Chapter 3

The world suffered a great loss when a band of ignorant soldiers found the bundles of letters which Chopin had written from Paris to his parents, and used them to feed the fire which cooked their supper. But it lost a still greater treasure when Chopin tore up the manuscript of his pianoforte method, which he began to write in the last years of his life, but never finished. In it he would no doubt have given many valuable hints regarding the correct use of the _rubato_. In the absence of other authentic hints beyond the one just quoted, Liszt must be depended upon as the best authority on the subject; for it is well known that Liszt could imitate Chopin so nicely that his most intimate friends were once deceived in a dark room, imagining that Chopin was playing when Liszt was at the piano. "Chopin," Liszt writes, "was the first who introduced into his compositions that peculiarity which gave such a unique color to his impetuosity, and which he called _tempo rubato_:--an irregularly interrupted movement, subtile, broken, and languishing, at the same time flickering like a flame in the wind, undulating, like the surface of a wheat-field, like the tree-tops moved by a breeze." All his compositions must be played in this peculiarly accented, spasmodic, insinuating style, a style which he succeeded in imparting to his pupils, but which can hardly be taught without example. As with the pedal, so with the _rubato_, Chopin often neglected to mark its use in later years, taking it for granted that those who understood his works would know where to apply it.

Perhaps the importance of the _rubato_ in Chopin cannot be more readily realized than by his concession that he could never play a Viennese waltz properly, and by the fact that sometimes, when he was in a jocular mood, he would play one of his mazurkas in strict, metronomic time, to the great amusement of those who had heard him play them properly.

When Liszt speaks of the _tempo rubato_ as a unique characteristic of Chopin's style, he must not be understood too literally. As a matter of fact, the _rubato_ is too important an element of expression not to have been partially anticipated in the works of some of Chopin's predecessors, just as Wagner's leading motives had imperfect prototypes in the works of some preceding composers. As early as 1602, the Italian, Caccini, describes what he calls the "Stile Nobile, in which the singer," he says, "emancipates himself from the fetters of the measure, by prolonging or diminishing the duration of a note by one-half, according as the sense of the word requires it." But it is probable that the Italian singers of that period, as to-day, used this kind of _rubato_ merely to display the beauty of their voice on a loud high note, and not, like Chopin, for the sake of emphasizing a pathetic or otherwise expressive note or chord.

Of the Germans it may be said that, as a rule, they had, until recently, no special liking for the _tempo rubato_. Dr. Hanslick, the eminent Viennese critic, referred to it thirty years ago, as "a morbid unsteadiness of _tempo_." Mendelssohn, who always liked a "nice, swift _tempo_," repeatedly expressed his aversion to Chopin's _rubato_. Nevertheless, traces of it may be found in the rhythms of the classical school. Although Mozart's _tempo_ in general was as strict and uniform as that of a waltz in the ball-room, in playing an adagio he appears to have allowed his left hand some freedom of movement for the sake of expression (see Jahn I., 134). Beethoven, according to Seyfried, "was very particular at rehearsals about the frequent passages in _tempo rubato_;" and there are other remarks by contemporaries of Beethoven which indicate that although he wrote in the classical style, in his playing and conducting he often introduced a romantic _rubato_. Still, in the majority of his compositions, there is no room for the _rubato_, which cannot be said to have found a home in German music till it was assimilated by the Schumann school, under the influence of Chopin. Since then, it has leavened the spirit of modern music in a manner which has never been sufficiently emphasized. I am convinced that even Richard Wagner was, unconsciously, influenced by it through Liszt; for one of the chief peculiarities of his style is a sort of dramatic _rubato_ which emancipates his music from the tyranny of the strict dance measure. In his essay on the proper interpretation of Tannhäuser, Wagner declares that the division of music into regular measures, or bars, is merely a mechanical means for enabling the composer to convey his ideas to the singer. As soon as the singer has grasped the idea, he says, the bar should be thrown aside as a useless incumbrance, and the singer, ignoring strict time, should be guided by his feelings alone, while the conductor should follow and preserve harmony between him and the orchestra.

It might be said that this dramatic _rubato_ is something different from Chopin's _rubato_. _Rubato_ literally means "robbed," and it is generally supposed that the peculiarity of Chopin's style consisted simply in this, that he prolonged certain notes in a bar at the expense of the others--robbing from one what he gave to his neighbor. But this is a very inadequate conception of the term. Chopin's _rubato_ means much more than this. It includes, to a large extent, the frequent unexpected changes of time and rhythm, together with the _ritardandos_ and _accelerandos_. It includes, secondly, those unique passages, first conceived by Chopin, where the right hand has to play irregular groups of small notes--say twenty-two, while the left hand plays only twelve; or nineteen, while the left plays four--passages in which Chopin indicated as clearly as Wagner did in the words just quoted that the musical bar is a mere mechanical measure which does not sufficiently indicate the phrasing of the romantic or dramatic ideas that lie beyond the walls of a dance-hall.

