Chopin and Other Musical Essays

PIN

GENIUS OF T

r. This seems to indicate that Chopin is popular. Nevertheless, I believe that what Liszt wrote in 1850, a year after the death of Chopin-that his fame was not yet as great as it would be in the future-is as true to-day as it was forty years ago. Chopin's reputation has been constantly growing, and yet many of his deepest and most poetic compositions are

ce. One of the most absurd of the misconceptions is that Chopin's genius was born in full armor, and that it did not pass through several stages of development, like that of other composers. Chopin did display remarkable originality at the very beginning, but the appa

arison with Wagner advisedly because, although I have the most exalted notions of Wagner's grandeur and importance, I do not for a moment hesitate to say that in his own sphere Chopin is quite as original and has been almost as revolutionary and epoch-making as Wagner. Schumann was the first to recognize the revolutionary significance of Chopin's style. "Chopin's works," he says, "are cannon

mantic school, if necessary, and had decided opinions of other musicians, especially of the popular pianists of his day who vitiated the public taste with their show pieces; but he generally kept them to himself or confided them only to his friends, whom he even occasionally implored to keep them secret. Had

able that Pilot, the next in size to Jumbo, went mad and had to be shot because he was jealous of the exclusive attentions bestowed on his rival? In ?sthetics, this Jumboism, this exaggerated desire for mammoth dimensions, seems to be a trait of the human mind which it is difficult to eradicate. It is a suggestive fact that the morbid, sham ?stheticism which prevailed in England a few years ago, chose for its symbol the uncouth sunflower. And many who know that a sunflower is less beautiful and fragrant than a violet, will nevertheless, on visiting a picture gallery, give most of their attention to

ous volumes; one or two poems suffice to make a reputation, and Chopin has written such." Elsner who was unusually liberal in his views of art, and who discovered and valued his pupil's originality long before Schumann did, nevertheless bowed before the fetish of Jumboism in so far as to write to Chopin in Paris that he was anxious, before he departed this Vale of Tears, to hear an opera from his pen, both for his benefit, and for the glory

with a sympathetic appreciation in Germany and Vienna, when he first went there to test his musical powers. Some of the papers indeed had a good word for him, but, as in the case of Liszt and later of Rubinstein, it was rather for the pianist than for the composer. On his first visit to Vienna he was greatly petted, and he found it eas

regarding the fantasia on Polish airs he says that it completely missed its mark: "There was indeed some applause by the audience, but obviously only to show the pianist that they were not bored." The ultra-Germans, he writes in another letter, did not appear to be quite satisfied; and he relates that one of these, on being asked, in his presence, how he liked the concert, at once changed the subject of conversation, obviously in order not to hurt hi

ferred from the frequency with which Schumann defended Chopin in his musical paper and sneered at his detractors. "It is remarkable," he writes, "that in the very droughty years preceding 1830, in which one should have thanked Heaven for every straw of superior quality, criticism, which it is true, always lags behind unless it emanates from creative minds, persisted in shrugging its shoulders at Chopin's compositions-nay, that one of them had the impudence to say that all they were good f

o the seventh heaven of delight! Mendelssohn's attitude toward Chopin was somewhat vacillating. He defended him in a letter against his sister's criticisms, and assured her that if she had heard some of Chopin's compositions "as he himself played them" for him, she too would have been delighted. He adds that Chopin had just completed "a most graceful little nocturne," of which he remembered much, and was going to play it for his brother Paul. Nevertheless,

lity. The ultro-Teutons still persist in their depreciation of Chopin. In the latest edition of Brockhaus's "Conservations-Lexicon" we read, apropos to Chopin's larger works, that "he was deficient in the profounder musical attainments"(!) Dr. Hanslick, generally considered the leading German critic of the period, in a 534-page collection of criticisms, discussing twenty concert seasons in Vienna, has only about half a dozen and by no means complimentary references to Chopin. And even the late Louis Ehlert, in his appreciative essay on Chopin, comes to the c

