Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician Part 54

The people here are ugly, but, it would seem, good. As a compensation there are charming, apparently mischievous, cattle, perfect milk, b.u.t.ter, eggs, and tout ce qui s'en suit, cheese and chickens.

To save the reader from becoming confused by allusions in Chopin's letters to names of unknown persons and places, I will now say a few words about the composer's Scotch friends. The Stirlings of Keir, generally regarded as the princ.i.p.al family of the name, are said to be descended from Walter de Striveline, Strivelyn, or Strivelyng, Lucas of Strivelyng (1370-1449) being the first possessor of Keyr. The family was for about two centuries engaged in the East India and West India trade.

Archibald Stirling, the father of the late baronet, went, as William Fraser relates in The Stirlings of Keir, like former younger sons, to Jamaica, where he was a planter for nearly twenty-five years. He succeeded his brother James in 1831, greatly improved the mansion, and died in 1847. When Chopin visited Keir it was in the possession of William Stirling, who, in 1865, became Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (his mother was a daughter of Sir John Maxwell), and is well-known by his literary works--Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V. (1852), Velasquez (1855), &c. He was the uncle of Jane Stirling and Mrs. Erskine, daughters (the former the youngest daughter) of John Stirling, of Kippendavie and Kippenross, and friends of Chopin. W. Hanna, the editor of the Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, says that Jane Stirling was a cousin and particular friend of Thomas Erskine. The latter used in later life to regard her and the d.u.c.h.ess de Broglie as the most remarkable women he had ever met:--

In her later years she lived much in Paris, and counted among her friends there Ary Scheffer. In his "Christus Consolator,"

this eminent artist has presented in one of the figures his ideal of female beauty, and was struck on being first introduced to Miss Stirling to find in her the almost exact embodiment of that ideal. She was introduced afterwards in many of his pictures.

In a letter addressed to Mrs. Schwabe, and dated February 14, 1859, we read about her:--

She was ill for eight weeks, and suffered a great deal...I know you will feel this deeply, for you could appreciate the purity and beauty of that stream of love which flowed through her whole life. I don't think that I ever knew anyone who seemed more entirely to have given up self, and devoted her whole being to the good of others. I remember her birth like yesterday, and I never saw anything in her but what was lovable from the beginning to the end of her course.

Lindsay Sloper, who lived in Paris from 1841 to 1846, told me that Miss Stirling, who was likewise staying there, took for some time lessons from him. As she wished to become a pupil of Chopin, he spoke to his master about her. Chopin, Lindsay Sloper said, was pleased with her playing, and soon began to like her.

[FOOTNOTE: To the above I must append a cautionary foot-note. In his account to me Lindsay Sloper made two mistakes which prove that his memory was not one of the most trustworthy, and suggest even the possibility that his Miss Stirling was a different person from Chopin's friend. His mistakes were these: he called Mrs. Erskine, who was with Miss Stirling in Paris, her aunt instead of her sister; and thought that Miss Stirling was about eighteen years old when he taught her. The information I shall give farther on seems to show that she was older rather than younger than Chopin; indeed, Mr Hipkins is of opinion that she was in 1848 nearer fifty than forty.]

To her the composer dedicated his Deux Nocturnes, Op. 55, which he published in August, 1844. It was thought that she was in love with Chopin, and there were rumours of their going to be married. Gutmann informed me that Chopin said to him one day when he was ill: "They have married me to Miss Stirling; she might as well marry death." Of Miss Jane Stirling's elder sister Katherine, who, in 1811, married her cousin James Erskine, and lost her husband already in 1816, Thomas Erskine says: "She was an admirable woman, faithful and diligent in all duties, and unwearied in her efforts to help those who needed her help."

Lord Torphichen, at whose residence (Calder House, twelve miles from Edinburgh) Chopin pa.s.sed much of his time in Scotland, was, as we learn from the composer's letters, a brother-in-law of Miss Stirling and Mrs.

Erskine. Johnstone Castle (twelve miles from Glasgow), where Chopin was also received as a guest, belonged to the Houston family, friends of the Erskines and Stirlings, but, I think, no relations. The death of Ludovic Houston, Esq., in 1862, is alluded to in one of Thomas Erskine's letters.

