Chopin

Malfatti tried to persuade him that the artist should be cosmopolitan and overcome national feeling, to which Chopin retorted that he must be a very poor artist. He had never taken any interest in politics before, but now that everyone he knew and respected in Warsaw was engaged in a fight for survival, in which defeat would entail annihilation of the world he had grown up in, he felt personally involved.

He never went near the Russian Embassy, wrote to his parents telling them to sell the diamond ring he had been given by Tsar Alexander, acquired shirt studs with Polish eagles on them, and brandished handkerchiefs embroidered with Polish motifs. He consorted with other Poles, mostly young men returning from foreign travel to join the Polish ranks who formed a rowdy element in Vienna, demonstrating their patriotic feelings at every opportunity.

The Austrian police and Russian agents kept a close watch on their comings and goings, and Chopin’s sympathies were no secret to them. In consequence he never met ‘the cream of Viennese society’. In fact, during his eight-month sojourn in the city he did not once play at an aristocratic gathering; all the Lichnowskys and Schwarzenbergs who were so kind to him on his previous visit do not figure in his life at all during this one. No more is heard, either, of Dr Malfatti’s promises to arrange an appearance at court. Even Countess Rzewuska was on the side of law and order – not surprisingly, considering her past. At the age of four she had been torn from the arms of her mother, the beautiful twenty-four-year-old Princess Rozalia Lubomirska, who was pushed into a tumbril and sent to the guillotine in Paris during the Terror.

Chopin could not afford to keep up the spacious apartment on his own, so he sublet it to an English family, thereby making a profit, and moved up one floor in the same building. The new apartment was no garret, as Chopin hastened to assure his parents: his room was large, with three windows and handsome mirrors. It contained only a bed, a large table and the piano. It was also quiet, and suited his more subdued mood. ‘How happy I am in this room!’ he wrote to them. ‘Before me I see a roof, beneath me I see pygmies whom I tower above. I am at my happiest when, having played long on Graf’s wonderful piano, I go to bed clutching your letters, and then dream only of you…’

(#litres_trial_promo)

He was unexpectedly joined by his friend Romuald Hube, who had returned from Italy (the trip on which Chopin had hoped to accompany him) and was stuck in Vienna, having tried and failed to cross the Polish frontier. Hube moved in with him, but the two led independent lives, he studying and arranging the notes he had made on his tour, Chopin ‘always practising on the piano, usually reworking phrases, and sometimes improvising’, in Hube’s words.

(#litres_trial_promo)

Life was pleasant, if a little uneventful. He was woken every morning by ‘an insufferably stupid servant’ with the morning coffee.

(#litres_trial_promo) This was often drunk cold, since his first action on getting out of bed was to sit down at the piano and play, sometimes for an hour or more. His German teacher would call at nine o’clock, followed by other visitors such as Nidecki and Hummel’s son, an artist. At midday Chopin would at last shed his dressing gown and get dressed to go out. After a walk on the Glacis (once part of the city fortifications, now a favoured promenade) with one or other of his friends, he would either go to lunch at someone’s house or accompany friends to one of the eating houses frequented by students, and thence to one of the more fashionable coffee houses. The afternoon, or what was left of it, was spent paying calls, and at dusk he would come home to dress for the evening. There was usually a dinner, soirée or concert of some description for him to attend, but he was always back at his lodgings not later than midnight to ‘play, weep, read, ponder, laugh, go to bed, put out the candle, and dream of home’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

Christmas brought with it a sense of loneliness as well as the unpleasant realisation that after a whole month in Vienna he had achieved nothing. Musical success seemed more remote than ever, and his letters home reflect his listlessness. Those to Jan Matuszyński, the only others that survive from this period, are heavy with introspection and self-pity. The passage describing his visit to St Stephen’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve is typical:

I went in. There was still nobody about…I stood at the foot of a gothic pillar, in the darkest corner. I cannot describe the magnificence, the sheer dimensions of those great vaults. It was quiet – only now and again the steps of a sacristan lighting lamps somewhere in the depths of this temple would break into my reverie. Tombs behind me, tombs beneath me…I only needed a tomb over my head…A gloomy harmony haunted me…I felt more vividly than ever my complete isolation…

(#litres_trial_promo)

The letter meanders on, evoking romantic visions of Chopin walking alone through the busy streets of Vienna, wrapped in his cloak and his loneliness, or returning home to ‘weep out an adagio’ on his piano, and dwelling on his general dissatisfaction with everything. ‘Were it not for my father, to whom I should be a burden, I would return immediately,’ he writes. ‘I curse the day I left…I am bored to death by all the dinners, soirées, balls and concerts which fill my life; it is so melancholy, vacant and dreary…I cannot do what I please, but instead have to dress up, pull on my stockings and brush my hair; in the drawing rooms I have to affect serenity, but when I come home I thunder away on my piano.’

