Frederic Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin (in Polish Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; Żelazowa Wola, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, March 1, 1810-Paris, December 17, October 1849) was a Polish teacher, composer and virtuoso pianist, considered one of the most important in history and one of the greatest representatives of musical Romanticism. His marvelous technique, his stylistic refinement and his harmonic elaboration have been compared historically, for its influence on later music, with those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt or Sergei Rachmaninov.^{[citation required]}

Chopin's pedagogical descent has reached pianists such as Maurizio Pollini and Alfred Cortot, through Georges Mathias and Emile Descombes, respectively.^{[citation needed]}

Biography

Childhood

Chopin's home in Żelazowa Wola.

Fathers of Frédéric Chopin

Mikołaj Chopin and Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska, the composer's parents, in 1829.

Frédéric Chopin was born in the village of Żelazowa Wola, 60 kilometers from Warsaw, on a small estate owned by Count Skarbek, which was part of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw (Mazovian Voivodeship, Poland). He received the name Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin. The date of his birth is uncertain: the composer himself (and his family) claimed to have been born on March 1, 1810 and always celebrated his birthday on that date. But in his baptismal certificate He is listed as born on February 22. Most likely, the latter was a mistake on the part of the priest. This discrepancy is disputed to this day, although March 1 is the generally accepted date.

His father, Nicolas Chopin (Marainville, Lorraine, 1771-1844), was a French émigré teacher who had moved to Poland in 1787, at the age of 16, and taught French and French literature to the children of the Polish aristocracy. He was also a tutor in Count Skarbek's family. His mother, Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska (Dlugie, Kujawy, 1782-1868), belonged to a family of impoverished Polish nobility, a relative of the Skarbeks, and managed the estate. They were married in 1806. Frédéric was baptized on Sunday on Easter, April 23, 1810, in the same church where his parents had been married, in Brochow, near Sochaczew. He was named after his godfather, Fryderyk Skarbek, an 18-year-old student of Nicolas Chopin, and at the baptismal certificate cites his name in Latin, Fridericus Franciscus. Izabella (1811-1881) and Emilia (1813-1827). Nicolas was faithful to his adoptive homeland and insisted on the use of Polish in the home.

In October 1810, six months after Frédéric's birth, the family moved to Warsaw, as his father had obtained the position of French teacher at the Warsaw Lyceum, then located in the Saxon palace where the family lived. lodged. The father played the flute and violin and the mother played the piano and taught the children at the boarding house that the Chopins maintained.

Frédéric Chopin and his sisters grew up in an environment in which the taste for culture in general and music in particular was considerable. His first piano teacher was his sister Ludwika, with whom he later played four-hand piano duets. As his exceptional qualities were quickly highlighted, at the age of six his parents placed him in the hands of maestro Wojciech Żywny, a pianist, lover of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (a rare event at the time) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and who based his teachings mainly on in these composers. He was his teacher from 1816 to 1821. A year later, when he was seven years old, he composed his first work. Since he couldn't write very well, the piece was written by his father. It was Polonaise in G minor for piano, published in November 1817 in the engraving workshop of Father J. J. Cybulski, director of the School of Organists and one of the few Polish music publishers of his time. That same year he composed another Polonaise in B flat major . His next work, a Polonaise in A flat major from 1821, dedicated to Żywny, is the first of his surviving manuscripts, followed by other polonaises, as well as marches and variations. Some of these compositions have been lost.

At the age of eight he played the piano masterfully, improvised and composed with ease: he gave his first public concert on February 24, 1818 at the Radziwill family palace in Warsaw, where he played the Concert in E minor by Vojtech Jirovec. He soon became known in the local circle of the city, considered by all as a child prodigy and called "little Chopin". He began giving recitals at receptions in the city's aristocratic salons, for the Czartoryski, Grabowski, Sapieha, Mokronowski, Czerwertynski, Zamoyski, Radziwill, Lubecki, Zajaczek, Skarbek and Tenczynski families, just as Mozart did at the same age. Thus he gained a growing number of admirers.

