When I came across this book by chance, I pounced on it! It was written in french shortly after Chopin’s death in 1849, and represents Liszt’s only full-length book (he wrote several essays and programme notes besides).
This tribute to the great pianist-composer of the first half of the 19th century is a credit to Liszt himself, and another confirmation of his generous spirit and sharp intelligence. The book is composed of 8 chapters charting the life and character of both Chopin and some of his contemporaries. Each chapter starts with a summary of the topics covered (this might have been the translator’s or editor’s addition). Chapter 1 for instance deals with “Chopin – Style and -Improvements – The Adagio of the Second Concerto – Funeral March – Psychological Character of the Compositions of Chopin, &c, &c”.
Unfortunately the writing style is so over-the-top in the high romantic manner – interminable sentences full of “Oh!”s and “Nay”s – that it’s quickly wearing. The biography opens as follows:
“Deeply regretted as he may be by the whole body of artists, lamented by all who have ever known him, we must still be permitted to doubt if the time as even yet arrived in which he, whose loss is so peculiarly deplored by ourselves, can be appreciated in accordance with his just value, or occupy that high rank which in all probability will be assigned to him in the future…”
One can only take so many superlatives and hyperbole. To save you from the toil of wading through this book, I have collected a few choice quotations below.
Chopin’s character
“Kind, courteous, and affable, of tranquil and almost joyous manners, he would not suffer the secret convulsions which agitated him to be even suspected.”
“The character of Chopin, in none of its numerous folds, concealed a single movement, a single impulse, which was not dictated by the nicest sense of honor, the most delicate appreciation of affection. Yet no nature was ever more formed to justify eccentricity, whims, and abrupt caprices. His imagination was ardent, his feelings almost violent, his physical organization weak, irritable and sickly. Who can measure the amount of suffering arising from such contrasts? It must have been bitter, but he never allowed it to be seen!”
“He interested himself so vividly in all that was not himself, that his own personality remained intact, unapproached and unapproachable, under the polished and glassy surface upon which it was impossible to gain footing.”
“Material elegance was as natural to him as mental; this was evinced in the objects with which he surrounded himself, as well as in the aristocratic grace of his manners. He was passionately fond of flowers. Without aiming at the brilliant luxury with which , at that epoch, some of the celebrities in Paris decorated their apartments, he knew how to keep upon this point, as well as in his style of dress, the instinctive line of perfect propriety.“
Chopin’s playing style
“Through his peculiar style of performance, Chopin imparted this constant rocking with the most fascinating effect; thus making the melody undulate to and fro, like a skiff driven on over the bosom of tossing waves. This manner of execution, which set a seal so peculiar upon his own style of playing, was at first indicated by the term ‘tempo rubato’, affixed to his writings: a Tempo agitated, broken, interrupted, a movement flexible, yet at the same time abrupt and languishing, and vacillating as the flame under the fluctuating breath by which it is agitated. In his later productions we no longer find this mark. He was convinced that if the performer understood them, he would devine this rule of irregularity. All his compositions should be played with this accentuated and measured swaying and balancing. It is difficult for those who have not frequently heard him play to catch this secret of their proper execution”.
This is tantalizing! If only we had a recording of even a few seconds of Chopin’s playing for posterity!
Chopin was not made for concerts
“He only rarely performed to the great public, and not only due to his health. He was reported as saying: I am not suited to concert giving: the public intimidate me; their looks, only stimulated by curiosity, paralyze me; their strange faces oppress me; their breath stifles me”
Chopin’s frailty, and Liszt as ideal performer
“As his health was too frail to permit him to give vent to his impatience through the vehemence of his execution, he sought to compensate himself by pouring this bitterness over those pages which he loved to hear performed with a vigor which he could not himself always command” (and the translator added – “it was his delight to hear them executed by the great Liszt himself”)
Chopin’s large scale works
“Not content with success in the field in which he was free to design, with such perfect grace, the contours chosen by himself, Chopin also wished to fetter his ideal thoughts with classic chains. His Concertos and Sonatas are beautiful indeed, but we may discern in them more effort than inspiration. His creative genius was imperious, fantastic and impulsive. His beauties were only manifested fully in entire freedom”.
A light on Liszt’s own playing
I have already discussed in an earlier post the impossibility of conveying the real nature of a piece of music by words alone. But Liszt’s descriptions of Chopin’s music are interesting in that they confirm our idea that Liszt’s playing style must have reflected his thinking about music in terms of ‘programme’ or image.
Adagio of the Second Concerto: “The whole of this piece is of a perfection almost ideal: its expression, now radiant with light, now full of tender pathos. It seems as if one had chosen a happy vale of Tempe, a magnificent landscape flooded with summer glow and lustre, as a background for the rehearsal of some dire scene of mortal anguish. A bitter and irreparable regret seizes the wildly-throbbing human heart, even in the midst of the incomparable splendor of external nature? This contrast is sustained by a fusion of tones, a softening of gloomy hues, which prevent the intrusion of aught rude or brusque that might awaken a dissonance in the touching impression produced, which, while saddening joy, soothes and softens the bitterness of sorrow”.
Grand Polonaise in F sharp minor: “The principal motive is a weird air, dark as the lurid hour which precedes a hurricane, in which we catch the fierce exclamations of exasperation, mingled with a bold defiance, recklessly hurled at the stormy elements. The prolonged return of a tonic, at the commencement of each measure, reminds us of the repeated roar of artillery – as if we caught the sounds from such dread battle waging in the distance”.
Chopin’s views on Mozart and Beethoven
“Mozart was in his eyes the ideal type, the Poet par excellence, because he, less rarely than any other author, condescended to descend the steps leading from the beautiful to the commonplace…The respectful admiration which Chopin felt for the genius of Mozart, had induced him to request that his Requiem should be performed at his obsequies.”
“Notwithstanding the high admiration which he entertained for the works of Beethoven, certain portions of them always seemed to him too rudely sculptured; their structure was too athletic to please him, their wrath seemed to him too tempestuous, their passion too overpowering, the lion-marrow which fills every member of his phases was matter too substantial for his tastes.”