fbpx
Wikipedia

Frédéric Chopin

January 26, 2023

"Chopin" redirects here. For other uses, see Chopin (disambiguation).

Frédéric François Chopin[n 1] (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin;[n 2][n 3] 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation".[5]

Chopin, daguerreotype by Bisson, c. 1849

Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafter – in the last 18 years of his life – he gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann.

After a failed engagement to Maria Wodzińska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer Aurore Dupin (known by her pen name George Sand). A brief and unhappy visit to Mallorca with Sand in 1838–39 would prove one of his most productive periods of composition. In his final years, he was supported financially by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. For most of his life, Chopin was in poor health. He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39, probably of pericarditis aggravated by tuberculosis.

All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. They are mostly for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, some chamber music, and 19 songs set to Polish lyrics. His piano pieces are technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin's major piano works include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade (which Chopin created as an instrumental genre), études, impromptus, scherzi, preludes, and sonatas, some published only posthumously. Among the influences on his style of composition were Polish folk music, the classical tradition of J. S. Bach, Mozart, and Schubert, and the atmosphere of the Paris salons, of which he was a frequent guest. His innovations in style, harmony, and musical form, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period.

Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest celebrities, his indirect association with political insurrection, his high-profile love life, and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying historical fidelity. Among his many memorials is the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, which was created by the Parliament of Poland to research and promote his life and works. It hosts the International Chopin Piano Competition, a prestigious competition devoted entirely to his works.

Life

Early life

Childhood

 
Chopin's birthplace in Żelazowa Wola

Fryderyk Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, 46 kilometres (29 miles) west of Warsaw, in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw, a Polish state established by Napoleon. The parish baptismal record, which is dated 23 April 1810, gives his birthday as 22 February 1810, and cites his given names in the Latin form Fridericus Franciscus (in Polish, he was Fryderyk Franciszek).[6][7][8] However, the composer and his family used the birthdate 1 March,[n 4][7] which is now generally accepted as the correct date.[8]

His father, Nicolas Chopin, was a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland in 1787 at the age of sixteen.[10][11] He married Justyna Krzyżanowska, a poor relative of the Skarbeks, one of the families for whom he worked.[12] Chopin was baptised in the same church where his parents had married, in Brochów. His eighteen-year-old godfather, for whom he was named, was Fryderyk Skarbek, a pupil of Nicolas Chopin.[7] Chopin was the second child of Nicholas and Justyna and their only son; he had an elder sister, Ludwika (1807–1855), and two younger sisters, Izabela (1811–1881) and Emilia (1812–1827), whose death at the age of 14 was probably from tuberculosis.[13][14] Nicolas Chopin was devoted to his adopted homeland, and insisted on the use of the Polish language in the household.[7]

 
Chopin's father, Nicolas Chopin, by Mieroszewski, 1829

In October 1810, six months after Chopin's birth, the family moved to Warsaw, where his father acquired a post teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum, then housed in the Saxon Palace. Chopin lived with his family in the Palace grounds. The father played the flute and violin;[15] the mother played the piano and gave lessons to boys in the boarding house that the Chopins kept.[16] Chopin was of slight build, and even in early childhood was prone to illnesses.[15]

Chopin may have had some piano instruction from his mother, but his first professional music tutor, from 1816 to 1821, was the Czech pianist Wojciech Żywny.[17] His elder sister Ludwika also took lessons from Żywny, and occasionally played duets with her brother.[18] It quickly became apparent that he was a child prodigy. By the age of seven he had begun giving public concerts, and in 1817 he composed two polonaises, in G minor and B-flat major.[19] His next work, a polonaise in A-flat major of 1821, dedicated to Żywny, is his earliest surviving musical manuscript.[17]

In 1817 the Saxon Palace was requisitioned by Warsaw's Russian governor for military use, and the Warsaw Lyceum was reestablished in the Kazimierz Palace (today the rectorate of Warsaw University). Chopin and his family moved to a building, which still survives, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace. During this period, he was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of the ruler of Russian Poland, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia; he played the piano for Konstantin Pavlovich and composed a march for him. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, in his dramatic eclogue, "Nasze Przebiegi" ("Our Discourses", 1818), attested to "little Chopin's" popularity.[20]

Education

 
Józef Elsner (after 1853)

From September 1823 to 1826, Chopin attended the Warsaw Lyceum, where he received organ lessons from the Czech musician Wilhelm Würfel during his first year. In the autumn of 1826 he began a three-year course under the Silesian composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory, studying music theory, figured bass, and composition.[21] [n 5] Throughout this period he continued to compose and to give recitals in concerts and salons in Warsaw. He was engaged by the inventors of the "aeolomelodicon" (a combination of piano and mechanical organ), and on this instrument in May 1825 he performed his own improvisation and part of a concerto by Moscheles. The success of this concert led to an invitation to give a recital on a similar instrument (the "aeolopantaleon") before Tsar Alexander I, who was visiting Warsaw; the Tsar presented him with a diamond ring. At a subsequent aeolopantaleon concert on 10 June 1825, Chopin performed his Rondo Op. 1. This was the first of his works to be commercially published and earned him his first mention in the foreign press, when the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung praised his "wealth of musical ideas".[22]

From 1824 until 1828 Chopin spent his vacations away from Warsaw, at a number of locations.[n 6] In 1824 and 1825, at Szafarnia, he was a guest of Dominik Dziewanowski, the father of a schoolmate. Here, for the first time, he encountered Polish rural folk music.[24] His letters home from Szafarnia (to which he gave the title "The Szafarnia Courier"), written in a very modern and lively Polish, amused his family with their spoofing of the Warsaw newspapers and demonstrated the youngster's literary gift.[25]

In 1827, soon after the death of Chopin's youngest sister Emilia, the family moved from the Warsaw University building, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace, to lodgings just across the street from the university, in the south annex of the Krasiński Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście,[n 7] where Chopin lived until he left Warsaw in 1830.[n 8] Here his parents continued running their boarding house for male students. Four boarders at his parents' apartments became Chopin's intimates: Tytus Woyciechowski, Jan Nepomucen Białobłocki, Jan Matuszyński, and Julian Fontana. The latter two would become part of his Paris milieu.[28]

Chopin was friendly with members of Warsaw's young artistic and intellectual world, including Fontana, Józef Bohdan Zaleski, and Stefan Witwicki.[28] Chopin's final Conservatory report (July 1829) read: "Chopin F., third-year student, exceptional talent, musical genius."[21] In 1829 the artist Ambroży Mieroszewski executed a set of portraits of Chopin family members, including the first known portrait of the composer.[n 9]

Letters from Chopin to Woyciechowski in the period 1829–30 (when Chopin was about twenty) contain apparent homoerotic references to dreams and to offered embraces.

Now I am going to wash myself. Please do not embrace me as I have not washed yet. And you? Even if I were to anoint myself with fragrant oils from Byzantium, you would not embrace me – not unless forced to by magnetism. But there are forces in Nature! Today you will dream that you are embracing me! You have to pay for the nightmare you caused me last night.

— Frédéric Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski (4.9.1830)[30]

According to Adam Zamoyski, such expressions "were, and to some extent still are, common currency in Polish and carry no greater implication than the 'love'" concluding letters today. "The spirit of the times, pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature, favoured extreme expression of feeling ... Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it is unlikely that the two were ever lovers."[31] Chopin's biographer Alan Walker considers that, insofar as such expressions could be perceived as homosexual in nature, they would not denote more than a passing phase in Chopin's life, or be the result – in Walker's words – of a "mental twist".[32] The musicologist Jeffrey Kallberg notes that concepts of sexual practice and identity were very different in Chopin's time, so modern interpretation is problematic.[33] Other writers believe that these are clear, or potential, demonstrations of homosexual impulses on Chopin's part.[34][35]

Probably in early 1829 Chopin met the singer Konstancja Gładkowska and developed an intense affection for her, although it is not clear that he ever addressed her directly on the matter. In a letter to Woyciechowski of 3 October 1829 he refers to his "ideal, whom I have served faithfully for six months, though without ever saying a word to her about my feelings; whom I dream of, who inspired the Adagio of my Concerto".[36] All of Chopin's biographers, following the lead of Frederick Niecks,[37] agree that this "ideal" was Gładkowska. After what would be Chopin's farewell concert in Warsaw in October 1830, which included the concerto, played by the composer, and Gładkowska singing an aria by Gioachino Rossini, the two exchanged rings, and two weeks later she wrote in his album some affectionate lines bidding him farewell.[38] After Chopin left Warsaw, he and Gładkowska did not meet and apparently did not correspond.[39]

Career

 
Chopin plays for the Radziwiłłs, 1829 (painting by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1887)

Travel and domestic success

In September 1828 Chopin, while still a student, visited Berlin with a family friend, zoologist Feliks Jarocki, enjoying operas directed by Gaspare Spontini and attending concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn, and other celebrities. On an 1829 return trip to Berlin, he was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen – himself an accomplished composer and aspiring cellist. For the prince and his pianist daughter Wanda, he composed his Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major for cello and piano, Op. 3.[40]

Back in Warsaw that year, Chopin heard Niccolò Paganini play the violin, and composed a set of variations, Souvenir de Paganini. It may have been this experience that encouraged him to commence writing his first Études (1829–32), exploring the capacities of his own instrument.[41] After completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, he made his debut in Vienna. He gave two piano concerts and received many favourable reviews – in addition to some commenting (in Chopin's own words) that he was "too delicate for those accustomed to the piano-bashing of local artists". In the first of these concerts, he premiered his Variations on "Là ci darem la mano", Op. 2 (variations on a duet from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni) for piano and orchestra.[42] He returned to Warsaw in September 1829,[28] where he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 on 17 March 1830.[21]

Chopin's successes as a composer and performer opened the door to western Europe for him, and on 2 November 1830, he set out, in the words of Zdzisław Jachimecki, "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever".[43] With Woyciechowski, he headed for Austria again, intending to go on to Italy. Later that month, in Warsaw, the November 1830 Uprising broke out, and Woyciechowski returned to Poland to enlist. Chopin, now alone in Vienna, was nostalgic for his homeland, and wrote to a friend, "I curse the moment of my departure."[44] When in September 1831 he learned, while travelling from Vienna to Paris, that the uprising had been crushed, he expressed his anguish in the pages of his private journal: "Oh God! ... You are there, and yet you do not take vengeance!".[45] Jachimecki ascribes to these events the composer's maturing "into an inspired national bard who intuited the past, present and future of his native Poland".[43]

Paris

 
Chopin at 25, by his fiancée Maria Wodzińska, 1835

When he left Warsaw on 2 November 1830, Chopin had intended to go to Italy, but violent unrest there made that a dangerous destination. His next choice was Paris; difficulties obtaining a visa from Russian authorities resulted in his obtaining transit permission from the French. In later years he would quote the passport's endorsement "Passeport en passant par Paris à Londres" ("In transit to London via Paris"), joking that he was in the city "only in passing".[46] Chopin arrived in Paris on 5 October 1831;[47] he would never return to Poland,[48] thus becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration. In France, he used the French versions of his given names, and after receiving French citizenship in 1835, he travelled on a French passport.[n 10] However, Chopin remained close to his fellow Poles in exile as friends and confidants and he never felt fully comfortable speaking French. Chopin's biographer Adam Zamoyski writes that he never considered himself to be French, despite his father's French origins, and always saw himself as a Pole.[50]

In Paris, Chopin encountered artists and other distinguished figures and found many opportunities to exercise his talents and achieve celebrity. During his years in Paris, he was to become acquainted with, among many others, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Ferdinand Hiller, Heinrich Heine, Eugène Delacroix, Alfred de Vigny,[51] and Friedrich Kalkbrenner, who introduced him to the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel.[52] This was the beginning of a long and close association between the composer and Pleyel's instruments.[53] Chopin was also acquainted with the poet Adam Mickiewicz, principal of the Polish Literary Society, some of whose verses he set as songs.[50] He also was more than once guest of Marquis Astolphe de Custine, one of his fervent admirers, playing his works in Custine's salon.[54]

Two Polish friends in Paris were also to play important roles in Chopin's life there. A fellow student at the Warsaw Conservatory, Julian Fontana, had originally tried unsuccessfully to establish himself in England; Fontana was to become, in the words of the music historian Jim Samson, Chopin's "general factotum and copyist".[55] Albert Grzymała, who in Paris became a wealthy financier and society figure, often acted as Chopin's adviser and, in Zamoyski's words, "gradually began to fill the role of elder brother in [his] life".[56]

On 7 December 1831, Chopin received the first major endorsement from an outstanding contemporary when Robert Schumann, reviewing the Op. 2 Variations in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (his first published article on music), declared: "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius."[57] On 25 February 1832 Chopin gave a debut Paris concert in the "salons de MM Pleyel" at 9 rue Cadet, which drew universal admiration. The critic François-Joseph Fétis wrote in the Revue et gazette musicale: "Here is a young man who ... taking no model, has found, if not a complete renewal of piano music, ... an abundance of original ideas of a kind to be found nowhere else ..."[58] After this concert, Chopin realised that his essentially intimate keyboard technique was not optimal for large concert spaces. Later that year he was introduced to the wealthy Rothschild banking family, whose patronage also opened doors for him to other private salons (social gatherings of the aristocracy and artistic and literary elite).[59] By the end of 1832 Chopin had established himself among the Parisian musical elite and had earned the respect of his peers such as Hiller, Liszt, and Berlioz. He no longer depended financially upon his father, and in the winter of 1832, he began earning a handsome income from publishing his works and teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe.[60] This freed him from the strains of public concert-giving, which he disliked.[59]

Chopin seldom performed publicly in Paris. In later years he generally gave a single annual concert at the Salle Pleyel, a venue that seated three hundred. He played more frequently at salons but preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends. The musicologist Arthur Hedley has observed that "As a pianist Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances – few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime."[59] The list of musicians who took part in some of his concerts indicates the richness of Parisian artistic life during this period. Examples include a concert on 23 March 1833, in which Chopin, Liszt, and Hiller performed (on pianos) a concerto by J. S. Bach for three keyboards; and, on 3 March 1838, a concert in which Chopin, his pupil Adolphe Gutmann, Charles-Valentin Alkan, and Alkan's teacher Joseph Zimmermann performed Alkan's arrangement, for eight hands, of two movements from Beethoven's 7th symphony.[61] Chopin was also involved in the composition of Liszt's Hexameron; he wrote the sixth (and final) variation on Bellini's theme. Chopin's music soon found success with publishers, and in 1833 he contracted with Maurice Schlesinger, who arranged for it to be published not only in France but, through his family connections, also in Germany and England.[62][n 11]

 
Maria Wodzińska, self-portrait

In the spring of 1834, Chopin attended the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Aix-la-Chapelle with Hiller, and it was there that Chopin met Felix Mendelssohn. After the festival, the three visited Düsseldorf, where Mendelssohn had been appointed musical director. They spent what Mendelssohn described as "a very agreeable day", playing and discussing music at his piano, and met Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow, director of the Academy of Art, and some of his eminent pupils such as Lessing, Bendemann, Hildebrandt and Sohn.[64] In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad, where he spent time with his parents; it was the last time he would see them. On his way back to Paris, he met old friends from Warsaw, the Wodzińskis. He had made the acquaintance of their daughter Maria in Poland five years earlier when she was eleven. This meeting prompted him to stay for two weeks in Dresden, when he had previously intended to return to Paris via Leipzig.[65] The sixteen-year-old girl's portrait of the composer has been considered, along with Delacroix's, as among the best likenesses of Chopin.[66] In October he finally reached Leipzig, where he met Schumann, Clara Wieck, and Mendelssohn, who organised for him a performance of his own oratorio St. Paul, and who considered him "a perfect musician".[67] In July 1836 Chopin travelled to Marienbad and Dresden to be with the Wodziński family, and in September he proposed to Maria, whose mother Countess Wodzińska approved in principle. Chopin went on to Leipzig, where he presented Schumann with his G minor Ballade.[68] At the end of 1836, he sent Maria an album in which his sister Ludwika had inscribed seven of his songs, and his 1835 Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1.[69] The anodyne thanks he received from Maria proved to be the last letter he was to have from her.[70] Chopin placed the letters he had received from Maria and her mother into a large envelope, wrote on it the words "My sorrow" ("Moja bieda"), and to the end of his life retained in a desk drawer this keepsake of the second love of his life.[69][n 12]

Franz Liszt

 
Franz Liszt, by Kriehuber, 1838

Although it is not known exactly when Chopin first met Franz Liszt after arriving in Paris, on 12 December 1831 he mentioned in a letter to his friend Woyciechowski that "I have met Rossini, Cherubini, Baillot, etc. – also Kalkbrenner. You would not believe how curious I was about Herz, Liszt, Hiller, etc."[71] Liszt was in attendance at Chopin's Parisian debut on 26 February 1832 at the Salle Pleyel, which led him to remark: "The most vigorous applause seemed not to suffice to our enthusiasm in the presence of this talented musician, who revealed a new phase of poetic sentiment combined with such happy innovation in the form of his art."[72]

The two became friends, and for many years lived close to each other in Paris, Chopin at 38 Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, and Liszt at the Hôtel de France on the Rue Laffitte, a few blocks away.[73] They performed together on seven occasions between 1833 and 1841. The first, on 2 April 1833, was at a benefit concert organised by Hector Berlioz for his bankrupt Shakespearean actress wife Harriet Smithson, during which they played George Onslow's Sonata in F minor for piano duet. Later joint appearances included a benefit concert for the Benevolent Association of Polish Ladies in Paris. Their last appearance together in public was for a charity concert conducted for the Beethoven Monument in Bonn, held at the Salle Pleyel and the Paris Conservatory on 25 and 26 April 1841.[72]

Although the two displayed great respect and admiration for each other, their friendship was uneasy and had some qualities of a love–hate relationship. Harold C. Schonberg believes that Chopin displayed a "tinge of jealousy and spite" towards Liszt's virtuosity on the piano,[73] and others have also argued that he had become enchanted with Liszt's theatricality, showmanship, and success.[74] Liszt was the dedicatee of Chopin's Op. 10 Études, and his performance of them prompted the composer to write to Hiller, "I should like to rob him of the way he plays my studies."[75] However, Chopin expressed annoyance in 1843 when Liszt performed one of his nocturnes with the addition of numerous intricate embellishments, at which Chopin remarked that he should play the music as written or not play it at all, forcing an apology. Most biographers of Chopin state that after this the two had little to do with each other, although in his letters dated as late as 1848 he still referred to him as "my friend Liszt".[73] Some commentators point to events in the two men's romantic lives which led to a rift between them; there are claims that Liszt had displayed jealousy of his mistress Marie d'Agoult's obsession with Chopin, while others believe that Chopin had become concerned about Liszt's growing relationship with George Sand.[72]

George Sand

 
Chopin at 28, from Delacroix's joint portrait of Chopin and Sand, 1838

In 1836, at a party hosted by Marie d'Agoult, Chopin met the French author George Sand (born [Amantine] Aurore [Lucile] Dupin). Short (under five feet, or 152 cm), dark, big-eyed and a cigar smoker,[76] she initially repelled Chopin, who remarked, "What an unattractive person la Sand is. Is she really a woman?"[77] However, by early 1837 Maria Wodzińska's mother had made it clear to Chopin in correspondence that a marriage with her daughter was unlikely to proceed.[78] It is thought that she was influenced by his poor health and possibly also by rumours about his associations with women such as d'Agoult and Sand.[79] Chopin finally placed the letters from Maria and her mother in a package on which he wrote, in Polish, "My Sorrow".[80] Sand, in a letter to Grzymała of June 1838, admitted strong feelings for the composer and debated whether to abandon a current affair in order to begin a relationship with Chopin; she asked Grzymała to assess Chopin's relationship with Maria Wodzińska, without realising that the affair, at least from Maria's side, was over.[81]

