1831-1832.

ACQUAINTANCES AND FRIENDS: CHERUBINI, BAILLOT, FRANCHOMME, LISZT, MILLER, OSBORNE, MENDELSSOHN.—CHOPIN AND KALKBRENNER.—CHOPIN'S AIMS AS AN ARTIST.—KALKBRENNER'S CHARACTER AS A MAN AND ARTIST.—CHOPIN'S FIRST PARIS CONCERT.—FETIS.—CHOPIN PLAYS AT A CONCERT GIVEN BY THE PRINCE DE LA MOSKOWA.—HIS STATE OF MIND.—LOSS OF HIS POLISH LETTERS.—TEMPORARILY STRAITENED CIRCUMSTANCES AND BRIGHTENING PROSPECTS.—PATRONS AND WELL-WISHERS.—THE "IDEAL."—A LETTER TO HILLER.

Chopin brought only a few letters of introduction with him to Paris: one from Dr. Malfatti to Paer, and some from others to music-publishers. Through Paer he was made acquainted with Cherubini, Rossini, Baillot, and Kalkbrenner. Although Chopin in one of his early Paris letters calls Cherubini a mummy, he seems to have subsequently been more favourably impressed by him. At any rate, Ferdinand Hiller—who may have accompanied the new-comer, if he did not, as he thinks he did, introduce him, which is not reconcilable with his friend's statement that Paer made him acquainted with Cherubini—told me that Chopin conceived a liking for the burbero maestro, of whom Mendelssohn remarked that he composed everything with his head without the help of his heart.

As evidence of the younger master's respect for the older one may be adduced a copy made by Chopin of one of Cherubini's fugues. This manuscript, which I saw in the possession of M. Franchomme, is a miracle of penmanship, and surpasses in neatness and minuteness everything I have seen of Chopin's writing, which is always microscopic.

From Dr. Hiller I learnt also that Chopin went frequently to Baillot's house. It is very probable that he was present at the soirees which Mendelssohn describes with his usual charming ease in his Paris letters. Baillot, though a man of sixty, still knew how to win the admiration of the best musicians by his fine, expressive violin-playing. Chopin writes in a letter to Elsner that Baillot was very amiable towards him, and had promised to take part with him in a quintet of Beethoven's at his concert; and in another letter Chopin calls Baillot "the rival of Paganini."

As far as I can learn there was not much intercourse between Chopin and Rossini. Of Kalkbrenner I shall have presently to speak at some length; first, however, I shall say a few words about some of the most interesting young artists whose acquaintance Chopin made.

One of these young artists was the famous violoncellist Franchomme, who told me that it was Hiller who first spoke to him of the young Pole and his unique compositions and playing. Soon after this conversation, and not long after the new-comer's arrival in Paris, Chopin, Liszt, Hiller, and Franchomme dined together. When the party broke up, Chopin asked Franchomme what he was going to do. Franchomme replied he had no particular engagement. "Then," said Chopin, "come with me and spend an hour or two at my lodgings." "Well," was the answer of Franchomme, "but if I do you will have to play to me." Chopin had no objection, and the two walked off together. Franchomme thought that Chopin was at that time staying at an hotel in the Rue Bergere. Be this as it may, the young Pole played as he had promised, and the young Frenchman understood him at once. This first meeting was the beginning of a life-long friendship, a friendship such as is rarely to be met with among the fashionable musicians of populous cities.

Mendelssohn, who came to Paris early in December, 1831, and stayed there till about the middle of April, 1832, associated a good deal with this set of striving artists. The diminutive "Chopinetto," which he makes use of in his letters to Hiller, indicates not only Chopin's delicate constitution of body and mind and social amiability, but also Mendelssohn's kindly feeling for him. [Footnote: Chopin is not mentioned in any of Mendelssohn's Paris letters. But the following words may refer to him; for although Mendelssohn did not play at Chopin's concert, there may have been some talk of his doing so. January 14, 1832: "Next week a Pole gives a concert; in it I have to play a piece for six performers with Kalkbrenner, Hiller and Co." Osborne related in his "Reminiscences of Frederick Chopin," a paper read before a meeting of the Musical Association (April 5, 1880), that he, Chopin, Hiller, and Mendelssohn, during the latter's stay in Paris, frequently dined together at a restaurant. They ordered and paid the dinner in turn. One evening at dessert they had a very animated conversation about authors and their manuscripts. When they were ready to leave Osborne called the waiter, but instead of asking for la note a payer, he said "Garcon, apportez-moi votre manuscrit." This sally of the mercurial Irishman was received with hearty laughter, Chopin especially being much tickled by the profanation of the word so sacred to authors. From the same source we learn also that Chopin took delight in repeating the criticisms on his performances which he at one time or other had chanced to overhear.

