The passage from the letter of George Sand dated September 1, 1846, which I quoted earlier in this chapter, justifies us, I think, in assuming that, although she was still keeping on her apartments in the Square d'Orleans, the phalanstery had ceased to exist. The apartments she gave up probably sometime in 1847; at any rate, she passed the winter of 1847-8, for the most part at least, at Nohant; and when after the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 she came to Paris (between the 9th and 14th of March), she put up at a hotel garni. Chopin continued to live in his old quarters in the Square d'Orldans, and, according to Gutmann, was after the cessation of his connection with George Sand in the habit of dining either with him (Gutmann) or Grzymala, that is to say, in their company.
It is much to be regretted that no letters are forthcoming to tell us of Chopin's feelings and doings at this time. I can place before the reader no more than one note, the satisfactory nature of which makes up to some extent for its brevity. It is addressed to Franchomme; dated Friday, October 1, 1847; and contains only these few words:—
Dear friend,—I thank you for your good heart, but I am very
RICH this evening. Yours with all my heart.
In this year—i.e., 1847—appeared the three last works which Chopin published, although among his posthumous compositions there are two of a later date. The Trois Mazurkas, Op. 63 (dedicated to the Comtesse L. Czosnowska), and the Trois Valses, Op. 64 (dedicated respectively to Madame la Comtesse Potocka, Madame la Baronne de Rothschild, and Madame la Baronne Bronicka), appeared in September, and the Sonata for piano and violoncello, Op. 65 (dedicated to Franchomme), in October. Now I will say of these compositions only that the mazurkas and waltzes are not inferior to his previous works of this kind, and that the sonata is one of his most strenuous efforts in the larger forms. Mr. Charles Halle remembers going one evening in 1847 with Stephen Heller to Chopin, who had invited some friends to let them hear this sonata which he had lately finished. On arriving at his house they found him rather unwell; he went about the room bent like a half-opened penknife. The visitors proposed to leave him and to postpone the performance, but Chopin would not hear of it. He said he would try. Having once begun, he soon became straight again, warming as he proceeded. As will be seen from some remarks of Madame Dubois's, which I shall quote farther on, the sonata did not make an altogether favourable impression on the auditors.
The name of Madame Dubois reminds me of the soiree immortalised by a letter of Madame Girardin (see the one of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV. of Le Vicomte de Launay), and already several times alluded to by me in preceding chapters. At this soiree Chopin not only performed several of his pieces, but also accompanied on a second piano his E minor Concerto which was played by his pupil, the youthful and beautiful Mdlle. Camille O'Meara. But the musical event par excellence of the period of Chopin's life with which we are concerned in this chapter is his concert, the last he gave in Paris, on February 16, 1848. Before I proceed with my account of it, I must quote a note, enclosing tickets for this concert, which Chopin wrote at this time to Franchomme. It runs thus: "The best places en evidence for Madame D., but not for her cook." Madame D. was Madame Paul Delaroche, the wife of the great painter, and a friend of Franchomme's.
But here is a copy of the original programme:—
FIRST PART.
Trio by Mozart, for piano, violin, and violoncello, performed by MM. Chopin, Alard, and Franchomme.
Aria, sung by Mdlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.
Nocturne, |
|—composed and performed by M. Chopin.
Barcarole, |
Air, sung by Mdlle. Antonia Molina di Mondi.
Etude, |
|—composed and performed by M. Chopin.
Berceuse, |
SECOND PART.
Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale of the Sonata in G minor, for piano and violoncello, composed by M. Chopin, and performed by the author and M. Franchomme.
Air nouveau from Robert le Diable, composed by M. Meyerbeer,
sung by M. Roger.
Preludes, |
|
Mazurkas, |—composed and performed by M. Chopin.
|
Valse, |
Accompanists:—MM. Aulary and de Garaude.
The report of "M. S." in the Gazette musicale of February 20, 1848, transports us at once into the midst of the exquisite, perfume-laden atmosphere of Pleyel's rooms on February 16:—
A concert by the Ariel of pianists is a thing too rare to be given, like other concerts, by opening both wings of the doors to whomsoever wishes to enter. For this one a list had been drawn up: everyone inscribed thereon his name: but everyone was not sure of obtaining the precious ticket: patronage was required to be admitted into the holy of holies, to obtain the favour of depositing one's offering, and yet this offering amounted to a louis; but who has not a louis to spare whep Chopin may be heard?
The outcome of all this naturally was that the fine flower of the aristocracy of the most distinguished women, the most elegant toilettes, filled on Wednesday Pleyel's rooms. There was also the aristocracy of artists and amateurs, happy to seize in his flight this musical sylph who had promised to let himself once more and for a few hours be approached, seen, and heard.
The sylph kept his word, and with what success, what enthusiasm! It is easier to tell you of the reception he got, the transport he excited, than to describe, analyse, divulge, the mysteries of an execution which was nothing analogous in our terrestrial regions. If we had in our power the pen which traced the delicate marvels of Queen Mab, not bigger than an agate that glitters on the finger of an alderman, of her liny chariot, of her diaphanous team, only then should we succeed in giving an idea of a purely ideal talent into which matter enters hardly at all. Only Chopin can make Chopin understood: all those who were present at the seance of Wednesday are convinced of this as well as we.
The programme announced first a trio of Mozart, which Chopin, Alard, and Franchomme executed in such a manner that one despairs of ever hearing it again so well performed. Then Chopin played studies, preludes, mazurkas, waltzes; he performed afterwards his beautiful sonata with Franchomme. Do not ask us how all these masterpieces small and great were rendered. We said at first we would not attempt to reproduce these thousands and thousands of nuances of an exceptional genius having in his service an organisation of the same kind. We shall only say that the charm did not cease to act a single instant on the audience, and that it still lasted after the concert was ended.
Let us add that Roger, our brilliant tenor, sang with his most expressive voice the beautiful prayer intercalated in Robert le Diable by the author himself at the debut of Mario at the Opera; that Mdlle. Antonia de Mendi [a niece of Pauline Viardot's; see the spelling of her name in the programme], the young and beautiful singer, carried off her share of bravos by her talent full of hope and promise.
There is a talk of a second concert which Chopin is to give on the 10th of March, and already more than 600 names are put down on the new list. In this there is nothing astonishing; Chopin owed us this recompense, and he well deserves this eagerness.
As this report, although it enables us to realise the atmosphere, is otherwise lacking in substance, we must try to get further information elsewhere. Happily, there is plenty at our disposal.
Before playing the violoncello sonata in public [wrote Madame Dubois to me], Chopin had tried it before some artists and intimate friends; the first movement, the masterpiece, was not understood. It appeared to the hearers obscure, involved by too many ideas, in short, it had no success. At the last moment Chopin dared not play the whole sonata before so worldly and elegant an audience, but confined himself to the Scherzo, Adagio, and Finale. I shall never forget the manner in which he executed the Barcarole, that adorable composition; the Waltz in D flat (la valse au petit chien) was encored amidst the acclamations of the public. A grande dame who was present at this concert wished to know Chopin's secret of making the scales so flowing on the piano [faire les gammes si coulees stir le piano]. The expression is good, and this limpidity has never been equalled.