In 1817, the Russian Governor of Warsaw requisitioned the Saxon Palace for military use and the Warsaw Lyceum was established in the Kazimierz Palace (today the rectory of Warsaw University). The Chopin family moved into a building, which still survives, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace. During this period, Frédéric was sometimes invited to the Belwedersky Palace as a playmate of the son of the ruler of the Tsarate of Poland, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia. He played the piano and composed a march for Constantine Pavlovich. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, in his dramatic eclogue, "Nasze Przebiegi" (1818), attests to the popularity of "little Chopin."

A fact that marked his life also manifested itself from his childhood: his fragile health and his propensity for illnesses. Since he was a child he had suffered from swollen glands in his neck and had to endure frequent bleeding.

Adolescence

Between 1817 and 1827, the Chopin family lived in a building adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace at the University of Warsaw. The building is currently adorned with a Chopin profile.

In 1822, he finished his studies with Żywny and began receiving private lessons from Silesian Józef Ksawery Elsner, director of the Warsaw Higher School of Music. He probably received irregular but valuable piano and organ lessons with the renowned bohemian pianist Vilem Würfel. Elsner, also a lover of Bach, was in charge of perfecting him in music theory, basso continuo and composition.

From July 1823, the young Chopin combined his studies with Elsner with his courses at the Warsaw Lyceum (where his father taught), where he entered the fourth cycle and received classes in classical literature, singing and drawing. In 1824 he spent his holidays in Szafarnia, Dobrzyń, at the home of a friend, a student of his father's. There he had contact for the first time with the Polish land and the peasants who inhabited it and with the folk music of his homeland. These brief contacts would be enough to sow in his plastic adolescent mind what would later emerge in the maturity of his genius. «The articles, the films that show the young Chopin who spends his life in the popular media deceive us doubly. First, because the facts are inaccurate. Afterwards, because it is equivalent to giving proof of a great ignorance of what an artist's brain is: a landscape illuminated by a spark, a chemical reaction in which there is no proportion between cause and effect».

During this period he continued to compose and give recitals in concerts and salons in Warsaw. The inventors of the "aeolomelodicon" (a combination of piano and mechanical organ) hired him and on this instrument, in May 1825 he performed his own improvisation and part of a concerto by Ignaz 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 gave her a diamond ring. In a subsequent aeolopantaleon concerto on June 10, 1825, Chopin performed his Rondó Op. 1. This was the first of his works to be published commercially and earned him his first mention in the foreign press, when the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung praised his "wealth of musical ideas".

On July 7, 1826, Frédéric completed his studies at the Lyceum and graduated cum laude on the 27th of the same month. The following month, he traveled for the first time outside of Poland: he went with his sisters to rest in Bad Reinerz (present-day Duszniki-Zdrój) in South Silesia. In November of the same year, he enrolled in the Warsaw Higher School of Music, then part of the city Conservatory and connected with the Department of Arts of the University. There he continued his studies with Elsner, but did not attend piano lessons. Elsner, who knew him, understood his decision, but he was very demanding in the theoretical subjects he taught him, especially counterpoint. Thanks to this, he acquired a solid understanding and technique of musical composition. During this time, he composed his Piano Sonata No. 1 in C minor Op. 4, his Variations on the aria “Là ci darem la mano” (from the opera Mozart's Don Giovanni) for piano and orchestra Op. 2 and the Trio for violin, cello and piano Op. 8, obviously larger works, based on classical forms (the sonata and variations). Elsner wrote in his final grades of studies: "astonishing talent and musical genius."

Tytus Woyciechowski.