There is a third peculiarity of Chopin's style which may be included under the name of _rubato_, namely, his habit of "robbing" the note, not of its duration, but its _accent_. Every student of music knows that the symphony and sonata are called "idealized dance forms," because they are direct outgrowths of the dances that were cultivated originally in Italy, France, and Germany. Now, one peculiarity of these dances is the fact that the accent always falls on the first beat of each bar. This is very appropriate and convenient for dancing, but from an artistic point of view, it is decidedly monotonous. Hence, Chopin conferred a vast benefit on modern art by introducing the spirit of Slavic music, in which the accent often falls on other beats beside the first. These regular accents produce the effect of the variable _tempo rubato_, and it is to them that Chopin's works largely owe their exotic, poetic color. As they open up new possibilities of emotional expression, they have been eagerly appropriated by other composers and have leavened all modern music. To Chopin, therefore, chiefly belongs the honor of having emancipated music from the monotony of the Western European dance-beat by means of the _tempo rubato_ in its varied aspects.

But, it was not merely in the accent of the dance forms, that he introduced an agreeable innovation; he was one of the giants who helped to create a new epoch in art, by breaking these old forms altogether, and substituting new ones better suited to modern tastes. And here we come across one of the most ludicrous misconceptions which have been fostered concerning Chopin by shallow critics, and which brings us back again for a moment to the question of Jumboism. I do not know whether he was a German or a French critic who first wrote that Chopin, although great in short pieces, was not great enough to master the sonata form. Once in print, this silly opinion was repeated parrot-like by scores of other critics. _How_ silly it is may be inferred from the fact that such third-rate composerlings as Herz and Hummel were able to write sonatas of the most approved pattern--and that, in fact, _any_ person with the least musical talent can learn in a few years to write sonatas that are absolutely correct as regards form. And yet we are asked to believe that Chopin, one of the most profound and original musical thinkers the world has ever seen, could not write a correct sonata! _Risum teneatis amici_! Chopin not able to master the sonata form? The fact is, _the sonata form could not master him_. He felt instinctively that it was too artificial to serve as a vehicle for the expression of poetic thought; and his thoroughly original genius therefore created the more plastic and malleable shorter forms which have since been adopted by composers the world over. The few sonatas which Chopin wrote do not deviate essentially from the orthodox structure, but one feels constantly that he was hampered in his movements by the artificial structure. Though they are full of genius, like everything he composed, he did not write them _con amore_. Concentration is one of Chopin's principal characteristics, and the sonata favors diffuseness. Too much thematic beating out is the bane of the sonata. A few bars of gold are worth more than many square yards of gold leaf; and Chopin's bars are solid gold. Moreover, there is no organic unity between the different parts of the sonata, whatever may have been said to the contrary. The essentially artificial character of the sonata is neatly illustrated by a simile used by Dr. Hanslick in speaking of Chopin. "This composer," he said, "although highly and peculiarly gifted, was never able to unite the fragrant flowers which he scattered by handfuls, into beautiful wreaths." Dr. Hanslick intends this as censure. I regard it as the greatest compliment he could have paid him. A wreath may be very pretty in its way, but it is artificial. The flowers are crushed and their fragrance does not blend. How much lovelier is a single violet or orchid in the fields, unhampered by strings and wires, and connected solely with its stalk and the surrounding green leaves. Many of Chopin's compositions are so short that they can hardly be likened unto flowers, but only to buds. Yet is not a rosebud a thousand times more beautiful than a full-blown rose?

One more consideration. The psychology of the sonata form is false. Men and women do not feel happy for ten minutes as in the opening allegro of a sonata, then melancholy for another ten minutes, as in the following adagio, then frisky, as in the scherzo, and finally, fiery and impetuous for ten minutes as in the finale. The movements of our minds are seldom so systematic as this. Sad and happy thoughts and moods chase one another incessantly and irregularly, as they do in the compositions of Chopin, which, therefore, are much truer echoes of our modern romantic feelings than the stiff and formal classical sonatas. And thus it is, that Chopin's habitual neglect of the sonata form, instead of being a defect, reveals his rare artistic subtlety and grandeur. It was natural that a Pole should vindicate for music this emotional freedom of movement, for the Slavic mind is especially prone to constant changes of mood. Nevertheless, as soon as Chopin had shown the way, other composers followed eagerly in the new path, and in the present day the sonata may be regarded as obsolete. Few contemporary composers have written more than one or two--merely in order to show that they can do so if they want to; and even Brahms, the high priest of the conservatives, has, in his later period, devoted himself more and more exclusively to shorter modern forms in his pianoforte music.