Stephen Heller's remark to me, that Chopin became in his last years so weak that his playing was sometimes hardly audible, I have already related in a preceding chapter. There I have also mentioned what Mr. Charles Halle' told me—namely, that in the latter part of his life Chopin often played forte passages piano and even pianissimo, that, for instance, at the concert we are speaking of he played the two forte passages towards the end of the Barcarole pianissimo and with all sorts of dynamic finesses. Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, who was present at the concert on February 16, 1848, gave some interesting recollections of it, after the reading of a paper on the subject of Chopin, by Mr. G. A. Osborne, at one of the meetings of the Musical Association (see Proceedings, of the Musical Association for the year 1879-80):—
He [Chopin] was extremely weak, but still his playing—by reason of that remarkable quality which he possessed of gradation in touch—betrayed none of the impress of weakness which some attributed to piano playing or softness of touch; and he possessed in a greater degree than any pianoforte- player he [Mr. Goldschmidt] had ever heard, the faculty of passing upwards from piano through all gradations of tone…It was extremely difficult to obtain admission, for Chopin, who had been truly described as a most sensitive man—which seemed to be pre-eminently a quality of artistic organisations—not only had a list submitted to him of those who ought to be admitted, but he sifted that list, and made a selection from the selected list; he was, therefore, surrounded by none but friends and admirers. The room was beautifully decorated with flowers of all kinds, and he could truly say that even now, at the distance of thirty years, he had the most vivid recollection of the concert…The audience was so enraptured with his [Chopin's] playing that he was called forward again and again.
In connection with what Mr. Goldschmidt and the writer in the Gazette musicale say about the difficulty of admission and a sifted list, I have to record, and I shall do no more than record, Franchomme's denial. "I really believe," he said to me, "that this is a mere fiction. I saw Chopin every day; how, then, could I remain ignorant of it?"
To complete my account of Chopin's last concert in Paris, I have yet to add some scraps of information derived from Un nid d'autographes, by Oscar Comettant, who was present at it, and, moreover, reported on it in Le Siecle. The memory of the event was brought back to him when on looking over autographs in the possession of Auguste Wolff, the successor of Camille Pleyel, he found a ticket for the above described concert. As the concert so was also the ticket unlike that of any other artist. "Les lettres d'ecriture anglaise etaient gravees au burin et imprimees en taille-douce sur de beau papier mi-carton glace, d'un carre long elegant et distingue." It bore the following words and figures:—
SOIREE DE M. CHOPIN,
DANS L'UN DES SALONS DE MM. PLEYEL ET CIE.,
20, Rue Rochechouart,
Le mercredi 16 fevrier 1848 a 8 heures 1/2.
Rang….Prix 20 francs….Place reservee.
M. Comettant, in contradiction to what has been said by others about Chopin's physical condition, states that when the latter came on the platform, he walked upright and without feebleness; his face, though pale, did not seem greatly altered; and he played as he had always played. But M. Comettant was told that Chopin, having spent at the concert all his moral and physical energy, afterwards nearly fainted in the artists' room.
In March Chopin and George Sand saw each other once more. We will rest satisfied with the latter's laconic account of the meeting already quoted: "Je serrai sa main tremblante et glacee. Je voulu lui parler, il s'echappa." Karasowski's account of this last meeting is in the feuilleton style and a worthy pendant to that of the first meeting:—
A month before his departure [he writes], in the last days of March, Chopin was invited by a lady to whose hospitable house he had in former times often gone. Some moments he hesitated whether he should accept this invitation, for he had of late years less frequented the salons; at last—as if impelled by an inner voice—he accepted. An hour before he entered the house of Madame H…
And then follow wonderful conversations, sighs, blushes, tears, a lady hiding behind an ivy screen, and afterwards advancing with a gliding step, and whispering with a look full of repentance: "Frederick!" Alas, this was not the way George Sand met her dismissed lovers. Moreover, let it be remembered she was at this time not a girl in her teens, but a woman of nearly forty-four.
The outbreak of the revolution on February 22, 1848, upset the arrangements for the second concert, which was to take place on the 10th of March, and, along with the desire to seek forgetfulness of the grievous loss he had sustained in a change of scene, decided him at last to accept the pressing and unwearied invitations of his Scotch and English friends to visit Great Britain. On April 2 the Gazette musicale announced that Chopin would shortly betake himself to London and pass the season there. And before many weeks had passed he set out upon his journey. But the history of his doings in the capital and in other parts of the United Kingdom shall be related in another chapter.
CHAPTER XXX.
DIFFERENCE OF STYLE IN CHOPIN'S WORKS.——THEIR CHARACTERISTICS DISCUSSED, AND POPULAR PREJUDICES CONTROVERTED.——POLISH NATIONAL MUSIC AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CHOPIN.——CHOPIN A PERSONAL AS WELL AS NATIONAL TONE-POET.—A REVIEW OF SOME OF HIS LESS PERFECT COMPOSITIONS AND OF HIS MASTERPIECES: BOLERO; RONDEAU; VARIATIONS; TARANTELLE; ALLEGRO DE CONCERT; TWO SONATAS FOR PIANOFORTE (OP. 38 AND 58); SONATA (OP. 65) AND GRAND DUO CONCERTANT FOR PIANOFORTE AND VIOLONCELLO; FANTAISIE; MAZURKAS; POLONAISES; VALSES; ETUDES; PRELUDES; SCHERZI; IMPROMPTUS; NOCTURNES; BERCEUSE; BARCAROLE; AND BALLADES——-THE SONGS.—— VARIOUS EDITIONS.
Before we inquire into the doings and sufferings of Chopin in England and Scotland, let us take a general survey of his life- work as a composer. We may fitly do so now; as at the stage of his career we have reached, his creative activity had come to a close. The last composition he published, the G minor Sonata for piano and violoncello, Op. 65, appeared in October, 1847; and among his posthumous compositions published by Fontana there are only two of later date—namely, the mazurkas, No. 2 of Op. 67 (G minor) and No. 4 of Op. 68 (F minor), which came into existence in 1849. Neither of these compositions can be numbered with the master's best works, but the latter of them is interesting, because it seems in its tonal writhings and wailings a picture of the bodily and mental torments Chopin was at the time enduring.
A considerable number of the master's works I have already discussed in Chapters III., VIII., and XIII. These, if we except the two Concertos, Op. II and 21 (although they, too, do not rank with his chefs-d'oeuvre), are, however, for us of greater importance biographically, perhaps also historically, than otherwise. It is true, we hear now and then of some virtuoso playing the Variations, Op. 2, or the Fantasia on Polish airs, Op. 13, nay, we may hear even of the performance of the Trio, Op. 8; but such occurrences are of the rarest rarity, and, considering how rich musical literature is in unexceptionable concert-pieces and chamber compositions, one feels on the whole pleased that these enterprising soloists and trio-players find neither much encouragement nor many imitators. While in examining the earlier works, the praise bestowed on them was often largely mixed with censure, and the admiration felt for them tempered by dissatisfaction; we shall have little else than pure praise and admiration for the works that remain to be considered, at least for the vast majority of them. One thing, however, seems to me needful before justice can be done to the composer Chopin: certain prejudices abroad concerning him have to be combated. I shall, therefore, preface my remarks on particular compositions and groups of compositions by some general observations.
It is sometimes said that there are hardly any traces of a development in the productions of Chopin, and that in this respect he is unlike all the other great masters. Such an opinion cannot be the result of a thorough and comprehensive study of the composer's works. So far from agreeing with those who hold it, I am tempted to assert that the difference of style between Chopin's early and latest works (even when juvenile compositions like the first two Rondos are left out of account) is as great as that between Beethoven's first and ninth Symphony. It would be easy to classify the Polish master's works according to three and even four (with the usual exceptions) successive styles, but I have no taste for this cheap kind of useless ingenuity. In fact, I shall confine myself to saying that in Chopin's works there are clearly distinguishable two styles—the early virtuosic and the later poetic style. The latter is in a certain sense also virtuosic, but with this difference, that its virtuosity is not virtuosity for virtuosity's sake. The poetic style which has thrown off the tinsel showiness of its predecessor does not, however, remain unchanged, for its texture becomes more and more close, and affords conclusive evidence of the increasing influence of Johann Sebastian Bach. Of course, the grand master of fugue does not appear here, as it were, full life-size, in peruke, knee-breeches, and shoe-buckles, but his presence in spite of transformation and attenuation is unmistakable. It is, however, not only in the closeness and complexity of texture that we notice Chopin's style changing: a striving after greater breadth and fulness of form are likewise apparent, and, alas! also an increase in sombreness, the result of deteriorating health. All this the reader will have to keep in mind when he passes in review the master's works, for I shall marshal them by groups, not chronologically.
