Chopin: The Man and His Music | Page 6

we might indeed say in
Lafcadio Hearn's words, "Every mortal man has been many million
times a woman." And was it the Goncourts who dared to assert that,
"there are no women of genius: women of genius are men"? Chopin
needed an outlet for his sentimentalism. His piano was but a sieve for
some, and we are rather amused than otherwise on reading the romantic
nonsense of his boyish letters.
After the Vienna trip his spirits and his health flagged. He was
overwrought and Warsaw became hateful to him, for he loved but had
not the courage to tell it to the beloved one. He put it on paper, he
played it, but speak it he could not. Here is a point that reveals Chopin's
native indecision, his inability to make up his mind. He recalls to me
the Frederic Moreau of Flaubert's "L'Education Sentimentale." There is
an atrophy of the will, for Chopin can neither propose nor fly from
Warsaw. He writes letters that are full of self-reproaches, letters that
must have both bored and irritated his friends. Like many other men of
genius he suffered all his life from folie de doute, indeed his was what
specialists call "a beautiful case." This halting and irresolution was a
stumbling block in his career and is faithfully mirrored in his art.
Chopin went to Posen in October, 1829, and at the Radziwills was
attracted by the beauty and talent of the Princess Elisa, who died young.
George Sand has noted Chopin's emotional versatility in the matter of
falling in and out of love. He could accomplish both of an evening and
a crumpled roseleaf was sufficient cause to induce frowns and
capricious flights--decidedly a young man tres difficile. He played at
the "Ressource" in November, 1829, the Variations, opus 2. On March
17, 1830, he gave his first concert in Warsaw, and selected the adagio
and rondo of his first concerto, the one in F minor, and the Potpourri on
Polish airs. His playing was criticised for being too delicate--an old
complaint--but the musicians, Elsner, Kurpinski and the rest were
pleased. Edouard Wolff said they had no idea in Warsaw of "the real
greatness of Chopin." He was Polish, this the public appreciated, but of
Chopin the individual they missed entirely the flavor. A week later,
spurred by adverse and favorable criticism, he gave a second concert,
playing the same excerpts from this concerto--the slow movement is
Constance Gladowska musically idealized--the Krakowiak and an
improvisation. The affair was a success. From these concerts he cleared

six hundred dollars, not a small sum in those days for an unknown
virtuoso. A sonnet was printed in his honor, champagne was offered
him by an enthusiastic Paris bred, but not born, pianist named Dunst,
who for this act will live in all chronicles of piano playing. Worse still,
Orlowski served up the themes of his concerto into mazurkas and had
the impudence to publish them.
Then came the last blow: he was asked by a music seller for his portrait,
which he refused, having no desire, he said with a shiver, to see his face
on cheese and butter wrappers. Some of the criticisms were glowing,
others absurd as criticisms occasionally are. Chopin wrote to Titus the
same rhapsodical protestations and finally declared in meticulous
peevishness, "I will no longer read what people write about me." This
has the familiar ring of the true artist who cares nothing for the
newspapers but reads them religiously after his own and his rivals'
concerts.
Chopin heard Henrietta Sontag with great joy; he was ever a lover and
a connoisseur of singing. He advised young pianists to listen carefully
and often to great singers. Mdlle. de Belleville the pianist and Lipinski
the violinist were admired, and he could write a sound criticism when
he chose. But the Gladowska is worrying him. "Unbearable longing" is
driving him to exile. He attends her debut as Agnese in Paer's opera of
that title and writes a complete description of the important function to
Titus, who is at his country seat where Chopin visits him betimes.
Agitated, he thinks of going to Berlin or Vienna, but after much
philandering remains in Warsaw. On October 11, 1830, following
many preparations and much emotional shilly-shallying, Chopin gave
his third and last Warsaw concert. He played the E minor concerto for
the first time in public but not in sequence. The first and last two
movements were separated by an aria, such being the custom of those
days. Later he gave the Fantasia on Polish airs. Best of all for him,
Miss Gladowska sang a Rossini air, "wore a white dress and roses in
her hair, and was charmingly beautiful." Thus Chopin; and the details
have all the relevancy of a male besieged by