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Philipp's collection is published in Paris by J. Hamelle, and is prefixed by some interesting remarks of Georges Mathias. Chopin's portrait in 1833, after Vigneron, is included. One composition more is to be considered. In 1837 Chopin contributed the sixth variation of the march from "I Puritani." These variations were published under the title: "Hexameron: Morceau de Concert.
New fields of thought were opened, a passion for literature was excited, and translations, chiefly from the German, were multiplied; a knowledge of the classics was cultivated, and, in time, a noble harvest of literature followed. His chief work was the "Hexameron," or "The World's First Week." It abounds with learning, and displays great poetic beauty.
Here and there some poets gleamed, dully and coldly: the African Dracontius with his Hexameron, Claudius Memertius, with his liturgical poetry; Avitus of Vienne; then, the biographers like Ennodius, who narrates the prodigies of that perspicacious and venerated diplomat, Saint Epiphanius, the upright and vigilant pastor; or like Eugippus, who tells of the life of Saint Severin, that mysterious hermit and humble ascetic who appeared like an angel of grace to the distressed people, mad with suffering and fear; writers like Veranius of Gevaudan who prepared a little treatise on continence; like Aurelianus and Ferreolus who compiled the ecclesiastical canons; historians like Rotherius, famous for a lost history of the Huns.
This passage, however, is not to be found in the Hexameron of either Basilius or Ambrositis, from which it is quoted; neither is it in the oration on Paradise by the former, nor in the letter on the same subject written by Ambrosius to Ainbrosins Sabinus. It must be a misquotation by Glanville.
Other matters, however, have to be adverted to before we come to this passage of Chopin's life. First I shall have to say a few words about his artistic activity during the years 1837 and 1838. Among the works composed by Chopin in 1837 was one of the Variations on the March from I Puritani, which were published under the title Hexameron: Morceau de Concert.
Ambrose saith the same in the Hexameron: Of the humours or ashes of phoenix ariseth a new bird and waxeth, and in space of time he is clothed with feathers and wings and restored into the kind of a bird, and is the most fairest bird that is, most like to the peacock in feathers, and loveth the wilderness, and gathereth his meat of clean grains and fruits.
His pupil, Moriz Rosenthal, is the only modern virtuoso who plays the Hexameron in his concerts, and play it he does with overwhelming splendor. Chopin's contribution in E major is in his sentimental, salon mood. Musically, it is the most impressive of this extraordinary mastodonic survival of the "pianistic" past.
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