Another prejudice, wide-spread, almost universal, is that Chopin's music is all languor and melancholy, and, consequently, wanting in variety. Now, there can be no greater error than this belief. As to variety, we should be obliged to wonder at its infiniteness if he had composed nothing but the pieces to which are really applicable the epithets dreamy, pensive, mournful, and despondent. But what vigour, what more than manly vigour, manifests itself in many of his creations! Think only of the Polonaises in A major (Op. 40, No. 1) and in A flat major (Op. 53), of many of his studies, the first three of his ballades, the scherzos, and much besides! To be sure, a great deal of this vigour is not natural, but the outcome of despair and maddening passion. Still, it is vigour, and such vigour as is not often to be met with. And, then, it is not the only kind to be found in his music. There is also a healthy vigour, which, for instance, in the A major Polonaise assumes a brilliantly-heroic form. Nor are serene and even joyous moods so rare that it would be permissible to ignore them. While thus controverting the so- called vox Dei (are not popular opinions generally popular prejudices?) and the pseudo-critics who create or follow it, I have no intention either to deny or conceal the Polish master's excess of languor and melancholy. I only wish to avoid vulgar exaggeration, to keep within the bounds of the factual. In art as in life, in biography as in history, there are not many questions that can be answered by a plain "yea" or "nay. It was, indeed, with Chopin as has been said of him, "his heart was sad, his mind was gay. "One day when Chopin, Liszt, and the Comtesse d'Agoult spent the after-dinner hours together, the lady, deeply moved by the Polish composer's playing, ventured to ask him "by what name he called the extraordinary feeling which he enclosed in his compositions, like unknown ashes in superb urns of most exquisitely-chiselled alabaster? "He answered her that—
her heart had not deceived her in its melancholy saddening, for whatever his moments of cheerfulness might be, he never for all that got rid of a feeling which formed, as it were, the soil of his heart, and for which he found a name only in his mother-tongue, no other possessing an equivalent to the Polish word zal [sadness, pain, sorrow, grief, trouble, repentance, &c.]. Indeed, he uttered the word repeatedly, as if his ear had been eager for this sound, which for him comprised the whole scale of the feelings which is produced by an intense plaint, from repentance to hatred, blessed or poisoned fruits of this acrid root.
After a long dissertation on the meaning of the word zal, Liszt, from whose book this quotation is taken, proceeds thus:—
Yes, truly, the zal colours with a reflection now argent, now ardent, the whole of Chopin's works. It is not even absent from his sweetest reveries. These impressions had so much the more importance in the life of Chopin that they manifested themselves distinctly in his last works. They little by little attained a kind of sickly irascibility, reaching the point of feverish tremulousness. This latter reveals itself in some of his last writings by a distortion of his thought which one is sometimes rather pained than surprised to meet. Suffocating almost under the oppression of his repressed transports of passion, making no longer use of the art except to rehearse to himself his own tragedy, he began, after having sung his feeling, to tear it to pieces.
Read together with my matter-of-fact statements, Liszt's hyperbolical and circumlocutional poetic prose will not be misunderstood by the reader. The case may be briefly summed up thus. Zal is not to be found in every one of Chopin's compositions, but in the greater part of them: sometimes it appears clearly on the surface, now as a smooth or lightly- rippled flow, now as a wildly-coursing, fiercely-gushing torrent; sometimes it is dimly felt only as an undercurrent whose presence not unfrequently becomes temporarily lost to ear and eye. We must, however, take care not to overlook that this zal is not exclusively individual, although its width and intensity are so.
The key-note [of Polish songs] [says the editor and translator into German of an interesting collection of Folk-songs of the Poles][FOOTNOTE: Volkslieder der Polen. Gesammelt und ubersetzt von W. P. (Leipzig,1833).] is melancholy—even in playful and naive songs something may be heard which reminds one of the pain of past sorrows; a plaintive sigh, a death- groan, which seems to accuse the Creator, curses His existence, and, as Tieck thinks, cries to heaven out of the dust of annihilation:
"What sin have I committed?"
These are the after-throes of whole races; these are the pains of whole centuries, which in these melodies entwine themselves in an infinite sigh. One is tempted to call them sentimental, because they seem to reflect sometimes on their own feeling; but, on the other hand, they are not so, for the impulse to an annihilating outpouring of feeling expresses itself too powerfully for these musical poems to be products of conscious creativeness. One feels when one hears these songs that the implacable wheel of fate has only too often rolled over the terrene happiness of this people, and life has turned to them only its dark side. Therefore, the dark side is so conspicuous; therefore, much pain and poetry—unhappiness and greatness.
The remarks on Polish folk-music lead us naturally to the question of Chopin's indebtedness to it, which, while in one respect it cannot be too highly rated, is yet in another respect generally overrated. The opinion that every peculiarity which distinguishes his music from that of other masters is to be put to the account of his nationality, and may be traced in Polish folk-music, is erroneous. But, on the other hand, it is emphatically true that this same folk-music was to him a potent inspirer and trainer. Generally speaking, however, Chopin has more of the spirit than of the form of Polish folk-music. The only two classes of his compositions where we find also something of the form are his mazurkas and polonaises; and, what is noteworthy, more in the former, the dance of the people, than in the latter, the dance of the aristocracy. In Chopin's mazurkas we meet not only with many of the most characteristic rhythms, but also with many equally characteristic melodic and harmonic traits of this chief of all the Polish dances.
Polish national music conforms in part to the tonality prevailing in modern art-music, that is, to our major and minor modes; in part, however, it reminds one of other tonalities—for instance, of that of the mediaeval church modes, and of that or those prevalent in the music of the Hungarians, Wallachians, and other peoples of that quarter.
[FOOTNOTE: The strictly diatonic church modes (not to be confounded with the ancient Greek modes bearing the same names) differ from each other by the position of the two semitones: the Ionian is like our C major; the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian. &c., are like the series of natural notes starting respectively from d, c, f, g, a, &c. The characteristic interval of the Hungarian scale is the augmented second (a, b, c, d#, e, f, g#, a).]
The melodic progression, not always immediate, of an augmented fourth and major seventh occurs frequently, and that of an augmented second occasionally. Skips of a third after or before one or more steps of a second are very common. In connection with these skips of a third may be mentioned that one meets with melodies evidently based on a scale with a degree less than our major and minor scales, having in one place a step of a third instead of a second. [FOOTNOTE: Connoisseurs of Scotch music, on becoming acquainted with Polish music, will be incited by many traits of the latter to undertake a comparative study of the two.] The opening and the closing note stand often to each other in the relation of a second, sometimes also of a seventh. The numerous peculiarities to be met with in Polish folkmusic with regard to melodic progression are not likely to be reducible to one tonality or a simple system of tonalities. Time and district of origin have much to do with the formal character of the melodies. And besides political, social, and local influences direct musical ones—the mediaeval church music, eastern secular music, &c.—have to be taken into account. Of most Polish melodies it may be said that they are as capricious as they are piquant. Any attempt to harmonise them according to our tonal system must end in failure. Many of them would, indeed, be spoiled by any kind of harmony, being essentially melodic, not outgrowths of harmony.
[FOOTNOTE: To those who wish to study this subject may be recommended Oskar Kolberg's Piesni Ludu Polskiego (Warsaw, 1857), the best collection of Polish folk-songs. Charles Lipinski's collection, Piesni Polskie i Ruskie Luttu Galicyjskiego, although much less interesting, is yet noteworthy.]
