After he had finished his studies in harmony with Professor Joseph Elsner, who taught him the rarely known and difficult task of being exacting towards himself, and placing the just value upon the advantages which are only to be obtained by dint of patience and labor; and after he had finished his collegiate course, it was the desire of his parents that he should travel in order that he might become familiar with the finest works under the advantage of their perfect execution.  For this purpose he visited many of the German cities.  He had left Warsaw upon one of these short excursions, when the revolution of the 29th of November broke out in 1830.

Forced to remain in Vienna, he was heard there in some concerts, but the Viennese public, generally so cultivated, so prompt to seize the most delicate shades of execution, the finest subtleties of thought, during this winter were disturbed and abstracted.  The young artist did not produce there the effect he had the right to anticipate.  He left Vienna with the design of going to London, but he came first to Paris, where he intended to remain but a short time.  Upon his passport drawn up for England, he had caused to be inserted:  “passing through Paris.”  These words sealed his fate.  Long years afterwards, when he seemed not only acclimated, but naturalized in France, he would smilingly say:  I am “passing through Paris.”

He gave several concerts after his arrival in Paris, where he was immediately received and admired in the circles of the elite, as well as welcomed by the young artists.  We remember his first appearance in the saloons of Pleyel, where the most enthusiastic and redoubled applause seemed scarcely sufficient to express our enchantment for the genius which had revealed new phases of poetic feeling, and made such happy yet bold innovations in the form of musical art.

Unlike the greater part of young debutants, he was not intoxicated or dazzled for a moment by his triumph, but accepted it without pride or false modesty, evincing none of the puerile enjoyment of gratified vanity exhibited by the PARVENUS of success.  His countrymen who were then in Paris gave him a most affectionate reception.  He was intimate in the house of Prince Czartoryski, of the Countess Plater, of Madame de Komar, and in that of her daughters, the Princess de Beauveau and the Countess Delphine Potocka, whose beauty, together with her indescribable and spiritual grace, made her one of the most admired sovereigns of the society of Paris.  He dedicated to her his second Concerto, which contains the Adagio we have already described.  The ethereal beauty of the Countess, her enchanting voice enchained him by a fascination full of respectful admiration.  Her voice was destined to be the last which should vibrate upon the musician’s heart.  Perhaps the sweetest sounds of earth accompanied the parting soul until they blended in his ear with the first chords of the angels’ lyres.