In June 1837 Chopin visited London incognito in the company of the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel, where he played at a musical soirée at the house of English piano maker James Broadwood.[82] On his return to Paris his association with Sand began in earnest, and by the end of June 1838 they had become lovers.[83] Sand, who was six years older than the composer and had had a series of lovers, wrote at this time: "I must say I was confused and amazed at the effect this little creature had on me ... I have still not recovered from my astonishment, and if I were a proud person I should be feeling humiliated at having been carried away ..."[84] The two spent a miserable winter on Majorca (8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839), where, together with Sand's two children, they had journeyed in the hope of improving Chopin's health and that of Sand's 15-year-old son Maurice, and also to escape the threats of Sand's former lover Félicien Mallefille.[85] After discovering that the couple were not married, the deeply traditional Catholic people of Majorca became inhospitable,[86] making accommodation difficult to find. This compelled the group to take lodgings in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, which gave little shelter from the cold winter weather.[83]

On 3 December 1838, Chopin complained about his bad health and the incompetence of the doctors in Majorca, commenting: "Three doctors have visited me ... The first said I was dead; the second said I was dying; and the third said I was about to die."[87] He also had problems having his Pleyel piano sent to him, having to rely in the meantime on a piano made in Palma by Juan Bauza.[88][n 13] The Pleyel piano finally arrived from Paris in December, just shortly before Chopin and Sand left the island. Chopin wrote to Pleyel in January 1839: "I am sending you my Preludes [Op. 28]. I finished them on your little piano, which arrived in the best possible condition in spite of the sea, the bad weather and the Palma customs."[83] Chopin was also able to undertake work while in Majorca on his Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; on two Polonaises, Op. 40; and on the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39.[89]

Although this period had been productive, the bad weather had such a detrimental effect on Chopin's health that Sand determined to leave the island. To avoid further customs duties, Sand sold the piano to a local French couple, the Canuts.[89][n 14] The group travelled first to Barcelona, then to Marseilles, where they stayed for a few months while Chopin convalesced.[91] While in Marseilles, Chopin made a rare appearance at the organ during a requiem mass for the tenor Adolphe Nourrit on 24 April 1839, playing a transcription of Franz Schubert's lied Die Gestirne (D. 444).[92][93] [n 15] In May 1839 they headed to Sand's estate at Nohant for the summer, where they spent most of the following summers until 1846. In autumn they returned to Paris, where Chopin's apartment at 5 rue Tronchet was close to Sand's rented accommodation on the rue Pigalle. He frequently visited Sand in the evenings, but both retained some independence.[95] (In 1842 he and Sand moved to the Square d'Orléans, living in adjacent buildings.)[96]

On 26 July 1840 Chopin and Sand were present at the dress rehearsal of Berlioz's Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, composed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution. Chopin was reportedly unimpressed with the composition.[95] During the summers at Nohant, particularly in the years 1839–43, Chopin found quiet, productive days during which he composed many works, including his Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53. Among the visitors to Nohant were Delacroix and the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, whom Chopin had advised on piano technique and composition.[97] Delacroix gives an account of staying at Nohant in a letter of 7 June 1842:

The hosts could not be more pleasant in entertaining me. When we are not all together at dinner, lunch, playing billiards, or walking, each of us stays in his room, reading or lounging around on a couch. Sometimes, through the window which opens on the garden, a gust of music wafts up from Chopin at work. All this mingles with the songs of nightingales and the fragrance of roses.[98]

Decline

Main article: Health of Frédéric Chopin
 
Chopin by Gratia, 1838

From 1842 onwards, Chopin showed signs of serious illness. After a solo recital in Paris on 21 February 1842, he wrote to Grzymała: "I have to lie in bed all day long, my mouth and tonsils are aching so much."[99] He was forced by illness to decline a written invitation from Alkan to participate in a repeat performance of the Beethoven 7th Symphony arrangement at Érard's on 1 March 1843.[100] Late in 1844, Charles Hallé visited Chopin and found him "hardly able to move, bent like a half-opened penknife and evidently in great pain", although his spirits returned when he started to play the piano for his visitor.[101] Chopin's health continued to deteriorate, particularly from this time onwards. Modern research suggests that apart from any other illnesses, he may also have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy.[102]

Chopin's output as a composer throughout this period declined in quantity year by year. Whereas in 1841 he had written a dozen works, only six were written in 1842 and six shorter pieces in 1843. In 1844 he wrote only the Op. 58 sonata. 1845 saw the completion of three mazurkas (Op. 59). Although these works were more refined than many of his earlier compositions, Zamoyski concludes that "his powers of concentration were failing and his inspiration was beset by anguish, both emotional and intellectual".[103] Chopin's relations with Sand were soured in 1846 by problems involving her daughter Solange and Solange's fiancé, the young fortune-hunting sculptor Auguste Clésinger.[104] The composer frequently took Solange's side in quarrels with her mother; he also faced jealousy from Sand's son Maurice.[105] Moreover, Chopin was indifferent to Sand's radical political pursuits, including her enthusiasm for the February Revolution of 1848.[106]

As the composer's illness progressed, Sand had become less of a lover and more of a nurse to Chopin, whom she called her "third child". In letters to third parties she vented her impatience, referring to him as a "child", a "little angel", a "poor angel", a "sufferer", and a "beloved little corpse".[107][108] In 1847 Sand published her novel Lucrezia Floriani, whose main characters – a rich actress and a prince in weak health – could be interpreted as Sand and Chopin. In Chopin's presence, Sand read the manuscript aloud to Delacroix, who was both shocked and mystified by its implications, writing that "Madame Sand was perfectly at ease and Chopin could hardly stop making admiring comments".[109][110] That year their relationship ended following an angry correspondence which, in Sand's words, made "a strange conclusion to nine years of exclusive friendship".[111] Grzymała, who had followed their romance from the beginning, commented, "If [Chopin] had not had the misfortune of meeting G. S. [George Sand], who poisoned his whole being, he would have lived to be Cherubini's age." Chopin would die two years later at thirty-nine; the composer Luigi Cherubini had died in Paris in 1842 at the age of 81.[112]

Tour of Great Britain

 
Jane Stirling, by Devéria, c. 1830

Chopin's public popularity as a virtuoso began to wane, as did the number of his pupils, and this, together with the political strife and instability of the time, caused him to struggle financially.[113] In February 1848, with the cellist Auguste Franchomme, he gave his last Paris concert, which included three movements of the Cello Sonata Op. 65.[107]

In April, during the 1848 Revolution in Paris, he left for London, where he performed at several concerts and numerous receptions in great houses.[107] This tour was suggested to him by his Scottish pupil Jane Stirling and her elder sister. Stirling also made all the logistical arrangements and provided much of the necessary funding.[111]

In London, Chopin took lodgings at Dover Street, where the firm of Broadwood provided him with a grand piano. At his first engagement, on 15 May at Stafford House, the audience included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The Prince, who was himself a talented musician, moved close to the keyboard to view Chopin's technique. Broadwood also arranged concerts for him; among those attending were the author William Makepeace Thackeray and the singer Jenny Lind. Chopin was also sought after for piano lessons, for which he charged the high fee of one guinea per hour, and for private recitals for which the fee was 20 guineas. At a concert on 7 July he shared the platform with Viardot, who sang arrangements of some of his mazurkas to Spanish texts.[114] A few days later, he performed for Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane at their home in Chelsea.[115] On 28 August he played at a concert in Manchester's Gentlemen's Concert Hall, sharing the stage with Marietta Alboni and Lorenzo Salvi.[116]

In late summer he was invited by Jane Stirling to visit Scotland, where he stayed at Calder House near Edinburgh and at Johnstone Castle in Renfrewshire, both owned by members of Stirling's family.[117] She clearly had a notion of going beyond mere friendship, and Chopin was obliged to make it clear to her that this could not be so. He wrote at this time to Grzymała: "My Scottish ladies are kind, but such bores", and responding to a rumour about his involvement, answered that he was "closer to the grave than the nuptial bed".[118] He gave a public concert in Glasgow on 27 September,[119] and another in Edinburgh at the Hopetoun Rooms on Queen Street (now Erskine House) on 4 October.[120] In late October 1848, while staying at 10 Warriston Crescent in Edinburgh with the Polish physician Adam Łyszczyński, he wrote out 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 Grzymała.[107]

Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform at London's Guildhall on 16 November 1848, when, in a final patriotic gesture, he played for the benefit of Polish refugees. This gesture proved to be a mistake, as most of the participants were more interested in the dancing and refreshments than in Chopin's piano artistry, which drained him.[121] By this time he was very seriously ill, weighing under 99 pounds (less than 45 kg), and his doctors were aware that his sickness was at a terminal stage.[122]

At the end of November Chopin returned to Paris. He passed the winter in unremitting illness, but gave occasional lessons and was visited by friends, including Delacroix and Franchomme. Occasionally he played, or accompanied the singing of Delfina Potocka, for his friends. During the summer of 1849, his friends found him an apartment in Chaillot, out of the centre of the city, for which the rent was secretly subsidised by an admirer, Princess Obreskoff. He was visited here by Jenny Lind in June 1849.[123]

Death and funeral

Further information: Health of Frédéric Chopin
 
Chopin on His Deathbed, by Teofil Kwiatkowski, 1849, commissioned by Jane Stirling. From left: Aleksander Jełowicki; Chopin's sister Ludwika; Marcelina Czartoryska; Wojciech Grzymała; Teofil Kwiatkowski.
 
 
Chopin's death mask, by Clésinger (photos: Jack Gibbons)

With his health further deteriorating, Chopin desired to have a family member with him. In June 1849 his sister Ludwika came to Paris with her husband and daughter, and in September, supported by a loan from Jane Stirling, he took an apartment at the Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James[n 16] on the Place Vendôme.[124] After 15 October, when his condition took a marked turn for the worse, only a handful of his closest friends remained with him. Viardot remarked sardonically, though, that "all the grand Parisian ladies considered it de rigueur to faint in his room".[122]

Some of his friends provided music at his request; among them, Potocka sang and Franchomme played the cello. Chopin bequeathed his unfinished notes on a piano tuition method, Projet de méthode, to Alkan for completion.[125] On 17 October, after midnight, the physician leaned over him and asked whether he was suffering greatly. "No longer", he replied. He died a few minutes before two o'clock in the morning. He was 39. Those present at the deathbed appear to have included his sister Ludwika, Fr. Aleksander Jełowicki,[126] Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Sand's daughter Solange, and his close friend Thomas Albrecht. Later that morning, Solange's husband Clésinger made Chopin's death mask and a cast of his left hand.[127]

The funeral, held at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, was delayed almost two weeks until 30 October. Entrance was restricted to ticket holders, as many people were expected to attend.[128] Over 3,000 people arrived without invitations, from as far as London, Berlin and Vienna, and were excluded.[129]

Mozart's Requiem was sung at the funeral; the soloists were the soprano Jeanne-Anaïs Castellan, the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, the tenor Alexis Dupont, and the bass Luigi Lablache; Chopin's Preludes No. 4 in E minor and No. 6 in B minor were also played. The organist was Louis Lefébure-Wély. The funeral procession to Père Lachaise Cemetery, which included Chopin's sister Ludwika, was led by the aged Prince Adam Czartoryski. The pallbearers included Delacroix, Franchomme, and Camille Pleyel.[130] At the graveside, the Funeral March from Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 was played, in Reber's instrumentation.[131]

Chopin's tombstone, featuring the muse of music, Euterpe, weeping over a broken lyre, was designed and sculpted by Clésinger and installed on the anniversary of his death in 1850. The expenses of the monument, amounting to 4,500 francs, were covered by Jane Stirling, who also paid for the return of the composer's sister Ludwika to Warsaw.[132] As requested by Chopin, Ludwika took his heart (which had been removed by his doctor Jean Cruveilhier and preserved in alcohol in a vase) back to Poland in 1850.[133][134][n 17] She also took a collection of two hundred letters from Sand to Chopin; after 1851 these were returned to Sand, who destroyed them.[137]

Chopin's disease and the cause of his death have been a matter of discussion. His death certificate gave the cause of death as tuberculosis, and his physician, Cruveilhier, was then the leading French authority on this disease.[138] Other possibilities that have been advanced have included cystic fibrosis,[139] cirrhosis, and alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency.[140][141] A visual examination of Chopin's preserved heart (the jar was not opened), conducted in 2014 and first published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2017, suggested that the likely cause of his death was a rare case of pericarditis caused by complications of chronic tuberculosis.[142][143][144]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin by genre, List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin by opus number, Ballades (Chopin), Études (Chopin), Mazurkas (Chopin), Nocturnes (Chopin), Polonaises (Chopin), Preludes (Chopin), Scherzos (Chopin), Waltzes (Chopin), Miscellaneous compositions (Chopin), and Chopin's compositions for piano and orchestra
 
Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4
Giorgi Latso, piano
Waltz in D-flat major, Op. 64, No. 1 (so-called Minute Waltz)
Muriel Nguyen Xuan, piano
Étude Op. 10, No. 12 (so-called Revolutionary)
Martha Goldstein playing an 1851 Érard piano
Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28, No. 15 (so-called Raindrop)
Giorgi Latso, piano
Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39 in C-sharp minor
Martha Argerich, piano
Ballade No. 4, Op. 52 in F minor
Randolph Hokanson, piano
Problems playing these files? See media help.

Overview

Over 230 works of Chopin survive; some compositions from early childhood have been lost. All his known works involve the piano, and only a few range beyond solo piano music, as either piano concertos, songs or chamber music.[145]

Chopin was educated in the tradition of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, and Clementi; he used Clementi's piano method with his students. He was also influenced by Hummel's development of virtuoso, yet Mozartian, piano technique. He cited Bach and Mozart as the two most important composers in shaping his musical outlook.[146] Chopin's early works are in the style of the "brilliant" keyboard pieces of his era as exemplified by the works of Ignaz Moscheles, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and others. Less direct in the earlier period are the influences of Polish folk music and of Italian opera. Much of what became his typical style of ornamentation (for example, his fioriture) is taken from singing. His melodic lines were increasingly reminiscent of the modes and features of the music of his native country, such as drones.[147]

Chopin took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by the Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication. He was the first to write ballades[148] and scherzi as individual concert pieces. He essentially established a new genre with his own set of free-standing preludes (Op. 28, published 1839). He exploited the poetic potential of the concept of the concert étude, already being developed in the 1820s and 1830s by Liszt, Clementi, and Moscheles, in his two sets of studies (Op. 10 published in 1833, Op. 25 in 1837).[149]

Chopin also endowed popular dance forms with a greater range of melody and expression. Chopin's mazurkas, while originating in the traditional Polish dance (the mazurek), differed from the traditional variety in that they were written for the concert hall rather than the dance hall; as J. Barrie Jones puts it, "it was Chopin who put the mazurka on the European musical map".[150] The series of seven polonaises published in his lifetime (another nine were published posthumously), beginning with the Op. 26 pair (published 1836), set a new standard for music in the form.[151] His waltzes were also written specifically for the salon recital rather than the ballroom and are frequently at rather faster tempos than their dance-floor equivalents.[152]

Titles, opus numbers and editions

 
Autographed musical quotation from the Polonaise Op. 53, signed by Chopin on 25 May 1845

Some of Chopin's well-known pieces have acquired descriptive titles, such as the Revolutionary Étude (Op. 10, No. 12), and the Minute Waltz (Op. 64, No. 1). However, except for his Funeral March, the composer never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number, leaving all potential extramusical associations to the listener; the names by which many of his pieces are known were invented by others.[153][154] There is no evidence to suggest that the Revolutionary Étude was written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind; it merely appeared at that time.[155] The Funeral March, the third movement of his Sonata No. 2 (Op. 35), the one case where he did give a title, was written before the rest of the sonata, but no specific event or death is known to have inspired it.[156]

The last opus number that Chopin himself used was 65, allocated to the Cello Sonata in G minor. He expressed a deathbed wish that all his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed. At the request of the composer's mother and sisters, however, his musical executor Julian Fontana selected 23 unpublished piano pieces and grouped them into eight further opus numbers (Opp. 66–73), published in 1855.[157] In 1857, 17 Polish songs that Chopin wrote at various stages of his life were collected and published as Op. 74, though their order within the opus did not reflect the order of composition.[158]

Works published since 1857 have received alternative catalogue designations instead of opus numbers. The most up-to-date catalogue is maintained by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute at its Internet Chopin Information Centre. The older Kobylańska Catalogue (usually represented by the initials 'KK'), named for its compiler, the Polish musicologist Krystyna Kobylańska, is still considered an important scholarly reference. The most recent catalogue of posthumously published works is that of the National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin, represented by the initials 'WN'.[159]

Chopin's original publishers included Maurice Schlesinger and Camille Pleyel.[160] His works soon began to appear in popular 19th-century piano anthologies.[161] The first collected edition was by Breitkopf & Härtel (1878–1902).[162] Among modern scholarly editions of Chopin's works are the version under the name of Paderewski, published between 1937 and 1966, and the more recent Polish National Edition, edited by Jan Ekier and published between 1967 and 2010. The latter is recommended to contestants of the Chopin Competition.[163] Both editions contain detailed explanations and discussions regarding choices and sources.[164][165]

Chopin published his music in France, England, and the German states due to the copyright laws of the time. Thus there are often three different kinds of "first editions". Each edition is different from the other, as Chopin edited them separately and at times he did some revision to the music while editing it. Furthermore, Chopin provided his publishers with varying sources, including autographs, annotated proofsheets, and scribal copies. Only recently have these differences gained greater recognition.[166]

Form and harmony

 
A recreation of the composer's last residence in the Place Vendôme, at the Salon Frédéric Chopin, Paris.[167] [n 18]

Improvisation stands at the centre of Chopin's creative processes. However, this does not imply impulsive rambling: Nicholas Temperley writes that "improvisation is designed for an audience, and its starting-point is that audience's expectations, which include the current conventions of musical form".[168] The works for piano and orchestra, including the two concertos, are held by Temperley to be "merely vehicles for brilliant piano playing ... formally longwinded and extremely conservative".[169] After the piano concertos (which are both early, dating from 1830), Chopin made no attempts at large-scale multi-movement forms, save for his late sonatas for piano and cello; "instead he achieved near-perfection in pieces of simple general design but subtle and complex cell-structure".[170] Rosen suggests that an important aspect of Chopin's individuality is his flexible handling of the four-bar phrase as a structural unit.[171]

J. Barrie Jones suggests that "amongst the works that Chopin intended for concert use, the four ballades and four scherzi stand supreme", and adds that "the Barcarolle Op. 60 stands apart as an example of Chopin's rich harmonic palette coupled with an Italianate warmth of melody".[172] Temperley opines that these works, which contain "immense variety of mood, thematic material and structural detail", are based on an extended "departure and return" form; "the more the middle section is extended, and the further it departs in key, mood and theme, from the opening idea, the more important and dramatic is the reprise when it at last comes".[173]

Chopin's mazurkas and waltzes are all in straightforward ternary or episodic form, sometimes with a coda.[150][173] The mazurkas often show more folk features than many of his other works, sometimes including modal scales and harmonies and the use of drone basses. However, some also show unusual sophistication, for example, Op. 63 No. 3, which includes a canon at one beat's distance, a great rarity in music.[174]

Chopin's polonaises show a marked advance on those of his Polish predecessors in the form (who included his teachers Żywny and Elsner). As with the traditional polonaise, Chopin's works are in triple time and typically display a martial rhythm in their melodies, accompaniments, and cadences. Unlike most of their precursors, they also require a formidable playing technique.[175]

The 21 nocturnes are more structured, and of greater emotional depth, than those of Field, whom Chopin met in 1833. Many of the Chopin nocturnes have middle sections marked by agitated expression (and often making very difficult demands on the performer), which heightens their dramatic character.[176]

Chopin's études are largely in straightforward ternary form.[177] He used them to teach his own technique of piano playing[178] – for instance playing double thirds (Op. 25, No. 6), playing in octaves (Op. 25, No. 10), and playing repeated notes (Op. 10, No.  7).[179]

The preludes, many of which are very brief (some consisting of simple statements and developments of a single theme or figure), were described by Schumann as "the beginnings of studies".[180] Inspired by J. S. Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin's preludes move up the circle of fifths (rather than Bach's chromatic scale sequence) to create a prelude in each major and minor tonality.[181] The preludes were perhaps not intended to be played as a group, and may even have been used by him and later pianists as generic preludes to others of his pieces, or even to music by other composers. This is suggested by Kenneth Hamilton, who has noted a 1922 recording by Ferruccio Busoni in which the Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 is followed by the Étude Op. 10 No. 5.[182]

The two mature Chopin piano sonatas (No. 2, Op. 35, written in 1839 and No. 3, Op. 58, written in 1844) are in four movements. In Op. 35, Chopin combined within a formal large musical structure many elements of his virtuosic piano technique – "a kind of dialogue between the public pianism of the brilliant style and the German sonata principle".[183] This sonata has been considered as showing the influences of both Bach and Beethoven. The Prelude from Bach's Suite No. 6 in D major for cello (BWV 1012) is quoted;[184] and there are references to two sonatas of Beethoven: the Sonata Opus 111 in C minor, and the Sonata Opus 26 in A-flat major, which, like Chopin's Op. 35, has a funeral march as its slow movement.[185][186] The last movement of Chopin's Op. 35, a brief (75-bar) perpetuum mobile in which the hands play in unmodified octave unison throughout, was found shocking and unmusical by contemporaries, including Schumann.[187] The Op. 58 sonata is closer to the German tradition, including many passages of complex counterpoint, "worthy of Brahms" according to Samson.[183]

Chopin's harmonic innovations may have arisen partly from his keyboard improvisation technique. In his works, Temperley says, "novel harmonic effects often result from the combination of ordinary appoggiaturas or passing notes with melodic figures of accompaniment", and cadences are delayed by the use of chords outside the home key (neapolitan sixths and diminished sevenths) or by sudden shifts to remote keys. Chord progressions sometimes anticipate the shifting tonality of later composers such as Claude Debussy, as does Chopin's use of modal harmony.[188]

Technique and performance style

 
Extract from Chopin's Nocturne Op. 62 no. 1 (1846, composer's manuscript)
 
The same passage (1881 Schirmer edition). The examples show typical use by Chopin of trills, grace notes and detailed pedalling and tempo instructions.

