in his last illness, forgetting what causes for complaint he might have against the too irritable master. Well, this Dr. Malfatti received Chopin, of whom he had already heard from Wladyslaw Ostrowski, "as heartily as if I had been a relation of his" (Chopin uses here a very bold simile), running up to him and embracing him as soon as he had got sight of his visiting-card. Chopin became a frequent guest at the doctor's house; in his letters we come often on the announcement that he has dined or is going to dine on such or such a day at Dr. Malfatti's.

To this he adds the note:—

Here Chopin is seen at his best as a letter writer; it would be difficult to find other passages of equal excellence. For, although we meet frequently enough with isolated pretty bits, there is not one single letter which, from beginning to end, as a whole as well as in its parts, has the perfection and charm of Mendelssohn's letters.