MusicThe systematic academic study of music gave rise to works of description, analysis and criticism, by composers and performers, philosophers and anthropologists, historians and teachers, and by a new kind of scholar - the musicologist. This series makes available a range of significant works encompassing all aspects of the developing discipline.

Musical StudiesFrancis Hueffer (184589) was born and studied music in Germany, but moved to London in 1869 to pursue a career as a critic and writer on music. He edited the series The Great Musicians for Novello and Co., was music critic of The Times, and was an early advocate and interpreter to the British of Wagner. His Musical Studies of 1880 is a collection of essays on Beethoven, Chopin, French opera, Schopenhauer (among the numerous German metaphysicians, the only one who has said anything worth listening to about music), and of course Wagner: an article on the Ring written before the first performance of the complete cycle, and an account of that performance at Bayreuth. The collection finishes with the provocative essay The chances of English opera (1879), which contrasts the lively opera scene in the rest of Europe with the lack of a tradition of English opera.

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Musical StudiesA Series of Contributions

Francis Hueffer

CAMBRID GE UNIVERSIT Y PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, So Paolo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108004732

in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2009

This edition first published 1880This digitally printed version 2009

ISBN 978-1-108-00473-2 Paperback

This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.

Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or

with the endorsement or approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title.

MUSICAL STUDIES.

MUSICAL STUDIES

Series of Contributions

HY

FRANCIS HUEFFERAUTHOR OF

"KICHAKU \VA

PREFACE.

THE character of this book is sufficiently explainedby its title. It is, and pretends to be, nothing but acollection of articles on various musical topics repub-lished from the newspapers and magazines in eachcase specified. In order to preserve their temporarycharacter, alterations of the contents, and even of theform, of the essays have been, with few exceptions,purposely avoided. Whether their repiiblication iswarranted by the matter and manner of these essaysit is not my province to decide. But to those whoobject on principle to the perpetuation in book formof such fugitive piecesand the author himself isnot wholly free from such a prejudiceit may beanswered, that the present volume is part of anunmistakable movement in modern literature. Thevast development of periodical publications withinthe last quarter of a century has drawn the bestliterary and scientific workers into its vortex. Few

vi PREFACE.

authors nowadays can withstand the temptation ofthe immediate and vast publicity conferred by theprestige of a first-class Eeview; fewer can materiallyafford to give years of, in most 'cases, ill-requitedlabour to the composition of a book. Books, inthe proper sense of the word, that is, organismsdeveloped from a central idea, are in consequencebecoming rarer and rarer in our literature, and col-lections of essays take their place. The influenceof such a system on the reading public is too obviousto require explanation, supply and demand followingthe same law of reciprocity in literature as in othermerchandise. If even illustrious scientific men giveway to this general tendency of the age, the musicalcritic may claim the same indulgence for his modestoffering. The sesthetical literature regarding musicin this country is indeed so scanty, and so whollyout of proportion with the general and seriousinterest of late taken in the art, that any earnestand conscientious discussion of musical topicsshould not be wholly unwelcome. And to thosetwo epithets, if to no others, the author believeshis work to be entitled.

Before concluding these remarks, it is necessaryto add a word of explanation as to the appearancein a book of musical essays of an article on Schopen-

PREFACE. vii

hauer, the pessimist philosopher. Schopenhauer is,amongst the numerous German metaphysicians, theonly one who has said anything worth listening toabout music, and in whose system the art plays aprominent, one may say, vital part. Moreover, theresults of his speculations have been essentiallyadopted by the greatest living composer, EichardWagner. In these days, when it has become acommon affectation to speak of music as a science,and when the monstrous proposition is started thatcomposers, as composers, would be benefited byknowing the exact number of vibrations required fora particular note, musicians and amateurs may notunfairly be expected to show some interest in themetaphysical questions connected with the art.

THE AUTHOK.

CONTENTS.

I'AGE

T H A Y E R ' S B E K T H O V K N . . . . . i

CHOPIN . - 9

FOREIGN SCHOOLS OF MUSIC . . . . 68

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER 85

RICHARD WAGNER AND HIS " R I N G OF THE NIBLUNG" I 3 0

THE WAGNER FESTIVAL AT BAIREUTH . . . . 188

THREE FRENCH OPERAS

1. B i z e t ' s " C a r m e n " 2 0 1

2 . G o u n o d ' s " P o l y e u c t e " 2 1 3

3 . M a s s e n e t ' s " R o i d e L a h o r e " . . . . 2 2 5

T H E C H A N C E S O F E N G L I S H O P E R A . . . . 2 3 3

MUSICAL STUDIES.

THAVER'S BEETHOVEN.1

(From the Times, January 6, 1880.)

_ ^ | H E Life of Beethoven by Mr. A. W.Thayer is a curiosity of literature.Although written by an American inEnglish, it has never been published in

that language, and reasonable doubts may be enter-tained whether, at least in its present form, it everwill be. As regards research and treatment, it is,indeed, to all intents and purposes, a German book.In musical biography a school has sprung up recentlyin Germany, of which the late Professor Jahn was atonce the founder and the most celebrated member,and which at present is represented by Herr Chry-sander, the historian of Handel, and other writers.The great merit, and, indeed, the vital principle of

1 Ludwig van Beethoven's Leben. By Alexander Wheelock

Thayer. Vols. I.-III. Berlin, Weber.

2 MUSICAL STUDIES.

this school, is minute and accurate research, accom-panied, unfortunately, by the inability to sift andclearly group the details thus laboriously collected.In consequence, the books of these authors are ex-tremely valuable sources of information, but theyare anything but lively reading. Jahn's Mozart,more especially, is a marvellous accumulation ofminute knowledge, of which Schindler, Beethoven'shumble friend and biographer, used to say that itcarefully recorded the name of every waiter whohad helped Mozart to a cup of coffee. Thayer,who is in a certain sense a pupil of Jahn, and hasinherited his materials for a biography of Beethoven,goes much further than his master. He will give along description of a theatre, with the name of everyactor and actress engaged in it, not because it isknown that Beethoven was in the habit of visit-ing it, but merely because there is no proof to thecontrary.

It is in this way that we are treated to a historyof an abortive scheme of a national theatre (not anopera) founded by the Elector Maximilian Frederickat Bonn, for the reason that Beethoven, as a boy,at one time had to accompany songs and ballads"at rehearsals, possibly even at the performances."Again, long documents in Latin and German havebeen unearthed at enormous trouble from thearchives and are printed in extenso, which have

BEETHOVEN. 3

not the remotest connection with Beethoven; while,again, pages after pages are filled with lists of thevarious archiepiscopal orchestras, of some of whichthe young master was, and of some of which he wasnot, a member. And the only reward the readermay expect for wading through this mass of irre-levant matter is a short entry in a kind of moralcatalogue of all the Court musicians, to the effectthat "Ludwig Beethoven, a son of the Beethovensub No. 8, receiving no salary, is of good capacity,still young, of good quiet conduct, and poor."" Beethoven sub No. 8 " in the same document issaid to have " a dilapidated voice; he has been longin the service, is very poor, of tolerable conduct, andmarried "a very lenient description of the drunkenmusician whose dissipations cast a deep gloom overthe great master's early youth. If Mr. Thayer hadgiven us a picture of this youth, including as manydetails as even he could wish for, our admirationfor his zeal and carefulness of research would beunbounded. Unfortunately he has les cUfauts de sesrertus in a more than ordinary degree, and our feel-ing of gratitude is not a little damped by the troubleof having to pick valuable scraps of informationfrom an entire local history of Bonn under the lastspiritual rulers of the See of Cologne.

ISTot that this history is in itself without points ofinterest. Joseph Clement and Clement Augustus,

4 MUSICAL STUDIES.

Maximilian Frederick and Maximilian Francis, theson of the great Empress Maria Theresa and thepatron of Beethoven, are typical figures in the historyof the eighteenth century. Their ecclesiastical vowssat very lightly upon them. They had their palaces,and diminutive armies, and theatres, and courtiers, andmistresses after the model of the Grand Monarque,and in the budget of Clement Augustuswho bythe way literally danced himself to deaththemodest sum of 4716 thalers devoted ad pias causasfigures by the side of 50,966 thalers for " Plaisiran-schaffungen," or various kinds of pleasures. But inspite of this, the Archbishops of Cologne were, uponthe whole, beneficent, tolerant, and in their way evenenlightened rulers, and the traditions of their merryand prosperous times are even yet alive on the leftbank of the Khine, especially at Bonn itself, whichwas the favourite residence of the Electors. Longbefore Coleridge shuddered at the multitudinousodours of Cologne, Bonn was described by anotherEnglish traveller as " a charming, neatly-built townwith well-paved streets." One of the chief amuse-ments of the Electors was, from an early period,music, and a considerable part of the item " Plaisi-ranschaffungen " may be set down to the keeping upof an excellent orchestra and a more or less efficienttroupe of operatic singers. Joseph Clement (1689-1724) was himself an amateur of some pretensions

BEETHOVEN. 5

and he beguiled the weary days of his exile inFrance by musical composition. Of the nature ofthis he himself gives an account too curious to bepassed over in silence. At the risk of being chargedwith the fault deprecated by us in Mr. Thayer, wemust quote the opening sentences of a letter, writtenin the most extraordinary German ever seen, andaddressed to the Elector's dear Court CouncillorEauch:

" It may appear preposterous that an ignoramus who knowsnothing of music should venture to compose. But this hashappened to me ; for I herewith send you eleven motets andcompositions which I have set myself in a very curious manner.For, not knowing the notes or music in the least, I am compelledto hum whatever comes into my head to a musical composer,who then commits it to paper. I must, however, have a goodear and taste, for the public have always approved my musicwhen they have heard it. My method has always been thatof the bees which suck honey from the sweetest flowers andcollect it ; even so, all I have composed is taken from the goodmasters whose music pleases me."

