ISOD. The son of refined parents, his musical education began as soon as his predilection for music manifested itself. Adalbert Zwyny was his piano-teacher, and later he had lessons in composition from Joseph Elsner. When not quite nine years old he played in public a con certo by Gyrowetz. Boy-like, he thought more of his new collar than of the impression made by his playing. "Everybody was looking at it," was his remark to his mother. The father was a professor in the Warsaw gymnasium, and the family in comfortable circumstances. From the aristocratic social entourage of his younger years Chopin inherited the liking for fashionable society which was one of his characteristics. A delicate boy, he seems nevertheless to have en joyed a jest. and he had a talent for mimicry which convinced his friends of later years (Liszt. George Sand. and Ralzae among them) that he could have succeeded as an actor. lle greatly admired Paganini, who visited Warsaw in 1829.
In August, 1829, he gave two concerts in Vien na. "My manner of playing greatly pleased the ladies," he wrote home. his first concert in Warsaw was given in March. 1830. and was fol lowed by a second, the net receipts from both being $600, by no means an inconsiderable sum for a young pianist in those days. Ile had a love romance with Constantin Gladowska, a vocal pupil at the Warsaw- conservatory, who. how ever, married a merchant. While giving concerts in Munich, in September, 1S31, he heard of the Russian occupation of Warsaw. As a result he settled, in October of the same year, in Paris, which was his home for the remaining eighteen years of his life.
Ile had composed. but not published, several of his "Etudes," among them the great C minor, Op. 10, No. 12. sometimes called the `Revolu tionary,' because inspired by his wrath at the fall of Warsaw before the Russians: his first sonata; and his minor Concerto." The "Adagio" (said to be Constantia Gladowska set to nosier and the "Rondo" had been publicly played by him. (It may be said, ill passing, that the dates of publication of Chopin's works are misleading as to the years of composition. Most of them were composed much earlier.) During, his life in Paris he was surrounded by men of genius and women at least of talent, among them Liszt, Heine, Berlioz. )1Csringbe, Meyerbeer,
Balzac, Dumas, De Musset, wry Scheffer (who painted his portrait, destroyed in Warsaw by Russian soldiers, in September, 1863),and George Sand. Ile made frequent public appearances as a pianist. His "F. minor Concerto" he played in February, 1832. MendeIssohn was among those who applauded him. Kalkbrenner was eager to have Chopin study with him—on the mechanical side. Chopin by letter consulted his former teacher, Elsner. who wisely counseled against it, for fear it might impair his originality. Great delicacy and a singing quality of tone seem to have been the characteristics of his playing. his own virile pieces. as some of the "Polonaises," "Ballades," "Scherzos." and "Etudes," probably were beyond his physical powers. "Young man," he is reported to have said to a budding virtuoso who apologized to Chopin for having broken a string while playing the famous "Polonaise Mill taire," "if 1 could play that `Polonaise' as it should be interpreted, there would not be a string left in the piano." Dr. William Mason, in his Memories of a Musical Lite. repeats an anecdote related to him by Dreyschock and illustrating Chopin's delicacy of touch. Drevschock and Thalberg had just left. one of Chopin's concerts. After proceeding a short distance Thalberg sud denly began to shout at the top of his voice. Asked by Dreyschock what was the matter, he replied: "I have been listening to nothing but piano: 1 want a little forte." The familiar anecdote that Liszt and Chopin changed seats at the piano while the lights were turned down. and that the listeners could not distinguish between their playing, is apocryphal. Not so. however, the story of the coolness be tween Chopin and Meyerbeer, and its :a use. It resulted from .11eyerbeer's claiming that the charming little "Mazurka," Op. 33, No. 3 (in C), was really in two-quarter instead of in three-quarter time. "Give it to me for a ballet and I will prove it to you in my next opera," were Meyerbeer's parting words to Chopin. The incident is related by De Lenz, who. in his Great Piano Virtuosos of Our Time, has given charm ing glimpses of Chopin as a virtuoso and as a teacher.