chopin and his english publisher

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Chopin and His English PublisherAuthor(s): Maurice J. E. BrownReviewed work(s):Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct., 1958), pp. 363-371Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/729153 .

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CHOPIN AND HIS ENGLISH PUBLISHERBY MAURICE . E. BROWN

CHOPIN'S arliest publications outside his native country were inVienna, Op. 2, May 1830, and Leipzig, Op. 6, December I832.His firstpublicationin Paris was Op. 9, three Nocturnes,which thefirm of M. Schlesingerpublishedin the springof 1833.When did hisfirstpublicationstake place in London?It shouldbe easyto find theanswerto this question,but thereare many obstaclesif one attemptsto discover it. All that is certain is that at some time in 1833 hiswork began to appear in London, considerably earlier than isgenerally supposed.Now it is a remarkablefact that during the latter part of 1833and during the whole of I834 England was without a musicalperiodical of any kind. The 'Harmonicon' ceased publication inmid-I833 and it was not until 1835 that the 'Musical Magazine'began its brief life, to be followedin 1836by the successful MusicalWorld'. Hence one obvious sourceof information for the commence-ment of Chopin's English publication, the advertisementpages ofa musical periodical, is completely lacking. One wonders, incident-ally, how Londonmusicpublishersof the 1833-1835period toleratedthis lack of opportunity to advertise their products. The 'Times'advertisementcolumns carried brief notices from time to time, butchiefly of the lighter morceaur of the sentimentalballad; otherwisethere was no obvious medium available.That Chopin was ambitiousto obtain publication of his work inEngland we know from a letter written to him by his father fromWarsaw in September I832. The terms of the letter show that thesubjecthad been discussedbetweenthem: "ifyou go to Englandnextspring",writes his father, "yourwork will be alreadyknown there".The man who undertook to introduce Chopin's work to theEnglish public was ChristianRudolph Wessel.He was a naturalizedEnglishman of German birth, whose idea it was to secure and re-publish in London establishedmusicalsuccesses rom the Continent.Wessel, in partnershipwith William Stodart, founded his businessin 1823, and during the next ten years he published some eighthundred works; the pace quickenedas the years went by, for in theI83os the rate was in the neighbourhoodof thirty works a month.In 1833he publishedhis firstChopinwork; it was the famousOp. 2,the Variationsfor piano and orchestraon Mozart's"La ci darem la

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mano". It appeared in a series called 'Album des Pianistes dePremiere Force'. Wessel, in common with most other Englishpublishers, was given to the grandiloquent and catchpenny title:such entitling casts a not insignificantsociological light on the earlyVictorian world of music. Wessel's 'Album' was subtitled: 'A Col-lection of the most Brilliant and Original Compositions', andChopin'sOp. 2 formed Book XVII of the collection. When exactlywas it published?The 'Harmonicon',shortlybefore its demise,wasreviewingthe various "Books"of this seriesof Wessel's,apologizingfor the delayedappearancesof the notices. BookXI, a pianofantasiaby Hummel, was reviewedin April I833. Before t reachedChopin'sBook XVII the paper ceased publication, but it looks as if the firstEnglish publication of the composer'swork appeared in the latespring or early summer of I833. Wessel'splate numbers need to behandled with caution, as will be seen later on in the course of thisarticle.His numberfor Chopin's Op. 2 was "W. & C?820", whichsupportsthis possibledate. The Englishedition of Op. 2 was there-forecontemporarywith the Parispublicationof the samework,botheditions, English and French, being based on Haslinger'sVienneseeditionof threeyearsearlier. Besideshisfancytitles,Wessel alsogavequite unauthorized dedications to his editions of Chopin: thisOp. 2, for example, is entitled "Homage [sic]a Mozart" and dedi-cated to Carl Czerny.The next publicationsof Chopin by Wessel whose dates can beestablishedwith certainty are the opus numbers starting with 2I,which began to appear in 1836 and were advertisedas they did soin the newly founded 'Musical World'. Between mid-I833 andearly 1836 we have, then, the publication of eighteen works.(Chopin'sOp. 4, the Sonatain C minor,was a posthumouspublica-tion, not appearingfrom any firm until I85I.) To ascertainwhenthese eighteen works were actually published we have, of course,some guide in Wessel'splate numbers, but there is another fairlyreliable sourceof information,the acquisitiondateson the copiesoffirst or early editions owned by the British Museum. Using thesetwo guides it is possibleto arrive at a fairly conclusivesequence. Itis not surprising to find that the second English publication ofChopin consists of the popular Nocturnes of Op. 9 ("W. & C?916-9I7"), which appeared in the summer of 1833, probably inJuly. They had first been publishedat Leipzig the previousDecem-ber and in Parisin the early spring.What is surprising,however,isthat Op. 9 was followed soon afterby the pianoforteTrio in G minor,Op. 8 ("W. & C?924"), some months before its publication in Paris.

