Frederic Chopin, v. 1 (of 2)

ar and wide. He excited universal interest, and it is a proof of his popularity that the only strikingly successful concerts were those in which he took part. His marv

ented Aelomelodicon.10 The instrument was placed in the Protestant Church, for the sake of heightening the tone by its being heard under the enormous dome of that buil

him famous abroad, but in his own city he was already regarded as a popular and rapidly ripening artist. Looking at their son merely as a distinguished dilettante, his parents had not made music h

d some life-long friendships. Among these friends we may mention Titus Woyciechowski, to whom he dedicated his "Variations, op. 2;" Alexander Rembielinski;11 Wilhelm von Kolberg; Johann Matuszynsk

they all bowed before him as their master. Kind and affable by disposition he had also an innate grace, while, from his education and refined surroundings, he possessed, even in ea

, Louise, Emily, and Frederic went to the then much frequented spring. During their visit a poor widow, who had vainly been seeking help from the healing stream, died, leaving two young children, under the care of a faithful nurse, but without sufficient means for the funeral and the journey home. Hearing of their need, Chopin made the noblest use of his talents. He arranged a concert for the benefit of the poor children, and ha

trained composer, he had obtained celebrity by his music to the first part of Goethe?s Faust, which, by Royal command, was for several years performed annually in his honour at the Berlin Academy for Singing. He had a very agreeable tenor voice,

his magnate and our artist, yet writers, ignorant of the facts, have represented the Prince as Chopin?s benefactor, and as having supplied the means for his education. Franz Liszt was the first to promulgate this error in his book, entitled "Francois Chopin," written in French, shortly after the master?s death, in which he says, "supplementing the limited means of the family, the Prince bestowed on Frederic the inestimable gift of a good and comple

he capitulation. Not having made Chopin?s acquaintance until his residence in Paris, it does not appear, from what he told Liszt, that he could have possessed any accurate information about his early life. Julius Fontana, who had known Chopin from childhood, entered a protest against Liszt?s assertion, so also did

first time he asked his father for money was when he had determined on going to Paris, after a sojourn of eighteen months in the beautiful Austrian capital. In his charming, child-like manner, he lamented that he should be the cause of additional exp

oforte and violoncello, op. 8, composed in Warsaw between 1827 and 1829; so that in point of fact Chopin, not the Prince, was the donor. It is only fair to Liszt to say