In 1827, shortly after the death of Chopin's younger sister Emilia, the family moved from the building adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace to accommodation across the street from the university, in the southern annex of the Krasiński Palace in Krakowskie Przedmieście, where Chopin lived until he left Warsaw in 1830. Here, his parents continued to run their boarding house for male students (Salonik Chopinów), which was converted into a museum in the XX. In 1829, the artist Ambroży Mieroszewski produced a set of portraits of members of the Chopin family, including the first known portrait of the composer.

Four guests in his parents' apartments became close friends or lovers of Chopin: Tytus Woyciechowski, Jan Nepomucen Białobłocki, Jan Matuszyński and Julian Fontana, the latter two becoming part of his Parisian entourage. He was friends with members of Warsaw's young artistic and intellectual world, including Fontana, Józef Bohdan Zaleski and Stefan Witwicki, he was also attracted to the singing student Konstancja Gładkowska. In letters to Woyciechowski, he indicated which of her works, and even which of her passages, were influenced by her fascination with her. His letter of May 15, 1830 revealed that the slow movement (Larghetto) of his Piano Concerto No. 1 had been secretly dedicated to her: "I should be like dreaming in the beautiful spring, in the moonlight.”

Travel and domestic success

Chopin in 1829, the work of Ambroży Mieroszewski.

In March 1828, the German composer and pianist Johann Nepomuk Hummel came to Warsaw to give concerts and Chopin had the opportunity to hear and meet him. In November of the same year his second departure from Poland took place: he traveled to Berlin with Professor Feliks Jarocki, a colleague of his father, to attend a Congress of Naturalists. In that city, he concentrated on learning about musical life in Prussia, listening to the operas Cortez by Gaspare Spontini, Il matrimonio secreto by Domenico Cimarosa and Il matrimonio secreto at the Singing Academy. Le Colporteur by George Onslow; he attended concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn and other celebrities; and he was fascinated by the oratorio Cäcilienfest by Georg Friedrich Händel. Frédéric always maintained a great interest in opera, stimulated by his teacher Elsner. Three years earlier he had been impressed by The Barber of Seville by Gioacchino Rossini. Always on his trips he took time to attend operatic performances.

In May 1829, the famous Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini came to Warsaw to give concerts. Chopin went to see him and was deeply dazzled by his virtuosity. His debt to him has been made clear in the Study for piano Op. 10 no. 1, which he composed in those days.

His local prestige as a composer and pianist already crossed the borders of his homeland; violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer (recipient of Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9), Ignaz von Seyfried (disciple of Mozart), piano makers Johann Andreas Stein and Graff, and publisher Hasslinger, among others, wanted the young man to give a concert in Vienna. In 1829, he made a brief trip to that city, his first as a soloist abroad. In two concerts (11 and 18 August) at the Kärntnertortheater, he presented his Variations Op. 2 (from two years earlier) among his other works. The success was tremendous and the young composer was astonished by the warm acceptance of his compositions and his performing technique by the demanding Viennese public. The criticism was unbeatable, but some criticized the low volume that he achieved on the piano, part of his style of interpretation, more appropriate to the living room than to the concert hall. On the other hand, thanks to the success of Mozart's Variations , this became the first work of his published by a foreign publisher, Haslinger, in April 1830.

After passing through Prague, Dresden and Wroclaw, he returned to Warsaw, where he fell in love with Konstancja (Konstanze) Gladkowska (1810-1880), a young singing student at the Conservatory, whom he had met in 1828 at a student concert. by Carl Soliva. Several memorable works were born from this early youthful passion: the Waltz Op. 70 No. 3 and the slow movement of his first Concerto for piano and orchestra in F minor. About him he recognized his friend Titus Woyciechowski: «Perhaps unfortunately, I have my own ideal, which I have been serving in silence for half a year, with which I dream and in memory of which I have composed the Adagio of my new concert" (1829) This work premiered at the Warsaw Merchants' Club in December of the same year and was later published as No. 2, Op. 21. He also informed Woyciechowski: "I have composed a few exercises; I'll show them to you and I'll play them soon". and his Songs for voice and piano on poems by Stefan Witwicki (part of the future Op. 74, The Maiden's Prayer, solo piano arrangement by Franz Liszt).