But Chopin, while in Scotland, was not always staying in manors and castles, now and then he was housed less aristocratically, though perhaps not less, nay, probably more, comfortably. Such humbler quarters he found at the house (10, Warriston Crescent) of Dr. Lyschinski, a Pole by birth, and a refugee, who after studying medicine in Edinburgh practised it there until a few years ago when he removed to London.

For the information which I am now going to give I am indebted to Mrs.

Lyschinski. Among those who received Chopin at the Edinburgh railway station was Dr. Lyschinski who addressed him in Polish. The composer put up at an hotel (perhaps the London Hotel, in St. Andrew's Square). Next day--Miss Paterson, a neighbour, having placed her carriage at Chopin's disposal--Mrs. Lyschinski took him out for a drive. He soon got tired of the hotel, in fact, felt it quite unbearable, and told the doctor, to whom he had at once taken a fancy, that he could not do without him.

Whereupon the latter said: "Well, then you must come to my house; and as it is rather small, you must be satisfied with the nursery." So the children were sent to a friend's house, and the nursery was made into a bedroom for the ill.u.s.trious guest, an adjoining bedroom being prepared for his servant Daniel, an Irish-Frenchman. Unless the above refers to Chopin's return to Scotland in September, after his visit to Manchester, Mrs. Lyschinski confuses her reminiscences a little, for, as the last-quoted letter proves, he tarried, on his first arrival, only one day in Edinburgh. But the facts, even if not exactly grouped, are, no doubt, otherwise correctly remembered. Chopin rose very late in the day, and in the morning had soup in his room. His hair was curled daily by the servant, and his s.h.i.+rts, boots, and other things were of the neatest--in fact, he was a pet.i.t-maitre, more vain in dress than any woman. The maid-servants found themselves strictly excluded from his room, however indispensable their presence might seem to them in the interests of neatness and cleanliness. Chopin was so weak that Dr.

Lyschinski had always to carry him upstairs. After dinner he sat before the fire, often s.h.i.+vering with cold. Then all on a sudden he would cross the room, seat himself at the piano, and play himself warm. He could bear neither dictation nor contradiction: if you told him to go to the fire, he would go to the other end of the room where the piano stood.

Indeed, he was imperious. He once asked Mrs. Lyschinski to sing. She declined. At this he was astonished and quite angry. "Doctor, would you take it amiss if I were to force your wife to do it?" The idea of a woman refusing him anything seemed to him preposterous. Mrs. Lyschinski says that Chopin was gallant to all ladies alike, but thinks that he had no heart. She used to tease him about women, saying, for instance, that Miss Stirling was a particular friend of his. He replied that he had no particular friends among the ladies, that he gave to all an equal share of his attention. "Not even George Sand then," she asked, "is a particular friend?" "Not even George Sand," was the reply. Had Mrs.

Lyschinski known the real state of matters between Chopin and George Sand, she certainly would not have asked that question. He, however, by no means always avoided the mention of his faithless love. Speaking one day of his thinness he remarked that she used to call him mon cher cadavre. Miss Stirling was much about Chopin. I may mention by the way that Mrs. Lyschinski told me that Miss Stirling was much older than Chopin, and her love for him, although pa.s.sionate, purely Platonic.

Princess Czartoryska arrived some time after Chopin, and accompanied him, my informant says, wherever he went. But, as we see from one of his letters, her stay in Scotland was short. The composer was always on the move. Indeed, Dr. Lyschinski's was hardly more than a pied-a-terre for him: he never stayed long, and generally came unexpectedly. A number of places where Chopin was a guest are mentioned in his letters. Mrs.

Lyschinski thinks that he also visited the Duke of Hamilton.

At the end of August and at the end of September and beginning of October, this idling was interrupted by serious work, and a kind of work which, at no time to his liking, was particularly irksome in the then state of his health.

The Manchester Guardian of August 19, 1848, contained the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

Concert Hall.--The Directors beg to announce to the Subscribers that a Dress Concert has been fixed for Monday, the 28th of August next, for which the following performers have already been engaged: Signora Alboni, Signora Corbari, Signer Salvi, and Mons. Chopin.

From an account of the concert in the same paper (August 30), the writer of which declares the concert to have been the most brilliant of the season, we learn that the orchestra, led by Mr. Seymour, played three overtures--Weber's Ruler of the Spirits, Beethoven's Prometheus, and Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia; and that Chopin performed an Andante and Scherzo, and a Nocturne, Etudes, and the Berceuse of his own composition. With regard to Chopin we read in this critique:--

With the more instrumental portion of the audience, Mons.

