Anonymous Scottish lady

Descended from a distinguished Scottish family, this person identified herself only as a distant cousin of Jane Stirling, who introduced her to Chopin in March 1846. A relative beginner, she none the less received a few lessons from Chopin: ‘The majority of his pupils, I always understood, were already excellent and even distinguished musicians before they went to him […] whereas I was but a young amateur with only a great natural love for music, and very little previous training,’ she wrote in a letter of reminiscences, dated 27 March 1903, to J. C. Hadden who published it in his monograph (pp. 157–9). These detailed reminiscences are corroborated in various respects in the accounts by other eminent pupils of Chopin, such as Gretsch, Mikuli and Streicher. There seems no reason, therefore, to dismiss their trustworthiness in the way that Hedley does (C, p. 106). In her biography of Jane Stirling, A. E. Bone, quoting from these same recollections, makes no attempt to establish the identity of this student, who from the first wished to remain anonymous, as Hadden reported.

Cheriemietieff, Countess Elizavieta Sergueïevna

Chaperoned by her elder sister Anna, this young Russian aristocrat spent the winter of 1842–3 in Paris, where she was introduced as a listener to Chopin's lessons by Marie de Krudner, a compatriot pupil of Chopin. Cheriemietieff describes her first impression in a letter to her mother: ‘He is very highly-strung.