Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1083

CHO Zywni for the pianoforte, and Eisner for composition. He made in early life several excursions into Germany, where he heard the chief pianists of the time, from whose example, more than from the precepts of his master, he formed his style. The political troubles of 1831 obliged him to quit Poland, and from this period dates his career as an artist. He appeared first at Vienna, with marked success as a player; made an equally good impression at Munich, and reached Paris at the close of the year—which city became his permanent residence. His compositions were at this time of a bravura character, written to display his own execution in public performance; among others, a fantasia with orchestra on "La ci darem," was especially popular. Of a delicate constitution, which eminently affected the character of his mind, he was attacked in 1837 by a pulmonary and asthmatic disease from which he never recovered, that indisposed, if not incapacitated him for appearance in public, and thus concentered his thoughts upon composition, while it tinged them with a peculiar, not to say a morbid expression, which gives marked individuality to everything he wrote. His intimacy of many years with Madame Dudevant (Georges Sand) cannot have been without influence upon his intellectual powers, and thus, however indirectly, must have affected his music. Add to this the ardent love of his country and of everything associated with it, common to his exiled compatriots, and we have all the external causes that may be supposed for the æsthetical peculiarities of his writing. Circumstances similar to those which compelled him to quit his native land, induced him, for the first time, to leave France during the excitement of 1848. He then visited London, and at the close of the fashionable season made a tour in Scotland. The piercing climate of the north greatly irritated his sufferings from his disease, and he returned to the metropolis late in the autumn. He had played very much in private society during the year, and in November was persuaded to rise from his sick-bed to perform at a ball given for the Polish refugees at Guildhall—this being his only appearance in a public concertroom. He went back to Paris at the end of the year, where he lingered for many months in the protracted hopelessness of his ruthless malady. Chopin wrote two concertos, two sonatas, several concert pieces, eighteen nocturnes, a large number of impromptus, scherzos, ballads, polonaises, valses, and studies, and eleven books of mazurkas—all for the pianoforte. The best idea of his playing is to be gathered from his music; it was characterized by the most highly refined delicacy of expression, and rendered very peculiar by his free use of the tempo rubato, which no one ever employed so much, and few with such natural grace and effect. For his remarkable speciality as a composer, he owed little to the technical training of his Polish preceptor; with no command of the principles of construction, he made his lengthened pieces incoherent, and even his lightest productions give occasion to question the soundness of his grammatical knowledge. The singular beauty, and the constant individuality of his ideas, however; his exquisite feeling for harmonic combination and progression, which led to his habitual employment of resources most rarely used by others; his unreserved application of exceptional forms of passing notes, and his perfect and peculiar gracefulness of phraseology—give a charm to his music which is irresistibly fascinating. His mazurkas are unique in the range of musical composition, and they are as full of character, national colouring, sentiment, humour, and technical peculiarity, as they are insusceptible of imitation.—G. A. M.  CHOPPIN or CHOPIN,, a famous French lawyer, born in 1537; died in 1606. He practised with great success in the parliament of Paris; but latterly confined himself to his study, where he was consulted as a legal oracle. He was ennobled by Henry III. for his treatise "De Domanio Franciæ;" his best work, however, is the "Commentaires sur la coutume d'Anjou" Choppin's attachment to the league drew on him Hofman's satire, entitled Anti-Choppinus. He seems ultimately to have given in his adherence to Henry IV.—R. M., A.  CHOQUE, : lived towards the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century; he was a herald, and in the mysterious nomenclature of that science is designated as Bretagne. He was premier herald and king at arms to Anne of Bretagne. There are in the imperial library at Paris several manuscripts of his, recounting the ceremonies of royal marriages and funerals at which he assisted. A poem translated from the Latin of Brice into French verse by Choque, also exists in the imperial library. Brice, we are told, was Germain Brice d'Auxerre, canon of the cathedral of Paris, and almoner of Louis XII., and who died in 1538.