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In early November 1830, accompanied by his friend Tytus Woyciechowski, 20-year-old Polish composer Frédéric Chopin left Warsaw for Vienna to start his international career. After successful performances in Vienna the previous year and the recent premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in Warsaw, Chopin felt ready to venture out into the world, with Austria as his first stop and Italy as the next. Not long after his arrival in Vienna, however, the November Uprising broke out in Warsaw, and his friend Woyciechowski immediately returned to Poland to enlist while Chopin stayed in Vienna. Chopin wanted to enlist as well but was persuaded by his parents not to, given his poor health (i.e. he suffered from chronic respiratory problems). Also, he had invested so much in his career already —financially supported by his father— that his parents encouraged him to remain abroad and continue to work on his music.
Alone in Vienna, Chopin was nostalgic for his homeland, fearing for the safety of both his family and Konstancja Gładkowska, all remaining in Warsaw during the revolution. Gładkowska was a talented soprano with whom Chopin was in love at the time. He had met her at the Warsaw Conservatory the year before and developed a huge crush on her; his feelings for her —which she did not return— served as the inspiration for the Larghetto movement of his Piano Concerto No. 2.
On Christmas Day 1830, Chopin wrote to one of his closest friends in Warsaw, Jan Matuszyński, sharing details of his life in Vienna after Tytus had left him to enlist in the army (Jan would also enlist). In the letter, the young composer discussed several topics, including his feelings of loneliness and despair, his infatuation with Konstancja Gładkowska (his "angel of peace"), and his living arrangements and daily schedule in the Austrian capital. The following year, Chopin would leave Vienna for Paris, where he composed many of his most famous works, including his Preludes, Études and Nocturnes. He never returned to Poland but permanently settled in Paris.
NB: in the translated letter, original Polish names were changed: Konstancja→Constantia, and Tytus→Titus.
Vienna,
Sunday, Christmas Morning.
This time last year I was in the Bernhardine church, to-day I am sitting in my dressing gown, quite alone; I kiss my sweet ring¹ and write.
Dear Hänschen,
I have just come from hearing the famous violinist, Slawick, who is second only to Paganini. He takes sixty-nine staccato notes at one stroke of the bow! It is almost incredible! When I heard him I wanted to rush home and sketch out some variations for piano and violin on an Adagio by Beethoven; but a glance at the post office, which I always pass (that I may ask for letters from home), diverted my desires.
The tears which this heavenly theme brought to my eyes have moistened your letter. I long, unspeakably, for a word from you; you know why.
How any news of my angel of peace always delights me! ...
I would not willingly be a burden to my father; were I not afraid of that, I should immediately return to Warsaw. I am often in such a mood that I curse the moment in which I left my beloved home. You will, I am sure, understand my condition, and that since Titus went away too much has fallen suddenly upon me. The numerous dinners, soirées, concerts, and balls I am obliged to attend only weary me. I am melancholy. I feel so lonely and deserted here, yet I cannot live as I like. I have to dress, and look cheerful in drawing rooms; but when I am in my room again, I talk to my piano, to whom, as my best friend in Vienna, I pour out all my sorrows. There is not a soul I can unreservedly confide in, and yet I have to treat everyone as a friend. Plenty of people seem, indeed, to like me, take my portrait, and seek after my company, but they do not make up for you. I have lost my peace of mind, and only feel happy when I can read your letters, think of the monument of King Sigismund² , or look at my precious ring.
Pray forgive me, dear Hänschen, for writing so complainingly, but my heart feels lighter when I can thus talk to you, and I have always told you everything that concerned myself. Did you receive a short letter from me the day before yesterday? Perhaps my scribbling is not of much consequence to you as you are at home, but I read your letters again and again.
Dr. Freyer, having learnt from Schuch that I was in Vienna, has been to see me two or three times. He gave me a great deal of interesting news, and was very pleased with your letters, which I read to him up to a certain passage, which passage made me feel very sad. Does she really look so changed? Do you think she was ill? She is of such a sensitive nature that this is not at all unlikely. But, perhaps, it was only your imagination, or she had been frightened by something. God forbid that she should suffer anything on my account! Comfort her, and assure her that as long as my heart beats I shall not cease to adore her. Tell her that, after my death, my ashes shall be spread beneath her feet. But this is not half what you might say to her on my behalf. I would write to her myself, and, indeed, should have done so long ago, to escape the torments I endure, but if my letter chanced to fall into other hands, might it not injure her reputation? So you must be the interpreter of my thoughts; speak for me, “et jʼen conviendrai.” These words of yours flashed through me like lightning, when I read your letter. A Viennese, who happened to be walking with me at the time, seized me by the arm, and could scarcely hold me in. He could not make out what had come to me. I could have embraced and kissed all the passers by, for your first letter had made my heart feel lighter than it had been for many a day.