The list of royal and princely amateurs, from thedays of King David to those of the author of "SantaChiara," performed some years ago at Covent Gar-den, is a long and a not undistinguished one. Butthe calm assertion of sovereign rights over otherpeople's artistic property contained in the above is,we believe, unprecedented.

6 MUSICAL STUDIES.

It is among the Court musicians of JosephClement's successor, Clement Augustus, that thename of Beethoven occurs for the first time. It wasborne by the composer's grandfather, called, likehim, Ludwig van Beethoven, who came to Bonn in1732, having, according to an old family tradition,quarrelled with his parents at Antwerp. The family,it may be parenthetically mentioned, can be tracedto a village near Louvain, in Belgium, and the nameis of frequent occurrence in the Low Countries.Schindler saw it in 1840 over a grocer's shop atMaestricht. The Ludwig we are speaking of was in1733 appointed Court musician to the Elector, andmarried in September of the same year. Johannvan Beethoven, his second son, the exact date ofwhose birth even Mr. Thayer has been unable todiscover, followed his father's calling, and in duecourse his name appears among the Court musicians,most frequently at the bottom of "humble and sub-missive " petitions for increased pay. It may bysome be thought characteristic of the man's weaknature that he seems unable to make up his mindas to his own name. At one time he writes Bieth-offen, which an official copyist improves into Pieth-offen, at another Bethoff, and again Bethoven, andBeethoven with and without the " van." Baillie, theCovenanter, immortalised by Mr. Carlyle, labouredunder the same weakness, and the eighteenth century,

BEETHOVEN. 7

as well as the seventeenth, was remarkable for itslatitude in matters orthographic. At the same timeit remains a fact that old Ludwig, an honourable manand citizen, seems to have been invariably consis-tent in the matter, while his dissipated son was not.

But he has graver faults than this to answer for.It seems uncertain whether in the education of hisgreat son he was a harder taskmaster than circum-stances required. Young Ludwig was no doubt dif-ficult to deal with. Self-willed, and looking uponart from his own point of view, the ordinary routineof musical training was highly distasteful to him.Moreover he was not precocious as a composernot, at least, compared with Mozart or Handel;and if the statement on his first published composi-tion, " Par un jeune amateur, Louis van Beethoven,age dix ans," had been true (he was in reality morethan twelve years old), there would have beennothing surprising in the fact. The same statement,for which no doubt the father is responsible, subse-quently led to much chronological confusion; andthe composer himself for a long time believed thatthe year of his birth was 1772 instead of 1770. Itis but too certain that the drudgery to which he wascompelled from early youth and the misery of hishome life fostered the germs of suspicion and misan-thropy which are so painful a feature in his char-acter. The child here also was father to the man.

8 MUSICAL STUDIES.

But all was not sad in Beethoven's early life. Thebeautiful surroundings of Bonn, the Ehine, and theSeven Hills were a source of ever-new and never-to-be-forgotten pleasure to the future author of the" Pastoral Symphony," in whom love of nature wasa transcendent passion. Moreover, he was not with-out kind and appreciative friends. Beethoven wasnot what in the ordinary sense is called an educatedman, and the total neglect of his general culture is,perhaps, the most unpardonable of his father's sins.JSTO amount of thought or careful, though miscel-laneous, study in later life could make up for thiswant, and as soon as Beethoven abandons the ac-customed staff for ordinary note paper, we perceivethe illiterate hand. But, in spite of this, he lovedthe intercourse of cultured peopletoo frequentlyshunned by musiciansand this he found in thehouses of some of the best families in Bonn.

Some of the early friendships thus contractedceased only with his life. Thus Stephen von Breun-ing, one of his earliest friends, was also amon^ thechief mourners at his funeral. It was in the Breun-ing family that Beethoven became acquainted, notonly with the works of Lessing and Gleim and theearly productions of Goethe, but also with Shake-speare and Milton and Sterne, in such translations aswere then very popular in Germany. Mr. Thayerseems inclined to think that the great master's well-

BEETHOVEN. 9

known predilection for England and everythingEnglish may be traced to his early acquaintancewith the standard works of our literature.

A few incidents of Beethoven's youth not gener-ally known may be mentioned here. One of thepleasantest among these was the trip from Bonn toMergentheim, undertaken by the chief members ofthe Bonn orchestra to enliven the villeggiatura oftheir master. The route lay through the most charm-ing parts of the Ehineland, the beauties of whichcould be enjoyed at leisure from the comfortableboats slowly gliding up the river. The ship's com-pany immediately constituted itself a body politic, andaccordingly elected a king, who forthwith appointedhis courtiers and State dignitaries. Beethoven re-ceived the modest post of Court scullion, which hefilled to general satisfaction. At Aschaffenburg,since become famous through a battle fought therein 1866, a halt was made, and here, in the presenceof the learned Abbe Sterkel, the scullion had to showhis proficiency in the more difficult art of pianoforteplaying, his talent for improvisation being espe-cially admired. We may add here, that all throughlife Beethoven retained this marvellous gift of spon-taneous production. The opinions as to his meritsas a pianist differ widely; and especially in later life,when deafness prevented him from hearing himself,his touch naturally lost much of its tenderness and

io MUSICAL STUDIES.

refinement; but all critics agree in their accountsof the overpowering impression produced in everyheart as soon as the master closed the book andlistened to the inner voice which remained audibleto him in spite of physical ailment. The tripto Mergentheim since celebrated in song bythe Ehenish poet, Alexander Kaufmannlived inBeethoven's memory as "a fruitful source of themost beautiful images."

Another interesting and infinitely more importantjourney was undertaken to Vienna in 1787, severalyears before Beethoven made that city his permanentabode. Very little of this trip is known beyond thefact that Beethoven received a few lessons fromMozart. Schindler relates that the only two personspermanently impressed on the young artist's mindwere the Emperor Joseph II. and Mozarta state-ment which, with regard to the former, Mr. Thayerseems inclined to doubt for chronological reasons;for the date of Beethoven's short stay at Viennaseems to coincide with the Emperor's celebratedjourney to the Crimea in company with CatherineII. of Eussia. Mozart on this occasion is creditedwith one of those prophecies of future greatness whichseveral musicians are said to have uttered of theirimmediate successors. When Hasse produced hislast opera at Milan in 1771, a work by Mozart called" Ascanio in Alba " was also given, and the veteran

BEETHOVEN. ir

composer is said to have exclaimed, " This child willthrow us all into oblivion!" and similarly, when" the child," grown up to be the greatest composer ofthe age, heard young Beethoven play, he said in awhisper to some friend, " Listen to him; he willmake the world talk ! " According to Ries, however,Beethoven complained that Mozart would never playto him. The young artist's first contact with anothergreat master also belongs to the Bonn period.

In December 1790 Haydn journeyed to Londonin company with Salomon, the violinist and entre-preneur, for whose concerts some of Haydn's finestsymphonies, known as the "Salomon set," werewritten. Salomon being a native of Bonn, a haltwas naturally made in that pleasant town, wherethe great composer was received with due honourby the art-loving Elector. Mr. Thayer tells a prettyanecdote in connection with a dinner given byHaydn, on the ground that Beethoven may possiblyhave been among the guests. However that maybe, it cannot be doubted that the promising youngmusician attracted Haydn's attention; and we knowfor certain that on his return journey in June 1792,Haydn took kind notice of a cantata submitted tohim by Beethoven, and " encouraged the author topersevere in his studies." Not many months laterBeethoven was in Vienna as Haydn's regular pupil,studying composition and occasionally paying for his

12 MUSICAL STUDIES.

master's coffee and chocolate, if the minute entriesin his diary may be believed. That the relationsbetween master and pupil were not altogether satis-factory is a matter of history. Beethoven, self-willedand passionate, was at best a somewhat unmanage-able pupil, and, moreover, the natures of the twocomposers were fundamentally differentas differentas the tempest-tossed ocean is from the quiet surfaceof a lake. Haydn, from his own point of view, wasno doubt right in counselling moderation, but Beet-hoven was certainly not wrong in not always impli-citly following that advice, although it can only beexplained from his soured and naturally suspiciousnature that he accused Haydn of having tried tokeep him back on purpose. Certain it is that (accord-ing to Ries) Beethoven refused to describe himselfas a " pupil of Haydn " on the title-pages of hisearly works, because, as he bluntly put it, " I neverlearned anything from him." Mr. Thayer's firstvolume (384 closely printed pages) concludes withBeethoven's second year at Vienna; at a time, thatis, before his real career as a composer had begun.That all the important facts might have been com-prised in a quarter of that-space it is needless to add.But instead of a succinct account of Beethoven'syouth, the author gives us a miscellaneous collectionof documents bearing on the history of Bonn, and inthis tendency he has, unfortunately, been encouraged

BEETHOVEN. 13

by his translator, a resident of Bonn, and brimfulof local information, which he is as eacjer to divulgeas Mr. Thayer himself. By their united efforts thevolume has become totally unfit, at least, for theEnglish reader, and of this, be it said in justice toMr. Thayer, he is well aware.

