{{Short description|Scottish amateur pianist (1804–1859)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} thumb|Jane Stirling with Fanny Elgin [[File:John_Stirling_of_Kippendavie_and_His_Youngest_Daughter,_Jean_Wilhelmina_National_Trust_of_Scotland.jpg|thumb|Jane Stirling with her father, John Stirling of Kippendavie]] '''Jean ("Jane") Wilhelmina Stirling'''<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEFuRPsYHwwC&pg=PA14|title=Burke's Landed Gentry the Kingdom in Scotland|first=Peter Beauclerk|last=Dewar|page=14|date=7 August 2001|publisher=Burke's Peerage and Gentry|isbn=9780971196605|accessdate=7 August 2020|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.clanstirling.org/pdf/Aird0fKippendavie.pdf |title=Clan Stirling's own genealogy|website=Clanstirling.org|accessdate=7 August 2020}}</ref> (15 July 1804 – 6 February 1859) was a Scottish amateur pianist who is best known as a student and later friend of Frédéric Chopin, who dedicated Nocturnes, Op. 55 to her. She took him on a tour of England and Scotland in 1848, and took charge of the disposal of his effects and manuscripts after his death in 1849.
==Life== Jane Stirling was born '''Jean Wilhelmina Stirling''' as the youngest of 13 children of John Stirling of Kippendavie,<ref name=bnet>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is_n1530_v263/ai_14234524/?tag=content;col1 bnet] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151202222153/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is_n1530_v263/ai_14234524/?tag=content%3Bcol1 |date=2015-12-02 }}</ref> at Kippenross House, near Dunblane in Perthshire, and was descended from a noble Scottish family. Her father died when Jane was 12, and her mother died when she was 16.<ref name=clan>{{Cite web|url=http://www.clanstirling.org/Main/bios/bios.shtml|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515020526/http://www.clanstirling.org/Main/bios/bios.shtml|url-status=dead|title=Clan Stirling Online|archivedate=15 May 2011|accessdate=7 August 2020}}</ref><ref name=glob/> Her inheritance made her a wealthy young woman. She was then placed under the charge of her widowed sister, Mrs Katherine Erskine, aged 29. She was popular and very pretty; she was said to have declined over 30 marriage proposals. From 1826, she and her sister divided their social life between Scotland and Paris.<ref name=clan/> She involved herself not only in music and the arts, but also in subjects such as prison reform, homeopathy, and the Protestant movement.<ref name=cs/>
===Chopin=== The pianist Lindsay Sloper claimed to have been the one to introduce her to Frédéric Chopin,<ref name="Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger 1986 p. 180">Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, ''Chopin: Pianist And Teacher As Seen By His Pupils'' (Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 180.</ref> perhaps in 1842<ref name=cs/> or 1843.<ref name=kal>{{Cite web|url=http://kalejdoskop-chopin.pl/persons.php?id=68|title=premium.pl - międzynarodowa giełda domen|website=Kalejdoskop-chopin.pl|accessdate=7 August 2020}}</ref> She became his pupil immediately. Chopin does not mention her until 1844.<ref name="Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger 1986 p. 180"/> That she was a talented pianist was evident from Chopin's remark to her, "One day you’ll play very, very well."<ref name=kal/> Towards the end of his life he even entrusted one of his own pupils, Vera Rubio, to her tutoring.<ref name=kal/> In 1844 he dedicated his two Nocturnes, Op. 55 to her.<ref name=kal/> She also expressed a desire to learn the cello, and so Chopin referred her to his collaborator, Auguste Franchomme.<ref name=clan/>
Jane Stirling worked with Chopin in assembling seven bound volumes of the French editions of most of his works, and in compiling a thematic index. These volumes were later used by the French musicologist and Chopin biographer Édouard Ganche to establish the Oxford original edition of Chopin.<ref>''The Oxford original edition of Frédéric Chopin'' (Oxford University Press, 1928-1932).</ref> However, whether Chopin intended this collection to serve as a basis for a revised collected edition of his music is an open question.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/music/musex.html|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20011224150214/http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/music/musex.html|archive-date = 2001-12-24|title = Frédéric Chopin and his publishers}}</ref> She also became his secretary, agent and business manager. She arranged his concert at the Salle Pleyel on 16 February 1848, and also attended to the heating, the ventilation, and the flowers. The concluding item of the concert was the Barcarolle in F-sharp major, but Chopin was too exhausted to complete the final section. After managing to walk unaided to his dressing room, he collapsed in Jane Stirling's arms. This was to prove his final Paris concert.<ref name=clan/> There had been plans for another concert there in March, but on 23 February a revolution broke out, many people fled the city, and Chopin was suddenly deprived of his livelihood.<ref name=cs>{{Cite web|url=http://www.chopin-society.org.uk/articles/chopin-britain.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110507083938/http://www.chopin-society.org.uk/articles/chopin-britain.htm|archive-date=2011-05-07|title=Chopin's visit to Britain, by Rose Cholmondeley}}</ref>