—J. A., D.  CHORICIUS: born at Gaza. The precise time of his birth and death are unknown, but he is said to have flourished about 520, in the reign of Justinian. He was educated by Procopius, not the historian, but a rhetorician, who bore the same name. Twenty-one discourses of Choricius exist in manuscript. Of these Fabricius published two; Villoison a third; Iriarte and Mai also published some fragments. Monsieur Boissonade had some more fragments transcribed from a Madrid manuscript, and published at Paris in 1846, the whole collectively, under the title of "Choricii Gazæi Orationes, Declamationes, et Fragmenta. Insunt ineditæ orationes duæ."—J. A., D.  CHORIN,, for fifty-five years rabbi at Arad in Hungary, one of the most zealous and learned promoters of reform among the Jews in modern times. He published numerous works in defence and furtherance of his cause. The most interesting to Hebrew scholars in general are—"Zir neeman" (the Faithful Messenger), on the fundamental articles of faith; "Emek Ha-shaveh" (the Valley of the Plain, or Shave), on the harmonizing of religious duties with the exigencies of active life; "Dabar be-itto" (a Word in Season), on reforms in synagogue-worship; and his autobiography, "Yeled Zekunim," an eloquent appeal on behalf of progress. This enlightened rabbi died at Arad on August 24, 1844.—T. T.  CHORON, Alexandre Étienne, a musician, was born at Caen, October 21, 1772, and died at Paris, June 29, 1834. His father was a director of farms under government, an office of considerable emolument, and was so entirely adverse to Choron's adoption of music as a profession, that he threw every possible obstacle in the way of his studying this art; which obstacles, however, the son's strong natural inclination overcame. Choron was placed for general education in the college of Juilly, which he quitted at the age of fifteen with great distinction. Here he developed a remarkable faculty for languages, and so powerful a memory, that till his latest years he had the constant habit of reciting long passages from the Greek and Latin classics. His mastery of Hebrew was such, that when he first went to Paris, he frequently officiated as a deputy teacher at the Ponts et Chaussées; and, in pursuit of his musical studies, he acquired a knowledge of Italian and German to enable him to read the didactic works in those languages. The calculations of musical ratios in the writings of Rameau and d'Alembert directed Choron's attention to mathematical science, and he applied himself to this with the ardour and with the success that distinguish all his studious efforts. He became a pupil of Monge, by whom he was appointed in 1795 teacher of descriptive geometry in the normal school, and afterwards, on the opening of the polytechnic school, chef de brigade in that institution. To conclude this account of his pursuits unconnected with music, it must be stated that he published an ingenious tract on the improvement of instruction in reading and writing, which was not without beneficial influence on the elementary schools of France; and he wrote in 1812, as correspondent of the Classe des Beaux Arts, a tract upon the works of Scopa, which is a reputed masterpiece of criticism. Choron was nearly twenty years of age when he began the serious study of music, which was even then undertaken without the aid of a teacher to explain the theoretical works he read, or to correct the exercises he set himself. It was not till 1797 that he obtained his first master, Bonesi; after this, by the advice of Grétry with whom he had become intimate, he took lessons in counterpoint of Abbé Roye, and these two were his only instructors. In 1804 he published "Principes d'Accompagnement des Écoles d'Italie," a work written in conjunction with Fiocchi, a singing master resident in Paris, but of which Choron contributed the greater portion. With a view to the interests of his art, he embarked his property in the Music publishing firm of Le Duc and Co., and devoted great energy to the search after and production of works of a classical character that had not been printed in France, and that, as a commercial undertaking, probably might never have been printed there. At this establishment in 1808 he published the Principes de Composition des Écoles d'Italie, an extensive work comprised in three volumes, which included the large collection of specimens of the Italian contrapuntist, that had been printed at Naples by the venerable Sala, but of which the plates had been destroyed at the time when the French invested the city. It included, also, much matter selected from other sources, and a large amount 