Part Two: Paris

             On July 31 1830, Charles X, the unpopular king of France was ousted in favor of King Louis Philippe. Louis Philippe’s reign paved the way for La Belle Epoque, during which the French middle classes would see an era of unprecedented wealth. The Romantic Age in music, art and literature was under way and gaining momentum, and many of its principal players,  including the composers Liszt and Berlioz, the painter Eugène Delacroix and the authors Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas Père, were already resident in Paris.

In January 1831, the twenty-seven year-old Baroness Aurore Dudevant arrived, having left her country estate Nohant, and with it, her unloved husband Casimir Dudevant, and the unsuccessful nine-year marriage she could no longer endure. Once in Paris, she joined her then-lover, the poet Jules Sandeau, and began turning herself into one of the most talked-about women and authors of the nineteenth century.  That September, the twenty-one year-old Frédéric Chopin arrived in Paris in his turn to begin the next phase of his career in  Europe’s cultural capital.  Paris then had a large population of expatriate Poles, all delighted to welcome Chopin. Among them were the poet and political exile, Adam Mickiewiscz, whom Chopin had known in Warsaw; Count Adalbert Gryzmala,   the Countess Delphina Potocka, and the Count and Countess Plater. Another important new friend was the piano maker, Camille Pleyel, who  would  provide  Chopin with many of his pianos for the next nineteen years--something of an advertising coup. Armed with a letter of introduction from his Viennese friend, Dr. Johann Malfatti to one Ferdinando Paër, an Italian opera composer living in Paris, Chopin found his professional feet with the help of his new friends. His charm and courtesy opened doors for him, and he had only to sit down at the piano to convince any skeptics of his worth.

George Sand

Five years later, George Sand and Chopin were leading busy but separate lives as well-established Parisian celebrities, although they must have known of each other by reputation. Her nom de plume, evolved from the long-since discarded Jules Sandeau, was only one aspect of the new, far more exciting and satisfactory life that Aurore Dudevant had created for herself. Living on her own terms, her days and nights were filled with art, literature, music, politics and love. Now having the freedom, as well as the need to support herself and her children, Sand began writing novels, essays, memoirs and plays at a phenomenal rate.  During her affair with Alfred de Musset, he wrote of her working habits:  ‘We worked all day.  By evening, I had written perhaps ten lines and had drunk a bottle of brandy. She, on the other hand, had polished off a liter of milk and had written half a volume.’

George had published her first two novels, Indiana in 1832 and Lélia in 1833, which were both autobiographical in large part, to critical acclaim.  She also won the admiration of her fellow authors and  shocked more staid Parisians to their core.  This Madame George Sand insinuated that women, too, enjoyed sex! Not only that, she went about in public dressed in men’s clothes smoking cigars, rode horseback astride through Paris, and argued politics with men!  She was outspokenly left-wing, into the bargain.  The Parisian matrons who gossiped about the wild Madame Sand had still bought and read her books, and no doubt envied her comparatively free and colorful life, at least privately. George Sand never asked permission or apologized for anything she did, knowing that if she were to fly successfully in the face of so many entrenched ideas about women’s place and conduct in society, it was absolutely necessary to do so boldly. Paris reacted to George Sand in much the same way 21^st century Americans reacted to Janet Jackson’s televised ‘wardrobe malfunction.’:  avid attention, followed by much outraged public fuss.

  (Etude op. 10 no. 4, played by Georges Cziffra)

By 1836, George had won a legal separation from Casimir Dudevant, the  custody of both her children and the right to manage her country estate, Nohant, as she saw fit.  Her motivation for acting as she had was mostly  her personal wish to create a life she found satisfying rather than to destroy traditional marriage or set up a new feminist social order in France. She was not insisting or even inviting other women to do as she had done; she was a man’s woman, and infinitely preferred the company and conversation of men. She had many men friends, but since she had a low opinion of most  other women’s intelligence, her women friends were understandably rare and most were as unconventional as she.

