her heart had not deceived her in its melancholy saddening, for whatever his moments of cheerfulness might be, he never for all that got rid of a feeling which formed, as it were, the soil of his heart, and for which he found a name only in his mother-tongue, no other possessing an equivalent to the Polish word zal [sadness, pain, sorrow, grief, trouble, repentance, &c.]. Indeed, he uttered the word repeatedly, as if his ear had been eager for this sound, which for him comprised the whole scale of the feelings which is produced by an intense plaint, from repentance to hatred, blessed or poisoned fruits of this acrid root.
After a long dissertation on the meaning of the word zal, Liszt, from whose book this quotation is taken, proceeds thus:--
Yes, truly, the zal colours with a reflection now argent, now ardent, the whole of Chopin"s works. It is not even absent from his sweetest reveries. These impressions had so much the more importance in the life of Chopin that they manifested themselves distinctly in his last works. They little by little attained a kind of sickly irascibility, reaching the point of feverish tremulousness. This latter reveals itself in some of his last writings by a distortion of his thought which one is sometimes rather pained than surprised to meet. Suffocating almost under the oppression of his repressed transports of pa.s.sion, making no longer use of the art except to rehea.r.s.e to himself his own tragedy, he began, after having sung his feeling, to tear it to pieces.
Read together with my matter-of-fact statements, Liszt"s hyperbolical and circ.u.mlocutional poetic prose will not be misunderstood by the reader. The case may be briefly summed up thus. Zal is not to be found in every one of Chopin"s compositions, but in the greater part of them: sometimes it appears clearly on the surface, now as a smooth or lightly-rippled flow, now as a wildly-coursing, fiercely-gushing torrent; sometimes it is dimly felt only as an undercurrent whose presence not unfrequently becomes temporarily lost to ear and eye.
We must, however, take care not to overlook that this zal is not exclusively individual, although its width and intensity are so.
The key-note [of Polish songs] [says the editor and translator into German of an interesting collection of Folk-songs of the Poles][FOOTNOTE: Volkslieder der Polen. Gesammelt und ubersetzt von W. P. (Leipzig,1833).] is melancholy--even in playful and naive songs something may be heard which reminds one of the pain of past sorrows; a plaintive sigh, a death- groan, which seems to accuse the Creator, curses His existence, and, as Tieck thinks, cries to heaven out of the dust of annihilation:
"What sin have I committed?"
These are the after-throes of whole races; these are the pains of whole centuries, which in these melodies entwine themselves in an infinite sigh. One is tempted to call them sentimental, because they seem to reflect sometimes on their own feeling; but, on the other hand, they are not so, for the impulse to an annihilating outpouring of feeling expresses itself too powerfully for these musical poems to be products of conscious creativeness. One feels when one hears these songs that the implacable wheel of fate has only too often rolled over the terrene happiness of this people, and life has turned to them only its dark side. Therefore, the dark side is so conspicuous; therefore, much pain and poetry--unhappiness and greatness.
The remarks on Polish folk-music lead us naturally to the question of Chopin"s indebtedness to it, which, while in one respect it cannot be too highly rated, is yet in another respect generally overrated. The opinion that every peculiarity which distinguishes his music from that of other masters is to be put to the account of his nationality, and may be traced in Polish folk-music, is erroneous. But, on the other hand, it is emphatically true that this same folk-music was to him a potent inspirer and trainer. Generally speaking, however, Chopin has more of the spirit than of the form of Polish folk-music. The only two cla.s.ses of his compositions where we find also something of the form are his mazurkas and polonaises; and, what is noteworthy, more in the former, the dance of the people, than in the latter, the dance of the aristocracy. In Chopin"s mazurkas we meet not only with many of the most characteristic rhythms, but also with many equally characteristic melodic and harmonic traits of this chief of all the Polish dances.
Polish national music conforms in part to the tonality prevailing in modern art-music, that is, to our major and minor modes; in part, however, it reminds one of other tonalities--for instance, of that of the mediaeval church modes, and of that or those prevalent in the music of the Hungarians, Wallachians, and other peoples of that quarter.
[FOOTNOTE: The strictly diatonic church modes (not to be confounded with the ancient Greek modes bearing the same names) differ from each other by the position of the two semitones: the Ionian is like our C major; the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian. &c., are like the series of natural notes starting respectively from d, c, f, g, a, &c.
