Frederic Chopin as a Man and Musician, vol 1 | Page 3

period of his career--his life in France, and his visits to Germany and Great Britain. My chief sources of information are divisible into two classes--newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, correspondences, and books; and conversations I held with, and letters I received from, Chopin's pupils, friends, and acquaintances. Of his pupils, my warmest thanks are due to Madame Dubois (nee Camille O'Meara), Madame Rubio (nee Vera de Kologrivof), Mdlle. Gavard, Madame Streicher (nee Friederike Muller), Adolph Gutmann, M. Georges Mathias, Brinley Richards, and Lindsay Sloper; of friends and acquaintances, to Liszt, Ferdinand Hiller, Franchomme, Charles Valentin Alkan, Stephen Heller, Edouard Wolff, Mr. Charles Halle, Mr. G. A. Osborne, T. Kwiatkowski, Prof. A. Chodzko, M. Leonard Niedzwiecki (gallice, Nedvetsky), Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt, Mr. A. J. Hipkins, and Dr. and Mrs. Lyschinski. I am likewise greatly indebted to Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel, Karl Gurckhaus (the late proprietor of the firm of Friedrich Kistner), Julius Schuberth, Friedrich Hofmeister, Edwin Ashdown, Richault & Cie, and others, for information in connection with the publication of Chopin's works. It is impossible to enumerate all my obligations--many of my informants and many furtherers of my labours will be mentioned in the body of the book; many, however, and by no means the least helpful, will remain unnamed. To all of them I offer the assurance of my deep-felt gratitude. Not a few of my kind helpers, alas! are no longer among the living; more than ten years have gone by since I began my researches, and during that time Death has been reaping a rich harvest.
The Chopin letters will, no doubt, be regarded as a special feature of the present biography. They may, I think, be called numerous, if we consider the master's dislike to letter-writing. Ferdinand Hiller--whose almost unique collection of letters addressed to him by his famous friends in art and literature is now, and will be for years to come, under lock and key among the municipal archives at Cologne--allowed me to copy two letters by Chopin, one of them written conjointly with Liszt. Franchomme, too, granted me the privilege of copying his friend's epistolary communications. Besides a number of letters that have here and there been published, I include, further, a translation of Chopin's letters to Fontana, which in Karasowski's book (i.e., the Polish edition) lose much of their value, owing to his inability to assign approximately correct dates to them.
The space which I give to George Sand is, I think, justified by the part she plays in the life of Chopin. To meet the objections of those who may regard my opinion of her as too harsh, I will confess that I entered upon the study of her character with the impression that she had suffered much undeserved abuse, and that it would be incumbent upon a Chopin biographer to defend her against his predecessors and the friends of the composer. How entirely I changed my mind, the sequel will show.
In conclusion, a few hints as to the pronunciation of Polish words, which otherwise might puzzle the reader uninitiated in the mysteries of that rarely-learned language. Aiming more at simplicity than at accuracy, one may say that the vowels are pronounced somewhat like this: a as in "arm," aL like the nasal French "on," e as in "tell," e/ with an approach to the French "e/" (or to the German "u [umlaut]" and "o [umlaut]"), eL like the nasal French "in," i as in "pick," o as in "not," o/ with an approach to the French "ou," u like the French ou, and y with an approach to the German "i" and "u." The following consonants are pronounced as in English: b, d, f, g (always hard), h, k, I, m, n, p, s, t, and z. The following single and double consonants differ from the English pronunciation: c like "ts," c/ softer than c, j like "y," l/ like "ll" with the tongue pressed against the upper row of teeth, n/ like "ny" (i.e., n softened by i), r sharper than in English, w like "v," z/ softer than z, z. and rz like the French "j," ch like the German guttural "ch" in "lachen" (similar to "ch" in the Scotch "loch"), cz like "ch" in "cherry," and sz like "sh" in "sharp." Mr. W. R. Morfill ("A Simplified Grammar of the Polish Language") elucidates the combination szcz, frequently to be met with, by the English expression "smasht china," where the italicised letters give the pronunciation. Lastly, family names terminating in take a instead of i when applied to women.
April, 1888.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The second edition differs from the first by little more than the correction of some misprints and a few additions. These latter are to be found among the Appendices. The principal addition consists of interesting communications from Madame Peruzzi, a