On the 28th August, Mr. F. Chopin, of Warsaw, gave a morning concert [Mittags Concert] in the hall of the Philharmonic Society, which was attended by a very select audience.  Mr. Chopin performed on the pianoforte a Concerto in E minor of his own composition, and showed an excellent virtuosity in the treatment of his instrument; besides a developed technique, one noticed especially a charming delicacy of execution, and a beautiful and characteristic rendering of the motives.  The composition was, on the whole, brilliantly and well written, without surprising, however, by extraordinary novelty or a particular profundity, with the exception of the Rondo, whose principal thought as well as the florid middle sections, through an original combination of a melancholy trait with a capriccio, evolved a peculiar charm, on which account it particularly pleased.  The concert- giver performed in conclusion a fantasia on Polish national songs.  There is a something in the Slavonic songs which almost never fails in its effect, the cause of which, however, is difficult to trace and explain; for it is not only the rhythm and the quick change from minor to major which produce this charm.  No one has probably understood better how to combine the national character of such folk- songs with a brilliant concert style than Bernhard Romberg [Footnote:  The famous violoncellist], who by his compositions of this kind, put in a favourable light by his masterly playing, knew how to exercise a peculiar fascination.  Quite of this style was the fantasia of Mr. Chopin, who gained unanimous applause.

From Munich Chopin proceeded to Stuttgart, and during his stay there learnt the sad news of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians (September 8, 1831).  It is said that this event inspired him to compose the C minor study (No. 12 of Op. 10), with its passionate surging and impetuous ejaculations.  Writing from Paris on December 16, 1831, Chopin remarks, in allusion to the traeic denouement of the Polish revolution:  “All this has caused me much pain.  Who could have foreseen it!”

With his visits to Stuttgart Chopin’s artist-life in Germany came to a close, for, although he afterwards repeatedly visited the country, he never played in public or made a lengthened stay there.  Now that Chopin is nearing Paris, where, occasional sojourns elsewhere (most of them of short duration) excepted, he will pass the rest of his life, it may interest the reader to learn that this change of country brought with it also a change of name, at least as far as popular pronunciation and spelling went.  We may be sure that the Germans did not always give to the final syllable the appropriate nasal sound.  And what the Polish pronunciation was is sufficiently indicated by the spelling “Szopen,” frequently to be met with.  I found it in the Polish illustrated journal “Kiosy,” and it is also to be seen in Joseph Sikorski’s “Wspomnienie Szopena” ("Reminiscences of Chopin").  Szulc and Karasowski call their books and hero “Fryderyk Chopin.”