Anecdotes of Great Musicians/Anecdote 64
64.—PERSONAL APPEARANCE.
There is an individuality that shows itself in dress and personal appearance; though to form any concept of what a person may be, musically, by these indications would be work for an expert in reading character by outward manifestations.
The well-groomed and polished gentleman may have as strong a musical personality as the one who would proclaim his descent from Beethoven by his disorderly garments and flying hair. On the other hand, some genius of clumsy walk and slouchy appearance may have the soul of a Mozart or a Chopin.
We may well imagine that Bach was a methodical man, in dress as well as music, though, to tell the truth, those twenty children must have sensibly reduced the amount the irascible cantor could squander on dress. Both Haydn and Mozart were neat and tidy men in personal appearance, but one could not say the same for Beethoven and Schubert. The matter of externals was of little import to them. Perhaps the fact that they were confirmed bachelors made them less careful of their personal appearance.
Mendelssohn was a pronounced aristocrat in dress as well as music, and the same might be said of Liszt, though, of the two, Mendelssohn had perhaps the more refined appearance and the more elegant bearing. Liszt had less of delicate refinement in his appearance, and more of the mien of a commanding general.
Chopin, in the latter part of his life, must be ranked as a musical aristocrat, although in his earlier days music occupied his mind to the exclusion of matters of dress and appearance. Yet one who comes before the public must concede something to custom, and the manner in which Chopin steered between his indolence and fashion was, to say the least, peculiar. The way in which he reconciled his carelessness in respect to one matter of his toilet with regard for the feelings of his audiences, he tells in a letter sent to his parents from Vienna, in 1831. He says, in writing of some family friends: "When they saw me at Madame Schascheck's, their astonishment knew no bounds at my looking such a proper fellow. I have left my whiskers only on the right cheek. They grow very well there; and there is really no occasion to have them on my left cheek, as I always sit with my right toward the audience!"