I am sure I must be wearying you, my dear friend, but it is difficult for me to hide from you anything that touches my heart. The day before yesterday I dined with Frau Beyer, who is also called Constantia. I enjoy visiting her very much, because she bears a name so unspeakably dear to me; I even rejoice if one of her pocket-handkerchiefs or serviettes marked “Constantia” falls into my hands. Slawick is a friend of hers, and I often go to her house with him.
Yesterday, as on Christmas Eve, we played in the fore and afternoon. The weather was spring-like. As I was returning in the evening from the Baronessʼs circle, I walked slowly into St. Stephenʼs. I was alone, for Slawick was obliged to go to the Imperial Chapel. The church was empty, and, to get the full effect of the lofty and imposing edifice, I leant against a pillar in the darkest corner. The vastness and splendour of the arching are indescribable: one must see St. Stephenʼs for oneʼs self. The profoundest silence, broken only by the resounding steps of the vergers coming to light the tapers, reigned around.
Before and behind me, indeed everywhere but overhead, were graves, and I felt my loneliness and desertion as I never had before. When the lights had burned up, and the cathedral began to fill, I muffled myself in my cloak (you know how I used to go about in the Cracow suburb), and hastened off to the Mass at the Imperial Chapel. Amid a merry crowd, I threaded my way to the palace, where I heard some sleepy musicians play three movements of a mass. I returned home at one oʼclock in the morning, and went to bed to dream of you, of her, and of my dear children³ . ...
... what had I best do? My parents leave me to follow my own wishes, but I would rather they had given me directions. Shall I go to Paris? Friends here advise me to stay in Vienna. Or shall I go home, or stay here and kill myself? Advise me what to do. Please ask a certain person in Warsaw, who has always had great influence over me. Tell me her opinion, and I will act upon it.
Let me hear again before you go to the war. Address, Poste Restante, Vienna. Do go and see my dear parents and Constantia; and, as long as you are in Warsaw, please pay frequent visits to my sisters that they may think you are coming to see me, and I am in the next room; sit with them that they may fancy it is me; in a word, take my place at home. ...
I finish this letter three days after I began it, and have read through my stupid scribble again. Pray excuse having to pay the postage, dear Hänschen. When dining to-day at the Italian restaurant, I heard some one say, “God made a mistake in creating Poland.” Is it any wonder that my feelings are more than I can express? Somebody else said, “There is nothing to be got out of Poland,” so you ought not to expect anything new from me who am a Pole. ...
I must close, for the time is quite up. Embrace all my dear friends for me, and be assured that I shall not leave off loving you till I have ceased to love my parents, my sisters, and her. My dearest, do write me a few lines soon. You can show this to her if you like. I am going to Malfattiʼs again to-day, but to the post first. My parents do not know of my writing to you. You can tell them, only donʼt show them the letter.
I do not know how to part from my sweet Hänschen. Depart, you wretch! If W—— loves you as warmly as I do, so would Con ..... No, I cannot even write the name, my hand is too unworthy. Oh! I should tear my hair out if I thought she forgot me: I feel a regular Othello to-day. I was about to fold and seal the letter without an envelope, forgetting that it was going where everybody reads Polish. As I have a little space left, I will describe my life here.
I am living on the fourth floor in a handsome street, but I have to be on the alert if I want to see what passes. When I come home you will see the room in my new album, young Hummel having kindly made me a drawing of it. It is spacious, and has five windows, to which the bed stands opposite. My wonderful piano stands on the right, the sofa on the left, a looking-glass between the windows, a large handsome round mahogany table in the middle of the room; the floor is waxed. Donʼt be alarmed!...
“The gentleman does not receive in the afternoon,” so I can be in your midst in thought. The intolerably stupid servant wakes me early; I rise, take my coffee, which is often cold, because I forget my breakfast over my music. My German teacher appears punctually at 9 oʼclock; then I generally write, Hummel comes to work at my portrait, and Nidecki to study my Concerto. I keep on my comfortable dressing-gown till 12 oʼclock, at which hour Dr. Leibenfrost, a lawyer here, comes in to see me. Weather permitting, I walk with him on the Glacis, then we dine at the “Zum Bömischen Köchin,” the rendezvous of the students from the Academy, and afterwards, according to the custom here, we go to one of the best coffee-houses. Then I make calls, returning home at dusk, when I throw myself into evening dress, and go to a soirée. About 11 or 12 oʼclock (never later) I come home, play, laugh, read, and then go to bed and dream of you.
My portrait—which is a secret between you and me—is very good. If you think she would like it I could send it through Schuch, who will probably leave here with Freyer, about the 15th of next month. I began to write this letter quite clearly, but I have finished it in such a way that you will have some trouble in reading it. Embrace my college friends, and, if possible, get them to write to me. Kindest love to Elsner⁴.
Footnotes:¹ Konstancja Gładkowska had given him the ring at parting.² Konstancja lived with female students of the Warsaw Conservatory in a boarding residence, located near the statue of King Sigismund.³ Chopin often called his sisters his children.⁴ Józef Elsner was Chopin's composition teacher and one of the most important musical figures in the composer's early life.
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