The characteristic interval of the Hungarian scale is the augmented second (a, b, c, d#, e, f, g#, a).]
The melodic progression, not always immediate, of an augmented fourth and major seventh occurs frequently, and that of an augmented second occasionally. Skips of a third after or before one or more steps of a second are very common. In connection with these skips of a third may be mentioned that one meets with melodies evidently based on a scale with a degree less than our major and minor scales, having in one place a step of a third instead of a second. [FOOTNOTE: Connoisseurs of Scotch music, on becoming acquainted with Polish music, will be incited by many traits of the latter to undertake a comparative study of the two.] The opening and the closing note stand often to each other in the relation of a second, sometimes also of a seventh. The numerous peculiarities to be met with in Polish folkmusic with regard to melodic progression are not likely to be reducible to one tonality or a simple system of tonalities.
Time and district of origin have much to do with the formal character of the melodies. And besides political, social, and local influences direct musical ones--the mediaeval church music, eastern secular music, &c.--have to be taken into account. Of most Polish melodies it may be said that they are as capricious as they are piquant. Any attempt to harmonise them according to our tonal system must end in failure.
Many of them would, indeed, be spoiled by any kind of harmony, being essentially melodic, not outgrowths of harmony.
[FOOTNOTE: To those who wish to study this subject may be recommended Oskar Kolberg"s Piesni Ludu Polskiego (Warsaw, 1857), the best collection of Polish folk-songs. Charles Lipinski"s collection, Piesni Polskie i Ruskie Luttu Galicyjskiego, although much less interesting, is yet noteworthy.]
To treat, however, this subject adequately, one requires volumes, not pages; to speak on it authoritatively, one must have studied it more thoroughly than I have done. The following melodies and s.n.a.t.c.hes of melodies will to some extent ill.u.s.trate what I have said, although they are chosen with a view rather to ill.u.s.trate Chopin"s indebtedness to Polish folk-music than Polish folk-music itself:--
[11 music score excerpts ill.u.s.trated here]
Chopin, while piquantly and daringly varying the tonality prevailing in art-music, hardly ever departs from it altogether--he keeps at least in contact with it, however light that contact may be now and then in the mazurkas.
[FOOTNOTE: One of the most decided exceptions is the Mazurka, Op.
24, No. 2, of which only the A fiat major part adheres frankly to our tonality. The portion beginning with the twenty-first bar and extending over that and the next fifteen bars displays, on the other hand, the purest Lydian, while the other portions, although less definite as regards tonality, keep in closer touch with the mediaeval church smode [sic: mode] than with our major and minor.]
Further, he adopted only some of the striking peculiarities of the national music, and added to them others which were individual. These individual characteristics--those audacities of rhythm, melody, and harmony (in progressions and modulations, as well as in single chords)--may, however, be said to have been fathered by the national ones. As to the predominating chromaticism of his style, it is not to be found in Polish folk-music; although slight rudiments are discoverable (see Nos. 6-12 of the musical ill.u.s.trations). Of course, no one would seek there his indescribably-exquisite and highly-elaborate workmanship, which alone enabled him to give expression to the finest shades and most sudden changes of gentle feelings and turbulent pa.s.sions. Indeed, as I have already said, it is rather the national spirit than the form which manifests itself in Chopin"s music. The writer of the article on Polish music in Mendel"s Conversations-Lexikon remarks:--
What Chopin has written remains for all times the highest ideal of Polish music. Although it would be impossible to point out in a single bar a vulgar utilisation of a national theme, or a Slavonic aping of it, there yet hovers over the whole the spirit of Polish melody, with its chivalrous, proud, and dreamy accents; yea, even the spirit of the Polish language is so pregnantly reproduced in the musical diction as perhaps in no composition of any of his countrymen; unless it be that Prince Oginski with his polonaises and Dobrzynski in his happiest moments have approached him.
Liszt, as so often, has also in connection with this aspect of the composer Chopin some excellent remarks to offer.
He neither applied himself nor exerted himself to write Polish music; it is possible that he would have been astonished to hear himself called a Polish musician.
