Chopin: The Man and His Music | Page 5

opus 2. His Krakowiak
Rondo had been announced, but the parts were not legible, so instead
he improvised. He had success, being recalled, and his improvisation
on the Polish tune called "Chmiel" and a theme from "La Dame
Blanche" stirred up much enthusiasm in which a grumbling orchestra
joined. The press was favorable, though Chopin's playing was
considered rather light in weight. His style was admired and voted
original--here the critics could see through the millstone--while a lady
remarked "It's a pity his appearance is so insignificant." This reached
the composer's ear and caused him an evil quarter of an hour for he was
morbidly sensitive; but being, like most Poles, secretive, managed to
hide it.
August 18, encouraged by his triumph, Chopin gave a second concert
on the same stage. This time he played the Krakowiak and his talent for
composition was discussed by the newspapers. "He plays very quietly,
without the daring elan which distinguishes the artist from the
amateur," said one; "his defect is the non- observance of the indication
of accent at the beginning of musical phrases." What was then admired
in Vienna was explosive accentuations and piano drumming. The
article continues: "As in his playing he was like a beautiful young tree
that stands free and full of fragrant blossoms and ripening fruits, so he
manifested as much estimable individuality in his compositions where
new figures and passages, new forms unfolded themselves." This rather
acute critique, translated by Dr. Niecks, is from the Wiener
"Theaterzeitung" of August 20, 1829. The writer of it cannot be
accused of misoneism, that hardening of the faculties of curiousness
and prophecy--that semi-paralysis of the organs of hearing which
afflicts critics of music so early in life and evokes rancor and dislike to
novelties. Chopin derived no money from either of his concerts.
By this time he was accustomed to being reminded of the lightness and
exquisite delicacy of his touch and the originality of his style. It elated
him to be no longer mistaken for a pupil and he writes home that "my
manner of playing pleases the ladies so very much." Thismanner never
lost its hold over female hearts, and the airs, caprices and little
struttings of Frederic are to blame for the widely circulated legend of
his effeminate ways. The legend soon absorbed his music, and so it has

come to pass that this fiction, begotten of half fact and half mental
indolence, has taken root, like the noxious weed it is. When Rubinstein,
Tausig and Liszt played Chopin in passional phrases, the public and
critics were aghast. This was a transformed Chopin indeed, a Chopin
transposed to the key of manliness. Yet it is the true Chopin. The young
man's manners were a trifle feminine but his brain was masculine,
electric, and his soul courageous. His Polonaises, Ballades, Scherzi and
Etudes need a mighty grip, a grip mental and physical.
Chopin met Czerny. "He is a good man, but nothing more," he said of
him. Czerny admired the young pianist with the elastic hand and on his
second visit to Vienna, characteristically inquired, "Are you still
industrious?" Czerny's brain was a tireless incubator of piano exercises,
while Chopin so fused the technical problem with the poetic idea, that
such a nature as the old pedagogue's must have been unattractive to him.
He knew Franz, Lachner and other celebrities and seems to have
enjoyed a mild flirtation with Leopoldine Blahetka, a popular young
pianist, for he wrote of his sorrow at parting from her. On August 19 he
left with friends for Bohemia, arriving at Prague two days later. There
he saw everything and met Klengel, of canon fame, a still greater
canon-eer than the redoubtable Jadassohn of Leipzig. Chopin and
Klengel liked each other. Three days later the party proceeded to
Teplitz and Chopin played in aristocratic company. He reached
Dresden August 26, heard Spohr's "Faust" and met capellmeister
Morlacchi--that same Morlacchi whom Wagner succeeded as a
conductor January 10, 1843--vide Finck's "Wagner." By September 12,
after a brief sojourn in Breslau, Chopin was again safe at home in
Warsaw.
About this time he fell in love with Constantia Gladowska, a singer and
pupil of the Warsaw Conservatory. Niecks dwells gingerly upon his
fervor in love and friendship--"a passion with him" and thinks that it
gives the key to his life. Of his romantic friendship for Titus
Woyciechowski and John Matuszynski- -his "Johnnie"--there are
abundant evidences in the letters. They are like the letters of a love-sick
maiden. But Chopin's purity of character was marked; he shrank from
coarseness of all sorts, and the Fates only know what he must have
suffered at times from George Sand and her gallant band of retainers.
To this impressionable man, Parisian badinage--not to call it anything

stronger--was positively antipathetical. Of him