Chopin. Adam Zamoyski

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       FOUR Adolescent Passions

      Chopin had an unpleasant surprise when he reached Warsaw on 12 September. The Warsaw Courier had somehow managed to misconstrue the reviews of his concerts and had published what amounted to an unfavourable account of his Viennese triumph. He was able to show his friends the original versions, but it was too late to scotch the general impression of failure which had attached itself to his trip.¹

      This only made Warsaw seem more provincial, and he could not even take solace in the sympathy of his friends. Białobłocki had died, Tytus Woyciechowski had retired to the country to look after his estate, others had gone abroad or, like Matuszyński and Fontana, were working hard at their university studies. Chopin had nothing to do, as he had finished his education and was waiting for the opportunity to begin his travels. As before, the main obstacle was lack of money. While he had been in Vienna, the rest of his family had paid a visit to Prince Antoni Radziwiłł at his summer residence of Antonin, and the consequence of this was an invitation for Chopin to spend the season in Berlin with the Prince. But he was not keen on the idea. Berlin had seemed provincial to him, and he longed for Vienna, Italy and Paris. He must have also considered the possibility of visiting England, for he was now, along with Julian Fontana, taking English lessons – from an Irishman called Macartney, who was usually drunk and trying to borrow cash from the two boys.²

      Chopin struggled on with his F minor Concerto (op.21, usually referred to as no.2, although it was the first he wrote) and with the first set of Études. He went to every performance at the opera and to every concert, however uninspiring, and spent much time at Brzezina’s music shop. Like all similar establishments, this was a cross between a shop and a drawing room, with something of the atmosphere of a coffee house thrown in. People interested in music would drop in, see what had arrived from abroad, browse, play pieces through on the piano, and discuss musical topics. Chopin and other musicians used to meet on given days at the rooms of Joseph Kessler, formerly pianist to Count Potocki at Łańcut and now a music teacher in Warsaw. What they played depended on who turned up with what instruments. This way they managed to play through many chamber works that autumn, including pieces by Spohr and Hummel, and a Trio by Beethoven. ‘I have not heard anything quite so great for a long time – in this piece Beethoven makes fools of us all,’ Chopin wrote afterwards to Tytus Woyciechowski.³

      Now that Chopin had time on his hands, he entered into the life of the city to a greater extent, and frequented the coffee houses and other haunts of the young intelligentsia, who were in a state of political ferment. The death of Tsar Alexander I in 1825 and the accession of his brother Nicholas I to the throne had altered the political climate in Poland. While all but the most radical had been prepared to accept the Russian hegemony under Alexander, this was becoming extremely difficult under the increasingly autocratic rule of his successor. Chopin’s generation grew restive as it watched the constitution violated, books censored and manifestations of national feeling suppressed, and by the end of 1829 there was a palpable spirit of rebellion. Coffee houses such as Brzezińska’s, which Chopin frequented for coffee in the daytime and punch in the evenings, were the scene of fervent discussions and conspiratorial activity.

      But while he was with his generation in spirit, Chopin was not interested in politics, and his closest companions were not revolutionaries but poets. Some, like Stefan Witwicki and Bohdan Zaleski, were also caught up in the nationalist movement, although the one he liked best, Dominik Magnuszewski, was an erratic dilettante poet and amateur musician with a melancholy bent and a sense of alienation from his contemporaries. But from Chopin’s letters to Tytus it is clear that he never developed real intimacy with any of them. ‘You cannot imagine how much I lack something in Warsaw now,’ he wrote. ‘I haven’t got anyone I can say two words to, anyone I can confide in.’⁴ He had a great deal he wished to confide, as he was still nurturing a secret love for Konstancja Gładkowska.

      Throughout his childhood and teens Chopin had found the process of musical composition relatively effortless, and he had always been relaxed in his relations with others. Now, at the age of nineteen, he was finding it difficult to fulfil himself either artistically or emotionally, and the resulting sense of frustration pervades his letters. This makes it more difficult to assess his real feelings towards Konstancja, as they are inextricably bound up with that frustration whenever he touches on them. She certainly had no idea of what was going through the composer’s mind, and carried on flirting with a couple of officers less bashful than Chopin. The presence on the scene of these strapping young bloods only served to underline his sense of his own physical shortcomings. His reaction was to withdraw into himself and wallow in self-pity.

      In October, Chopin’s sombre thoughts were dispelled by a pleasant distraction. He had been asked down to the country by his godmother, Mrs Wiesiołowska, née Skarbek, whose estate lay close to Prince Radziwiłł’s Antonin, and although he was originally unenthusiastic about the idea, he did go on to stay at Antonin afterwards. He had a delightful sojourn in this ‘paradise’ with its two ‘Eves’, the young princesses, who managed to chase all thoughts of Konstancja from his head. The Prince was charming to him and showed him his own music, amongst which was an accompaniment to Goethe’s Faust which Chopin found surprisingly good.⁵ As well as talking music they made music, for the Prince was a good cellist. Chopin wrote a Polonaise for piano and cello specially for him and his daughter to play. ‘It is nothing but glitter, for the drawing room, for the ladies,’ he explained to Tytus. ‘I wanted Princess Wanda to learn to play it; I’m vaguely supposed to be giving her some lessons while I’m here. She’s young (seventeen), pretty, and it’s a real joy placing her little fingers on the keys.’ He always warmed to anything delicate, pretty and refined. ‘I could have stayed there until I was thrown out,’ he later wrote, but he soon returned to Warsaw, having promised to join the Radziwiłłs in Berlin in May 1830, which he hoped would give him time for another visit to Vienna first. Nothing was to come of these plans.⁶

      Try as he might, he still could not get his F minor Concerto finished. He was in the ridiculous situation of being in demand and not being able to come up with the required works. On 6 December, his father’s name day, he arranged a concert in the Chopin apartment, with the participation of Żywny and Elsner, and on 19 December he took part in a public concert at the Merchants’ Club, at which he improvised so brilliantly that he was hailed in the papers as never before. The Polish press, which had largely ignored his existence until now, seems at last to have realised the importance of this national poet of the keyboard. ‘Mr Chopin’s works unquestionably bear the stamp of genius,’ concluded the Warsaw Courier; ‘among them is said to be a concerto in F minor, and it is hoped that he will not delay any longer in confirming our conviction that Poland too can produce great talent.’⁷

      But the F minor Concerto was still unfinished, and it was not until 3 March 1830 that he was able to perform it. On that day he made up a small orchestra in the Chopin drawing room, and played the concerto, with Kurpiński conducting. The newspapers reviewed the concert as though it had been a public event, for there had been a select audience present. The Warsaw Courier described Chopin as the ‘Paganini of the piano’,⁸ СКАЧАТЬ