f an idea or two. He himself testified to the "intimate artistic relations" between him and Chopin. Moreover, his praise of Chopin is always pitched in such a high key that it would seem as if praise could no higher go. It was he who first proclaimed Chopin's genius authoritatively, and to this fact he often referred subsequently, with special pride. The very first article in his volumes of criticisms is devoted to Chopin's variations on "La Ci Darem'," published as "opus 2." In those days, Schumann used to give his criticisms a semi-dramatic form. On this occasion he represents his alter ego, Eusebius, as rushing into the room wi

ations of which it must be said that they did nothing less than create an epoch in the treatment of musical style. Bold, brilliant, enchanting, his pieces conceal their depth behind so much grace, their erudition behind so much charm, that it is difficult to emancipate one

izing his musical genius. Liszt doubts whether Chopin's national compositions were as fully appreciated by his countrymen as the work of native poets; and Chopin writes to a friend, apropos of his second concert at Warsaw: "The élite of the musical world will be there; but I have little confidence in their musical judgment-Elsner of course excepted." Elsewhere he complains of a patriotic admirer who had written tha

in's genius which would make it palatable to the Parisians. But this did not prove to be the case. In the remarkable group of musicians, poets, and artists who were assembled at that time in Paris, and who mutually inspired one another-a group which included Liszt, Meyerbeer, Hiller, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Heine, George Sand, the Countess D'Agoult, Delacroix, etc.-there were no doubt not a few who knew what a rare genius their friend Chopin was. George Sand wrote in her autobiography: "He has not been understood hitherto, and to the present day he is underestimated. Grea

s refined manners made him personally liked. As he refused to take any but talented pupils, teaching was not so irksome to him as it might have been. Nevertheless one cannot but marvel at the obtuseness of the Parisians who put into the utilitarian harness an artist who might have enchanted them every evening with a concert, had their taste been more cultivated. He did play once, when he first arrived, but the receipts did not even meet the expenses, and the audience received his work so coldly th

have not studied Chopin's deepest works carefully, are still convinced that the pianoforte compositions of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, are of greater importance than Chopin's. So far am I from sharing this opinion that if I had to choose between never again hearing a pianoforte piece by any or all of those composers, or never again hearing a Chopin composition, I should decide in favor of Chopin. Some years ago I expressed my conviction, in The Nation, that Chopin is as distinctly superior to all other piano composers as Wagner is to all other opera composers.

cilitate legato playing, the spray of dainty little ornamental notes, the use of the capricious tempo rubato, and so on. But it has not been made sufficiently clear by any writer how it was that Chopin became the Wagner of the pianoforte, so to

pleasure; hence the name piano-forte. But the pianoforte itself required many years before all its possibilities of tone-production were discovered. The instruments used by Mozart still had a thin short tone, and there was no pedal for prolonging it, except a clumsy one worked with the knee-a circumstance which greatly influenced Mozart's style, and is largely responsible for the fact that his pianoforte works are hardly ever played to-day in the conc

unrivalled a master, but which at that time-the Mozart period, when the short staccato touch was in fashion-all other pianists thought impossible. Beethoven told me afterwards," he continues, "that he had often heard Mozart, whose style fro

a critic as Louis Ehlert should exclaim, apropos of Chopin's "entirely new pianoforte life," "How uninteresting is the style of any previous master (excepting Beethoven) compared with his! What a litany of gone-by, dead-alive forms! What a feelingless, prosaic ji

reat and beautiful ideas, these sonatas are not really adapted to the intrinsic nature of the pianoforte, and hence fail to arouse the enthusiasm of those whose taste has been formed by the works of Chopin and Schumann. It was no doubt an instinctive antipathy to Beethoven's unpianistic style (if the adjective be permissible), which prevented Chopin from admiring Beethoven as deeply as he did some other composers, whom he would have admitted to be his inferiors. And Beethoven himself does not seem to have regarded his pianoforte works with the same satisfaction as his other compositions. At least, he wrote the f

employment of the pedal, and the use of extended and scattered chords, in place

use the pedal as it was used by Chopin and Schumann, he cannot reveal the poetry of their compositions. In one of his letters Chopin notes that Thalberg played forte and piano with the pedals, not with his hands, and some piano bangers do so still; but every pianist who deserves the name knows that loudness and softness must be regulated by the hands (and very rarely the left-si

