cratic, and sometimes even severely
reserved. When, on returning home from the above-mentioned visit to the
Russian ladies, Lenz expressed his sincere opinion of Chopin's playing
of Beethoven's variations, the master replied testily: "I indicate
(j'indique); the hearer must complete (parachever) the picture." And
when afterwards, while Chopin was changing his clothes in an adjoining
room, Lenz committed the impertinence of playing Beethoven's theme as he
understood it, the master came in in his shirt-sleeves, sat down beside
him, and at the end of the theme laid his hand on Lenz's shoulder and
said: "I shall tell Liszt of it; this has never happened to me
before; but it is beautiful--well, BUT MUST ONE THEN ALWAYS SPEAK SO
PASSIONATELY (si declamatoirement)?" The italics in the text, not those
in parentheses, are mine. I marked some of Chopin's words thus that they
might get the attention they deserve. "Tell me with whom you associate,
and I will tell you who you are." Parodying this aphorism one might say,
not without a good deal of truth: Tell me what piano you use, and I
will tell you what sort of a pianist you are. Liszt gives us all the
desirable information as to Chopin's predilection in this respect. But
Lenz too has, as we have seen, touched on this point. Liszt writes:--

While Chopin was strong and healthy, as during the first years
of his residence in Paris, he used to play on an Erard piano;
but after his friend Camille Pleyel had made him a present of
one of his splendid instruments, remarkable for their metallic
ring and very light touch, he would play on no other maker's.

If he was engaged for a soiree at the house of one of his
Polish or French friends, he would often send his own
instrument, if there did not happen to be a Pleyel in the
house.

Chopin was very partial to [affectionnait] Pleyel's pianos,
particularly on account of their silvery and somewhat veiled
sonority, and of the easy touch which permitted him to draw
from them sounds which one might have believed to belong to
those harmonicas of which romantic Germany has kept the
monopoly, and which her ancient masters constructed so
ingeniously, marrying crystal to water.

Chopin himself said:--

When I am indisposed, I play on one of Erard's pianos and
there I easily find a ready-made tone. But when I feel in the
right mood and strong enough to find my own tone for myself, I
must have one of Pleyel