WITH CHOPIN IN LOVE

Radio Record, 3 June 1938, Page 21

WITH CHOPIN IN LOVE

ARTLESS SINGING OF YOUNG GIRL INSPIRED THE COMPOSER

CHOPIN spoke of his own career as "an episode with no beginning and with a sad ending." The episode was his friendship with George Sand, of which a somewhat fanciful account is given in two of her own books. But although the ending of that relationship, as of Chopin’s own life, was something of a tragedy, it is far from true that it was his only romance. About his twentieth year, after a few uncertain flirtations, Chopin at length became convinced that he was in love. At the opera one evening a singer in a minor role attracted him by her fresh voice. The artless singing of a young girl is sometimes an experience of rare beauty. The most rigorous training, the most perfect technique can never quite capture that beauty again, The experience impressed Chopin so much that he was curious to learn who the singer was. Her name was Costantia Gladkovska. She had not yet left the Conservatoire, The romantic boy was charmed by her delightful voice, her fair hair and her shapely mouth. He had already a sentimental attachment to a clever young pianist called Blahetka. But that

was soon forgotten when the new disturbance began, About this time Chopin composed his first piano concerto. At his last concert before starting out on his first big tour, he played this work, and Gladkovska sang between the movements of it. Warsaw at that date could evidently not be trusted to listen to @ whole concerto without breaks. The piano part of the work is genuine Chopin, real pianoforte music, admire ably laid out, as his always is, to display the most poetic qualities of the instrument, The music of the second movement, the Romance, is the glory of the entire piece. It is actually an expression of the very soul of this lover of loveliness, in the twentieth year of his life. In the long drawn close (where the theme is in the orchestra, the piano ranging over the keyboard in delicate filigree), Chopin seems to be fulfilling Keats’s desire "to cease upon the midnight with no pain." Chopin’s Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11, will be played at 3YA on Friday, June 10, by Arthur Rubinstein, pianist, with the London Symphony Orchestra, under John Barbirolli.