Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 13

VIENNA MUSICAL LIFE.--KARNTHNERTHOR THEATRE.--SABINE HEINEFETTER.--CONCERTS: HESSE, THALBERG, DOHLER, HUMMEL, ALOYS SCHMITT, CHARLES CZERNY, SLAVIK, MERK, BOCKLET, ABBE STABLER, KIESEWETTER, KANDLER.--THE PUBLISHERS HASLINGER, DIABELLI, MECHETTI, AND JOSEPH CZERNY.--LANNER AND STRAUSS.--CHOPIN PLAYS AT A CONCERT OF MADAME GARZIA-VESTRIS AND GIVES ONE HIMSELF.--HIS STUDIES AND COMPOSITIONS OF THAT TIME.--HIS STATE OF BODY AND MIND.--PREPARATIONS FOR AND POSTPONEMENT OF HIS DEPARTURE.--SHORTNESS OF MONEY.--HIS MELANCHOLY.--TWO EXCURSIONS.--LEAVES FOR MUNICH.--HIS CONCERT AT MUNICH.--HIS STAY AT STUTTGART.--PROCEEDS TO PARIS.

The allusions to music and musicians lead us naturally to inquire further after Chopin's musical experiences in Vienna.

January 26, 1831.--If I had not made [he writes] the exceedingly interesting acquaintance of the most talented artists of this place, such as Slavik, Merk, Bocklet, and so forth [this "so forth" is tantalising], I should be very little satisfied with my stay here. The Opera indeed is good: Wild and Miss Heinefetter fascinate the Viennese; only it is a pity that Duport brings forward so few new operas, and thinks more of his pocket than of art.

What Chopin says here and elsewhere about Duport's stinginess tallies with the contemporary newspaper accounts. No sooner had the new manager taken possession of his post than he began to economise in such a manner that he drove away men like Conradin Kreutzer, Weigl, and Mayseder.

During the earlier part of his sojourn in Vienna Chopin remarked that excepting Heinefetter and Wild, the singers were not so excellent as he had expected to find them at the Imperial Opera. Afterwards he seems to have somewhat extended his sympathies, for he writes in July, 1831:--

Rossini's "Siege of Corinth" was lately very well performed here, and I am glad that I had the opportunity of hearing this opera. Miss Heinefetter and Messrs. Wild, Binder, and Forti, in short, all the good singers in Vienna, appeared in this opera and did their best.

Chopin's most considerable criticism of this time is one on Miss Heinefetter in a letter written on December 25, 1830; it may serve as a pendant to his criticism on Miss Sontag which I quoted in a preceding chapter.

Miss Heinefetter has a voice such as one seldom hears; she sings always in tune; her coloratura is like so many pearls; in short, everything is faultless. She looks particularly well when dressed as a man. But she is cold: I got my nose almost frozen in the stalls. In "Oth.e.l.lo" she delighted me more than in the "Barber of Seville," where she represents a finished coquette instead of a lively, witty girl. As s.e.xtus in "t.i.tus" she looks really quite splendid. In a few days she is to appear in the "Thieving Magpie" ["La Gazza ladra"]. I am anxious to hear it. Miss Woikow pleased me better as Rosina in the "Barber"; but, to be sure, she has not such a delicious voice as the Heinefetter. I wish I had heard Pasta!

The opera at the Karnthnerthor Theatre with all its shortcomings was nevertheless the most important and most satisfactory musical inst.i.tution of the city. What else, indeed, had Vienna to offer to the earnest musician? Lanner and Strauss were the heroes of the day, and the majority of other concerts than those given by them were exhibitions of virtuosos. Imagine what a pa.s.s the musical world of Vienna must have come to when Stadler, Kiesewetter, Mosel, and Seyfried could be called, as Chopin did call them, its elite! Abbe Stadler might well say to the stranger from Poland that Vienna was no longer what it used to be.

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert had shuffled off their mortal coil, and compared with these suns their surviving contemporaries and successors--Gyrowetz, Weigl, Stadler, Conradin Kreutzer, Lachner, &c.--were but dim and uncertain lights.

