Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 2

[FOOTNOTE: Count Wodzinski, after indicating the general features of Polish villages--the dwor (manor-house) surrounded by a "bouquet of trees"; the barns and stables forming a square with a well in the centre; the roads planted with poplars and bordered with thatched huts; the rye, wheat, rape, and clover fields, &c.--describes the birthplace of Frederick Chopin as follows: "I have seen there the same dwor embosomed in trees, the same outhouses, the same huts, the same plains where here and there a wild pear-tree throws its shadow. Some steps from the mansion I stopped before a little cot with a slated roof, flanked by a little wooden perron. Nothing has been changed for nearly a hundred years. A dark pa.s.sage traverses it. On the left, in a room illuminated by the reddish flame of slowly-consumed logs, or by the uncertain light of two candles placed at each extremity of the long table, the maid-servants spin as in olden times, and relate to each other a thousand marvellous legends. On the right, in a lodging of three rooms, so low that one can touch the ceiling, a man of some thirty years, brown, with vivacious eyes, the face closely shaven." This man was of course Nicholas Chopin. I need hardly say that Count Wodzinski's description is novelistically tricked out. His accuracy may be judged by the fact that a few pages after the above pa.s.sage he speaks of the discoloured tiles of the roof which he told his readers before was of slate.]

The son of the latter, Count Frederick Skarbek, Nicholas Chopin's pupil, a young man of seventeen, stood G.o.dfather and gave his name to the new-born offspring of his tutor. Little Frederick's residence at the village cannot have been of long duration.

The establishment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1807 had ushered in a time big with chances for a capable man, and we may be sure that a young husband and father, no doubt already on the look-out for some more lucrative and independent employment, was determined not to miss them.

Few peaceful revolutions, if any, can compare in thoroughness with the one that then took place in Poland; a new sovereign ascended the throne, two differently-const.i.tuted representative bodies superseded the old Senate and Diet, the French code of laws was introduced, the army and civil service underwent a complete re-organisation, public instruction obtained a long-needed attention, and so forth. To give an idea of the extent of the improvement effected in matters of education, it is enough to mention that the number of schools rose from 140 to 634, and that a commission was formed for the publication of suitable books of instruction in the Polish language. Nicholas Chopin's hopes were not frustrated; for on October 1, 1810, he was appointed professor of the French language at the newly-founded Lyceum in Warsaw, and a little more than a year after, on January 1, 1812, to a similar post at the School of Artillery and Engineering.

The exact date when Nicholas Chopin and his family settled in Warsaw is not known, nor is it of any consequence. We may, however, safely a.s.sume that about this time little Frederick was an inhabitant of the Polish metropolis. During the first years of his life the parents may have lived in somewhat straitened circ.u.mstances. The salary of the professors.h.i.+p, even if regularly paid, would hardly suffice for a family to live comfortably, and the time was unfavourable for gaining much by private tuition. M. de Pradt, describing Poland in 1812, says:--

Nothing could exceed the misery of all cla.s.ses. The army was not paid, the officers were in rags, the best houses were in ruins, the greatest lords were compelled to leave Warsaw from want of money to provide for their tables. No pleasures, no society, no invitations as in Paris and in London. I even saw princesses quit Warsaw from the most extreme distress. The Princess Radziwill had brought two women from England and France, she wished to send them back, but had to keep them because she was unable to pay their salaries and travelling expenses. I saw in Warsaw two French physicians who informed me that they could not procure their fees even from the greatest lords.

But whatever straits the parents may have been put to, the weak, helpless infant would lack none of the necessaries of life, and enjoy all the reasonable comforts of his age.

