James J. Hadden : Chopin & Berlin & Vienna

Having thus decided about his son's future Nicolas Chopin began to realise that some acquaintance with the outer world would be advisable as a preliminary to settling down to the practice of his profession. Warsaw was a small place after all — isolated, moreover, from the great centres of artistic and intellectual life — and could hardly be expected to satisfy the longings of a young genius to hear the masterpieces of the classic composers performed by the best artists. The question was whether it should be Vienna or Berlin.

Chance led to a decision in favour of Berlin. Dr Jarocki, the zoology professor at the University, an intimate friend of Nicolas Chopin, had been invited to attend a scientific congress, presided over by Alexander von Humboldt, at Berlin, and, calling one day, he offered to take the young musician with him. Chopin was delighted. The Scientific Congress was nothing to him : indeed he refused a ticket of admission to the meetings. What should he do among those bald heads ? he asked. But the prospect of enlarging his musical experience in one of the leading European centres of his adopted art was too tempting to be lost. " It will give me," he wrote, "an opportunity of at anyrate hearing a good opera once, and so having an idea of a perfect performance, which is worth a great deal of trouble." He would meet all the best musicians, too — Mendelssohn, Zelter, Spontini, and others. The mere anticipation made him almost crazy, until on the day for starting he was " writing like a lunatic, for I really do not know what I am about."

After a stay of .some fourteen days in Berlin the professor and the young musician set off on the return journey to Warsaw — a journey apparently more leisurely than pleasant. Mrs Carlyle once celebrated a fellow-passenger as having "the highest of all terrestrial qualities" because he was silent. Chopin's fellow-passengers were far from being silent. In the diligence were two gentlemen who talked eternally about politics, and talk about politics was as little agreeable to Chopin as it was to Shelley. Moreover, the two gentlemen smoked incessantly. Chopin disliked smoking. One of the travellers announced that he was going to smoke until he went to sleep, and would rather die than give up his pipe.

Chopin rose from the instrument, but was implored to go on. "Stay and play, noble young artist," cried Boniface. " I will give you couriers' horses if you will only remain a little longer." " Do be persuaded," insinuated Madame Boniface, who threatened the hesitating player with an embrace. What could Chopin do but resume his improvisation ? When he had exhausted himself they brought him wine and cakes, and the women "filled the pockets of the carriage with the best eatables that the house contained." One of the company, an old man, went up to Chopin, and, "in a voice trembling with emotion," exclaimed : " I, too, play the piano, and so know how to appreciate your masterly performance : if Mozart had heard it he would have grasped your hand and cried ' Bravo ! ' " Finally, the landlord seized the musician in his arms and carried him to the conveyance, the postilion growling the while that "the like of us must climb laboriously on to the box by ourselves."

It is not improbable, as Mr Hadow suggests, that these visits of Hummel and Paganini excited in Chopin the desire for a more extended artistic life than could be found in Warsaw. In Warsaw he had been judged, and judged leniently, by kind-hearted compatriots ; why should he not have his measure taken in a larger arena and by those who had no preliminary prejudice in his favour ? Berlin he had already tried : supposing he should now try " the beautiful musical Vienna." He had, some time before this, sent certain of his manuscripts to Haslinger, and as he had

It is not improbable, as Mr Hadow suggests, that these visits of Hummel and Paganini excited in Chopin the desire for a more extended artistic life than could be found in Warsaw. In Warsaw he had been judged, and judged leniently, by kind-hearted compatriots ; why should he not have his measure taken in a larger arena and by those who had no preliminary prejudice in his favour ? Berlin he had already tried : supposing he should now try " the beautiful musical Vienna." He had, some time before this, sent certain of his manuscripts to Haslinger, and as he had received no tidings of their fate, why not, he argued, beard the publisher in his den?

James J. Hadden