Not the least interesting and significant incident in Chopin's life was his first meeting and early connection with Kalkbrenner, who at that time—when Liszt and Thalberg had not yet taken possession of the commanding positions they afterwards occupied—enjoyed the most brilliant reputation of all the pianists then living. On December 16, 1831, Chopin writes to his friend Woyciechowski:—

Elsner expressed his astonishment that Kalkbrenner should require three years to reveal to Chopin the secrets of his art, and advised his former pupil not to confine the exercise of his musical talent to pianoforte-playing and the composition of pianoforte music. Chopin replies to this in a letter written on December 14, 1831, as follows:—

After describing the difficulties which lie in the way of the opera composer, he proceeds:—

This is one of the most important letters we have of Chopin; it brings before us, not the sighing lover, the sentimental friend, but the courageous artist. On no other occasion did he write so freely and fully of his views and aims. What heroic self-confidence, noble resolves, vast projects, flattering dreams! And how sad to think that most of them were doomed to end in failure and disappointment! But few are the lives of true artists that can really be called happy! Even the most successful have, in view of the ideally conceived, to deplore the quantitative and qualitative shortcomings of the actually accomplished. But to return to Kalkbrenner. Of him Chopin said truly that he was not a popular man; at any rate, he was not a popular man with the romanticists. Hiller tells us in his "Recollections and Letters of Mendelssohn" how little grateful he and his friends, Mendelssohn included, were for Kalkbrenner's civilities, and what a wicked pleasure they took in worrying him. Sitting one day in front of a cafe on the Boulevard des Italiens, Hiller, Liszt, and Chopin saw the prim master advancing, and knowing how disagreeable it would be to him to meet such a noisy company, they surrounded him in the friendliest manner, and assailed him with such a volley of talk that he was nearly driven to despair, which, adds Hiller, "of course delighted us." It must be confessed that the great Kalkbrenner, as M. Marmontel in his "Pianistes celebres" remarks, had "certaines etroitesses de caractere," and these "narrownesses" were of a kind that particularly provokes the ridicule of unconventional and irreverent minds. Heine is never more biting than when he speaks of Kalkbrenner. He calls him a mummy, and describes him as being dead long ago and having lately also married. This, however, was some years after the time we are speaking of. On another occasion Heine writes that Kalkbrenner is envied

A thorough belief in and an unlimited admiration of himself form the centre of gravity upon which the other qualities of Kalkbrenner's character balance themselves. He prided himself on being the pattern of a fine gentleman, and took upon him to teach even his oldest friends how to conduct themselves in society and at table. In his gait he was dignified, in his manners ceremonious, and in his speech excessively polite. He was addicted to boasting of honours offered him by the King, and of his intimacy with the highest aristocracy. That he did not despise popularity with the lower strata of society is evidenced by the anecdote (which the virtuoso is credited with having told himself to his guests) of the fish-wife who, on reading his card, timidly asks him to accept as a homage to the great Kalkbrenner a splendid fish which he had selected for his table. The artist was the counterpart of the man. He considered every success as by right his due, and recognised merit only in those who were formed on his method or at least acknowledged its superiority. His artistic style was a chastened reflex of his social demeanour.