Strictly speaking, Chopin was not the first who tried to get away from the sonata. Beethoven, though he remained faithful to it, felt its fetters, as is shown by his numerous poetic licenses. Schubert wrote "Moments Musicals," Mendelssohn, "Songs without Words," Weber, Polonaises, and Field, Nocturnes. But these were merely straws which indicated in which direction Chopin's genius would sweep the field and clear the musical atmosphere. His polonaises and nocturnes are vastly superior to those of Weber and Field; and his poetic preludes, his romantic ballads, his lovely berçeuse, his amorous mazurkas, are new types in art which have often been imitated but never equalled. Only in one field did Chopin have a dangerous rival among his predecessors, namely, in the Waltz. Weber's "Invitation to the Dance" is the source of the modern idealized waltz, because it was not written for the feet alone, but also for the heart and the imagination. Like Chopin's waltzes, it contains chivalrous passages, amorous episodes, and subtle changes of movement. And it seems as if the fact that there was less room for formal and emotional innovations in the waltz than in the other forms, had somewhat affected Chopin's imagination. For, although the most popular of his works, his waltzes are, with a few exceptions in which the _rubato_ prevails, less characteristic than his other pieces. Nevertheless, they are charming, every one of them. But they are fairy dances--mortals are too clumsy to keep time to them.

Next to the waltzes in popularity come the polonaises; and they fully deserve their popularity. Liszt has given us a charming description of the polonaise as it was formerly danced in Chopin's native country. It was less a dance than a promenade in which courtly pomps and aristocratic splendor were on exhibition. 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.

The feminine side is chiefly embodied in the mazurkas and the nocturnes. It has been said that the highest genius must combine masculine with feminine traits, and it is a remarkable fact that the works of two of the most spontaneous composers--Chopin and Schubert--are often characterized by an exquisite feminine tenderness and grace; as if, seeing that women have not done their duty as composers, they had tried to introduce the feminine spirit in music. Yet it is unfair to place too much emphasis on this side of their genius. In their bolder moments, Chopin and Schubert are thoroughly masculine.

It seems strange at first sight that the mazurkas, these exquisite love poems, should be so much less popular than the waltzes, for they are quite as melodious and much easier--although here, as elsewhere, Chopin often introduces a few very difficult bars in an otherwise easy composition, as if to keep away bunglers. Perhaps the cause of their comparative neglect is, that they are so thoroughly Polish in spirit; unless they are played with an exotic _rubato_, their fragrance vanishes. There is more local color in the mazurkas than in any of his other works. The Mazurs are musically a highly gifted nation, and Chopin was impressed early in life with the quaint originality of their melodies. No doubt some of his mazurkas are merely artistic settings of these old love songs, but they are the settings of an inspired jeweller. If we can judge by the number of pieces of each class that he wrote, the mazurka was Chopin's favorite form. Even on his death-bed he wrote one. It was his last effort, and he was too weak to try it over on the piano. It is of heart-rending sadness, and exquisite pathos. Perhaps it was a patriotic rather than an æsthetic feeling which led him thus to favor the mazurka. His love for his country was exceeded only by his devotion to his art. "Oh, how sad it must be to die in a foreign country," he wrote to a friend in 1830; and when, soon afterward, he left home he took along a handful of Polish soil which he kept for nineteen years. Shortly before his death he expressed a wish that it should be strewn in his coffin--a wish which was fulfilled; so that his body rested on Polish soil even in Paris.

A countless number of exquisite melodic rhythmic and harmonic details in the mazurkas might be dwelt upon in this place, but I will only call attention to the inexhaustible variety of ideas which makes each of them so unique, notwithstanding their strong family likeness. They are like fantastic orchids, or like the countless varieties of humming birds, those "winged poems of the air," of which no two are alike while all resemble each other.