When in 1815 peace was restored and a period of quiet followed, the family must have lived in easy circ.u.mstances; for besides holding appointments as professor at some public schools (under the Russian government he became also one of the staff of teachers at the Military Preparatory School), Nicholas Chopin kept for a number of years a boarding-school, which was patronised by the best families of the country. The supposed poverty of Chopin's parents has given rise to all sorts of misconceptions and misstatements. A writer in Larousse's "Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siecle" even builds on it a theory explanatory of the character of Chopin and his music: "Sa famille d'origine francaise," he writes, "jouissait d'une mediocre fortune; de la, peut-etre, certains froiss.e.m.e.nts dans l'organisation nerveuse et la vive sensibilite de l'enfant, sentiments qui devaient plus tard se refleter dans ses oeuvres, empreintes generalement d'une profonde melancolie." If the writer of the article in question had gone a little farther back, he might have found a sounder basis for his theory in the extremely delicate physical organisation of the man, whose sensitiveness was so acute that in early infancy he could not hear music without crying, and resisted almost all attempts at appeasing him.

The last-mentioned fact, curious and really noteworthy in itself, acquires a certain preciousness by its being the only one transmitted to us of that period of Chopin's existence. But this scantiness of information need not cause us much regret. During the first years of a man's life biography is chiefly concerned with his surroundings, with the agencies that train his faculties and mould his character. A man's acts and opinions are interesting in proportion to the degree of consolidation attained by his individuality. Fortunately our material is abundant enough to enable us to reconstruct in some measure the milieu into which Chopin was born and in which he grew up. We will begin with that first circle which surrounds the child--his family. The negative advantages which our Frederick found there--the absence of the privations and hards.h.i.+ps of poverty, with their depressing and often demoralising influence--have already been adverted to; now I must say a few words about the positive advantages with which he was favoured.

And it may be at once stated that they cannot be estimated too highly.

Frederick enjoyed the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed upon mortal man--viz., that of being born into a virtuous and well-educated family united by the ties of love. I call it the greatest of blessings, because neither catechism and sermons nor schools and colleges can take the place,, or compensate for the want, of this education that does not stop at the outside, but by its subtle, continuous action penetrates to the very heart's core and pervades the whole being. The atmosphere in which Frederick lived was not only moral and social, but also distinctly intellectual.

The father, Nicholas Chopin, seems to have been a man of worth and culture, honest of purpose, charitable in judgment, attentive to duty, and endowed with a good share of prudence and commonsense. In support of this characterisation may be advanced that among his friends he counted many men of distinction in literature, science, and art; that between him and the parents of his pupils as well as the pupils themselves there existed a friendly relation; that he was on intimate terms with several of his colleagues; and that his children not only loved, but also respected him. No one who reads his son's letters, which indeed give us some striking glimpses of the man, can fail to notice this last point.

On one occasion, when confessing that he had gone to a certain dinner two hours later than he had been asked, Frederick foresees his father's anger at the disregard for what is owing to others, and especially to one's elders; and on another occasion he makes excuses for his indifference to non-musical matters, which, he thinks, his father will blame. And mark, these letters were written after Chopin had attained manhood. What testifies to Nicholas Chopin's, abilities as a teacher and steadiness as a man, is the unshaken confidence of the government: he continued in his position at the Lyceumtill after the revolution in 1831, when this inst.i.tution, like many others, was closed; he was then appointed a member of the board for the examination of candidates for situations as schoolmasters, and somewhat later he became professor of the French language at the Academy of the Roman Catholic Clergy.