With regard to choral and orchestral performances apart from the stage, Vienna had till more recent times very little to boast of. In 1830-1831 the Spirituel-Concerte (Concerts Spirituels) were still in existence under the conductors.h.i.+p of Lannoy; but since 1824 their number had dwindled down from eighteen to four yearly concerts. The programmes were made up of a symphony and some sacred choruses. Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn predominated among the symphonists; in the choral department preference was given to the Austrian school of church music; but Cherubim also was a great favourite, and choruses from Handel's oratorios, with Mosel's additional accompaniments, were often performed.

The name of Beethoven was hardly ever absent from any of the programmes.

That the orchestra consisted chiefly of amateurs, and that the performances took place without rehearsals (only difficult new works got a rehearsal, and one only), are facts which speak for themselves.

Franz Lachner told Hanslick that the performances of new and in any way difficult compositions were so bad that Schubert once left the hall in the middle of one of his works, and he himself (Lachner) had felt several times inclined to do the same. These are the concerts of which Beethoven spoke as Winkelmusik, and the tickets of which he denominated Abtrittskarten, a word which, as the expression of a man of genius, I do not hesitate to quote, but which I could not venture to translate. Since this d.a.m.ning criticism was uttered, matters had not improved, on the contrary, had gone from bad to worse. Another society of note was the still existing and flouris.h.i.+ng Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. It, too, gave four, or perhaps five yearly concerts, in each of which a symphony, an overture, an aria or duet, an instrumental solo, and a chorus were performed. This society was afflicted with the same evil as the first-named inst.i.tution. It was a

gladdening sight [we are told] to see counts and tradesmen, superiors and subalterns, professors and students, n.o.ble ladies and simple burghers' daughters side by side harmoniously exerting themselves for the love of art.

As far as choral singing is concerned the example deserves to be followed, but the matter stands differently with regard to instrumental music, a branch of the art which demands not only longer and more careful, but also constant, training. Although the early custom of drawing lots, in order to determine who were to sing the solos, what places the players were to occupy in the orchestra, and which of the four conductors was to wield the baton, had already disappeared before 1831, yet in 1841 the performances of the symphonies were still so little "in the spirit of the composers" (a delicate way of stating an ugly fact) that a critic advised the society to imitate the foreign conservatoriums, and reinforce the band with the best musicians of the capital, who, constantly exercising their art, and conversant with the works of the great masters, were better able to do justice to them than amateurs who met only four times a year. What a boon it would be to humanity, what an increase of happiness, if amateurs would allow themselves to be taught by George Eliot, who never spoke truer and wiser words than when she said:--"A little private imitation of what is good is a sort of private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practise art only in the light of private study--preparation to understand and enjoy what the few can do for us." In addition to the above I shall yet mention a third society, the Tonkunstler-Societat, which, as the name implies, was an a.s.sociation of musicians. Its object was the getting-up and keeping-up of a pension fund, and its artistic activity displayed itself in four yearly concerts. Haydn's "Creation" and "Seasons" were the stock pieces of the society's repertoire, but in 1830 and 1831 Handel's "Messiah" and "Solomon" and Lachner's "Die vier Menschenalter"

were also performed.

These historical notes will give us an idea of what Chopin may have heard in the way of choral and orchestral music. I say "may have heard,"

because not a word is to be found in his extant letters about the concerts of these societies. Without exposing ourselves to the reproach of rashness, we may, however, a.s.sume that he was present at the concert of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde on March 20, 1831, when among the items of the programme were Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and the first movement of a concerto composed and played by Thalberg. On seeing the name of one of the most famous pianists contemporary with Chopin, the reader has, no doubt, at once guessed the reason why I a.s.sumed the latter's presence at the concert. These two remarkable, but in their characters and aims so dissimilar, men had some friendly intercourse in Vienna. Chopin mentions Thalberg twice in his letters, first on December 25, 1830, and again on May 28, 1831. On the latter occasion he relates that he went with him to an organ recital given by Hesse, the previously-mentioned Adolf Hesse of Breslau, of whom Chopin now remarked that he had talent and knew how to treat his instrument. Hesse and Chopin must have had some personal intercourse, for we learn that the former left with the latter an alb.u.m leaf. A propos of this circ.u.mstance, Chopin confesses in a letter to his people that he is at a loss what to write, that he lacks the requisite wit. But let us return to the brilliant pianist, who, of course, was a more interesting acquaintance in Chopin's, eyes than the great organist. Born in 1812, and consequently three years younger than Chopin, Sigismund Thalberg had already in his fifteenth year played with success in public, and at the age of sixteen published Op. 1, 2, and 3. However, when Chopin made his acquaintance, he had not yet begun to play only his own compositions (about that time he played, for instance, Beethoven's C minor Concerto at one of the Spirituel-Concerte, where since 1830 instrumental solos were occasionally heard), nor had he attained that in its way unique perfection of beauty of tone and elegance of execution which distinguished him afterwards. Indeed, the palmy days of his career cannot be dated farther back than the year 1835, when he and Chopin met again in Paris; but then his success was so enormous that his fame in a short time became universal, and as a virtuoso only one rival was left him--Liszt, the unconquered. That Chopin and Thalberg entertained very high opinions of each other cannot be a.s.serted. Let the reader judge for himself after reading what Chopin says in his letter of December 25, 1830:--