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CHOPIN AND HIS ENGLISH PUBLISHER 365This Trio, in Wessel's edition, is very rare. It was never popular inEngland, and Wessel frequently omitted it, in later years, from hisadvertised lists of Chopin's works. What is even stranger than thisomission is that Wessel occasionally called the third Nocturne ofOp. 9 by its right opus number and filled in the blank in his list bycalling the first two Nocturnes Op. 8! In the following month,August 1833, the two sets of Mazurkas, Opp. 6 and 7, were pub-lished by Wessel, together with the first set of Studies, Op. Io.The two works which Chopin wrote in Warsaw for pianoforteand orchestra, the 'Fantasia on Polish Airs', Op. 13, and the'Krakowiak' Rondo, Op. I4, were published in England simul-taneously with their publication in Germany from the Leipzig firmof Probst-Kistner. This was in May 1834, and during the same monthWessel also published Op. I i, the pianoforte Concerto in E minor.These three works formed part of his series, the 'Album des Pianistesde Premiere Force'. Op. I was Book XXIV, and Wessel claimedthat it was edited and fingered by Chopin's pupil I. [sic] Fontana.There is a faint possibility that this may have been the case, but thepublisher's further claims, that Op. 13 (Book XXI) and Op. I4(Book XXII) were expressly written for his 'Album', are, of course,baseless. The 'Duo' for pianoforte and cello which Chopin based onthemes from Meyerbeer's 'Robert le Diable' was likewise publishedin May I834. Wessel called the 'Duo' "Op. 12", although Chopin'sreal Op. 12 is the set of Variations on a theme from Herold's'Ludovic'. It is possible that Wessel's use of "Op. 12" for the 'Duo'was not simply an error. The Herold variations were published inEngland during I834 by the firm of Cramer, Addison & Beale:this may be a case of successful negotiation on the part of Cramer,scoring off a business rival, for Wessel was continually involved introubles of this kind where his Chopin and other copyrights wereconcerned. Since the 'Robert le Diable' Duo carried no opus numberit may, again, have conveniently filled a blank in his Chopin edition.The last works to be published in May 1834 were the three Nocturnesof Op. 15.Soon afterwards, in July and August, Opp. 16, 17 and 18 werepublished. Op. i6 is the 'Introduction and Rondo' in Eb major.Wessel subtitled the work 'Rondoletto ur la Cavatina de L'Italianaen Algeri', but this claim, like others already mentioned, is withoutfoundation. Later he changed the title to 'Rondo elegante'. Op. 18,the Waltz in E b, became widely known and very popular in Englandas 'L'Invitation', because Wessel had advertised it as 'L'Invitationpour la Danse'. Another, later Waltz, which became nicknamedD


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in England, at first sight incomprehensibly,was the one in Ab,Op. 42. It was called the "Cent-et-un"Waltz. Wessel, in his adver-tisements,took over the title fromthe Parisedition, for there it firstappeared in a serial 'Album', which the publisher, Paccini, calledby the general title 'Le Cent-et-un Album'. Chopin's waltz wasNo. 68 in this particularAlbum.A year later, in August 1835, Wessel published the Bolero,Op. I9, and the Scherzo in B minor, Op. 20. They were Nos. 54and 56 in a new series for the piano called 'L'AmateurPianiste'.Both works were given unauthorized and extravagant titles: theBolero being called 'Souvenir d'Andalousie' and the Scherzo-ofall things-'Le Banquet Infernal'.All the various sets of mazurkaswere given a comprehensive title and Opp. 6, 7 and 17 eachappeared as 'Souvenirs de la Pologne'. A 'Memoir' [sic] of thecomposer,printedin the 'MusicalWorld' of 23 February1838,showspretty clearly that some membersof the London musical scene werecynically amused by Wessel's methods, for after the writer hasdeploredthe numerouserrors n the engravedmusiche goes on to saythat the titleswere, in all probability,bestowedon the workswhenthey arrived n Englandto help on the sales(it is as well to rememberhere that Chopin, like many of his famouspredecessors, ound hisdaringharmonicstructuresattributedto the errorsof engravers!).From now onwards, until Chopin's death, Wessel's advertise-ments in the pagesof the 'Musical World'enable us to date with fairaccuracy the progressof the composer'sEnglish edition. Wessel'sdifficulties over his sole proprietorshipwere settled by businessagreementswith Chopin, and until 1848 the publicationproceededsmoothly. Opp. 21 to 24 and Op. 27 appeared during 1836, Opp. 25and 26 in I837. The Concerto n F minor,Op. 2I, was dedicatedbyWessel (not Chopin) to "Mrs.Andersonof Bath". She was the well-known Lucy Anderson who taught the piano to Queen Victoria.The publicationof the 24 Preludes, ntendedas "Op. 28"by Chopin,was held up becausethe composerdid not completethe compositionof them until January 1839. By that time his later opus numbers,up to Op. 34, had appeared in England, France and Germany.When finally the Preludeswere publishedthe correctopus numberwas not used. Wesselhad wrongly called the Impromptuin A b bythe opus number "28"; it is actually "Op. 29" and was so calledeverywhere else. He called the Preludes 'Books III and IV' ofOp. 25-the second set of Studies-and "29"remainedblank in hislists for many years.His romantic and polylingual entitlingof these workscontinued.

