Frederic Chopin as a Man and Musician, vol 1 | Page 2

choses et de tres-belles pages." These words, however, do in no way
justice to the book: for, on the one hand, the style is excessively, and
not merely a little, exuberant; and, on the other hand, the "good things"
and "beautiful pages" amount to a psychological study of Chopin, and
an aesthetical study of his works, which it is impossible to over-
estimate. Still, the book is no biography. It records few dates and
events, and these few are for the most part incorrect. When, in 1878,

the second edition of F. Chopin was passing through the press, Liszt
remarked to me:--
"I have been told that there are wrong dates and other mistakes in my
book, and that the dates and facts are correctly given in Karasowski's
biography of Chopin [which had in the meantime been published]. But,
though I often thought of reading it, I have not yet done so. I got my
information from Paris friends on whom I believed I might depend. The
Princess Wittgenstein [who then lived in Rome, but in 1850 at Weimar,
and is said to have had a share in the production of the book] wished
me to make some alterations in the new edition. I tried to please her,
but, when she was still dissatisfied, I told her to add and alter whatever
she liked."
From this statement it is clear that Liszt had not the stuff of a
biographer in him. And, whatever value we may put on the Princess
Wittgenstein's additions and alterations, they did not touch the vital
faults of the work, which, as a French critic remarked, was a symphonie
funebre rather than a biography. The next book we have to notice, M. A.
Szulc's Polish Fryderyk Chopin i Utwory jego Muzyczne (Posen, 1873),
is little more than a chaotic, unsifted collection of notices, criticisms,
anecdotes, &c., from Polish, German, and French books and magazines.
In 1877 Moritz Karasowski, a native of Warsaw, and since 1864 a
member of the Dresden orchestra, published his Friedrich Chopin: sein
Leben, seine Werke und seine Briefe (Dresden: F. Ries.--Translated
into English by E. Hill, under the title Frederick Chopin: His Life,
Letters, and Work," and published by William Reeves, London, in
1879). This was the first serious attempt at a biography of Chopin. The
author reproduced in the book what had been brought to light in Polish
magazines and other publications regarding Chopin's life by various
countrymen of the composer, among whom he himself was not the least
notable. But the most valuable ingredients are, no doubt, the Chopin
letters which the author obtained from the composer's relatives, with
whom he was acquainted. While gratefully acknowledging his
achievements, I must not omit to indicate his shortcomings--his
unchecked partiality for, and boundless admiration of his hero; his
uncritical acceptance and fanciful embellishments of anecdotes and
hearsays; and the extreme paucity of his information concerning the
period of Chopin's life which begins with his settlement in Paris. In

1878 appeared a second edition of the work, distinguished from the
first by a few additions and many judicious omissions, the original two
volumes being reduced to one. But of more importance than the second
German edition is the first Polish edition, "Fryderyk Chopin: Zycie,
Listy, Dziela, two volumes (Warsaw: Gebethner and Wolff, 1882),
which contains a series of, till then, unpublished letters from Chopin to
Fontana. Of Madame A. Audley's short and readable "Frederic Chopin,
sa vie et ses oeuvres" (Paris: E. Plon et Cie., 1880), I need only say that
for the most part it follows Karasowski, and where it does not is not
always correct. Count Wodzinski's "Les trois Romans de Frederic
Chopin" (Paris: Calmann Levy, 1886)--according to the title treating
only of the composer's love for Constantia Gladkowska, Maria
Wodzinska, and George Sand, but in reality having a wider
scope--cannot be altogether ignored, though it is more of the nature of a
novel than of a biography. Mr, Joseph Bennett, who based his "Frederic
Chopin" (one of Novello's Primers of Musical Biography) on Liszt's
and Karasowski's works, had in the parts dealing with Great Britain the
advantage of notes by Mr. A.J. Hipkins, who inspired also, to some
extent at least, Mr. Hueffer in his essay Chopin ("Fortnightly Review,"
September, 1877; and reprinted in "Musical Studies"--Edinburgh: A. &
C. Black, 1880). This ends the list of biographies with any claims to
originality. There are, however, many interesting contributions to a
biography of Chopin to be found in works of various kinds. These shall
be mentioned in the course of my narrative; here I will point out only
the two most important ones--namely, George Sand's "Histoire de ma
Vie," first published in the Paris newspaper "La Presse" (1854) and
subsequently in book-form; and her six volumes of "Correspondance,"
1812-1876 (Paris: Calmann Levy, 1882-1884).