In the second and third volumes Beethoven's workand character gain in importance, and he accordinglymore and more engrosses the author's interest, muchto the benefit of the work, it need not be said. Atthe very outset of the second volume Mr. Thayer re-frains from using his rich " materials for an accountof musical life in Prague," although Beethovenactually once paid a short visit to that city, and tohis virtuous resolve he remains in the main faithfulthroughout the work. There is still an enormousmass of detail, but it at least refers to Beethovenand his immediate surroundings. The years of whichthese two volumes treat (1796-1816) comprise therise and the acme of Beethoven's career as far asfame and external prosperity are concerned. As avirtuoso he remained almost without a rival untilhis increasing deafness prevented him from distin-guishing the nuances of his own performance, and asa composer also his supreme greatness was verygenerally acknowledged. It is somewhat distressingto find that his popularity, in the common senseof the word, was due, not to his master-works, but

14 MUSICAL STUDIES.

to his weakest productiona battle symphony cele-brating the victory of Wellington at Vittoria, andfull of noisy and more or less commonplace devicesa pUce d'occasion, in fact, and quite unworthy ofBeethoven. However, the master's great works hadthe full benefit of this spring-tide of popular favour.Publishers eagerly asked for compositions from hispen, his " academies " (the Viennese name for orches-tral and choral concerts) were thronged by admiringcrowds, and every new work produced was a newtriumph; even "Fidelio," passed over with neglectin the troublous year 1805, was on its revival in areconstructed form received with enthusiasm. Thiswas in 1814. At the Congress of Vienna, whichassembled in the same year, Beethoven was theobserved of all observersmusical observers at leastand had every opportunity of asserting his artisticindependencesometimes in an anything but dig-nified mannerin the company of the potentatesand greatest statesmen of Europe. And, what ismore, he still possessed in those days the elasticityand freshness of mind necessary for the enjoymentof a life of this kind. It is true that at all times thebias of his nature was the reverse of cheerful, andthe great tragic misfortune of his life, his deafness,had at the period we speak of already reached analmost hopeless stage.

As early as 1802 Beethoven, in a fit of despon-

BEETHOVEN. 15

dency, wrote the last will in which, in language almosttoo painful to quote, he deplores his cruel fate." Oh, men," he exclaims, " you who think or declareme unsympathetic, wilful, or misanthropic, how un-just you are ! You do not know the secret cause ofwhat appears to you in that light. . . . Born witha lively, impressionable temper, susceptible to thepleasures of society, I had at an early age to secludemyself and pass my life alone. If at times I triedto forget all this, oh ! how doubly sad was the ex-perience of my imperfect hearing which repelled meagain; and yet I could not tell peopleSpeak louder,shout, for I am deaf!" For a long time, however,Beethoven did not abandon the hope of ultimaterecovery, and the Berlin Library contains a melan-choly collection of speaking-trumpets and similarinstruments used by him with little or no result.But in spite of his deafness and of many othercauses of trouble, it is certain that up to about 1816,the year which concludes Mr. Thayer's third volume,Beethoven, if not exactly a happy man, was at leasta prosperous man, and one able and inclined toenjoy the good things fortune had thrown in hispath.

The great anxiety and sorrow of his later yearsdates from about the time we speak of. Beethoven'sbrother died, leaving a boy unprovided for and awidow morally and intellectually unfit to take care

16 MUSICAL STUDIES.

of her child. From her influence the composer hadto withdraw his nephew by means of a lawsuit, andhenceforth the entire care of the boy's educationdevolved upon him. Here at last he had found anobject for his affection, and( his nephew Carl becamethe centre of -his private life. For his sake he wasprepared to abandon his bachelor habits and take tohousekeeping, with what results his diaries are stillin existence to prove. For his benefit, also, Beethovendeveloped that passion for acquiring and hoardingmoney which becomes too conspicuous in the lettersand business transactions of his later years, andwhich is little in accord with the open-handed gene-rosity of his youth and early manhood. Unfortu-nately, the young man did not prove worthy of allthis affection, and his conduct caused grief andanxiety to his uncle. No wonder that his naturaltendency towards suspicion and misanthropy grewmore and more upon the lonely man, and that in thecourse of years he became a Timon in the gayest cityof the world, seen by few, fully understood, perhaps,by none. But the more he retired from the world,the more his inner life seemed to expand and develop.A more strange, and in its way a more sublime,phenomenon cannot be found in the history of artthan this elderly man, perfectly deaf and all but ahermit, communing as it were with another world,and pouring forth ever-new creations, the beauty

BEETHOVEN. j7

and the depth of which it has taken the world halfa century to comprehend fully. For we need not addthat the Ninth Symphony, the "Missa Solemnis,"the last sonatas and quartets, and other works ofBeethoven's " third manner," belong one and all tothe period we speak of. To obtuse contemporariesmany of these appeared to be the emanations ofdeclining powers further impeded by deafness; tomodern musicians they are the highest effort madeby their art, and at the same time the basis of allfurther development.

It is not our present purpose to write the biographyof Beethoven, or to follow Mr. Thayer through themazes of his careful investigation. All we cando is to mention a few detached points on whichessentially new light is thrown by the volumesbefore us, and which have never been fully dis-cussed. One of these is the sentimental aspect ofBeethoven's life, his relations to women, to whichMr. Thayer, very properly, has paid careful attention.Beethoven, like Handel, was never married, butcelibacy was with him by no means a matter ofprinciple. " My best wishes to your wife," he writesto his pupil Eies in 1816; "unfortunately I havenone; I found One only, and her I have no chanceof ever calling mine; but for that reason I am nota hater of women." " One only" is a favouritephrase with lovers; but in Beethoven's, as in other

B

18 MUSICAL STUDIES.

cases, it should not be taken literally. Not onlywas he, as his early friend "Wegeler remarks, " nieohne eine Liebe " that is, never without a loveaffairbut this love in more than one case took themore serious form of an offer of marriage, not tospeak of such transitory attacks of amour de Ute asthat which dictated the celebrated letters to Bettinavon Arnim, Goethe's friend.

But among the various objects of Beethoven'saffection one has been surrounded by popular fancyand sentimental writers with all the glamour ofromance. It is the beautiful Giulietta, CountessGuicciardi, to whom the C sharp minor sonata(" The Moonlight "), one of Beethoven's most impas-sioned works, is dedicated, and it must be admittedthat she is well worthy to fill the place assigned to herby common consent. Giulietta Guicciardi was at thetime the master made her acquaintance in her seven-teenth year, Beethoven being rather less than twiceher age. By all accounts she is described as a fasci-nating young lady, as beautiful as she was intelligent,and, moreover, an ardent and accomplished lover ofmusic. No wonder that such a girl, placed towardshim in the dangerous position of an admiring pupil,should have kindled the inflammable heart of thecomposer. Various facts and conjectures tend toshow that Beethoven offered Giulietta his hand,which she was willing to accept. Her father, how-

BEETHOVEN. 19

ever, opposed the match, and to his remonstrances thedaughter yielded and married two years later (in 1803)Count Gallenberg, an impresario, and prolific com-poser of ballet-music and the like. That Beethoven,apart from any deeper feeling of regret, was indig-nant at being superseded by such a rival it is need-less to add, and the echo of that indignation is au-dible in a conversation between him and Schindler,eighteen years later. The friends being at a publicplace, "where Beethoven did not like to trust thevoice," the conversation took place in writing, andhas, therefore, been literally preserved to us. As afurther precaution, or for some other reason, the com-poser wrote his answers in the curious French pecu-liar to him, and which in this instance does not addto the clearness of his explanation :" J'etais bienaime d'elle," he writes, " et plus que jamais sonepoux. II etait plutSt son amant que moi, mais parelle j'apprenais de son misere et je trouvais un hommede bien qui me donnait la somme de 500 florinspour le soulager. II e'tait toujours mon ennemi,c'etait justement la raison que je fusse (sic) tout lebien que possible. . . . Elle etait ne'e Guicciardi.Elle etait l'epouse de lui avant son voyage en Italie

arrive a Vienne elle cherchait moi pleurant, maisje la meprisois."

