The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1Hughes, Rupert
History
The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1
Hughes, Rupert
Composers -- Biography
This is all I have gleaned from Karlovicz. More immediate help has come
from a new biography published in Warsaw in 1903 by Ferdinand Hoesick,
and, according to Alfred Nossig, destined to upset the supremacy of
Nieck's biography. This latest work is really the carrying out of the
plans of Chopin's friend and fellow student, Julian Fontana, who shared
joy and sorrow with him in Paris, and collected letters and data for a
biography. On Chopin's death Liszt sprang into print with a rhapsody
which led Fontana to defer his work. At his death in 1869 he left it
unfinished, bequeathing his documents to his son, who permitted Hoesick
the use of them.
Hoesick blames Chopin's notable melancholy to early experiences of love
requited, indeed, but not united in marriage. His love was as rathe as
his music.
Alfred Nossig, reviewing the biography, says of Chopin: "As his talent,
so did his heart mature early." It was at Warsaw, in his early youth,
that he found his first ideal. Although his father, a Frenchman who had
married a Polish woman, did not occupy a foremost position in society,
Frédéric moved in the highest circles. In addition to his genius he had
always the princely way with him.
One of his admirers was the Duchess Ludvika Czetvertynska, whose
majestic figure and aureole of hair reminded one of the pictures of
Giorgione. Her friend, the Governor of Poland, the Grand Duke
Konstantin, through her introduction accepted Chopin as one of his most
welcome guests; he was musical, and greatly admired Chopin's music.
Whenever his violent temper carried him away, the grand duchess would
send secretly for Chopin, who would seat himself at the piano, and at
the first notes the grand duke would appear in the drawing-room with his
temper cured. Thus was Chopin another David to a latter-day Saul. Chopin
was an intimate friend of the grand duke's son, Paul, whose instructor
was a Count Moriolles. It was his daughter, the Comtesse Alexandra, in
whose eyes Chopin found inspiration; he improvised never so beautifully
as when she sat next to him at the piano. His adoration was no secret.
He was often teased on account of the beautiful "Mariolka," as he called
her. In his letters to his friends, we find many allusions that prove
that the young comtesse loved him in turn. But both knew that this love
was hopeless, and therefore Chopin's musical expressions of his dreams
for her are melancholy. One remembrance of this attachment is the Rondo
_à la Mazur_, Op. 5, which he dedicated to the Comtesse de Moriolles.
In 1830 Chopin toured the continent. As in his later relation to George
Sand, the passion of a poet, Alfred Musset, rivalled his, so at this
time he found a rival in the Polish poet, Julius Slovaki. The pretty,
vivacious, and perhaps somewhat flirtatious girl, Comtesse Maria
Wodzinska, was the bone of contention, or, rather, the "rag and the bone
and the hank of hair" of contention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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