August 18, 2025 • 21 mins
Dive into the captivating world of Gustav Kobbe, a German-American music critic who lived during the vibrant era of Liszt and Wagner. With a distinct flair for storytelling, Kobbe offers a romantic and entertaining exploration of the loves and lives of seven iconic composers, all while firmly aligning himself with the Wagnerian perspective. His unique writing style, filled with rich imagery and unusual sentence constructions, transports listeners to the 19th century, making each chapter a delightful auditory experience. Wagner receives an especially thorough account, reflecting Kobbes personal claims of familiarity with both Liszt and Wagner, as well as Cosima Wagner. This blend of anecdote and insight creates an original narrative that stands apart from more traditional biographies. (Peter Thomlinson)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter four of the Loves of Great Composers by Gustav Coby.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Peter Tomlinson, Chapter four, Chopin and the Countess Delphini Potoka.
Her voice was destined to be the last which should
(00:21):
vibrate upon the musician's heart. Perhaps the sweetest sounds of
earth accompanied the parting soul until they blended in his
ear with the first chords of the Angels Liars. It
is thus Liszt describes the voice of Countess Delphina Potoka
as it vibrated through the room in which Chopin lay dying.
(00:44):
Witnesses disagree regarding details. One of the small company that
gathered about his bed says that she sang but once,
others that she sang twice, And even these vary when
they name the compositions. Yet, however they may differ on
these minor points, they agree as to the main incident.
(01:05):
That the beautiful Delphini sang for the dying Chopin is
not a mere pleasing tradition. It is a fact. Her
voice ravished the ear of the great composer, whose life
was ebbing away and soothed his last hours. Therefore, then,
has God so long delayed to call me to him?
(01:26):
He wanted to vouchsafe me for the joy of seeing you.
These were the words Chopin whispered when he opened his
eyes and saw beside his sister Louise, the Countess Delphini Potarka,
who had hurried from a distance as soon as she
was notified that his end was drawing near. She was
one of those rare and radiant souls who could bestow
(01:49):
upon this delicate child of genius her tenderest friendship, perhaps
even her love. Yet keep herself unsulid and as an
object of adoration, as much for her pure as for
her beauty, because she was Chopin's friend, because she came
to him in his dying hours, because along paths unseen
(02:09):
by those about them, her voice threaded its way to
his very soul. No life of him is complete without
mention of her, and in the mind of the musical public,
her name is irrevocably associated with his. Each succeeding biographer
of the great composer has sought to tell us a
little more about her. Yet little is known of her
(02:31):
even now, beyond the fact that she was very beautiful,
and so eager have we been for a glimpse of
her face that we have accepted without reserve as an
authentic presentation of her features. The famous portrait of a
Countess Potarka, who I find died some seven or eight
years before Delphine and Chopin met. But we have portraits
(02:55):
of Delphine by Chopin himself, not drawn with pencil or
crayon or painted brush, but a face as his soul
saw it and transformed it into music. Listen to a
great virtuoso play his two concertos. Ask yourself which of
the six movements is the most beautiful. Surely your choice
will fall on the slow movement of the second, dedicated
(03:18):
to the Countess Delphini Potarca, and one of the composer's
most tender and exquisite productions. Or play over the waltzes,
the one over which, for grace and poetic sentiment you
will linger long as will be the sixth, dedicated to
the Countess Delphini Potarka. Liszt, who knew Chopin, tells us
(03:38):
that the composer evinced A decided preference for the adagio
of the second concerto, and like to repeat it frequently.
He speaks of the adagio, this musical portrait of Delphini
as almost ideally perfect, now radiant with light, now full
of tender pathos, a happy veil of tempe, and my
(04:00):
magnificent landscape flooded with summer glow and luster, yet forming
a background for the rehearsal of some dire scene of
mortal anguish, A contrast sustained by a fusion of tones,
a softening of gloomy hues, which, while saddening joy, soothes
the bitterness of sorrow. What a lifelike portrait Chopin drew
(04:23):
in this beautiful, deep toned, love laden Cantalena. For was
it not the incomparable Delphini who was destined to soothe
the bitterness of sorrow during his final hours on earth?