To what period or particular incident the lastremark refers, neither Schindler nor Mr. Thayer tries

20 MUSICAL STUDIES.

to explain. Certain it is that no man would aftereighteen years speak in these terms of subdued bitter-ness of a mere passing affection, such as the last-namedauthor is inclined to discover in the whole affair.Schindler was of a different opinion; he was, andupon the whole not unreasonably, inclined to recog-nise in Giulietta Guicciardi the ideal of Beethoven'slife and the inspiring muse of some of his finestcompositions. This opinion received apparent con-firmation from an event which happened imme-diately after Beethoven's death. In a secret drawer,where the composer kept his bank shares, were foundthree letters, or more correctly a letter with twopostscripts scrawled in pencil on two sheets of note-paper. Whether they had never been sent to theperson addressed, or returned by her, is an openquestion. The name of that person is not stated;neither place nor year is given; the only date is" July 6, morning," and on the first postscript " Mon-day, July 6, evening." The letter appeared inEnglish many years ago, but it is so interesting andso different from Beethoven's ordinary clumsy styleof writing, that a translation of the first portion atleast may well claim a place here. In it Beethoven'stongue seems untied by his passion, and he becomeseloquent in his incoherent elementary way :

" My angel, my all, my self,A few words only to-day inpencilyour pencil'; (mit Deinem, the Du being used through-

BEETHOVEN, 21

out the original); "only till to-morrow is my lodging fixed ;what miserable waste of time ! Why this deep grief whennecessity speaks ? Can our love exist except by sacrifice, by notdemanding all ; can you help not being quite mine, I notquite yours \ Ah ! God, look into beautiful Nature, and calmyour mind over what must be. Love demands all and justly,so it is from me to you, from you to me ; only you forget toooften that I must live for myself and for you. If we werequite united, you would feel this grief no more than I. . . .My journey was terrible ; I did not arrive till four in themorning ; for want of sufficient horses, the mail-coach chose adifferent route, and what a terrible road ! At the last stationthey warned me not to travel at night and frightened me witha wood ; but that only tempted me, and I was wrong. Thecarriage could not but collapse in the terrible road, bottomless,a mere country road; but for my postilions I should havestuck there. . . . Now quickly from the external to the internal.We shall probably see one another soon, and to-day I cannottell you the thoughts I had regarding my life during these fewdays. Were our hearts but always close together I should havenone such. My heart is full; I have much to say to you.Oh ! there are moments when I find that language is nothing.Be cheerful; remain my faithful sole treasure, my all, as I amyours ; the rest the gods must send, what shall be and mustbe.Your faithful LDDWIG."

Schindler jumps to the conclusion that this" angel," this " immortal love," as he calls her in thefurther course of the letter, is Giulietta Guicciardi,and his view has been cheerfully accepted and fur-ther improved upon by other writers and Beethovenenthusiasts, more or less romantically inclined.

This faith has at last been rudely shaken by Mr.Thayer. He is a man of facts, and, as such, hatesromance, however harmless. It is, indeed, with evi-

22 MUSICAL STUDIES.

dent satisfaction that he scatters the Guicciardi mythto the winds. He proceeds in the most methodicalmanner, admits that the letter may well have beenwritten in Hungary, because it mentions the initialof a neighbouring post-town, " K " (and " of the 218places in the Austrian Directory which begin with aK there are several in Hungary "), and adduces noend of collateral evidence in favour of his argument.Unfortunately his strongest proof, the chronological,breaks down almost completely. It turns out thatof all the years which, according to Mr. Thayer, needbe taken into consideration, 1807 is the only one inwhich July 6th fell on a Monday. But the authorhimself proves that for other reasons this cannothave been the year, and therefore settles on 1806(when Giulietta was at Naples), assuming thatBeethoven, in dating his letter, made a mistake ofone day. But if this be admitted, there is no reasonwhy the error should not have been one of two ormore days, and the chronological argument thus fallsto the ground. There is, indeed, by Mr. Thayer's ownshowing, no absolutely cogent reason why the lettershould not have been written in 1802, before GiuliettaGuicciardi had become Countess Gallenberg and hadleft Vienna. It is different if Mr. Thayer has sub-stantial reasons for the claims of his own pretender,the Countess Theresa of Brunswick, to whom alsoa celebrated sonata is dedicated. But for the present

BEETHOVEN. 23

the evidence in her favour is more or less conjectural,and the " immortal love " of the letter remains anenigma.

Another interesting subject to which Mr. Thayerhas given much attention is his hero's relations tothis country. Beethoven, as we remarked before,was an admirer of England and of everything English.He celebrated Wellington's victory of Vittoria by asymphony, and according to one account the DeadMarch in the "Eroica" was originally inspired bythe rumour of Nelson's death in the battle of theXile. Careful study of the British Constitution issaid to have cured him of his early Eepublicanism.One is happy to be able to say that this affectionwas mutual. England was foremost among countriesincluding the composer's ownto acknowledgeBeethoven's merits, and by a curious chance it wasgiven to Leicester to hear perhaps the first notes ofhis music ever sounded in our island. At the generalflight from Bonn before the Eepublican troops, a cer-tain Abbe Dobbeler was commissioned to accompanyto Hamburg the Hon. Mrs. Bowater, an old Englishlady, who had for years lived on the Continent andacquired a refined musical taste. The Abbe, havinginvested some money in English stocks, was easilypersuaded to continue his journey to Leicester, whereMrs. Bowater took up her residence.for a time, and hebeing an excellent violinist, music became the conso-

24 MUSICAL STUDIES.

lation of his exile. Mr. William Gardiner, who tellsthe story, affords us a curious glimpse of provincialstill-life of the eighteenth century. On a rainy daythe Abbe would send him a note to this effect: " Asthe day is good for nothing but a dinner and music,Mrs. Bowater hopes for your company at four anda quartet in the evening." Musical nodes cmncequedeorum always followed such an invitation. Amongthe works which Abbe Dobbeler had brought withhim from Bonn was a trio by Beethoven, which wasreceived with enthusiasm by the amateurs; and thusit came to pass that his genius was acknowledgedat Leicester, while Vienna knew him only as thehumble pupil of Haydn. Again, his Opus Ithewell-known trios was soon after its appearancereceived with acclamation by Cramer, Watts thetenor, Lindley, and other London musicians.

Among these was Bridgetower, the violinist, whoafterwards played a somewhat conspicuous part inBeethoven's career. He was the son of a negro anda Polish lady, and it is not known how he cameby his English name. But having lived in London,where his father was known as the " AbyssinianPrince," he was during his stay at Vienna generallyaccepted as an Englishman, and to that qualificationvery likely owed his friendly reception on the partof Beethoven. For him the celebrated sonata for

BEETHOVEN. 25

violin and pianoforte, known as the Kreuzer Sonata,was originally written, and he played it with thecomposer to the latter's great satisfaction, if we may"believe the virtuoso's own testimony. Another wit-ness gives a very different account. " Bridgetower,"he writes, " was a mulatto, and played in a veryextravagant style. When he performed the sonatawith Beethoven it was received with laughter."Afterwards Beethoven quarrelled with Bridgetoweraccording to him, " about a girl"and the sonatawas dedicated to the Paris violinist whose name itbears.

Another Englishman with whom Beethoven'srelations were not altogether cordial was Major-General Kyd, a musical enthusiast, but, like otherenthusiasts, apparently somewhat wanting in tact.He called on Beethoven and offered him .100 for asymphony, unfortunately coupling his proposal withthe condition that it should be written in his earlierand simpler manner; whereat the exasperated com-poser "kicked him downstairs," to use his own em-phatic, and, it must be hoped, figurative language.But the unfavourable impression of our nationaltaste was soon effaced by the substantial servicesrendered to Beethoven's fame by such men as Neate,Sir George Smart, and other English musicians, whowere among the first to recognise the rising genius.

26 MUSICAL STUDIES.

Of these, and of the initiative taken by the Philhar-monic Society in the same noble cause, we hadrecently occasion to speak. The recollection ofthese facts is an honourit ought also to be a warn-ingto the old-established institution last alludedto. Beethoven was not a " classic " when the Phil-harmonic Society produced and even commissionedhis works, and by that bold policy secured itsleading position among London concert institutesand its permanent place in the history of Englishmusic. A society which looks persistently back tothe past, and severs itself from the living currentsof artistic life, writes its own death-warrant.

This leads us to say a few final words of Beethoven'sworks and their influence on modern arta subjectfrom which Mr. Thayer modestly and, upon thewhole, wisely keeps aloof, his element being the un-earthing of dates and facts rather than the congenialentering into great artistic impulses. Beethoven'sworksespecially those of his third and last periodhave been judged differently by different men andat different times. But they have, beyond a doubt,become the basis of all that is essentially charac-teristic of modern art. When Schumann raised thebanner of Eomanticism, it was to Bach and Beethoventhat he looked up as to his masters and models.Mendelssohn and, in our days, Brahmsmasters of

BEETHOVEN. 27

abstract form though they bewould scarcely dis-own the influence of Beethoven's poetic aspiration.This aspiration, on the other hand, is held by theiradherents to be consistently developed in thesymphonic poems of Berlioz and of Liszt. Again,Wagner declares that instrumental art in its separatecondition has reached its ultimate development inthe Choral Symphony; and that, by having recourseto the spoken word in the final movement of thatsymphony, Beethoven pointed the way to the musicdrama as the consistent outgrowth of his reform.Whichever of these rival claims to the prophet'smantle may be just, it is certain that a mightyimpulse was given to music, and it would be vain todeny that this impulse is essentially of the " poetic,"as opposed to the formally musical, kind. Such astructure as the last movement of the Ninth Sym-phony, with its retrospective introduction of thepreceding leading themes, cannot be explained on thebasis of abstract music. And there are innumerableother instances of the same principle in Beethoven'slast works. But who, it will be asked, is the rightheir to this much-discussed " poetic idea," which themaster bequeathed to future ages ? The only answerwe can give is that whereby the cautious JewMelchisedek evades Sultan Saladin's questions as tothe true religion, in Boccaccio's story of the three

28 MUSICAL STUDIES.

rings. There are three sons, and each declares thathe has received the true miraculous ring from theircommon father. " Ciascuno la sua eredita, la suavera legge, e i suoi comandamenti si crede avere afare, ma chi se 1' abbia, come degli aneli, ancora nepende la questione."

