chapter I
alluded to a new element that entered into the life of Chopin and influenced his artistic work. The following words, addressed by the young composer on October 3, 1829, to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, will explain what kind of element it was and when it began to make itself felt:--
Do not imagine that [when I speak of the advantages and desirability of a stay in Vienua] I am thinking of Miss Blahetka, of whom I have written to you; I have--perhaps to my misfortune--already found my ideal, which I worship faithfully and sincerely. Six months have elapsed, and I have not yet exchanged a syllable with her of whom I dream every night. Whilst my thoughts were with her I composed the Adagio of my Concerto, and early this morning she inspired the Waltz which I send along with this letter.
The influence of the tender passion on the development of heart and mind cannot be rated too highly; it is in nine out of ten, if not in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases that which transforms the rhymer into a poet, the artificer into an artist. Chopin confesses his indebtedness to Constantia, Schumann his to Clara. But who could recount all the happy and hapless loves that have made poets? Countless is the number of those recorded in histories, biographies, and anecdotes; greater still the number of those buried in literature and art, the graves whence they rise again as flowers, matchless in beauty, unfading, and of sweetest perfume. Love is indeed the sun that by its warmth unfolds the multitudinous possibilities that lie hidden, often unsuspected, in the depths of the human soul. It was, then, according to Chopin, about April, 1829, that the mighty power began to stir within him; and the correspondence of the following two years shows us most strikingly how it takes hold of him with an ever-increasing firmness of grasp, and shakes the whole fabric of his delicate organisation with fearful violence. The object of Chopin's passion, the being whom he worshipped and in whom he saw the realisation of his ideal of womanhood, was Constantia Gladkowska, a pupil at the Warsaw Conservatorium, of whom the reader will learn more in the course of this and the next chapter.
What reveals perhaps more distinctly than anything else Chopin's idiosyncrasy is his friendship for Titus Woyciechowski. At any rate, it is no exaggeration to say that a knowledge of the nature of Chopin's two passions, his love and his friendship--for this, too, was a passion with him--gives into our hands a key that unlocks all the secrets of his character, of his life, and of their outcome--his artistic work. Nay more, with a full comprehension of, and insight into, these passions we can foresee the sufferings and disappointments which he is fated to endure. Chopin's friendship was not a common one; it was truly and in the highest degree romantic. To the sturdy Briton and gay Frenchman it must be incomprehensible, and the German of four or five generations ago would have understood it better than his descendant of to-day is likely to do. If we look for examples of such friendship in literature, we find the type nowhere so perfect as in the works of Jean Paul Richter. Indeed, there are many passages in the letters of the Polish composer that read like extracts from the German author: they remind us of the sentimental and other transcendentalisms of Siebenkas, Leibgeber, Walt, Vult, and others. There was somethine in Chopin's warm, tender, effusive friendship that may be best characterised by the word "feminine." Moreover, it was so exacting, or rather so covetous and jealous, that he had often occasion to chide, gently of course, the less caressing and enthusiastic Titus. Let me give some instances.
December 27th, 1828.--If I scribble to-day again so much nonsense, I do so only in order to remind you that you are as much locked in my heart as ever, and that I am the same Fred I was. You do not like to be kissed; but to-day you must permit me to do so.
The question of kissing is frequently brought up.
September 12th, 1829.--I embrace you heartily, and kiss you on your lips if you will permit me.
October 20th, 1829.--I embrace you heartily--many a one writes this at the end ol his letter, but most people do so with little thought of what they are writing. But you may believe me, my dearest friend, that I do so sincerely, as truly as my name is Fred.
September 4th, 1830.--Time passes, I must wash myself...do not kiss me now...but you would not kiss me in any case--even if I anointed myself with Byzantine oils--unless I forced you to do so by magnetic means.
Did we not know the writer and the person addressed, one might imagine that the two next extracts were written by a lover to his mistress or vice versa.
November 14th, 1829.--You, my dearest one, do not require my portrait. Believe me I am always with you, and shall not forget you till the end of my life.
May 15th, 1830.--You have no idea how much I love you! If I only could prove it to you! What would I not give if I could once again right heartily embrace you!
One day he expresses the wish that he and his friend should travel together. But this was too commonplace a sentiment not to be refined upon. Accordingly we read in a subsequent letter as follows:--
September 18th, 1830.--I should not like to travel with you, for I look forward with the greatest delight to the moment when we shall meet abroad and embrace each other; it will be worth more than a thousand monotonous days passed with you on the journey. From another passage in one of these letters we get a good idea of the influence Titus Woyciechowski exercised on his friend.
April 10, 1830.--Your advice is good. I have already refused some invitations for the evening, as if I had had a presentiment of it--for I think of you in almost everything I undertake. I do not know whether it comes from my having learned from you how to feel and perceive; but when I compose anything I should much like to know whether it pleases you; and I believe that my second Concerto (E minor) will have no value for me until you have heard it and approved of it.
I quoted the above passage to show how Chopin felt that this friendship had been a kind of education to him, and how he valued his friend's opinion of his compositions--he is always anxious to make Titus acquainted with anything new he may have composed. But in this passage there is another very characteristic touch, and it may easily be overlooked, or at least may not receive the attention which it deserves--I allude to what Chopin says of having had "a presentiment." In superstitiousness he is a true child of his country, and all the enlightenment of France did not succeed in weaning him from his belief in dreams, presentiments, good and evil days, lucky and unlucky numbers, &c. This is another romantic feature in the character of the composer; a dangerous one in the pursuit of science, but advantageous rather than otherwise in the pursuit of art. Later on I shall have to return to this subject and relate some anecdotes, here I shall confine myself to quoting a short passage from one of his early letters.
April 17, 1830.--If you are in Warsaw during the sitting of the Diet, you will come to my concert--I have something like a presentiment, and when I also dream it, I shall firmly believe it.
And now, after these introductory explanations, we will begin the
## chapter in right earnest by taking up the thread of the story where we
left it. On his return to Warsaw Chopin was kept in a state of mental excitement by the criticisms on his Vienna performances that appeared in German papers. He does not weary of telling his friend about them, transcribing portions of them, and complaining of Polish papers which had misrepresented the drift and mistranslated the words of them. I do not wonder at the incorrectness of the Polish reports, for some of these criticisms are written in as uncouth, confused, and vague German as I ever had the misfortune to turn into English. One cannot help thinking, in reading what Chopin says with regard to these matters, that he showed far too much concern about the utterances of the press, and far too much sensitiveness under the infliction of even the slightest strictures. That, however, the young composer was soon engaged on new works may be gathered from the passage (Oct. 3, 1829), quoted at the commencement of this chapter, in which he speaks of the Adagio of a concerto, and a waltz, written whilst his thoughts were with his ideal. These compositions were the second movement of the F minor Concerto and the Waltz, Op. 70, No. 3. But more of this when we come to discuss the works which Chopin produced in the years 1829 and 1830.
One of the most important of the items which made up our friend's musical life at this time was the weekly musical meetings at the house of Kessler, the pianist-composer characterised in