studied the works of Beethoven
thoroughly. This conjecture is confirmed by what we learn from Lenz,
who in 1842 saw a good deal of Chopin, and thanks to his Boswellian
inquisitiveness, persistence, and forwardness, made himself acquainted
with a number of interesting facts. Lenz and Chopin spoke a great deal
about Beethoven after that visit to the Russian ladies mentioned in
a foregoing part of this chapter. They had never spoken of the great
master before. Lenz says of Chopin:--

He did not take a very serious interest in Beethoven; he knew
only his principal compositions, the last works not at all.
This was in the Paris air! People knew the symphonies, the
quartets of the middle period but little, the last ones not at
all.

Chopin, on being told by Lenz that Beethoven had in the F minor Quartet
anticipated Mendelssohn, Schumann, and him; and that the scherzo
prepared the way for his mazurka-fantasias, said: "Bring me this
quartet, I do not know it." According to Mikuli Chopin was a regular
frequenter of the concerts of the Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire
and of the Alard, Franchomme, &c., quartet party. But one of the most
distinguished musicians living in Paris, who knew Chopin's opinion
of Beethoven, suspects that the music was for him not the greatest
attraction of the Conservatoire concerts, that in fact, like most of
those who went there, he considered them a fashionable resort. True or
not, the suspicion is undeniably significant. "But Mendelssohn," the
reader will say, "surely Chopin must have admired and felt in sympathy
with this sweet-voiced, well-mannered musician?" Nothing, however, could
be farther from the truth. Chopin hated Mendelssohn's D minor Trio, and
told Halle that that composer had never written anything better than the
first Song without Words. Franchomme, stating the case mildly, says
that Chopin did not care much for Mendelssohn's music; Gutmann, however,
declared stoutly that his master positively disliked it and thought it
COMMON. This word and the mention of the Trio remind me of a passage in
Hiller's "Mendelssohn: Letters and Recollections," in which the author
relates how, when his friend played to him the D minor Trio after its
completion, he was favourably impressed by the fire, spirit, and flow,
in one word, the masterly character of the work, but had some misgivings
about certain pianoforte passages, especially those based on broken
chords, which, accustomed as he w