But while hers was the soul strung with chords that
vibrated to the slightest breath of sorrow, she could be
(04:44):
vivacious as well. She was a child of Poland, that
land of sorrow, but where sorrow, for very excess of itself,
sometimes reverts to joy, and so she had her brilliant,
joyous moments. Chopin saw her in such moments too, and
that the recollection might not pass away for all time
(05:04):
fixed her picture in her vivacious moods in the last movement,
the allegro vivace of the concerto with what Niecks, one
of the leading modern biographers of the composer, calls its
feminine softness and rounded contours, and its graceful, gyrating dance
(05:25):
like motions, its spritliness and frolicsomeness. In the same way
in the Waltz, there is an obvious mingling of the
gay and the sad, the tender and the debonair. Chapin
thought he was writing a Woltz, he really was writing
Delphini Patarka. He too was from Poland, and that circumstance
(05:46):
of itself drew them to each other from the time
when they first met in France. One of Chopin's favorite
musical amusements when he was a guest at the houses
of his favorite friends, was to play on the piano
musical portraits of the company. At the salon of the
(06:06):
Countess Comar Delphini's mother, he played one evening the portraits
of the two daughters of the house. When it came
to Delphini's. He gently drew her light shawl from her shoulders,
spread it over the keyboard, and then played through it
his fingers with every tone they produced, coming in touch
(06:28):
with a gossamer like fabric still warm and hallowed for
him from its contact with her. It seems to have
been about eighteen thirty that Delphini first came into the
composer's life. In that year, the Count and the Countess
Comar and their three beautiful daughters arrived in Nice. Count
(06:48):
Comar was business manager for one of the Patarkas. The
girls made brilliant matches. Maddie became the Princess de vival
Creon Delphine he became the Countess Patarka, and Nathalie the
Marchioness Medici Spada. The last name died a victim of
her zeal as nurse during cholerable in Rome. Chopin was
(07:13):
a man who attracted women his delicate physique. He died
of consumption. His refined poetic temperament and his exquisite art
as a composer, combined with his beautiful piano playing so
well suited to the intimate circle of the drawing room
to make his personality, a thoroughly fascinating one. Moreover, he was,
(07:36):
besides an artist, a gentleman with the reserve yet charm
of manner that characterizes the man of breeding in men.
Women admired two extremes, splendid physical strengths or the delicacy
that suggests the poetic soul. Chopin was a creator of
poetic music and a gentle virtuoso. His appearance harmonized with
(07:58):
his genius. He was one of his own nocturnes in
which you can feel a vague presentiment of untimely death.
He described as a model son, an affectionate brother, and
a faithful friend. His eyes were brown, his hair was chestnut, luxuriant,
and as soft as silk. His complexion was of a
(08:19):
transparent delicacy, his voice subdued and musical. He moved with grace.
Born near Walsaw in eighteen o nine, he was brought
up in his father's school, with the sons of aristocrats.
He had the manners of an aristocrat and was careful
in his dress. But despite his sensitive nature, he could
(08:39):
resent undue familiarity or rudeness, yet in a refined way
all his own. Once, when he was a guest. At
dinner at a rich man's house in Paris, he was
asked by the host to play a patent violation of
etiquette toward a distinguished artist. Chopin demured. The host continued
(09:00):
to press him, urging that Liston Thalberg had played in
his house after dinner. But protested Chopin, I've eaten so little,
and thus put an end to the matter. Some twenty
or thirty of the best salons in Paris were open
to him. Among them were those of the Polish exiles,
(09:21):
some of whom he had known since their school days
at his father's. He was, in the truest sense of
the word, a friend of those who entertained him, in fact,
one of them. For a list of those among whom
he moved socially, read the dedications on his music. They