To treat, however, this subject adequately, one requires volumes, not pages; to speak on it authoritatively, one must have studied it more thoroughly than I have done. The following melodies and snatches of melodies will to some extent illustrate what I have said, although they are chosen with a view rather to illustrate Chopin's indebtedness to Polish folk-music than Polish folk-music itself:—
[11 music score excerpts illustrated here]
Chopin, while piquantly and daringly varying the tonality prevailing in art-music, hardly ever departs from it altogether— he keeps at least in contact with it, however light that contact may be now and then in the mazurkas.
[FOOTNOTE: One of the most decided exceptions is the Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2, of which only the A fiat major part adheres frankly to our tonality. The portion beginning with the twenty-first bar and extending over that and the next fifteen bars displays, on the other hand, the purest Lydian, while the other portions, although less definite as regards tonality, keep in closer touch with the mediaeval church smode [sic: mode] than with our major and minor.]
Further, he adopted only some of the striking peculiarities of the national music, and added to them others which were individual. These individual characteristics—those audacities of rhythm, melody, and harmony (in progressions and modulations, as well as in single chords)—may, however, be said to have been fathered by the national ones. As to the predominating chromaticism of his style, it is not to be found in Polish folk- music; although slight rudiments are discoverable (see Nos. 6-12 of the musical illustrations). Of course, no one would seek there his indescribably-exquisite and highly-elaborate workmanship, which alone enabled him to give expression to the finest shades and most sudden changes of gentle feelings and turbulent passions. Indeed, as I have already said, it is rather the national spirit than the form which manifests itself in Chopin's music. The writer of the article on Polish music in Mendel's Conversations-Lexikon remarks:—
What Chopin has written remains for all times the highest ideal of Polish music. Although it would be impossible to point out in a single bar a vulgar utilisation of a national theme, or a Slavonic aping of it, there yet hovers over the whole the spirit of Polish melody, with its chivalrous, proud, and dreamy accents; yea, even the spirit of the Polish language is so pregnantly reproduced in the musical diction as perhaps in no composition of any of his countrymen; unless it be that Prince Oginski with his polonaises and Dobrzynski in his happiest moments have approached him.
Liszt, as so often, has also in connection with this aspect of the composer Chopin some excellent remarks to offer.
He neither applied himself nor exerted himself to write Polish music; it is possible that he would have been astonished to hear himself called a Polish musician.
[FOOTNOTE: Liszt decidedly overshoots here the mark, and does so in a less degree in the rest of these observations. Did not Chopin himself say to Hiller that he wished to be to his countrymen what Uhland was to the Germans? And did he not write in one of his letters (see p. 168): "You know how I wish to understand, and how I have in part succeeded in understanding, our national music"?]
Nevertheless, he was a national musician par excellence…He summed up in his imagination, he represented in his talent, a poetic feeling inherent in his nation and diffused there among all his contemporaries. Like the true national poets, Chopin sang, without a fixed design, without a preconceived choice, what inspiration spontaneously dictated to him; it is thus that there arose in his music, without solicitation, without effort, the most idealised form of the emotions which had animated his childhood, chequered his adolescence, and embellished his youth…Without making any pretence to it, he collected into a luminous sheaf sentiments confusedly felt by all in his country, fragmentarily disseminated in their hearts, vaguely perceived by some.
George Sand tells us that Chopin's works were the mysterious and vague expression of his inner life. That they were the expression of his inner life is indeed a fact which no attentive hearer can fail to discover without the aid of external evidence. For the composer has hardly written a bar in which, so to speak, the beating of his heart may not be felt. Chopin revealed himself only in his music, but there he revealed himself fully. And was this expression of his inner life really "mysterious and vague"? I think not! At least, no effusion of words could have made clearer and more distinct what he expressed. For the communications of dreams and visions such as he dreamt and saw, of the fluctuating emotional actualities such as his sensitive heart experienced, musical forms are, no doubt, less clumsy than verbal and pictorial ones. And if we know something of his history and that of his nation, we cannot be at a loss to give names and local habitations to the impalpable, but emotionally and intellectually-perceptible contents of his music. We have to distinguish in Chopin the personal and the national tone-poet, the singer of his own joys and sorrows and that of his country's. But, while distinguishing these two aspects, we must take care not to regard them as two separate things. They were a duality the constitutive forces of which alternately assumed supremacy. The national poet at no time absorbed the personal, the personal poet at no time disowned the national. His imagination was always ready to conjure up his native atmosphere, nay, we may even say that, wherever he might be, he lived in it. The scene of his dreams and visions lay oftenest in the land of his birth. And what did the national poet dream and see in these dreams and visions? A past, present, and future which never existed and never will exist, a Poland and a Polish people glorified. Reality passed through the refining fires of his love and genius and reappeared in his music sublimated as beauty and poetry. No other poet has like Chopin embodied in art the romance of the land and people of Poland. And, also, no other poet has like him embodied in art the romance of his own existence. But whereas as a national poet he was a flattering idealist, he was as a personal poet an uncompromising realist.
The masterpieces of Chopin consist of mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, etudes, preludes, nocturnes (with which we will class the berceuse and barcarole), scherzos and impromptus, and ballades. They do not, however, comprise all his notable compositions. And about these notable compositions which do not rank with his masterpieces, either because they are of less significance or otherwise fail to reach the standard of requisite perfectness, I shall first say a few words.
Chopin's Bolero, Op. 19, may be described as a Bolero a la polonaise. It is livelier in movement and more coquettish in character than the compositions which he entitles polonaises, but for all that its physiognomy does not on the whole strike one as particularly Spanish, certainly not beyond the first section of the Bolero proper and the seductive strains of the Pililento, the second tempo of the introduction. And in saying this I am not misled by the points of resemblance in the rhythmical accompaniment of these dances. Chopin published the Bolero in 1834, four years before he visited Spain, but one may doubt whether it would have turned out less Polish if he had composed it subsequently. Although an excellent imitator in the way of mimicry, he lacked the talent of imitating musical thought and character; at any rate, there are no traces of it in his works. The cause of this lack of talent lies, of course, in the strength of his subjectivism in the first place, and of his nationalism in the second. I said the Bolero was published four years before his visit to Spain. But how many years before this visit was it composed? I think a good many years earlier; for it has so much of his youthful style about it, and not only of his youthful style, but also of his youthful character—by which I mean that it is less intensely poetic. It is not impossible that Chopin was instigated to write it by hearing the Bolero in Auber's "La Muette de Portici" ("Masaniello"), which opera was first performed on February 28, 1828. These remarks are thrown out merely as hints. The second composition which we shall consider will show how dangerous it is to dogmatise on the strength of internal evidence.
Op. 16, a lightsome Rondeau with a dramatic Introduction, is, like the Bolero, not without its beauties; but in spite of greater individuality, ranks, like it, low among the master's works, being patchy, unequal, and little poetical.