In 1841 Léon Escudier wrote of a recital given by Chopin that year, "One may say that Chopin is the creator of a school of piano and a school of composition. In truth, nothing equals the lightness, the sweetness with which the composer preludes on the piano; moreover nothing may be compared to his works full of originality, distinction and grace."[189] Chopin refused to conform to a standard method of playing and believed that there was no set technique for playing well. His style was based extensively on his use of a very independent finger technique. In his Projet de méthode he wrote: "Everything is a matter of knowing good fingering ... we need no less to use the rest of the hand, the wrist, the forearm and the upper arm."[190] He further stated: "One needs only to study a certain position of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful quality of sound, to know how to play short notes and long notes, and [to attain] unlimited dexterity."[191] The consequences of this approach to technique in Chopin's music include the frequent use of the entire range of the keyboard, passages in double octaves and other chord groupings, swiftly repeated notes, the use of grace notes, and the use of contrasting rhythms (four against three, for example) between the hands.[192]

Jonathan Bellman writes that modern concert performance style – set in the "conservatory" tradition of late 19th- and 20th-century music schools, and suitable for large auditoria or recordings – militates against what is known of Chopin's more intimate performance technique.[193] The composer himself said to a pupil that "concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art".[194] Contemporary accounts indicate that in performance, Chopin avoided rigid procedures sometimes incorrectly attributed to him, such as "always crescendo to a high note", but that he was concerned with expressive phrasing, rhythmic consistency and sensitive colouring.[195] Berlioz wrote in 1853 that Chopin "has created a kind of chromatic embroidery ... whose effect is so strange and piquant as to be impossible to describe ... virtually nobody but Chopin himself can play this music and give it this unusual turn".[196] Hiller wrote that "What in the hands of others was elegant embellishment, in his hands became a colourful wreath of flowers."[197]

Chopin's music is frequently played with rubato, "the practice in performance of disregarding strict time, 'robbing' some note-values for expressive effect".[198] There are differing opinions as to how much, and what type, of rubato is appropriate for his works. Charles Rosen comments that "most of the written-out indications of rubato in Chopin are to be found in his mazurkas ... It is probable that Chopin used the older form of rubato so important to Mozart ... [where] the melody note in the right hand is delayed until after the note in the bass ... An allied form of this rubato is the arpeggiation of the chords thereby delaying the melody note; according to Chopin's pupil Karol Mikuli, Chopin was firmly opposed to this practice."[199]

Chopin's pupil Friederike Müller wrote:

[His] playing was always noble and beautiful; his tones sang, whether in full forte or softest piano. He took infinite pains to teach his pupils this legato, cantabile style of playing. His most severe criticism was 'He – or she – does not know how to join two notes together.' He also demanded the strictest adherence to rhythm. He hated all lingering and dragging, misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated ritardandos [...] and it is precisely in this respect that people make such terrible errors in playing his works.[200]

Instruments

 
Chopin's last (Pleyel) piano, which he used in 1848–49 (Fryderyk Chopin Museum, Warsaw)

When living in Warsaw, Chopin composed and played on an instrument built by the piano-maker Fryderyk Buchholtz.[201][n 19] Later in Paris Chopin purchased a piano from Pleyel. He rated Pleyel's pianos as "non plus ultra" ("nothing better").[204] Franz Liszt befriended Chopin in Paris and described the sound of Chopin's Pleyel as being “the marriage of crystal and water”.[205] While in London in 1848, Chopin mentioned his pianos in his letters: "I have a large drawing-room with three pianos, a Pleyel, a Broadwood and an Erard."[204]

Polish identity

With his mazurkas and polonaises, Chopin has been credited with introducing to music a new sense of nationalism. Schumann, in his 1836 review of the piano concertos, highlighted the composer's strong feelings for his native Poland, writing that "Now that the Poles are in deep mourning [after the failure of the November Uprising of 1830], their appeal to us artists is even stronger ... If the mighty autocrat in the north [i.e. Nicholas I of Russia] could know that in Chopin's works, in the simple strains of his mazurkas, there lurks a dangerous enemy, he would place a ban on his music. Chopin's works are cannon buried in flowers!"[206] The biography of Chopin published in 1863 under the name of Franz Liszt (but probably written by Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein)[207] states that Chopin "must be ranked first among the first musicians ... individualizing in themselves the poetic sense of an entire nation".[208]

The "Polish character" of Chopin's work is unquestionable; not because he also wrote polonaises and mazurkas ... which forms ... were often stuffed with alien ideological and literary contents from the outside. ... As an artist he looked for forms that stood apart from the literary-dramatic character of music which was a feature of Romanticism, as a Pole he reflected in his work the very essence of the tragic break in the history of the people and instinctively aspired to give the deepest expression of his nation ... For he understood that he could invest his music with the most enduring and truly Polish qualities only by liberating art from the confines of dramatic and historical contents. This attitude toward the question of "national music" – an inspired solution to his art – was the reason why Chopin's works have come to be understood everywhere outside of Poland ... Therein lies the strange riddle of his eternal vigour.

Karol Szymanowski, 1923[209]

Some modern commentators have argued against exaggerating Chopin's primacy as a "nationalist" or "patriotic" composer. George Golos refers to earlier "nationalist" composers in Central Europe, including Poland's Michał Kleofas Ogiński and Franciszek Lessel, who utilised polonaise and mazurka forms.[210] Barbara Milewski suggests that Chopin's experience of Polish music came more from "urbanised" Warsaw versions than from folk music, and that attempts by Jachimecki and others to demonstrate genuine folk music in his works are without basis.[211] Richard Taruskin impugns Schumann's attitude toward Chopin's works as patronising,[212] and comments that Chopin "felt his Polish patriotism deeply and sincerely" but consciously modelled his works on the tradition of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, and Field.[213][214]

A reconciliation of these views is suggested by William Atwood: "Undoubtedly [Chopin's] use of traditional musical forms like the polonaise and mazurka roused nationalistic sentiments and a sense of cohesiveness amongst those Poles scattered across Europe and the New World ... While some sought solace in [them], others found them a source of strength in their continuing struggle for freedom. Although Chopin's music undoubtedly came to him intuitively rather than through any conscious patriotic design, it served all the same to symbolize the will of the Polish people ..."[215]

Reception and influence

See also: List of memorials to Frédéric Chopin
 
Funerary monument on a pillar in Holy Cross Church, Warsaw, enclosing Chopin's heart

Jones comments that "Chopin's unique position as a composer, despite the fact that virtually everything he wrote was for the piano, has rarely been questioned."[177] He also notes that Chopin was fortunate to arrive in Paris in 1831 – "the artistic environment, the publishers who were willing to print his music, the wealthy and aristocratic who paid what Chopin asked for their lessons" – and these factors, as well as his musical genius, also fuelled his contemporary and later reputation.[152] While his illness and his love affairs conform to some of the stereotypes of romanticism, the rarity of his public recitals (as opposed to performances at fashionable Paris soirées) led Arthur Hutchings to suggest that "his lack of Byronic flamboyance [and] his aristocratic reclusiveness make him exceptional" among his romantic contemporaries such as Liszt and Henri Herz.[170]

Chopin's qualities as a pianist and composer were recognised by many of his fellow musicians. Schumann named a piece for him in his suite Carnaval, and Chopin later dedicated his Ballade No. 2 in F major to Schumann. Elements of Chopin's music can be found in many of Liszt's later works.[75] Liszt later transcribed for piano six of Chopin's Polish songs. A less fraught friendship was with Alkan, with whom he discussed elements of folk music, and who was deeply affected by Chopin's death.[216]

In Paris, Chopin had a number of pupils, including Friedericke Müller, who left memoirs of his teaching[217] and the prodigy Carl Filtsch (1830–1845), to whom both Chopin and Sand became dedicated, Chopin giving him three lessons a week; Filtsch was the only pupil to whom Chopin gave lessons in composition, and, exceptionally, he on several occasions shared a concert platform with him.[218] Two of Chopin's long-standing pupils, Karol Mikuli (1821–1897) and Georges Mathias (1826–1910), were themselves piano teachers and passed on details of his playing to their students, some of whom (such as Raoul Koczalski) were to make recordings of his music. Other pianists and composers influenced by Chopin's style include Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Édouard Wolff (1816–1880), and Pierre Zimmermann.[219] Debussy dedicated his own 1915 piano Études to the memory of Chopin; he frequently played Chopin's music during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, and undertook the editing of Chopin's piano music for the publisher Jacques Durand.[220]

Polish composers of the following generation included virtuosi such as Moritz Moszkowski; but, in the opinion of J. Barrie Jones, his "one worthy successor" among his compatriots was Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937).[221] Edvard Grieg, Antonín Dvořák, Isaac Albéniz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, among others, are regarded by critics as having been influenced by Chopin's use of national modes and idioms.[222] Alexander Scriabin was devoted to the music of Chopin, and his early published works include nineteen mazurkas as well as numerous études and preludes; his teacher Nikolai Zverev drilled him in Chopin's works to improve his virtuosity as a performer.[223] In the 20th century, composers who paid homage to (or in some cases parodied) the music of Chopin included George Crumb, Leopold Godowsky, Bohuslav Martinů, Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinsky,[224] and Heitor Villa-Lobos.[225]

Chopin's music was used in the 1909 ballet Chopiniana, choreographed by Michel Fokine and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Sergei Diaghilev commissioned additional orchestrations – from Stravinsky, Anatoly Lyadov, Sergei Taneyev, and Nikolai Tcherepnin – for later productions, which used the title Les Sylphides.[226] Other noted composers have created orchestrations for the ballet, including Benjamin Britten, Roy Douglas, Alexander Gretchaninov, Gordon Jacob, and Maurice Ravel,[227] whose score is lost.[228]

Musicologist Erinn Knyt writes: "In the nineteenth century Chopin and his music were commonly viewed as effeminate, androgynous, childish, sickly, and 'ethnically other.'"[229] Music historian Jeffrey Kallberg says that in Chopin's time, "listeners to the genre of the piano nocturne often couched their reactions in feminine imagery", and he cites many examples of such reactions to Chopin's nocturnes.[230] One reason for this may be "demographic" – there were more female than male piano players, and playing such "romantic" pieces was seen by male critics as a female domestic pastime. Such genderization was not commonly applied to other genres among Chopin's works, such as the scherzo or the polonaise.[231] The cultural historian Edward Said has cited the demonstrations by pianist and writer Charles Rosen, in the latter's book The Romantic Generation, of Chopin's skills in "planning, polyphony, and sheer harmonic creativity", as effectively overthrowing any legend of Chopin "as a swooning, 'inspired', small-scale salon composer".[232][233]

Chopin's music remains very popular and is regularly performed, recorded and broadcast worldwide. The world's oldest monographic music competition, the International Chopin Piano Competition, founded in 1927, is held every five years in Warsaw.[234] The Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Poland lists on its website over eighty societies worldwide devoted to the composer and his music.[235] The Institute site also lists over 1500 performances of Chopin works on YouTube as of March 2021.[236]

Recordings

The British Library notes that "Chopin's works have been recorded by all the great pianists of the recording era." The earliest recording was an 1895 performance by Paul Pabst of the Nocturne in E major, Op. 62, No. 2. The British Library site makes available a number of historic recordings, including some by Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman, Vladimir Horowitz, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Arthur Rubinstein, Xaver Scharwenka, Josef Hofmann, Vladimir de Pachmann, Moriz Rosenthal and many others.[237] A select discography of recordings of Chopin works by pianists representing the various pedagogic traditions stemming from Chopin is given by James Methuen-Campbell in his work tracing the lineage and character of those traditions.[238]

Numerous recordings of Chopin's works are available. On the occasion of the composer's bicentenary, the critics of The New York Times recommended performances by the following contemporary pianists (among many others):[239] Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Emanuel Ax, Evgeny Kissin, Yundi Li, Ivan Moravec, Murray Perahia, Maurizio Pollini, and Krystian Zimerman. The Warsaw Chopin Society organises the Grand prix du disque de F. Chopin for notable Chopin recordings, held every five years.[240]

In literature, stage, film and television

 
Chopin's grave, Père-Lachaise cemetery, Paris

Chopin has figured extensively in Polish literature, both in serious critical studies of his life and music and in fictional treatments. The earliest manifestation was probably an 1830 sonnet on Chopin by Leon Ulrich. French writers on Chopin (apart from Sand) have included Marcel Proust and André Gide, and he has also featured in works of Gottfried Benn and Boris Pasternak.[241] There are numerous biographies of Chopin in English (see bibliography for some of these).

Possibly the first venture into fictional treatments of Chopin's life was a fanciful operatic version of some of its events: Chopin. First produced in Milan in 1901, the music – based on Chopin's own – was assembled by Giacomo Orefice, with a libretto by Angiolo Orvieto [it].[242][243]

Chopin's life and romantic tribulations have been fictionalised in numerous films.[244] As early as 1919, Chopin's relationships with three women – his youth sweetheart Mariolka, then Polish singer Sonja Radkowska, and later George Sand – were portrayed in the German silent film Nocturno der Liebe (1919), with Chopin's music serving as a backdrop.[245] The 1945 biographical film A Song to Remember earned Cornel Wilde an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his portrayal of the composer. Other film treatments have included La valse de l'adieu (France, 1928) by Henry Roussel, with Pierre Blanchar as Chopin; Impromptu (1991), starring Hugh Grant as Chopin; La note bleue (1991); and Chopin: Desire for Love (2002).[246]

Chopin's life was covered in a 1999 BBC Omnibus documentary by András Schiff and Mischa Scorer,[247] in a 2010 documentary realised by Angelo Bozzolini and Roberto Prosseda for Italian television,[248] and in a BBC Four documentary Chopin – The Women Behind The Music (2010).[249]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ UK: /ˈʃɒpæ̃, ˈʃɒpæn/, US: /ˈʃoʊpæn, ʃoʊˈpæn/,[1] French: [fʁedeʁik fʁɑ̃swa ʃɔpɛ̃].
  2. ^ Polish: [frɨˈdɛrɨk fraɲˈt͡ɕiʂɛk ˈʂɔpɛn].
  3. ^ Though none of Chopin's family spelled their surname in the Polonised form Szopen,[2] the latter spelling has been used by many Poles since his own day, including by his poet contemporaries Juliusz Słowacki[3] and Cyprian Norwid.[4]
  4. ^ According to his letter of 16 January 1833 to the chairman of the Société historique et littéraire polonaise (Polish Literary Society) in Paris, he was "born 1 March 1810 at the village of Żelazowa Wola in the Province of Mazowsze".[9]
  5. ^ The Conservatory was affiliated with the University of Warsaw; hence Chopin is counted among the university's alumni
  6. ^ At Szafarnia (in 1824 – perhaps his first solo travel away from home – and in 1825), Duszniki (1826), Pomerania (1827), and Sanniki (1828).[23]
  7. ^ The Krasiński Palace, now known as the Czapski Palace, is now the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. In 1960 the Chopin family parlour (salonik Chopinów), a room once occupied by the Chopin household in the Palace, was opened as a museum.[26]
  8. ^ An 1837–39 resident here, the artist-poet Cyprian Norwid, would later write a poem, "Chopin's Piano", about the instrument's defenestration by Russian troops during the January 1863 Uprising.[27]
  9. ^ The originals perished in World War II. Only photographs survive.[29]
  10. ^ A French passport used by Chopin is shown at the website "Chopin - musicien français"[49]
  11. ^ For Schlesinger's international network see Conway(2012), pp. 185–187, 238–239[63]
  12. ^ A photo of the letters packet survives, though the originals seem to have been lost during World War II. See image on Chopin Institute Facebook page, archived at ghostarchive.org (accessed 28 March 2021)
  13. ^ The Bauza piano eventually entered the collection of Wanda Landowska in Paris and was seized following the Fall of Paris in 1940 and transported by the invaders to Leipzig in 1943. It was returned to France in 1946, but subsequently went missing.[88]
  14. ^ Two neighbouring apartments at the Valldemossa monastery, each long hosting a Chopin museum, have been claimed to be the retreat of Chopin and Sand, and to hold Chopin's Pleyel piano. In 2011 a Spanish court on Majorca, partly by ruling out a piano that had been built after Chopin's visit there – probably after his death – decided which was the correct apartment.[90]
  15. ^ Nourrit's body was being escorted via Marseilles to his funeral in Paris, following his suicide in Naples.[94]
  16. ^ See the photo in the article on memorials to Frédéric Chopin, of the plaque on the Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James, commemorating Chopin's death there.
  17. ^ In 1879 the heart was sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church, behind a tablet carved by Leonard Marconi.[135] During the German invasion of Warsaw in World War II, the heart was removed for safekeeping and held in the quarters of the German commander, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. It was later returned to the church authorities, but it was not deemed safe yet to put it back in its former resting place. It was taken to the town of Milanówek, where the casket was opened and the heart was viewed (its large size was noted). It was stored in St. Hedwig's Church there. On 17 October 1945, the 96th anniversary of Chopin's death, it was returned to its place in Holy Cross Church.[136]
  18. ^ The piano in the picture, a Pleyel from the period 1830–1849, was not Chopin's.
  19. ^ In 2018 a copy of Chopin’s Buchholtz piano was first presented publicly at the Teatr Wielki, Warsaw – Polish National Opera[202] and was used by Warsaw Chopin Institute for their First International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments.[203]

