Chopin: The Man and His Music, James Huneker [free e books to read online txt] 📗

Witwicki, Adam Mickiewicz, Bogdan Zaleski and Sigismond Krasinski. The first in the key of A, the familiar Maiden’s Wish, has been brilliantly paraphrased by Liszt. This pretty mazurka is charmingly sung and played by Marcella Sembrich in the singing lesson of “The Barber of Seville.” There are several mazurkas in the list. Most of these songs are mediocre.

Poland’s Dirge is an exception, and so is Horsemen Before the Battle.

“Was ein junges Madchen liebt” has a short introduction, in which the reminiscence hunter may find a true bit of “Meistersinger” color.

Simple in structure and sentiment, the Chopin lieder seem almost rudimentary compared to essays in this form by Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Brahms and Tschaikowsky.

 

A word of recommendation may not be amiss here regarding the technical study of Chopin. Kleczynski, in his two books, gives many valuable hints, and Isidor Philipp has published a set of Exercises Quotidiens, made up of specimens in double notes, octaves and passages taken from the works. Here skeletonized are the special technical problems. In these Daily Studies, and his edition of the Etudes, are numerous examples dealt with practically. For a study of Chopin’s ornaments, Mertke has discussed at length the various editorial procedure in the matter of attacking the trill in single and double notes, also the easiest method of executing the flying scud and vapors of the fioriture. This may be found in No. 179 of the Edition Steingraber.

Philipp’s collection is published in Paris by J. Hamelle, and is prefixed by some interesting remarks of Georges Mathias. Chopin’s portrait in 1833, after Vigneron, is included.

 

One composition more is to be considered. In 1837 Chopin contributed the sixth variation of the march from “I Puritani.” These variations were published under the title: “Hexameron: Morceau de Concert. Grandes Variations de bravoure sur la marche des Puritans de Bellini, composees pour le concert de Madame la Princesse Belgiojoso au benefice des pauvres, par MM. Liszt, Thalberg, Pixis, H. Herz, Czerny et Chopin.”

Liszt wrote an orchestral accompaniment, never published. His pupil, Moriz Rosenthal, is the only modern virtuoso who plays the Hexameron in his concerts, and play it he does with overwhelming splendor. Chopin’s contribution in E major is in his sentimental, salon mood. Musically, it is the most impressive of this extraordinary mastodonic survival of the “pianistic” past.

 

The newly published Fugue—or fugato—in A minor, in two voices, is from a manuscript in the possession of Natalie Janotha, who probably got it from the late Princess Czartoryska, a pupil of the composer. The composition is ineffective, and in spots ugly—particularly in the stretta—and is no doubt an exercise during the working years with Elsner. The fact that in the coda the very suspicious octave pedal-point and trills may be omitted—so the editorial note urns—leads one to suspect that out of a fragment Janotha has evolved, Cuvier-like, an entire composition. Chopin as fugue-maker does not appear in a brilliant light. Is the Polish composer to become a musical Hugh Conway? Why all these disjecta membra of a sketch-book?

 

In these youthful works may be found the beginnings of the greater Chopin, but not his vast subjugation of the purely technical to the poetic and spiritual. That came later. To the devout Chopinist the first compositions are so many proofs of the joyful, victorious spirit of the man whose spleen and pessimism have been wrongfully compared to Leopardi’s and Baudelaire’s. Chopin was gay, fairly healthy and bubbling over with a pretty malice. His first period shows this; it also shows how thorough and painful the processes by which he evolved his final style.

 

XII. THE POLONAISES:—HEROIC HYMNS OF BATTLE.

 

How is one to reconcile “the want of manliness, moral and intellectual,” which Hadow asserts is “the one great limitation of Chopin’s province,” with the power, splendor and courage of the Polonaises? Here are the cannon buried in flowers of Robert Schumann, here overwhelming evidences of versatility, virility and passion.

Chopin blinded his critics and admirers alike; a delicate, puny fellow, he could play the piano on occasion like a devil incarnate. He, too, had his demon as well as Liszt, and only, as Ehlert puts it, “theoretical fear” of this spirit driving him over the cliffs of reason made him curb its antics. After all the couleur de rose portraits and lollipop miniatures made of him by pensive, poetic persons it is not possible to conceive Chopin as being irascible and almost brutal. Yet he was at times even this. “Beethoven was scarce more vehement and irritable,” writes Ehlert. And we remember the stories of friends and pupils who have seen this slender, refined Pole wrestling with his wrath as one under the obsession of a fiend. It is no desire to exaggerate this side of his nature that impels this plain writing.

Chopin left compositions that bear witness to his masculine side.

Diminutive in person, bad-temper became him ill; besides, his whole education and tastes were opposed to scenes of violence. So this energy, spleen and raging at fortune found escape in some of his music, became psychical in its manifestations.

 

But, you may say, this is feminine hysteria, the impotent cries of an unmanly, weak nature. Read the E flat minor, the C minor, the A major, the F sharp minor and the two A flat major Polonaises! Ballades, Scherzi, Studies, Preludes and the great F minor Fantaisie are purposely omitted from this awing scheme. Chopin was weak in physique, but he had the soul of a lion. Allied to the most exquisite poetic sensibilities—one is reminded here of Balzac’s “Ce beau genie est moins un musicien qu’une dine qui se rend sensible”—there was another nature, fiery, implacable. He loved Poland, he hated her oppressors.

