Chopin and Jean Stirling
The Oxford Original Edition of Frederic Chopin. Edited from the original Edition and the Manuscripts by Edouard Gauche. 3 Vols. (Oxford University Press. 57s. 6d. Or in separate parts. 2s. to 4s. 6d. each.)
To her numerous nephews and nieces there seemed little that was romantic about Aunt Jean Stirling of Kippendavie.
The uncles were another story. There were six of them, and they had been in the Navy or the Army, in Jamaica or in business, before they settled down on their estates. The aunts were less interesting to the children ; but they were important to Miss Jean Stirling, for they provided her connexion with the great world and also with the world of music. Her five sisters had married into castles in Scotland. Jean was the youngest, the thirteenth child ; and though she never married she had the most romantic adventure of them all.
Jean Wilhelmina Stirling must have been a good amateur pianist. It was not given to everyone, however many castles there might be in the family, to have lessons from Frederic Chopin. In the 'forties of the last century she was living with her sister Katherine, widow of James Erskine of Linlithan.
They spent the season in London, " jigging about " and " drag- ging round London all day long with visiting cards." In the late summer and autumn they paid a round of visits at the castles in Scotland ; then they went to Paris, where they counted among their acquaintance Ary Scheffer, the Classicist painter, who is said to have introduced Jean into some of his pictures. History does not relate when they first became acquainted with Chopin ; but when he paid his second and last visit to London in 1848, after that disastrous winter in Majorca, Jean Stirling definitely took charge of him. " My kind Scottish ladies show me a great deal of friendliness here (he wrote, in a letter printed by Opiensky). " I always dine there when I'm not dining out." He gave several private concerts, played before Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, and made a little money ; but his mentality was too distinctly Parisian for him really to appreciate London : " Here, what- ever is not boring is not English." However, by August 6th he was in Scotland, installed at Calder House, the seat of Lord Torphichen, attended by " those kind ladies Mrs. Erskine and Miss Stirling. I have a Broadwood in my room, and in the drawing-room is Miss Stirling's Pleyel." By the beginning of September they had moved to Johnstone Castle, the mistress of which was the eldest sister of " my excellent Scottish ladies." Something—perhaps it was the weather, perhaps it was the
conversation—had begun to tell on his nerves ; people were always " discoursing of great families and great names that no one on the continent has ever heard of." On October 1st he was at Keir, the guest of Sir William Stirling Maxwell, " with many Murillos and other Spanish masters." But the Spanish masters left him cold, no less than the finest views in Scotland. In November he was back in London, on the eve of departure for Paris. " One more day here, and I should not die, but go mad. My Scottish ladies are so boring—may the hand of the Lord preserve them ! They have fastened on to me—there's
no getting away ! "
What was it that made the Scottish ladies so boring ? Why did they so pester the unfortunate man ? Can it have been that Jean Stirling was in love with him ? Friends in Paris did not fail to suggest it. " No," Chopin answered brutally, " She is said to be like me ; can one kiss oneself ? " Again, in a grimmer mood, he writes that for anyone to marry him would be like a marriage with death. Jean Stirling was far too sen- sible to dream of marriage ; what she wanted was that Chopin should put his compositions in order. She had a full set of all his printed works in their original editions, in seven folio volumes. She had contrived, with endless patience, that each
volume should be revised by the composer ; while at the end of the seventh volume was a general, thematic index, written partly by Franchon-une, the violoncellist, and partly by Chopin himself who had carefully been through every piece with her, correcting misprints, adding sharps and flats that were miss- ing, marking the fingering, and giving alternative, simpler versions of certain passages. Those volumes, so carefully got together by Miss Stirling at the risk of driving the composer to distraction by her persistence, have alone made possible this new edition which M. Edouard Quiche has prepared for the Oxford University Press—the only accurate text of Chopin. One thing is to be regretted : among the portraits and illustrations there is no portrait of Jean Wilhelmina Stirling.
J. B. TREND.
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