It is difficult to understand how the Kalkbrenner-Chopin affair could be so often misrepresented, especially since we are in possession of Chopin's clear statements of the facts. [FOOTNOTE: Statements which are by no means invalidated by the following statement of Lenz:—"On my asking Chopin 'whether Kalkbrenner had understood much about it' [i.e. the art of pianoforte-playing], followed the answer: 'It was at the beginning of my stay in Paris.'"]. There are no grounds whatever to justify the assumption that Kalkbrenner was actuated by jealousy, artfulness, or the like, when he proposed that the wonderfully-gifted and developed Chopin should become his pupil for three years. His conceit of himself and his method account fully for the strangeness of the proposal. Moreover, three years was the regulation time of Kalkbrenner's course, and it was much that he was willing to shorten it in the case of Chopin. Karasowski, speaking as if he had the gift of reading the inmost thoughts of men, remarks: "Chopin did not suspect what was passing in Kalkbrenner's mind when he was playing to him." After all, I should like to ask, is there anything surprising in the fact that the admired virtuoso and author of a "Methode pour apprendre le Piano a l'aide du Guide-mains; contenant les principes de musique; un systems complet de doigter; des regles sur l'expression," &c., found fault with Chopin's strange fingering and unconventional style? Kalkbrenner could not imagine anything superior to his own method, anything finer than his own style. And this inability to admit the meritoriousness or even the legitimacy of anything that differed from what he was accustomed to, was not at all peculiar to this great pianist; we see it every day in men greatly his inferiors. Kalkbrenner's lament that when he ceased to play there would be no representative left of the grand pianoforte school ought to call forth our sympathy. Surely we cannot blame him for wishing to perpetuate what he held to be unsurpassable! According to Hiller, Chopin went a few times to the class of advanced pupils which Kalkbrenner had advised him to attend, as he wished to see what the thing was like. Mendelssohn, who had a great opinion of Chopin and the reverse of Kalkbrenner, was furious when he heard of this. But were Chopin's friends correct in saying that he played better than Kalkbrenner, and could learn nothing from him? That Chopin played better than Kalkbrenner was no doubt true, if we consider the emotional and intellectual qualities of their playing. But I think it was not correct to say that Chopin could learn nothing from the older master. Chopin was not only a better judge of Kalkbrenner than his friends, who had only sharp eyes for his short-comings, and overlooked or undervalued his good qualities, but he was also a better judge of himself and his own requirements. He had an ideal in his mind, and he thought that Kalkbrenner's teaching would help him to realise it. Then there is also this to be considered: unconnected with any school, at no time guided by a great master of the instrument, and left to his own devices at a very early age, Chopin found himself, as it were, floating free in the air without a base to stand on, without a pillar to lean against. The consequent feeling of isolation inspires at times even the strongest and most independent self-taught man—and Chopin, as a pianist, may almost be called one—with distrust in the adequacy of his self-acquired attainments, and an exaggerated idea of the advantages of a school education. "I cannot create a new school, because I do not even know the old one." This may or may not be bad reasoning, but it shows the attitude of Chopin's mind. It is also possible that he may have felt the inadequacy and inappropriateness of his technique and style for other than his own compositions. And many facts in the history of his career as an executant would seem to confirm the correctness of such a feeling. At any rate, after what we have read we cannot attribute his intention of studying under Kalkbrenner to undue self-depreciation. For did he not consider his own playing as good as that of Herz, and feel that he had in him the stuff to found a new era in music? But what was it then that attracted him to Kalkbrenner, and made him exalt this pianist above all the pianists he had heard? If the reader will recall to mind what I said in speaking of Mdlles. Sontag and Belleville of Chopin's love of beauty of tone, elegance, and neatness, he cannot be surprised at the young pianist's estimate of the virtuoso of whom Riehl says: "The essence of his nature was what the philologists call elegantia—he spoke the purest Ciceronian Latin on the piano." As a knowledge of Kalkbrenner's artistic personality will help to further our acquaintance with Chopin, and as our knowledge of it is for the most part derived from the libels and caricatures of well-intentioned critics, who in their zeal for a nobler and more glorious art overshoot the mark of truth, it will be worth our while to make inquiries regarding it.

Kalkbrenner may not inaptly be called the Delille of pianist-composers, for his nature and fate remind us somewhat of the poet. As to his works, although none of them possessed stamina enough to be long-lived, they would have insured him a fairer reputation if he had not published so many that were written merely for the market. Even Schumann confessed to having in his younger days heard and played Kalkbrenner's music often and with pleasure, and at a maturer age continued to acknowledge not only the master's natural virtuoso amiability and clever manner of writing effectively for fingers and hands, but also the genuinely musical qualities of his better works, of which he held the Concerto in D minor to be the "bloom," and remarks that it shows the "bright sides" of Kalkbrenner's "pleasing talent." We are, however, here more concerned with the pianist than with the composer. One of the best sketches of Kalkbrenner as a pianist is to be found in a passage which I shall presently quote from M. Marmontel's collection of "Silhouettes et Medaillons" of "Les Pianistes celebres." The sketch is valuable on account of its being written by one who is himself a master, one who does not speak from mere hearsay, and who, whilst regarding Kalkbrenner as an exceptional virtuoso, the continuator of Clementi, the founder ("one of the founders" would be more correct) of modern pianoforte-playing, and approving of the leading principle of his method, which aims at the perfect independence of the fingers and their preponderant action, does not hesitate to blame the exclusion of the action of the wrist, forearm, and arm, of which the executant should not deprive himself "dans les accents de legerete, d'expression et de force." But here is what M. Marmontel says:—

