Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 995 pages of information about Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete.

Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 995 pages of information about Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete.

For eighteen months (he did not leave Paris this summer) I was allowed to enjoy his instruction.  How willingly would I have continued my studies with him longer!  But he himself was of opinion that I should now return to my fatherland, pursue my studies unaided, and play much in public.  On parting he presented me with the two manuscripts of his C sharp major and E major studies (dedicated to Liszt), and promised to write during his stay in the country a concert-piece and dedicate it to me.

In the end of the year 1844 I went again to Paris, and found Chopin looking somewhat stronger.  At that time his friends hoped for the restoration of, or at least for a considerable improvement in, his health.

The promised concert-piece, Op. 46, had to my inexpressible delight been published.  I played it to him, and he was satisfied with my playing of it; rejoiced at my successes in Vienna, of which he had been told, exerted himself with the amiability peculiar to him to make me still better known to the musical world of Paris.  Thus I learned to know Auber, Halevy, Franchomme, Alkan, and others.  But in February, 1845,1 was obliged to return to Vienna; I had pupils there who were waiting for me.  On parting he spoke of the possibility of coming there for a short time, and I had quite made up my mind to return for another visit to Paris in eighteen months, in order again to enjoy his valuable instruction and advice.  But this, to my deepest regret, was not to be.

I saw Madame Sand in the year 1841 and again in the year 1845 in a box in a theatre, and had an opportunity of admiring her beauty.  I never spoke to her.

APPENDIX X.

Portraits of Chopin.

A biography is incomplete without some account of the portraits of the hero or heroine who is the subject of it.  M. Mathias regards as the best portrait of Chopin a lithograph by Engelmann after a drawing by Vigneron, of 1833, published by Maurice Schlesinger, of Paris.  In a letter to me he writes:  “This portrait is marvellous for the absolutely exact idea it gives of Chopin:  the graceful fall of the shoulders, the Polish look, the charm of the mouth.”  Continuing, he says:  “Another good likeness of Chopin, but of a later date, between the youthful period and that of his decay, is Bovy’s medallion, which gives a very exact idea of the outlines of his hair and nose.  Beyond these there exists nothing, all is frightful; for instance, the portrait in Karasowski’s book, which has a stupid look.”  The portrait here alluded to is a lithographic reproduction of a drawing by A. Duval.  As a rule, the portraits of Chopin most highly prized by his pupils and acquaintances are those by A. Bovy and T. Kwiatkowski.  Madame Dubois, who likes Bovy’s medallion best, and next to it the portraits by Kwiatkowski, does not care much for Ary Scheffer’s portrait of her master, in whose apartments she had of course frequent opportunities

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Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.