It is more difficult, or rather it is impossible, to form anything like a clear picture of his wife, Justina Chopin. None of those of her son's letters that are preserved is addressed to her, and in those addressed to the members of the family conjointly, or to friends, nothing occurs that brings her nearer to us, or gives a clue to her character. George Sand said that she was Chopin's only pa.s.sion. Karasowski describes her as "particularly tender-hearted and rich in all the truly womanly virtues.....For her quietness and homeliness were the greatest happiness." K. W. Wojcicki, in "Cmentarz Powazkowski" (Powazki Cemetery), expresses, himself in the same strain. A Scotch lady, who had seen Justina Chopin in her old age, and conversed with her in French, told me that she was then "a neat, quiet, intelligent old lady, whose activeness contrasted strongly with the languor of her son, who had not a shadow of energy in him." With regard to the latter part of this account, we must not overlook the fact that my informant knew Chopin only in the last year of his life--i.e., when he was in a very suffering state of mind and body. This is all the information I have been able to collect regarding the character of Chopin's mother. Moreover, Karasowski is not an altogether trustworthy informant; as a friend of the Chopin family he sees in its members so many paragons of intellectual and moral perfection. He proceeds on the de mortuis nil nisi bonum principle, which I venture to suggest is a very bad principle. Let us apply this loving tenderness to our living neighbours, and judge the dead according to their merits. Thus the living will be doubly benefited, and no harm be done to the dead. Still, the evidence before us--including that exclamation about his "best of mothers" in one of Chopin's letters, written from Vienna, soon after the outbreak of the Polish insurrection in 1830: "How glad my mamma will be that I did not come back!"--justifies us, I think, in inferring that Justina Chopin was a woman of the most lovable type, one in whom the central principle of existence was the maternal instinct, that bright ray of light which, dispersed in its action, displays itself in the most varied and lovely colours. That this principle, although often all-absorbing, is not incompatible with the wider and higher social and intellectual interests is a proposition that does not stand in need of proof. But who could describe that wondrous blending of loving strength and lovable weakness of a true woman's character? You feel its beauty and sublimity, and if you attempt to give words to your feeling you produce a caricature.

The three sisters of Frederick all manifested more or less a taste for literature. The two elder sisters, Louisa (who married Professor Jedrzejewicz, and died in 1855) and Isabella (who married Anton Barcinski--first inspector of schools, and subsequently director of steam navigation on the Vistula--and died in 1881), wrote together for the improvement of the working cla.s.ses. The former contributed now and then, also after her marriage, articles to periodicals on the education of the young. Emilia, the youngest sister, who died at the early age of fourteen (in 1827), translated, conjointly with her sister Isabella, the educational tales of the German author Salzmann, and her poetical efforts held out much promise for the future.

CHAPTER II

FREDERICK'S FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUCTION AND MUSIC-MASTER, ADALBERT ZYWNY.--HIS DEBUT AND SUCCESS AS A PIANIST.--HIS EARLY INTRODUCTION INTO ARISTOCRATIC SOCIETY AND CONSTANT INTERCOURSE WITH THE ARISTOCRACY.--HIS FIRST COMPOSITIONS.--HIS STUDIES AND MASTER IN HARMONY, COUNTERPOINT, AND COMPOSITION, JOSEPH ELSNER.

OUR little friend, who, as we have seen, at first took up a hostile att.i.tude towards music--for his pa.s.sionate utterances, albeit inarticulate, cannot well be interpreted as expressions of satisfaction or approval--came before long under her mighty sway. The pianoforte threw a spell over him, and, attracting him more and more, inspired him with such a fondness as to induce his parents to provide him, notwithstanding his tender age, with an instructor. To lessen the awfulness of the proceeding, it was arranged that one of the elder sisters should join him in his lessons. The first and only pianoforte teacher of him who in the course of time became one of the greatest and most original masters of this instrument, deserves some attention from us. Adalbert Zywny [FOOTNOTE: This is the usual spelling of the name, which, as the reader will see further on, its possessor wrote Ziwny.

Liszt calls him Zywna.], a native of Bohemia, born in 1756, came to Poland, according to Albert Sowinski (Les musiciens polonais et slaves), during the reign of Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski (1764--1795), and after staying for some time as pianist at the court of Prince Casimir Sapieha, settled in Warsaw as a teacher of music, and soon got into good practice, "giving his lessons at three florins (eighteen pence) per hour very regularly, and making a fortune." And thus teaching and composing (he is said to have composed much for the pianoforte, but he never published anything), he lived a long and useful life, dying in 1842 at the age of 86 (Karasowski says in 1840). The punctual and, no doubt, also somewhat pedantic music-master who acquired the esteem and goodwill of his patrons, the best families of Warsaw, and a fortune at the same time, is a pleasant figure to contemplate. The honest orderliness and dignified calmness of his life, as I read it, are quite refres.h.i.+ng in this time of rush and gush. Having seen a letter of his, I can imagine the heaps of original MSS., clearly and neatly penned with a firm hand, lying carefully packed up in s.p.a.cious drawers, or piled up on well-dusted shelves. Of the man Zywny and his relation to the Chopin family we get some glimpses in Frederick's letters. In one of the year 1828, addressed to his friend t.i.tus Woyciechowski, he writes: "With us things are as they used to be; the honest Zywny is the soul of all our amus.e.m.e.nts." Sowinski informs us that Zywny taught his pupil according to the cla.s.sical German method--whatever that may mean--at that time in use in Poland. Liszt, who calls him "an enthusiastic student of Bach,"

speaks likewise of "les errements d'une ecole entierement cla.s.sique."