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The second Scherzo, in Bb minor, Op. 31, was called 'La Medita-tion' and the two Nocturnes of Op. 32 were given the associatedtitles 'I1 Lamento e la Consolazione'. There is some evidence thatChopin himself, dismayed by these flowery and misleading titles,prevented Wessel from calling the second Impromptu, in F: major,Op. 36, 'Agrements au Salon'. In December 1838 the Op. 34Waltzes were published by Wessel simultaneously with their appear-ance in Paris and Leipzig.

During these "middle years" of Chopin's creative career hiscompositions were published in batches. They often appeared in thewinter or spring and were the fruits of his sojourn during thepreceding summer months at Nohant, the country residence ofGeorge Sand. The composer devoted the months of retirement fromteaching and performing in Paris to composition and the finishedproducts were sent to his publishers in the early autumn. Wesselapparently collected this batch of work during his visits to theContinent or had them sent to him by Chopin-or by one of thecomposer's friends, usually Fontana, pressed into service as a copyist.For this reason Wessel's plate numbers need to be treated withcaution. Each item in the batch of compositions was given a con-secutive plate number, although its eventual appearance might beseparated from its companion's by a year or more. In one case,obviously, Wessel allotted a set of plate numbers to Chopinhimself! In October I841 he published the 'Tarantella', Op. 43;its plate number is "W. & C? 5295". The next fourteen numbers,i.e. up to "W. & C? 5309", were evidently left blank for futurecompositions by Chopin, as or when Wessel should acquire them.They were subsequently bestowed on the composer's works up toOp. 56, the three Mazurkas in B, C and C minor. That this must bethe case is obvious from the fact that in October I841 these threemazurkas had not been composed. The result is that Op. 51, the?G Impromptu, has Wessel's plate number "5304" and was pub-lished inJune 1843, whereas Op. 52, carrying the next plate number,"5305", did not appear until April I845. Incidentally, the Im-promptu, Op. 51, was published in London a month before itspublication in Paris.

Although Wessel, as a business man, was naturally concerned inthe first place with Chopin's commercial value in the Londonmusical market, there is evidence that he, no mean musician, wasalso an admirer of the composer's works. The 'Musical World' atthat period (c. I840), under the editorship of G. A. Macfarren,became almost nauseatingly pro-Mendelssohn, and since in the field

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MUSIC AND LETTERSof pianoforte composition Chopin seemed to challenge Mendelssohn'ssupremacy, the 'Musical World' did not hesitate to publish unfriendlynotices on Chopin's style and material. It all seems childish andstupidly ill-informed in this day and age, but it aroused bitterfeelings then. After a particularly vicious attack in the autumn ofI84I, Wessel felt moved to reply. He was no doubt inspired partiallyby his desire to protect his sales, but the reply is dignified andreasonable, and clearly Wessel is defending an artist as well. The'Musical World' attempted in subsequent issues to convey a senseof good humoured acceptance of the position and an attitude of"Very well: we will agree to differ", but the next editor, J. W.Davison, a friend and colleague of Macfarren's, never forgot thispassage of arms, and on the death of Chopin he announced in thepages of his journal "Chopin, the pianist [sic] died in Paris,19 October I849". Even then he was not prepared to admit that acomposer ad died. This animosity on the part of critics towards themusic of Chopin can also be seen in the pages of the 'MusicalMagazine' of 1835, where the pianoforte Concerto in E minor wasreviewed and dismissed as "a compound of filthy sounds".