Chopin playing in front of the aristocratic family of the Radziwiłł.

That romance was a burning feeling, but not decisive, since he was already determined to be a composer and soon decided to undertake a "study trip" through Europe. He originally thought of traveling to Berlin, where he had been invited by Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, Governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen appointed by the King of Prussia, and who had been his guest. However, he finally decided on Vienna, to consolidate the successes of his first tour. Although his correspondence from this time in Poland has a somewhat melancholy tone, they were happy times for him, celebrated by the young poets and intellectuals of his homeland. Konstancja married another man in 1830.

After playing his Concerto in F minor several times in intimate evenings, his fame was already so wide that a great recital was organized for him at the National Theater in Warsaw on March 17, 1830, the first as a soloist in that auditorium, which once again caused a sensation. At that time he was working on his second Concerto for piano and orchestra in E minor (later numbered No. 1, Op. 11) which he premiered on September 22 at his home, and the Andante Spianato and Polonaise Op. 22. At the same time, uprisings and riots were taking place in Warsaw at that time, which were severely repressed by the authorities of the Russian Empire and caused many deaths. These visions deeply impressed the artist, who years later would compose his famous Funeral March in homage to those protesters (later included in the Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor Op. 35).

Shortly before his departure, a farewell concert was arranged for him on October 11 in the same grand theater, where, before a large audience, his beloved Konstancja —“dressed all in white, with a crown of roses that it was going admirably", according to Chopin's words - he sang arias from Rossini's opera The Lady of the Lake. Then he himself performed his Concerto in E minor and his Fantasia on Polish Airs Op. 13. In the final mazurka, the audience gave him a long standing ovation. Days later, in a Wola tavern, his friends gave him a silver cup with a handful of Polish soil in it. His teacher Elsner led a small choir that sang a short farewell composition of his own: Zrodzony w polskiej krainie ( A native of Polish soil ). On November 2, he left to perfect his art, trusting that he could return to his country, but from then on, he never came back.

Vienna and the Uprising in Poland

The taking of the Warsaw arsenal, one of the first events of the November Uprising.

Fryderyk Chopin, by August Kneise, 1830.

After passing through Kalisz —from where he traveled with his friend from the Lyceum, Titus Wojciechowski—, Wroclaw and Dresden, he spent a day in Prague and then headed for Vienna (where he arrived on November 22, 1830), to stay at Kohlmarkt 9. It remained there until July 20 of the following year. Days after arriving, he learned of the November Uprising, the Polish insurrection against the Russian Empire, which began on November 29; Woyciechowsky returned to Warsaw to join the revolutionaries, but was convinced to stay in Vienna.

His second stay in the capital of the Austrian Empire was not nearly as happy. He came no longer as a young sensation from abroad, but as someone who wanted to be permanently incorporated into the Viennese musical scene, and was indifferent and even hostile to artists and managers. Furthermore, it was not easy to win over the boisterous Viennese public: « The public only wants to hear the waltzes of Lanner and Strauss», he wrote in a letter. On the other hand, the Polish insurrection was not well received in the Austrian Empire. For all these reasons he only gave two recitals in Vienna during those eight months, with modest success.

Because of this, his mood dropped, and emotionally he was filled with anxiety about the situation in his country and his family. Her feelings are known from her letters and her diaries. At one point he abandoned his plans to pursue his career; he wrote to Elsner: «In vain Malfatti tries to convince me that every artist is a cosmopolitan. Even if it were so, as an artist I am barely a baby, as a Pole I am over twenty years old; I hope therefore that, knowing me well, you will not reproach me for not thinking about the concert program for now". He was referring to a charity concert that he gave on June 11, 1831 again at the Kärntnertor Theater where he played the Concert in E minor.