There is no doubt he idealized his country and her wrongs until the theme grew out of all proportion. Politically the Poles and Celts rub shoulders. Niecks points out that if Chopin was “a flattering idealist as a national poet, as a personal poet he was an uncompromising realist.” So in the polonaises we find two distinct groups: in one the objective, martial side predominates, in the other is Chopin the moody, mournful and morose. But in all the Polish element pervades. Barring the mazurkas, these dances are the most Polish of his works.

Appreciation of Chopin’s wide diversity of temperament would have sparedthe world the false, silly, distorted portraits of him. He had the warrior in him, even if his mailed fist was seldom used. There are moments when he discards gloves and soft phrases and deals blows that reverberate with formidable clangor.

 

By all means read Liszt’s gorgeous description of the Polonaise.

Originating during the last half of the sixteenth century, it was at first a measured procession of nobles and their womankind to the sound of music. In the court of Henry of Anjou, in 1574, after his election to the Polish throne, the Polonaise was born, and throve in the hardy, warlike atmosphere. It became a dance political, and had words set to it. Thus came the Kosciuszko, the Oginski, the Moniuszko, the Kurpinski, and a long list written by composers with names ending in “ski.” It is really a march, a processional dance, grave, moderate, flowing, and by no means stereotyped. Liszt tells of the capricious life infused into its courtly measures by the Polish aristocracy. It is at once the symbol of war and love, a vivid pageant of martial splendor, a weaving, cadenced, voluptuous dance, the pursuit of shy, coquettish woman by the fierce warrior.

 

The Polonaise is in three-four time, with the accent on the second beat of the bar. In simple binary form—ternary if a trio is added—this dance has feminine endings to all the principal cadences. The rhythmical cast of the bass is seldom changed. Despite its essentially masculine mould, it is given a feminine title; formerly it was called Polonais. Liszt wrote of it:

 

“In this form the noblest traditional feelings of ancient Poland are represented. The Polonaise is the true and purest type of Polish national character, as in the course of centuries it was developed, partly through the political position of the kingdom toward east and west, partly through an undefinable, peculiar, inborn disposition of the entire race. In the development of the Polonaise everything cooperated which specifically distinguished the nation from others. In the Poles of departed times manly resolution was united with glowing devotion to the object of their love. Their knightly heroism was sanctioned by high-soaring dignity, and even the laws of gallantry and the national costume exerted an influence over the turns of this dance.

The Polonaises are the keystone in the development of this form. They belong to the most beautiful of Chopin inspirations. With their energetic rhythm they electrify, to the point of excited demonstration, even the sleepiest indifferentism. Chopin was born too late, and left his native hearth too early, to be initiated into the original character of the Polonaise as danced through his own observation. But what others imparted to him in regard to it was supplemented by his fancy and his nationality.”

 

Chopin wrote fifteen Polonaises, the authenticity of one in G flat major being doubted by Niecks. This list includes the Polonaise for violoncello and piano, op. 3, and the Polonaise, op. 22, for piano and orchestra. This latter Polonaise is preceded by an andante spianato in G in six-eight time, and unaccompanied. It is a charming, liquid-toned, nocturne-like composition, Chopin in his most suave, his most placid mood: a barcarolle, scarcely a ripple of emotion, disturbs the mirrored calm of this lake. After sixteen bars of a crudely harmonized tutti comes the Polonaise in the widely remote key of E flat; it is brilliant, every note telling, the figuration rich and novel, the movement spirited and flowing. Perhaps it is too long and lacks relief.

The theme on each re-entrance is varied ornamentally. The second theme, in C minor, has a Polish and poetic ring, while the coda is effective.

This opus is vivacious, but not characterized by great depth.

Crystalline, gracious, and refined, the piece is stamped “Paris,” the elegant Paris of 1830. Composed in that year and published in July, 1836, it is dedicated to the Baronne D’Est. Chopin introduced it at a Conservatoire concert for the benefit of Habeneck, April 26, 1835.

This, according to Niecks, was the only time he played the Polonaise with orchestral accompaniment. It was practically a novelty to New York when Rafael Joseffy played it here, superlatively well, in 1879.

 

The orchestral part seems wholly superfluous, for the scoring is not particularly effective, and there is a rumor that Chopin cannot be held responsible for it. Xaver Scharwenka made a new instrumentation that is discreet and extremely well sounding. With excellent tact he has managed the added accompaniment to the introduction, giving some thematic work of the slightest texture to the strings, and in the pretty coda to the wood-wind. A delicately managed allusion is made by the horns to the second theme of the nocturne in G. There are even five faint taps of the triangle, and the idyllic atmosphere is never disturbed. Scharwenka first played this arrangement at a Seidl memorial concert, in Chickering Hall, New York, April, 1898. Yet I cannot truthfully say the Polonaise sounds so characteristic as when played solo.

 

The C sharp minor Polonaise, op. 26, has had the misfortune of being sentimentalized to death. What can be more “appassionata” than the opening with its “grand rhythmical swing”? It is usually played by timid persons in a sugar-sweet fashion, although fff stares them in the face. The first three lines are hugely heroic, but the indignation soon melts away, leaving an apathetic humor; after the theme returns and is repeated we get a genuine love motif tender enough in all faith wherewith to woo a princess. On this the Polonaise closes, an odd ending