include wealthy women like Madame Nathaniel de Rothschild, but also
(09:43):
a long line of princesses and countesses. In the salon
of the Patarka, he was intimately at home, and it
was especially there he drew his musical portraits. At the
Piano Delphini, his brilliant countrywoman vibrated with music. Hassel she possessed,
who no belle void soprano and sang daprais for their
(10:07):
methodae de maitres d'etale. In her salon were heard such
singers as Rubini, Labiace, Tambourini, Malibran, Grisi and Perciani. Yet
it was her voice chopin whist to hear when he
lay dying. Truly, hers must have been a marvelous gift
(10:27):
of song at her salon. It was his delight to
accompany her with his highly poetical playing. From what is
known of his delicate art as a pianist, it is
possible to imagine how exquisitively his accompaniments must have both
sustained and mingled with that belvoir de soprano. He had
(10:47):
a knack of improvising a melody to any poem that
happened to take his fancy, and thus he and Delphini
would treat to an improvised song the elite of the musical, artistic, literary,
and social world that gathered in her salon. It is
unfortunate that these improvisations were lightly forgotten by the composer,
(11:09):
for he has left us few songs Delphini took as
much trouble in giving choice musical entertainments, as other people
did in giving choice dinners. Her salon must have been
a resort after the composer's own heart. This who knew
Delphini well during Chopin's lifetime, and from whose letters, as
(11:30):
yet untranslated into English, I have been able to unearth
a few references to her. The last in May eighteen
sixty one, nearly twelve years after Chopin died, and the
last definite reference to her which I have been able
to discover, says that her indescribable and spirited grace made
her one of the most admired sovereigns of the society
(11:52):
of Paris. He speaks of her ethereal beauty and her
enchanting voice, which, in chain Chopin Delphini was in fact
famous for her rare beauty and fascinating singing. No biography
of Chopin contained so much as the scrap of a letter,
(12:13):
either from him to her or from her to him,
that he should not have written. Is hardly to be
under that, considering that letter writing was most repugnant to him,
he would take a long walk in order to accept
or decline an invitation in person, rather than indict a
brief note. Moreover, in addition to this trait, he was
(12:34):
so often in the salon of the Countess Patarka that
much correspondence with her was unnecessary. I have, however, discovered
two letters from her to the composer. One written in French,
asked him to occupy a seat in her box at
Aberlio's concert. The other is in Polish and is quite long.
(12:55):
It is undated, and there is nothing to show from
where it was written. Vidently, however, she had heard that
he was ailing, for she begs him to send her
a few words post lesante to aid LaChapelle, letting her
know how he is. From this request, it seems that
she was away from Paris, possibly in or near Poland,
(13:17):
but expected to start for the French capital soon, and
wish to be appraised of his condition at the earliest moment.
The anxious tone of the letter leads me to believe
that it was written during the last year of the
composer's life, when the insiduous nature of the disease of
which he was a victim had become apparent to himself
and his friends. I cannot, she writes, wait so long
(13:40):
without news of your health and your plans for the future.
Do not attempt to write to me yourself, but asks
Madame Etienne or that excellent Grandma who dreams of chops,
to let me know about your strength, your chest, your breathing.
Delphini was also well aware of the unsatisfactory state of
his life finances, for she writes that she would like
(14:02):
to know something about that Jew if he called and
was able to be of service to you. What follows
is in a vein of sadness, showing that her own
life was not without its sorrows. Here everything is sad
and lonely. But my life goes on in much the
usual way. If only it will continue without further bitter
sorrows and trials, I shall be able to support it.
(14:25):
For me, the world has no more happiness, no more joy.
