Chopin's Letter to Tytus Woyciechowski
Paris, December 12, 18
My dearest.
I felt reborn as soon as I received your letter. Your wound! Various news has reached me, and I have given various explanations (in my own way) to the expressions in the letters I received from home. Kot, who wrote to me, expressed himself so strangely that I was afraid of the thoughts that crowded my mind. Nonetheless, we shall meet again in this life! What changes, what misery, who could have ever predicted it. Do you remember the nocturnal advice, in Vienna, on the eve of your departure! The wind has pushed me here; one breathes sweetly but perhaps also sighs more, because it is easy to do so. Paris is everything you want: you can have fun, be bored, laugh, cry, do everything you like, and no one notices you, because here there are thousands of people doing the same things, each in their own way. Besides, I don't know where there are more pianists than in Paris; I don't know where there are more donkeys and more virtuosos than here.
You must know that I arrived here with very few recommendations. Malfatti gave me a letter for Paer, I had some other letter in Vienna for the publishers, and that is all. But only in Stuttgart, when I received the news of the capture of Warsaw, did I definitively decide to depart for this other world. Through Paer, who is the Kapelmeister of the palace here, I met Rossini, Cherubini etc., Baillot etc. Also through him, I met Kalkbrenner. You will not believe how curious I was to meet Herz, Liszt, Hiller etc., but they are all a zero compared to Kalkbrenner. I confess that I played like Herz, but I would like to play like Kalkbrenner. If Paganini is perfection, Kalkbrenner corresponds to him, but in an entirely different genre. It is difficult to describe to you his "Kalm", his fascinating touch, the unheard-of equality and mastery that emerge from every note: he is a giant who crushes the Herz, the Czerny etc., and even me. So what happened then? Having been introduced to Kalkbrenner, he asks me to play something for him. Whether I liked it or not, having not heard him before, but knowing how Herz plays, I set aside my pride and sat down. I played my Concerto in E minor, which the Rhinelanders Lindpaintner, Berg, Stuntz, Schunke and all of Bavaria no longer knew how to praise. I surprised Mr. Kalkbrenner, who immediately asked me if I am a pupil of Field (of this I was very glad), and even more so when Kalkbrenner, wanting to make himself admired, sat at the piano, made a mistake, and had to stop! But then, one had to hear how he recovered; I would never have thought such a thing. Since that moment we see each other daily, either he comes to me or I go to him and, after getting to know me well, he now proposes that I study with him, for three years, to thus make of me, in his words, something very, very [great]. I replied to him that I know how much I miss it, but that I do not want to imitate him and three years are too many. In the meantime, he convinced me that I can play very well if I am inspired, and very badly if I am not, which never happens to me... He told me, after observing me more closely, that I have no school, that I am on a good path but could deviate from it. That there will be no more representative of the great pianistic school after his death, or when he has definitively stopped playing. That I cannot, even if I wanted to, build a new school without knowing the old one; in short, that I am not a perfect machine, and that this thus hinders the unfolding of my thoughts. That I am original in what I compose, and it would be a pity if I did not become what I promise etc.etc. Furthermore, if you were here, you yourself would say "learn boy, while there is still time". Many have advised me against it, believing that I can play as well as he does, that he does all this out of pride, to be able to call me his pupil later etc.etc. It is all nonsense. One must know that everyone here, everyone, has esteem for Kalkbrenner's talent—but equally they cannot stand him as a person, because he does not give confidence to the first imbecile who presents himself; but it is true, like my affection for you, which is superior to all those I have heard. I have written about all this to my parents, and they seem to agree. But to Elsner, Kalkbrenner's judgments seem dictated by envy. Despite this (you must know that I already have a great reputation among artists), I will give a concert on December 25th. Baillot, that famous rival of Paganini, will play there; Brodt, the famous oboist, too; I will interpret my F minor and the Variations in B-flat major, upon which, coming from Cassel, I received from a German (enthusiastic about these Variations) a ten-page review, in which after enormous prefaces
it enters into the examination of the piece bar by bar, explaining that they are not variations like all others, but that it is a