Sand   initiated new love affairs with the speed at which most people wore out pairs of shoes, and wrote freely about them.  After Jules Sandeau, she’d had ‘a fling’ with Prosper Merimée that was as short as it was unhappy, then took up with the aristocratic poet, Alfred de Musset.  When  de Musset fell ill with delirium tremens during a trip to Venice in 1833, George left Venice in the company of her newest lover—de Musset’s handsome young Italian doctor, Pietro Pagello. Pagello had no illusions that any affair with Madame Sand would last long, but he still was infatuated enough to escort her clear to Paris and remained there for some months before returning to Venice. De Musset wrote letters  protesting his love, but George had moved on, her next lover becoming Michel de Bourges. When she had tired of de Bourges, she followed him up by taking her son Maurice’s tutor, Félicien Mallefille as her next lover.

            Chopin

            The first half of the 1830’s had been good years for Chopin, also.  Since arriving in Paris, he had enjoyed the best health of his adult life. He was composing steadily, and in high demand as a piano teacher. Music historians place Frédéric Chopin  firmly with his contemporaries Liszt, Berlioz, Schumann and Mendelsohn as one of the Romantic composers of the first half of the nineteenth century. Chopin himself  admired the mathematical precision of Bach and the classical purity of Mozart far more than he did his living peers.  He had become friendly with Felix Mendelsohn while travelling in Germany in 1830, Mendelsohn’s music having enough discipline and polish to appeal to him. Chopin had little good to say about either Schumann or Berlioz, however, considering their music too overtly emotional and undisciplined, and considered Berlioz a poor pianist into the bargain—the ultimate put-down from Chopin. The best that can be said of Chopin’s uncharitable attitude toward most of his colleagues was that he was never insincere in his praise; those who earned his admiration had really accomplished something. He did have valued musician friends, including the court cellist Auguste Franchomme, Ferdinand Hiller, and  the German pianist, Friedrich Kalkbrenner. Chopin loved opera, attended often, and particularly loved the works of Giacomo Meyerbeer, and Vincenzo Bellini. After the piano, Chopin loved the human voice, best.  Chopin had written a theme and variations on La Cì darem la Mano from Don Giovanni in his teens, but he wrote no songs himself.

       Chopin's Variations on La Ci Darem La Mano

Performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy

Chopin’s earning power between his published music, performances and teaching was enormous; unfortunately, his expensive tastes consumed most of it.  He was to worry continually about money until the end of his life. It was not all mere extravagance on his part. By 1836, he was a darling of Parisian high society, often to be found performing in their aristocratic salons and teaching the daughters of nobility. It was necessary for him to dress well and make a good impression, and he was therefore always dressed in the most elegant men’s fashions.  He had a Pleyel grand piano in his  luxuriously furnished flat  in the Chausée d’Antin, then a fashionable neighborhood filled with artists and writers. This was also necessary, as he insisted on teaching from his own home rather than going to teach his students in theirs.  To save money on lodgings, he shared the flat with his doctor friend Ján Matuszýnsky, another consumptive Pole. His close friends and compatriots found him warm, gracious, generous and amusing; Chopin still loved to make people laugh.

Chopin Etude op. 25 no. 1 "The Aeolian Harp"

Performed by Artur Rubinstein 

at the Moscow Conservatory in the 1950's

            The rest of Paris knew Chopin as a flawlessly polite but cool and reserved young man. In the 1830’s, consumption, ‘the disease of the romantics,’ was so prevalent, it became perversely fashionable.  Being consumptive greatly enhanced the romantic credentials of any poet or musician as they were supposed to be noble, poetic, tormented souls, not long for this world; a myth greatly enhanced by Dumas’ famous novel, Camille. Contradictorily, consumptive men were assumed to be particularly virile. Chopin with his blue eyes, pale oval face, slender build and perpetual cough embodied the type perfectly. Whenever he performed in Paris, the women in his audiences longed to get better acquainted with the frail, interesting looking pianist from Warsaw. 

            Had they known more of him, these women might have been disappointed; Chopin’s libido was nearly non-existent. Passing through Dresden in the summer of 1835, he had also reached an ‘understanding’ with Maria Wodzínska, a former Warsaw friend and neighbor, grown up as a pretty, charming and talented young woman. Sources differ on whether Chopin ever actually proposed to Maria. What is certain was that marriage was an active topic of discussion between the Chopins and the Wodzínskis for the next two years. Mikolaj and Justyna approved, but   Count and Countess Wodzínski were unsure, despite Maria and Chopin’s obvious love for one another. They had legitimate fears about marrying their teenaged daughter to a consumptive spendthrift even if dear Frycek was now a famous composer and pianist. At parting that September, the Wodzínskis were vague with Chopin about their criteria for their future son-in-law, perhaps to give themselves a future loophole.