She studied the piano further under Thomas Tellefsen, himself a Chopin pupil.<ref name=kal/> Jane and her sister suggested that Chopin perform a series of concerts in England. He was ill and did not want to travel, but as he was in need of the money that such a tour would provide for him, he agreed. They left for London on 20 April 1848. Through Jane Stirling he was introduced to the crème of British society.<ref name=clan/> He played at a private function on 15 May which Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended (but he was never invited to play for them at Buckingham Palace, as is sometimes claimed).<ref name=cs/>
By August, the London season being at an end, he accepted an invitation from Jane Stirling to visit her homeland of Scotland. It was an exhausting 12-hour train journey, but Chopin appreciated the hospitality of the Stirling sisters, who he said "even bring me the Paris newspapers every day"<ref name=":0" /> near Edinburgh, at Calder House, the castle of Lord Torphichen, the ladies' brother-in-law.<ref name=kal/> (Calder House was where in 1556 John Knox had first celebrated communion.<ref name=bnet/>) He went on to give a "very select" concert in Glasgow,<ref>"Glasgow Constitutional", cited in Audrey Evelyn Bone, ''Jane Wilhelmina Stirling 1804-1859'' (Self-published, 1960), p. 77.</ref> staying with Stirling's sister Ann at Johnstone Castle. Jane Stirling dragged him from one wealthy relative to another, including the Stirling clan chief, William Stirling at Keir House, Dunblane, an art collector<ref name=":0" /> and going from city to city; Chopin found himself meeting many people with whom he could not converse (he spoke only French and Polish)<ref name=bnet/> which only made his physical condition worse. In Manchester, on 28 August, he played three pieces, but was so weak he had to be carried on and off the stage. All his expenses throughout the tour were paid by Jane.<ref name=clan/> It was during this tour, in late October 1848 in Edinburgh, at the home of Dr Adam Łyszczyński, a Polish physician with whom he stayed for a number of days, that Chopin wrote his last will and testament – "a kind of disposition to be made of my stuff in the future, if I should drop dead somewhere," he wrote to his friend Wojciech Grzymała.<ref>Zdzisław Jachimecki, "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek", ''Polski słownik biograficzny'' (Polish Biographical Dictionary), Kraków, Polska Akademia Umiejętności (Polish Academy of Learning), volume 3, 1937, p. 424.</ref>
Although she was almost six years older than Chopin (she was born in July 1804, the same month as George Sand), it was generally rumored at this time that Chopin and Stirling were shortly to be engaged. This never happened; indeed, there is no indication in any of Chopin's letters that he ever felt any amorous feelings for her. On the contrary, she often bored him.<ref name=clan/> He said to a friend: "They have married me to Miss Stirling; she might as well marry death."<ref name=glob>{{Cite web|url=http://www.globusz.com/|title=Globusz - Libros y más libros|website=Globusz.com|accessdate=7 August 2020}}</ref> To another he wrote: "I'm nearer the grave than the nuptial bed."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Hardie |first=Kath |title=Chopin, Mallorca, Scotland & Daniel in 'A Neat Rivulet of Text' |publisher=Rookbook Publications |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-948475-42-9 |pages=74 |language=en}}</ref> He referred to both Stirling and Mrs. Erskine as "''mes braves Écossaises''", and was frequently exasperated by their oversolicitude, saying "They will suffocate me with their goodness",<ref name=":0" /> and by her sister Ann's habit of bringing him religious pamphlets.<ref>Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, ''Chopin: Pianist And Teacher As Seen By His Pupils'', Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 181.</ref>
His final concert in Britain was on 16 November at London's Guildhall, where he played despite being desperately ill.<ref name=clan/> They returned to Paris on 24 November accompanied by mountainous debts, which Jane Stirling paid anonymously.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0jQ5lDhToBQC&pg=PR9|title=Piano works|first=Frédéric|last=Chopin|date=7 August 2000|publisher=Alfred Music Publishing|isbn=9780769298542|accessdate=7 August 2020|via=Google Books}}</ref>
[[Image:Ostatnie chwile Fryderyka Chopina.jpg|thumb|left|''Chopin on His Deathbed'', by Teofil Kwiatkowski, 1849, commissioned by Jane Stirling. Chopin sits in bed, in the presence of ''(from left)'' Aleksander Jełowicki, Chopin's sister Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, Marcelina Czartoryska, Wojciech Grzymała, and Kwiatkowski himself.]] During Chopin's last weeks in 1849, Stirling commissioned the Polish artist Teofil Kwiatkowski to produce an oil painting of Chopin, which also included Chopin's sister Ludwika (Louisa) Jędrzejewicz, Marcelina Czartoryska and Wojciech Grzymała.<ref name=clan/>
In September 1849, Chopin took an apartment at Place Vendôme 12. The second-floor, seven-room apartment had previously housed the Russian Embassy; Chopin could not afford it, but Jane Stirling rented it for him.