All those to whom I have wished well ever have
rewarded me with ingratitude or caused me other tribulations. The
italics are hers. After all, this existence is nothing but
a great discord. Then, with that Q dear view garde,
(14:49):
she bids him au revar till a beginning of October
at the latest. Note that it was October eighteen forty
nine that Chopin took to his deathbed, that in another
passage of the letter she advised him to think of
Nice for the winter, and that it was from Nice
she was summoned to his bedside. It would seem as
(15:10):
if she had received alarming advices regarding his health, had
hastened to Paris and then to the Riviera to make
arrangements for him to pass the winter there, and then,
learning that the worst was feared, had hurried back to
solace his last hours. Then came what is perhaps the
most touching scene that has been handed down to us
(15:31):
from the lives of the great composers. When Dulphini entered
what was soon to be the death chamber, Chopin's sister,
Louise and a few of his most intimate friends were
gathered there. She took her place by Louise. When the
dying man opened his eyes and saw her standing at
the foot of his bed, tall slight, draped in white,
(15:51):
resembling a beautiful angel, and mingling her tears with those
of his sister, his lips moved, and those nearest him,
bending over to cal his words, heard him ask that
she would sing, mastering her emotion by a strong effort
of the will, she sang in a voice of bell
like purity. The Canticle of the Virgin, attributed to Stradella,
(16:13):
sang it so devoutly, so etherially, that the dying man,
artist and lover of the beautiful, to the very last,
whispered in ecstasy. How exquisite. Again again, once more she sang,
this time a sum by Marcello. It was the haunted
hour of twilight. The dying day draped the scene in
(16:35):
its mysterious shadows. Those at the bedside had sunk noiselessly
on their knees. Over the mournful compliment of sobs, flirted
the voice of Delphini, like a melody from heaven. Chopin
dyed on October seventeenth, eighteen forty nine, just as the
bells of Paris were tolling the hour of three in
(16:56):
the morning. He was known to love flowers, and in
death he literally was covered with them. The funeral was
held from the Madeleine, where Mozart's Requiem was sung, the
solos being taken by Pauline Viardo Garcia Castellan and Lablace.
Maya Bir is said to have conducted, but this has
(17:16):
been contradicted. He was, however, one of the poolbearers on
the long way from the church to Pere Larchesse. When
the remains were lowered into the grave, some polish earth,
which Chopin had brought from him from Walla nineteen years
before and pishly guarded, was scattered over the coffin. There
is nothing to show what part, save that of a
(17:39):
mourner Delphini Portaka took in his funeral. But though it
was the famous Viado Garcia whose voice rang out in
the madeleine, it was hers that had sung him to
his eternal rest. How long did Delphini survive Chopin In
eighteen fifty three, liszt Meta at Baden, postponing his tended
(18:00):
departure for Karl's Ruher a day in order to dine
with her. In May eighteen sixty one, he met her
at dinner at the Rothschilds. When Chopin's pupil Mikuli was
preparing his edition of the composer's works, Delphini furnished him
copies of several compositions bearing expression marks in other directions
(18:21):
in the hand of Chopin himself. Miculei dated his edition
eighteen seventy nine, It would seem as if the Countess
still were living at all about that time. Besides the
age she thus gave in the preparation of the Micouli
edition of Chopin's works, there is other evidence that she
(18:42):
treasured the composer's memory. In eighteen fifty seven, when he
had been dead eight years, there was published a biographical
dictionary of Polish and Slavonic musicians, a book now very rare.
Although the Pataka was only an amateur, her name was
included in the public aation. Evidently, the biographies of living
(19:02):
people were furnished by themselves. Chopin's fame at that time
did not approximate what it is now. Yet in the
second sentence of her biography, Delphini recalls that she was
the intimate friend of the illustrious Chopin, forgetting that the
line of the Patarkis is a long one. The public
(19:23):
for years has associated with Chopin the famous pastoral portrait
of Countess Patarka in the Royal Berlin Gallery. The Countess
Patarka of that portrait had a career that reads like
a romance. But she was Sophie, not Delphini. Portoka. My
discovery of a miniature of Countess Sophie Pottoka in Philadelphia,
(19:47):
painted some fifteen or twenty years later than the Berlin pastor,
and of numerous references to her in the diary of
an American traveler who was entertained by her in Poland
early in the last century cctuary were among the interesting
results of my search for information regarding Delphine, but they
(20:07):
have no place here. Probably the public which clings to
Romance still will cling to the pastoral portrait of Countess
Pataka as that of the woman who sang to the
dying Chopin, and so the portrait is reproduced here. Badias,
the French historical painter who was in Paris when Chopin
lived there, painted the Death of Chopin. It shows Delphini
(20:29):
singing to the dying man. As Badias had his reputation
as a historical painter to sustain, and as the likeness
of others on the canvas are correct, it is not
improbable that he painted Delphini as he saw or remembered her.