CHOPIN.

(From the Fortnightly Kevieic, September 1877.)

ONE of the most characteristic features in theportrait of Chopin, drawn by the master-hand ofFranz Liszt, is the Polish composer's unconquerableaversion to correspondence. " It was curious," Lisztsays, " to see him resort to all kinds of expedientsto escape the necessity of tracing the most insignifi-cant note. Many a time he traversed Paris fromone end to the other to decline an invitation todinner or to give some trivial information, ratherthan write a few lines. . . . His handwriting wasquite unknown to most of his friends." The mem-bers of his family in Warsaw, and a few of his beau-tiful countrywomen, were almost the only persons inwhose favour Chopin departed from this rule. Inconsequence mainly of this reticence, almost nothinghad till lately transpired of the inner life of oneof the most subjective of composers. Even theauthentic data of his external career were scanty

30 MUSICAL STUDIES.

and difficult of access, being mostly contained inworks by Polish writers and in the Polish langu-age. Liszt in the brochure already alluded to givesfew facts, and those chiefly gleaned from his own per-sonal intercourse with Chopin in Paris; the com-poser's earlier life, before he left his country, wascovered by all but utter darkness.

Considerable expectation, therefore, was rousedsome weeks ago by the announcement of a new Lifeof Chopin written in German by a Pole, M. Kara-sowski, and founded chiefly on Chopin's letters tohis family. Unfortunately, these expectations wereto a great extent doomed to disappointment. M.Karasowski's book, although evincing great care andaccuracy in the collection of facts, is written withoutliterary skill, and even without sufficient knowledgeof the language in which he tries to express himself.Moreover, a great and by far the most interestingportion of the letters, comprising all those writtenfrom Paris, has been destroyed by an accident to berelated further on. Sufficient, however, remains tothrow a new light on Chopin's early existence, andcombining these new materials with such as may begathered from various contemporary sources, a con-tinuous narrative of the great musical lyrist's careermay now be attempted. The outlines of such abiography I have tried to sketch in the presentarticle. Through the kindness of Mr. A. J. Hipkins,

CHOP IX. 31

Sir Julius Benedict, and others, I have been enabledto add valuable and entirely new information withregard to Chopin's visit to England and Scotlandshortly before his death.

The difficulties of Chopin's biographer beginbefore that composer's birth. Until quite recentlyhe was believed to have been of purely Frenchorigin, a strange supposition with regard to onewhose music reflects the peculiarities of the Polishnation in so striking a manner. Yet this statementwas confidently made by that arch-blunderer Fetis,and repeated by other writers on the subject, notexcluding even Liszt. Before the appearance ofKarasowski's book, I was able to correct thismistake from Polish sources. In a musical con-temporary I proved at some length that by themother's side at least Chopin was descended fromthe old and noble family of the Krzyzanowskis,and that even the father's French nationality,although not his French birth, appears doubtful;for Mcolaus Chopin was born at Nancy, the olddomain of Stanislas Leszczynski, and, according toone account, he was the grandson of a Polish courtierwho had followed the fortunes of his king. Thiscircumstance, of which, by the way, M. Karasowskidoes not seem to be aware, would at the same timeaccount for his migration to Poland and the activepart he took in the struggle of that country with

32 MUSICAL STUDIES.

Eussia. Chopin himself, it ought to be added,invariably and almost demonstratively pronouncedhis patriotic feeling. When he had to leaveWarsaw in the pursuit of fame and gain, his heartremained behind, and even in Paris, his secondhome, he preferred the society of his countrymenand countrywomen to all others. His feelings andidiosyncrasies, his life, his bearing, and his artalways remained Polish.

The Darwinian principle in music being thus vin-dicated, it is time for us to return to Chopin's birth.Here new difficulties and errors arise. On a watchpresented by the great singer Catalani to Chopin in1820, the words were engraved, " Donne par MadameCatalani a Frederic Chopin, age" de dix ans;" andin this manner another blunder was started on itsjourney through biographical dictionaries and maga-zine articles innumerable, down to the very tomb-stone at Pere Lachaise, till at last reference to theofficial documents proved beyond a doubt thatMadame Catalani had politely deducted one yearfrom the real age of her young favourite, the date ofthe latter's birth being the 1st of March 1809. Thescene of this event was on the same occasion trans-ferred from Warsaw to the village of Zelazowa Wola,about six miles distant from that city. Chopin'sfather was at the time private tutor at the house ofCount Frederick Skarbek, and after him the boy wasnamed.

CHOPIN. zi

After having once settled the composer's birth, wecan pass rapidly over his early youth. This youthwas as happy and as quiet as can well be imagined.Chopin's parents lived in easy, though not exactlyaffluent circumstances, and the boy's education wascarefully attended to by the best masters in Warsaw.But, more than all, the family were on terms ofmutual love and consideration. Chopin's letters tohis parents and sisters are full of the tenderest affec-tion, and never during his splendid career in Parisdid he cease to remember and regret the home of hischildhood. Of his mother, one who knew himwellGeorge Sandused to say that she was hisonly genuine passion. Like most great musicians,Chopin showed a feeling for his art at a veryearly age, and his first attempts at compositionwere conceived long before his hand had learntto trace notes or letters. An indulgent masterhad to jot down what the precocious pupil moreindicated than actually played on the piano. Hisddbut as an executant the boy made in 1818 at aconcert for the poor, when his astounding masteryover the instrument created a sensation and estab-lished his local fame on a firm basis. Foreigncelebrities were invited to hear and admire theinfant - miracle; hence, amongst other things, thetimepiece of Catalani, fatal to chronology. A moreimportant consequence of this early success was the

54 MUSICAL STUDIES.

patronage of the art-loving and highly cultivatedPolish aristocracy. The ladies of the great fami-lies the Czartoriskys, the Sapiechas, the Eadzivils,delighted in fondling the gentle, beautiful boy, andin this manner Chopin began at an early age tobreathe the air of the salon, which through liferemained his most congenial atmosphere. Thedangerous consequences of such surroundings werefortunately counteracted by Chopin's teacher, Eisner,an excellent musician, as strict in his artisticdemands as he was free from pedantry. Moreoverthe boy's natural modesty sufficiently protected himfrom the dangers of indiscriminate applause.

There is a certain idyllic charm about Chopin'schildhood such as we naturally connect with theearly development of great lyrical powers. "Wemay picture to ourselves a dreamy youth open tothe beauties of sky and field and lonely woodside,but equally fond of congenial society, and takingkeenest delight in his contact with refined woman-hood. But enlivening traits are not wanting in thispicture. A turn for practical jokes may be men-tioned amongst them ; " practical" in a very differentsense from the robust interpretation of that word inwhich Smollett delighted, but frequently none theless amusing in their results. On one occasionChopin composed an impertinent letter in a kind ofpigeon-Polish, used by the Jewish pedlar's, and sent

CHOPIN. 35

it to a nobleman, signed with the name of a poorHebrew well known on the estate. The noblemanwas known for his hastiness of temper, and a severethrashing would have been the fate of the innocentJew, but for Chopin's timely disclosure of his ownauthorship. The laugh raised at his cost is said tohave cured the magnate of his besetting sin, and everafter he used the horsewhip rarely, and " only whereit was necessary," as M. Karasowski cautiously adds.

An extraordinary gift of travestying personalpeculiarities belongs to the same category. Whenq^uite a boy, Chopin astonished and amused hisfriends by imitating to the life and to the letter thegestures and the broken Polish of a German Pro-testant clergyman ; and many years later he excitedthe envy of a great French actor by his incompar-able imitations of various celebrated pianists, bothwith regard to personal bearing and artistic execu-tion. Liszt especially, with his striking features andstrongly pronounced individuality, was one of Chopin'sfavourite models, much to the amusement of the twofriends. It is strange that this decidedly dramaticinstinct should have found no equivalent in Chopin'sart. An anecdote told of his early youth would con-firm one's belief in the existence of latent dramaticpower. To quiet his father's unruly pupils, Chopinis said to have improvised and illustrated on thepiano a long story of robbers and housebreakers, with

36 MUSICAL STUDIES.

such intensity as to rouse his audience to a pitch ofexcitement, and afterwards actually to send it tosleep by reciting how the thieves, after a successfulexpedition, rest in the security of a dense forest.Similar incidentsthe readers of this Eeview mayrememberare told of Schumann's early youth.And yet he also signally failed in those dramaticefforts which Chopin did not even venture upon.

Barring a few excursions into the country, wherehe revelled in air and sunshine and the songs of thepeople, Chopin's, early youth was passed at home.His artistic career seems to have been determinedupon from a very early period, but his general edu-cation was not neglected for that reason. Underthe loving care of parents and sisters he grew up awell-educated, socially refined, and withal tender-hearted youthtoo tender and sensitive, alas ! for theways of the world and the passions of his own heart,as we shall presently see.