We now know what Chopin meant when he described Kalkbrenner as "perfect and possessed of something that raised him above all other virtuosos"; we now know also that Chopin's admiration was characteristic and not misplaced. Nevertheless, nobody will think for a moment of disagreeing with those who advised Chopin not to become a pupil of this master, who always exacted absolute submission to his precepts; for it was to be feared that he would pay too dear for the gain of inferior accomplishments with the loss of his invaluable originality. But, as we have seen, the affair came to nothing, Chopin ceasing to attend the classes after a few visits. What no doubt influenced his final decision more than the advice of his friends was the success which his playing and compositions met with at the concert of which I have now to tell the history. Chopin's desertion as a pupil did not terminate the friendly relation that existed between the two artists. When Chopin published his E minor Concerto he dedicated it to Kalkbrenner, and the latter soon after composed "Variations brillantes (Op. 120) pour le piano sur une Mazourka de Chopin," and often improvised on his young brother-artist's mazurkas. Chopin's friendship with Camille Pleyel helped no doubt to keep up his intercourse with Kalkbrenner, who was a partner of the firm of Pleyel & Co.

The arrangements for his concert gave Chopin much trouble, and had they not been taken in hand by Paer, Kalkbrenner, and especially Norblin, he would not have been able to do anything in Paris, where one required at least two months to get up a concert. This is what Chopin tells Elsner in the letter dated December 14, 1831. Notwithstanding such powerful assistance he did not succeed in giving his concert on the 25th of December, as he at first intended. The difficulty was to find a lady vocalist. Rossini, the director of the Italian Opera, was willing to help him, but Robert, the second director, refused to give permission to any of the singers in his company to perform at the concert, fearing that, if he did so once, there would be no end of applications. As Veron, the director of the Academie Royale likewise refused Chopin's request, the concert had to be put off till the 15th of January, 1832, when, however, on account of Kalkbrenner's illness or for some other reason, it had again to be postponed. At last it came off on February 26, 1832. Chopin writes on December 16, 1831, about the arrangements for the concert:—

The singers of the evening were Mdlles. Isambert and Tomeoni, and M. Boulanger. I have not been able to discover the programme of the concert. Hiller says that Chopin played his E minor Concerto and some of his mazurkas and nocturnes. Fetis, in the Revue musicale (March 3, 1832), mentions only in a general way that there were performed a concerto by Chopin, a composition for six pianos by Kalkbrenner, some vocal pieces, an oboe solo, and "a quintet for violin [sic], executed with that energy of feeling and that variety of inspiration which distinguish the talent of M. Baillot." The concert, which took place in Pleyel's rooms, was financially a failure; the receipts did not cover the expenses. The audience consisted chiefly of Poles, and most of the French present had free tickets. Hiller says that all the musical celebrities of Paris were there, and that Chopin's performances took everybody by storm. "After this," he adds, "nothing more was heard of want of technique, and Mendelssohn applauded triumphantly." Fetis describes this soiree musicale as one of the most pleasant that had been given that year. His criticism contains such interesting and, on the whole, such excellent remarks that I cannot resist the temptation to quote the more remarkable passages:—

Of Chopin's concerto Fetis remarks that it:—

Of course dissentient voices made themselves heard who objected to this and that; but an overwhelming majority, to which belonged the young artists, pronounced in favour of Chopin. Liszt says that he remembers his friend's debut:—

The concluding remark of the above-quoted criticism furnishes an additional proof that Chopin went for some time to Kalkbrenner's class. As Fetis and Chopin were acquainted with each other, we may suppose that the former was well informed on this point. In passing, we may take note of Chopin's account of the famous historian and theorist's early struggles:—

On May 20, 1832, less than three months after his first concert, Chopin made his second public appearance in Paris, at a concert given by the Prince de la Moskowa for the benefit of the poor. Among the works performed was a mass composed by the Prince. Chopin played the first movement of:—

The great attraction of the evening was not Chopin, but Brod, who "enraptured" the audience. Indeed, there were few virtuosos who were as great favourites as this oboe-player; his name was absent from the programme of hardly any concert of note.