If ever Chopin is not Chopin in his music, he is so in his Variations brillantes (in B flat major) sur le Rondeau favori: "Je vends des Scapulaires" de Ludovic, de Herold et Halevy, Op. 12. Did we not know that he must have composed the. work about the middle of 1833, we should be tempted to class it with the works which came into existence when his individuality was as yet little developed. [FOOTNOTE: The opera Ludovic, on which Herold was engaged when he died on January 19, 1833, and which Halevy completed, was produced in Paris on May 16, 1833. From the German publishers of Chopin's Op. 12 I learned that it appeared in November, 1833. In the Gazette musicale of January 26, 1834, may be read a review of it.] But knowing what we do, we can only wonder at the strange phenomenon. It is as if Chopin had here thrown overboard the Polish part of his natal inheritance and given himself up unrestrainedly and voluptuously to the French part. Besides various diatonic runs of an inessential and purely ornamental character, there is in the finale actually a plain and full-toned C flat major scale. What other work of the composer could be pointed out exhibiting the like feature? Of course, Chopin is as little successful in entirely hiding his serpentining and chromaticising tendency as Mephistopheles in hiding the limp arising from his cloven foot. Still, these fallings out of the role are rare and transient, and, on the whole, Chopin presents himself as a perfect homme du monde who knows how to say the most insignificant trifles with the most exquisite grace imaginable. There can. be nothing more amusing than the contemporary critical opinions regarding this work, nothing more amusing than to see the at other times censorious Philistines unwrinkle their brows, relax generally the sternness of their features, and welcome, as it were, the return of the prodigal son. We wiser critics of to-day, who, of course, think very differently about this matter, can, nevertheless, enjoy and heartily applaud the prettiness and elegance of the simple first variation, the playful tripping second, the schwarmerische melodious third, the merry swinging fourth, and the brilliant finale.
From Chopin's letters we see that the publication of the Tarantelle, Op. 43, which took place in the latter part of 1841, was attended with difficulties and annoyances. [FOOTNOTE: Herr Schuberth, of Leipzig, informed me that a honorarium of 500 francs was paid to Chopin for this work on July 1, 1841. The French publisher deposited the work at the library of the Conservatoire in October, 1841.] What these difficulties and annoyances were, is, however, only in part ascertainable. To turn from the publication to the composition itself, I may say that it is full of life, indeed, spirited in every respect, in movement and in boldness of harmonic and melodic conception. The Tarantelle is a translation from Italian into Polish, a transmutation of Rossini into Chopin, a Neapolitan scene painted with opaque colours, the south without its transparent sky, balmy air, and general brightness. That this composition was inspired by impressions received from Rossini's Tarantella, and not from impressions received in Italy (of which, as has already been related, he had a short glimpse in 1839), is evident. A comparison of Chopin's Op. 43 with Liszt's glowing and intoxicating transcription of Rossini's composition may be recommended as a study equally pleasant and instructive. Although not an enthusiastic admirer of Chopin's Tarantelle, I protest in the interest of the composer and for justice's sake against Schumann's dictum: "Nobody can call that beautiful music; but we pardon the master his wild fantasies, for once he may let us see also the dark sides of his inner life."
The Allegro de Concert, Op. 46, which was published in November, 1841, although written for the pianoforte alone, contains, nevertheless, passages which are more distinctly orchestral than anything Chopin ever wrote for the orchestra. The form resembles somewhat that of the concerto. In the first section, which occupies the place of the opening tutti, we cannot fail to distinguish the entrances of single instruments, groups of instruments, and the full orchestra. The soloist starts in the eighty-seventh bar, and in the following commences a cadenza. With the a tempo comes the first subject (A major), and the passage-work which brings up the rear leads to the second subject (E major), which had already appeared in the first section in A major. The first subject, if I may dignify the matter in question with that designation, does not recur again, nor was it introduced by the tutti. The central and principal thought is what I called the second subject. The second section concludes with brilliant passage-work in E major, the time—honoured shake rousing the drowsy orchestra from its sweet repose. The hint is not lost, and the orchestra, in the disguise of the pianoforte, attends to its duty right vigorously. With the poco rit. the soloist sets to work again, and in the next bar takes up the principal subject in A minor. After that we have once more brilliant passage-work, closing this time in A major, and then a final tutti. The Allegro de Concert gives rise to all sorts of surmises. Was it written first for the pianoforte and orchestra, as Schumann suspects? Or may we make even a bolder guess, and suppose that the composer, at a more advanced age, worked up into this Allegro de Concert a sketch for the first movement of a concerto conceived in his younger days? Have we, perhaps, here a fragment or fragments of the Concerto for two pianos which Chopin, in a letter written at Vienna on December 21, 1830, said he would play in public with his friend Nidecki, if he succeeded in writing it to his satisfaction? And is there any significance in the fact that Chopin, when (probably in the summer of 1841) sending the manuscript of this work to Fontana, calls it a Concerto? Be this as it may, the principal subject and some of the passage-work remind one of the time of the concertos; other things, again, belong undoubtedly to a later period. The tutti and solo parts are unmistakable, so different is the treatment of the pianoforte: in the former the style has the heaviness of an arrangement, in the latter it has Chopin's usual airiness. The work, as a whole, is unsatisfactory, nay, almost indigestible. The subjects are neither striking nor important. Of the passage- work, that which follows the second subject contains the most interesting matter. Piquant traits and all sorts of fragmentary beauties are scattered here and there over the movement. But after we have considered all, we must confess that this opus adds little or nothing to the value of our Chopin inheritance.
[FOOTNOTE: In justice to the composer I must here quote a criticism which since I wrote the above appeared in the Athenaum (January 21, 1888):—"The last-named work [the Allegro de Concert, Op. 46] is not often heard, and is generally regarded as one of Chopin's least interesting and least characteristic pieces. Let us hasten to say that these impressions are distinctly wrong; the executive difficulties of the work are extremely great, and a mere mastery of them is far from all that is needed. When M. de Pachmann commenced to play it was quickly evident that his reading would be most remarkable, and in the end it amounted to an astounding revelation. That which seemed dry and involved became under his fingers instinct with beauty and feeling; the musicians and amateurs present listened as if spellbound, and opinion was unanimous that the performance was nothing short of an artistic creation. For the sake of the composer, if not for his own reputation, the pianist should repeat it, not once, but many times." Notwithstanding this decided judgment of a weighty authority—for such everyone will, without hesitation, acknowledge the critic in question to be—I am unable, after once more examining the work, to alter my previously formed opinion.]
As a further confirmation of the supposed origin of the Allegro de Concert, I may mention the arrangement of it for piano and orchestra (also for two pianos) by Jean Louis Nicode.
[FOOTNOTE: Nicode has done his work well so far as he kept close to the text of Chopin; but his insertion of a working-out section of more than seventy bars is not justifiable, and, moreover, though making the work more like an orthodox first movement of a concerto, does not enhance its beauty and artistic value.]