His first journey was an important break of thiseventless quietude. It was directed to Berlin, andmight well be considered a somewhat formidableaffair in those days of bottomless Polish roads andlumbering Prussian diligences. At Berlin, however,they arrived safely, Chopin and Professor Jarocki,a friend of the family, who went to the Prussiancapital to be present at a congress of naturalists, andgladly took the part of guide and philosopher to the

CHOPIN. 37

inexperienced youth. To this journey we owe thefirst series of letters in Karasowski's book. Uponthe whole, it must be confessed that those lettersdisappoint even moderate expectations. They mayhave lost much through the translator's want ofskill; the pet names, the charming diminutives, andother graceful fioriture of affection in which thePolish language is so rich, moreover, defy reproduc-tion. It is also unmistakable that Chopin. is anintelligent and keen observer. He wanders aboutthe streets of Berlin with his eyes open, noticingeverything, from the colossal pile of the KoniglicheSchloss down to the tournure of the ladies, of which,by the way, he disapproves highly. Especiallyamusing is his strong objection to natural scienceand her representatives. There is a capital sketchof an absent-minded professor at the public dinner,who, in the heat of a learned discussion, drums withhis not over-clean fingers on his neighbour'sChopin'splate, much to the disgust of that fasti-dious young gentleman. Here, then, was amplematerial for the satirist, and Chopin did not wastehis opportunity. " Many of them," he says, " appearto me like caricatures, and I have already dividedthem into classes." Alexander von Humboldt, thecourtier and man of the world, alone finds favour inhis eyes. " He looks very different," we hear; and" he spoke French to us as well as if it were his

38 MUSICAL STUDIES.

own language; even you, dear father, would havesaid so."

But all this, amusing as it is, might have beenwritten by almost any clever boy. And the sameremark applies with some modifications to all hissubsequent letters, as far as they have been preservedto us. The signature of Chopin appended to themadds little to their significance; that is, we findnone of the composer's qualities in his words. Thisis the more remarkable as Chopin belongs essentiallyto what may be called the literary or poetic epochof music. The representatives of this epoch wielded,and wield, the author's as well as the composer's pen.The names of Schumann, of Liszt, of Wagner, aresufficient to illustrate the point. But Chopin in thisrespect belongs to the earlier class of musicians, whowere, and wished to be, nothing but musicians. Onthe other handand this increases our surprisehe was by no means wanting in education and evenscholarly attainments. Mozart and Schubert, andto some extent even Beethoven, could not ventureon literary grounds, had their desire been ever sostrong. But Chopin had been trained by a fatherwho was at the same time a careful and accomplishedpedagogue, and during the latter part of his life hemoved in one of the most brilliant intellectual circlesthe world has ever seen. It is true that the lettersof this, his Paris period, are extant no longer, but it

CHOPIN. 39

seems more than doubtful that at a comparativelyadvanced age he should suddenly have developedliterary capabilities dormant up to that point. Itmay further be alleged, that most of Chopin's letterswere addressed to his parents or sisters, and con-ceived, therefore, in the simplest vein of familiargossip, and without any pretension to style. But soindeed were Mendelssohn's, and yet they contain anabundance of graceful, humorous, and pathetic turns,which Mdrne. de Sevigne herself might have envied.The fact is that Chopin's mind was of too subjectivea cast to consider much the general aspects of his art,or indeed of any other question. He felt intensely,and for that feeling he found an immediate andadequate expression in his music. This sufficed him.

From the same point of view we must look at thismusic itself. Chopin, it is generally known, neverattempted the higher or at least larger forms of theart; he wrote no symphony, no opera, and his twoconcertos are by no means amongst his masterpieces,especially as regards the orchestral accompaniments.It was in the Impromptu, the Nocturne, the Etude,the Valse, that Chopin felt most at home, and thesegraceful forms he filled and made alive with theintensity of his passion and his sorrow. It washere also that he became the interpreter of hiscountry's grief, and nowhere is the tragic fate ofPoland expressed more pathetically than in the

4o MUSICAL STUDIES.

striking and yet so inexpressibly melancholy rhythmsof Chopin's Polonaises and Mazurkas. To denyChopin's genius on account of his predilection forthese smaller forms of art, would be about as just asto call Heine and Burns minor poets because theydid not excel in epics and tragedies. Genius cannotbe measured by inch and ell. On the other hand,it is undeniable that the strongly individual modeof Chopin's utterance requires on the part of thehearer a certain congenial turn of mind to be fullyappreciated. He does not, like Beethoven, or Mozart,or Wagner, appeal to all minds in all moods. Hencewe find that musicians and critics by no meanswanting in judgment fail to perceive Chopin'speculiar greatness. Mendelssohn looked down uponChopin from the secure height of his formal per-fection. He acknowledges remarkable talent, butthe nature of his admiration is sufficiently indi-cated by the playful but significant nickname of" Chopinetto," repeatedly occurring in his letters.Moscheles adopts similar tactics of faint praise, andthe more downright Field openly calls Chopin's " untalent de chambre de malade." Not wholly with-out justice. Chopin is the representative of a decay-ing nation, and his individual genius also is tingedwith melancholy to a degree which to a robust andhealthy nature might well appear in the light of adisease. But what, after all, is genius itself but an

CHOPIN. 41

undue preponderance of the imaginative faculties ;a disorder of the brain in the eyes of the pathologist,a despicable weakness in those of the non-affectedman of the world ?

After this excursion on critical grounds it isnecessary to return to the main biographical purposeof this essay. Chopin's journey to Berlin was notlong afterwards followed by a trip to Vienna, and itwas here that he made his first real appearance inpublic both as a composer and pianist. The successwas all that could be desired. Chopin's playingwas received with much enthusiasm as somethingentirely new and original, and in his own modestaccount of the event he especially dwells upon thefact that the ladies were in his favour. His touchwas admired as wonderfully poetic, although some-what too soft and aerial for large concert halls,and his compositions were at once recognised tobe instinct with feeling and individuality. Cavil-ling detractors, especially from the " classic-scien-tific " camp, were of course not wanting, but uponthe whole Chopin's career opened under the mostauspicious circumstances. Of the ordinary struggleof rising genius he knew little or nothing; neitherwould his sensitive and tender nature have been atall able to support such a contest. Amongst thecritics who most warmly welcomed the rising starSchumann must be named first. His article on

42 MUSICAL STUDIES.

Chopin's Opus II., the Don Juan Fantasia, has beenpreviously quoted in this Keview. Although some-what eccentric in tone, it reflects the highest crediton Schumann's critical discriminationintuitionone may call i t ; for the composer was entirelyunknown, and the work of comparatively littleimportance according to the common rules ofcriticism. But Schumann saw the poet's mind andthe master's hand in every bar of the music, andfrom what had been done he at once perceived whatcould be doneex ungue leonem.

But the most remarkable circumstance is that inthe very earliest records of his playing Chopinappears absolutely in the same light as when hehad reached the acme of fame and artistic power.Wherever we meet him, at Vienna, or Warsaw, orParis, or Edinburgh, he is always the same, the mostaccomplished though perhaps not the most brilliantvirtuoso, the most sympathetic interpreter of hisown compositions and the declared favourite ofwomen. A similar phenomenon is repeated inthese compositions. There are here few traces ofchange or development such as we notice in almostall other masters. Beethoven's work has beendivided into three distinct periods, and the composerof " Eienzi" will hardly be recognised in that of"Tristan and Iseult" or the "Valkyrie." ButChopin's first work shows absolutely the same

CHOPIN. 43

peculiarities as his last; not even much technicalprogress is discernible, for Chopin was wise anddiscreet enough to go through his apprenticeship inprivate. But neither do we perceive the slightestindications of artistic " Sturm und Drang." Chopin,as by instinct, seized on the most adequate mode ofexpressing his thoughts, and that he never changed,any more than he did the thoughts themselves. Ina lesser man this oneness of theme would have ledto monotony; in him it caused concentration of thehighest order. Excepting Heine, and it may beSappho, Chopin is the most perfect embodiment oflyrical power, properly so called, that the history ofart or poetry can show.

That in the life of an artist of this type loveshould be an important factor is but natural. Atender and pure affection is indeed the most interest-ing feature of Chopin's early youth. Its object wasConstance Gladkowska, a gifted singer, in whomthe artist as well as the man had found his ideal.It is in speaking of her to his most intimate friend,Titus Woyciechowski, that Chopin's letters gaineloquence, almost pathos. At the same time it ischaracteristic of his reticent and essentially in-ward nature that half a year had elapsed sincethis first meeting before he ever spoke either toher or of her. " Of her 1 dream every night,"he writes, " but not a syllable have I exchanged

44 MUSICAL STUDIES.

with her. In thinking of her sweet being Iwrote the Adagio of my new Concerto (in Eminor, Op. n ) , and this morning the Valse which Isend with this letter." This authentic informationas to the sentimental source of a work of art isinvaluable. What an amount of wild conjectureand silly anecdote might have been saved, forinstance, in Beethoven's case, by a few short sen-tences of this kind ! The following passage fromthe same letter is hardly less touching:" Oh, howbitter it is to have no one to share one's griefand joy with! how terrible to feel one's heartweighed down and no soul near to hear his com-plaints ! You know what I mean. Often I havetold my piano all I wish to say to you." Andwhat can be more charming than the following bitof youthful sentimentalism occurring in another letterto the same friend :" The day before yesterday Idined with Frau Beyer, whose name is also Con-stance. I like to meet her, were it but for thatinexpressibly dear name ; I am even delighted whenon one of her finger-napkins or handkerchiefs I seeembroidered, Constance."