However, it cannot be said that all this time was wasted for Chopin. In addition to meeting musicians such as Anton Diabelli, Vaclav Jirovec, Joseph Merk and Josef Slavik, and attending various musical events and operas, the strong and dramatic experiences and emotions inspired the composer's imagination, and probably accelerated the birth of a new style. and individual, different from the previous brilliant style. In the "Stuttgart diaries" he later wrote: "And here I am, condemned to inaction! It happens to me sometimes that I cannot help but sigh and, penetrated by pain, I pour out my despair on the piano". He composed Nocturne no. >Etudes Op. 10, the nocturnes Op. 9 (among them the very famous Op. 9 no. 2, Op. 15 no. 2 and began the Scherzo in B minor and Ballad No. 1 in G minor.

Forced to give up his original intention to travel to Italy due to the political situation, he decided to head to London via Paris. On July 20, 1831, he left Vienna, passing through Linz and the Alps to Salzburg. On August 28, he arrived in Munich, where he played at a matinée of the Philarmonische Verein; At the beginning of September, he arrived in Stuttgart, where he met Johann Peter Pixis. In this city he learned about the fall of Warsaw to the Russian troops and the end of the November Uprising. The news struck him so deeply that it caused a fever and a nervous breakdown. The so-called "Stuttgart diaries" reveal his desperation, sometimes bordering on blasphemy: "The enemy has entered the house... Oh, God, do you exist? You do and still don't take revenge. Didn't you have enough with the Moscow crimes? Or... Or maybe you're a Muscovite!". Tradition considers that the result of this news and these sentiments was born the Estudio «Revolucionario» in C minor Op. 10 no. 12 and the Prelude in D minor Op, 28 no. 24, although it is most likely composed in Warsaw.

Paris

Polonesa de Chopin - a dance at the Hôtel Lambert in Paris1849-1860, painted by Teofil Kwiatkowski, National Museum of Poznań.

Chopin arrived in Paris in the fall of 1831; he initially stayed in an apartment on the fifth floor at 27 Boulevard Poissonière. The city—capital of Louis-Philippe I's July Monarchy—was the world center of culture and many of the world's greatest artists lived there: Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and Heinrich Heine, among the writers. Soon the young Pole would meet several of these intellectuals and would become an important part of that intense cultural activity.

Doctor Giovanni Malfatti had given him a letter of recommendation to the composer Ferdinando Paër, which opened many doors for him. He would soon have contact with Gioacchino Rossini, Luigi Cherubini, Pierre Baillot, Henri Herz, Ferdinand Hiller and Friedrich Kalkbrenner, one of the greatest pianists of his time, called the "king of the piano". Listening to him, Kalkbrenner praised his inspiration and his good taste, but also objected to various flaws; for this reason he offered to give him lessons for three years: Chopin would answer him —as he wrote to T. Woyciechowsky—: «I know how much I lack, but I don't want to imitate him». He soon wrote to Elsner: "I do not wish to be a copy of Kalkbrenner... Nothing could take away from me the idea or the desire, perhaps audacious, but noble, to create a new world for myself».

The lessons with Kalkbrenner lasted about a year, spontaneously Felix Mendelssohn declared to him: "You won't learn anything, besides you play better than him".

In this way he gradually introduced himself to the musical activity of Paris, giving up on the trip to London that he had originally planned to make. Her first public concert was so fabulous that it became the talk of the whole town. This was held on February 25, 1832 in the Pleyel salons, 9 rue Cadet: the program included his Concert in E minor and the Mozartian Variations, in the second part shared the stage with notable pianists such as George Osborne, Ferdinand Hiller, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Wojciech Sowiński to perform the Polonaise op. Kalkbrenner 92, for six pianos.In the audience were musicians of the stature of Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt, and he soon became friends with the latter, who also lived in the city. He was surprised and stimulated by the intense cultural life and also by the freedom of action that he could exercise. He attended concerts and operas; fascinated by Robert le diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer he would say: “This is a masterpiece of the new school”.