a sort of fantastic tableau. Regarding the second variation, he says that Don Giovanni runs with Leporello; regarding the third, that he embraces Zerlina while Masetto (in the bass part) grows angry, and in the Adagio, on the fifth measure, he says that Don Giovanni kisses Zerlina on the B-flat. Plater asked me yesterday where Zerlina had that B-flat, etc. It is enough to die for the fantasy of this German, who is stubborn because his brother-in-law wants to bring this article to Fétis of the "Revue Musicale". Good Hiller, a boy of great talent (former pupil of Hummel, whose Concerto the day before yesterday and Symphony had a great effect, is a Beethovenian type man, but full of poetry, fire, and spirit) has laboriously defended me, telling that gentleman brother-in-law that this proposal, instead of being wise, was very stupid. But let us return to my concert. Besides the rest, I will play with Kalkbrenner on two pianos, with four others for accompaniment, his Marcia suivie d'une Polonaise. It is a mad idea. One is an enormous pantaleone, and it is Kalkbrenner's prerogative; the other is a small upright monocorde, but as sonorous as a series of little bells, and this one is for me; the other four are large and act as the orchestra. They will be played by Hiller, Osborn, Stamaty, and Sowinski. The latter does not even come close to tying the shoes of good old Alex (whose pupil I met here). He has no brains, only good looks and heart. Norblin, Vidal, the famous violist Urhan (never heard anything like it) are helping me. There is the possibility of selling the tickets. The most difficult thing was finding a singer. Rossini would have allowed an Opéra singer to sing at this concert if he could have acted without the consent of Mr. Robert, the second director, who did not want to be threatened in the future by two hundred or three hundred similar requests. But so far I have written nothing to the Opéra. I have never heard the Barber performed like last week by Lablache, Rubini, and Malibran (Garcia). Nor have I ever heard Otello sung as by Rubini, Pasta, and Lablache, nor L'Italiana sung as by Rubini, Lablache, and Mme Raimbeaux. As never before, now in Paris I have everything. You cannot imagine what Lablache is! They say that Pasta has declined a little, but I had not yet seen anything more sublime. Malibran fascinates with her wonderful voice, and sings like no one else. Marvelous! Marvelous! Rubini is a perfect tenor; he takes the notes in full voice, never in falsetto, and sometimes trills for two hours (but sometimes he over-embellishes and deliberately vibrates his voice; furthermore, he executes endless trills, which nevertheless earns him the greatest applause). His mezza voce is incomparable; it is the Schroder-Devrient—but she does not cause great sensations as in Germany. Malibran interpreted the role of Otello, and she that of Desdemona. Malibran is small, the German one enormous; it seemed as if Desdemona was strangling Otello. It was an expensive performance (twenty-four francs for all seats) to see a dark Malibran who did not sing very well in that role.
They must perform Le Pirate and La Sonnambula, etc. Pasta has already left; they say she will not sing anymore. The orchestra is wonderful, but on another level compared to the true French Opéra (the "Académie Royale"). If there has ever been splendor in the theater, I do not know if it reached the degree of magnificence of Robert le Diable, the very latest opera in five acts by Meyerbeer, the author of Le Croisé. It is the masterpiece of the new school, in which the devils (enormous choruses) sing through tubes, souls rise from graves, but not like in Le Charlatan, rather in groups of fifty or sixty. The theater is a diorama in which at the bottom one sees the interior of a church and the whole church illuminated for Christmas or Easter with monks and all the faithful on the pews, with incense; and above all there is the organ, whose sound on stage fascinates and surprises, and covers almost the entire orchestra. They will never be able to represent anything like it anywhere again. Meyerbeer has immortalized himself! But he was in Paris three years before being able to perform it, and they say he spent twenty thousand francs on the actors. Even Cinti-Damoreau sings perfectly, as well as can be; I prefer her singing to Malibran's. Malibran surprises, Cinti enchants and executes chromatic scales better than Tulon, the famous flautist. One cannot have a more perfected voice, and she exerts so little effort that she seems not to notice the audience. Nourrit, the French tenor, has an amazing feeling. And Cholet at the Opéra Comique, where they perform Fra Diavolo, La Fiancée, and Zampa (the new, beautiful opera by Hérold), is the lover, the seducer; he irritates and fascinates, he is a genius with a voice truly suited to romances. He has created a genre for himself. At the Opéra Comique they are now performing Marquise de Brinvilliers, a hag who poisoned people in the times of Louis XIV or XV. The music is the work of eight authors:
Cherubini, Paer, Berton, Herold, Auber, Baton, Blanguini and Caraffa. I think it will be difficult to find any company more beautiful for a concert!
