Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/785

CHOPIN. 687 CHOPINE. Memories of a ilusical Life, repeats an anecdote related to him by Dreyschock and illustrating Chopin's delicacy of touch. Dreyschock and Thalberg had just left one of Chopin's concerts. After proceeding a short distance Thalberg sud- denly began to shout at the top of his voice. Asked by Dreyschock what was the matter, he replied: "I have been listening to nothing but piano; I want a little forte." The familiar anecdote that Liszt and Chopin changed scats at the piano while the lights were turned do-n. and that the listeners could not distinguish between their playing, is apocrj-phal. Not so. however, the stoiy of the coolness be- tween Chopin and ileyerbeer, and its cause. It resulted from Meyerbeer's claiming that the charming little "Mazurka," Op. 33, No. 3 (in C), was really in two-quarter instead of in three-quarter time. Give it to me for a ballet and I will prove it to you in my next opera," were Meyerbeer's parting words to Chopin. The incident is related by De Lenz, who, in liis Great Piano Virtuosos of Our Time, has given charm- ing glimpses of Chopin as a virtuoso and as a teacher. During the summer and early autumn of 1835 Chopin was in Germany. He met his father at Karl.sbqd, and in Dresden fell in love with and became engaged to Marie Wodzinski, whose brothers had been his schoolmates. Chopin thought of giving up Paris and settling near Warsaw after his marriage. But Marie's father objected to the engagement on the ground of Cho- pin's lack of means, and it was broken in 1837. In July of that year he made a trip to England of only eleven days, but this sufficed to develop the germs of consumption latent in his constitution. (This disease was in the family. A si-ster died of it, and his father succumbed to combined chest and heart trouble.) Chopin met George Sand in 1837. The liaison which resulted between them, and which she deftly turned into 'copy' in Lucrezia Floriani and Histoire de ma vie, seems to have begun to weary the 'polyandrous Sand' in 1844, and the final break occurred in 1847. Sand's de- scriptions of Chopin and his playing are of little value, because of their exaggerated note and rub- bishy sentimentalism. She tells, for instance, of being delayed, while in ^fajorca. by a storm. On returning to her house she found Chopin at the piano. Terror-stricken by her absence in the storm, and dreading the danger to which she Blight be exposed, he had composed the tragic sixth prelude in B minor. Unfortunately for this pretty story, many of the preludes, this among them, were composed before Chopin went to Majorca. After his breach with Sand he wrote: "I have never cursed any one: but now I am so weary of life that I am near cursing Lucrezia. But she sufTers, too, and more because she grows older in wickedness." Chopin paid a second visit to England in April, 1548. He played with success. In January, 1549, he returned to Paris to die. He had so often been at death's door that, to quote Heller, when the news of his death came it was doubted. Kind women soothed his last days. .Jane Stirling, a Scotch woman who had been his pupil and was in love with him (the two "Nfx-turnes," Op. .5.5. are dedicated to her), sent him 25,- 000 francs, for he was poor. His sister Louise, and his 'sisterly friend," the Countess Delphine Potocka, were with him to the end. "She told me I would die in no arms but hers," lie said, two days liefore he died, referring to Sand. His la.st utterance was "Plus," in answer to a ques- tion if he sufTered. He died on October 17, and was burie<l in P6re Lachaise, between Clierubini and Bellini. Cliopin is the emancipator of the pianoforte from the thraldom of the orchestral style of com- position. He thought pianistically, and not orcliestrally. Every tone color, every effect of which the instrument is capable, he divined. lie placed pianoforte music definitely upon an inde- pendent basis. This is tlie reason why, although practically he composed only for the pianoforte, and almost wholly within smaller forms, he ranks among the great composers. "I cannot create a new school, because I do not even know the old," he once said. But tliis very absence of conservative prejudice made him the leader of modern romanticism. An admirer of Bach and Mozart, he brought a marvelous insight into the laws of harmony, and a love of orderliness, as concerns form, to his work. He was one of the most adventurous of harmonists, reveling in chromatics and in other new and exquisite effects. Through his greatness and perni.anence he may be called the originator of the 'single-piece' composition, as distinguished from the suite or sonata. A Pole, his music is tinged with melanchol.v for his country's mis- fortunes. The "Mazurkas," which are among his most exquisite works, are flowers scattered over the grave of Poland. The "Nocturnes," developed from Field and marvelously enriched, are more personal and therefore sad in expression. Of the "Valses," graceful, vivacious, tender, Schumann said "the dancers should be countesses;" of the "Polonaises," they are "cannon buried in flow- ers;" of Chopin as a melodist, "he leans over Germany into Italy" — all concise and apt charac- terizations. In his comment on the "Valses," however, Schumann doubtless excepted the one that Chopin wrote after watching Sand's dog chasing its tail. Among his most beautiful com- positions are the "Preludes." Chopin's o^^■n delicate playing led to a style of Chopin interpretation in which the effeminate in his work was cultivated at the expense of the virile. The latter is found in the F minor "Fantaisie," and in plentv among the "Polo- naises," the "Ballades," the "Scherzos," and the "Etudes." No modem pianist can afford to ig- nore this virile side of Chopin's work. He com- posed two concertos, not ranked among his great- est productions, yet which would be sadly missed; "Impromptus;" a very few pieces of chamber music ; and songs. Consult: lluneker, Chopin: The if an and His Music (New York, 1900), the standard life of Chopin, both as regards his personality and his work; Finck, Chopin, and Other Musical Essays (London, 1889) ; Karasowski, Frederic Chopin, from the German by Emily Hill (London, 1879) ; Niecks, Chopin as Man and Musician (London, 1889) ; Liszt, Life of Chopin, translated by Cook (London, 1877). CHOPINE, chA-pen' (from Sp. chapin, clog). A high clog or slipper, deriving its name, as is siippospfl, from the .sound chap. chop, made by the wearers in walking. Chopines were of Turk- ish origin, but were introduced into England from Venice during the reign of Elizabeth. They