To the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35 (published in May, 1840), this most powerful of Chopin's works in the larger forms, Liszt's remark, "Plus de volonte que d'inspiration," is hardly applicable, although he used the expression in speaking of Chopin's concertos and sonatas in general; for there is no lack of inspiration here, nor are there traces of painful, unrewarded effort. Each of the four pieces of which the sonata consists is full of vigour, originality, and interest. But whether they can be called a sonata is another question. Schumann, in his playful manner, speaks of caprice and wantonness, and insinuates that Chopin bound together four of his maddest children, and entitled them sonata, in order that he might perhaps under this name smuggle them in where otherwise they would not penetrate. Of course, this is a fancy of Schumann's. Still, one cannot help wondering whether the composer from the first intended to write a sonata and obtained this result—amphora coepit institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?—or whether these four movements got into existence without any predestination, and were afterwards put under one cover. [FOOTNOTE: At any rate, the march was finished before the rest of the work. See the quotation from one of Chopin's letters farther on.] With all Schumann's admiration for Chopin and praise of this sonata, it appears to me that he does not give Chopin his due. There is something gigantic in the work which, although it does not elevate and ennoble, being for the most part a purposeless fuming, impresses one powerfully. The first movement begins with four bars grave, a groan full of pain; then the composer, in restless, breathless haste, is driven by his feelings onward, ever onward, till he comes to the lovely, peaceful second subject (in D flat major, a real contrast this time), which grows by-and-by more passionate, and in the concluding portion of the first part transcends the limits of propriety—VIDE those ugly dissonances. The connection of the close of the first part with the repetition of this and the beginning of the second part by means of the chord of the dominant seventh in A flat and that in D flat with the suspended sixth, is noteworthy. The strange second section, in which the first subject is worked out, has the appearance rather of an improvisation than of a composition. After this a few bars in 6/4 time, fiercely wild (stretto) at first, but gradually subsiding, lead to the repeat in B flat major of the second subject—the first subject does not appear again in its original form. To the close, which is like that of the corresponding section in the first part (6/4), is added a coda (2/2) introducing the characteristic motive of the first subject. In the scherzo, the grandest movement and the climax of the sonata, the gloom and the threatening power which rise to a higher and higher pitch become quite weird and fear-inspiring; it affects one like lowering clouds, rolling of thunder, and howling and whistling of the wind- -to the latter, for instance, the chromatic successions of chords of the sixth may not inappropriately be likened. The piu lento is certainly one of the most scherzo-like thoughts in Chopin's scherzos—so light and joyful, yet a volcano is murmuring under this serenity. The return of this piu lento, after the repeat of the first section, is very fine and beneficently refreshing, like nature after a storm. The Marche funebre ranks among Chopin's best-known and most highly-appreciated pieces. Liszt mentions it with particular distinction, and grows justly eloquent over it. I do not altogether understand Schumann's objection: "It is still more gloomy than the scherzo," he says, "and contains even much that is repulsive; in its place an adagio, perhaps in D flat, would have had an incomparably finer effect." Out of the dull, stupefied brooding, which is the fundamental mood of the first section, there rises once and again (bars 7 and 8, and 11 and 12) a pitiable wailing, and then an outburst of passionate appealing (the forte passage in D flat major), followed by a sinking helplessness (the two bars with the shakes in the bass), accompanied by moans and deep breathings. The two parts of the second section are a rapturous gaze into the beatific regions of a beyond, a vision of reunion of what for the time is severed. The last movement may be counted among the curiosities of composition—a presto in B flat minor of seventy-five bars, an endless series of triplets from beginning to end in octaves. It calls up in one's mind the solitude and dreariness of a desert. "The last movement is more like mockery than music," says Schumann, but adds, truly and wisely—
and yet one confesses to one's self that also out of this unmelodious and joyless movement a peculiar dismal spirit breathes upon us, who keeps down with a strong hand that which would revolt, so that we obey, as if we were charmed, without murmuring, but also without praising, for that is no music. Thus the sonata concludes, as it began, enigmatically, like a sphinx with a mocking smile.
J. W. Davison, in the preface to an edition of Chopin's mazurkas, relates that Mendelssohn, on being questioned about the finale of one of Chopin's sonatas (I think it must have been the one before us), said briefly and bitterly, "Oh, I abhor it!" H. Barbedette remarks in his "Chopin," a criticism without insight and originality, of this finale, "C'est Lazare grattant de ses ongles la pierre de son tombeau et tombant epuise de fatigue, de faim et de desespoir." And now let the reader recall the words which Chopin wrote from Nohant to Fontana in the summer of 1839:—
I am composing here a Sonata in B flat minor, in which will be the funeral march which you have already. There is an Allegro, then a Scherzo, in E flat minor, the March, and a short Finale of about three pages. The left hand unisono with the right hand are gossiping after the March [ogaduja po Marszu].
The meaning of which somewhat obscure interpretation seems to be, that after the burial the good neighbours took to discussing the merits of the departed, not without a spice of backbiting.
The Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, the second of Chopin's notable pianoforte sonatas (the third if we take into account the unpalatable Op. 4), made its appearance five years later, in June, 1845. Unity is as little discernible in this sonata as in its predecessor. The four movements of which the work consists are rather affiliated than cognate; nay, this may be said even of many parts of the movements. The first movement by far surpasses the other three in importance: indeed, the wealth of beautiful and interesting matter which is here heaped up—for it is rather an unsifted accumulation than an artistic presentation and evolution—would have sufficed many a composer for several movements. The ideas are very unequal and their course very jerky till we come to the second subject (D major), which swells out into a broad stream of impassioned melody. Farther on the matter becomes again jerky and mosaic-like. While the close of the first part is very fine, the beginning of the second is a comfortless waste. Things mend with the re-entrance of the subsidiary part of the second subject (now in D flat major), which, after being dwelt upon for some time and varied, disappears, and is followed by a repetition of portions of the first subject, the whole second subject (in B major), and the closing period, which is prolonged by a coda to make the close more emphatic and satisfying. A light and graceful quaver figure winds with now rippling, now waving motion through the first and third sections of the scherzo; in the contrasting second section, with the sustained accompaniment and the melody in one of the middle parts, the entrance of the bright A major, after the gloom of the preceding bars, is very effective. The third movement has the character of a nocturne, and as such cannot fail to be admired. In the visionary dreaming of the long middle section we imagine the composer with dilated eyes and rapture in his look—it is rather a reverie than a composition. The finale surrounds us with an emotional atmosphere somewhat akin to that of the first movement, but more agitated. After eight bold introductory bars with piercing dissonances begins the first subject, which, with its rhythmically differently-accompanied repetition, is the most important constituent of the movement. The rest, although finely polished, is somewhat insignificant. In short, this is the old story, plus de volonte que d'inspiration, that is to say, inspiration of the right sort. And also, plus de volonte que de savoir-faire.
There is one work of Chopin's to which Liszt's dictum, plus de volnte que d'inspiratio, applies in all, and even more than all its force. I allude to the Sonata (in G minor) for piano and violoncello, Op. 65 (published in September, 1847), in which hardly anything else but effort, painful effort, manifests itself. The first and last movements are immense wildernesses with only here and there a small flower. The middle movements, a Scherzo and an Andante, do not rise to the dignity of a sonata, and, moreover, lack distinction, especially the slow movement, a nocturne-like dialogue between the two instruments. As to the beauties—such as the first subject of the first movement (at the entrance of the violoncello), the opening bars of the Scherzo, part of the ANDANTE, &c.—they are merely beginnings, springs that lose themselves soon in a sandy waste. Hence I have not the heart to controvert Moscheles who, in his diary, says some cutting things about this work: "In composition Chopin proves that he has only isolated happy thoughts which he does not know how to work up into a rounded whole. In the just published sonata with violoncello I find often passages which sound as if someone were preluding on the piano and knocked at all the keys to learn whether euphony was at home." [FOOTNOTE: Aus Moscheles' Leben; Vol. II., p. 171.] An entry of the year 1850 runs as follows: "But a trial of patience of another kind is imposed on me by Chopin's Violoncello Sonata, which I am arranging for four hands. To me it is a tangled forest, through which now and then penetrates a gleam of the sun." [FOOTNOTE: Ibid., Vol. II., p. 216.] To take up after the last-discussed work a composition like the Grand Duo Concertant for piano and violoncello, on themes from "Robert le Diable," by Chopin and A. Franchomme, is quite a relief, although it is really of no artistic importance. Schumann is right when he says of this DUO, which saw the light of publicity (without OPUS number) in 1833:14 [FOOTNOTE: The first performance of Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" took place at the Paris Opera on November 21, 1831.] "A piece for a SALON where behind the shoulders of counts and countesses now and then rises the head of a celebrated artist." And he may also be right when he says:—
It seems to me that Chopin sketched the whole of it, and that Franchomme said "yes" to everything; for what Chopin touches takes his form and spirit, and in this minor salon-style he expresses himself with grace and distinction, compared with which all the gentility of other brilliant composers together with all their elegance vanish into thin air.
The mention of the DUO is somewhat out of place here, but the Sonata, Op. 65, in which the violoncello is employed, naturally suggested it.
