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Updated: May 31, 2025
The documents letters and newspaper advertisements and notices bearing on this period of Chopin's life are so plentiful that they tell the story without the help of many additions and explanatory notes. This is satisfactory, for one grain of fact is more precious than a bushel of guesses and hearsays. Chopin to Gutmann; London, 48, Dover Street, Piccadilly, Saturday, May 6, 1848:
Solf, the Colonial Minister; Sydow, Minister of Commerce; Dernburg; von Gwinner of the Deutsche Bank; Gutmann of the Dresdener Bank; Under Secretary von der Busche of the Foreign Office; the Mayor and the Police President of Berlin; the President of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce; Under Secretary von Stumm of the Foreign Office; and many others of that office.
The materials at my disposal are abundant and not less trustworthy than abundant. My account is based chiefly on the communications made to me by a number of the master's pupils notably, Madame Dubois, Madame Rubio, M. Mathias, and Gutmann and on Mikuli's excellent preface to his edition of Chopin's works.
Chopin died in this same Gutmann's arms, and, despite de Lenz, Gutmann was in evidence until his death as a "favorite pupil." And now we have reached the grandest oh, banal and abused word of Chopin's compositions, the Fantaisie in F minor, op. 49.
Gutmann informed me that Chopin was particularly fond of Hummel; Liszt writes that Hummel was one of the composers Chopin played again and again with the greatest pleasure; and from Mikuli we learn that of Hummel's compositions his master liked best the Fantasia, the Septet, and the Concertos.
On the other hand, Gutmann contradicted George Sand's remarks about the Preludes, saying that Chopin composed them before starting on his journey.
Franchomme, stating the case mildly, says that Chopin did not care much for Mendelssohn's music; Gutmann, however, declared stoutly that his master positively disliked it and thought it COMMON. This word and the mention of the Trio remind me of a passage in Hiller's "Mendelssohn: Letters and Recollections," in which the author relates how, when his friend played to him the D minor Trio after its completion, he was favourably impressed by the fire, spirit, and flow, in one word, the masterly character of the work, but had some misgivings about certain pianoforte passages, especially those based on broken chords, which, accustomed as he was by his constant intercourse with Liszt and Chopin during his stay of several years in Paris to the rich passage work of the new school, appeared to him old-fashioned.
If Fontana, Wolff, Gutmann, Mikuli and Tellefsen, who copied from the original Chopin manuscripts under the supervision of the composer, cannot agree, then upon what foundation are reared the structures of the modern critical editions? The early French, German and Polish editions are faulty, indeed useless, because of misprints and errata of all kinds.
Indeed, Chopin was described to me by his pupil Gutmann as feminine in looks, gestures, and taste; as to George Sand, although many may be unwilling to admit her perfect gentlemanliness, no one can doubt her manliness:
When I mentioned to him that Fontana had made a statement irreconcilable with his, and suggested that Chopin might have composed some of the Preludes in Majorca, Gutmann maintained firmly that every one of them was composed previously, and that he himself had copied them.
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