The nocturnes represent the dreamy side of Chopin's genius. They are sufficiently popular, yet few amateurs have any idea of their unfathomable depth, and few know how to use the pedal in such a way as to produce the rich uninterrupted flow of tone on which the melody should float. Most pianists play them too fast. Mozart and Schumann protested against the tendency to take their slow pieces too fast, and Chopin suffers still more from this pernicious habit. Mendelssohn in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Weber in "Oberon," have given us glimpses of dreamland, but Chopin's nocturnes take us there bodily, and plunge us into reveries more delicious than the visions of an opium eater. They should be played in the twilight and in solitude, for the slightest foreign sound breaks the spell. But just as dreams are sometimes agitated and dramatic, so some of these nocturnes are complete little dramas with stormy, tragic episodes, and the one in C sharp minor, _e.g._, embodies a greater variety of emotion and more genuine dramatic spirit on four pages than many popular operas on four hundred.

One of Chopin's enchanting innovations, which he introduced frequently in the nocturnes, consists in those unique and exquisite _fioriture_, or dainty little notes which suddenly descend on the melody like a spray of dew drops glistening in all the colors of the rainbow. No less unique and original are the exquisite modulations into foreign keys which abound in the nocturnes, as, indeed, in all his works. Schucht calls attention to the fact that in his very opus 1 Chopin permits himself a freedom of modulation which Beethoven rarely indulged in. But this is a mere trifle compared with the works of his last period. Here we find a striking originality and boldness of modulation that has no parallel in music, except in Wagner's last music-dramas. Now we have seen that Moscheles, and other contemporaries of Chopin, found his modulations harsh and disagreeable; and doubtless there are amateurs to-day who regard them in the same way. It seems, indeed, as if musical people must be divided into two classes--those who find their chief delight in melody pure and simple, and those who think that rich and varied harmony is the soul of music. Chopin fortunately wrote for both classes. Italy has produced no melodist equal to him, and Germany only one--Franz Schubert. No one has written melodies more soulful than those of the nocturne, opus 37, No. 2, the second ballad, the études, opus 10, No. 3; opus 25, No. 7, etc. I distinctly remember the thrill with which I heard each of these melodies for the first time; but it was a deeper emotion still which I felt when I played for the first time the sublimest of his nocturnes--the last but one he wrote--and came across that wonderful modulation from five sharps to four flats, and, later on, the delicious series of modulations in the fourth and fifth bars after the Tempo Primo. I realized then that modulation is a deeper source of emotional expression than melody.

In speaking of Chopin's melancholy character, the nocturnes are often referred to as illustrations of it. They do, indeed, breathe a spirit of sadness, but the majority represent, as I have said, the dreamy side of his genius. The real anguish of his heart is not expressed in the nocturnes but in the preludes and études, strange as these names may seem for such pathetic effusions of his heart. The étude, opus 10, No. 6, seems as if it were in a sort of double minor; as much sadder than ordinary minor, as ordinary minor is sadder than major. Chopin had abundant cause to be melancholy. He inherited that national melancholy of the Poles which causes them even to dance to tunes in minor keys, and which is commonly attributed to the long-continued political oppression under which they have suffered. But, apart from this national trait, Chopin had sufficient personal reasons for writing the greater part of his mazurkas and his other pieces in minor keys. Like other men of genius, he keenly felt the anguish of not being fully appreciated by his contemporaries. Moreover, although he was greatly admired by the French and Polish women in Paris, and was even conceded a lady-killer, he was, in his genuine affairs of the heart, thrice disappointed. His first love, who wore his engagement ring when he left Warsaw, proved faithless to the absent lover, and married another man. The second love deceived him in the same way, preferring a Count to a genius. And his third love, George Sand, after apparently reciprocating his attachment, for a few years, not only discarded him, but tried to justify her conduct to the world, by giving an exaggerated portraiture of his weaknesses, in her novel "Lucrezia Floriani."

Nevertheless, it was in one respect fortunate for the world that George Sand was Chopin's friend so long, for we owe to her facile pen many interesting accounts of Chopin's habits and the origin of some of his compositions. The winter which he spent with her on the Island of Majorca was one of the most important in his life, for it was here that he composed some of those masterpieces, his preludes--a word which might be paraphrased as Introductions to a new world of musical emotion. There is a strange discrepancy in the accounts which Liszt and George Sand give of the Majorca episode in Chopin's life. Liszt describes it as a period of calm enjoyment, George Sand as one of discomfort and distress. As she was an eye-witness, her testimony appears the more trustworthy, especially as it is borne out by the character of the preludes which he composed there. There are among Chopin's preludes a few which breathe the spirit of contentment and grace, or of religious grandeur, but most of them are outbreaks of the wildest anguish and heart-rending pathos. If tears could be heard, they would sound like these preludes. Two of the saddest--those in B minor and E minor--were played by the famous organist Lefebure Wely, at Chopin's funeral services. But it is useless to specify. They are all jewels of the first water.