Now imagine my astonishment when on asking the well-known pianoforte player and composer Edouard Wolff, a native of Warsaw, [Fooynote: He died at Paris on October 16, 1880.] what kind of pianist Zywny was, I received the answer that he was a violinist and not a pianist.

That Wolff and Zywny knew each other is proved beyond doubt by the above-mentioned letter of Zywny's, introducing the former to Chopin, then resident in Paris. The solution of the riddle is probably this.

Zywny, whether violinist or not, was not a pianoforte virtuoso--at least, was not heard in public in his old age. The mention of a single name, that of Wenzel W. Wurfel, certainly shows that he was not the best pianist in Warsaw. But against any such depreciatory remarks we have to set Chopin's high opinion of Zywny's teaching capability. Zywny's letter, already twice alluded to, is worth quoting. It still further ill.u.s.trates the relation in which master and pupil stood to each other, and by bringing us in close contact with the former makes us better acquainted with his character. A particularly curious fact about the letter--considering the nationality of the persons concerned--is its being written in German. Only a fac-simile of the original, with its clear, firm, though (owing to the writer's old age) cramped penmans.h.i.+p, and its quaint spelling and capricious use of capital and small initials, could fully reveal the expressiveness of this doc.u.ment.

However, even in the translation there may be found some of the man's characteristic old-fas.h.i.+oned formality, grave benevolence, and quiet homeliness. The outside of the sheet on which the letter is written bears the words, "From the old music-master Adalbert Ziwny [at least this I take to be the meaning of the seven letters followed by dots], kindly to be transmitted to my best friend, Mr. Frederick Chopin, in Paris." The letter itself runs as follows:--

DEAREST MR. F. CHOPIN,--Wis.h.i.+ng you perfect health I have the honour to write to you through Mr. Eduard Wolf. [FOOTNOTE: The language of the first sentence is neither logical nor otherwise precise. I shall keep throughout as close as possible to the original, and also retain the peculiar spelling of proper names.] I recommend him to your esteemed friends.h.i.+p. Your whole family and I had also the pleasure of hearing at his concert the Adagio and Rondo from your Concerto, which called up in our minds the most agreeable remembrance of you. May G.o.d give you every prosperity! We are all well, and wish so much to see you again. Meanwhile I send you through Mr. Wolf my heartiest kiss, and recommending myself to your esteemed friends.h.i.+p, I remain your faithful friend,

ADALBERT ZIWNY.

Warsaw, the 12th of June, 1835.

N.B.--Mr. Kirkow, the merchant, and his son George, who was at Mr. Reinschmid's at your farewell party, recommend themselves to you, and wish you good health. Adieu.

Julius Fontana, the friend and companion of Frederick, after stating (in his preface to Chopin's posthumous works) that Chopin had never another pianoforte teacher than Zywny, observes that the latter taught his pupil only the first principles. "The progress of the child was so extraordinary that his parents and his professor thought they could do no better than abandon him at the age of 12 to his own instincts, and follow instead of directing him." The progress of Frederick must indeed have been considerable, for in Clementina Tanska-Hofmanowa's Pamiatka po dobrej matce (Memorial of a good Mother) [FOOTNOTE: Published in 1819.]

the writer relates that she was at a soiree at Gr----'s, where she found a numerous party a.s.sembled, and heard in the course of the evening young Chopin play the piano--"a child not yet eight years old, who, in the opinion of the connoisseurs of the art, promises to replace Mozart."

