ABSTRACT
The London Daily News also lauded Chopin as composer and performer, adding that his music 'is characterised by freedom of thought, varied expression, and a kind of romantic melancholy'. The 'common friends' included the Thun-Hohenstein family, whom Chopin and his parents visited in 1835 at Tetschen, near the Polish frontier, and with whom Mrs Sartoris had also stayed. Chopin's first concert, as distinct from domestic recital, was in the grand setting of Stafford House, the London home of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, on 15 May 1848. On 2 June 1848, Chopin told Grzymala that he was having dinner that night with Lady Gainsborough, a former Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, and that she was 'very charming to him'. Chopin partly attributed his failure to receive royal patronage after the recital in Stafford House to his own lack of initiative.