In passing we will note some other musical events of interest which occurred about the same time that Chopin made his debut. On March 18 Mendelssohn played Beethoven's G major Concerto with great success at one of the Conservatoire concerts, [FOOTNOTE: It was the first performance of this work in Paris.] the younger master's overture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream" had been heard and well received at the same institution in the preceding month, and somewhat later his "Reformation Symphony" was rehearsed, but laid aside. In the middle of March Paganini, who had lately arrived, gave the first of a series of concerts, with what success it is unnecessary to say. Of Chopin's intercourse with Zimmermann, the distinguished pianoforte-professor at the Conservatoire, and his family we learn from M. Marmontel, who was introduced to Chopin and Liszt, and heard them play in 1832 at one of his master's brilliant musical fetes, and gives a charming description of the more social and intimate parties at which Chopin seems to have been occasionally present.

The preceding chapter and the foregoing part of this chapter set forth the most important facts of Chopin's social and artistic life in his early Paris days. The following extract from a letter of his to Titus Woyciechowski, dated December 25, 1831, reveals to us something of his inward life, the gloom of which contrasts violently with the outward brightness:—

In the postscript of this letter Chopin's light fancy gets the better of his heavy heart; in it all is fun and gaiety. First he tells his friend of a pretty neighbour whose husband is out all day and who often invites him to visit and comfort her. But the blandishments of the fair one were of no avail; he had no taste for adventures, and, moreover, was afraid to be caught and beaten by the said husband. A second love-story is told at greater length. The dramatis personae are Chopin, John Peter Pixis, and Francilla Pixis, a beautiful girl of sixteen, a German orphan whom the pianist-composer, then a man of about forty-three, had adopted, and who afterwards became known as a much-admired singer. Chopin made their acquaintance in Stuttgart, and remarks that Pixis said that he intended to marry her. On his return to Paris Pixis invited Chopin to visit him; the latter, who had by this time forgotten pretty Francilla, was in no hurry to call. What follows must be given in Chopin's own words:—

The letters which Chopin wrote to his parents from Paris passed, after his mother's death, into the hands of his sister, who preserved them till September 19, 1863. On that day the house in which she lived in Warsaw—a shot having been fired and some bombs thrown from an upper story of it when General Berg and his escort were passing—was sacked by Russian soldiers, who burned or otherwise destroyed all they could lay hands on, among the rest Chopin's letters, his portrait by Ary Scheffer, the Buchholtz piano on which he had made his first studies, and other relics. We have now also exhausted, at least very nearly exhausted, Chopin's extant correspondence with his most intimate Polish friends, Matuszynski and Woyciechowski, only two unimportant letters written in 1849 and addressed to the latter remaining yet to be mentioned. That the confidential correspondence begins to fail us at this period (the last letter is of December 25, 1831) is particularly inopportune; a series of letters like those he wrote from Vienna would have furnished us with the materials for a thoroughly trustworthy history of his settlement in Paris, over which now hangs a mythical haze. Karasowski, who saw the lost letters, says they were tinged with melancholy.