Thalberg plays famously, but he is not my man. He is younger than I, pleases the ladies very much, makes pot-pourris on "La Muette" ["Masaniello"], plays the forte and piano with the pedal, but not with the hand, takes tenths as easily as I do octaves, and wears studs with diamonds. Moscheles does not at all astonish him; therefore it is no wonder that only the tuttis of my concerto have pleased him. He, too, writes concertos.

Chopin was endowed with a considerable power of sarcasm, and was fond of cultivating and exercising it. This portraiture of his brother-artist is not a bad specimen of its kind, although we shall meet with better ones.

Another, but as yet unfledged, celebrity was at that time living in Vienna, prosecuting his studies under Czerny--namely, Theodor Dohler.

Chopin, who went to hear him play some compositions of his master's at the theatre, does not allude to him again after the concert; but if he foresaw what a position as a pianist and composer he himself was destined to occupy, he could not suspect that this lad of seventeen would some day be held up to the Parisian public by a hostile clique as a rival equalling and even surpa.s.sing his peculiar excellences. By the way, the notion of anyone playing compositions of Czerny's at a concert cannot but strangely tickle the fancy of a musician who has the privilege of living in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Besides the young pianists with a great future before them Chopin came also in contact with aging pianists with a great past behind them.

Hummel, accompanied by his son, called on him in the latter part of December, 1830, and was extraordinarily polite. In April, 1831, the two pianists, the setting and the rising star, were together at the villa of Dr. Malfatti. Chopin informed his master, Elsner, for whose ma.s.ses he was in quest of a publisher, that Haslinger was publis.h.i.+ng the last ma.s.s of Hummel, and added:-- For he now lives only by and for Hummel.

It is rumoured that the last compositions of Hummel do not sell well, and yet he is said to have paid a high price for them. Therefore he now lays all MSS. aside, and prints only Strauss's waltzes.

Unfortunately there is not a word which betrays Chopin's opinion of Hummel's playing and compositions. We are more fortunate in the case of another celebrity, one, however, of a much lower order. In one of the prosaic intervals, of the sentimental rhapsody, indited on December 25, 1830, there occur the following remarks:--

The pianist Aloys Schmitt of Frankfort-on-the-Main, famous for his excellent studies, is at present here; he is a man above forty. I have made his acquaintance; he promised to visit me. He intends to give a concert here, and one must admit that he is a clever musician. I think we shall understand each other with regard to music.

Having looked at this picture, let the reader look also at this other, dashed off a month later in a letter to Elsner:--

The pianist Aloys Schmitt has been flipped on the nose by the critics, although he is already over forty years old, and composes eighty-years-old music.

From the contemporary journals we learn that, at the concert mentioned by Chopin, Schmitt afforded the public of Vienna an opportunity of hearing a number of his own compositions--which were by no means short drawing-room pieces, but a symphony, overture, concerto, concertino, &c.--and that he concluded his concert with an improvisation. One critic, at least, described his style of playing as sound and brilliant. The misfortune of Schmitt was to have come too late into the world--respectable mediocrities like him always do that--he never had any youth. The pianist on whom Chopin called first on arriving in Vienna was Charles Czerny, and he

was, as he is always (and to everybody), very polite, and asked, "Hat fleissig studirt?" [Have you studied diligently?]