vely and emit a tone. He also knows that when you sound a single note, say G, on the violin or piano, you seem to hear only a simple tone, but on listening more closely you will find that it is really a compound to

ld press the pedal constantly, whether he plays loudly or softly; because it is only when the damper is raised from the strings that the overtones can enrich and beautify the sound by causing their corresponding strings to vibrate in sympathy with them. Those who heard Schumann play say that he used the pedal persistently, sometimes twice in the same bar to avoi

provided with all the scales, commingled by an artist's hand into all manner of fantastic, ornamental combinations, yet in such a way that you can always distinguish a deeper ground tone and a sweet continuous melody above-and you have an approximate idea of his playing. No wonder that I liked best those of the études which he played for me, and I wish to mention specially the first one, in A flat major, a poem rather than an étude. It would be a mistake to imagine that he

school, there are few passages that absolutely require a pedal, and in most cases the pieces sound almost as well without as with pedal; so that, from his point of view, and in his days of staccato playing, Hummel was quite right in insisting that a pianist could not be properly judged until he played without the pedal. But as regards the romantic school of Chopin, Schum

red to his surprise that the piano had no pedals. They had been sent away for repairs. In this dilemma a happy thought occurred to Liszt, who happened to be present. He crawled under the pia

In his earlier works he carefully indicated where it should be employed, but subsequently he appears to have reasoned rightly that a pianist who needs to be told wh

s without affecting the rest of the instrument. The melancholy "F sharp minor Prelude," for example, cannot be played properly without the use of this middle pedal. In another prelude, we have an illustration of how the pedal

everybody knows how much more beautiful scattered, and widely extended harmonies are than crowded harmonies; but it was Chopin's genius that discovered this fact and applied it on a large scale. Indeed, so novel were his chords, that at first, many of them were deemed unplayable; but he showed that if his own system of fingering was adopted, they were not only playable, but eminently suited to the character of the instrument. The superior beauty of scattered intervals can be strikingly demonstrated in this way. If you strike four or five ad

the modern school." Mr. Joseph Bennett quotes this sentence in his Biography of Chopin, and adds an exclamation point in brackets after it, to express his surprise. Mr. Bennett is considered one of the leading London critics; yet I must say that I have never seen so much ignorance in a single exclamation point in brackets. Note the difference between Elsner and Bennett. Elsner adds to the sentence just quoted, that the other works of Mozart and Beethoven-their symp

eem, Liszt, the greatest pianist the world has known, was really a born orchestral composer. He was never satisfied with the piano, but constantly wanted to convert it into an orchestra. His innovations were all in the service of these orchestral aspirations, and hence it is that his rhapsodies, for example, are much more effective in their orchestral garb than in their original pianoforte version. The same is true of many of Rubinstein's pianoforte works-the Bal Masqué, for instance, which always has such an electric effect on Mr. Theodore Thomas's audiences. Not so with Chopin. Liszt remarks, somewhere, that Chopin might have easily written for orchestra, because his compositions can be so readily arranged for it. I venture to differ from this opinion. Chopin's Funeral March has been repeatedly arranged for orchestra-first by Reber at Chopin's funeral (when M

ble to give one. Let us see first what Chopin's contemporaries have to say of the way in which he himself treats it. Chopin visited England in 1848, and on June 21 gave a concert in London. Mr. Chorley, the well-known critic, wrote a criticism on this occasion for "The Athen?um," in which he says: "The delicacy of M. Chopin's tone and the elasticity of his passages are delicious to the ear. He makes a free use of tempo rubato, leaning about within his bars more than any player we re

ith the accompaniment, follows entirely his feelings." Karasovski says that Chopin "played the bass in quiet, regular time, while the right hand moved about with perfect freedom, now following the left hand, now ... going its own independent way. 'The left hand,' sai