             The hot dusty carriage trip home laid Chopin low with a severe bronchial infection when he reached Paris that October.  Attended by his physician roommate, Matuszýnskyi, Chopin began coughing blood for the first time; he was so close to death during the worst of his illness that he made out a will and received last rites from a Polish priest.  He was not seen in public for weeks, which  spread alarming rumors through the Polish community.  Chopin recovered by mid-November, and wrote reassuringly to his parents countering the death rumors, but Chopin’s years of relative good health were drawing to a close. He and his parents never saw one another again.

 Franz Liszt

Chopin and Liszt

  With Chopin, Franz Liszt was the other prominent pianist and composer  in Paris and all Europe at the time.  Chopin perhaps held top honors as the finer composer, while Liszt was the more natural performer.  Liszt loved nothing more than an audience, and could have taught modern celebrities a thing or two about flamboyant self-promotion while he was at it.   At modern concerts and recitals, pianos are placed onstage at a right angle  to the audience. This tradition was started by Franz Liszt. Before, the audience had had the back end of the instrument facing them and were only able to see the pianist's head and shoulders. Liszt's placement  was more practical and far likelier to improve the acoustics, with the long side of the piano case opening toward the audience.  Rather than being hidden from the audience by  their instrument, the pianist now sat in full view, where their hands could be easily seen as they played. Liszt’s reason for spearheading this change was actually vanity; he wanted his female admirers to be able to admire his profile while he played. Also unlike Chopin, Liszt’s libido was thriving. In 1831, he had newly initiated his latest affair with his mistress, Comtesse Marie d’Agoult, one of George Sand’s few women friends.

Countess Marie d'Agoult

Chopin and Liszt met through Ferdinando Paër shortly after Chopin’s arrival in  Paris. Being so different in disposition and in direct competition with one another musically, they seem likelier candidates for instant mutual hatred, but at least at the start of their acquaintance, there was  friendship.   Chopin and Liszt each had to acknowledge the musical worth of the other.If Chopin was dismissive of other composers, he was merciless  toward other pianists. Liszt, John Field, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Ignaz Moscheles and Clara Wieck, who married Robert Schumann in 1840, were the only pianists besides himself for whom Chopin had any respect.  Liszt was in absolute agreement about the shortcomings of most other pianists, and laughed with everyone else when Chopin would clown at the piano by mimicking their mannerisms and bad habits.   Their friendship had cooled off by 1840, but the rivalry never did.  After their friendship ended, Chopin began making fun of Liszt's showy playing style  in exactly the same way.

Liszt and Marie d’Agoult were important to Chopin and George Sand in a non-musical way since Sand and Chopin first met at a dinner party they gave in October 1836.  Countess Wodzínska who had been keeping discreet tabs on Chopin through the Franco-Polish grapevine, was already concerned with reports of his declining health. When she heard that Chopin had met the infamous Madame George Sand through mutual friends, she and her Parisian informants unjustly leaped to all the wrong conclusions. This Chopin wanted to marry Maria, but all the while, he’d been seduced by that scandalous Madame Sand!  Sometimes, being the talk of Paris did have a downside.  Countess Wodzínska was unfair to both Sand and Chopin, who knew one another only by reputation at that time.  Maria was Chopin’s feminine ideal; the dark-eyed, olive skinned cigar smoking George Sand with her men’s clothes and her bold manner was so far outside Chopin’s limited knowledge of women  that he was repelled and almost frightened by her at their first meeting.

Nonetheless, Chopin’s letters from the Wodzínskis, especially from the Countess, became fewer, their tone far cooler and more formal. Hints were dropped that the hoped-for reunion in Dresden, planned for the summer of 1837 was off. By November 1837, the engagement, if it had actually been that, was all off, as well.  Ironically, in preventing the marriage between Chopin and Maria, Countess Wodzínska had given him the decisive push toward George Sand.

Find Part I here: http://open.salon.com/blog/shiral/2010/03/01/chopin_warsaw_to_paris

and Part III here:

http://open.salon.com/blog/shiral/2010/03/15/chopin_warsaw_to_paris_iii