Frederic Chopin: His Life, Letters, and Works, v. 1 (of 2)
CHAPTER XIX.
Chopin as a Composer 334.
Appendix 350.
_To HERMANN SCHOLTZ._
_Our frequent conversations on Chopin have taught me to respect you as an admirer of this great master, and as a true and faithful interpreter of his glorious productions. It is to you, therefore, that I dedicate this work, which, without vanity, I may call a monument raised with care and devotion to his memory._
_Accept it as a proof of my sincere friendship and appreciative esteem for your talents._
MORITZ KARASOWSKI.
_Dresden, January, 1877._
PREFACE.
Several years of friendship with the family of Frederic Chopin have enabled me to become acquainted with his letters and to place them before the public. Just as I had finished transcribing the first series (letters of his youth) and was on the point of chronologically arranging the second (Paris correspondence) the insurrection of 1863 broke out in Poland, and the sympathy aroused by the political condition of the Fatherland weakened public interest in its literary and artistic productions. I therefore deemed it advisable to abstain from the publication of Chopinʼs letters.
When I gave back to his family the original letters, I did not dream that in a few months they would be destroyed. How this happened I shall in the proper place explain. The loss is a great and irreparable one, for the number of letters from Paris, during a most brilliant and interesting epoch, was by no means inconsiderable.
In compliance with the wishes of many of Chopinʼs friends and admirers, I have undertaken to sketch his career from the materials afforded me by his one surviving sister, from his letters which I published in Warsaw, and from some other letters to his friends.
In this work, which contains full particulars about Chopinʼs youth, I have corrected the erroneous dates and mis-statements, which have found their way into all the German and French periodicals and books. If I should succeed in presenting the reader with a life-like portrait of the immortal artist, it will be the highest reward of my labour of love.
THE AUTHOR. [Illustration]
LIFE OF CHOPIN.