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Gotthard had been deceived, that the manuscript was not a genuine autograph, and 'that the honour of having composed the mazurka in question belongs to Charles Mayer. Mr. Pauer further adds: 'It is not likely that C. Mayer, even if Chopin had made him a present of this mazurka, would have published it during Chopin's lifetime as a work of his own, or have sold or given it to the Polish countess.
Indeed, if George Sand's surroundings and Chopin's character and tastes are kept in view nothing seems to be more probable than that his over-delicate susceptibilities may have occasionally been shocked by unrestrained vivacity, loud laughter, and perhaps even coarse words; that his uncompromising idealism may have been disturbed by the discordance of literary squabbles, intrigues, and business transactions; that his peaceable, non-speculative, and non- argumentative disposition may have been vexed and wearied by discussions of political, social, religious, literary, and artistic problems.
On Chopin's death Liszt sprang into print with a rhapsody which led Fontana to defer his work. At his death in 1869 he left it unfinished, bequeathing his documents to his son, who permitted Hoesick the use of them. Hoesick blames Chopin's notable melancholy to early experiences of love requited, indeed, but not united in marriage. His love was as rathe as his music.
She was a good musician and had the well-taught executant's certainty and grace of movement. It may be the fancy of an outer Philistine, but I love to forget the existence of the instrument and to feel the music coming from the human finger-tips. She found a volume of Chopin's Nocturnes on the rest. In fact she had left it there a fortnight before, the last time she had played for me.
An account of the concert in La France musicale of May 2, 1841, contained a general characterisation of Chopin's artistic position with regard to the public coinciding with that given by Liszt, but the following excerpts from the other parts of the article may not be unacceptable to the reader: We spoke of Schubert because there is no other nature which has a more complete analogy with him.
At others, he would simply go and lie on the loud pedal, and we never could tell whether it was from sentiment, or because he thought that in this way he heard less. At one special Nocturne of Chopin's he always whimpered. He was, indeed, of rather Polish temperament very gay when he was gay, dark and brooding when he was not.
Chopin's transcendental scheme of technics is the image of a supernormal lift in composition. He sometimes robs music of its corporeal vesture and his transcendentalism lies not alone in his striving after strange tonalities and rhythms, but in seeking the emotionally recondite.
It was a chivalrous but not an amorous dance, precedence being given to age and rank, before youth and beauty. And whereas, in other dances, the place of honor is always given to the fair sex, in the polonaise the men are in the foreground. In a word, the polonaise represents, both in its subject and the style of music, the masculine side of Chopin's genius.
It must be remembered that with the studies, while they completely exhibit the entire range of Chopin's genius, the play's the thing after all. The poetry, the passion of the Ballades and Scherzi wind throughout these technical problems like a flaming skein. With the modern avidity for exterior as well as interior analysis, Mikuli, Reinecke, Mertke and Scholtz evidence little sympathy.
Having touched on these phases of Chopin's life at some length in a previous volume of this series, we must reluctantly pass them by. In closing this imperfect review of the Polish composer, it is enough to say that the present generation has more than sustained the judgment of his own as to the unique and wonderful beauty of his compositions.
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