[Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician by Frederick Niecks]@TWC D-Link book
Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician

CHAPTER III
18/27

At any rate, the tenor of the above-quoted notice, laudatory as it is, and the absence of Chopin's name from other Warsaw letters, do not remove the doubts which such eulogistic superlatives raise in the mind of an unbiassed inquirer.

But that Chopin, as a pianist and as a musician generally, had attained a proficiency far beyond his years becomes evident if we examine his compositions of that time, to which I shall presently advert.

And that he had risen into notoriety and saw his talents appreciated cannot be doubted for a moment after what has been said.

Were further proof needed, we should find it in the fact that he was selected to display the excellences of the aeolomelodicon when the Emperor Alexander I, during his sojourn in Warsaw in 1825, [FOOTNOTE: The Emperor Alexander opened the Diet at Warsaw on May 13, 1825, and closed it on June 13.] expressed the wish to hear this instrument.
Chopin's performance is said to have pleased the august auditor, who, at all events, rewarded the young musician with a diamond ring.
A greater event than either the concert or the performance before the Emperor, in fact, THE event of the year 1825, was the publication of Chopin's Opus 1.

Only he who has experienced the delicious sensation of seeing himself for the first time in print can realise what our young author felt on this occasion.


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