Chopin: The Man and His Music | Page 4

torch of life has burned so fiercely. In his early days he seems to have
had that gayety of temperament and that apparently boundless energy
which men in his case, as in that of Heine, Nietzsche, Amiel and others,
have wrongly assumed to be the outcome of harmonious physical and
mental health. There is a pathetic exception in the outward lives of so
many men of genius, the bloom being, to the instructed eye, only the
indication of some subtle nervous derangement, only the forerunner of
decay." The overmastering cerebral agitation that obsessed Wagner's
life, was as with Chopin a symptom, not a sickness; but in the latter it
had not yet assumed a sinister turn.
Chopin's fourteen days in Berlin,--he went there under the protection of
his father's friend, Professor Jarocki, to attend the great scientific
congress--were full of joy unrestrained. The pair left Warsaw
September 9, 1828, and after five days travel in a diligence arrived at
Berlin. This was a period of leisure travelling and living. Frederic saw
Spontini, Mendelssohn and Zelter at a distance and heard "Freischutz."
He attended the congress and made sport of the scientists, Alexander
von Humboldt included. On the way home they stopped at a place
called Zullichau, and Chopin improvised on Polish airs so charmingly
that the stage was delayed, "all hands turning in" to listen. This is
another of the anecdotes of honorable antiquity. Count Tarnowski
relates that "Chopin left Warsaw with a light heart, with a mind full of
ideas, perhaps full of dreams of fame and happiness. 'I have only
twenty kreuzers in my pockets,' he writes in his note-book, 'and it
seems to me that I am richer than Arthur Potocki, whom I met only a
moment ago;' besides this, witty conceptions, fun, showing a quiet and
cheerful spirit; for example, 'May it be permitted to me to sign myself
as belonging to the circle of your friends,--F. Chopin.' Or, 'A welcome
moment in which I can express to you my friendship.--F. Chopin,
office clerk.' Or again, 'Ah, my most lordly sir, I do not myself yet
understand the joy which I feel on entering the circle of your real

friends.--F. Chopin, penniless'!"
These letters have a Micawber ring, but they indicate Chopin's love of
jest. Sikorski tells a story of the lad's improvising in church so that the
priest, choir and congregation were forgotten by him.
The travellers arrived at Warsaw October 6 after staying a few days in
Posen where the Prince Radziwill lived; here Chopin played in private.
This prince-composer, despite what Liszt wrote, did not contribute a
penny to the youth's musical education, though he always treated him
in a sympathetic manner.
Hummel and Paganini visited Warsaw in 1829. The former he met and
admired, the latter he worshipped. This year may have seen the
composition, if not the publication of the "Souvenir de Paganini," said
to be in the key of A major and first published in the supplement of the
"Warsaw Echo Muzyczne." Niecks writes that he never saw a copy of
this rare composition. Paderewski tells me he has the piece and that it is
weak, having historic interest only. I cannot find much about the Polish
poet, Julius Slowacki, who died the same year, 1849, as Edgar Allan
Poe. Tarnowski declares him to have been Chopin's warmest friend and
in his poetry a starting point of inspiration for the composer.
In July 1829, accompanied by two friends, Chopin started for Vienna.
Travelling in a delightful, old-fashioned manner, the party saw much of
the country--Galicia, Upper Silesia and Moravia- -the Polish
Switzerland. On July 31 they arrived in the Austrian capital. Then
Chopin first began to enjoy an artistic atmosphere, to live less
parochially. His home life, sweet and tranquil as it was, could not fail
to hurt him as artist; he was flattered and coddled and doubtless the
touch of effeminacy in his person was fostered. In Vienna the life was
gayer, freer and infinitely more artistic than in Warsaw. He met every
one worth knowing in the artistic world and his letters at that period are
positively brimming over with gossip and pen pictures of the people he
knew. The little drop of malice he injects into his descriptions of the
personages he encounters is harmless enough and proves that the young
man had considerable wit. Count Gallenberg, the lessee of the famous
Karnthnerthor Theatre, was kind to him, and the publisher Haslinger
treated him politely. He had brought with him his variations on "La ci
darem la mano"; altogether the times seemed propitious and much more
so when he was urged to give a concert. Persuaded to overcome a

natural timidity, he made his Vienna debut at this theatre August 11,
1829, playing on a Stein piano his Variations,