Besides the thought of his unhappy country, a thought constantly kept alive by the Polish refugees with whom Paris was swarming, Chopin had another more prosaic but not less potent cause of disquietude and sadness. His pecuniary circumstances were by no means brilliant. Economy cannot fill a slender purse, still less can a badly-attended concert do so, and Chopin was loath to be a burden on his parents who, although in easy circumstances, were not wealthy, and whose income must have been considerably lessened by some of the consequences of the insurrection, such as the closing of schools, general scarcity of money, and so forth. Nor was Paris in 1831, when people were so busy with politics, El Dorado for musicians. Of the latter, Mendelssohn wrote at the time that they did not, like other people, wrangle about politics, but lamented over them. "One has lost his place, another his title, and a third his money, and they say this all proceeds from the 'juste milieu.'" As Chopin saw no prospect of success in Paris he began to think, like others of his countrymen, of going to America. His parents, however, were against this project, and advised him either to stay where he was and wait for better things, or to return to Warsaw. Although he might fear annoyances from the Russian government on account of his not renewing his passport before the expiration of the time for which it was granted, he chose the latter alternative. Destiny, however, had decided the matter otherwise.[FOOTNOTE: Karasowski says that Liszt, Hiller, and Sowinski dissuaded him from leaving Paris. Liszt and Hiller both told me, and so did also Franchomme, that they knew nothing of Chopin having had any such intention; and Sowinski does not mention the circumstance in his Musiciens polonais.] One day, or, as some will have it, on the very day when he was preparing for his departure, Chopin met in the street Prince Valentine Radziwill, and, in the course of the conversation which the latter opened, informed him of his intention of leaving Paris. The Prince, thinking, no doubt, of the responsibility he would incur by doing so, did not attempt to dissuade him, but engaged the artist to go with him in the evening to Rothschild's. Chopin, who of course was asked by the hostess to play something, charmed by his wonderful performance, and no doubt also by his refined manners, the brilliant company assembled there to such a degree that he carried off not only a plentiful harvest of praise and compliments, but also some offers of pupils. Supposing the story to be true, we could easily believe that this soiree was the turning-point in Chopin's career, but nevertheless might hesitate to assert that it changed his position "as if by enchantment." I said "supposing the story to be true," because, although it has been reported that Chopin was fond of alluding to this incident, his best friends seem to know nothing of it: Liszt does not mention it, Hiller and Franchomme told me they never heard of it, and notwithstanding Karasowski's contrary statement there is nothing to be found about it in Sowinski's Musiciens polonais. Still, the story may have a substratum of truth, to arrive at which it has only to be shorn of its poetical accessories and exaggerations, of which, however, there is little in my version.

But to whatever extent, or whether to any extent at all, this or any similar soiree may have served Chopin as a favourable introduction to a wider circle of admirers and patrons, and as a stepping-stone to success, his indebtedness to his countrymen, who from the very first befriended and encouraged him, ought not to be forgotten or passed over in silence for the sake of giving point to a pretty anecdote. The great majority of the Polish refugees then living in Paris would of course rather require than be able to afford help and furtherance, but there was also a not inconsiderable minority of persons of noble birth and great wealth whose patronage and influence could not but be of immense advantage to a struggling artist. According to Liszt, Chopin was on intimate terms with the inmates of the Hotel Lambert, where old Prince Adam Czartoryski and his wife and daughter gathered around them "les debris de la Pologne que la derniere guerre avait jetes au loin." Of the family of Count Plater and other compatriots with whom the composer had friendly intercourse we shall speak farther on. Chopin's friends were not remiss in exerting themselves to procure him pupils and good fees at the same time. They told all inquirers that he gave no lesson for less than twenty francs, although he had expressed his willingness to be at first satisfied with more modest terms. Chopin had neither to wait in vain nor to wait long, for in about a year's time he could boast of a goodly number of pupils.

The reader must have noticed with surprise the absence of any mention of the "Ideal" from Chopin's letters to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, to whom the love-sick artist was wont to write so voluminously on this theme. How is this strange silence to be accounted for? Surely this passionate lover could not have forgotten her beneath whose feet he wished his ashes to be spread after his death? But perhaps in the end of 1831 he had already learnt what was going to happen in the following year. The sad fact has to be told: inconstant Constantia Gladkowska married a merchant of the name of Joseph Grabowski, at Warsaw, in 1832; this at least is the information given in Sowinski's biographical dictionary Les musiciens polonais et slaves.[FOOTNOTE: According to Count Wodzinski she married a country gentleman, and subsequently became blind.] As the circumstances of the case and the motives of the parties are unknown to me, and as a biographer ought not to take the same liberties as a novelist, I shall neither expatiate on the fickleness and mercenariness of woman, nor attempt to describe the feelings of our unfortunate hero robbed of his ideal, but leave the reader to make his own reflections and draw his own moral.

On August 2, 1832, Chopin wrote a letter to Hiller, who had gone in the spring of the year to Germany. What the young Pole thought of this German brother-artist may be gathered from some remarks of his in the letter to Titus Woyciechowski dated December 16, 1831:—

Since then the two had become more intimate, seeing each other almost every day, Chopin, as Osborne relates, being always in good spirits when Hiller was with him. The bearer of the said letter was Mr. Johns, to whom the five Mazurkas, Op. 7, are dedicated, and whom Chopin introduced to Hiller as "a distinguished amateur of New Orleans." After warmly recommending this gentleman, he excuses himself for not having acknowledged the receipt of his friend's letter, which procured him the pleasure of Paul Mendelssohn's acquaintance, and then proceeds:—