[FOOTNOTE: Liszt decidedly overshoots here the mark, and does so in a less degree in the rest of these observations. Did not Chopin himself say to Hiller that he wished to be to his countrymen what Uhland was to the Germans? And did he not write in one of his letters (see p. 168): "You know how I wish to understand, and how I have in part succeeded in understanding, our national music"?]
Nevertheless, he was a national musician par excellence...He summed up in his imagination, he represented in his talent, a poetic feeling inherent in his nation and diffused there among all his contemporaries. Like the true national poets, Chopin sang, without a fixed design, without a preconceived choice, what inspiration spontaneously dictated to him; it is thus that there arose in his music, without solicitation, without effort, the most idealised form of the emotions which had animated his childhood, chequered his adolescence, and embellished his youth...Without making any pretence to it, he collected into a luminous sheaf sentiments confusedly felt by all in his country, fragmentarily disseminated in their hearts, vaguely perceived by some.
George Sand tells us that Chopin"s works were the mysterious and vague expression of his inner life. That they were the expression of his inner life is indeed a fact which no attentive hearer can fail to discover without the aid of external evidence. For the composer has hardly written a bar in which, so to speak, the beating of his heart may not be felt. Chopin revealed himself only in his music, but there he revealed himself fully. And was this expression of his inner life really "mysterious and vague"? I think not! At least, no effusion of words could have made clearer and more distinct what he expressed. For the communications of dreams and visions such as he dreamt and saw, of the fluctuating emotional actualities such as his sensitive heart experienced, musical forms are, no doubt, less clumsy than verbal and pictorial ones. And if we know something of his history and that of his nation, we cannot be at a loss to give names and local habitations to the impalpable, but emotionally and intellectually-perceptible contents of his music. We have to distinguish in Chopin the personal and the national tone-poet, the singer of his own joys and sorrows and that of his country"s. But, while distinguishing these two aspects, we must take care not to regard them as two separate things. They were a duality the const.i.tutive forces of which alternately a.s.sumed supremacy. The national poet at no time absorbed the personal, the personal poet at no time disowned the national. His imagination was always ready to conjure up his native atmosphere, nay, we may even say that, wherever he might be, he lived in it. The scene of his dreams and visions lay oftenest in the land of his birth. And what did the national poet dream and see in these dreams and visions? A past, present, and future which never existed and never will exist, a Poland and a Polish people glorified. Reality pa.s.sed through the refining fires of his love and genius and reappeared in his music sublimated as beauty and poetry. No other poet has like Chopin embodied in art the romance of the land and people of Poland. And, also, no other poet has like him embodied in art the romance of his own existence. But whereas as a national poet he was a flattering idealist, he was as a personal poet an uncompromising realist.
The masterpieces of Chopin consist of mazurkas, polonaises, waltzes, etudes, preludes, nocturnes (with which we will cla.s.s the berceuse and barcarole), scherzos and impromptus, and ballades. They do not, however, comprise all his notable compositions. And about these notable compositions which do not rank with his masterpieces, either because they are of less significance or otherwise fail to reach the standard of requisite perfectness, I shall first say a few words.
Chopin"s Bolero, Op. 19, may be described as a Bolero a la polonaise.
It is livelier in movement and more coquettish in character than the compositions which he ent.i.tles polonaises, but for all that its physiognomy does not on the whole strike one as particularly Spanish, certainly not beyond the first section of the Bolero proper and the seductive strains of the Pililento, the second tempo of the introduction. And in saying this I am not misled by the points of resemblance in the rhythmical accompaniment of these dances. Chopin published the Bolero in 1834, four years before he visited Spain, but one may doubt whether it would have turned out less Polish if he had composed it subsequently. Although an excellent imitator in the way of mimicry, he lacked the talent of imitating musical thought and character; at any rate, there are no traces of it in his works. The cause of this lack of talent lies, of course, in the strength of his subjectivism in the first place, and of his nationalism in the second. I said the Bolero was published four years before his visit to Spain. But how many years before this visit was it composed? I think a good many years earlier; for it has so much of his youthful style about it, and not only of his youthful style, but also of his youthful character--by which I mean that it is less intensely poetic. It is not impossible that Chopin was instigated to write it by hearing the Bolero in Auber"s "La Muette de Portici" ("Masaniello"), which opera was first performed on February 28, 1828. These remarks are thrown out merely as hints. The second composition which we shall consider will show how dangerous it is to dogmatise on the strength of internal evidence.