Chopin was perhaps an equal feature of interest with Alboni, as he was preceded by a high musical reputation. Chopin appears to be about thirty years of age. [FOOTNOTE: Chopin, says Mr. Hipkins, had a young look, although much wasted.] He is very spare in frame, and there is an almost painful air of feebleness in his appearance and gait. This vanishes when he seats himself at the instrument, in which he seems for the time perfectly absorbed. Chopin's music and style of performance partake of the same leading characteristics-- refinement rather than vigour--subtle elaboration rather than simple comprehensiveness in composition--an elegant rapid touch, rather than a firm, nervous grasp of the instrument.

Both his compositions and playing appear to be the perfection of chamber music--fit to be a.s.sociated with the most refined instrumental quartet and quartet playing--but wanting breadth and obviousness of design, and executive power, to be effective in a large hall. These are our impressions from hearing Mons. Chopin for the first time on Monday evening. He was warmly applauded by many of the most accomplished amateurs in the town, and he received an encore in his last piece, a compliment thus accorded to each of the four London artists who appeared at the concert.

From the criticism of the Manchester Courier and Lancas.h.i.+re General Advertiser (August 30, 1848), I cull the following remarks:--

We can, with great sincerity, say that he delighted us. Though we did not discover in him the vigour of Thalberg, yet there was a chasteness and purity of style, a correctness of manipulation combined with a brilliance of touch, and delicate sensibility of expression which we never heard excelled. He played in the second act [part]... and elicited a rapturous encore. He did not, however, repeat any part, but treated the audience with what appeared to be a fragment of great beauty.

Mr. Osborne, in a paper on Chopin read before the London Musical a.s.sociation, says:--

On a tour which I made with Alboni, I met Chopin at Manchester, where he was announced to play at a grand concert without orchestra. He begged I should not be present. "You, my dear Osborne," said he, "who have heard me so often in Paris, remain with those impressions. My playing will be lost in such a large room, and my compositions will be ineffective. Your presence at the concert will be painful both to you and me."

Mr. Osborne told his audience further that notwithstanding this appeal he was present in a remote corner of the room. I may add that although he could absent himself from the hall for the time Chopin was playing, he could not absent himself from the concert, for, as the papers tell us, he acted as accompanist. The impression which Chopin's performance on this occasion left upon his friend's mind is described in the following few sad words: "His playing was too delicate to create enthusiasm, and I felt truly sorry for him."

Soon after the concert Chopin returned to Scotland. How many days (between August 23 and September 7?) he remained in Manchester, I do not know, but it is well known that while staying there he was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Salis Schwabe. To Mrs. Salis Schwabe, a lady noted for her benevolence, Thomas Erskine addressed the letter concerning Miss Jane Stirling a part of which I quoted on one of the foregoing pages of this chapter. The reader remembers, of course, Chopin's prospective allusions to the Manchester concert in his letters to Franchomme (August 6, 1848) and Grzymala (July 18, 1848).

About a month after the concert at which he played in Manchester, Chopin gave one of his own in Glasgow. Here is what may be read in the Courier of September 28 and previous days:--

Monsieur Chopin has the honour to announce that his Matinee musicals will take place on Wednesday, the 27th September, in the Merchant Hall, Glasgow. To commence at half-past two o'clock. Tickets, limited in number, half-a-guinea each, and full particulars to be had from Mr. Muir Wood, 42, Buchanan Street.

The net profits of this concert are said to have been 60 pounds. Mr.

Muir Wood relates:--

I was then a comparative stranger in Glasgow, but I was told that so many private carriages had never been seen at any concert in the town. In fact, it was the county people who turned out, with a few of the elite of Glasgow society. Being a morning concert, the citizens were busy otherwise, and half- a-guinea was considered too high a sum for their wives and daughters.

No doubt Chopin's playing and compositions must have been to the good Glasgow citizens of that day what caviare is to the general. In fact, Scotland, as regards music, had at that period not yet emerged from its state of primitive savagery. But if we may believe the learned critic in the Glasgow Courier, Chopin's matinee was numerously attended, and the audience, which consisted of "the beauty and fas.h.i.+on, indeed of the very elite of the West-end," thoroughly enjoyed the playing of the concert-giver and the singing of Madame Adelasio de Margueritte who a.s.sisted him. I think the reader will be interested by the following specimen of criticism for more than one reason:--

The performance was certainly of the highest order in point of musical attainment and artistic skill, and was completely successful in interesting and delighting everyone present for an hour and a half. Visited as we now are by the highest musical talent, by this great player and the other eminent composer, it must be difficult for each successive candidate for our patronage and applause to produce in sufficient quant.i.ty that essential element to success--novelty; but M.