A few days before Chopin's death on 17 October, she purchased his grand piano.<ref name=kal/> She paid the total cost of his funeral; all the travelling expenses from Warsaw of Chopin's sister Ludwika; and for his piano to be shipped to her in Warsaw. She purchased all of Chopin's remaining furniture and effects, including his death mask by Auguste Clésinger.<ref name=clan/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rncm.ac.uk/component/content/article/333/468.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719120614/http://www.rncm.ac.uk/component/content/article/333/468.html|url-status=dead|title=Royal Northern College of Music|archivedate=19 July 2011|accessdate=7 August 2020}}</ref> She had some of the furniture shipped to Calder House near Edinburgh. It was displayed in a special room which became known as the Chopin Museum. She also collected various manuscripts, sketches, letters and other papers of his, containing handwritten comments, variants and dedications. She had a considerable correspondence with Ludwika Jędrzejewicz concerning the posthumous publication of some of his unpublished works, and 25 of these letters are now in the Muzeum Fryderyka Chopina in Warsaw.<ref name=kal/>
Chopin had told Jane Stirling that she was the only one who knew his true date of birth. She wrote it down and placed it in a box which is buried with him in Père Lachaise Cemetery.<ref name=cs/> On the first anniversary of his death she scattered over Chopin's grave some Polish soil that she had obtained from Ludwika.<ref name=clan/>
Jane Stirling died on 6 February 1859, aged 54, of an ovarian cyst. She was buried on 11 February in the grounds of Dunblane Cathedral.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/jane-stirling.pdf|title=David C F Wright, Jane Stirling|website=Wrightmusic.net|accessdate=7 August 2020|archive-date=24 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724141416/http://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/jane-stirling.pdf|url-status=usurped}}</ref> Her will bequeathed her Chopin museum to Chopin's mother Justyna Chopin. In 1863 much of it was destroyed when Russian troops pillaged Warsaw's Zamoyski palace in reprisal for Polish attempts on the life of the Russian viceroy (''Namiestnik'') of Poland, Friedrich Wilhelm Rembert von Berg. One item which still exists is a lock of Chopin's auburn hair which Jane had kept.<ref name=clan/>
==References== [[File:Brass plaque to the Stirlings of Kippendavie, Dunblane Cathedral.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Brass plaque to the Stirlings of Kippendavie, Dunblane Cathedral]] {{commons category|Jane Stirling}} {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== *{{Cite book|url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5810961M/Jane_Wilhelmina_Stirling_1804-1859|title=Jane Wilhelmina Stirling, 1804-1859: the first study of the life of Chopin's pupil and friend.|first=Audrey Evelyn|last=Bone|date=7 August 1960|ol=5810961M|accessdate=7 August 2020|via=The Open Library}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Stirling, Jane}} Category:1804 births Category:1859 deaths Category:Scottish classical pianists Category:Scottish women pianists Category:Pupils of Frédéric Chopin Jane Category:19th-century Scottish composers Category:19th-century British classical pianists Category:19th-century British women composers Category:19th-century British women pianists Category:19th-century Scottish women musicians Category:19th-century British women classical pianists