If so, this is the only known portrait of Chopin's
(20:50):
faithful friend, the Countess Delphini Potoca of course, no one
who undertakes the write about Chapin, or only to read
about him for that matter, can escape the episode with
Madame du Davant George sand who used man after man
as living copy, and when she had finished with him,
(21:11):
cast him aside for some new experience. But the story
has been admirably told by Hoonecker and others, and its
disagreeable details need not be repeated here. It may have
been love, even passion while it lasted, but it ended
in harsh discord, whereas Delphini, sweet and pure and tender, ever,
(21:33):
was like a strain of Chopin's own exquisite music, vibrating
in a sympathetic heart. End of Chapter four
Chapter four of the Loves of Great Composers by Gustav Coby.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Peter Tomlinson, Chapter four, Chopin and the Countess Delphini Potoka.
Her voice was destined to be the last which should
(00:21):
vibrate upon the musician's heart. Perhaps the sweetest sounds of
earth accompanied the parting soul until they blended in his
ear with the first chords of the Angels Liars. It
is thus Liszt describes the voice of Countess Delphina Potoka
as it vibrated through the room in which Chopin lay dying.
(00:44):
Witnesses disagree regarding details. One of the small company that
gathered about his bed says that she sang but once,
others that she sang twice, And even these vary when
they name the compositions. Yet, however they may differ on
these minor points, they agree as to the main incident.
(01:05):
That the beautiful Delphini sang for the dying Chopin is
not a mere pleasing tradition. It is a fact. Her
voice ravished the ear of the great composer, whose life
was ebbing away and soothed his last hours. Therefore, then,
has God so long delayed to call me to him?
(01:26):
He wanted to vouchsafe me for the joy of seeing you.
These were the words Chopin whispered when he opened his
eyes and saw beside his sister Louise, the Countess Delphini Potarka,
who had hurried from a distance as soon as she
was notified that his end was drawing near. She was
one of those rare and radiant souls who could bestow
(01:49):
upon this delicate child of genius her tenderest friendship, perhaps
even her love. Yet keep herself unsulid and as an
object of adoration, as much for her pure as for
her beauty, because she was Chopin's friend, because she came
to him in his dying hours, because along paths unseen
(02:09):
by those about them, her voice threaded its way to
his very soul. No life of him is complete without
mention of her, and in the mind of the musical public,
her name is irrevocably associated with his. Each succeeding biographer
of the great composer has sought to tell us a
little more about her. Yet little is known of her
(02:31):
even now, beyond the fact that she was very beautiful,
and so eager have we been for a glimpse of
her face that we have accepted without reserve as an
authentic presentation of her features. The famous portrait of a
Countess Potarka, who I find died some seven or eight
years before Delphine and Chopin met. But we have portraits
(02:55):
of Delphine by Chopin himself, not drawn with pencil or
crayon or painted brush, but a face as his soul
saw it and transformed it into music. Listen to a
great virtuoso play his two concertos. Ask yourself which of
the six movements is the most beautiful. Surely your choice
will fall on the slow movement of the second, dedicated
(03:18):
to the Countess Delphini Potarca, and one of the composer's
most tender and exquisite productions. Or play over the waltzes,
the one over which, for grace and poetic sentiment you
will linger long as will be the sixth, dedicated to
the Countess Delphini Potarka. Liszt, who knew Chopin, tells us
(03:38):
that the composer evinced A decided preference for the adagio
of the second concerto, and like to repeat it frequently.
He speaks of the adagio, this musical portrait of Delphini
as almost ideally perfect, now radiant with light, now full
of tender pathos, a happy veil of tempe, and my
(04:00):
magnificent landscape flooded with summer glow and luster, yet forming
a background for the rehearsal of some dire scene of
mortal anguish, A contrast sustained by a fusion of tones,
a softening of gloomy hues, which, while saddening joy, soothes
the bitterness of sorrow. What a lifelike portrait Chopin drew
(04:23):
in this beautiful, deep toned, love laden Cantalena. For was
it not the incomparable Delphini who was destined to soothe
the bitterness of sorrow during his final hours on earth?