Op. 16, a lightsome Rondeau with a dramatic Introduction, is, like the Bolero, not without its beauties; but in spite of greater individuality, ranks, like it, low among the master"s works, being patchy, unequal, and little poetical.
If ever Chopin is not Chopin in his music, he is so in his Variations brillantes (in B flat major) sur le Rondeau favori: "Je vends des Scapulaires" de Ludovic, de Herold et Halevy, Op. 12. Did we not know that he must have composed the work about the middle of 1833, we should be tempted to cla.s.s it with the works which came into existence when his individuality was as yet little developed. [FOOTNOTE: The opera Ludovic, on which Herold was engaged when he died on January 19, 1833, and which Halevy completed, was produced in Paris on May 16, 1833. From the German publishers of Chopin"s Op. 12 I learned that it appeared in November, 1833. In the Gazette musicale of January 26, 1834, may be read a review of it.] But knowing what we do, we can only wonder at the strange phenomenon. It is as if Chopin had here thrown overboard the Polish part of his natal inheritance and given himself up unrestrainedly and voluptuously to the French part. Besides various diatonic runs of an inessential and purely ornamental character, there is in the finale actually a plain and full-toned C flat major scale. What other work of the composer could be pointed out exhibiting the like feature?
Of course, Chopin is as little successful in entirely hiding his serpentining and chromaticising tendency as Mephistopheles in hiding the limp arising from his cloven foot. Still, these fallings out of the role are rare and transient, and, on the whole, Chopin presents himself as a perfect homme du monde who knows how to say the most insignificant trifles with the most exquisite grace imaginable. There can. be nothing more amusing than the contemporary critical opinions regarding this work, nothing more amusing than to see the at other times censorious Philistines unwrinkle their brows, relax generally the sternness of their features, and welcome, as it were, the return of the prodigal son.
We wiser critics of to-day, who, of course, think very differently about this matter, can, nevertheless, enjoy and heartily applaud the prettiness and elegance of the simple first variation, the playful tripping second, the schwarmerische melodious third, the merry swinging fourth, and the brilliant finale.
From Chopin"s letters we see that the publication of the Tarantelle, Op. 43, which took place in the latter part of 1841, was attended with difficulties and annoyances. [FOOTNOTE: Herr Schuberth, of Leipzig, informed me that a honorarium of 500 francs was paid to Chopin for this work on July 1, 1841. The French publisher deposited the work at the library of the Conservatoire in October, 1841.] What these difficulties and annoyances were, is, however, only in part ascertainable. To turn from the publication to the composition itself, I may say that it is full of life, indeed, spirited in every respect, in movement and in boldness of harmonic and melodic conception. The Tarantelle is a translation from Italian into Polish, a trans.m.u.tation of Rossini into Chopin, a Neapolitan scene painted with opaque colours, the south without its transparent sky, balmy air, and general brightness. That this composition was inspired by impressions received from Rossini"s Tarantella, and not from impressions received in Italy (of which, as has already been related, he had a short glimpse in 1839), is evident.
A comparison of Chopin"s Op. 43 with Liszt"s glowing and intoxicating transcription of Rossini"s composition may be recommended as a study equally pleasant and instructive. Although not an enthusiastic admirer of Chopin"s Tarantelle, I protest in the interest of the composer and for justice"s sake against Schumann"s dictum: "n.o.body can call that beautiful music; but we pardon the master his wild fantasies, for once he may let us see also the dark sides of his inner life."
The Allegro de Concert, Op. 46, which was published in November, 1841, although written for the pianoforte alone, contains, nevertheless, pa.s.sages which are more distinctly orchestral than anything Chopin ever wrote for the orchestra. The form resembles somewhat that of the concerto. In the first section, which occupies the place of the opening tutti, we cannot fail to distinguish the entrances of single instruments, groups of instruments, and the full orchestra. The soloist starts in the eighty-seventh bar, and in the following commences a cadenza. With the a tempo comes the first subject (A major), and the pa.s.sage-work which brings up the rear leads to the second subject (E major), which had already appeared in the first section in A major.
The first subject, if I may dignify the matter in question with that designation, does not recur again, nor was it introduced by the tutti.
The central and princ.i.p.al thought is what I called the second subject.