In April 1832, cholera wreaked havoc on the population of Paris, decimating the working classes and making the wealthiest flee to the provinces. Orlowski, a compatriot and friend of Chopin's, wrote to his family: «It occurs to me that I am going to see him and I return without having exchanged a word with him: he is so melancholic. [...] In Paris the situation is bad. The artists are reduced to misery, because cholera has made all the rich families flee to the provinces...». Soon, however, chance lends a helping hand:

On May 1832, Chopin strolls through the boulevard and meets Valentin Radziwill, the father of Prince Antonio, who takes him to an evening offered by James de Rothschild. The young man sits on the piano without having prepared himself and gets a much greater success than in any of the concerts he gave until then. There is present the elite of society [...] overnight the name of Chopin flies from mouth to mouth. His distinction, his talent, is appreciated. Lessons are asked: Rothschild's baroness are placed at the head of the list. Among the wealthy families, the Rothschild were particularly enthusiastic about Chopin's talent, and along with other wealthy families — such as Vaudemont's princess, Prince Adam Czartoriski, Count Apponyi or Marshal Lannes — took it under their protection. The situation changes abruptly, the horizon is cleared and hope is reborn in Chopin. Anyway, the teacher's office is in no way what he had in mind.

From May 1832 he began to earn a living giving piano lessons and would soon become a highly sought after and highly paid pedagogue until the end of his life. He preferred to appear at the evenings or soirées that were offered in the salons of aristocratic society, in an intimate atmosphere, with a small and unique audience, not avid for virtuosity, but especially cultured and sensitive and related. to the musician. This audience was largely made up of artists, including Eugène Delacroix, the Rothschild family, Adam Mickiewicz, Heinrich Heine, Countess Marie d'Agoult and Franz Liszt, as well as other members of high society; Liszt precisely referred to this audience as: "[...] the aristocracy of blood, money, talent, beauty". For that reason, unlike other famous colleagues, for the rest of his life he gave a few "public" concerts (in auditoriums or concert halls): only 19 in Paris.

On the other hand, due to the defeat of the Polish revolts, many of his compatriots from the Great Emigration arrived in the French capital, with their leader, the nobleman Adam Jerzy Czartoryski: among the intellectuals and artists were the writer Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, the romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Slowacki, also his friends Stefan Witwicki and Bohdan Zaleski.

He became a member of the Polish Literary Society in 1833, supporting it financially and giving benefit concerts for his compatriots. It is also important to note that, having decided to settle in Paris, he chose to be an émigré , a political refugee. He did not obey the tsar's regulations for dominated Poland, nor did he renew his passport at the Russian Embassy. Thus, he lost the possibility of legally returning to his land. He soon made some close friends, such as Delfina Potocka, the cellist August Franchomme, and later the Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini.

Success in Europe

Monument to Fryderyk Chopin, park Łazienki, Warsaw, Poland.

In June 1832, he moved to 4 rue Cité Bergère. His prestige began to spread not only in Paris but throughout Europe. He signed a contract for the publication of his music with Schlesinger, one of the most important music publishers in Europe; in Leipzig it was published by Probst and later by Breitkopf & Härtel, in Berlin by Karl K. Kistner and in London by Christian R. Wessel. Therefore, between this year and 1835, he was extraordinarily busy; In addition to the daily classes and the evening recitals, he devoted himself to composing feverishly, spurred on by the publishers who advanced him money to publish his pieces. From this period date the Brilliant Variations Op. 12, the Rondó Op. 16, the Waltz Op. 18, the Andante Spianato and Grand Brilliant Polonaise Op. 22, the Scherzo No. 1, the Mazurkas Op. 24 and the Polonaises Op. 26.