(#litres_trial_promo) The somewhat ingenuous affectation is undermined by a puppy-like vitality: the bouts of self-pity, in which the theme of suicide crops up more than once, are followed by humorous anecdotes which he cannot resist telling.

Chopin was genuinely anxious about events in Poland, lonely without his family around him and frustrated by his lack of success, so he felt sorry for himself. Since he was twenty years old, he naturally called on images of love, death and alienation to explain his predicament. Another reason for these sombre outpourings was that Jan Matuszyński, his messenger to Konstancja, was supposed to read her passages from Chopin’s letters, as well as pass on notes for her. This presumably accounts for much of the lyricism and for lines such as: ‘while I still have life in me…until my very death…nay, even after my death, my ashes will strew themselves at her feet…’ and exclamations like, ‘I have not enjoyed a single moment since I arrived in Vienna!’

(#litres_trial_promo)

The gap left by Tytus had been filled by ‘wonderful Doctor Malfatti’, who took an avuncular interest in the young pianist. He looked after Chopin’s health, and even managed to ‘fatten him up’. His door was always open to the young man, and he would have Polish dishes served at dinner in order to make him feel at home. Various other Polish households in the city vied with each other to care for Chopin, who now affected great contempt for ‘damned Prussians’ (which was supposed to denote all Germanic people). His hankering after things Polish cast a prejudice over everything Viennese. ‘Everything makes me sigh and long for home, for those delicious moments I failed to value fully,’ he writes elsewhere. ‘The people here are nothing to me; they are kind, but not out of kindness, only out of habit; everything they do is flat, mediocre, too ordered.’

(#litres_trial_promo)

Chopin’s disenchantment with Vienna was not limited to the social or emotional aspects, nor indeed was it solely the result of his lack of success. He had come as a pilgrim to the city of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, expecting to find musical excellence. Old musicians such as Hummel shook their heads and told him Vienna was no longer what it had been, and he could only agree.

The giants of the moment were Johann Strauss the elder, Joseph Lanner and Czerny. ‘Here they call waltzes works, and Strauss and Lanner who play dance-music are called Kapellmeisters!’ Chopin wrote to Elsner indignantly.

(#litres_trial_promo) ‘Amongst the many amusements in Vienna, the favourite is the soirée at certain inns where Strauss or Lanner play waltzes during dinner,’ he explained to his family. ‘They are frantically applauded after each waltz, and if they play a potpourri of airs from opera, dances and songs, the audience gets completely carried away.’

(#litres_trial_promo)

This was not a context in which Chopin would sparkle. Although Haslinger appreciated his talent and Mechetti thought his work brilliant, neither could afford to publish works which would not sell. Chopin’s were too difficult and too cerebral for the Viennese ladies to play, while his lack of patronage did not encourage other musicians to play them. His success on his previous visit had not made a lasting impact, since his concerts had taken place during the off season, and he was now outshone by a new star that had appeared on the scene – Sigismund Thalberg.

Thalberg enjoyed high patronage, being the natural son of Count Dictrichstein, the Emperor’s director of music. He had a strong, controlled and monumental style of playing. It was said of him that if he were dragged from his bed in the middle of the night and ordered to play, there would not be a note out of place, so impeccable was his technique. Chopin liked neither Thalberg nor his playing, nor his competition, judging by the bitterness lurking behind his words. ‘He plays remarkably, but not to my taste,’ he wrote to Matuszyński. ‘He’s younger than me, and the ladies like him. He plays potpourris of airs from the Mute [Auber’s opera La Muette de Portici], gives pianos with the pedal and not the hand, takes tenths like I take octaves, wears diamond shirt-studs…’

(#litres_trial_promo)

Chopin’s hopes of giving a concert of his own came to nothing. On 4 April 1831 he took part in one given by the singer Madame Garcia-Vestris, appearing at the bottom of the list of performers simply as ‘Herr Chopin – pianist’. He played his E minor Concerto as a piano solo and passed unnoticed. His only other public appearance in Vienna took place on 11 June, when he played the same piece. ‘I feel so indifferent about it that I would not care if it never took place…’ he wrote in his diary before the concert, for he had long before this shed his sanguine hopes of a couple of triumphal months in Vienna.