Before the boy had completed his ninth year his talents were already so favourably known that he was invited to take part in a concert which was got up by several persons of high rank for the benefit of the poor. The bearer of the invitation was no less a person than Ursin Niemcewicz, the publicist, poet, dramatist, and statesman, one of the most remarkable and influential men of the Poland of that day. At this concert, which took place on February 24, 1818, the young virtuoso played a concerto by Adalbert Gyrowetz, a composer once celebrated, but now ignominiously shelved--sic transit gloria mundi--and one of Riehl's "divine Philistines." An anecdote shows that at that time Frederick was neither an intellectual prodigy nor a conceited puppy, but a naive, modest child that played the pianoforte, as birds sing, with unconscious art. When he came home after the concert, for which of course he had been arrayed most splendidly and to his own great satisfaction, his mother said to him: "Well, Fred, what did the public like best?"--"Oh, mamma," replied the little innocent, "everybody was looking at my collar."

The debut was a complete success, and our Frederick--Chopinek (diminutive of Chopin) they called him--became more than ever the pet of the aristocracy of Warsaw. He was invited to the houses of the Princes Czartoryski, Sapieha, Czetwertynski, Lubecki, Radziwill, the Counts Skarbek, Wolicki, Pruszak, Hussarzewski, Lempicki, and others. By the Princess Czetwertynska, who, says Liszt, cultivated music with a true feeling of its beauties, and whose salon was one of the most brilliant and select of Warsaw, Frederick was introduced to the Princess Lowicka, the beautiful Polish wife of the Grand Duke Constantine, who, as Countess Johanna Antonia Grudzinska, had so charmed the latter that, in order to obtain the Emperor's consent to his marriage with her, he abdicated his right of succession to the throne. The way in which she exerted her influence over her brutal, eccentric, if not insane, husband, who at once loved and maltreated the Poles, gained her the t.i.tle of "guardian angel of Poland." In her salon Frederick came of course also in contact with the dreaded Grand Duke, the Napoleon of Belvedere (thus he was nicknamed by Niemcewicz, from the palace where he resided in Warsaw), who on one occasion when the boy was improvising with his eyes turned to the ceiling, as was his wont, asked him why he looked in that direction, if he saw notes up there. With the exalted occupants of Belvedere Frederick had a good deal of intercourse, for little Paul, a boy of his own age, a son or adopted son of the Grand Duke, enjoyed his company, and sometimes came with his tutor, Count de Moriolles, to his house to take him for a drive. On these occasions the neighbours of the Chopin family wondered not a little what business brought the Grand Duke's carriage, drawn by four splendid horses, yoked in the Russian fas.h.i.+on--i.e., all abreast--to their quarter.

Chopin's early introduction into aristocratic society and constant intercourse with the aristocracy is an item of his education which must not be considered as of subordinate importance. More than almost any other of his early disciplines, it formed his tastes, or at least strongly a.s.sisted in developing certain inborn traits of his nature, and in doing this influenced his entire moral and artistic character. In the proem I mentioned an English traveller's encomiums on the elegance in the houses, and the exquisite refinement in the entertainments, of the wealthy n.o.bles in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. We may be sure that in these respects the present century was not eclipsed by its predecessors, at least not in the third decade, when the salons of Warsaw shone at their brightest. The influence of French thought and manners, for the importation and spreading of which King Stanislas Leszczinski was so solicitous that he sent at his own expense many young gentlemen to Paris for their education, was subsequently strengthened by literary taste, national sympathies, and the political connection during the first Empire. But although foreign notions and customs caused much of the old barbarous extravagance and also much of the old homely simplicity to disappear, they did not annihilate the national distinctiveness of the cla.s.s that was affected by them. Suffused with the Slavonic spirit and its tincture of Orientalism, the importation a.s.sumed a character of its own. Liszt, who did not speak merely from hearsay, emphasises, in giving expression to his admiration of the elegant and refined manners of the Polish aristocracy, the absence of formalism and stiff artificiality:--

In these salons [he writes] the rigorously observed proprieties were not a kind of ingeniously-constructed corsets that served to hide deformed hearts; they only necessitated the spiritualisation of all contacts, the elevation of all rapports, the aristocratisation of all impressions.