We have only one more work to consider before we come to the groups of masterpieces in the smaller forms above enumerated. But this last work is one of Chopin's best compositions, and in its way no less a masterpiece than these. Unfettered by the scheme of a definite form such as the sonata or concerto, the composer develops in the Fantaisie, Op. 49 (published in November, 1841), his thought with masterly freedom. There is an enthralling weirdness about this work, a weirdness made up of force of passion and an indescribable fantastic waywardness. Nothing more common than the name of Fantasia, here we have the thing! The music falls on our ears like the insuppressible outpouring of a being stirred to its heart's core, and full of immeasurable love and longing. Who would suspect the composer's fragility and sickliness in this work? Does it not rather suggest a Titan in commotion? There was a time when I spoke of the Fantasia in a less complimentary tone, now I bow down my head regretfully and exclaim peccavi. The disposition of the composition may be thus briefly indicated. A tempo di marcia opens the Fantasia—it forms the porch of the edifice. The dreamy triplet passages of the poco a poco piu mosso are comparable to galleries that connect the various blocks of buildings. The principal subject, or accumulation of themes, recurs again and again in different keys, whilst other subjects appear only once or twice between the repetitions of the principal subject.
The mazurkas of Chopin are a literature in themselves, said Lenz, and there is some truth in his saying. They may, indeed, be called a literature in themselves for two reasons—first, because of their originality, which makes them things sui generis; and secondly, because of the poetical and musical wealth of their contents. Chopin, as I have already said, is most national in the mazurkas and polonaises, for the former of which he draws not only inspiration, but even rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic motives from his country's folk-music. Liszt told me, in a conversation I had with him, that he did not care much for Chopin's mazurkas. "One often meets in them with bars which might just as well be in another place." But he added, "And yet as Chopin puts them, perhaps nobody else could have put them." And mark, those are the words of one who also told me that when he sometimes played half-an-hour for his amusement, he liked to resort to Chopin. Moscheles, I suspect, had especially the mazurkas in his mind when, in 1833, [FOOTNOTE: At this time the published compositions of Chopin were, of course, not numerous, but they included the first two books of Mazurkas, Op. 6 and 7.] he said of the Polish master's compositions that he found "much charm in their originality and national colouring," and that "his thoughts and through them the fingers stumbled over certain hard, inartistic modulations." Startling progressions, unreconciled contrasts, and abrupt changes of mood are characteristic of Slavonic music and expressive of the Slavonic character. Whether they ought to be called inartistic or not, we will leave time to decide, if it has not done so already; the Russian and other Slavonic composers, who are now coming more and more to the front, seem to be little in doubt as to their legitimacy. I neither regard Chopin's mazurkas as his most artistic achievements nor recommend their capriciousness and fragmentariness for general imitation. But if we view them from the right stand-point, which is not that of classicism, we cannot help admiring them. The musical idiom which the composer uses in these, notwithstanding their capriciousness and fragmentariness, exquisitely-finished miniatures, has a truly delightful piquancy. Yet delightful as their language is, the mazurkas have a far higher claim to our admiration. They are poems—social poems, poems of private life, in distinction from the polonaises, which are political poems. Although Chopin's mazurkas and polonaises are no less individual than the other compositions of this most subjective of subjective poets, they incorporate, nevertheless, a good deal of the poetry of which the national dances of those names are the expression or vehicle. And let it be noted, in Poland so-called civilisation did not do its work so fast and effectually as in Western Europe; there dancing had not yet become in Chopin's days a merely formal and conventional affair, a matter of sinew and muscle.
It is, therefore, advisable that we should make ourselves acquainted with the principal Polish dances; such an acquaintance, moreover, will not only help us to interpret aright Chopin's mazurkas and polonaises, but also to gain a deeper insight into his ways of feeling and seeing generally. Now the reader will become aware that the long disquisitions on Poland and the Poles at the commencement of this biography were not superfluous accessories. For completeness' sake I shall preface the description of the mazurka by a short one of the krakowiak, the third of the triad of principal Polish dances. The informants on whom I shall chiefly rely when I am not guided by my own observations are the musician Sowinski and the poet Brodzinski, both Poles:
The krakowiak [says Albert Sowinski in chant polonais] bubbles over with esprit and gaiety; its name indicates its origin. It is the delight of the salons, and especially of the huts. The Cracovians dance it in a very agitated and expressive manner, singing at the same time words made for the occasion of which they multiply the stanzas and which they often improvise. These words are of an easy gaiety which remind one strangely of the rather loose [semi-grivoises] songs so popular in France; others again are connected with the glorious epochs of history, with the sweet or sad memories which it calls up, and are a faithful expression of the character and manners of the nation.
Casimir Brodzinski describes the dance as follows:—
The krakowiak resembles in its figures a simplified polonaise; it represents, compared with the latter, a less advanced social state. The boldest and strongest takes the position of leader and conducts the dance; he sings, the others join in chorus; he dances, they imitate him. Often also the krakowiak represents, in a kind of little ballet, the simple course of a love-affair: one sees a couple of young people place themselves before the orchestra; the young man looks proud, presumptuous, preoccupied with his costume and beauty. Before long he becomes meditative, and seeks inspiration to improvise verses which the cries of his companions ask for, and which the time beaten by them provoke, as well as the manoeuvre of the young girl, who is impatient to dance. Arriving before the orchestra after making a round, the dancer generally takes the liberty of singing a refrain which makes the young girl blush; she runs away, and it is in pursuing her that the young man displays all his agility. At the last round it is the young man who pretends to run away from his partner; she tries to seize his arm, after which they dance together until the ritornello puts an end to their pleasure.
As a technical supplement to the above, I may say that this lively dance is in 2/4 time, and like other Polish dances has the rhythmical peculiarity of having frequently the accent on a usually unaccented part of the bar, especially at the end of a section or a phrase, for instance, on the second quaver of the second and the fourth bar, thus:—
[Here, the author illustrates with a rhythm diagram consisting of a line of notes divided in measures: 1/8 1/16 1/16 1/8 1/8 | 1/8 1/4 1/8 | 1/8 1/16 1/16 1/8 1/8 | 1/8 1/4 dot]
Chopin has only once been inspired by the krakowiak—namely, in his Op. 14, entitled Krakowiak, Grand Rondeau de Concert, a composition which was discussed in Chapter VIII. Thus much of the krakowiak; now to the more interesting second of the triad.
The mazurek [or mazurka], whose name comes from Mazovia, one of our finest provinces, is the most characteristic dance-tune —it is the model of all our new tunes. One distinguishes, however, these latter easily from the ancient ones on account of their less original and less cantabile form. There are two kinds of mazureks: one, of which the first portion is always in minor and the second in major, has a romance-like colouring, it is made to be sung, in Polish one says "to be heard" (do sludninin); the other serves as an accompaniment to a dance, of which the figures arc multiplied passes and coiuluiles. Its movement is in time, and yet less quick than the waltz. The motive is in dotted notes, which must be executed with energy and warmth, but not without a certain dignity.
Now the mazurka is generally written in 3/4-time; Chopin's are all written thus. The dotted rhythmical motive alluded to by Sowinski is this, or similar to this—
[Another rhythm diagram: 1/8 dot 1/16 1/4 1/4 | 1/8 dot 1/16 1/2]
But the dotted notes are by no means de rigueur. As motives like the following—
[Another rhythm diagram: 1/4 1/2 | 1/8 1/8 1/4 1/4 | triplet 1/4 1/4 | triple 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/8]
are of frequent occurrence, I would propose a more comprehensive definition—namely, that the first part of the bar consists mostly of quicker notes than the latter part. But even this more comprehensive definition does not comprehend all; it is a rule which has many exceptions. [FOOTNOTE: See the musical illustrations on pp. 217-218.] Le Sowinski mentions only one classification of mazurkas. Several others, however, exist. First, according to the district from which they derive—mazurkas of Kujavia, of Podlachia, of Lublin, &c.; or, secondly, according to their character, or to the purpose or occasion for which they were composed: wedding, village, historical, martial, and political mazurkas. And now let us hear what the poet Brodzinski has to say about the nature of this dance:-
The mazurek in its primitive form and as the common people dance is only a kind of krakowiak, only less lively and less sautillant. The agile Cracovians and the mountaineers of the Carpathians call the mazurek danced by the inhabitants of the plain but a dwarfed krakowiak. The proximity of the Germans, or rather the sojourn of the German troops, has caused the true character of the mazurek among the people to be lost; this dance hap become a kind of awkward waltz.
