Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 995 pages of information about Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete.

Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 995 pages of information about Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete.

Regarding the small salon, he gives only the general information that it was quaintly fitted up with antique furniture.  But of George Sand’s own room, which made a deeper impression upon him, he mentions so many particulars—­the brown carpet covering the whole floor, the walls hung with a dark-brown ribbed cloth (Ripsstoff), the fine paintings, the carved furniture of dark oak, the brown velvet seats of the chairs, the large square bed, rising but little above the floor, and covered with a Persian rug (Teppich)—­that it is easy to picture to ourselves the tout-ensemble of its appearance.  Gutmann tells us that he had an early opportunity of making these observations, for Chopin visited his pupil the very day after his arrival (?), and invited him at once to call on George Sand in order to be introduced to her.  When Gutmann presented himself in the small salon above alluded to, he found George Sand seated on an ottoman smoking a cigarette.  She received the young man with great cordiality, telling him that his master had often spoken to her of him most lovingly.  Chopin entered soon after from an adjoining apartment, and then they all went into the dining-room to have dinner.  When they were seated again in the cosy salon, and George Sand had lit another cigarette, the conversation, which had touched on a variety of topics, among the rest on Majorca, turned on art.  It was then that the authoress said to her friend:  “Chop, Chop, show Gutmann my room that he may see the pictures which Eugene Delacroix painted for me.”

Chopin on arriving in Paris had taken up his lodgings in the Rue Tronchet, No. 5, and resumed teaching.  One of his pupils there was Brinley Richards, who practised under him one of the books of studies.  Chopin also assisted the British musician in the publication, by Troupenas, of his first composition, having previously looked over and corrected it.  Brinley Richards informed me that Chopin, who played rarely in these lessons, making his corrections and suggestions rather by word of mouth than by example, was very languid, indeed so much so that he looked as if he felt inclined to lie down, and seemed to say:  “I wish you would come another time.”

About this time, that is in the autumn or early in the winter of 1839, Moscheles came to Paris.  We learn from his diary that at Leo’s, where he liked best to play, he met for the first time Chopin, who had just returned from the country, and whose acquaintance he was impatient to make.  I have already quoted what Moscheles said of Chopin’s appearance—­namely, that it was exactly like [identificirt mit] his music, both being delicate and dreamy [schwarmerisch].  His remarks on his great contemporary’s musical performances are, of course, still more interesting to us.

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Frederick Chopin, as a Man and Musician — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.