The second section concludes with brilliant pa.s.sage-work in E major, the time--honoured shake rousing the drowsy orchestra from its sweet repose. The hint is not lost, and the orchestra, in the disguise of the pianoforte, attends to its duty right vigorously. With the poco rit. the soloist sets to work again, and in the next bar takes up the princ.i.p.al subject in A minor. After that we have once more brilliant pa.s.sage-work, closing this time in A major, and then a final tutti. The Allegro de Concert gives rise to all sorts of surmises. Was it written first for the pianoforte and orchestra, as Schumann suspects? Or may we make even a bolder guess, and suppose that the composer, at a more advanced age, worked up into this Allegro de Concert a sketch for the first movement of a concerto conceived in his younger days? Have we, perhaps, here a fragment or fragments of the Concerto for two pianos which Chopin, in a letter written at Vienna on December 21, 1830, said he would play in public with his friend Nidecki, if he succeeded in writing it to his satisfaction? And is there any significance in the fact that Chopin, when (probably in the summer of 1841) sending the ma.n.u.script of this work to Fontana, calls it a Concerto? Be this as it may, the princ.i.p.al subject and some of the pa.s.sage-work remind one of the time of the concertos; other things, again, belong undoubtedly to a later period.
The tutti and solo parts are unmistakable, so different is the treatment of the pianoforte: in the former the style has the heaviness of an arrangement, in the latter it has Chopin"s usual airiness. The work, as a whole, is unsatisfactory, nay, almost indigestible. The subjects are neither striking nor important. Of the pa.s.sage-work, that which follows the second subject contains the most interesting matter. Piquant traits and all sorts of fragmentary beauties are scattered here and there over the movement. But after we have considered all, we must confess that this opus adds little or nothing to the value of our Chopin inheritance.
[FOOTNOTE: In justice to the composer I must here quote a criticism which since I wrote the above appeared in the Athenaum (January 21, 1888):--"The last-named work [the Allegro de Concert, Op. 46] is not often heard, and is generally regarded as one of Chopin"s least interesting and least characteristic pieces. Let us hasten to say that these impressions are distinctly wrong; the executive difficulties of the work are extremely great, and a mere mastery of them is far from all that is needed. When M. de Pachmann commenced to play it was quickly evident that his reading would be most remarkable, and in the end it amounted to an astounding revelation. That which seemed dry and involved became under his fingers instinct with beauty and feeling; the musicians and amateurs present listened as if spellbound, and opinion was unanimous that the performance was nothing short of an artistic creation. For the sake of the composer, if not for his own reputation, the pianist should repeat it, not once, but many times." Notwithstanding this decided judgment of a weighty authority--for such everyone will, without hesitation, acknowledge the critic in question to be--I am unable, after once more examining the work, to alter my previously formed opinion.]
As a further confirmation of the supposed origin of the Allegro de Concert, I may mention the arrangement of it for piano and orchestra (also for two pianos) by Jean Louis Nicode.
[FOOTNOTE: Nicode has done his work well so far as he kept close to the text of Chopin; but his insertion of a working-out section of more than seventy bars is not justifiable, and, moreover, though making the work more like an orthodox first movement of a concerto, does not enhance its beauty and artistic value.]
