ies when he
was already remarkable as a pianist. Seeing how very little is known
concerning the nature and extent of Chopin's studies in composition, it
may be as well to exhaust the subject at once. But before I do so I must
make the reader acquainted with the musician who, as Zyvny was Chopin's
only pianoforte teacher, was his only teacher of composition.

Joseph Elsner, the son of a cabinet and musical instrument maker at
Grottkau, in Silesia, was born on June 1, 1769. As his father intended
him for the medical profession, he was sent in 1781 to the Latin school
at Breslau, and some years later to the University at Vienna. Having
already been encouraged by the rector in Grottkau to cultivate his
beautiful voice, he became in Breslau a chorister in one of the
churches, and after some time was often employed as violinist and singer
at the theatre. Here, where he got, if not regular instruction, at least
some hints regarding harmony and kindred matters (the authorities are
hopelessly at variance on this and on many other points), he made his
first attempts at composition, writing dances, songs, duets, trios, nay,
venturing even on larger works for chorus and orchestra. The musical
studies commenced in Breslau were continued in Vienna; preferring
musical scores to medical books, the conversations of musicians to
the lectures of professors, he first neglected and at last altogether
abandoned the study of the healing art. A. Boguslawski, who wrote a
biography of Elsner, tells the story differently and more poetically.
When, after a long illness during his sojourn in Breslau, thus runs his
version, Elsner went, on the day of the Holy Trinity in the year 1789,
for the first time to church, he was so deeply moved by the sounds of
the organ that he fainted. On recovering he felt his whole being filled
with such ineffable comfort and happiness that he thought he saw in this
occurrence the hand of destiny. He, therefore, set out for Vienna,
in order that he might draw as it were at the fountain-head the great
principles of his art. Be this as it may, in 1791 we hear of Elsner
as violinist in Brunn, in 1792 as musical conductor at a theatre in
Lemberg--where he is busy composing dramatic and other works--and near
the end of the last century as occupant of the same post at the National
Theatre in Warsaw, which town became his home for the rest of his life.
There was the principal field of his labours; there he died, after a
sojour