Citations

  1. ^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  2. ^ Walker 2018, p. 289.
  3. ^ Tomaszewski, Mieczysław (2003–2018). "Juliusz Słowacki". chopin.nifc.pl (in Polish). Fryderyk Chopin Institute. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
  4. ^ Poem Fortepian Szopena
  5. ^ Rosen 1995, p. 284.
  6. ^ Hedley & Brown 1980, p. 292.
  7. ^ a b c d Zamoyski 2010, pp. 4–5.
  8. ^ a b Cholmondeley 1998.
  9. ^ Chopin 1962, p. 116.
  10. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 3.
  11. ^ Walker 2018, p. 32.
  12. ^ Samson 2001, §1, para. 1.
  13. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 7.
  14. ^ Mysłakowski, Piotr; Sikorsky, Andrzej. "Emilia Chopin". Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  15. ^ a b Zamoyski 2010, pp. 5–6.
  16. ^ Szulc 1998, pp. 41–42.
  17. ^ a b Samson 2001, §1, para. 3.
  18. ^ Samson 1996, p. 8.
  19. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 50–52.
  20. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 11–12.
  21. ^ a b c Samson 2001, §1, para. 5.
  22. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 83–84.
  23. ^ Szklener 2010, p. 8.
  24. ^ Samson 2001, §1, para. 2.
  25. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 19–20.
  26. ^ Mieleszko 1971.
  27. ^ Jakubowski 1979, pp. 514–515.
  28. ^ a b c Zamoyski 2010, p. 43.
  29. ^ Kuhnke 2010.
  30. ^ Walker2018, pp. 157–158.
  31. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 47.
  32. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 109–110.
  33. ^ Kallberg 2006, p. 66.
  34. ^ Pizà, Antoni (13 January 2022). "Overture: Love is a Pink Cake or Queering Chopin in Times of Homophobia". Itamar. Revista de investigación musical: Territorios para el arte. ISSN 2386-8260.
  35. ^ Weber, Moritz (13 January 2022). "AKT I / ACTO I / ACT I Männer / Hombres / Men Chopins Männer / Los hombres de Chopin / Chopin's Men". Itamar. Revista de investigación musical: Territorios para el arte (in German). ISSN 2386-8260.
  36. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 153–155.
  37. ^ Niecks 1902, p. 125.
  38. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 173–177.
  39. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 177–78.
  40. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 45.
  41. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 35.
  42. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 37–39.
  43. ^ a b Jachimecki 1937, p. 422.
  44. ^ Samson 2001, §2, para. 1.
  45. ^ Samson 2001, §2, para. 3. The journal is now in the National Library of Poland.
  46. ^ Walker 2018, p. 202.
  47. ^ Zofia Helman, Hanna Wróblewska-Straus: The Date of Chopin’s Arrival in Paris. In: Musicology Today. Anthropology – History – Analysis. Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw 2007, pp. 95–103
  48. ^ Samson 2001, §1, para. 6.
  49. ^ Langavant, Emmanuel. "Passeport français de Chopin". Chopin – musicien français website. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  50. ^ a b Zamoyski 2010, p. 128.
  51. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 106.
  52. ^ Walker 2018, p. 19.
  53. ^ Eigeldinger 2001, passim.
  54. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 302 ff., 309, 365.
  55. ^ Samson 2001, §3, para. 2.
  56. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 106=107.
  57. ^ Schumann 1988, pp. 15–17.
  58. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 88.
  59. ^ a b c Hedley 2005, pp. 263–264.
  60. ^ Samson 2001, §2, paras. 4–5.
  61. ^ Conway 2012, p. 226 & note 9.
  62. ^ Samson 2001, §2, para. 5.
  63. ^ Conway 2012.
  64. ^ Niecks 1902, p. 313.
  65. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 118–119.
  66. ^ Szulc 1998, p. 137.
  67. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 119–120.
  68. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 126–127.
  69. ^ a b Jachimecki 1937, p. 423.
  70. ^ Chopin 1962, p. 144.
  71. ^ Hall-Swadley 2011, p. 31.
  72. ^ a b c Hall-Swadley 2011, p. 32.
  73. ^ a b c Schonberg 1987, p. 151.
  74. ^ Hall-Swadley 2011, p. 33.
  75. ^ a b Walker 1988, p. 184.
  76. ^ Schonberg 1987, pp. 151–152.
  77. ^ Samson 2001, §3, para. 3.
  78. ^ Chopin 1962, p. 141.
  79. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 137–138.
  80. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 147.
  81. ^ Chopin 1962, pp. 151–161.
  82. ^ Załuski & Załuski 1992, p. 226.
  83. ^ a b c Samson 2001, §3, para. 4.
  84. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 154.
  85. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 159.
  86. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 161–162.
  87. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 162.
  88. ^ a b Appleyard, Brian (2018), "It Holds the Key", The Sunday Times Culture Supplement, 3 June 2018, pp. 8–9.
  89. ^ a b Zamoyski 2010, p. 168.
  90. ^ Govan, Fiona (1 February 2011). "Row over Chopin's Majorcan residence solved by piano". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
  91. ^ Samson 2001, §3, para. 5.
  92. ^ "George Sand, Frederic Chopin et l'orgue de ND du Mont". 15 March 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
  93. ^ Chopin 1988, p. 200, letter to Fontana of 25 April 1839.
  94. ^ Rogers 1939, p. 25.
  95. ^ a b Samson 2001, §4, para. 1.
  96. ^ Samson 2001, §4, para. 4.
  97. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 197.
  98. ^ Atwood 1999, p. 315.
  99. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 212.
  100. ^ Eddie 2013, p. 8.
  101. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 227.
  102. ^ Sara Reardon, "Chopin's hallucinations may have been caused by epilepsy", The Washington Post, 31 January 2011, accessed 10 January 2014.
  103. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 233.
  104. ^ Samson 2001, §5, para. 2.
  105. ^ Samson 1996, p. 194.
  106. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 552–554.
  107. ^ a b c d Jachimecki 1937, p. 424.
  108. ^ Kallberg 2006, p. 56.
  109. ^ Walker 2018, p. 529.
  110. ^ Miller 2003, §8.
  111. ^ a b Samson 2001, §5, para. 3.
  112. ^ Szulc 1998, p. 403.
  113. ^ Walker 2018, p. 556.
  114. ^ Załuski & Załuski 1992, pp. 227–229.
  115. ^ Cumming, Mark, ed. (2004). "Chopin, Frédérick". The Carlyle Encyclopedia. Madison and Teaneck, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. pp. 91–92. ISBN 978-0-8386-3792-0.
  116. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 579–581.
  117. ^ Załuski & Załuski 1993.
  118. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 279, Letter of 30 October 1848.
  119. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 276–278.
  120. ^ Turnbull 1989, p. 53.
  121. ^ Szulc 1998, p. 383.
  122. ^ a b Samson 2001, §5, para. 4.
  123. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 283–286.
  124. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 288.
  125. ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 291–293.
  126. ^ Jełowicki, Aleksander. "Letter to Ksawera Grocholska". chopin.nifc.pl. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  127. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 293.
  128. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 294.
  129. ^ Niecks 1902, p. 1118.
  130. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 620–622.
  131. ^ Atwood 1999, pp. 412–413, translation of "Funeral of Frédéric Chopin", in Revue et gazette musicale, 4 November 1847.
  132. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 623–624.
  133. ^ Samson 1996, p. 193.
  134. ^ Walker 2018, p. 618.
  135. ^ "Holy Cross Church (Kościół Św. Krzyża)". Inyourpocket.com. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
  136. ^ Ross 2014.
  137. ^ Walker 2018, p. 633.
  138. ^ Zamoyski 2010, p. 286.
  139. ^ Majka, Gozdzik & Witt 2003, p. 77.
  140. ^ Kuzemko 1994, p. 771.
  141. ^ Kubba & Young 1998.
  142. ^ Witt, Marchwica & Dobosz 2018.
  143. ^ McKie 2017.
  144. ^ Pruszewicz 2014.
  145. ^ Hedley & Brown 1980, p. 298.
  146. ^ Samson 2001, §6 para 7.
  147. ^ Samson 2001, §6 paras 1–4.
  148. ^ Scholes 1938, "Ballade".
  149. ^ Ferguson 1980, pp. 304–305.
  150. ^ a b Jones 1998b, p. 177.
  151. ^ Szulc 1998, p. 115.
  152. ^ a b Jones 1998a, p. 162.
  153. ^ Hedley 2005, p. 264.
  154. ^ Kennedy 1980, p. 130.
  155. ^ Hedley & Brown 1980, p. 294.
  156. ^ Kallberg 2001, pp. 4–8.
  157. ^ Ståhlbrand.
  158. ^ "Frédéric François Chopin – 17 Polish Songs, Op. 74". Classical Archives. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
  159. ^ Smialek, William; Trochimczyk, Maja (2015). Frédéric Chopin: A Research and Information Guide (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-203-88157-6. OCLC 910847554.
  160. ^ Atwood 1999, pp. 166–167.
  161. ^ De Val & Ehrlich 1998, p. 127.
  162. ^ De Val & Ehrlich 1998, p. 129.
  163. ^ Rules of The Eighteenth International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition (PDF). Fryderyk Chopin Institute.
  164. ^ Temperley 1980, p. 306.
  165. ^ Ekier, Jan. "Foundation for the National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin". Fryderyk Chopin Institute. from the original on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  166. ^ "Historical Background". Chopin's First Editions Online. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  167. ^ "Les Musées". Bibliotheque Polonaise de Paris. Retrieved 7 March 2021.
  168. ^ Temperley 1980, p. 298.
  169. ^ Temperley 1980, p. 305.
  170. ^ a b Hutchings 1968, p. 137.
  171. ^ Rosen 1995, pp. 262–278.
  172. ^ Jones 1998a, pp. 161–162.
  173. ^ a b Temperley 1980, p. 304.
  174. ^ Jones 1998b, pp. 177–179.
  175. ^ Reiss & Brown 1980, p. 51.
  176. ^ Brown 1980, p. 258.
  177. ^ a b Jones 1998a, p. 160.
  178. ^ Hedley 2005, p. 263.
  179. ^ Jones 1998a, pp. 160–161.
  180. ^ Jones 1998a, p. 161.
  181. ^ Rosen 1995, p. 83.
  182. ^ Hamilton 2008, pp. 101–102.
  183. ^ a b Samson 2001, §9 para. 2.
  184. ^ Leikin 1994, pp. 191–192.
  185. ^ Leikin 1994, p. 117.
  186. ^ Petty 1999, p. 289.
  187. ^ Rosen 1995, pp. 294–297.
  188. ^ Temperley 1980, pp. 302–303.
  189. ^ Samson 1994, p. 136.
  190. ^ Cited in Eigeldinger 1988, p. 18
  191. ^ Cited in Eigeldinger 1988, p. 23
  192. ^ Eigeldinger 1988, pp. 18–20.
  193. ^ Bellman 2000, pp. 149–150.
  194. ^ Cited in Bellman 2000, p. 150; the pupil was Emilie von Gretsch.
  195. ^ Bellman 2000, pp. 153–154.
  196. ^ Cited in Eigeldinger 1988, p. 272
  197. ^ Cited in Bellman 2000, p. 154
  198. ^ Latham 2011.
  199. ^ Rosen 1995, p. 413.
  200. ^ Müller-Streicher 1949, p. 138.
  201. ^ Majorek, Czeslaw; Zasztoft, Leszek (1991). "Popularyzacja nauki w Krolestwie Polskim w latach 1864–1905". History of Education Quarterly. 31 (1): 109. doi:10.2307/368794. ISSN 0018-2680. JSTOR 368794. S2CID 147032747.
  202. ^ "Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina". muzeum.nifc.pl. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  203. ^ Moran, Michael (31 January 2018). "1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments. 2–14 September 2018". Classical Music Festivals and Competitions in Poland and Germany – with occasional unrelated detours. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  204. ^ a b Audéon 2016.
  205. ^ Liszt, Franz; Cook, M. Walker (1 April 1877). "Life of Chopin". The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular. 18 (410): 184. doi:10.2307/3351980. ISSN 0958-8434. JSTOR 3351980.
  206. ^ Schumann 1988, p. 114.
  207. ^ Cooke 1965–1966, pp. 856–861.
  208. ^ Liszt 1880, 1503.
  209. ^ Cited from Szymanowski's 1923 essay, "Fryderyk Chopin"; Downes 2001, p. 63 and n. 58
  210. ^ Golos 1960, pp. 439–442.
  211. ^ Milewski 1999, pp. 113–121.
  212. ^ Taruskin 2010, pp. 344–345.
  213. ^ Taruskin 2010, p. 346.
  214. ^ Rosen 1995, pp. 361–363.
  215. ^ Atwood 1999, p. 57.
  216. ^ Conway 2012, pp. 229–230.
  217. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 422–423.
  218. ^ Walker 2018, pp. 464–467.
  219. ^ Bellman 2000, pp. 150–151.
  220. ^ Wheeldon 2009, pp. 55–62.
  221. ^ Jones 1998b, p. 180.
  222. ^ Temperley 1980, p. 307.
  223. ^ Bowers 1996, p. 134.
  224. ^ Wojtkiewicz 2013.
  225. ^ Hommage à Chopin: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
  226. ^ Taruskin 1996, pp. 546–547.
  227. ^ "The Mystery of the Missing Music". SideBarre. American Ballet Theatre. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
  228. ^ Zank 2005, p. 266.
  229. ^ Knyt 2017, p. 280.
  230. ^ Kallberg 1992, pp. 104–106.
  231. ^ Kallberg 1992, pp. 106–107.
  232. ^ Said 1995.
  233. ^ Rosen 1995, pp. 284–285, 358–359, 452–453.
  234. ^ "About Competition" 7 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine, International Chopin Competition website, accessed 12 January 2014.
  235. ^ "Institutions related to Chopin – Associations", Fryderyk Chopin Institute website, accessed 5 January 2014.
  236. ^ "Chopin on YouTube", Fryderyk Chopin Institute website, accessed 27 March 2021.
  237. ^ "Chopin", British Library website, accessed 22 December 2013. Recordings accessible free online throughout the European Union.
  238. ^ Methuen-Campbell 1981, pp. 241–267.
  239. ^ Anthony Tommasini, Allan Kozinn, Steve Smith, Vivien Schweitzer. "1 Composer, 2 Centuries, Many Picks", The New York Times, 27 May 2010, accessed 28 December 2013.
  240. ^ Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin website, accessed 2 January 2014.
  241. ^ Andrzej Hejmej, tr. Philip Stoeckle, , Chopin.pl website (archived), accessed 28 March 2021
  242. ^ Ashbrook 2001.
  243. ^ Lanza 2001.
  244. ^ "Fryderyk Chopin – Information Centre – Filmography". en.chopin.nifc.pl. chopin.nifc.pl. 2003–2018. Retrieved 5 March 2020.
  245. ^ Soister 2002, p. 62.
  246. ^ Iwona Sowińska, tr. Philip Stoeckle, "Chopin goes to the movies" 23 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine, in chopin.pl website, accessed 4 January 2014. The site gives details of numerous other films featuring Chopin.
  247. ^ Michael Church (13 May 1999). "An exile from the modern world". The Independent. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  248. ^ Thompson 2016, pp. 600–601.
  249. ^ "Chopin – The Women Behind The Music". BBC. Retrieved 28 March 2021.

Bibliography

Further reading

  • Azoury, Pierre (1999). Chopin through His Contemporaries. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-30971-7.
  • Young, Pablo; et al. (2014). "Federico Chopin (1810–1849) y su enfermedad" (PDF). Revista médica de Chile (in Spanish). 142 (4): 529–535. doi:10.4067/S0034-98872014000400018. PMID 25117047. Retrieved 28 March 2021. Summary in English.

External links

 
Polish Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Frédéric Chopin
  • BBC 2010 documentary, Chopin: the Women behind the Music, available on YouTube, 90 minutes.
  • "Discovering Chopin". BBC Radio 3.
  • Works by or about Frédéric Chopin at Internet Archive
  • Biography 25 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine on official site of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute
  • Chopin's last piano (Pleyel 14810)
  • Chopin iconography – website in Polish with detailed comment on genuine (and not-so-genuine) representations of the composer
  • Chopin's pianos
  • 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments
  • Chopin's correspondence