To the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35 (published in May, 1840), this most powerful of Chopin"s works in the larger forms, Liszt"s remark, "Plus de volonte que d"inspiration," is hardly applicable, although he used the expression in speaking of Chopin"s concertos and sonatas in general; for there is no lack of inspiration here, nor are there traces of painful, unrewarded effort. Each of the four pieces of which the sonata consists is full of vigour, originality, and interest. But whether they can be called a sonata is another question. Schumann, in his playful manner, speaks of caprice and wantonness, and insinuates that Chopin bound together four of his maddest children, and ent.i.tled them sonata, in order that he might perhaps under this name smuggle them in where otherwise they would not penetrate. Of course, this is a fancy of Schumann"s. Still, one cannot help wondering whether the composer from the first intended to write a sonata and obtained this result--amphora coepit inst.i.tui; currente rota cur urceus exit?--or whether these four movements got into existence without any predestination, and were afterwards put under one cover. [FOOTNOTE: At any rate, the march was finished before the rest of the work. See the quotation from one of Chopin"s letters farther on.] With all Schumann"s admiration for Chopin and praise of this sonata, it appears to me that he does not give Chopin his due. There is something gigantic in the work which, although it does not elevate and enn.o.ble, being for the most part a purposeless fuming, impresses one powerfully. The first movement begins with four bars grave, a groan full of pain; then the composer, in restless, breathless haste, is driven by his feelings onward, ever onward, till he comes to the lovely, peaceful second subject (in D flat major, a real contrast this time), which grows by-and-by more pa.s.sionate, and in the concluding portion of the first part transcends the limits of propriety--VIDE those ugly dissonances. The connection of the close of the first part with the repet.i.tion of this and the beginning of the second part by means of the chord of the dominant seventh in A flat and that in D flat with the suspended sixth, is noteworthy. The strange second section, in which the first subject is worked out, has the appearance rather of an improvisation than of a composition. After this a few bars in 6/4 time, fiercely wild (stretto) at first, but gradually subsiding, lead to the repeat in B flat major of the second subject--the first subject does not appear again in its original form. To the close, which is like that of the corresponding section in the first part (6/4), is added a coda (2/2) introducing the characteristic motive of the first subject. In the scherzo, the grandest movement and the climax of the sonata, the gloom and the threatening power which rise to a higher and higher pitch become quite weird and fear-inspiring; it affects one like lowering clouds, rolling of thunder, and howling and whistling of the wind--to the latter, for instance, the chromatic successions of chords of the sixth may not inappropriately be likened. The piu lento is certainly one of the most scherzo-like thoughts in Chopin"s scherzos--so light and joyful, yet a volcano is murmuring under this serenity. The return of this piu lento, after the repeat of the first section, is very fine and beneficently refreshing, like nature after a storm. The Marche funebre ranks among Chopin"s best-known and most highly-appreciated pieces. Liszt mentions it with particular distinction, and grows justly eloquent over it. I do not altogether understand Schumann"s objection: "It is still more gloomy than the scherzo," he says, "and contains even much that is repulsive; in its place an adagio, perhaps in D flat, would have had an incomparably finer effect." Out of the dull, stupefied brooding, which is the fundamental mood of the first section, there rises once and again (bars 7 and 8, and 11 and 12) a pitiable wailing, and then an outburst of pa.s.sionate appealing (the forte pa.s.sage in D flat major), followed by a sinking helplessness (the two bars with the shakes in the ba.s.s), accompanied by moans and deep breathings. The two parts of the second section are a rapturous gaze into the beatific regions of a beyond, a vision of reunion of what for the time is severed. The last movement may be counted among the curiosities of composition--a presto in B flat minor of seventy-five bars, an endless series of triplets from beginning to end in octaves. It calls up in one"s mind the solitude and dreariness of a desert. "The last movement is more like mockery than music," says Schumann, but adds, truly and wisely--
and yet one confesses to one"s self that also out of this unmelodious and joyless movement a peculiar dismal spirit breathes upon us, who keeps down with a strong hand that which would revolt, so that we obey, as if we were charmed, without murmuring, but also without praising, for that is no music.
Thus the sonata concludes, as it began, enigmatically, like a sphinx with a mocking smile.
J. W. Davison, in the preface to an edition of Chopin"s mazurkas, relates that Mendelssohn, on being questioned about the finale of one of Chopin"s sonatas (I think it must have been the one before us), said briefly and bitterly, "Oh, I abhor it!" H. Barbedette remarks in his "Chopin," a criticism without insight and originality, of this finale, "C"est Lazare grattant de ses ongles la pierre de son tombeau et tombant epuise de fatigue, de faim et de desespoir." And now let the reader recall the words which Chopin wrote from Nohant to Fontana in the summer of 1839:--
I am composing here a Sonata in B flat minor, in which will be the funeral march which you have already. There is an Allegro, then a Scherzo, in E flat minor, the March, and a short Finale of about three pages. The left hand unisono with the right hand are gossiping after the March [ogaduja po Marszu].
The meaning of which somewhat obscure interpretation seems to be, that after the burial the good neighbours took to discussing the merits of the departed, not without a spice of backbiting.
The Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, the second of Chopin"s notable pianoforte sonatas (the third if we take into account the unpalatable Op. 4), made its appearance five years later, in June, 1845. Unity is as little discernible in this sonata as in its predecessor. The four movements of which the work consists are rather affiliated than cognate; nay, this may be said even of many parts of the movements. The first movement by far surpa.s.ses the other three in importance: indeed, the wealth of beautiful and interesting matter which is here heaped up--for it is rather an unsifted acc.u.mulation than an artistic presentation and evolution--would have sufficed many a composer for several movements.
The ideas are very unequal and their course very jerky till we come to the second subject (D major), which swells out into a broad stream of impa.s.sioned melody. Farther on the matter becomes again jerky and mosaic-like. While the close of the first part is very fine, the beginning of the second is a comfortless waste. Things mend with the re-entrance of the subsidiary part of the second subject (now in D flat major), which, after being dwelt upon for some time and varied, disappears, and is followed by a repet.i.tion of portions of the first subject, the whole second subject (in B major), and the closing period, which is prolonged by a coda to make the close more emphatic and satisfying. A light and graceful quaver figure winds with now rippling, now waving motion through the first and third sections of the scherzo; in the contrasting second section, with the sustained accompaniment and the melody in one of the middle parts, the entrance of the bright A major, after the gloom of the preceding bars, is very effective. The third movement has the character of a nocturne, and as such cannot fail to be admired. In the visionary dreaming of the long middle section we imagine the composer with dilated eyes and rapture in his look--it is rather a reverie than a composition. The finale surrounds us with an emotional atmosphere somewhat akin to that of the first movement, but more agitated. After eight bold introductory bars with piercing dissonances begins the first subject, which, with its rhythmically differently-accompanied repet.i.tion, is the most important const.i.tuent of the movement. The rest, although finely polished, is somewhat insignificant. In short, this is the old story, plus de volonte que d"inspiration, that is to say, inspiration of the right sort. And also, plus de volonte que de savoir-faire.
There is one work of Chopin"s to which Liszt"s dictum, plus de volnte que d"inspiratio, applies in all, and even more than all its force.
I allude to the Sonata (in G minor) for piano and violoncello, Op.
65 (published in September, 1847), in which hardly anything else but effort, painful effort, manifests itself. The first and last movements are immense wildernesses with only here and there a small flower. The middle movements, a Scherzo and an Andante, do not rise to the dignity of a sonata, and, moreover, lack distinction, especially the slow movement, a nocturne-like dialogue between the two instruments. As to the beauties--such as the first subject of the first movement (at the entrance of the violoncello), the opening bars of the Scherzo, part of the ANDANTE, &c.--they are merely beginnings, springs that lose themselves soon in a sandy waste. Hence I have not the heart to controvert Moscheles who, in his diary, says some cutting things about this work: "In composition Chopin proves that he has only isolated happy thoughts which he does not know how to work up into a rounded whole. In the just published sonata with violoncello I find often pa.s.sages which sound as if someone were preluding on the piano and knocked at all the keys to learn whether euphony was at home." [FOOTNOTE: Aus Moscheles"
Leben; Vol. II., p. 171.] An entry of the year 1850 runs as follows: "But a trial of patience of another kind is imposed on me by Chopin"s Violoncello Sonata, which I am arranging for four hands. To me it is a tangled forest, through which now and then penetrates a gleam of the sun." [FOOTNOTE: Ibid., Vol. II., p. 216.] To take up after the last-discussed work a composition like the Grand Duo Concertant for piano and violoncello, on themes from "Robert le Diable," by Chopin and A. Franchomme, is quite a relief, although it is really of no artistic importance. Schumann is right when he says of this DUO, which saw the light of publicity (without OPUS number) in 1833:14 [FOOTNOTE: The first performance of Meyerbeer"s "Robert le Diable" took place at the Paris Opera on November 21, 1831.] "A piece for a SALON where behind the shoulders of counts and countesses now and then rises the head of a celebrated artist." And he may also be right when he says:--
It seems to me that Chopin sketched the whole of it, and that Franchomme said "yes" to everything; for what Chopin touches takes his form and spirit, and in this minor salon-style he expresses himself with grace and distinction, compared with which all the gentility of other brilliant composers together with all their elegance vanish into thin air.
The mention of the DUO is somewhat out of place here, but the Sonata, Op. 65, in which the violoncello is employed, naturally suggested it.