He has again arranged an overture for eight pianos and sixteen performers, and seems to be very happy over it.

Only in the sense of belonging rather to the outgoing than to the incoming generation can Czerny be reckoned among the aged pianists, for in 1831 he was not above forty years of age and had still an enormous capacity for work in him--hundreds and hundreds of original and transcribed compositions, thousands and thousands of lessons. His name appears in a pa.s.sage of one of Chopin's letters which deserves to be quoted for various reasons: it shows the writer's dislike to the Jews, his love of Polish music, and his contempt for a kind of composition much cultivated by Czerny. Speaking of the violinist Herz, "an Israelite," who was almost hissed when he made his debut in Warsaw, and whom Chopin was going to hear again in Vienna, he says:--

At the close of the concert Herz will play his own Variations on Polish airs. Poor Polish airs! You do not in the least suspect how you will be interlarded with "majufes" [see page 49, foot-note], and that the t.i.tle of "Polish music" is only given you to entice the public. If one is so outspoken as to discuss the respective merits of genuine Polish music and this imitation of it, and to place the former above the latter, people declare one to be mad, and do this so much the more readily because Czerny, the oracle of Vienna, has. .h.i.therto in the fabrication of his musical dainties never produced Variations on a Polish air.

Chopin had not much sympathy with Czerny the musician, but seems to have had some liking for the man, who indeed was gentle, kind, and courteous in his disposition and deportment.

A much more congenial and intimate connection existed between Chopin, Slavik, and Merk. [FOOTNOTE: Thus the name is spelt in Mendel's Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon and by E. A. Melis, the Bohemian writer on music. Chopin spells it Slawik. The more usual spelling, however, is Slawjk; and in C.F. Whistling's Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1828) it is Slavjk.] Joseph Slavik had come to Vienna in 1825 and had at once excited a great sensation. He was then a young man of nineteen, but technically already superior to all the violinists that had been heard in the Austrian capital. The celebrated Mayseder called him a second Lipinski. Pixis, his master at the Conservatorium in Prague, on seeing some of this extraordinary pupil's compositions--a concerto, variations, &c.--had wondered how anyone could write down such mad, unplayable stuff. But Slavik before leaving Prague proved at a farewell concert that there was at least one who could play the mad stuff. All this, however, was merely the prelude to what was yet to come. The appearance of Paganini in 1828 revealed to him the, till then, dimly-perceived ideal of his dreams, and the great Italian violinist, who took an interest in this ardent admirer and gave him some hints, became henceforth his model. Having saved a little money, he went for his further improvement to Paris, studying especially under Baillot, but soon returned to accept an engagement in the Imperial Band. When after two years of hard practising he reappeared before the public of Vienna, his style was altogether changed; he mastered the same difficulties as Paganini, or even greater ones, not, however, with the same unfailing certainty, nor with an always irreproachable intonation.

Still, there can be no doubt that had not a premature death (in 1833, at the age of twenty-seven) cut short his career, he would have spread his fame all over the world. Chopin, who met him first at Wurfel's, at once felt a liking for him, and when on the following day he heard him play after dinner at Beyer's, he was more pleased with his performance than with that of any other violinist except Paganini. As Chopin's playing was equally sympathetic to Slavik, they formed the project of writing a duet for violin and piano. In a letter to his friend Matuszynski (December 25, 1830) Chopin writes:--

I have just come from the excellent violinist Slavik. With the exception of Paganini, I never heard a violin-player like him. Ninety-six staccato notes in one bow! It is almost incredible! When I heard him I felt inclined to return to my lodgings and sketch variations on an Adagio [which they had previously agreed to take for their theme] of Beethoven's.

The sight of the post-office and a letter from his Polish friends put the variations out of his mind, and they seem never to have been written, at least nothing has been heard of them. Some remarks on Slavik in a letter addressed to his parents (May 28, 1831) show Chopin's admiration of and affection for his friend still more distinctly:--

He is one of the Viennese artists with whom I keep up a really friendly and intimate intercourse. He plays like a second Paganini, but a rejuvenated one, who will perhaps in time surpa.s.s the first. I should not believe it myself if I had not heard him so often....Slavik fascinates the listener and brings tears into his eyes.