Music scores

January 26, 2023
frédéric, chopin, chopin, redirects, here, other, uses, chopin, disambiguation, frédéric, françois, chopin, born, fryderyk, franciszek, chopin, march, 1810, october, 1849, polish, composer, virtuoso, pianist, romantic, period, wrote, primarily, solo, piano, ma. Chopin redirects here For other uses see Chopin disambiguation Frederic Francois Chopin n 1 born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin n 2 n 3 1 March 1810 17 October 1849 was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era one whose poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation 5 Chopin daguerreotype by Bisson c 1849 Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland A child prodigy he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20 less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising At 21 he settled in Paris Thereafter in the last 18 years of his life he gave only 30 public performances preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons for which he was in high demand Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries including Robert Schumann After a failed engagement to Maria Wodzinska from 1836 to 1837 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer Aurore Dupin known by her pen name George Sand A brief and unhappy visit to Mallorca with Sand in 1838 39 would prove one of his most productive periods of composition In his final years he was supported financially by his admirer Jane Stirling who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848 For most of his life Chopin was in poor health He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39 probably of pericarditis aggravated by tuberculosis All of Chopin s compositions include the piano They are mostly for solo piano though he also wrote two piano concertos some chamber music and 19 songs set to Polish lyrics His piano pieces are technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity Chopin s major piano works include mazurkas waltzes nocturnes polonaises the instrumental ballade which Chopin created as an instrumental genre etudes impromptus scherzi preludes and sonatas some published only posthumously Among the influences on his style of composition were Polish folk music the classical tradition of J S Bach Mozart and Schubert and the atmosphere of the Paris salons of which he was a frequent guest His innovations in style harmony and musical form and his association of music with nationalism were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period Chopin s music his status as one of music s earliest celebrities his indirect association with political insurrection his high profile love life and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era His works remain popular and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying historical fidelity Among his many memorials is the Fryderyk Chopin Institute which was created by the Parliament of Poland to research and promote his life and works It hosts the International Chopin Piano Competition a prestigious competition devoted entirely to his works Contents 1 Life 1 1 Early life 1 1 1 Childhood 1 1 2 Education 1 2 Career 1 2 1 Travel and domestic success 1 2 2 Paris 1 2 3 Franz Liszt 1 2 4 George Sand 1 2 5 Decline 1 2 6 Tour of Great Britain 1 3 Death and funeral 2 Music 2 1 Overview 2 2 Titles opus numbers and editions 2 3 Form and harmony 2 4 Technique and performance style 2 5 Instruments 2 6 Polish identity 2 7 Reception and influence 3 Recordings 4 In literature stage film and television 5 See also 6 References 6 1 Notes 6 2 Citations 6 3 Bibliography 7 Further reading 8 External linksLife EditEarly life Edit Childhood Edit Chopin s birthplace in Zelazowa Wola Fryderyk Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola 46 kilometres 29 miles west of Warsaw in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw a Polish state established by Napoleon The parish baptismal record which is dated 23 April 1810 gives his birthday as 22 February 1810 and cites his given names in the Latin form Fridericus Franciscus in Polish he was Fryderyk Franciszek 6 7 8 However the composer and his family used the birthdate 1 March n 4 7 which is now generally accepted as the correct date 8 His father Nicolas Chopin was a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland in 1787 at the age of sixteen 10 11 He married Justyna Krzyzanowska a poor relative of the Skarbeks one of the families for whom he worked 12 Chopin was baptised in the same church where his parents had married in Brochow His eighteen year old godfather for whom he was named was Fryderyk Skarbek a pupil of Nicolas Chopin 7 Chopin was the second child of Nicholas and Justyna and their only son he had an elder sister Ludwika 1807 1855 and two younger sisters Izabela 1811 1881 and Emilia 1812 1827 whose death at the age of 14 was probably from tuberculosis 13 14 Nicolas Chopin was devoted to his adopted homeland and insisted on the use of the Polish language in the household 7 Chopin s father Nicolas Chopin by Mieroszewski 1829 In October 1810 six months after Chopin s birth the family moved to Warsaw where his father acquired a post teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum then housed in the Saxon Palace Chopin lived with his family in the Palace grounds The father played the flute and violin 15 the mother played the piano and gave lessons to boys in the boarding house that the Chopins kept 16 Chopin was of slight build and even in early childhood was prone to illnesses 15 Chopin may have had some piano instruction from his mother but his first professional music tutor from 1816 to 1821 was the Czech pianist Wojciech Zywny 17 His elder sister Ludwika also took lessons from Zywny and occasionally played duets with her brother 18 It quickly became apparent that he was a child prodigy By the age of seven he had begun giving public concerts and in 1817 he composed two polonaises in G minor and B flat major 19 His next work a polonaise in A flat major of 1821 dedicated to Zywny is his earliest surviving musical manuscript 17 In 1817 the Saxon Palace was requisitioned by Warsaw s Russian governor for military use and the Warsaw Lyceum was reestablished in the Kazimierz Palace today the rectorate of Warsaw University Chopin and his family moved to a building which still survives adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace During this period he was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of the ruler of Russian Poland Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia he played the piano for Konstantin Pavlovich and composed a march for him Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz in his dramatic eclogue Nasze Przebiegi Our Discourses 1818 attested to little Chopin s popularity 20 Education Edit Jozef Elsner after 1853 From September 1823 to 1826 Chopin attended the Warsaw Lyceum where he received organ lessons from the Czech musician Wilhelm Wurfel during his first year In the autumn of 1826 he began a three year course under the Silesian composer Jozef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory studying music theory figured bass and composition 21 n 5 Throughout this period he continued to compose and to give recitals in concerts and salons in Warsaw He was engaged by the inventors of the aeolomelodicon a combination of piano and mechanical organ and on this instrument in May 1825 he performed his own improvisation and part of a concerto by Moscheles The success of this concert led to an invitation to give a recital on a similar instrument the aeolopantaleon before Tsar Alexander I who was visiting Warsaw the Tsar presented him with a diamond ring At a subsequent aeolopantaleon concert on 10 June 1825 Chopin performed his Rondo Op 1 This was the first of his works to be commercially published and earned him his first mention in the foreign press when the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung praised his wealth of musical ideas 22 From 1824 until 1828 Chopin spent his vacations away from Warsaw at a number of locations n 6 In 1824 and 1825 at Szafarnia he was a guest of Dominik Dziewanowski the father of a schoolmate Here for the first time he encountered Polish rural folk music 24 His letters home from Szafarnia to which he gave the title The Szafarnia Courier written in a very modern and lively Polish amused his family with their spoofing of the Warsaw newspapers and demonstrated the youngster s literary gift 25 In 1827 soon after the death of Chopin s youngest sister Emilia the family moved from the Warsaw University building adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace to lodgings just across the street from the university in the south annex of the Krasinski Palace on Krakowskie Przedmiescie n 7 where Chopin lived until he left Warsaw in 1830 n 8 Here his parents continued running their boarding house for male students Four boarders at his parents apartments became Chopin s intimates Tytus Woyciechowski Jan Nepomucen Bialoblocki Jan Matuszynski and Julian Fontana The latter two would become part of his Paris milieu 28 Chopin was friendly with members of Warsaw s young artistic and intellectual world including Fontana Jozef Bohdan Zaleski and Stefan Witwicki 28 Chopin s final Conservatory report July 1829 read Chopin F third year student exceptional talent musical genius 21 In 1829 the artist Ambrozy Mieroszewski executed a set of portraits of Chopin family members including the first known portrait of the composer n 9 Letters from Chopin to Woyciechowski in the period 1829 30 when Chopin was about twenty contain apparent homoerotic references to dreams and to offered embraces Now I am going to wash myself Please do not embrace me as I have not washed yet And you Even if I were to anoint myself with fragrant oils from Byzantium you would not embrace me not unless forced to by magnetism But there are forces in Nature Today you will dream that you are embracing me You have to pay for the nightmare you caused me last night Frederic Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski 4 9 1830 30 According to Adam Zamoyski such expressions were and to some extent still are common currency in Polish and carry no greater implication than the love concluding letters today The spirit of the times pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature favoured extreme expression of feeling Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely it is unlikely that the two were ever lovers 31 Chopin s biographer Alan Walker considers that insofar as such expressions could be perceived as homosexual in nature they would not denote more than a passing phase in Chopin s life or be the result in Walker s words of a mental twist 32 The musicologist Jeffrey Kallberg notes that concepts of sexual practice and identity were very different in Chopin s time so modern interpretation is problematic 33 Other writers believe that these are clear or potential demonstrations of homosexual impulses on Chopin s part 34 35 Probably in early 1829 Chopin met the singer Konstancja Gladkowska and developed an intense affection for her although it is not clear that he ever addressed her directly on the matter In a letter to Woyciechowski of 3 October 1829 he refers to his ideal whom I have served faithfully for six months though without ever saying a word to her about my feelings whom I dream of who inspired the Adagio of my Concerto 36 All of Chopin s biographers following the lead of Frederick Niecks 37 agree that this ideal was Gladkowska After what would be Chopin s farewell concert in Warsaw in October 1830 which included the concerto played by the composer and Gladkowska singing an aria by Gioachino Rossini the two exchanged rings and two weeks later she wrote in his album some affectionate lines bidding him farewell 38 After Chopin left Warsaw he and Gladkowska did not meet and apparently did not correspond 39 Career Edit Chopin plays for the Radziwills 1829 painting by Henryk Siemiradzki 1887 Travel and domestic success Edit In September 1828 Chopin while still a student visited Berlin with a family friend zoologist Feliks Jarocki enjoying operas directed by Gaspare Spontini and attending concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter Felix Mendelssohn and other celebrities On an 1829 return trip to Berlin he was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwill governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen himself an accomplished composer and aspiring cellist For the prince and his pianist daughter Wanda he composed his Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major for cello and piano Op 3 40 Back in Warsaw that year Chopin heard Niccolo Paganini play the violin and composed a set of variations Souvenir de Paganini It may have been this experience that encouraged him to commence writing his first Etudes 1829 32 exploring the capacities of his own instrument 41 After completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory he made his debut in Vienna He gave two piano concerts and received many favourable reviews in addition to some commenting in Chopin s own words that he was too delicate for those accustomed to the piano bashing of local artists In the first of these concerts he premiered his Variations on La ci darem la mano Op 2 variations on a duet from Mozart s opera Don Giovanni for piano and orchestra 42 He returned to Warsaw in September 1829 28 where he premiered his Piano Concerto No 2 in F minor Op 21 on 17 March 1830 21 Chopin s successes as a composer and performer opened the door to western Europe for him and on 2 November 1830 he set out in the words of Zdzislaw Jachimecki into the wide world with no very clearly defined aim forever 43 With Woyciechowski he headed for Austria again intending to go on to Italy Later that month in Warsaw the November 1830 Uprising broke out and Woyciechowski returned to Poland to enlist Chopin now alone in Vienna was nostalgic for his homeland and wrote to a friend I curse the moment of my departure 44 When in September 1831 he learned while travelling from Vienna to Paris that the uprising had been crushed he expressed his anguish in the pages of his private journal Oh God You are there and yet you do not take vengeance 45 Jachimecki ascribes to these events the composer s maturing into an inspired national bard who intuited the past present and future of his native Poland 43 Paris Edit Chopin at 25 by his fiancee Maria Wodzinska 1835 When he left Warsaw on 2 November 1830 Chopin had intended to go to Italy but violent unrest there made that a dangerous destination His next choice was Paris difficulties obtaining a visa from Russian authorities resulted in his obtaining transit permission from the French In later years he would quote the passport s endorsement Passeport en passant par Paris a Londres In transit to London via Paris joking that he was in the city only in passing 46 Chopin arrived in Paris on 5 October 1831 47 he would never return to Poland 48 thus becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration In France he used the French versions of his given names and after receiving French citizenship in 1835 he travelled on a French passport n 10 However Chopin remained close to his fellow Poles in exile as friends and confidants and he never felt fully comfortable speaking French Chopin s biographer Adam Zamoyski writes that he never considered himself to be French despite his father s French origins and always saw himself as a Pole 50 In Paris Chopin encountered artists and other distinguished figures and found many opportunities to exercise his talents and achieve celebrity During his years in Paris he was to become acquainted with among many others Hector Berlioz Franz Liszt Ferdinand Hiller Heinrich Heine Eugene Delacroix Alfred de Vigny 51 and Friedrich Kalkbrenner who introduced him to the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel 52 This was the beginning of a long and close association between the composer and Pleyel s instruments 53 Chopin was also acquainted with the poet Adam Mickiewicz principal of the Polish Literary Society some of whose verses he set as songs 50 He also was more than once guest of Marquis Astolphe de Custine one of his fervent admirers playing his works in Custine s salon 54 Two Polish friends in Paris were also to play important roles in Chopin s life there A fellow student at the Warsaw Conservatory Julian Fontana had originally tried unsuccessfully to establish himself in England Fontana was to become in the words of the music historian Jim Samson Chopin s general factotum and copyist 55 Albert Grzymala who in Paris became a wealthy financier and society figure often acted as Chopin s adviser and in Zamoyski s words gradually began to fill the role of elder brother in his life 56 On 7 December 1831 Chopin received the first major endorsement from an outstanding contemporary when Robert Schumann reviewing the Op 2 Variations in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung his first published article on music declared Hats off gentlemen A genius 57 On 25 February 1832 Chopin gave a debut Paris concert in the salons de MM Pleyel at 9 rue Cadet which drew universal admiration The critic Francois Joseph Fetis wrote in the Revue et gazette musicale Here is a young man who taking no model has found if not a complete renewal of piano music an abundance of original ideas of a kind to be found nowhere else 58 After this concert Chopin realised that his essentially intimate keyboard technique was not optimal for large concert spaces Later that year he was introduced to the wealthy Rothschild banking family whose patronage also opened doors for him to other private salons social gatherings of the aristocracy and artistic and literary elite 59 By the end of 1832 Chopin had established himself among the Parisian musical elite and had earned the respect of his peers such as Hiller Liszt and Berlioz He no longer depended financially upon his father and in the winter of 1832 he began earning a handsome income from publishing his works and teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe 60 This freed him from the strains of public concert giving which he disliked 59 Chopin seldom performed publicly in Paris In later years he generally gave a single annual concert at the Salle Pleyel a venue that seated three hundred He played more frequently at salons but preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends The musicologist Arthur Hedley has observed that As a pianist Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime 59 The list of musicians who took part in some of his concerts indicates the richness of Parisian artistic life during this period Examples include a concert on 23 March 1833 in which Chopin Liszt and Hiller performed on pianos a concerto by J S Bach for three keyboards and on 3 March 1838 a concert in which Chopin his pupil Adolphe Gutmann Charles Valentin Alkan and Alkan s teacher Joseph Zimmermann performed Alkan s arrangement for eight hands of two movements from Beethoven s 7th symphony 61 Chopin was also involved in the composition of Liszt s Hexameron he wrote the sixth and final variation on Bellini s theme Chopin s music soon found success with publishers and in 1833 he contracted with Maurice Schlesinger who arranged for it to be published not only in France but through his family connections also in Germany and England 62 n 11 Maria Wodzinska self portrait In the spring of 1834 Chopin attended the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Aix la Chapelle with Hiller and it was there that Chopin met Felix Mendelssohn After the festival the three visited Dusseldorf where Mendelssohn had been appointed musical director They spent what Mendelssohn described as a very agreeable day playing and discussing music at his piano and met Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow director of the Academy of Art and some of his eminent pupils such as Lessing Bendemann Hildebrandt and Sohn 64 In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad where he spent time with his parents it was the last time he would see them On his way back to Paris he met old friends from Warsaw the Wodzinskis He had made the acquaintance of their daughter Maria in Poland five years earlier when she was eleven This meeting prompted him to stay for two weeks in Dresden when he had previously intended to return to Paris via Leipzig 65 The sixteen year old girl s portrait of the composer has been considered along with Delacroix s as among the best likenesses of Chopin 66 In October he finally reached Leipzig where he met Schumann Clara Wieck and Mendelssohn who organised for him a performance of his own oratorio St Paul and who considered him a perfect musician 67 In July 1836 Chopin travelled to Marienbad and Dresden to be with the Wodzinski family and in September he proposed to Maria whose mother Countess Wodzinska approved in principle Chopin went on to Leipzig where he presented Schumann with his G minor Ballade 68 At the end of 1836 he sent Maria an album in which his sister Ludwika had inscribed seven of his songs and his 1835 Nocturne in C sharp minor Op 27 No 1 69 The anodyne thanks he received from Maria proved to be the last letter he was to have from her 70 Chopin placed the letters he had received from Maria and her mother into a large envelope wrote on it the words My sorrow Moja bieda and to the end of his life retained in a desk drawer this keepsake of the second love of his life 69 n 12 Franz Liszt Edit Franz Liszt by Kriehuber 1838 Although it is not known exactly when Chopin first met Franz Liszt after arriving in Paris on 12 December 1831 he mentioned in a letter to his friend Woyciechowski that I have met Rossini Cherubini Baillot etc also Kalkbrenner You would not believe how curious I was about Herz Liszt Hiller etc 71 Liszt was in attendance at Chopin s Parisian debut on 26 February 1832 at the Salle Pleyel which led him to remark The most vigorous applause seemed not to suffice to our enthusiasm in the presence of this talented musician who revealed a new phase of poetic sentiment combined with such happy innovation in the form of his art 72 The two became friends and for many years lived close to each other in Paris Chopin at 38 Rue de la Chaussee d Antin and Liszt at the Hotel de France on the Rue Laffitte a few blocks away 73 They performed together on seven occasions between 1833 and 1841 The first on 2 April 1833 was at a benefit concert organised by Hector Berlioz for his bankrupt Shakespearean actress wife Harriet Smithson during which they played George Onslow s Sonata in F minor for piano duet Later joint appearances included a benefit concert for the Benevolent Association of Polish Ladies in Paris Their last appearance together in public was for a charity concert conducted for the Beethoven Monument in Bonn held at the Salle Pleyel and the Paris Conservatory on 25 and 26 April 1841 72 Although the two displayed great respect and admiration for each other their friendship was uneasy and had some qualities of a love hate relationship Harold C Schonberg believes that Chopin displayed a tinge of jealousy and spite towards Liszt s virtuosity on the piano 73 and others have also argued that he had become enchanted with Liszt s theatricality showmanship and success 74 Liszt was the dedicatee of Chopin s Op 10 Etudes and his performance of them prompted the composer to write to Hiller I should like to rob him of the way he plays my studies 75 However Chopin expressed annoyance in 1843 when