Chopin - Adam Zamoyski

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reproach was certainly justified, for now that he had been reviewed and praised more than Paganini and Hummel during their visits, now that the whole of Warsaw had finally understood his playing and his compositions, Chopin did not give the third concert everyone was clamouring for, even though the money involved would have meant freedom to travel wherever he liked. He explained his reluctance to Tytus by saying that he had nearly finished his second piano concerto (the one in E minor, usually called no. 1), and that, wishing to have something new for his next appearance, he would wait until this was ready, which he hoped would be after Easter.

      The real reasons for his refusal lay elsewhere. He found the preparations for the concerts exhausting and stressful, as he had to select musicians and decide whose music would be chosen for the programme, which in a small place like Warsaw was a delicate operation. Friends and acquaintances took offence when he failed to reserve boxes for them or personally invite them to the event. ‘You wouldn’t believe what torture the three days before the concert are,’ he wrote to Tytus after the first one; but he was soon to discover that the period afterwards could be equally bruising.16

      He was horrified by what he considered to be the exaggerated praise and sycophancy that accompanied his appearances: he received verse offerings from hacks; his old friend Alexandrine de Moriolles sent him a crown of laurels; Antoni Orłowski, a colleague from the Conservatoire, was busy writing Waltzes and Mazurkas to themes from Chopin’s concerto; and the music publisher Brzezina wanted to print a lithograph portrait of him. At the same time the newspapers carried a number of articles discussing the nature of Chopin’s genius and its position in the world of music. One long and somewhat illogical article ended up by thanking Heaven and Elsner that the young composer had not been allowed to fall into the hands of ‘some Rossinist’, an ill-concealed jibe at Kurpiński.17

      This provoked an open war between those who were for Elsner and German music, and those who supported Kurpiński and Italian music. Chopin was appalled to find himself at the centre of the fracas, and did everything he could to extricate himself. He begged Antoni Orłowski not to print his com positions, and refused to allow Brzezina to publish a portrait. ‘I don’t want to read or listen to what anyone writes or says any more,’ he wrote petulantly to Tytus, for whose presence he longed more than ever.18

      The quarrel had nothing whatever to do with Chopin himself, and he need not have felt in any way implicated in its un pleasantness. Yet the hitherto highly sociable and uninhibited composer was beginning to develop alarmingly sensitive spots. He had always been self-conscious enough to see the ridiculous in his own behaviour, and had in the past drawn great pleasure from describing it in letters to friends. It may be that this emanated from a deeper fear of being ridiculed by others; both his extreme modesty about his work and the arch tone in which he often referred to himself would suggest an underlying pride hiding behind bashfulness. As he reached the end of his teens and began to take himself a little more seriously – seriously enough to nurture a great passion – he shrank from anything that might expose him to criticism or judgement. His first major appearances as a professional musician had made him a public figure, which embarrassed him, and had provoked a squabble which disgusted and alarmed him. The episode only strengthened his conviction that any sort of public activity was bound, in one way or another, to expose him to unseemliness and possibly ridicule.

      This was accompanied by an analogous development in his relations with other people. He still found it easy to make friends, and was outwardly sociable, but he grew more and more suspicious and wary of allowing them to approach too close. That is why the absent Tytus was not replaced by any other as Chopin’s confidant, and why their intimacy grew instead of waning. It also explains a great deal about Chopin’s behaviour with regard to Konstancja Gładkowska.

      Warsaw was not a large city, and it would have been impossible for him not to have seen her quite often, either socially or at musical evenings. After his triumphal concerts she must have been more than ever aware of his existence. And yet it would appear that he continued to pine from afar, without attempting to let her know his feelings. Romantic adolescents are often more interested in nurturing emotions than in achieving intimacy with their object, but in Chopin’s case the fear of putting himself in an embarrassing position is probably what paralysed any move towards intimacy. It was less risky to keep pining and at the same time to channel his frustration and self-pity towards Tytus, who remained the only real presence in Chopin’s heart. ‘Nobody apart from you shall have a portrait of me,’ he wrote to Tytus after the fuss over Brzezina’s attempt to print his portrait; ‘– one other person could, but never before you, for you are dearer to me.’19

      This intimacy went beyond the purely emotional. Tytus was a good pianist and wrote a little, and Chopin trusted his taste. Once he even wrote that Tytus had taught him how to ‘feel’ music.20 Chopin was always sending him his ‘rubbish’ or ‘laboured bits of dreariness’, as he liked to refer to his works, particularly during the spring of 1830. ‘When I write something new, I’d like to know how you would like it,’ he wrote, ‘and I feel that my new concerto in E minor will hold no value for me until you have heard it.’21

      Chopin’s infatuation with Konstancja, and the attendant sense of frustration, were no doubt responsible for this uncharacteristic uncertainty, and for the sudden need to give his music meaning. For the first and last time in his life he was overtaken by the Romantic urge to programme his music both sentimentally and thematically. ‘I say to my piano what I would like to be saying to you,’ he wrote to Tytus – and what he would like to be saying to Konstancja, he might have added.22 The Adagio of the new concerto he was writing, which was secretly dedicated to her, is the only piece of his whose meaning Chopin ever tried to explain. ‘It is not supposed to be strong, but romantic, calm, melancholy; it should give the impression of gazing at a spot which brings back a thousand cherished mem ories,’ he wrote. ‘It should be like dreaming in beautiful springtime – by moonlight.’23 Other pieces written during the same period are also tinged with sentimentality, like the Nocturnes, op.9, the E flat major Étude of op.10, and some of the songs he wrote to Witwicki’s poems, like ‘The Wish’ or ‘Where Does She Lovę’ (op.74). Even Elsner noticed that some of the music from this period was inspired by ‘beautiful eyes’.24

      During the remainder of March and April Chopin let himself go to pieces. He had intended to finish his second concerto within a few weeks and perform it publicly at the end of April or the beginning of May, as he needed to pursue his career and earn more money, however much it cost him in ruffled sensibilities. He was still vaguely aiming to set out for Berlin in May, and thence go wherever seemed appropriate. But May came and went, and Chopin had neither finished his new concerto nor arranged another performance. While he was heaving sighs in Warsaw, Tsar Nicholas arrived for the state opening of the Polish parliament, and, as usual on such occasions, various artists converged on the city from abroad. These included the King of Prussia’s pianist Sigismund Woerlitzer; Miss Belleville, a fine pianist and pupil of Czerny, who had recently played Chopin’s La ci darem la mano Variations at a concert in Vienna; and the singer Henriette Sontag, a beautiful woman with a magnificent voice for whom Weber had composed the title role of Euryanthe six years before. She had retired from the operatic stage after her marriage to Count Rossi and now only sang in concerts.

      She gave eleven in Warsaw, most of which Chopin attended. He went into ecstasies over her voice, the elegance and control of which he related to his own touch on the piano, but felt she lacked depth of expression. ‘She seems to breathe into the stalls with the scent of the freshest flowers, and she caresses, soothes deliciously, but rarely moves to tears,’ he wrote to Tytus.25 Prince Radziwiłł, who had also arrived in Warsaw, introduced them. They immediately

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