Chopin’s Piano Concerto and First Love
Listen While You Read
Please listen to Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11, Romance performed by Daniil Trifonov, Russian virtuoso and composer. This composition for piano and orchestra, is widely known as the piece which ushered in the entire Romantic Era of music. It is filled with the sound of a young man’s hope for a first love.
Chopin’s First Love: Konstancja
Our second story focuses on another important event in Fryderyk Chopin’s life in 1829. He fell in love with Konstancja Gladkowska (pictured above).
Although there were many women in Chopin’s life - sisters, friends from his childhood, casual acquaintances, students and deep attachments - he was very secretive about most of them. It is only by studying the clues that he used in his letters to his male friends in Warsaw that we can understand how deeply he felt about Konstancja.
And because there are no known letters to him from her, we are not sure if she knew about his feelings or returned them.
Konstancja was an opera singer. They were both the same age and she too studied at the Warsaw Conservatory. In 1829, Chopin heard her sing in a concert and fell in love with her voice. He was very selective in choosing the people he associated with; they had to have some true musical talent. He was so sure that she would be a success that, through his connections, he introduced her to the famous opera diva Henrietta Sontag to learn the finer points of opera singing.
She made her operatic debut soon thereafter in Paer’s opera “Agnese”. Chopin wrote this about her aria in the second act “It is most effective. I knew that it would be but I hardly expected the effect to be quite so great.”
This Piece Reflects A Deep and Unspoken Young Love
The clearest indication of Chopin’s infatuation with Konstancja is in a letter that he wrote to his close friend Tytus. “It is perhaps my misfortune that I have already found my ideal, whom I have served faithfully for six months, though without saying a word to her about my feelings; whom I dream of, who inspired the Adagio of my Concerto, and also this morning the little waltz that I am sending you.”
The piece that you are listening to is the second movement in the “Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor”.
Chopin composed it when he was 19. Not only was it remarkable because it was written for a full orchestra to accompany the piano, but also because it was the first piece that ushered in the Romantic era of music with its unique colorful and melancholy sounds.
“The movement contains one of the composer’s most ravishing melodies... If music of this caliber is the result of unrequited love, we can only stand and marvel that Chopin, for all his youth, was able to sublimate his feelings and pour them into a composition of such depth of emotion.”
This is the second movement and is called “Romance”. The trilling effects in the music reflect the beauty of Konstancja’s operatic voice. You can also hear the hopeful notes (violins tensing and with notes quickly ascending) as the young man hopes that she will notice him, and then a sudden rush of disappointment (with the heavy and harsh bass notes).
A review of this piece that year in The Warsaw Courier declared “Young Chopin surpasses all the pianists that we have heard here. He is the ‘Paganini of the Piano’”.
A Tribute From His Close Friend and Composer, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
(1811-1886)
Liszt was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer who was just a year younger than Chopin. When they met in Paris, Liszt was already established as a musical celebrity and took Chopin under his wing, introducing him to all of the “cognescenti” and scheduling concerts for him.
Franz Liszt says this about this piece: “The whole of this piece is of a perfection almost ideal; its expression now radiant with light, now full of tender pathos…. A bitter and irreparable regret siezes the wildly throbbing human heart, even in the midst of the incomparable splendor of external nature. This contrast is sustained by a fusion of tones, a softening of gloomy hues, which prevent the intrusion of anything rude or brusque that might awaken a dissonance in the touching impression produced, which, while saddening joy, soothes and softens the bitterness of sorrow.”
Leaving Warsaw And A Farewell
Later that year, after months of deliberation (possibly caused by his love for Konstancja) he left for Vienna to begin developing connections in the music world.
Before he left, he scheduled a “farewell concert” in the National Theatre which he performed this piece. He also invited Konstancja to sing an aria from Rossini’s opera “La Donna del Lago”. Here’s how Chopin described her: “Konstancja was dressed in white with white roses in her hair, her attire divinely arranged to suit her complexion.” And he said this about her performance: “She sang the Cavatina from the Donna del Lago, and the recitative as she had never sung before…You know: ‘O quante lacrime per te versai’, she gave the ‘tutto detesto’ in such a way that Zelinski declared that it was worth a thousand ducats for itself alone.”
An Encouraging Sign Of Hope
After the concert, he and Konstancja exchanged rings and she wrote the note seen below to him.
Konstancja’s Letter to Chopin
Following is the translation of her note:
“Yet while others may
Better appraise and reward you,
They certainly cannot
Love you more strongly than we.”
A few weeks after his departure, Konstancja wrote the following lines in Chopin’s album at his parents home:
“Sorry twists of fate you weave
Yet yield we must to fortune
Remember well as now you leave
In Poland they do love you.
A few pages later she added:
“In foreign lands they may appreciate and reward you better, but they cannot love you more.”
Apparently he never even told his family of his love for Konstancja. He seems to have thought that his father would have disapproved, given his destiny to bring his music to the rest of the world. However, his sister Izabella later confessed to him “As long as you kept quiet about it, then I did too. But I knew about it.”
Longing From A Distance: Correspondence From Vienna
Chopin In Vienna
While in Vienna, Chopin continued to pine for Konstancja. Here are a few excerpts from letters to his friend Jan Matuszynsky, who served as his”emissary” delivering his letters to Konstancja. Jan was also asked to report back whether there seemed to be any hope for their love. Here are excerpts from his letters to Jan:
“Did she not fall ill? I could easily believe some such thing about so sensitive a creature. Don’t you think so?”
“Calm her, say that, so long as my strength lasts - that till death -that even after death my ashes will strew themselves under her feet.”
“Am I still loved? Did you hand over my note? Today I regret having written it. Perhaps she is fooling me and treating it as a joke.”
“How I tear my hair when the thought comes that she may forget me!”
His “Distant Beloved” Dashes All Hope
Two years later, in 1832, while Chopin remained abroad, Konstancja married someone else. It seems that her mother had a much better catch in mind. She married Aleksander Józef Grabowski whose wealthy family owned The Tepper Palace in Warsaw. After the wedding, the couple moved to an estate near Raducz and had five children.
Chopin’s sister Izabella sent him the following note: “I am as surprised as you that she could have been so insensitive. The palace was clearly more alluring to her.”
In 1845 Konstancja lost her eyesight and, despite attempts to treat the condition, never regained her vision. When, as an elderly woman, Chopin’s biography was read to her, she was surprised to hear how much she had meant to the young composer. She went on to say that she had made the right decision: “I doubt whether Chopin would have made such a good husband as my honest Josef. He was tempermental, full of fantasies and unreliable.”
Chopin’s Response To Lost Love
Chopin had kept note that she had written to him. After his death it was discovered in his possessions. It was wrapped with a ribbon and two notes were inserted on top of it.
Remember, here’s what Konstancja’s note said:
“Yet while others may
Better appraise and reward you,
They certainly cannot
Love you more strongly than we.”
On top of it was a note that George Sand, the famous French author, had handed him on the night that they met in Paris, which said “J’adore” (I idolize you). And on top of both notes was one in Chopin’s own handwriting which read “Non plus” (no longer).
He had finally replaced his “ideal” with an intriguing woman that he would spend the next 8 years with.