Liszt performed one of his nocturnes with the addition of numerous intricate embellishments at which Chopin remarked that he should play the music as written or not play it at all forcing an apology Most biographers of Chopin state that after this the two had little to do with each other although in his letters dated as late as 1848 he still referred to him as my friend Liszt 73 Some commentators point to events in the two men s romantic lives which led to a rift between them there are claims that Liszt had displayed jealousy of his mistress Marie d Agoult s obsession with Chopin while others believe that Chopin had become concerned about Liszt s growing relationship with George Sand 72 George Sand Edit Chopin at 28 from Delacroix s joint portrait of Chopin and Sand 1838 In 1836 at a party hosted by Marie d Agoult Chopin met the French author George Sand born Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin Short under five feet or 152 cm dark big eyed and a cigar smoker 76 she initially repelled Chopin who remarked What an unattractive person la Sand is Is she really a woman 77 However by early 1837 Maria Wodzinska s mother had made it clear to Chopin in correspondence that a marriage with her daughter was unlikely to proceed 78 It is thought that she was influenced by his poor health and possibly also by rumours about his associations with women such as d Agoult and Sand 79 Chopin finally placed the letters from Maria and her mother in a package on which he wrote in Polish My Sorrow 80 Sand in a letter to Grzymala of June 1838 admitted strong feelings for the composer and debated whether to abandon a current affair in order to begin a relationship with Chopin she asked Grzymala to assess Chopin s relationship with Maria Wodzinska without realising that the affair at least from Maria s side was over 81 In June 1837 Chopin visited London incognito in the company of the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel where he played at a musical soiree at the house of English piano maker James Broadwood 82 On his return to Paris his association with Sand began in earnest and by the end of June 1838 they had become lovers 83 Sand who was six years older than the composer and had had a series of lovers wrote at this time I must say I was confused and amazed at the effect this little creature had on me I have still not recovered from my astonishment and if I were a proud person I should be feeling humiliated at having been carried away 84 The two spent a miserable winter on Majorca 8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839 where together with Sand s two children they had journeyed in the hope of improving Chopin s health and that of Sand s 15 year old son Maurice and also to escape the threats of Sand s former lover Felicien Mallefille 85 After discovering that the couple were not married the deeply traditional Catholic people of Majorca became inhospitable 86 making accommodation difficult to find This compelled the group to take lodgings in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa which gave little shelter from the cold winter weather 83 George Sand sewing from Delacroix s joint portrait of Chopin and Sand 1838 On 3 December 1838 Chopin complained about his bad health and the incompetence of the doctors in Majorca commenting Three doctors have visited me The first said I was dead the second said I was dying and the third said I was about to die 87 He also had problems having his Pleyel piano sent to him having to rely in the meantime on a piano made in Palma by Juan Bauza 88 n 13 The Pleyel piano finally arrived from Paris in December just shortly before Chopin and Sand left the island Chopin wrote to Pleyel in January 1839 I am sending you my Preludes Op 28 I finished them on your little piano which arrived in the best possible condition in spite of the sea the bad weather and the Palma customs 83 Chopin was also able to undertake work while in Majorca on his Ballade No 2 Op 38 on two Polonaises Op 40 and on the Scherzo No 3 Op 39 89 Although this period had been productive the bad weather had such a detrimental effect on Chopin s health that Sand determined to leave the island To avoid further customs duties Sand sold the piano to a local French couple the Canuts 89 n 14 The group travelled first to Barcelona then to Marseilles where they stayed for a few months while Chopin convalesced 91 While in Marseilles Chopin made a rare appearance at the organ during a requiem mass for the tenor Adolphe Nourrit on 24 April 1839 playing a transcription of Franz Schubert s lied Die Gestirne D 444 92 93 n 15 In May 1839 they headed to Sand s estate at Nohant for the summer where they spent most of the following summers until 1846 In autumn they returned to Paris where Chopin s apartment at 5 rue Tronchet was close to Sand s rented accommodation on the rue Pigalle He frequently visited Sand in the evenings but both retained some independence 95 In 1842 he and Sand moved to the Square d Orleans living in adjacent buildings 96 On 26 July 1840 Chopin and Sand were present at the dress rehearsal of Berlioz s Grande symphonie funebre et triomphale composed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution Chopin was reportedly unimpressed with the composition 95 During the summers at Nohant particularly in the years 1839 43 Chopin found quiet productive days during which he composed many works including his Polonaise in A flat major Op 53 Among the visitors to Nohant were Delacroix and the mezzo soprano Pauline Viardot whom Chopin had advised on piano technique and composition 97 Delacroix gives an account of staying at Nohant in a letter of 7 June 1842 The hosts could not be more pleasant in entertaining me When we are not all together at dinner lunch playing billiards or walking each of us stays in his room reading or lounging around on a couch Sometimes through the window which opens on the garden a gust of music wafts up from Chopin at work All this mingles with the songs of nightingales and the fragrance of roses 98 Decline Edit Main article Health of Frederic Chopin Chopin by Gratia 1838 From 1842 onwards Chopin showed signs of serious illness After a solo recital in Paris on 21 February 1842 he wrote to Grzymala I have to lie in bed all day long my mouth and tonsils are aching so much 99 He was forced by illness to decline a written invitation from Alkan to participate in a repeat performance of the Beethoven 7th Symphony arrangement at Erard s on 1 March 1843 100 Late in 1844 Charles Halle visited Chopin and found him hardly able to move bent like a half opened penknife and evidently in great pain although his spirits returned when he started to play the piano for his visitor 101 Chopin s health continued to deteriorate particularly from this time onwards Modern research suggests that apart from any other illnesses he may also have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy 102 Chopin s output as a composer throughout this period declined in quantity year by year Whereas in 1841 he had written a dozen works only six were written in 1842 and six shorter pieces in 1843 In 1844 he wrote only the Op 58 sonata 1845 saw the completion of three mazurkas Op 59 Although these works were more refined than many of his earlier compositions Zamoyski concludes that his powers of concentration were failing and his inspiration was beset by anguish both emotional and intellectual 103 Chopin s relations with Sand were soured in 1846 by problems involving her daughter Solange and Solange s fiance the young fortune hunting sculptor Auguste Clesinger 104 The composer frequently took Solange s side in quarrels with her mother he also faced jealousy from Sand s son Maurice 105 Moreover Chopin was indifferent to Sand s radical political pursuits including her enthusiasm for the February Revolution of 1848 106 As the composer s illness progressed Sand had become less of a lover and more of a nurse to Chopin whom she called her third child In letters to third parties she vented her impatience referring to him as a child a little angel a poor angel a sufferer and a beloved little corpse 107 108 In 1847 Sand published her novel Lucrezia Floriani whose main characters a rich actress and a prince in weak health could be interpreted as Sand and Chopin In Chopin s presence Sand read the manuscript aloud to Delacroix who was both shocked and mystified by its implications writing that Madame Sand was perfectly at ease and Chopin could hardly stop making admiring comments 109 110 That year their relationship ended following an angry correspondence which in Sand s words made a strange conclusion to nine years of exclusive friendship 111 Grzymala who had followed their romance from the beginning commented If Chopin had not had the misfortune of meeting G S George Sand who poisoned his whole being he would have lived to be Cherubini s age Chopin would die two years later at thirty nine the composer Luigi Cherubini had died in Paris in 1842 at the age of 81 112 Tour of Great Britain Edit Jane Stirling by Deveria c 1830 Chopin s public popularity as a virtuoso began to wane as did the number of his pupils and this together with the political strife and instability of the time caused him to struggle financially 113 In February 1848 with the cellist Auguste Franchomme he gave his last Paris concert which included three movements of the Cello Sonata Op 65 107 In April during the 1848 Revolution in Paris he left for London where he performed at several concerts and numerous receptions in great houses 107 This tour was suggested to him by his Scottish pupil Jane Stirling and her elder sister Stirling also made all the logistical arrangements and provided much of the necessary funding 111 In London Chopin took lodgings at Dover Street where the firm of Broadwood provided him with a grand piano At his first engagement on 15 May at Stafford House the audience included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert The Prince who was himself a talented musician moved close to the keyboard to view Chopin s technique Broadwood also arranged concerts for him among those attending were the author William Makepeace Thackeray and the singer Jenny Lind Chopin was also sought after for piano lessons for which he charged the high fee of one guinea per hour and for private recitals for which the fee was 20 guineas At a concert on 7 July he shared the platform with Viardot who sang arrangements of some of his mazurkas to Spanish texts 114 A few days later he performed for Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane at their home in Chelsea 115 On 28 August he played at a concert in Manchester s Gentlemen s Concert Hall sharing the stage with Marietta Alboni and Lorenzo Salvi 116 In late summer he was invited by Jane Stirling to visit Scotland where he stayed at Calder House near Edinburgh and at Johnstone Castle in Renfrewshire both owned by members of Stirling s family 117 She clearly had a notion of going beyond mere friendship and Chopin was obliged to make it clear to her that this could not be so He wrote at this time to Grzymala My Scottish ladies are kind but such bores and responding to a rumour about his involvement answered that he was closer to the grave than the nuptial bed 118 He gave a public concert in Glasgow on 27 September 119 and another in Edinburgh at the Hopetoun Rooms on Queen Street now Erskine House on 4 October 120 In late October 1848 while staying at 10 Warriston Crescent in Edinburgh with the Polish physician Adam Lyszczynski he wrote out 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 Grzymala 107 Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform at London s Guildhall on 16 November 1848 when in a final patriotic gesture he played for the benefit of Polish refugees This gesture proved to be a mistake as most of the participants were more interested in the dancing and refreshments than in Chopin s piano artistry which drained him 121 By this time he was very seriously ill weighing under 99 pounds less than 45 kg and his doctors were aware that his sickness was at a terminal stage 122 At the end of November Chopin returned to Paris He passed the winter in unremitting illness but gave occasional lessons and was visited by friends including Delacroix and Franchomme Occasionally he played or accompanied the singing of Delfina Potocka for his friends During the summer of 1849 his friends found him an apartment in Chaillot out of the centre of the city for which the rent was secretly subsidised by an admirer Princess Obreskoff He was visited here by Jenny Lind in June 1849 123 Death and funeral Edit Further information Health of Frederic Chopin Chopin on His Deathbed by Teofil Kwiatkowski 1849 commissioned by Jane Stirling From left Aleksander Jelowicki Chopin s sister Ludwika Marcelina Czartoryska Wojciech Grzymala Teofil Kwiatkowski Chopin s death mask by Clesinger photos Jack Gibbons With his health further deteriorating Chopin desired to have a family member with him In June 1849 his sister Ludwika came to Paris with her husband and daughter and in September supported by a loan from Jane Stirling he took an apartment at the Hotel Baudard de Saint James n 16 on the Place Vendome 124 After 15 October when his condition took a marked turn for the worse only a handful of his closest friends remained with him Viardot remarked sardonically though that all the grand Parisian ladies considered it de rigueur to faint in his room 122 Some of his friends provided music at his request among them Potocka sang and Franchomme played the cello Chopin bequeathed his unfinished notes on a piano tuition method Projet de methode to Alkan for completion 125 On 17 October after midnight the physician leaned over him and asked whether he was suffering greatly No longer he replied He died a few minutes before two o clock in the morning He was 39 Those present at the deathbed appear to have included his sister Ludwika Fr Aleksander Jelowicki 126 Princess Marcelina Czartoryska Sand s daughter Solange and his close friend Thomas Albrecht Later that morning Solange s husband Clesinger made Chopin s death mask and a cast of his left hand 127 The funeral held at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris was delayed almost two weeks until 30 October Entrance was restricted to ticket holders as many people were expected to attend 128 Over 3 000 people arrived without invitations from as far as London Berlin and Vienna and were excluded 129 Mozart s Requiem was sung at the funeral the soloists were the soprano Jeanne Anais Castellan the mezzo soprano Pauline Viardot the tenor Alexis Dupont and the bass Luigi Lablache Chopin s Preludes No 4 in E minor and No 6 in B minor were also played The organist was Louis Lefebure Wely The funeral procession to Pere Lachaise Cemetery which included Chopin s sister Ludwika was led by the aged Prince Adam Czartoryski The pallbearers included Delacroix Franchomme and Camille Pleyel 130 At the graveside the Funeral March from Chopin s Piano Sonata No 2 was played in Reber s instrumentation 131 Chopin s tombstone featuring the muse of music Euterpe weeping over a broken lyre was designed and sculpted by Clesinger and installed on the anniversary of his death in 1850 The expenses of the monument amounting to 4 500 francs were covered by Jane Stirling who also paid for the return of the composer s sister Ludwika to Warsaw 132 As requested by Chopin Ludwika took his heart which had been removed by his doctor Jean Cruveilhier and preserved in alcohol in a vase back to Poland in 1850 133 134 n 17 She also took a collection of two hundred letters from Sand to Chopin after 1851 these were returned to Sand who destroyed them 137 Chopin s disease and the cause of his death have been a matter of discussion His death certificate gave the cause of death as tuberculosis and his physician Cruveilhier was then the leading French authority on this disease 138 Other possibilities that have been advanced have included cystic fibrosis 139 cirrhosis and alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency 140 141 A visual examination of Chopin s preserved heart the jar was not opened conducted in 2014 and first published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2017 suggested that the likely cause of his death was a rare case of pericarditis caused by complications of chronic tuberculosis 142 143 144 Music EditSee also List of compositions by Frederic Chopin by genre List of compositions by Frederic Chopin by opus number Ballades Chopin Etudes Chopin Mazurkas Chopin Nocturnes Chopin Polonaises Chopin Preludes Chopin Scherzos Chopin Waltzes Chopin Miscellaneous compositions Chopin and Chopin s compositions for piano and orchestra Mazurka in A minor Op 17 No 4 source Giorgi Latso pianoWaltz in D flat major Op 64 No 1 so called Minute Waltz source source Muriel Nguyen Xuan pianoEtude Op 10 No 12 so called Revolutionary source source Martha Goldstein playing an 1851 Erard pianoPrelude in D flat major Op 28 No 15 so called Raindrop source source Giorgi Latso pianoScherzo No 3 Op 39 in C sharp minor source source source Martha Argerich pianoBallade No 4 Op 52 in F minor source Randolph Hokanson piano Problems playing these files See media help Overview Edit Over 230 works of Chopin survive some compositions from early childhood have been lost All his known works involve the piano and only a few range beyond solo piano music as either piano concertos songs or chamber music 145 Chopin was educated in the tradition of Beethoven Haydn Mozart and Clementi he used Clementi s piano method with his students He was also influenced by Hummel s development of virtuoso yet Mozartian piano technique He cited Bach and Mozart as the two most important composers in shaping his musical outlook 146 Chopin s early works are in the style of the brilliant keyboard pieces of his era as exemplified by the works of Ignaz Moscheles Friedrich Kalkbrenner and others Less direct in the earlier period are the influences of Polish folk music and of Italian opera Much of what became his typical style of ornamentation for example his fioriture is taken from singing His melodic lines were increasingly reminiscent of the modes and features of the music of his native country such as drones 147 Chopin took the new salon genre of the nocturne invented by the Irish composer John Field to a deeper level of sophistication He was the first to write ballades 148 and scherzi as individual concert pieces He essentially established a new genre with his own set of free standing preludes Op 28 published 1839 He exploited the poetic potential of the concept of the concert etude already being developed in the 1820s and 1830s by Liszt Clementi and Moscheles in his two sets of studies Op 10 published in 1833 Op 25 in 1837 149 Chopin also endowed popular dance forms with a greater range of melody and expression Chopin s mazurkas while originating in the traditional Polish dance the mazurek differed from the traditional variety in that they were written for the concert hall rather than the dance hall as J Barrie Jones puts it it was Chopin who put the mazurka on the European musical map 150 The series of seven polonaises published in his lifetime another nine were published posthumously beginning with the Op 26 pair published 1836 set a new standard for music in the form 151 His waltzes were also written specifically for the salon recital rather than the ballroom and are frequently at rather faster tempos than their dance floor equivalents 152 Titles opus numbers and editions Edit Autographed musical quotation from the Polonaise Op 53 signed by Chopin on 25 May 1845 Some of Chopin s well known pieces have acquired descriptive titles such as the Revolutionary Etude Op 10 No 12 and the Minute Waltz Op 64 No 1 However except for his Funeral March the composer never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number leaving all potential extramusical associations to the listener the names by which many of his pieces are known were invented by others 153 154 There is no evidence to suggest that the Revolutionary Etude was written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind it merely appeared at that time 155 The Funeral March the third movement of his Sonata No 2 Op 35 the one case where he did give a title was written before the rest of the sonata but no specific event or death is known to have inspired it 156 The last opus number that Chopin himself used was 65 allocated to the Cello Sonata in G minor He expressed a deathbed wish that all his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed At the request of the composer s mother and sisters however his musical executor Julian Fontana selected 23 unpublished piano pieces and grouped them into eight further opus numbers Opp 66 73 published in 1855 157 In 1857 17 Polish songs that Chopin wrote at various stages of his life were collected and published as Op 74 though their order within the opus did not reflect the order of composition 158 Works published since 1857 have received alternative catalogue designations instead of opus numbers The most up to date catalogue is maintained by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute at its Internet Chopin Information Centre The older Kobylanska Catalogue usually represented by the initials KK named for its compiler the Polish musicologist Krystyna Kobylanska is still considered an important scholarly reference The most recent catalogue of posthumously published works is that of the National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin represented by the initials WN 159 Chopin s original publishers included Maurice Schlesinger and Camille Pleyel 160 His works soon began to appear in popular 19th century piano anthologies 161 The first collected edition was by Breitkopf amp Hartel 1878 1902 162 Among modern scholarly editions of Chopin s works are the version under the name of Paderewski published between 1937 and 1966 and the more recent Polish National Edition edited by Jan Ekier and published between 1967 and 2010 The latter is recommended to contestants of the Chopin Competition 163 Both editions contain detailed explanations and discussions regarding choices and sources 164 165 Chopin published his music in France England and the German states due to the copyright laws of the time Thus there are often three different kinds of first editions Each edition is different from the other as Chopin edited them separately and at times he did some revision to the music while editing it Furthermore Chopin provided his publishers with varying sources including autographs annotated proofsheets and scribal copies Only recently have these differences gained greater recognition 166 Form and harmony Edit A recreation of the composer s last residence in the Place Vendome at the Salon Frederic Chopin Paris 167 n 18 Improvisation stands at the centre of Chopin s creative processes However this does not imply impulsive rambling Nicholas Temperley writes that improvisation is designed for an audience and its starting point is that audience s expectations which include the current conventions of musical form 168 The works for piano and orchestra including the two concertos are held by Temperley to be merely vehicles for brilliant piano playing formally longwinded and extremely conservative 169 After the piano concertos which are both early dating from 1830 Chopin made no attempts at large scale multi movement forms save for his late sonatas for piano and cello instead he achieved near perfection in pieces of simple general design but subtle and complex