Two publications by Chopin of that period did not appear fromthe firm of Wessel. The first is the 'Trois Nouvelles Jtudes', which,in Paris and Berlin, was published in a glorified pianoforte "Tutor"by Fetis and Moscheles, called the 'Methode des Methodes'. It isdoubtful, in fact, whether this work ever was published in Eng-land before Chopin's death. It is supposed that Chappell publishedit in the early part of I84I, when that firm did, indeed, begin topublish the 'Methode'. But it seems impossible to discover if theyever got beyond Part I, the elementary stages of the "Tutor".Chopin's 'lttudes' appeared in Part III. The other publication is theE major variation (Largo)from the set of six by various composers,under the title 'Hexameron'. The theme was Bellini's 'Marche desPuritains', and in England not Wessel but Cramer & Co. publishedthe complete set, including Chopin's contribution, in I839.The eight works by Chopin from Op. 57 to Op. 64 were pub-lished in London in I845 and I846. In a similar fashion Wessel againset aside eight consecutive plate numbers so that the Berceuse,Op. 57, which appeared in June I845, is given the number "6313",while the three Waltzes of Op. 64, which were not published untilSeptember I846, are "6321/2/3". Incidentally, Wessel's first editionof the three Mazurkas in Op. 63 carried no plate number, a factwhich should make it something of a collector's piece, for it wasclearly an accidental omission: the sequence shows that it should

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have been "6320". The French edition of this Op. 63 gives "Jullien"as the English publisher. The same information is found on theFrench edition of the three Waltzes, Op. 64. Wessel's successor,Edwin Ashdown, later informed the Chopin biographer, Niecks,that these wrong indications were due to unsuccessfulnegotiationson the part of Jullien (LouisAntoineJullien) to wrest the copyrightfrom Wessel. Op. 63 and part of Op. 64 were, in fact, pirated byCramer, Addison & Beale in London. This firm published themazurkasand the first two waltzes of Op. 64 in April I848. Fivemonths later Wessel brought out the complete Op. 64 and onceagain stressedthe fact in his advertisementsthat he was the "soleproprietor" and owned the exclusive copyright of Chopin's worksin England. A work of the period which appearedon the Continentwithout an opus number was coolly given one by Wessel when herepublishedit in London. This is the Mazurkain A minor, knowninmost collections as 'Notre Temps'. It was firstpublishedin February1842 by Schott's Sons, Mainz, in an 'Album' of pieces by variouscomposers of the day, and accordingly given the title of 'NotreTemps'. Wessel included it with Chopin's three Mazurkas ofOp. 59, calling it "Op. 59: bis",and he gave it the title 'The CracowMazurka'.This was in 1846.

* * * * *There are various puzzles in connection with the history ofWessel's dealings with Chopin. What is the explanation, for example,of the gap between the publication of the Impromptu in G b,Op. 5I,which appeared in June I843, and that of Op. 52, which wasapparentlynot available in London until April I845, by which timeParis and Leipzig had reached Chopin'sOp. 56? Why was Op. 65.Chopin's last publication, the Sonata for pianoforte and cello inG minor, neverpublishedby Wessel?How is it that no single manu-script, either autograph or copy, was preservedby the firm? Theonly contemporary document they possess to-day is the agreement

signed between Chopin and Wessel in Paris, on 20 September I846,for the publication of Opp. 6o, 61 and 62.I Wessel must obviouslyhave had these manuscripts, since, as it has several times beenpointed out, his publication was either simultaneous with or actuallypreceded that of the continental houses: he could not thereforehave been using printed copies as his source.Soon after Chopin's death, Wessel published as a single item, and

The document was reproduced by Wessel's successors, Edwin Ashdown Ltd.,London, as a frontispiece to their 'Chopin' Album, a commemorative issue for the deathcentenary in 1949.