(#litres_trial_promo) At least this time he was mentioned in the press, which called him a ‘sincere worshipper of true art’.

(#litres_trial_promo)

In the circumstances, there seemed little point in prolonging his sojourn, and he wrote to his parents asking whether he should go to Italy straight away: ‘Please write and tell me what I should do.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Nicolas Chopin refused to make up his son’s mind for him, so after a few weeks Chopin wrote to Matuszyński. ‘My parents tell me to make up my own mind, but I am afraid to,’ he wrote. ‘Should I go to Paris? People here advise me to wait a little longer. Should I come back? Should I stay herę Should I kill myself? Should I stop writing letters to you? You tell me what to do!’

(#litres_trial_promo)

As nobody told him what to do, he lingered in Vienna. He took every opportunity to hear a new work or a new musician, went to the opera every time the programme changed, and cultivated other musicians. Amongst these were two whose acquaintance he found particularly rewarding and who undoubtedly contributed to the development of his ideas at this crucial stage.

One was Joseph Merk, the first cellist in the Imperial Orchestra and a teacher at the Vienna Conservatoire, with whom Chopin spent much time playing duets. Chopin had a particular affection for the cello, the only instrument aside from the piano for which he wrote memorable music, and with Merk’s help he composed an Introduction to the Polonaise for Cello and Piano he had written at Antonin in 1829. They were published together later that year by Mechetti as op.3, dedicated to Merk.

The other friend Chopin made at this time was the violinist Josef Slavik, four years his senior and already a virtuoso. ‘Apart from Paganini, I have never heard anything like it,’ he wrote, ‘ninety-six staccato notes with one stroke of the bow; incredible!’

(#litres_trial_promo) Chopin’s high opinion of his new friend was shared by Paganini himself, and had Slavik not died two years later, he would certainly have made a name for himself. Chopin and Slavik spent whole afternoons playing together, and intended to write a set of variations for piano and violin on a theme by Beethoven. Chopin is known to have been working on the Adagio at one moment, but no trace of it survives.

Chopin’s output during the Vienna period was strongly marked by the uncertainties of his position. With the Valse Brillante (op.18), the Five Mazurkas (op.7) and other pieces which are pretty and relatively easy to play, he was probably trying to cater to the Viennese market. This does not mean that the pieces are in any sense trivial. The Mazurkas are something of a breakthrough, along with the Études he was working on, in the process of divesting himself of the more superficial characteristics of the brilliant style.

The situation in Poland also affected his output. Now that Matuszyński, Tytus, Fontana and other friends had taken the field with the Polish army, Chopin longed to unite himself with them at least in spirit. ‘Oh, why can I not be with you, why can I not at least be your drummer-boy!!!’ he wrote to Matuszyński after Christmas.

(#litres_trial_promo) On another occasion, he spoke of trying ‘somehow to grasp and capture those songs whose shattered echoes still drift here and there on the banks of the Danube – the songs that Jan’s army sang’. (A reference to King Jan Sobieski’s relief of Vienna in 1683.)

(#litres_trial_promo)

He set more of Witwicki’s poems to music, but in a letter expressing his gratitude, Witwicki suggested that Chopin make a weightier contribution to the cause by writing a national opera. The propaganda value of an opera based on some theme from Polish history being staged in European capitals would be immense, for opera at that time attracted a broader audience than any other cultural genre. ‘The mountains, forests, waters and meadows have their own inner voice, though not every soul can hear it,’ Witwicki wrote. ‘I am convinced that a Slav opera, conceived by a true talent, by a composer who thinks and feels, will one day rise in the musical world like a brilliant new sun.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Chopin was not averse to the idea in principle, and his godfather Count Skarbek had even sketched out a couple of libretti for him.