e one just quoted, Liszt must be depended upon as the best authority on the subject; for it is well known that Liszt could imitate Chopin so nicely that his most intimate friends were once deceived in a dark room, imagining that Chopin was playing when Liszt was at the piano. "Chopin," Liszt writes, "was the first who introduced into his compositions that peculiarity which gave such a unique color to his impetuosity, and which he called tempo rubato:-an irregularly interrupted movement, subtile, broken, and languishi

never play a Viennese waltz properly, and by the fact that sometimes, when he was in a jocular mood, he would play o

motives had imperfect prototypes in the works of some preceding composers. As early as 1602, the Italian, Caccini, describes what he calls the "Stile Nobile, in which the singer," he says, "emancipates himself from the fetters of the measure, by prolonging or diminishing the duration of a note by one-half,

yfried, "was very particular at rehearsals about the frequent passages in tempo rubato;" and there are other remarks by contemporaries of Beethoven which indicate that although he wrote in the classical style, in his playing and conducting he often introduced a romantic rubato. Still, in the majority of his compositions, there is no room for the rubato, which cannot be said to have found a home in German music till it was assimilated by the Schumann school, under the influence of Chopin. Since then, it has leavened the spirit of modern music in a manner which has never been sufficiently emphasized. I am convinced that even Richard Wagner was, unconsciously, influ

inadequate conception of the term. Chopin's rubato means much more than this. It includes, to a large extent, the frequent unexpected changes of time and rhythm, together with the ritardandos and accelerandos. It includes, secondly, those unique passages, first conceived by Chopin, where the right hand has to play irregular groups of small notes-say

is the fact that the accent always falls on the first beat of each bar. This is very appropriate and convenient for dancing, but from an artistic point of view, it is decidedly monotonous. Hence, Chopin conferred a vast benefit on modern art by introducing the spirit of Slavic music, in which the accent often falls on other beats beside the first. These regular accents produce the effect of the variable tempo r

we are asked to believe that Chopin, one of the most profound and original musical thinkers the world has ever seen, could not write a correct sonata! Risum teneatis amici! Chopin not able to master the sonata form? The fact is, the sonata form could not master him. He felt instinctively that it was too artificial to serve as a vehicle for the expression of poetic thought; and his thoroughly original genius therefore created the more plastic and malleable shorter forms which have since been adopted by composers the world over. The few sonatas which Chopin wrote do not deviate essentially from the orthodox structure, but one feels constantly that he was hampered in his movements by the artificial structure. Though they are full of genius, like everything he composed, he did not write them con amore. Concentration is one of Chopin's principal characteristics, and the sonata favors diffuseness. Too much thematic beating out is the bane of the sonata. A few bars of gold are worth more than many square yards of gold l

ly, as they do in the compositions of Chopin, which, therefore, are much truer echoes of our modern romantic feelings than the stiff and formal classical sonatas. And thus it is, that Chopin's habitual neglect of the sonata form, instead of being a defect, reveals his rare artistic subtlety and grandeur. It was natural that a Pole should vindicate for music this emotional freedom of movement, for the Slavic mind is especially prone to constant changes of m

Weber and Field; and his poetic preludes, his romantic ballads, his lovely ber?euse, his amorous mazurkas, are new types in art which have often been imitated but never equalled. Only in one field did Chopin have a dangerous rival among his predecessors, namely, in the Waltz. Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" is the source of the modern idealized waltz, because it was not written for the feet alone, but also for the heart and the imagination. Like Chopin's waltzes, it contains chivalrous passages

nce than a promenade in which courtly pomps and aristocratic splendor were on exhibition. It was a chivalrous but not an amorous dance, precedence being given to age and rank, before youth and beauty. And whereas, in other da

s of two of the most spontaneous composers-Chopin and Schubert-are often characterized by an exquisite feminine tenderness and grace; as if, seeing that women have not done their duty as composers, th

is other works. The Mazurs are musically a highly gifted nation, and Chopin was impressed early in life with the quaint originality of their melodies. No doubt some of his mazurkas are merely artistic settings of these old love songs, but they are the settings of an inspired jeweller. If we can judge by the number of pieces of each class that he wrote, the mazurka was Chopin's favorite form. Even on his death-bed he wrote one. It was his last effort, and he was too weak to try it over on the piano. It is of heart-rending sadness, and exqui

