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Updated: May 17, 2025
It was an act of bravado on my part to attempt to play the piano in the mood in which I found myself; and that I should have begun the opening phrase of Chopin's first Ballade, that composition so laden with formidable memories begun it without thinking and without apprehension showed how far I had lost my self-control.
Although not an enthusiastic admirer of Chopin's Tarantelle, I protest in the interest of the composer and for justice's sake against Schumann's dictum: "Nobody can call that beautiful music; but we pardon the master his wild fantasies, for once he may let us see also the dark sides of his inner life."
Sand was antipathetic to Chopin but her technique for overcoming masculine coyness was as remarkable in its particular fashion as Chopin's proficiency at the keyboard. They were soon seen together, and everywhere. She was not musical, not a trained musician, but her appreciation for all art forms was highly sympathetic.
Niecks devotes an engrossing chapter to the public accounts and the general style of Chopin's playing; of this more hereafter. From 1843 to 1847 Chopin taught, and spent the vacations at Nohant, to which charming retreat Liszt, Matthew Arnold, Delacroix, Charles Rollinat and many others came. His life was apparently happy.
O'Meara accompanied by her master played his E minor Concerto at a soiree of Madame de Courbonne, proceeds thus: Mdlle. Meara is a pupil of Chopin's. He was there, he was present at the triumph of his pupil, the anxious audience asked itself: "Shall we hear him?"
Chopin, as I have already said, is most national in the mazurkas and polonaises, for the former of which he draws not only inspiration, but even rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic motives from his country's folk-music. Liszt told me, in a conversation I had with him, that he did not care much for Chopin's mazurkas. "One often meets in them with bars which might just as well be in another place."
If so, there is no reason why I should hesitate to tell you that while I was playing one of Chopin's Nocturnes the significance of the Polish 'Zäl' perplexed me. In striving to analyze it, Coleridge's 'Melancholy' occurred to my mind, and teased and haunted me until I wrought it out palpably.
To escape once more from this, she walked to the piano, opened it, and let her fingers stray over the keys. She had not touched a piano for many weeks, consequently her fingers were stiff and awkward; but in a few minutes they got back something of their old proficiency: almost unconsciously, she strayed into an Andante of Chopin's.
Moscheles, a great pianist in an age of great players, gave it up in despair, and confessed that he could not play Chopin's music. The latter teaches the fingers to serve his own artistic uses, without regard to the notions of the schools. It is said that M. Kalkbrenner advised Chopin to attend his classes at the Paris Conservatoire, that the latter might learn the proper fingering.
Before Chopin modernized pianoforte music the world's greatest composers had been Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen. Chopin's father was a Frenchman, but his mother was a native of Poland, and he was born in that country. In this brief sketch only the greatest names can be considered, such names as Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, Dvorák, Grieg.
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