But enough of this for the present.

A surer proof of Frederick's ability than the applause and favour of the aristocracy was the impression he made on the celebrated Catalani, who, in January, 1820, gave four concerts in the town-hall of Warsaw, the charge for admission to each of which was, as we may note in pa.s.sing, no less than thirty Polish florins (fifteen s.h.i.+llings). Hearing much of the musically-gifted boy, she expressed the wish to have him presented to her. On this being done, she was so pleased with him and his playing that she made him a present of a watch, on which were engraved the words: "Donne par Madame Catalani a Frederic Chopin, age de dix ans."

As yet I have said nothing of the boy's first attempts at composition.

Little Frederick began to compose soon after the commencement of his pianoforte lessons and before he could handle the pen. His master had to write down what the pupil played, after which the youthful maestro, often dissatisfied with his first conception, would set to work with the critical file, and try to improve it. He composed mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, &c. At the age of ten he dedicated a march to the Grand Duke Constantine, who had it scored for a military band and played on parade (subsequently it was also published, but without the composer's name), and these productions gave such evident proof of talent that his father deemed it desirable to get his friend Elsner to instruct him in harmony and counterpoint. At this time, however, it was not as yet in contemplation that Frederick should become a professional musician; on the contrary, he was made to understand that his musical studies must not interfere with his other studies, as he was then preparing for his entrance into the Warsaw Lyceum. As we know that this event took place in 1824, we know also the approximate time of the commencement of Elsner's lessons. Fontana says that Chopin began these studies when he was already remarkable as a pianist. Seeing how very little is known concerning the nature and extent of Chopin's studies in composition, it may be as well to exhaust the subject at once. But before I do so I must make the reader acquainted with the musician who, as Zyvny was Chopin's only pianoforte teacher, was his only teacher of composition.

Joseph Elsner, the son of a cabinet and musical instrument maker at Grottkau, in Silesia, was born on June 1, 1769. As his father intended him for the medical profession, he was sent in 1781 to the Latin school at Breslau, and some years later to the University at Vienna. Having already been encouraged by the rector in Grottkau to cultivate his beautiful voice, he became in Breslau a chorister in one of the churches, and after some time was often employed as violinist and singer at the theatre. Here, where he got, if not regular instruction, at least some hints regarding harmony and kindred matters (the authorities are hopelessly at variance on this and on many other points), he made his first attempts at composition, writing dances, songs, duets, trios, nay, venturing even on larger works for chorus and orchestra. The musical studies commenced in Breslau were continued in Vienna; preferring musical scores to medical books, the conversations of musicians to the lectures of professors, he first neglected and at last altogether abandoned the study of the healing art. A. Boguslawski, who wrote a biography of Elsner, tells the story differently and more poetically.

When, after a long illness during his sojourn in Breslau, thus runs his version, Elsner went, on the day of the Holy Trinity in the year 1789, for the first time to church, he was so deeply moved by the sounds of the organ that he fainted. On recovering he felt his whole being filled with such ineffable comfort and happiness that he thought he saw in this occurrence the hand of destiny. He, therefore, set out for Vienna, in order that he might draw as it were at the fountain-head the great principles of his art. Be this as it may, in 1791 we hear of Elsner as violinist in Brunn, in 1792 as musical conductor at a theatre in Lemberg--where he is busy composing dramatic and other works--and near the end of the last century as occupant of the same post at the National Theatre in Warsaw, which town became his home for the rest of his life.

There was the princ.i.p.al field of his labours; there he died, after a sojourn of sixty-two years in Poland, on April 18, 1854, leaving behind him one of the most honoured names in the history of his adopted country. Of the journeys he undertook, the longest and most important was, no doubt, that to Paris in 1805. On the occasion of this visit some of his compositions were performed, and when Chopin arrived there twenty-five years afterwards, Elsner was still remembered by Lesueur, who said: "Et que fait notre bon Elsner? Racontez-moi de ses nouvelles."