Of the external circumstances of this love-affairwe know little. Constance seems to have returnedthe feeling of her youthful adorer, and on oneoccasion presented him with a ring, which Chopintreasured and idolised as he would the ima^e of

CHOPIN. 45

his saint. Whether a definite engagement existedseems doubtful; certain it is that Chopin's familynot unreasonably objected to a relation whichcould not but prove a serious impediment to ayoung artist's career; equally indubitable that itwas the lady, and not Chopin, who terminated what-ever private agreement may have existed betweenthe lovers. In 1832 she married another, much tothe grief of her devoted, and for a long time incon-solable lover. Before this substantial fact, Liszt'sromantic story of a faithful though deserted maidenfalls to the ground.

But I am anticipating. Towards the end of 1830,Chopin bade once more, and for the last time, fare-well to his home, and again journeyed to Vienna.It was during his stay in that city that he receivedthe news of the Polish revolution, which naturallyaffected him deeply. Titus Woyciechowski at onceleft Vienna, where he had been staying with hisfriend, and took service in the insurrectionist army,and only by the urgent wish of his parents wasChopin himself prevented from taking the samestep, for which his weak health made him totallyunfit. Although, as a rule, totally indifferent topolitics, he followed the events of the war with theutmost anxiety, and one of his most melancholy andmost beautiful Etudes, that in C minor, generallycalled the " Kevolution," is said to have been

46 MUSICAL STUDIES.

written just after he had received the news of theoccupation of Warsaw by the Eussians. Underthese circumstances it may at first seem surprisingthat in his letters during this period there is littlereference to the events alluded to. But Karasowskiexplains that patriotic effusions might have been adangerous possession in case of one of those domi-ciliary visits which the Eussian police frequentlypaid to the disaffected. Many of these letters weretherefore immediately burnt by Chopin's friends;others never found their way to them. From onewhich escaped destruction the following character-istic passage may be quoted:" Once more I em-brace you (his friend Titus). You are going to thewar; return as colonel. May everything turn outwell. "Why may I not at least be your drummer ?"

In July 1831, Chopin left Vienna for Paris, or,more properly, for London; for it seems to havebeen his intention to stay at Paris for a short timeonly, and in his passport were written the words"passant par Paris a Londres." Liszt relates thatat a much later period, when Chopin had perma-nently settled at the French capital, he used to saysmilingly, " I am only passing through Paris." Atfirst, however, it appeared as if these words were tofind a more literal interpretation. Chopin's recep-tion in Paris was by no means as favourable as heand his friends might have expected. Artists of

CHOPIN. 47

much inferior merit, but of established reputation,such as Kalkbrenner, Herz, and others, engrossedpublic attention. Their brilliant technical featsappealed to the masses more readily than thespiritual beauty of Chopin's touch. Moreover, thefavourable notices of the German papers were oflittle avail with the haughty Parisians. ISTo wonder,therefore, that Chopin's first concert was, financi-ally at least, a complete failure. His countrymen,it is true, attended and applauded; but the Frenchpublic were conspicuously absent. Easily discou-raged, Chopin thought of throwing up the game.Liszt, Hiller, and other friends, tried in vain to con-sole him. He wavered between returning home andpassing on to England, eventually America. Inthis emergency a deus ex machina appeared on thescene in the portly shape of Baron Rothschild. Inhis drawing-room Chopin played a few days beforehis intended departure; and it was here that, underthe auspices of the charming and highly cultivatedlady of the house, he was introduced to the hautevoUe of Paris. The excitement of the momentacted inspiringly; he played and improvised as hehad never done before. The surprise, the enchant-ment were universal; and his success was as last-ing as it was brilliant. Henceforth his position inParis was secured. His concerts, whenever hecould make up his mind to appear in public, were

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crowded; publishers eagerly asked for his composi-tions, and well-paid and highly appreciated lessonswere a permanent and agreeable source of income toone whoa solitary instance amongst composersdelighted in teaching.

The early years of Louis Philippe's reign mark anacme in French society and literature. A morebrilliant display of youthful talent and energy thanthe Romantic School of poetry and of painting couldshow has rarely been seen before or since. For thetendencies of this school Chopin felt the warmestsympathy; with many of its members he was inti-mately acquainted. Gautier and .Victor Hugo wereamong his friends; Delacroix and Ary Schefferfrequented his musical evenings. There also mightbe met Heine, with whom Chopin had long com-munings on the wonderland of phantasy so inti-mately known to both of them. Liszt's descriptionof one of these meetings, of which he himself wasone of the most interesting features, ought to beread. They were, indeed, gatherings of the gods,from which everything vulgar and mediocre in-stinctively kept aloof. In his own art also Chopinfound much to interest him and stimulate hiscreative power. Auber's "Muette de Portici" andEossini's " Tell" were then new works. Bellini,Chopin's favourite composer, was on the summit ofhis fame. Meyerbeer created a fabulous sensation

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with the new effects of his " Eobert le Diable."Boieldieu represented the consummate grace ofFrench comic opera. And how marvellously werethese works interpreted ! The names of Malibran,Rubini, Lablache, ISTourrit, and Madame SchroderDevrient, then all in their prime, fill one with deepregret at such high and varied achievement irrevo-cably lost to art. Such virtuosi as Kalkbrenner, Thal-berg, Liszt, and Hiller complete the artistic group.

Of all this brilliant and buoyant life Chopin hassent long and detailed accounts to his parents andfriends at home. These letters existed a few yearsago. M. Karasowski has held them in his hand andcites passages from memory. Now, alas ! they arelost to the world for ever. The story of this lossis as sad as it is significant. On September 19th,1863, during the last Polish rising, Count Berg, theGovernor-General, passed in his carriage the so-called Zamoiski House at Warsaw, an enormousblock of buildings let out in chambers and lodgingsto the upper classes. From one of the innumerablewindows of this building a shot was fired at theCount's carriage, followed by some Orsini bombs,which, however, hurt no one. Immediately thehouse was surrounded by the soldiers and everymale inhabitant marched off to the citadel. Thewomen were allowed to depart. After this, everypiece of furniture in the house, from the large

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wardrobe to a child's cradle, was thrown out ofwindow and heaped into an enormous pile in thecentre of the square. In the course of the eveningfire was set to the whole and everything burnt toashes. There is a touch of primitive barbarousnessabout this act of wanton devastation more appal-ling perhaps than even the systematic cruelty of amore civilised Government would have been. Thenight scene in the square is worthy of SalvatorEosa's brush. An interesting account of it maybe found in Mr. Sutherland Edwards's work onthe " Private History of the Polish Insurrection."Science and art had to deplore severe losses on theoccasion. Thus the oldest and best illuminatedmanuscripts of Longinus were destroyed, these beingin the possession of one of the lodgers, PrinceLubomirski, who was engaged on a critical editionof the philosopher's works. But perhaps the mostvaluable fuel of the Eussian bonfire was the laro-ecollection of Chopin memorials, cherished and reli-giously preserved by his sister. Amongst thesewere, besides valuable presents from his pupils andadmirers, his pianoforte, and his portrait by AryScheffer, which a Eussian officer, after carefullyexamining it for some time, threw into the flames.The last moments of the pianoforte are thus re-corded by Mr. Edwards: " Several pianos of infe-rior Viennese make were cast out and killed by the

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fall. Chopin's piano, however, died hard. ' It fell,'says my informant, who knew the instrument andwatched its last moments, ' with a loud melodioussigh, and I could not help,' he adds, ' admiring thesolidity of Erard's workmanship when I saw thatonly its legs were broken.'"

All Chopin's letters addressed to his family fromabroad perished with the rest, and a few noteswritten to friends are the only autobiographicalmaterial remaining of the eighteen last and mostinteresting years of his life. Fortunately othersources are at hand. Two journeys to Germany,where he renewed his acquaintance with Mendels-sohn and made that of Schumann, one of his earliestand stanchest admirers, must be passed over. Histhird sojourn in that country in 1836 was of morelasting importance for his life. In that year fallsChopin's engagement with Maria Wodzynska, abeautiful Polish lady, whose acquaintance he hadmade some time previously. Pour years had elapsedsince the loss of his first love. The old wound hadhealed, and once more Chopin looked forward to ahappy quiet family life in his own country. Butagain bitterest disappointment was in store for him.He, the adored of women, was doomed to misfortunein his personal relations with them. It appears thathis beloved abruptly changed her mind, jilted thecomposer, and married a Count instead.

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It was while smarting under this blow that Chopinmet for the first time the woman in whom duringthe remainder of his life his feelings were to centrefor better and for worse. Chopin's connectionwith Madame Dudevant is too much a matter ofnotoriety to be passed over in silence. George Sandherself is by no means reticent on the subject.According to her own account, in the " Histoire dema Vie," her feelings never passed the limit of sincerefriendship. "J'avais pour l'artiste," she says, "unesorte d'adoration maternelle tres-vive." She evenregarded him as a kind of lightning conductor, asafeguard "contre des emotions que je ne voulaisplus connaitre." A similar psychological problemshe expounds at greater length in the novel of" Lucrezia Floriani," considered to be by Chopin him-self and the world in general a portraiture of theirfriendship, in spite of George Sand's indignant denialof any such parallelism. Chopin's irritability andmorbid changefulness of mood she further impliesat last made separation a matter of duty andnecessity.