But while hers was the soul strung with chords that
vibrated to the slightest breath of sorrow, she could be
(04:44):
vivacious as well. She was a child of Poland, that
land of sorrow, but where sorrow, for very excess of itself,
sometimes reverts to joy, and so she had her brilliant,
joyous moments. Chopin saw her in such moments too, and
that the recollection might not pass away for all time
(05:04):
fixed her picture in her vivacious moods in the last movement,
the allegro vivace of the concerto with what Niecks, one
of the leading modern biographers of the composer, calls its
feminine softness and rounded contours, and its graceful, gyrating dance
(05:25):
like motions, its spritliness and frolicsomeness. In the same way
in the Waltz, there is an obvious mingling of the
gay and the sad, the tender and the debonair. Chapin
thought he was writing a Woltz, he really was writing
Delphini Patarka. He too was from Poland, and that circumstance
(05:46):
of itself drew them to each other from the time
when they first met in France. One of Chopin's favorite
musical amusements when he was a guest at the houses
of his favorite friends, was to play on the piano
musical portraits of the company. At the salon of the
(06:06):
Countess Comar Delphini's mother, he played one evening the portraits
of the two daughters of the house. When it came
to Delphini's. He gently drew her light shawl from her shoulders,
spread it over the keyboard, and then played through it
his fingers with every tone they produced, coming in touch
(06:28):
with a gossamer like fabric still warm and hallowed for
him from its contact with her. It seems to have
been about eighteen thirty that Delphini first came into the
composer's life. In that year, the Count and the Countess
Comar and their three beautiful daughters arrived in Nice. Count
(06:48):
Comar was business manager for one of the Patarkas. The
girls made brilliant matches. Maddie became the Princess de vival
Creon Delphine he became the Countess Patarka, and Nathalie the
Marchioness Medici Spada. The last name died a victim of
her zeal as nurse during cholerable in Rome. Chopin was
(07:13):
a man who attracted women his delicate physique. He died
of consumption. His refined poetic temperament and his exquisite art
as a composer, combined with his beautiful piano playing so
well suited to the intimate circle of the drawing room
to make his personality, a thoroughly fascinating one. Moreover, he was,
(07:36):
besides an artist, a gentleman with the reserve yet charm
of manner that characterizes the man of breeding in men.
Women admired two extremes, splendid physical strengths or the delicacy
that suggests the poetic soul. Chopin was a creator of
poetic music and a gentle virtuoso. His appearance harmonized with
(07:58):
his genius. He was one of his own nocturnes in
which you can feel a vague presentiment of untimely death.
He described as a model son, an affectionate brother, and
a faithful friend. His eyes were brown, his hair was chestnut, luxuriant,
and as soft as silk. His complexion was of a
(08:19):
transparent delicacy, his voice subdued and musical. He moved with grace.
Born near Walsaw in eighteen o nine, he was brought
up in his father's school, with the sons of aristocrats.
He had the manners of an aristocrat and was careful
in his dress. But despite his sensitive nature, he could
(08:39):
resent undue familiarity or rudeness, yet in a refined way
all his own. Once, when he was a guest. At
dinner at a rich man's house in Paris, he was
asked by the host to play a patent violation of
etiquette toward a distinguished artist. Chopin demured. The host continued
(09:00):
to press him, urging that Liston Thalberg had played in
his house after dinner. But protested Chopin, I've eaten so little,
and thus put an end to the matter. Some twenty
or thirty of the best salons in Paris were open
to him. Among them were those of the Polish exiles,
(09:21):
some of whom he had known since their school days
at his father's. He was, in the truest sense of
the word, a friend of those who entertained him, in fact,
one of them. For a list of those among whom
he moved socially, read the dedications on his music. They
include wealthy women like Madame Nathaniel de Rothschild, but also
(09:43):
a long line of princesses and countesses. In the salon
of the Patarka, he was intimately at home, and it
was especially there he drew his musical portraits. At the
Piano Delphini, his brilliant countrywoman vibrated with music. Hassel she possessed,
who no belle void soprano and sang daprais for their
(10:07):
methodae de maitres d'etale. In her salon were heard such
singers as Rubini, Labiace, Tambourini, Malibran, Grisi and Perciani. Yet
it was her voice chopin whist to hear when he
lay dying. Truly, hers must have been a marvelous gift
(10:27):
of song at her salon. It was his delight to
accompany her with his highly poetical playing. From what is
known of his delicate art as a pianist, it is
possible to imagine how exquisitively his accompaniments must have both
sustained and mingled with that belvoir de soprano. He had
(10:47):
a knack of improvising a melody to any poem that
happened to take his fancy, and thus he and Delphini
would treat to an improvised song the elite of the musical, artistic, literary,
and social world that gathered in her salon. It is
unfortunate that these improvisations were lightly forgotten by the composer,