Shortly after falling in with Slavik, Chopin met Merk, probably at the house of the publisher Mechetti, and on January 1, 1831, he announces to his friend in Warsaw with unmistakable pride that "Merk, the first violoncellist in Vienna," has promised him a visit. Chopin desired very much to become acquainted with him because he thought that Merk, Slavik, and himself would form a capital trio. The violoncellist was considerably older than either pianist or violinist, being born in 1795.

Merk began his musical career as a violinist, but being badly bitten in the arm by a big dog, and disabled thereby to hold the violin in its proper position (this is what Fetis relates), he devoted himself to the violoncello, and with such success as to become the first solo player in Vienna. At the time we are speaking of he was a member of the Imperial Orchestra and a professor at the Conservatorium. He often gave concerts with Mayseder, and was called the Mayseder of the violoncello. Chopin, on hearing him at a soiree of the well-known autograph collector Fuchs, writes home:--

Limmer, one of the better artists here in Vienna, produced some of his compositions for four violoncelli. Merk, by his expressive playing, made them, as usual, more beautiful than they really are. People stayed again till midnight, for Merk took a fancy to play with me his variations. He told me that he liked to play with me, and it is always a great treat to me to play with him. I think we look well together. He is the first violoncellist whom I really admire.

Of Chopin's intercourse with the third of the "exceedingly interesting acquaintances" whom he mentions by name, we get no particulars in his letters. Still, Carl Maria von Bocklet, for whom Beethoven wrote three letters of recommendation, who was an intimate friend of Schubert's, and whose interpretations of cla.s.sical works and power of improvisation gave him one of the foremost places among the pianists of the day, cannot have been without influence on Chopin. Bocklet, better than any other pianist then living in Vienna, could bring the young Pole into closer communication with the German masters of the preceding generation; he could, as it were, transmit to him some of the spirit that animated Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber. The absence of allusions to Bocklet in Chopin's letters does not, however, prove that he never made any, for the extant letters are only a small portion of those he actually wrote, many of them having in the perturbed state of Poland never reached their destination, others having been burnt by his parents for fear of the Russian police, and some, no doubt, having been lost through carelessness or indifference.

The list of Chopin's acquaintances is as yet far from being exhausted.

He had conversations with old Abbe Stadler, the friend of Haydn and Mozart, whose Psalms, which he saw in MS., he admired. He also speaks of one of the performances of old, sacred, and secular music which took place at Kiesewetter's house as if he were going to it. But a musician of Chopin's nature would not take a very lively interest in the historical aspect of the art; nor would the learned investigator of the music of the Netherlanders, of the music of the Arabs, of the life and works of Guido d'Arezzo, &c., readily perceive the preciousness of the modern composer's originality. At any rate, Chopin had more intercourse with the musico-literary Franz Kandler, who wrote favourable criticisms on his performances as a composer and player, and with whom he went on one occasion to the Imperial Library, where the discovery of a certain MS. surprised him even more than the magnitude and order of the collection, which he could not imagine to be inferior to that of Bologna--the ma.n.u.script in question being no other than his Op. 2, which Haslinger had presented to the library. Chopin found another MS. of his, that of the Rondo for two pianos, in Aloys Fuchs's famous collection of autographs, which then comprised 400 numbers, but about the year 1840 had increased to 650 numbers, most of them complete works. He must have understood how to ingratiate himself with the collector, otherwise he would hardly have had the good fortune to be presented with an autograph of Beethoven.

Chopin became also acquainted with almost all the princ.i.p.al publishers in Vienna. Of Haslinger enough has already been said. By Czerny Chopin was introduced to Diabelli, who invited him to an evening party of musicians. With Mechetti he seems to have been on a friendly footing.

He dined at his house, met him at Dr. Malfatti's, handed over to him for publication his Polonaise for piano and violoncello (Op. 3), and described him as enterprising and probably persuadable to publish Elsner's ma.s.ses. Joseph Czerny, no relation of Charles's, was a mere business acquaintance of Chopin's. Being reminded of his promise to publish a quartet of Elsner's, he said he could not undertake to do so just then (about January 26, 1831), as he was publis.h.i.+ng the works of Schubert, of which many were still in the press.