cell structure 170 Rosen suggests that an important aspect of Chopin s individuality is his flexible handling of the four bar phrase as a structural unit 171 J Barrie Jones suggests that amongst the works that Chopin intended for concert use the four ballades and four scherzi stand supreme and adds that the Barcarolle Op 60 stands apart as an example of Chopin s rich harmonic palette coupled with an Italianate warmth of melody 172 Temperley opines that these works which contain immense variety of mood thematic material and structural detail are based on an extended departure and return form the more the middle section is extended and the further it departs in key mood and theme from the opening idea the more important and dramatic is the reprise when it at last comes 173 Chopin s mazurkas and waltzes are all in straightforward ternary or episodic form sometimes with a coda 150 173 The mazurkas often show more folk features than many of his other works sometimes including modal scales and harmonies and the use of drone basses However some also show unusual sophistication for example Op 63 No 3 which includes a canon at one beat s distance a great rarity in music 174 Chopin s polonaises show a marked advance on those of his Polish predecessors in the form who included his teachers Zywny and Elsner As with the traditional polonaise Chopin s works are in triple time and typically display a martial rhythm in their melodies accompaniments and cadences Unlike most of their precursors they also require a formidable playing technique 175 The 21 nocturnes are more structured and of greater emotional depth than those of Field whom Chopin met in 1833 Many of the Chopin nocturnes have middle sections marked by agitated expression and often making very difficult demands on the performer which heightens their dramatic character 176 Chopin s etudes are largely in straightforward ternary form 177 He used them to teach his own technique of piano playing 178 for instance playing double thirds Op 25 No 6 playing in octaves Op 25 No 10 and playing repeated notes Op 10 No 7 179 The preludes many of which are very brief some consisting of simple statements and developments of a single theme or figure were described by Schumann as the beginnings of studies 180 Inspired by J S Bach s The Well Tempered Clavier Chopin s preludes move up the circle of fifths rather than Bach s chromatic scale sequence to create a prelude in each major and minor tonality 181 The preludes were perhaps not intended to be played as a group and may even have been used by him and later pianists as generic preludes to others of his pieces or even to music by other composers This is suggested by Kenneth Hamilton who has noted a 1922 recording by Ferruccio Busoni in which the Prelude Op 28 No 7 is followed by the Etude Op 10 No 5 182 The two mature Chopin piano sonatas No 2 Op 35 written in 1839 and No 3 Op 58 written in 1844 are in four movements In Op 35 Chopin combined within a formal large musical structure many elements of his virtuosic piano technique a kind of dialogue between the public pianism of the brilliant style and the German sonata principle 183 This sonata has been considered as showing the influences of both Bach and Beethoven The Prelude from Bach s Suite No 6 in D major for cello BWV 1012 is quoted 184 and there are references to two sonatas of Beethoven the Sonata Opus 111 in C minor and the Sonata Opus 26 in A flat major which like Chopin s Op 35 has a funeral march as its slow movement 185 186 The last movement of Chopin s Op 35 a brief 75 bar perpetuum mobile in which the hands play in unmodified octave unison throughout was found shocking and unmusical by contemporaries including Schumann 187 The Op 58 sonata is closer to the German tradition including many passages of complex counterpoint worthy of Brahms according to Samson 183 Chopin s harmonic innovations may have arisen partly from his keyboard improvisation technique In his works Temperley says novel harmonic effects often result from the combination of ordinary appoggiaturas or passing notes with melodic figures of accompaniment and cadences are delayed by the use of chords outside the home key neapolitan sixths and diminished sevenths or by sudden shifts to remote keys Chord progressions sometimes anticipate the shifting tonality of later composers such as Claude Debussy as does Chopin s use of modal harmony 188 Technique and performance style Edit Extract from Chopin s Nocturne Op 62 no 1 1846 composer s manuscript The same passage 1881 Schirmer edition The examples show typical use by Chopin of trills grace notes and detailed pedalling and tempo instructions In 1841 Leon Escudier wrote of a recital given by Chopin that year One may say that Chopin is the creator of a school of piano and a school of composition In truth nothing equals the lightness the sweetness with which the composer preludes on the piano moreover nothing may be compared to his works full of originality distinction and grace 189 Chopin refused to conform to a standard method of playing and believed that there was no set technique for playing well His style was based extensively on his use of a very independent finger technique In his Projet de methode he wrote Everything is a matter of knowing good fingering we need no less to use the rest of the hand the wrist the forearm and the upper arm 190 He further stated One needs only to study a certain position of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful quality of sound to know how to play short notes and long notes and to attain unlimited dexterity 191 The consequences of this approach to technique in Chopin s music include the frequent use of the entire range of the keyboard passages in double octaves and other chord groupings swiftly repeated notes the use of grace notes and the use of contrasting rhythms four against three for example between the hands 192 Jonathan Bellman writes that modern concert performance style set in the conservatory tradition of late 19th and 20th century music schools and suitable for large auditoria or recordings militates against what is known of Chopin s more intimate performance technique 193 The composer himself said to a pupil that concerts are never real music you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art 194 Contemporary accounts indicate that in performance Chopin avoided rigid procedures sometimes incorrectly attributed to him such as always crescendo to a high note but that he was concerned with expressive phrasing rhythmic consistency and sensitive colouring 195 Berlioz wrote in 1853 that Chopin has created a kind of chromatic embroidery whose effect is so strange and piquant as to be impossible to describe virtually nobody but Chopin himself can play this music and give it this unusual turn 196 Hiller wrote that What in the hands of others was elegant embellishment in his hands became a colourful wreath of flowers 197 Chopin s music is frequently played with rubato the practice in performance of disregarding strict time robbing some note values for expressive effect 198 There are differing opinions as to how much and what type of rubato is appropriate for his works Charles Rosen comments that most of the written out indications of rubato in Chopin are to be found in his mazurkas It is probable that Chopin used the older form of rubato so important to Mozart where the melody note in the right hand is delayed until after the note in the bass An allied form of this rubato is the arpeggiation of the chords thereby delaying the melody note according to Chopin s pupil Karol Mikuli Chopin was firmly opposed to this practice 199 Chopin s pupil Friederike Muller wrote His playing was always noble and beautiful his tones sang whether in full forte or softest piano He took infinite pains to teach his pupils this legato cantabile style of playing His most severe criticism was He or she does not know how to join two notes together He also demanded the strictest adherence to rhythm He hated all lingering and dragging misplaced rubatos as well as exaggerated ritardandos and it is precisely in this respect that people make such terrible errors in playing his works 200 Instruments Edit Chopin s last Pleyel piano which he used in 1848 49 Fryderyk Chopin Museum Warsaw When living in Warsaw Chopin composed and played on an instrument built by the piano maker Fryderyk Buchholtz 201 n 19 Later in Paris Chopin purchased a piano from Pleyel He rated Pleyel s pianos as non plus ultra nothing better 204 Franz Liszt befriended Chopin in Paris and described the sound of Chopin s Pleyel as being the marriage of crystal and water 205 While in London in 1848 Chopin mentioned his pianos in his letters I have a large drawing room with three pianos a Pleyel a Broadwood and an Erard 204 Polish identity Edit With his mazurkas and polonaises Chopin has been credited with introducing to music a new sense of nationalism Schumann in his 1836 review of the piano concertos highlighted the composer s strong feelings for his native Poland writing that Now that the Poles are in deep mourning after the failure of the November Uprising of 1830 their appeal to us artists is even stronger If the mighty autocrat in the north i e Nicholas I of Russia could know that in Chopin s works in the simple strains of his mazurkas there lurks a dangerous enemy he would place a ban on his music Chopin s works are cannon buried in flowers 206 The biography of Chopin published in 1863 under the name of Franz Liszt but probably written by Carolyne zu Sayn Wittgenstein 207 states that Chopin must be ranked first among the first musicians individualizing in themselves the poetic sense of an entire nation 208 The Polish character of Chopin s work is unquestionable not because he also wrote polonaises and mazurkas which forms were often stuffed with alien ideological and literary contents from the outside As an artist he looked for forms that stood apart from the literary dramatic character of music which was a feature of Romanticism as a Pole he reflected in his work the very essence of the tragic break in the history of the people and instinctively aspired to give the deepest expression of his nation For he understood that he could invest his music with the most enduring and truly Polish qualities only by liberating art from the confines of dramatic and historical contents This attitude toward the question of national music an inspired solution to his art was the reason why Chopin s works have come to be understood everywhere outside of Poland Therein lies the strange riddle of his eternal vigour Karol Szymanowski 1923 209 Some modern commentators have argued against exaggerating Chopin s primacy as a nationalist or patriotic composer George Golos refers to earlier nationalist composers in Central Europe including Poland s Michal Kleofas Oginski and Franciszek Lessel who utilised polonaise and mazurka forms 210 Barbara Milewski suggests that Chopin s experience of Polish music came more from urbanised Warsaw versions than from folk music and that attempts by Jachimecki and others to demonstrate genuine folk music in his works are without basis 211 Richard Taruskin impugns Schumann s attitude toward Chopin s works as patronising 212 and comments that Chopin felt his Polish patriotism deeply and sincerely but consciously modelled his works on the tradition of Bach Beethoven Schubert and Field 213 214 A reconciliation of these views is suggested by William Atwood Undoubtedly Chopin s use of traditional musical forms like the polonaise and mazurka roused nationalistic sentiments and a sense of cohesiveness amongst those Poles scattered across Europe and the New World While some sought solace in them others found them a source of strength in their continuing struggle for freedom Although Chopin s music undoubtedly came to him intuitively rather than through any conscious patriotic design it served all the same to symbolize the will of the Polish people 215 Reception and influence Edit See also List of memorials to Frederic Chopin Funerary monument on a pillar in Holy Cross Church Warsaw enclosing Chopin s heart Jones comments that Chopin s unique position as a composer despite the fact that virtually everything he wrote was for the piano has rarely been questioned 177 He also notes that Chopin was fortunate to arrive in Paris in 1831 the artistic environment the publishers who were willing to print his music the wealthy and aristocratic who paid what Chopin asked for their lessons and these factors as well as his musical genius also fuelled his contemporary and later reputation 152 While his illness and his love affairs conform to some of the stereotypes of romanticism the rarity of his public recitals as opposed to performances at fashionable Paris soirees led Arthur Hutchings to suggest that his lack of Byronic flamboyance and his aristocratic reclusiveness make him exceptional among his romantic contemporaries such as Liszt and Henri Herz 170 Chopin s qualities as a pianist and composer were recognised by many of his fellow musicians Schumann named a piece for him in his suite Carnaval and Chopin later dedicated his Ballade No 2 in F major to Schumann Elements of Chopin s music can be found in many of Liszt s later works 75 Liszt later transcribed for piano six of Chopin s Polish songs A less fraught friendship was with Alkan with whom he discussed elements of folk music and who was deeply affected by Chopin s death 216 In Paris Chopin had a number of pupils including Friedericke Muller who left memoirs of his teaching 217 and the prodigy Carl Filtsch 1830 1845 to whom both Chopin and Sand became dedicated Chopin giving him three lessons a week Filtsch was the only pupil to whom Chopin gave lessons in composition and exceptionally he on several occasions shared a concert platform with him 218 Two of Chopin s long standing pupils Karol Mikuli 1821 1897 and Georges Mathias 1826 1910 were themselves piano teachers and passed on details of his playing to their students some of whom such as Raoul Koczalski were to make recordings of his music Other pianists and composers influenced by Chopin s style include Louis Moreau Gottschalk Edouard Wolff 1816 1880 and Pierre Zimmermann 219 Debussy dedicated his own 1915 piano Etudes to the memory of Chopin he frequently played Chopin s music during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire and undertook the editing of Chopin s piano music for the publisher Jacques Durand 220 Frederic Chopin Monument Lazienki Park Warsaw designed by Waclaw Szymanowski Polish composers of the following generation included virtuosi such as Moritz Moszkowski but in the opinion of J Barrie Jones his one worthy successor among his compatriots was Karol Szymanowski 1882 1937 221 Edvard Grieg Antonin Dvorak Isaac Albeniz Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff among others are regarded by critics as having been influenced by Chopin s use of national modes and idioms 222 Alexander Scriabin was devoted to the music of Chopin and his early published works include nineteen mazurkas as well as numerous etudes and preludes his teacher Nikolai Zverev drilled him in Chopin s works to improve his virtuosity as a performer 223 In the 20th century composers who paid homage to or in some cases parodied the music of Chopin included George Crumb Leopold Godowsky Bohuslav Martinu Darius Milhaud Igor Stravinsky 224 and Heitor Villa Lobos 225 Chopin s music was used in the 1909 ballet Chopiniana choreographed by Michel Fokine and orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov Sergei Diaghilev commissioned additional orchestrations from Stravinsky Anatoly Lyadov Sergei Taneyev and Nikolai Tcherepnin for later productions which used the title Les Sylphides 226 Other noted composers have created orchestrations for the ballet including Benjamin Britten Roy Douglas Alexander Gretchaninov Gordon Jacob and Maurice Ravel 227 whose score is lost 228 Musicologist Erinn Knyt writes In the nineteenth century Chopin and his music were commonly viewed as effeminate androgynous childish sickly and ethnically other 229 Music historian Jeffrey Kallberg says that in Chopin s time listeners to the genre of the piano nocturne often couched their reactions in feminine imagery and he cites many examples of such reactions to Chopin s nocturnes 230 One reason for this may be demographic there were more female than male piano players and playing such romantic pieces was seen by male critics as a female domestic pastime Such genderization was not commonly applied to other genres among Chopin s works such as the scherzo or the polonaise 231 The cultural historian Edward Said has cited the demonstrations by pianist and writer Charles Rosen in the latter s book The Romantic Generation of Chopin s skills in planning polyphony and sheer harmonic creativity as effectively overthrowing any legend of Chopin as a swooning inspired small scale salon composer 232 233 Chopin s music remains very popular and is regularly performed recorded and broadcast worldwide The world s oldest monographic music competition the International Chopin Piano Competition founded in 1927 is held every five years in Warsaw 234 The Fryderyk Chopin Institute of Poland lists on its website over eighty societies worldwide devoted to the composer and his music 235 The Institute site also lists over 1500 performances of Chopin works on YouTube as of March 2021 update 236 Recordings EditThe British Library notes that Chopin s works have been recorded by all the great pianists of the recording era The earliest recording was an 1895 performance by Paul Pabst of the Nocturne in E major Op 62 No 2 The British Library site makes available a number of historic recordings including some by Alfred Cortot Ignaz Friedman Vladimir Horowitz Benno Moiseiwitsch Ignacy Jan Paderewski Arthur Rubinstein Xaver Scharwenka Josef Hofmann Vladimir de Pachmann Moriz Rosenthal and many others 237 A select discography of recordings of Chopin works by pianists representing the various pedagogic traditions stemming from Chopin is given by James Methuen Campbell in his work tracing the lineage and character of those traditions 238 Numerous recordings of Chopin s works are available On the occasion of the composer s bicentenary the critics of The New York Times recommended performances by the following contemporary pianists among many others 239 Martha Argerich Vladimir Ashkenazy Emanuel Ax Evgeny Kissin Yundi Li Ivan Moravec Murray Perahia Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman The Warsaw Chopin Society organises the Grand prix du disque de F Chopin for notable Chopin recordings held every five years 240 In literature stage film and television Edit Chopin s grave Pere Lachaise cemetery Paris Chopin has figured extensively in Polish literature both in serious critical studies of his life and music and in fictional treatments The earliest manifestation was probably an 1830 sonnet on Chopin by Leon Ulrich French writers on Chopin apart from Sand have included Marcel Proust and Andre Gide and he has also featured in works of Gottfried Benn and Boris Pasternak 241 There are numerous biographies of Chopin in English see bibliography for some of these Possibly the first venture into fictional treatments of Chopin s life was a fanciful operatic version of some of its events Chopin First produced in Milan in 1901 the music based on Chopin s own was assembled by Giacomo Orefice with a libretto by Angiolo Orvieto it 242 243 Chopin s life and romantic tribulations have been fictionalised in numerous films 244 As early as 1919 Chopin s relationships with three women his youth sweetheart Mariolka then Polish singer Sonja Radkowska and later George Sand were portrayed in the German silent film Nocturno der Liebe 1919 with Chopin s music serving as a backdrop 245 The 1945 biographical film A Song to Remember earned Cornel Wilde an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his portrayal of the composer Other film treatments have included La valse de l adieu France 1928 by Henry Roussel with Pierre Blanchar as Chopin Impromptu 1991 starring Hugh Grant as Chopin La note bleue 1991 and Chopin Desire for Love 2002 246 Chopin s life was covered in a 1999 BBC Omnibus documentary by Andras Schiff and Mischa Scorer 247 in a 2010 documentary realised by Angelo Bozzolini and Roberto Prosseda for Italian television 248 and in a BBC Four documentary Chopin The Women Behind The Music 2010 249 See also EditChopin Piano Fest Pristina International Chopin Piano Competition The 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments Memorials to Frederic ChopinReferences EditNotes Edit UK ˈ ʃ ɒ p ae ˈ ʃ ɒ p ae n US ˈ ʃ oʊ p ae n ʃ oʊ ˈ p ae n 1 French fʁedeʁik fʁɑ swa ʃɔpɛ Polish frɨˈdɛrɨk fraɲˈt ɕiʂɛk ˈʂɔpɛn Though none of Chopin s family spelled their surname in the Polonised form Szopen 2 the latter spelling has been used by many Poles since his own day including by his poet contemporaries Juliusz Slowacki 3 and Cyprian Norwid 4 According to his letter of 16 January 1833 to the chairman of the Societe historique et litteraire polonaise Polish Literary Society in Paris he was born 1 March 1810 at the village of Zelazowa Wola in the Province of Mazowsze 9 The Conservatory was affiliated with the University of Warsaw hence Chopin is counted among the university s alumni At Szafarnia in 1824 perhaps his first solo travel away from home and in 1825 Duszniki 1826 Pomerania 1827 and Sanniki 1828 23 The Krasinski Palace now known as the Czapski Palace is now the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts In 1960 the Chopin family parlour salonik Chopinow a room once occupied by the Chopin household in the Palace was opened as a museum 26 An 1837 39 resident here the artist poet Cyprian Norwid would later write a poem Chopin s Piano about the instrument s defenestration by Russian troops during the January 1863 Uprising 27 The originals perished in World War II Only photographs survive 29 A French passport used by Chopin is shown at the website Chopin musicien francais 49 For Schlesinger s international network see Conway 2012 pp 185 187 238 239 63 A photo of the letters packet survives though the originals seem to have been lost during World War II See image on Chopin Institute Facebook page archived at ghostarchive org accessed 28 March 2021 The Bauza piano eventually entered the collection of Wanda Landowska in Paris and was seized following the Fall of Paris in 1940 and transported by the invaders to Leipzig in 1943 It was returned to France in 1946 but subsequently went missing 88 Two neighbouring apartments at the Valldemossa monastery each long hosting a Chopin museum have been claimed to be the retreat of Chopin and Sand and to hold Chopin s Pleyel piano In 2011 a Spanish court on Majorca partly by ruling out a piano that had been built after Chopin s visit there probably after his death decided which was the correct apartment 90 Nourrit s body was being escorted via Marseilles to his funeral in Paris following his suicide in Naples 94 See the photo in the article on memorials to Frederic Chopin of the plaque on the Hotel Baudard de Saint James commemorating Chopin s death there In 1879 the heart was sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church behind a tablet carved by Leonard Marconi 135 During the German invasion of Warsaw in World War II the heart was removed for safekeeping and held in the quarters of the German commander Erich von dem Bach Zelewski It was later returned to the church authorities but it was not deemed safe yet to put it back in its