(11:09):
for he has left us few songs Delphini took as
much trouble in giving choice musical entertainments, as other people
did in giving choice dinners. Her salon must have been
a resort after the composer's own heart. This who knew
Delphini well during Chopin's lifetime, and from whose letters, as
(11:30):
yet untranslated into English, I have been able to unearth
a few references to her. The last in May eighteen
sixty one, nearly twelve years after Chopin died, and the
last definite reference to her which I have been able
to discover, says that her indescribable and spirited grace made
her one of the most admired sovereigns of the society
(11:52):
of Paris. He speaks of her ethereal beauty and her
enchanting voice, which, in chain Chopin Delphini was in fact
famous for her rare beauty and fascinating singing. No biography
of Chopin contained so much as the scrap of a letter,
(12:13):
either from him to her or from her to him,
that he should not have written. Is hardly to be
under that, considering that letter writing was most repugnant to him,
he would take a long walk in order to accept
or decline an invitation in person, rather than indict a
brief note. Moreover, in addition to this trait, he was
(12:34):
so often in the salon of the Countess Patarka that
much correspondence with her was unnecessary. I have, however, discovered
two letters from her to the composer. One written in French,
asked him to occupy a seat in her box at
Aberlio's concert. The other is in Polish and is quite long.
(12:55):
It is undated, and there is nothing to show from
where it was written. Vidently, however, she had heard that
he was ailing, for she begs him to send her
a few words post lesante to aid LaChapelle, letting her
know how he is. From this request, it seems that
she was away from Paris, possibly in or near Poland,
(13:17):
but expected to start for the French capital soon, and
wish to be appraised of his condition at the earliest moment.
The anxious tone of the letter leads me to believe
that it was written during the last year of the
composer's life, when the insiduous nature of the disease of
which he was a victim had become apparent to himself
and his friends. I cannot, she writes, wait so long
(13:40):
without news of your health and your plans for the future.
Do not attempt to write to me yourself, but asks
Madame Etienne or that excellent Grandma who dreams of chops,
to let me know about your strength, your chest, your breathing.
Delphini was also well aware of the unsatisfactory state of
his life finances, for she writes that she would like
(14:02):
to know something about that Jew if he called and
was able to be of service to you. What follows
is in a vein of sadness, showing that her own
life was not without its sorrows. Here everything is sad
and lonely. But my life goes on in much the
usual way. If only it will continue without further bitter
sorrows and trials, I shall be able to support it.
(14:25):
For me, the world has no more happiness, no more joy.
All those to whom I have wished well ever have
rewarded me with ingratitude or caused me other tribulations. The
italics are hers. After all, this existence is nothing but
a great discord. Then, with that Q dear view garde,
(14:49):
she bids him au revar till a beginning of October
at the latest. Note that it was October eighteen forty
nine that Chopin took to his deathbed, that in another
passage of the letter she advised him to think of
Nice for the winter, and that it was from Nice
she was summoned to his bedside. It would seem as
(15:10):
if she had received alarming advices regarding his health, had
hastened to Paris and then to the Riviera to make
arrangements for him to pass the winter there, and then,
learning that the worst was feared, had hurried back to
solace his last hours. Then came what is perhaps the
most touching scene that has been handed down to us
(15:31):
from the lives of the great composers. When Dulphini entered
what was soon to be the death chamber, Chopin's sister,
Louise and a few of his most intimate friends were
gathered there. She took her place by Louise. When the
dying man opened his eyes and saw her standing at
the foot of his bed, tall slight, draped in white,
(15:51):
resembling a beautiful angel, and mingling her tears with those
of his sister, his lips moved, and those nearest him,
bending over to cal his words, heard him ask that
she would sing, mastering her emotion by a strong effort
of the will, she sang in a voice of bell
like purity. The Canticle of the Virgin, attributed to Stradella,
(16:13):
sang it so devoutly, so etherially, that the dying man,
artist and lover of the beautiful, to the very last,
whispered in ecstasy. How exquisite. Again again, once more she sang,
this time a sum by Marcello. It was the haunted
hour of twilight. The dying day draped the scene in
(16:35):
its mysterious shadows. Those at the bedside had sunk noiselessly
on their knees. Over the mournful compliment of sobs, flirted
the voice of Delphini, like a melody from heaven. Chopin
dyed on October seventeenth, eighteen forty nine, just as the
bells of Paris were tolling the hour of three in
(16:56):
the morning. He was known to love flowers, and in
death he literally was covered with them. The funeral was
held from the Madeleine, where Mozart's Requiem was sung, the
solos being taken by Pauline Viardo Garcia Castellan and Lablace.