Write to me what you think; however, you will then have to recognize that I am not a fool, nor do I wish to fall into the ridiculous. Pixis has great respect for me, both for how I play and because he is jealous of his girlfriend, who looks at me better than she looks at him! Write to me for pity's sake or come here; yours until death and, perhaps, see you soon.
The old Potier is excellent! The young one and Herwet are here. Also Evra and Tiery, and Filés, but I haven't seen them. I live at 27 Boulevard Poissonière, but you didn't give me your address; I had to ask Wodzinski for it. Pleyel pianos are the non plus ultra. Among the Poles, I most often see Kunasik, Morawski, Niemojowski, Lelewel, Plichta; the rest is an enormous group of imbeciles. One often goes to Miss Jaczorek's, but nothing more. And she is a beautiful young lady. Oleszczynski intends to make my portrait with a burin. I visited Tyszkiewiczowa the day before yesterday with Brykczynski, but Poniatowski was not there yet; today I am going to Montebello. If it hadn't been for the Wodzinskis, I wouldn't have known your address, you with your head in the clouds. The Wodzinskis are waiting for you here; I would like to see you even just a few times, because I almost go mad with nostalgia, especially when it rains. Miss Gladkowska married Grabowski, but that does not prevent platonic affections. Baillot has just arrived. I seal the letter. Love me.
I cannot finish without telling you my little scene with Pixis. Imagine, he has a young lady with him, a very pretty fifteen-year-old, whom (as he says) he thinks of marrying, and whom I had already met in Stuttgart when going to see him. Pixis, arriving here, invites me to his house without saying (fearing that perhaps I would come to visit him more quickly) that this young lady of his, whom I had already forgotten, had come with him. He asks me to visit him, so I am going during the week. And there it is: on the stairs, showing great joy, he meets his young pupil, invites me up, and it doesn't matter at all that Mr. Pixis is not there; he asks me to rest, Pixis would arrive shortly etc. (A certain tremor takes us both). I apologize, knowing that the old man is jealous, saying I would come another time etc.; meanwhile, while we are on the stairs so tenderly, with innocent hearts and great kindness discussing, little Pixisko arrives, looks (as Soliva does) through thick glasses at who there at the top was conversing with his beauty, and hurrying his pace, the poor wretch stops behind me, then says brusquely: "Bonjour" and to her: "Que ce que vous faites ici?". A phrase followed by an enormous jeremiad of all colors about how she dares to receive young men in his absence. I too, smiling (and with an innocent air), agree with Pixis and point out that she left the room dressed so lightly (in a simple silk dress) etc. Until the old man, restrained and seething, took me by the arm and led me into the drawing room; he didn't know where to seat me for fear (that, getting angry when he was not home, I would trick him or rather trick him out of his pupil). He then accompanied me back to the stairs, and seeing that I was still laughing a little to myself (I could not hide the contentment I felt for the first time from the fact that people might judge me capable of something like that), he went (I saw him) to the housekeeper to ask if it had been a long time since I had gone up the stairs etc. Since then, Pixis does not cease to praise my talent profusely before all publishers, in particular Schlesinger, who has proposed that I write something on the themes of Robert le Diable, which he bought from Meyerbeer for twenty-four thousand francs! What do you think? Me, a seducer!
F.Chopin