former resting place It was taken to the town of Milanowek where the casket was opened and the heart was viewed its large size was noted It was stored in St Hedwig s Church there On 17 October 1945 the 96th anniversary of Chopin s death it was returned to its place in Holy Cross Church 136 The piano in the picture a Pleyel from the period 1830 1849 was not Chopin s In 2018 a copy of Chopin s Buchholtz piano was first presented publicly at the Teatr Wielki Warsaw Polish National Opera 202 and was used by Warsaw Chopin Institute for their First International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments 203 Citations Edit Wells John C 2008 Longman Pronunciation Dictionary 3rd ed Longman ISBN 978 1 4058 8118 0 Walker 2018 p 289 Tomaszewski Mieczyslaw 2003 2018 Juliusz Slowacki chopin nifc pl in Polish Fryderyk Chopin Institute Retrieved 29 November 2021 Poem Fortepian Szopena Rosen 1995 p 284 Hedley amp Brown 1980 p 292 a b c d Zamoyski 2010 pp 4 5 a b Cholmondeley 1998 Chopin 1962 p 116 Zamoyski 2010 p 3 Walker 2018 p 32 Samson 2001 1 para 1 Zamoyski 2010 p 7 Myslakowski Piotr Sikorsky Andrzej Emilia Chopin Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina Retrieved 27 June 2021 a b Zamoyski 2010 pp 5 6 Szulc 1998 pp 41 42 a b Samson 2001 1 para 3 Samson 1996 p 8 Walker 2018 pp 50 52 Zamoyski 2010 pp 11 12 a b c Samson 2001 1 para 5 Walker 2018 pp 83 84 Szklener 2010 p 8 Samson 2001 1 para 2 Zamoyski 2010 pp 19 20 Mieleszko 1971 Jakubowski 1979 pp 514 515 a b c Zamoyski 2010 p 43 Kuhnke 2010 Walker2018 pp 157 158 Zamoyski 2010 p 47 Walker 2018 pp 109 110 Kallberg 2006 p 66 Piza Antoni 13 January 2022 Overture Love is a Pink Cake or Queering Chopin in Times of Homophobia Itamar Revista de investigacion musical Territorios para el arte ISSN 2386 8260 Weber Moritz 13 January 2022 AKT I ACTO I ACT I Manner Hombres Men Chopins Manner Los hombres de Chopin Chopin s Men Itamar Revista de investigacion musical Territorios para el arte in German ISSN 2386 8260 Walker 2018 pp 153 155 Niecks 1902 p 125 Walker 2018 pp 173 177 Walker 2018 pp 177 78 Zamoyski 2010 p 45 Zamoyski 2010 p 35 Zamoyski 2010 pp 37 39 a b Jachimecki 1937 p 422 Samson 2001 2 para 1 Samson 2001 2 para 3 The journal is now in the National Library of Poland Walker 2018 p 202 Zofia Helman Hanna Wroblewska Straus The Date of Chopin s Arrival in Paris In Musicology Today Anthropology History Analysis Institute of Musicology University of Warsaw 2007 pp 95 103 Samson 2001 1 para 6 Langavant Emmanuel Passeport francais de Chopin Chopin musicien francais website Retrieved 28 March 2021 a b Zamoyski 2010 p 128 Zamoyski 2010 p 106 Walker 2018 p 19 Eigeldinger 2001 passim Walker 2018 pp 302 ff 309 365 Samson 2001 3 para 2 Zamoyski 2010 pp 106 107 Schumann 1988 pp 15 17 Zamoyski 2010 p 88 a b c Hedley 2005 pp 263 264 Samson 2001 2 paras 4 5 Conway 2012 p 226 amp note 9 Samson 2001 2 para 5 Conway 2012 Niecks 1902 p 313 Zamoyski 2010 pp 118 119 Szulc 1998 p 137 Zamoyski 2010 pp 119 120 Zamoyski 2010 pp 126 127 a b Jachimecki 1937 p 423 Chopin 1962 p 144 Hall Swadley 2011 p 31 a b c Hall Swadley 2011 p 32 a b c Schonberg 1987 p 151 Hall Swadley 2011 p 33 a b Walker 1988 p 184 Schonberg 1987 pp 151 152 Samson 2001 3 para 3 Chopin 1962 p 141 Zamoyski 2010 pp 137 138 Zamoyski 2010 p 147 Chopin 1962 pp 151 161 Zaluski amp Zaluski 1992 p 226 a b c Samson 2001 3 para 4 Zamoyski 2010 p 154 Zamoyski 2010 p 159 Zamoyski 2010 pp 161 162 Zamoyski 2010 p 162 a b Appleyard Brian 2018 It Holds the Key The Sunday Times Culture Supplement 3 June 2018 pp 8 9 a b Zamoyski 2010 p 168 Govan Fiona 1 February 2011 Row over Chopin s Majorcan residence solved by piano The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on 11 January 2022 Retrieved 31 August 2013 Samson 2001 3 para 5 George Sand Frederic Chopin et l orgue de ND du Mont 15 March 2011 Retrieved 16 April 2019 Chopin 1988 p 200 letter to Fontana of 25 April 1839 Rogers 1939 p 25 a b Samson 2001 4 para 1 Samson 2001 4 para 4 Zamoyski 2010 p 197 Atwood 1999 p 315 Zamoyski 2010 p 212 Eddie 2013 p 8 Zamoyski 2010 p 227 Sara Reardon Chopin s hallucinations may have been caused by epilepsy The Washington Post 31 January 2011 accessed 10 January 2014 Zamoyski 2010 p 233 Samson 2001 5 para 2 Samson 1996 p 194 Walker 2018 pp 552 554 a b c d Jachimecki 1937 p 424 Kallberg 2006 p 56 Walker 2018 p 529 Miller 2003 8 a b Samson 2001 5 para 3 Szulc 1998 p 403 Walker 2018 p 556 Zaluski amp Zaluski 1992 pp 227 229 Cumming Mark ed 2004 Chopin Frederick The Carlyle Encyclopedia Madison and Teaneck NJ Fairleigh Dickinson University Press pp 91 92 ISBN 978 0 8386 3792 0 Walker 2018 pp 579 581 Zaluski amp Zaluski 1993 Zamoyski 2010 p 279 Letter of 30 October 1848 Zamoyski 2010 pp 276 278 Turnbull 1989 p 53 Szulc 1998 p 383 a b Samson 2001 5 para 4 Zamoyski 2010 pp 283 286 Zamoyski 2010 p 288 Zamoyski 2010 pp 291 293 Jelowicki Aleksander Letter to Ksawera Grocholska chopin nifc pl Retrieved 29 June 2022 Zamoyski 2010 p 293 Zamoyski 2010 p 294 Niecks 1902 p 1118 Walker 2018 pp 620 622 Atwood 1999 pp 412 413 translation of Funeral of Frederic Chopin in Revue et gazette musicale 4 November 1847 Walker 2018 pp 623 624 Samson 1996 p 193 Walker 2018 p 618 Holy Cross Church Kosciol Sw Krzyza Inyourpocket com Retrieved 7 December 2013 Ross 2014 Walker 2018 p 633 Zamoyski 2010 p 286 Majka Gozdzik amp Witt 2003 p 77 Kuzemko 1994 p 771 Kubba amp Young 1998 Witt Marchwica amp Dobosz 2018 McKie 2017 Pruszewicz 2014 Hedley amp Brown 1980 p 298 Samson 2001 6 para 7 Samson 2001 6 paras 1 4 Scholes 1938 Ballade Ferguson 1980 pp 304 305 a b Jones 1998b p 177 Szulc 1998 p 115 a b Jones 1998a p 162 Hedley 2005 p 264 Kennedy 1980 p 130 Hedley amp Brown 1980 p 294 Kallberg 2001 pp 4 8 Stahlbrand Frederic Francois Chopin 17 Polish Songs Op 74 Classical Archives Retrieved 14 February 2010 Smialek William Trochimczyk Maja 2015 Frederic Chopin A Research and Information Guide 2nd ed New York Routledge p 144 ISBN 978 0 203 88157 6 OCLC 910847554 Atwood 1999 pp 166 167 De Val amp Ehrlich 1998 p 127 De Val amp Ehrlich 1998 p 129 Rules of The Eighteenth International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition PDF Fryderyk Chopin Institute Temperley 1980 p 306 Ekier Jan Foundation for the National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin Fryderyk Chopin Institute Archived from the original on 9 August 2014 Retrieved 28 March 2021 Historical Background Chopin s First Editions Online Retrieved 28 March 2021 Les Musees Bibliotheque Polonaise de Paris Retrieved 7 March 2021 Temperley 1980 p 298 Temperley 1980 p 305 a b Hutchings 1968 p 137 Rosen 1995 pp 262 278 Jones 1998a pp 161 162 a b Temperley 1980 p 304 Jones 1998b pp 177 179 Reiss amp Brown 1980 p 51 Brown 1980 p 258 a b Jones 1998a p 160 Hedley 2005 p 263 Jones 1998a pp 160 161 Jones 1998a p 161 Rosen 1995 p 83 Hamilton 2008 pp 101 102 a b Samson 2001 9 para 2 Leikin 1994 pp 191 192 Leikin 1994 p 117 Petty 1999 p 289 Rosen 1995 pp 294 297 Temperley 1980 pp 302 303 Samson 1994 p 136 Cited in Eigeldinger 1988 p 18 Cited in Eigeldinger 1988 p 23 Eigeldinger 1988 pp 18 20 Bellman 2000 pp 149 150 Cited in Bellman 2000 p 150 the pupil was Emilie von Gretsch Bellman 2000 pp 153 154 Cited in Eigeldinger 1988 p 272 Cited in Bellman 2000 p 154 Latham 2011 Rosen 1995 p 413 Muller Streicher 1949 p 138 Majorek Czeslaw Zasztoft Leszek 1991 Popularyzacja nauki w Krolestwie Polskim w latach 1864 1905 History of Education Quarterly 31 1 109 doi 10 2307 368794 ISSN 0018 2680 JSTOR 368794 S2CID 147032747 Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina muzeum nifc pl Retrieved 24 June 2021 Moran Michael 31 January 2018 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments 2 14 September 2018 Classical Music Festivals and Competitions in Poland and Germany with occasional unrelated detours Retrieved 24 June 2021 a b Audeon 2016 Liszt Franz Cook M Walker 1 April 1877 Life of Chopin The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular 18 410 184 doi 10 2307 3351980 ISSN 0958 8434 JSTOR 3351980 Schumann 1988 p 114 Cooke 1965 1966 pp 856 861 sfn error no target CITEREFCooke1965 1966 help Liszt 1880 1503 Cited from Szymanowski s 1923 essay Fryderyk Chopin Downes 2001 p 63 and n 58 Golos 1960 pp 439 442 Milewski 1999 pp 113 121 Taruskin 2010 pp 344 345 Taruskin 2010 p 346 Rosen 1995 pp 361 363 Atwood 1999 p 57 Conway 2012 pp 229 230 Walker 2018 pp 422 423 Walker 2018 pp 464 467 Bellman 2000 pp 150 151 Wheeldon 2009 pp 55 62 Jones 1998b p 180 Temperley 1980 p 307 Bowers 1996 p 134 Wojtkiewicz 2013 Hommage a Chopin Scores at the International Music Score Library Project Taruskin 1996 pp 546 547 The Mystery of the Missing Music SideBarre American Ballet Theatre Retrieved 22 April 2021 Zank 2005 p 266 Knyt 2017 p 280 Kallberg 1992 pp 104 106 Kallberg 1992 pp 106 107 Said 1995 Rosen 1995 pp 284 285 358 359 452 453 About Competition Archived 7 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine International Chopin Competition website accessed 12 January 2014 Institutions related to Chopin Associations Fryderyk Chopin Institute website accessed 5 January 2014 Chopin on YouTube Fryderyk Chopin Institute website accessed 27 March 2021 Chopin British Library website accessed 22 December 2013 Recordings accessible free online throughout the European Union Methuen Campbell 1981 pp 241 267 Anthony Tommasini Allan Kozinn Steve Smith Vivien Schweitzer 1 Composer 2 Centuries Many Picks The New York Times 27 May 2010 accessed 28 December 2013 Grand Prix du Disque Frederic Chopin website accessed 2 January 2014 Andrzej Hejmej tr Philip Stoeckle Chopin and his music in literature Chopin pl website archived accessed 28 March 2021 Ashbrook 2001 Lanza 2001 Fryderyk Chopin Information Centre Filmography en chopin nifc pl chopin nifc pl 2003 2018 Retrieved 5 March 2020 Soister 2002 p 62 Iwona Sowinska tr Philip Stoeckle Chopin goes to the movies Archived 23 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine in chopin pl website accessed 4 January 2014 The site gives details of numerous other films featuring Chopin Michael Church 13 May 1999 An exile from the modern world The Independent Retrieved 3 May 2018 Thompson 2016 pp 600 601 Chopin The Women Behind The Music BBC Retrieved 28 March 2021 Bibliography Edit Ashbrook William 2001 1992 Chopin opera by Orefice Grove Music Online 8th ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 subscription or UK public library membership required Atwood William G 1999 The Parisian Worlds of Frederic Chopin New Haven and London Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 07773 5 Audeon Herve 2016 L œuvre de Frederic Kalkbrenner 1785 1849 et ses rapports avec Frederic Chopin 1810 1849 In Hug Vanya ed Chopin et son temps Chopin and his time in French ISBN 978 3 0343 2000 9 Bellman Jonathan Autumn 2000 Chopin and His Imitators Notated Emulations of the True Style of Performance 19th Century Music 24 2 149 160 doi 10 2307 746839 JSTOR 746839 Bowers Faubion 1996 Scriabin A Biography Mineola Dover Publications ISBN 978 0 486 28897 0 Brown Maurice 1980 Nocturne In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol 13 London Macmillan Publishers pp 258 259 ISBN 978 0 333 23111 1 Cholmondeley Rose 1998 The mystery of Chopin s birthday The Chopin Society UK Retrieved 28 March 2021 Chopin Frederic 1988 Voynich E L ed Chopin s Letters New York Dover Publications ISBN 978 0 486 25564 4 Chopin Fryderyk 1962 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin Translated by Hedley Arthur Compiled by Bronislaw Edward Sydow London Heinemann Conway David 2012 Jewry in Music Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 107 01538 8 Cooke Charles Winter 1965 Winter 1966 Chopin and Liszt with a Ghostly Twist Notes 22 2 855 861 doi 10 2307 894930 JSTOR 894930 De Val Dorothy Ehrlich Cyril Repertory and Canon In Rowland 1998 pp 115 134 Downes Stephen 2001 Eros and PanEuropeanism In White Harry Murphy Michael eds Musical Constructions of Nationalism Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture 1800 1945 Cork Cork University Press pp 51 71 ISBN 978 1 85918 322 9 Eddie William 2013 Charles Valentin Alkan His Life and His Music Farnham Ashgate Publishing ISBN 978 1 4094 9364 8 Eigeldinger Jean Jacques 1988 Chopin Pianist and Teacher As Seen By His Pupils Translated by Naomi Shochet Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 36709 7 Eigeldinger Jean Jacques August 2001 Chopin and Pleyel PDF Early Music 29 3 389 396 doi 10 1093 earlyj XXIX 3 389 JSTOR 3519183 Ferguson Howard 1980 Study In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol 18 London Macmillan Publishers pp 304 305 Golos George S October 1960 Some Slavic Predecessors of Chopin The Musical Quarterly 46 4 437 447 doi 10 1093 mq XLVI 4 437 JSTOR 740748 Hall Swadley Janita R ed 2011 The Collected Writings of Franz Liszt F Chopin Lanham Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 1 4616 6409 3 Hamilton Kenneth 2008 After the Golden Age Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 517826 5 Hedley Arthur 2005 Chopin Frederic Francois Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 3 15th ed Chicago Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc pp 263 264 Hedley Arthur Brown Maurice 1980 Chopin Fryderyk Franciszek Frederic Francois In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol 4 London Macmillan Publishers pp 292 298 sections 1 6 ISBN 978 0 333 23111 1 Hutchings A G B 1968 The Romantic Era In Robertson Alec Stevens Denis eds The Pelican History of Music 3 Classical and Romantic Harmondsworth Penguin Books pp 99 139 ISBN 978 0 14 020494 0 Jachimecki Zdzislaw 1937 Chopin Fryderyk Franciszek Polski slownik biograficzny in Polish Vol 3 Krakow Polska Akademia Umiejetnosci pp 420 426 Jakubowski Jan Zygmunt ed 1979 Literatura polska od sredniowiecza to pozytywizmu Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism in Polish Warsaw Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe ISBN 978 83 01 00201 5 Jones J Barrie 1998a Piano music for concert hall and salon c 1830 1900 In Rowland 1998 pp 151 175 Jones J Barrie 1998b Nationalism In Rowland 1998 pp 176 191 Kallberg Jeffrey Summer 2001 Chopin s March Chopin s Death 19th Century Music 25 1 3 26 doi 10 1525 ncm 2001 25 1 3 JSTOR 10 1525 ncm 2001 25 1 3 Kallberg Jeffrey 2006 1994 Small fairy voices sex history and meaning in Chopin In Rink John Samson Jim eds Chopin Studies 2 Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 03433 3 e book version of 1994 publication Kallberg Jeffrey Summer 1992 The Harmony of the Tea Table Gender and Ideology in the Piano Nocturne Representations 39 39 102 133 doi 10 2307 2928597 JSTOR 2928597 Kennedy Michael 1980 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 311315 2 Knyt Erinn E 2017 Ferruccio Busoni and the Halfness of Frederic Chopin The Journal of Musicology 34 2 241 280 doi 10 1525 jm 2017 34 02 241 JSTOR 26414211 Kubba Adam Young Madeleine 1998 The Long Suffering of Frederic Chopin PDF Chest 113 1 210 216 doi 10 1378 chest 113 1 210 PMID 9440592 Archived from the original PDF on 19 August 2014 Retrieved 28 March 2021 Kuhnke Monica 2010 Oryginalne kopie czyli historia portretow rodziny Chopinow Original Copies or the History of the Portraits of the Chopin Family PDF Cenne Bezcenne Utracone in Polish 62 1 8 12 Retrieved 28 March 2021 English summary Kuzemko J A 1994 Chopin s Illnesses Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 87 12 769 772 PMC 1294992 PMID 7853308 Lanza Andrea 2001 Orefice Giacomo Grove Music Online 8th ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 subscription or UK public library membership required Latham Alison 2011 Rubato Oxford Companion to Music online Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 957903 7 Retrieved 27 March 2021 Leikin Anatole 8 December 1994 The Sonatas In Samson Jim ed The Cambridge Companion to Chopin Cambridge Companions to Music Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 1 139 82499 6 Liszt Franz 1880 Life of Chopin Translated by Cook Martha Walker 4th ed Project Gutenberg Retrieved 28 March 2021 Majka Lucyna Gozdzik Joanna Witt Michal 2003 Cystic fibrosis a probable cause of Frederic Chopin s suffering and death PDF Journal of Applied Genetics 44 1 77 84 PMID 12590184 McKie Robin 4 November 2017 Examination of Chopin s pickled heart solves riddle of his early death The Guardian Retrieved 5 November 2017 Methuen Campbell James 1981 Chopin Playing from the Composer to the Present Day London Victor Gollancz ISBN 978 0 575 02884 5 Mieleszko Jadwiga 1971 Palac Czapskich Czapski Palace in Polish Warszawa Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe Milewski Barbara Autumn 1999 Chopin s Mazurkas and the Myth of the Folk 19th Century Music 23 2 113 135 doi 10 2307 746919 JSTOR 746919 Miller Lucasta 21 June 2003 The composer who never grew up The Guardian Retrieved 18 December 2020 Muller Streicher Friedericke 1949 Aus dem Tagebuch einer Wiener Chopin Schulerin 1839 1841 1844 1845 From the Diary of a Viennese Student of Chopin 1839 1841 1844 1845 Chopin Almanach zur hundertsten Wiederkehr des Todesjahres von Fryderyk Chopin Chopin Almanac for the Hundredth Anniversary of the Death of Fryderyk Chopin in German Potsdam Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion pp 134 142 OCLC 460555146 Niecks Frederick 1902 Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician 3rd ed London Novello amp Co OCLC 22702671 Retrieved 27 March 2021 via Project Gutenberg Petty Wayne C Spring 1999 Chopin and the Ghost of Beethoven 19th Century Music 22 3 281 299 doi 10 2307 746802 JSTOR 746802 Pruszewicz Marek 22 December 2014 The mystery of Chopin s death BBC Retrieved 31 January 2019 Reiss Jozef Brown Maurice 1980 Polonaise In Sadie Stanley ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol 15 London Macmillan Publishers pp 49 52 ISBN 978 0 333 23111 1 Rogers Francis 1939 Adolphe Nourrit The Musical Quarterly 25 1 11 25 doi 10 1093 mq XXV 1 11 JSTOR 738696 Rosen Charles 1995 The Romantic Generation Cambridge MA Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 77933 4 Ross Alex 5 February 2014 Chopin s Heart The New Yorker Retrieved 24 March 2021 Rowland David ed 1998 The Cambridge Companion to the Piano Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 47986 8 Said Edward 12 December 1995 Bach s Genius Schumann s Eccentricity Chopin s Ruthlessness Rosen s Gift London Review of Books 17 18 Retrieved 24 March 2021 Samson Jim 1994 The Cambridge Companion to Chopin Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 47752 9 Samson Jim 1996 Chopin Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 198 16495 1 Samson Jim 2001 Chopin Fryderyk Franciszek Grove Music Online Oxford England Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 51099 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 subscription or UK public library membership required Scholes Percy 1938 The Oxford Companion to Music London Oxford University Press OCLC 1079764443 Schonberg Harold C 1987 Great Pianists New York Simon and Schuster p 151 ISBN 978 0 671 63837 5 Schumann Robert 1988 Pleasants Henry ed Schumann on Music A Selection from the Writings New York Dover ISBN 978 0 486 25748 8 Soister John T 2002 Conrad Veidt on Screen A Comprehensive Illustrated Filmography Jefferson North Carolina and London McFarland amp Company ISBN 978 0 7864 4511 0 Stahlbrand Robert Chopin s Works Complete list Piano Society Retrieved 28 March 2021 Szklener Artur 2010 Fryckowe lato czyli wakacyjne muzykowanie Chopina Fritz s Summers Chopin s Musical Vacations Magazyn Chopin Miesiecznik Narodowego Instytutu Fryderyka Chopina in Polish 4 8 9 Szulc Tad 1998 Chopin in Paris the Life and Times of the Romantic Composer New York Scribner ISBN 978 0 684 82458 1 Taruskin Richard 1996 Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 816250 6 Taruskin Richard 2010 Music in the Nineteenth Century Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 538483 3 Temperley Nicholas 1980 Chopin Fryderyk Franciszek Frederic Francois In Sadie Stanley ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol 4 London Macmillan Publishers pp 298 307 ISBN 978 0 333 23111 1 Thompson Brian Christopher 2016 Fryderyk Chopin by Angelo Bozzolini and Roberto Prosseda review Notes 72 3 600 601 doi 10 1353 not 2016 0042 S2CID 193316471 Turnbull Michael T R B 1989 Monuments and Statues of Edinburgh Edinburgh Chambers ISBN 978 0 550 20050 1 Walker Alan 1988 Franz Liszt The Virtuoso Years 1811 1847 London Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 15278 0 Walker Alan 2018 Fryderyk Chopin A Life and Times London Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 34855 8 Wheeldon Marianne 2009 Debussy s Late Style Bloomington Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 35239 2 Witt Michal Marchwica Wojciech Dobosz Tadeusz 2018 Disease not genetic but infectious multiple tuberculomas and fibrinous pericarditis as symptoms pathognomonic for tuberculosis of Frederic Chopin PDF Journal of Applied Genetics 59 4 471 473 doi 10 1007 s13353 018 0456 3 PMID 30047032 S2CID 51718815 Wojtkiewicz Mariola 2013 The Impact of Chopin s Music on the Work of 19th and 20th Century Composers Chopin pl in archive Translated by Ossowski Jerzy Archived from the original on 23 October 2013 Retrieved 28 March 2021 Zaluski Iwo Zaluski Pamela May 1992 Chopin in London The Musical Times 133 1791 226 230 doi 10 2307 1193699 JSTOR 1193699 Zaluski Iwo Zaluski Pamela 1993 Chopin s Scottish Autumn Contemporary Review 1 July 1993 Retrieved 28 March 2021 Zamoyski Adam 2010 Chopin Prince of the Romantics London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 00 735182 4 First published as Zamoyski Adam 1979 Chopin A Biography London Collins ISBN 0 00 216089 7 Zank Stephen 2005 Maurice Ravel A Guide to Research New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 8153 1618 3 Further reading EditAzoury Pierre 1999 Chopin through His Contemporaries Westport Connecticut Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 30971 7 Young Pablo et al 2014 Federico Chopin 1810 1849 y su enfermedad PDF Revista medica de Chile in Spanish 142 4 529 535 doi 10 4067 S0034 98872014000400018 PMID 25117047 Retrieved 28 March 2021 Summary in English External links EditFrederic Chopin at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Polish Wikisource has original text related to this article Frederic Chopin BBC 2010 documentary Chopin the Women behind the Music available on YouTube 90 minutes Discovering Chopin BBC Radio 3 Works by or about Frederic Chopin at Internet Archive Biography Archived 25 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine on official site of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute Chopin s last piano Pleyel 14810 Chopin iconography website in Polish with detailed comment on genuine and not so genuine representations of the composer Chopin s pianos 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments Chopin s correspondenceMusic scores Free scores by Frederic Chopin at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP Chopin Early Editions a collection of over 400 first and early printed editions of musical compositions by Frederic Chopin published before 1881 Chopin s First Editions Online Archived 4 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine features an interface that allows three navigable scores to be open simultaneously in frames to facilitate comparison Portals Classical music Biography Poland Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Frederic Chopin amp oldid 1134915310, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.