Therefore [writes Chopin to his master] I fear your MS. will have to wait. Czerny, I have found out now, is not one of the richest publishers here, and consequently cannot easily risk the publication of a work which is not performed at the Sped or at the Romische Kaiser. Waltzes are here called works; and Lanner and Strauss, who lead the performances, Capellmeister.

In saying this, however, I do not mean that all people here are of this opinion; on the contrary, there are many who laugh at it. Still, it is almost only waltzes that are published.

It is hardly possible for us to conceive the enthusiasm and ecstasy into which the waltzes of the two dance composers transported Vienna, which was divided into two camps:--

The Sperl and Volksgarten [says Hanslick] were on the Strauss and Lanner days the favourite and most frequented "concert localities." In the year 1839 Strauss and Lanner had already each of them published more than too works. The journals were thrown into ecstasy by every new set of waltzes; innumerable articles appeared on Strauss, and Lanner, enthusiastic, humorous, pathetic, and certainly longer than those that were devoted to Beethoven and Mozart.

These glimpses of the notabilities and manners of a by-gone generation, caught, as it were, through the c.h.i.n.ks of the wall which time is building up between the past and the present, are instructive as well as amusing. It would be a great mistake to regard these details, apparently very loosely connected with the life of Chopin, as superfluous appendages to his biography. A man's sympathies and antipathies are revelations of his nature, and an artist's surroundings make evident his position and merit, the degree of his originality being undeterminable without a knowledge of the time in which he lived. Moreover, let the impatient reader remember that, Chopin's life being somewhat poor in incidents, the narrative cannot be an even-paced march, but must be a series of leaps and pauses, with here and there an intervening amble, and one or two brisk canters.

Having described the social and artistic sphere, or rather spheres, in which Chopin moved, pointed out the persons with whom he most a.s.sociated, and noted his opinions regarding men and things, almost all that is worth telling of his life in the imperial city is told--almost all, but not all. Indeed, of the latter half of his sojourn there some events have yet to be recorded which in importance, if not in interest, surpa.s.s anything that is to be found in the preceding and the foregoing part of the present chapter. I have already indicated that the disappointment of Chopin's hopes and the failure of his plans cannot altogether be laid to the charge of unfavourable circ.u.mstances. His parents must have thought so too, and taken him to task about his remissness in the matter of giving a concert, for on May 14, 1831, Chopin writes to them:--"My most fervent wish is to be able to fulfil your wishes; till now, however, I found it impossible to give a concert." But although he had not himself given a concert he had had an opportunity of presenting himself in the best company to the public of Vienna. In the "Theaterzeitung" of April 2, 1831, Madame Garzia-Vestris announced a concert to be held in the Redoutensaal during the morning hours of April 4, in which she was to be a.s.sisted by the Misses Sabine and Clara Heinefetter, Messrs. Wild, Chopin, Bohm (violinist), h.e.l.lmesberger (violinist, pupil of the former), Merk, and the brothers Lewy (two horn-players). Chopin was distinguished from all the rest, as a h.o.m.o ignotus et novus, by the parenthetical "pianoforte-player" after his name, no such information being thought necessary in the case of the other artists. The times are changed, now most readers require parenthetical elucidation after each name except that of Chopin. "He has put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted them of low degree!"

The above-mentioned exhortation of his parents seems to have had the desired effect, and induced Chopin to make an effort, although now the circ.u.mstances were less favourable to his giving a concert than at the time of his arrival. The musical season was over, and many people had left the capital for their summer haunts; the struggle in Poland continued with increasing fierceness, which was not likely to lessen the backwardness of Austrians in patronising a Pole; and in addition to this, cholera had visited the country and put to flight all who were not obliged to stay. I have not been able to ascertain the date and other particulars of this concert. Through Karasowski we learn that it was thinly attended, and that the receipts did not cover the expenses.

The "Theaterzeitung," which had given such full criticisms of Chopin's performances in 1829, says not a word either of the matinee or of the concert, not even the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the latter has come under my notice. No doubt Chopin alludes to criticisms on this concert when he writes in the month of July:--

Louisa [his sister] informs me that Mr. Elsner was very much pleased with the criticism; I wonder what he will say of the others, he who was my teacher of composition?