But as he struggled on with larger works – a third piano concerto, a concerto for two pianos and orchestra, the variations for piano and violin, and the Grande Polonaise Brillante (op.22), the last piece he ever wrote for the orchestra – he found the work increasingly taxing. At the same time he was working on his first set of Études, and on two works which belong amongst his greatest: the Scherzo in B minor (op.20) and the Ballade in G minor (op.23), the Ballade being the first piece he wrote in this form, his own invention. And it is these which announce Chopin’s ultimate aim.

Although he had already composed some of the greatest music in the Romantic canon, he was still searching for a way forward. It was his work on the Études, lasting from 1829 to 1832, that, more than anything else, allowed him to develop his groundbreaking ideas, to revolutionise piano playing and to achieve new depths of sound and feeling with his instrument. He abandoned all thoughts of composing an opera and further orchestral works. He would henceforth do exactly what Witwicki suggested, but with the piano as sole medium. As he drew further away from his native land, he strove more and more to recapture its essence and that of its people in his work.

By mid-May Chopin had at last decided to continue his tour. Italy being still troubled by revolutionary unrest, Paris seemed the obvious next stop. The situation in Poland was encouraging, as the Poles had won the first round of military operations, and he no longer needed to feel anxiety for his family. Having made a firm decision to leave Vienna, however, he found himself beset by a multitude of difficulties. Quailing at the prospect of a journey on his own, Chopin had found himself a travelling companion, a young man called Norbert Kumelski, but the latter promptly fell ill and their departure was delayed by several weeks. When Kumelski had recovered, Chopin was informed by the Vienna police that his passport had been mislaid and that he must obtain a new one from the Russian Embassy (he was formally a Russian subject, and passports, both internal and external, were already obligatory in that state). After a few more weeks the police found his original passport, but the Russian Embassy would not endorse it for travel to Paris, which was considered a hotbed of revolutionary activity, so he pretended he would only be passing through on his way to London. Having successfully negotiated the Russian bureaucracy, Chopin and Kumelski now came up against the Austrian: there was a cholera epidemic sweeping through central Europe, and health certificates were required in order to travel.

Chopin took advantage of these delays to see the remaining sights and attractions of Vienna, and went on a pilgrimage to the Kahlenberg Heights where King Jan Sobieski had pitched camp and heard Mass before riding down to do battle with the Turks in 1683. He plucked a leaf from the spot and sent it to his sister Izabela for her album. The delays and the uncertainty enervated him, and his mood swung violently. ‘I don’t lack anything – except perhaps a little more life, more spirit; I feel weary, and then sometimes I feel as merry as I used to at home,’ he wrote to his parents. ‘When I feel sad I usually go to Mrs Szaszek’s, where I always find several Polish ladies whose sincere and comforting words inevitably cheer me up so much that I then start mimicking Austrian generals – this is my new act. You haven’t seen it yet, but those who do always fall about laughing. But then again there are days when you cannot get through to me or squeeze a word out of me. On those days I spend 30 Kreuzers on going to Heitzing or some such place in order to distract myself. I have grown side-whiskers on the right, and they’re nice and bushy. You don’t need them on the left, as you always have the audience on your right.’

(#litres_trial_promo)

The memory of Konstancja kept cropping up in his thoughts, even during Malfatti’s party in his summer residence in the hills overlooking the city, at which Chopin and others played and sang in the elegant mirrored drawing room with its french windows open onto the terrace and the smell of orange blossom in the warm night air. ‘Her image is continually before my eyes,’ he wrote in his diary, adding that ‘sometimes I think I no longer love her, yet I cannot get her out of my head’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Chopin was still a child in many ways, and showed great reluctance to grow up: when he had turned twenty in the previous year he had loaded the event with extraordinary significance, and harked back to all the things he felt he had lost irretrievably.

On 20 July 1831 Chopin and Kumelski left Vienna at last, travelling through Linz to Salzburg, where they visited Mozart’s birthplace. In Munich, their next stop, Chopin discovered that the money his father had promised to forward had not arrived, and he was obliged to break his journey for a month. He soon made the acquaintance of the musicians in the city, who persuaded him to give a concert. No longer in the euphoric mood that had caused him to refuse in Dresden, he willingly agreed. The event took place in the Philharmonic Society Hall on 28 August, Chopin playing his E minor Concerto and the ever-popular Fantasia on Polish Airs, both of which were well received. The review of the concert in the local musical gazette was effusive on the subject of his ‘excellent virtuosity’, his ‘developed technique’ and ‘charming delicacy of execution’, and praised the works themselves.