Maya Bir is said to have conducted, but this has
(17:16):
been contradicted. He was, however, one of the poolbearers on
the long way from the church to Pere Larchesse. When
the remains were lowered into the grave, some polish earth,
which Chopin had brought from him from Walla nineteen years
before and pishly guarded, was scattered over the coffin. There
is nothing to show what part, save that of a
(17:39):
mourner Delphini Portaka took in his funeral. But though it
was the famous Viado Garcia whose voice rang out in
the madeleine, it was hers that had sung him to
his eternal rest. How long did Delphini survive Chopin In
eighteen fifty three, liszt Meta at Baden, postponing his tended
(18:00):
departure for Karl's Ruher a day in order to dine
with her. In May eighteen sixty one, he met her
at dinner at the Rothschilds. When Chopin's pupil Mikuli was
preparing his edition of the composer's works, Delphini furnished him
copies of several compositions bearing expression marks in other directions
(18:21):
in the hand of Chopin himself. Miculei dated his edition
eighteen seventy nine, It would seem as if the Countess
still were living at all about that time. Besides the
age she thus gave in the preparation of the Micouli
edition of Chopin's works, there is other evidence that she
(18:42):
treasured the composer's memory. In eighteen fifty seven, when he
had been dead eight years, there was published a biographical
dictionary of Polish and Slavonic musicians, a book now very rare.
Although the Pataka was only an amateur, her name was
included in the public aation. Evidently, the biographies of living
(19:02):
people were furnished by themselves. Chopin's fame at that time
did not approximate what it is now. Yet in the
second sentence of her biography, Delphini recalls that she was
the intimate friend of the illustrious Chopin, forgetting that the
line of the Patarkis is a long one. The public
(19:23):
for years has associated with Chopin the famous pastoral portrait
of Countess Patarka in the Royal Berlin Gallery. The Countess
Patarka of that portrait had a career that reads like
a romance. But she was Sophie, not Delphini. Portoka. My
discovery of a miniature of Countess Sophie Pottoka in Philadelphia,
(19:47):
painted some fifteen or twenty years later than the Berlin pastor,
and of numerous references to her in the diary of
an American traveler who was entertained by her in Poland
early in the last century cctuary were among the interesting
results of my search for information regarding Delphine, but they
(20:07):
have no place here. Probably the public which clings to
Romance still will cling to the pastoral portrait of Countess
Pataka as that of the woman who sang to the
dying Chopin, and so the portrait is reproduced here. Badias,
the French historical painter who was in Paris when Chopin
lived there, painted the Death of Chopin. It shows Delphini
(20:29):
singing to the dying man. As Badias had his reputation
as a historical painter to sustain, and as the likeness
of others on the canvas are correct, it is not
improbable that he painted Delphini as he saw or remembered her.
If so, this is the only known portrait of Chopin's
(20:50):
faithful friend, the Countess Delphini Potoca of course, no one
who undertakes the write about Chapin, or only to read
about him for that matter, can escape the episode with
Madame du Davant George sand who used man after man
as living copy, and when she had finished with him,
(21:11):
cast him aside for some new experience. But the story
has been admirably told by Hoonecker and others, and its
disagreeable details need not be repeated here. It may have
been love, even passion while it lasted, but it ended
in harsh discord, whereas Delphini, sweet and pure and tender, ever,
(21:33):
was like a strain of Chopin's own exquisite music, vibrating
in a sympathetic heart. End of Chapter four
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.