It is, of course, difficult to contradict a lady's state-ment on a point of such delicacy, but in justice toChopin one is bound to say that his friends, and M.Karasowski especially, take a very different view ofthe case. According to the latter, the passionateaffection was by no means on Chopin's side alone,

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and it was not till this passion began to cool inGeorge Sand that she began to feel the irksomenessof her task as companion and sick-nurse of a dyingman. Perhaps the truth lies in this, as in mostcases, between these divergent statements, or ratherin a combination of the two. The mutual positionof man and woman was reversed in the pair : Chopin,the child of genius, helpless, and sick to death, neededprotection as well as love, Both he found in GeorgeSand. She kept his accounts, she furnished hisrooms, she wrote his letters, and tended him in hisillness with the same devotion as she would herown children. Perhaps in such moments she hardlyrealised in her feeling the difference between the sonand the lover. Chopin's devotion and gratitude, onthe other hand, partook of a feeling of almost filialreverence. He felt, and never denied, that he owedthe happiness of many years to her. For her carewas not limited to his physical wants alone. Notto speak of the infinite resources of her own mind,he found in her house the full contentment of hissocial requirements. He might drop into her draw-ing-room of an evening, and talk or play or dreamas the mood took him, and no one was allowed todisturb his solitude when he wished to be alone.The description of the days and the evenings at hervilla in Nohant gives one the idea of a sociable andyet quiet and unrestrained country life in its absolute

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perfection. Especially one night, when the pianowas taken out into the garden, and when Chopin andLiszt alternately awoke the echo of the esplanadewith their inspired chords, lingered in the memoryof all those present. It was also George Sand who,after the first serious attack of his chest-disease,insisted on Chopin's accompanying her to the South,and by her faithful attendance restored his shatteredhealth as far as possible. The visit to Majorca hasbeen so fully and so vividly described by the greatnovelist herself that further reference to it is un-necessary. Readers of the " Histoire de ma Vie "will especially remember the scene, when one stormyevening, Madame Dudevant and her children beingabsent on a walk, Chopin had worked himself intosuch a state of feverish anxiety on their account,that even their return could hardly persuade him oftheir safetythe result of a kind of visionary trancethrough which he had passed being the Prelude inB minor, one of his most inspired compositions. Inthe same book frequent reference is made to thatirritability of Chopin's temper which no doubtgreatly contributed to the final rupture nearly tenyears later. The causes of this bitter ending of somuch affection have been differently stated. GeorgeSand alleges as the chief reason the determinedaversion Chopin evinced towards her children. Onthe other hand, it has been asserted that in the same

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degree as her passion began to abate, she becametired of the incessant care and attendance requiredby the suffering artist, and that for a long time shewatched for an opportunity of throwing off theirksome obligation. The publication of '"LucreziaFloriani" is said to have been one of these strata-gems, and it cannot be denied that, under the circum-stances, it at least showed a great want of delicacyon her part to give to the world a tale so strikinglyresembling the painful reality. Her childrentrueenfants terriblesaggravated the offence by exult-ingly asking the composer, " Do you know, M.Chopin, that Prince Charles (the hero of the novel) ismeant for you ?" But it betrays ignorance of GeorgeSand's open and impulsive nature to charge her withhaving vicariously inflicted this last and bitterestwound.

The ultimate result was that at the beginning of1847 Chopin abruptly left George Sand's house, andnever spoke to her again. Once more they met byaccident at a friend's house. She approached himwith outstretched hand, and with the word "Frederic "on her lips; but he turned away and silently leftthe room.

The immediate consequence of these sad eventswas a violent attack of Chopin's disease, from whichhe recovered slowly, and only through the self-sacrificing care of his favourite pupil, Gutmann,

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who never left his bedside for a moment. It waschiefly to free himself from the mental and physicaldepression under which he laboured that Chopinresumed his long-delayed plan of paying a visit tothis country, and in this intention he was confirmedby the revolutionary events of which Paris soonbecame the scene. The year 1848 witnessed anexodus of Parisian artists to these shores similar tothat caused by the Franco-German war. Berlioz,Kalkbrenner, Thalberg, Charles Halle (who settledin London), and the Viardots were amongst the fugi-tives. Chopin landed in England on the 21st ofApril 1848, and from that date till the hour of hisdeparture, I am enabled to follow his steps almostday by day. From the interesting personal recollec-tions kindly placed at my disposal by the gentlemenalready named, and other distinguished artists andamateurs, I must reluctantly limit myself to gleaningsuch facts as may be most useful to Chopin's futurebiographer.

Once before, in August 1837, Chopin had paid ashort visit to London, most likely in search of medicaladvice. On that occasion he did not play in public,and seems to have observed a strict incognito eventowards his intimate friends. " Chopin is said tohave turned up here all of a sudden," Mendelssohnwrites, dc dato London, September 1837; "but hecalled on no one, and made no one's acquaintance.

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He played one evening most beautifully at Broad-wood's (the celebrated pianoforte manufacturer), andafter that hurried away again. I hear he is stillgreatly suffering." Nothing was seen of him inLondon for the next eleven years, but his composi-tions gradually began to spread amongst the moreintelligent class of amateurs, and several distin-guished English musicians, such as Mr. Osborne, Mr.L. Sloper, and others, had heard him in Paris, andjoyfully welcomed him on his arrival in this country.But amongst his most zealous admirers ought to bementioned the Misses Stirling, two Scotch ladies,one of whom was Chopin's pupil. During his wholestay in this country these ladies paid the com-poser all the care and attention of which his rapidlydeclining health stood in need. Chopin was accom-panied by a faithful servant, who stayed with himtill the end, and joined soon after his arrival by afavourite Norwegian pupil named Telefson. Theirconstant attendance was required the more urgently,as Chopin's power of breathing at this time alreadywas so feeble that he found it impossible to walk upor down stairs, and had to be carriedno difficulttask, it is true, in his emaciated condition. " Yetalthough nearly forty years old," an eye-witness adds," his blonde hair was as thick and as gracefullywaving as it might have been with a very youngman. Of singularly distinguished personal appear-

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ance, his refined manners at once commended himas one of gentle culture. At the pianoforte nonecould be more unobtrusively quiet in his move-ments." Other testimony concurs as to the all butoverpowering impression produced by Chopin's spiri-tualised beauty combined with an artistic inspirationand vitality that seemed to defy approaching deathitself.

Chopin's first lodgings, some readers may care toknow, were at 10 Bentinck Street, but these he leftafter a few days, and settled down in comfortablerooms at 48 Dover Street. Immediately on hisarrival he renewed his acquaintance with the Broad-woods, who received him with the courtesy uniformlyshown by that house to native and foreign artists,and placed their instruments at his disposal.1 The

1 A short synopsis of the instruments used by Chopin at various

times and places will be interesting. Pianofortes, like pianists,have their distinctive types and characteristics, and the style of aplayer may be generally guessed at from the kind of instrument heis known to favour. The resonant brilliancy of an Erard or Stein-way commends itself to a virtuoso of the impulsive or dramaticschool, while a more spiritually refined artist will prefer the softpliable touch and tone of a Bechstein or Pleyel. Chopin himselfhas pointed out the difference : " Quand je suis mal dispose," hesays, " je joue sur un piano d'Erard, et j 'y trouve facilement unson fait. Mais quand je me sens en verve et assez fort pour trouvermon son a moi, il me faut un piano de Pleyel." The poetic qualitiesof touch so much valued by Chopin in the last-named instrumentshe found again in Broadwood's grand pianofortes, and for that reasonhe exclusively adhered to them during his stay in England andScotland. The instrument destroyed in "Warsaw was, as we have

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first London di^ying-room at which Chopin played(May 10) seems to have been that of Lady Bless-ington at Gore House, the well-known rallying-point of a distinguished literary and artistic circle.For in London, as in Paris, he by no means confinedhimself to the society of his own profession. Unliketoo many musicians, he liked to meet literary menof distinction, and one of the first social gatheringshe attended was a brilliant soiree at Mrs. Grote's(May 6), at which, however, he did not play. Ialso hear of a dinner given in his honour byMacready; Thackeray, Berlioz, Mrs. Proctor, andSir Julius Benedict being amongst the guests. Themeeting of the greatest English and one of thegreatest French humorists must have been interest-ing to watch. But I am told that somehow Berliozand Thackeray did not fraternise. Chopin himselfwas too ill to attend.

As to the composer's execution on the piano, thecritics seem to have been more or less unanimous.It appears, indeed, as if but one opinion were possibleon the subject. I could quote the words of manypersons, musicians, amateurs, and intelligent listenersin general, all coinciding as to the unequalled poetical

seen, an Erard. Chopin's own favourite Pleyel fortunately wassaved, having been left by Miss Stirling, who acquired possessionafter the composer's death, to Chopin's niece, and not, like theremainder of the relics, to his sister.

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charm of his playing, sometimes even as to the termsin which they convey their impression. Three corre-spondents, quite unknown to each other, compare hissoft-gliding arpeggios to the sound of the Eolian harp.Lord Houghton, also, who heard Chopin in Parisbefore the rupture with George Sand, speaks of thestrange pathos with which "his hands meanderedover the piano." The following opinion of one ofth