Chopin, who came to Rolla with a letter of introduction from Soliva, was received by the Italian violinist with great friendliness.  Indeed, kindness was showered upon him from all sides.  Rubini promised him a letter of introduction to his brother in Milan, Rolla one to the director of the opera there, and Princess Augusta, the daughter of the late king, and Princess Maximiliana, the sister-in-law of the reigning king, provided him with letters for the Queen of Naples, the Duchess of Lucca, the Vice-Queen of Milan, and Princess Ulasino in Rome.  He had met the princesses and played to them at the house of the Countess Dobrzycka, Oberhofmeisterin of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the late king, Frederick Augustus.

The name of the Oberhofmeisterin brings us to the Polish society of Dresden, into which Chopin seems to have found his way at once.  Already two days after his arrival he writes of a party of Poles with whom he had dined.  At the house of Mdme. Pruszak he made the acquaintance of no less a person than General Kniaziewicz, who took part in the defence of Warsaw, commanded the left wing in the battle of Maciejowice (1794), and joined Napoleon’s Polish legion in 1796.  Chopin wrote home:  “I have pleased him very much; he said that no pianist had made so agreeable an impression on him.”

To judge from the tone of Chopin’s letters, none of all the people he came in contact with gained his affection in so high a degree as did Klengel, whom he calls “my dear Klengel,” and of whom he says that he esteems him very highly, and loves him as if he had known him from his earliest youth.  “I like to converse with him, for from him something is to be learned.”  The great contrapuntist seems to have reciprocated this affection, at any rate he took a great interest in his young friend, wished to see the scores of his concertos, went without Chopin’s knowledge to Morlacchi and to the intendant of the theatre to try if a concert could not be arranged within four days, told him that his playing reminded him of Field’s, that his touch was of a peculiar kind, and that he had not expected to find him such a virtuoso.  Although Chopin replied, when Klengel advised him to give a concert, that his stay in Dresden was too short to admit of his doing so, and thought himself that he could earn there neither much fame nor much money, he nevertheless was not a little pleased that this excellent artist had taken some trouble in attempting to smooth the way for a concert, and to hear from him that this had been done not for Chopin’s but for Dresden’s sake; our friend, be it noted, was by no means callous to flattery.  Klengel took him also to a soiree at the house of Madame Niesiolawska, a Polish lady, and at supper proposed his health, which was drunk in champagne.

There is a passage in one of Chopin’s letters which I must quote; it tells us something of his artistic taste outside his own art:- -