Elsner was a very productive composer: besides symphonies, quartets, cantatas, ma.s.ses, an oratorio, &c., he composed twenty-seven Polish operas. Many of these works were published, some in Warsaw, some in various German towns, some even in Paris. But his activity as a teacher, conductor, and organiser was perhaps even more beneficial to the development of the musical art in Poland than that as a composer. After founding and conducting several musical societies, he became in 1821 director of the then opened Conservatorium, at the head of which he continued to the end of its existence in 1830. To complete the idea of the man, we must not omit to mention his essay In how far is the Polish language suitable for music? As few of his compositions have been heard outside of Poland, and these few long ago, rarely, and in few places, it is difficult to form a satisfactory opinion with regard to his position as a composer. Most accounts, however, agree in stating that he wrote in the style of the modern Italians, that is to say, what were called the modern Italians in the later part of the last and the earlier part of this century. Elsner tried his strength and ability in all genres, from oratorio, opera, and symphony, down to pianoforte variations, rondos, and dances, and in none of them did he fail to be pleasing and intelligible, not even where, as especially in his sacred music, he made use--a sparing use--of contrapuntal devices, imitations, and fugal treatment. The naturalness, fluency, effectiveness, and practicableness which distinguish his writing for voices and instruments show that he possessed a thorough knowledge of their nature and capability. It was, therefore, not an empty rhetorical phrase to speak of him initiating his pupils "a la science du contre-point et aux effets d'une savante instrumentation."

[FOOTNOTE: "The productions of Elsner," says Fetis, "are in the style of Paer and Mayer's music. In his church music there is a little too much of modern and dramatic forms; one finds in them facility and a natural manner of making the parts sing, but little originality and variety in his ideas. Elsner writes with sufficient purity, although he shows in his fugues that his studies have not been severe."]

For the pupils of the Conservatorium he wrote vocal pieces in from one to ten parts, and he composed also a number of canons in four and five parts, which fact seems to demonstrate that he had no ill-will against the scholastic forms. And now I shall quote a pa.s.sage from an apparently well-informed writer [FOOTNOTE: The writer of the article Elsner in Schilling's Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst] (to whom I am, moreover, otherwise indebted in this sketch), wherein Elsner is blamed for certain shortcomings with which Chopin has been often reproached in a less charitable spirit. The italics, which are mine, will point out the words in question:--

One forgives him readily [in consideration of the general excellence of his style] THE OFFENCES AGAINST THE LAW OF HARMONIC CONNECTION THAT OCCUR HERE AND THERE, AND THE FACILITY WITH WHICH HE SOMETIMES DISREGARDS THE FIXED RULES OF STRICT PART-WRITING, especially in the dramatic works, where he makes effect apparently the ultimate aim of his indefatigable endeavours.

The wealth of melody and technical mastery displayed in "The Pa.s.sion of our Lord Jesus Christ" incline Karasowski to think that it is the composer's best work. When the people at Breslau praised Elsner's "Echo Variations" for orchestra, Chopin exclaimed: "You must hear his Coronation Ma.s.s, then only can you judge of him as a composer." To characterise Elsner in a few words, he was a man of considerable musical apt.i.tude and capacity, full of n.o.bleness of purpose, learning, industry, perseverance, in short, possessing all qualities implied by talent, but lacking those implied by genius.

A musician travelling in 1841 in Poland sent at the time to the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik a series of "Reiseblatter" (Notes of Travel), which contain so charming and vivid a description of this interesting personality that I cannot resist the temptation to translate and insert it here almost without any abridgment. Two noteworthy opinions of the writer may be fitly prefixed to this quotation--namely, that Elsner was a Pole with all his heart and soul, indeed, a better one than thousands that are natives of the country, and that, like Haydn, he possessed the quality of writing better the older he grew:--

