Not having a standard
by which to gauge the new phenomenon, Kalkbrenner was forced to
fall back on the playing of men he knew. He then begged Chopin to
study three years with him--only three!--but Elsner in an earnest
letter dissuaded his pupil from making any experiments that might
hurt his originality of style. Chopin actually attended the class
of Kalkbrenner but soon quit, for he had nothing to learn of the
pompous, penurious pianist. The Hiller story of how Mendelssohn,
Chopin, Liszt and Heller teased this grouty old gentleman on the
Boulevard des Italiens is capital reading, if not absolutely
true. Yet Chopin admired Kalkbrenner's finished technique despite
his platitudinous manner. Heine said--or rather quoted Koreff--
that Kalkbrenner looked like a bonbon that had been in the mud.
Niecks thinks Chopin might have learned of Kalkbrenner on the
mechanical side. Chopin, in public, was modest about his
attainments, looking upon himself as self-taught. "I cannot
create a new school, because I do not even know the old," he
said. It is this very absence of scholasticism that is both the
power and weakness of his music.
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