Chopin. Adam Zamoyski

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СКАЧАТЬ in the structure and essential character of this kind of music. The difference between what most musicians did with folk music and what he was attempting could be likened to the difference between using ready-made phrases of a foreign language, and learning the language and constructing one’s own phrases. By 1828 he had mastered the folk idiom so far that he could write original Mazurkas, often using elements of melodies he had heard in the country, but more often creating his own. This process eventually led him to create what was in effect an entirely new mode of musical expression through the melodic language of a people. An analogous treatment of the Polonaise form evolved with time into a pure expression of the historic, courtly ethos which had inspired the dance. He was no longer writing a country dance or a court dance; he was writing poems in the musical language of Mazovia, or alternatively in that of the vanished world of the Polish noble past.

      At the same time, Chopin did apply himself to a work in the grand style – a concerto for piano and orchestra. This was probably meant to fall within the category of his practical work for Elsner, but it may also have been prompted by the need to have a substantial composition to show off – pianists were expected to demonstrate their virtuosity through their own works, not by interpreting others’. This was all the more important as Chopin was now planning a tour abroad. In April 1829, Nicolas Chopin petitioned the Minister of Education for the requisite funds. The move was not without precedent, as an older Conservatoire colleague of Chopin’s, the pianist Tomasz Nidecki, had been given a foreign travel grant a couple of years before. Nicolas reminded the Minister that his son had ‘had the honour of being heard by the late Tsar’, and that His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke ‘had often been most graciously pleased to allow him to give evidence of his growing talent in His Most Serene presence’.¹²

      The Minister, Count Grabowski, endorsed the petition and recommended a handsome grant for three years, during which the young man was to visit Germany, France and Italy, but his superior, the Minister of the Interior, turned it down, with the observation, scrawled in the margin, that ‘Public funds cannot be frittered away on this kind of artist’.¹³

      The disappointment caused by the failure of this petition was soon forgotten in the excitement created by the arrival, a few weeks later, of the legendary violinist Niccolò Paganini. Chopin went to most of the ten concerts he gave in Warsaw, and was bowled over by the virtuosity of his playing. Paganini was the first musician to elevate his instrument from its traditional role within the orchestra or quartet, and Chopin can hardly have failed to draw parallels with what he was doing himself regarding the piano.

      Returning home after one of the concerts, Chopin composed a set of variations entitled Souvenir de Paganini. More important, he now set to work on a new idea of his own – of producing exercises that would help him draw a wider range of sound and greater expression from his chosen instrument. The first of these studies, or Études (nos. 8, 9, 10, and 11 of op.10), were written over the next six months, and with time they were to revolutionise his use of the piano.

      Paganini’s visit was followed by a series of concerts by the violinist Karol Lipiński, who had at one stage been regarded as one of Paganini’s principal rivals, but in Chopin’s view his concerts only underlined the superiority of the Italian’s genius. The same was true of the concerts given soon afterwards by the Hungarian pianist Stephen Heller; his playing was marked by a superior musical intelligence, but lacked the special qualities Chopin was beginning to look for.

      A more portentous event for Chopin was a concert organised by Carlo Soliva, the singing instructor at the Conservatoire, to show off his pupils. One of these, Konstancja Gładkowska, struck the young man not only by her fine voice, but also by her appearance. She was dark-haired and pretty, with a face that exuded melancholy rather than vivaciousness. Of her character, not much is known. Chopin was immediately smitten, but he was too shy to let this show, and made no attempt to attract her attention over the next few months.

      He was now faced by an important hurdle, in the shape of his final exams at the Conservatoire; Nicolas Chopin would certainly take note of the results and plan his son’s future accordingly. It is not known what form the exams took, but they were partly based on his work over the past three years. As he considered this, Elsner noted in his diary that Chopin had ‘opened a new era in piano music through his astonishing playing as well as through his compositions’.¹⁴ In the official verdict on the exams in the Conservatoire register, he was more categorical: ‘Chopin, Fryderyk; third year student. Outstanding abilities; musical genius.’¹⁵

      This would have been the logical moment for Chopin to set off on a foreign tour, but there seemed to be no way of financing it. The best he could do for the time being was to join a party of friends from the University who were going on a jaunt to Vienna. They left Warsaw immediately after the exams, on 21 July. On the way they visited the historic city of Kraków, and from there went on a couple of excursions, one down the Wieliczka salt mines, another through the scenic valley of Ojców. The cart they were travelling in got lost and then stuck in a stream, leaving them to wander for hours in the pouring rain before they found shelter and some straw for the night. That Chopin did not catch cold suggests that his health had improved considerably.

      The little party reached Vienna on the last day of July 1829, and Chopin took an immediate liking to the city. He saw several operas, by Boieldieu, Meyerbeer and Méhul, went to a number of concerts, and found perfection everywhere. He had mastered the reticence which had held him back in Berlin, and immediately took steps to get acquainted with the musical establishment. He called on Haslinger, the publisher to whom he had sent the scores of the La ci darem la mano Variations and the C minor Sonata; on his old friend and teacher Wilhelm Würfel, who had moved back to Vienna; and on a venerable Polish music-lover, Count Husarzewski. They in turn introduced him to others, including the venerable Ignaz Schuppanzigh, violinist and leader of the quartet which had performed all Beethoven’s chamber music for him; the two foremost piano-makers, Stein and Graf; and, most important, the director of the Kärntnerthor Theatre, Count Gallenberg.

      ‘I don’t know what it is, but all these Germans are amazed by me, and I am amazed at them being so amazed by me,’ Chopin wrote to his parents a few days after his arrival.¹⁶ Haslinger, who had probably put aside the score of the Variations by an unknown Pole without looking at it, changed his attitude radically when the young man sat down at the piano in his shop and played them through. He promised to publish them if Chopin agreed to play them in public, and the project was taken up with enthusiasm by others. Würfel believed that the Viennese public was ‘hungry for new music’, Husarzewski predicted a resounding success, and Count Gallenberg offered his theatre free if Chopin wished to give a concert. Chopin himself was irresolute, and feared that Elsner and his family might not approve, but let himself be persuaded.¹⁷

      The Kärntnerthor Theatre was booked for 11 August and, at Chopin’s request, a Graf piano provided. An orchestra was assembled, and a search made for others who might fill out the programme – all concerts at the time took the form of a succession of different artists performing in a variety of musical forms. There were problems at the rehearsal that afternoon, as the two pieces Chopin intended to play with the orchestra (the La ci darem la mano Variations and the Krakowiak Rondo) were written out in his usual careless way, and the disgruntled orchestra began to mutiny. They refused to play the Krakowiak, and it was only thanks to the diplomatic efforts of Tomasz Nidecki, whose travels had brought him to Vienna, that the concert took place at all. Nidecki made a clean copy of the scores of the Variations, which the orchestra eventually agreed to play. ‘At seven o’clock in the evening I made my appearance on the Imperial and Royal stage!’ Chopin wrote to his parents the following day.¹⁸

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