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as a memorialissue,the Funeral March in Bbminor from the Sonatain the same key, Op. 35. On that issuehe claims to be the publisherof the "CompleteEdition"of Chopin'sworks. His claim might nowbe considered since it is, in point of fact, the crux of this article:the foregoing paragraphshave all, in a sense, been leading up tosuch a consideration. That there exists a substantialEnglisheditionof Chopin, contemporary with the composer, is not ignoredbyauthorities n France,Germany,Austriaand Poland, for to say thatwould suggest that they are aware of it, but take no notice of it,It would be nearer the truth to say that such authoritieswouldprobably be greatly surprised f their attention wereclearlydirectedto it. Of courseit is knownthat Wesseldid publish Chopin'sworkinEngland,and therearecasual references o him (or,morefrequently.to Ashdown & Perry, his immediate successors),but if one glancesthrough Breitkopf & Hartel's Revisionsberichto their ChopinGesamtausgabe,r at the two thematic cataloguesof the composer'sworks which they published (in 1852 and I888), one would hardlythink that that great firm were aware of it. The newly publishedcomplete edition of Chopin'sworks('Dziela Wszystkie')in Polandtakes for its printedsourceschieflythe Frenchand Germaneditions,and references to Wessel's are scanty. But consider the basis ofWessel's claims. With a few minor exceptions already noted,Op. I 2 (the Heroldvariations),the 'TroisNouvelles ltudes' and the'Hexameron'variation, he, and only he, in Europe, could claim tobe the publisherof the complete corpusof Chopin'swork. In Paris,Chopin divided his work between Maurice Schlesinger (laterBrandus),Catelin, Prillip, Troupenasand Meissonier.In Germany,he began to publish his early workswith Probst-Kistnerof Leipzig,but after Op. 14 he transferredhis works to Breitkopf& Hartel.Even then there were numerous occasions when he gave his workto other German and Austrian publishers,for example, to A. M.Schlesinger and to Stern, both of Berlin, to Schuberthof Leipzigand to Mechetti of Vienna. When Chopindied in 1849 Wesselwastheonlypublisherwho could genuinelyput forwardsuchaclaim,andthe English edition of Chopin was far and away the earliest andmost truly completedition of the composer'sworks in Europe.This fact introduces another puzzle. Why, in such a case, didWessel's successors, Ashdown & Perry, take over the so-called"Complete Edition" of Chopin published by Simon Richault inParis?This "new and cheap Paris Edition" was edited by ThomasTellefsen (1823-74), a pupil of Chopin'sfor a brief period. It wasarranged n twelvevolumesandon salein Londonin I860. A possible

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reason is that it contained the posthumous works, Opp. 66 to 73,which had appeared in Paris and Berlin during I855-56. With twoexceptions the pieces which Fontana had assembled, and to whichhe gave these unauthorized opus numbers, were never published inLondon, by Wessel or anyone else. The two exceptions were theWaltz in F minor (Op. 70 No. 2) and the Waltz in B minor (Op. 69No. 2). These had already appeared in 1852 before their inclusion byFontana in the posthumous works. They were first published by J.Wildt, of Cracow, who called them 'Une soiree en 1844: Deux valsesmelancholiques', and he added that they were written in the albumof one "Countess Pxxx".2 The date "I844" must be the year inwhich Chopin wrote out these waltzes in the Countess's album, forthe first was composed in I841 and the second, according to Fontana,as early as I829. Wessel did republish these two pieces, embellishingthe title, as was his way, so that it appeared as 'Une soiree a Cracovieen I844 .. .'. This was in July I853. Otherwise, until much laterduring the century, the posthumous works were available to theEnglish public only in continental editions.The last of Fontana's posthumous publication of his friend'swork, Op. 74, contains Chopin's sixteen (later seventeen) Polishsongs. These were never touched by Wessel, who flatly wrote toFontana that there would be no sale for them at all in England.They finally appeared in London from the firm of Stanley Lucas& Weber in 1874, with English words supplied by our old friend,the Rev. J. J. Troutbeck.

* * * * *The complete edition of Richault, published in Paris in I86o,

was followed three years later by a similar venture in Warsaw, whenthe Polish publisher Gebethner brought out a truncated versionconsisting of the pianoforte works only. It was not until the lateI87os that various "Complete Editions" of Chopin began to appearfrom all the capitals of Europe, so that a critic in the Leipzig'Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung' of January I88o exclaimed that"... der musikalische Markt plotzlich mit Chopin-Ausgabeniiberfluthet wird". The cry was not without a certain resentment;he was a mouthpiece of Breitkopf & Hartel, who had just concludedthe publication of their particular Gesamtausgabevolumes. Betweenthe years I849 and the i87os Wessel's edition, for completeness andtextual authority, stood alone.2 No one seems to have attempted to name this Countess, but it is surely not too wideof the mark to suggest that she is Delphine Potocka.

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