Chopin has proved satisfactorily that it is not easy to estimate the capabilities of the instrument he handles with so much grace and ingenuity, or limit the skill and power whose magic touch makes it pour forth its sublime strains to electrify and delight anew the astonished listener. M.

Chopin's treatment of the pianoforte is peculiar to himself, and his style blends in beautiful harmony and perfection the elegant, the picturesque, and the humorous. We cannot at present descend to practical ill.u.s.trations in proof of these observations, but feel persuaded we only express the feelings of all who attended yesterday when we say that the pianist produces, without extraordinary effort, not only pleasing, but new musical delights. Madame Adelasio has a beautiful voice, which she manages with great ease and occasional brilliancy.

She sang several airs with much taste and great acceptance. We may mention that all the pieces were rapturously applauded, and the audience separated with expressions of the highest gratification.

Clearly this critic was not without judgment, although his literary taste and skill leave much to be desired. That there were real Chopin enthusiasts in Glasgow is proved by an effusion, full of praise and admiration, which the editor received from a correspondent and inserted on September 30, two days after the above criticism. But, without indulging our curiosity further, we will now take our leave of Glasgow and Glasgow critics.

On October 4, Chopin gave an evening concert in Edinburgh. Here is the programme:--

HOPETOUN ROOMS, QUEEN STREET.

MONSIEUR CHOPIN'S SOIREE MUSICALE.

Programme.

1. Andante et Impromptu.

2. Etudes.

3. Nocturne et Berceuse.

4. Grande Valse Brillante.

5. Andante precede d'un Largo.

6. Preludes, Ballade, Mazurkas et Valses.

To commence at half-past eight o'clock. Tickets, limited to number, half-a-guinea each. To be had, &c.

Mrs. Lyschinski told me that this concert was chiefly attended by the n.o.bility. Half-a-guinea had never been charged for admission to a concert (which is probably overstating the case), and Chopin was little known. Miss Stirling, who was afraid the hall might not be filled, bought fifty pounds' worth of tickets. The piano on which Chopin played (one sent by Broadwood, and used in Glasgow as well as in Edinburgh) was afterwards sold for 30 pounds above the price. Thus, at any rate, runs the legend.

In the Edinburgh Courant, which contained on September 30 and on other days an advertis.e.m.e.nt similar to the Glasgow one (with the addition of a programme, consisting, however, only of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th items of the one above given), there appeared on October 7, 1848, a notice of the concert, a part of which may find a place here:--

This talented pianist gratified his admirers by a performance on Wednesday evening in the Hopetoun Rooms, where a select and highly fas.h.i.+onable audience a.s.sembled to welcome him on his first appearance in Edinburgh...Chopin's compositions have been too long before the musical portion of Europe, and have been too highly appreciated to require any comment, further than that they are among the best specimens of cla.s.sical excellence in pianoforte music. Of his execution we need say nothing further than that it is the most finished we have ever heard. He has neither the ponderosity nor the digital power of a Mendelssohn, a Thalberg, or Liszt; consequently his execution would appear less effective in a large room; but as a chamber pianist he stands unrivalled. Notwithstanding the amount of musical entertainment already afforded the Edinburgh public this season, the rooms were filled with an audience who, by their judicious and well-timed applause, testified their appreciation of the high talent of Monsieur Chopin.

An Edinburgh correspondent of the Musical World, who signs himself "M.,"

confirms (October 14, 1848) the statements of the critic of the Courant.

From this communication we learn that one of the etudes played was in F minor (probably No. 2 of Op. 25, although there are two others in the same key--No. 9 of Op. 10 and No. 1 of Trois Etudes without opus number). The problematical Andante precede d'un Largo was, no doubt, a juxtaposition of two of his shorter compositions, this t.i.tle being chosen to vary the programme. From Mr. Hipkins I learned that at this Chopin played frequently the slow movement from his Op. 22, Grande Polonaise preceded d'un Andante Spianato.