With the people of the capital the real dances of the country are disfigured not only by the influx of foreigners, but especially also by the unfortunate employment of barrel- organs….It is this instrument which crushes among the people the practice of music, and takes the means of subsistence from the village fiddler, who becomes more and more rare since every tavern-keeper, in buying a barrel-organ, easily puts an end to all competition. We see already more and more disappear from our country sides these sweet songs and improvised refrains which the rustic minstrels remembered and repeated, and the truly national music gives way, alas! to the themes borrowed from the operas most in vogue.
The mazurek, thus degenerated among the people, has been adopted by the upper classes who, in preserving the national allures, perfected it to the extent of rendering it, beyond doubt, one of the most graceful dances in Europe. This dance has much resemblance with the French quadrille, according to what is analogous in the characters of the two nations; in seeing these two dances one might say that a French woman dances only to please, and that a Polish woman pleases by abandoning herself to a kind of maiden gaiety—the graces which she displays come rather from nature than from art. A French female dancer recalls the ideal of Greek statues; a Polish female dancer has something which recalls the shepherdesses created by the imagination of the poets; if the former charms us, the latter attaches us.
As modern dances lend themselves especially to the triumph of the women, because the costume of the men is so little favourable, it is noteworthy that the mazurek forms here an exception; for a young man, and especially a young Pole, remarkable by a certain amiable boldness, becomes soon the soul and hero of this dance. A light and in some sort pastoral dress for the women, and the Polish military costume so advantageous for the men, add to the charm of the picture which the mazurek presents to the eye of the painter. This dance permits to the whole body the most lively and varied movements, leaves the shoulders full liberty to bend with that ABANDON which, accompanied by a joyous laisser-aller and a certain movement of the foot striking the floor, is exceedingly graceful.
One finds often a magic effect in the animated enthusiasm which characterises the different movements of the head—now proudly erect, now tenderly sunk on the bosom, now lightly inclined towards the shoulder, and always depicting in large traits the abundance of life and joy, shaded with simple, graceful, and delicate sentiments. Seeing in the mazurek the female dancer almost carried away in the arms and on the shoulders of her cavalier, abandoning herself entirely to his guidance, one thinks one sees two beings intoxicated with happiness and flying towards the celestial regions. The female dancer, lightly dressed, scarcely skimming the earth with her dainty foot, holding on by the hand of her partner, in the twinkling of an eye carried away by several others, and then, like lightning, precipitating herself again into the arms of the first, offers the image of the most happy and delightful creature. The music of the mazurek is altogether national and original; through its gaiety breathes usually something of melancholy—one might say that it is destined to direct the steps of lovers, whose passing sorrows are not without charm.
Chopin himself published forty-one mazurkas of his composition in eleven sets of four, five, or three numbers—Op. 6, Quatre Mazurkas, and Op. 7, Cinq Mazurkas, in December, 1832; Op. 17, Quatre Mazurkas, in May, 1834; Op. 24, Quatre Mazurkas, in November, 1835; Op. 30, Quatre Maazurkas, in December, 1837; Op. 33, Quatre Mazurkas, in October, 1838; Op. 41, Quatre Mazurkas, in December, 1840; Op. 50, Trois Mazurkas, in November, 1841; Op, 56, Trois Mazurkas, in August, 1844; Op. 59, Trois Mazurkas, in April, 1846; and Op. 63, Trois Mazurkas, in September, 1847. In tne posthumous works published by Fontana there are two more sets, each of four numbers, and respectively marked as Op. 67 and 68. Lastly, several other mazurkas composed by or attributed to Chopin have been published without any opus number. Two mazurkas, both in A minor, although very feeble compositions, are included in the editions by Klindworth and Mikuli. The Breitkopf and Hartel edition, which includes only one of these two mazurkas, comprises further a mazurka in G major and one in B flat major of 1825, one in D major of 1829-30, a remodelling of the same of 1832—these have already been discussed—and a somewhat more interesting one in C major of 1833. Of one of the two mazurkas in A minor, a poor thing and for the most part little Chopinesque, only the dedication (a son ami Rmile Gaillard) is known, but not the date of composition. The other (the one not included in Breitkopf and Hartel's, No. 50 of Mikuli's and Klindworth's edition) appeared first as No. 2 of Noire Temps, a publication by Schott's Sohne. On inquiry I learned that Notre Temps was the general title of a series of 12 pieces by Czerny, Chopin, Kalliwoda, Rosenhain, Thalberg, Kalkbrenner, Mendelssohn, Bertini, Wolff, Kontski, Osborne, and Herz, which appeared in 1842 or 1843 as a Christmas Album. [FOONOTE: I find, however, that Chopin's Mazurka was already separately announced as "Notre Temps, No. 2," in the Monatsberichte of February, 1842.] Whether a Mazurka elegante by Fr, Chopin, advertised in La France Musicale of April 6, 1845, as en vente au Bureau de musique, 29, Place de la Bourse, is identical with one of the above-enumerated mazurkas I have not been able to discover. In the Klindworth edition [FOOTNOTE: That is to say, in the original Russian, not in the English (Augener and Co.'s) edition; and there only by the desire of the publishers and against the better judgment of the editor.] is also to be found a very un-Chopinesque Mazurka in F sharp major, previously published by J. P. Gotthard, in Vienna, the authorship of which Mr. E. Pauer has shown to belong to Charles Mayer.
[FOOTNOTE: In an article, entitled Musical Plagiarism in the Monthly Musical Record of July 1, 1882 (where also the mazurka in question is reprinted), we read as follows:—"In 1877 Mr. E. Pauer, whilst preparing a comprehensive guide through the entire literature of the piano, looked through many thousand pieces for that instrument published by German firms, and came across a mazurka by Charles Mayer, published by Pietro Mechetti (afterwards C. A. Spinal, and entitled Souvenirs de la Pologne. A few weeks later a mazurka, a posthumous work of F. Chopin, published by J. Gotthard, came into his hands. At first, although the piece 'struck him as being an old acquaintance,' he could not fix the time when and the place where he had heard it; but at last the Mayer mazurka mentioned above returned to his remembrance, and on comparing the two, he found that they were one and the same piece. From the appearance of the title-page and the size of the notes, Mr. Pauer, who has had considerable experience in these matters, concluded that the Mayer copy must have been published between the years 1840 and 1845, and wrote to Mr. Gotthard pointing out the similarity of Chopin's posthumous work, and asking how he came into possession of the Chopin manuscript. Mr. Gotthard replied,'that he had bought the mazurka as Chopin's autograph from a Polish countess, who, being in sad distress, parted, though with the greatest sorrow, with the composition of her illustrious compatriot.' Mr. Pauer naturally concludes that Mr. Gotthard had been deceived, that the manuscript was not a genuine autograph, and 'that the honour of having composed the mazurka in question belongs to Charles Mayer.' Mr. Pauer further adds: 'It is not likely that C. Mayer, even if Chopin had made him a present of this mazurka, would have published it during Chopin's lifetime as a work of his own, or have sold or given it to the Polish countess. It is much more likely that Mayer's mazurka was copied in the style of Chopin's handwriting, and after Mayer's death in 1862 sold as Chopin's autograph to Mr. Gotthard.'"]