The first musical person of the town [Warsaw] is still the old, youthful Joseph Elsner, a veteran master of our art, who is as amiable as he is truly estimable. In our day one hardly meets with a notable Polish musician who has not studied composition under Pan [i.e., Mr.] Elsner; and he loves all his pupils, and all speak of him with enthusiasm, and, according to the Polish fas.h.i.+on, kiss the old master's shoulder, whereupon he never forgets to kiss them heartily on both cheeks. Even Charles Kurpinski, the pensioned Capelhneister of the Polish National Theatre, whose hair is already grey, is, if I am not very much misinformed, also a pupil of Joseph Elsner's. One is often mistaken with regard to the outward appearance of a celebrated man; I mean, one forms often a false idea of him before one has seen him and knows a portrait of him. I found Elsner almost exactly as I had imagined him. Wisocki, the pianist, also a pupil of his, took me to him. Pan Elsner lives in the Dom Pyarow [House of Piarists]. One has to start early if one wishes to find him at home; for soon after breakfast he goes out, and rarely returns to his cell before evening. He inhabits, like a genuine church composer, two cells of the old Piarist Monastery in Jesuit Street, and in the dark pa.s.sages which lead to his rooms one sees here and there faded laid-aside pictures of saints lying about, and old church banners hanging down. The old gentleman was still in bed when we arrived, and sent his servant to ask us to wait a little in the anteroom, promising to be with us immediately. All the walls of this room, or rather cell, were hung to the ceiling with portraits of musicians, among them some very rare names and faces. Mr. Elsner has continued this collection down to the present time; also the portraits of Liszt, Thalberg, Chopin, and Clara Wieck s.h.i.+ne down from the old monastic walls. I had scarcely looked about me in this large company for a few minutes, when the door of the adjoining room opened, and a man of medium height (not to say little), somewhat stout, with a round, friendly countenance, grey hair, but very lively eyes, enveloped in a warm fur dressing- gown, stepped up to us, comfortably but quickly, and bade us welcome. Wisocki kissed him, according to the Polish fas.h.i.+on, as a token of respect, on the right shoulder, and introduced me to him, whereupon the old friendly gentleman shook hands with me and said some kindly words.

This, then, was Pan Joseph Elsner, the ancestor of modern Polish music, the teacher of Chopin, the fine connoisseur and cautious guide of original talents. For he does not do as is done only too often by other teachers in the arts, who insist on s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g all pupils to the same turning-lathe on which they themselves were formed, who always do their utmost to ingraft their own I on the pupil, so that he may become as excellent a man as they imagine themselves to be. Joseph Elsner did not proceed thus. When all the people of Warsaw thought Frederick Chopin was entering on a wrong path, that his was not music at all, that he must keep to Himmel and Hummel, otherwise he would never do anything decent--the clever Pan Elsner had already very clearly perceived what a poetic kernel there was in the pale young dreamer, had long before felt very clearly that he had before him the founder of a new epoch of pianoforte-playing, and was far from laying upon him a cavesson, knowing well that such a n.o.ble thoroughbred may indeed be cautiously led, but must not be trained and fettered in the usual way if he is to conquer.

Of Chopin's studies under this master we do not know much more than of his studies under Zywny. Both Fontana and Sowinski say that he went through a complete course of counterpoint and composition. Elsner, in a letter written to Chopin in 1834, speaks of himself as "your teacher of harmony and counterpoint, of little merit, but fortunate." Liszt writes:--

Joseph Elsner taught Chopin those things that are most difficult to learn and most rarely known: to be exacting to one's self, and to value the advantages that are only obtained by dint of patience and labour.

What other accounts of the matter under discussion I have got from books and conversations are as general and vague as the foregoing. I therefore shall not weary the reader with them. What Elsner's view of teaching was may be gathered from one of his letters to his pupil. The gist of his remarks lies in this sentence:--

That with which the artist (who learns continually from his surroundings) astonishes his contemporaries, he can only attain by himself and through himself.

Elsner had insight and self-negation (a rare quality with teachers) enough to act up to his theory, and give free play to the natural tendencies of his pupil's powers. That this was really the case is seen from his reply to one who blamed Frederick's disregard of rules and custom:--

Leave him in peace [he said], his is an uncommon way because his gifts are uncommon. He does not strictly adhere to the customary method, but he has one of his own, and he will reveal in his works an originality which in such a degree has not been found in anyone.