ion to the inexhaustible variety of ideas which makes each of them so unique, notwithstanding their strong family likeness. They are like fantastic

cy to take their slow pieces too fast, and Chopin suffers still more from this pernicious habit. Mendelssohn in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Weber in "Oberon," have given us glimpses of dreamland, but Chopin's nocturnes take us there bodily, and plunge us into reveries more delicious than the visions of an opium eater. They should be played in the twilight an

king originality and boldness of modulation that has no parallel in music, except in Wagner's last music-dramas. Now we have seen that Moscheles, and other contemporaries of Chopin, found his modulations harsh and disagreeable; and doubtless there are amateurs to-day who regard them in the same way. It seems, indeed, as if musical people must be divided into two classes-those who find their chief delight in melody pure and simple, and those who think that rich and varied harmony is the soul of music. Chopin fortunately wrote for both classes. Italy has produced no melodist equal to him, and Germany only one-Franz Schubert. No one h

to be melancholy. He inherited that national melancholy of the Poles which causes them even to dance to tunes in minor keys, and which is commonly attributed to the long-continued political oppression under which they have suffered. But, apart from this national trait, Chopin had sufficient personal reasons for writing the greater part of his mazurkas and his other pieces in minor keys. Like other men of genius, he keenly felt the anguish of not being fully appreciated by his contemporaries. Moreover, although he was greatly admired by the French and Polish women in

troductions to a new world of musical emotion. There is a strange discrepancy in the accounts which Liszt and George Sand give of the Majorca episode in Chopin's life. Liszt describes it as a period of calm enjoyment, George Sand as one of discomfort and distress. As she was an eye-witness, her testimony appears the more trustworthy, especially as it is borne out by the character of the preludes which he composed there. There are among

nt, in the luxury of idealized human sorrow. There is in these twenty-seven études, as in the twenty-five preludes, an inexhaustible wealth of melody, modulation, poetry and passion. One can play them every day and never tire of them. Of most of them one might say what Schumann said of one-that they are "poems rather than studies;" and much surprise has been expressed that Chopin should have chosen such a modest and apparently inappropriate name for them as "studies." Now, I have a theory on this subject: I believe it was partly an ironic intention which induced Chopin to call some of his most insp

ildren. As a mere child he had formed the habit of mimicking and caricaturing pianists and other distinguished men. Liszt often suffered from this mischievous habit, but he did not complain, and even seemed to enjoy it. Of Chopin's wit, two specimens may be cited. A rich Parisian one day invited him to dinner, with the intention of getting him to enter

rotesque line at the end. Similarly, Chopin, after improvising for his friends for an hour or two, would suddenly rouse them from their reveries by a glissando-sliding his fingers from one end of the key-b

he Poles are as noted as the French for elegance and grace. He avoided not only the modulatory monotony of the classical school, but, especially, the commonplace endings which marred so many classical compositions. "All's well that ends well," is a rule that was generally ignored by composers till Chopin taught them its value and effect. Chopin's pen always stopped when his thoughts stopped, and he never ap

ent." I have already mentioned the fact that when he wrote his last mazurka he was too weak to try it on the piano. In one of his letters he speaks of a polonaise being ready in his head. These facts indicate that he composed mentally, although, no doubt, during the improvisations, many themes occurred to him which he remembered and utilized. When he improvised he did not watch the key-board, but generally looked at the ceiling. Already as a youth he used to be so absorbed that he forgot his meals; and, in the street, he was often so absent-minded that he very narrowly escaped being run over by a wagon. Visions of female

ore as regards form, than from anyone else, except Bach and Wagner. In comparing his last works with his first, and noting their progress, the mind tries in vain to conceive where he would have led the world had he lived eighty instead of forty years. One thing is certain: he would have probably written more for other instruments. His pianoforte concertos belong to his early period, and betray a lack of experience in the treatment of the orchestra. But he wrote two pieces of chamber music which have never been excelled-a 'cello sonata and a trio. The 'cello sonata was the last of his larger works, and in my opinion it is superior to any of the 'cello sonatas of Mendelssohn