The composer Robert Schumann, when reviewing his Variations Op. 2 in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung on December 7 of the previous year, famously exclaimed: «Take off your hat, gentlemen: a genius ». Curiously, Chopin considered the article “completely stupid.” He also maintained a friendship with Hector Berlioz.

In 1833 he moved to a new home: Chaussée d'Antin 5. His fame was already immense. In a letter to Hiller dated June 20 of that year, he says: «At this moment, Liszt touches my studies [...]. Heine sends his warmest regards [...]. Greetings from Berlioz » He played on December 15 with Liszt and Hiller the Concerto for three harpsichords by Johann Sebastian Bach at the Paris Conservatoire. Impressed by the way he played them, he dedicated his Etudes Op. 10: à mon ami F. Liszt (my friend F. Liszt).

In 1834, he met the then famous opera composer Vincenzo Bellini in the salon of the singer Lina Freppa, who would become a very close friend. In May he traveled to Aachen to a Rhenish music festival organized by Ferdinand Ries, where he heard works by Handel, Mozart and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony . He traveled through Düsseldorf, Koblenz and Cologne and met Felix Mendelssohn; he commented to his mother in a letter: "Chopin is currently an outstanding pianist [...] he does what Paganini does with the violin." On April 26, 1835, he gave a concert at the Paris Conservatoire, where he played the Andante Spianato and Polonaise for piano and orchestra in E flat major Op. 22, in what would truly be his last public concert; it was a great success.

Love and commitment

Chopin was committed to Maria Wodzińska but the marriage was truncated by the precarious state of health of the Polish composer.

In the winter of 1835 he felt so bad that he thought he was dying; in fact, at the time he wrote the first draft of his will, he was so distraught, he even considered committing suicide.

In the spring of 1836, his illness returned to manifest itself with emphasis, although his discomforts did not prevent him from requesting —and obtaining— the hand of Maria Wodzińska, a 17-year-old adolescent with whom he had fallen in love. The engagement was kept secret. Subsequently, and upon learning of the illness the musician suffered from, the Wodzińska family declined the commitment.

Later, he went back to Leipzig to meet Schumann, and play fragments of his Ballad No. 2 and several etudes, nocturnes and mazurkas before him.

Upon returning to Paris, he gradually abandoned concert halls to concentrate on composition. From then on, those who wanted to listen to him had to do so in the semi-public area of his studio. He gave about five piano lessons a day to different wealthy young men, but he could never hide his boredom and disdain for these talentless children, who studied piano only because his parents had the money to pay a great teacher.

During that year he completed the Ballad Op. 23 (whose first drafts he had presented to Schumann) and the two Nocturnes Op. 27.

George Sand

George Sand, for Auguste Charpentier, 1838.

At the end of October 1836, Frédéric was invited by Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult to a gathering of friends at the Hôtel de France and was accompanied by Ferdinand Hiller. The meeting was also attended by Baroness Dudevant, better known by her pseudonym George Sand, accompanied by her children and madame Marliani. When they were introduced by Liszt, Sand murmured in madame's ear. /i> Marliani: «Is that Mr. Chopin a girl?». Chopin commented to Hiller leaving the hotel: "How unpleasant is that Sand! Is she a woman? I'm about to doubt it."

During that summer, the musician traveled to London; He was also working on the Studies Op. 25, the Mazurkas Op. 30, the Scherzo Op. 31 and the Nocturnes Op. 32. Upon their return they met again, this time at a meeting of friends at Chopin's house, to which Sand intentionally went dressed as the Polish woman, and listened subjugated to the duet of Liszt and Chopin.

Once the initial resistances were overcome and the couple installed in the summer of 1838, this lasted approximately eight years, in which passion soon gave way to friendship (in a letter addressed by Sand to Wojciech Grzymała, on May 12, 1847, it reads: "I have lived like a virgin for seven years. With him and with the others".) and in which there was an exchange of mutual goods, George Sand offered support and protection to Chopin's fragile situation –both physical as economic – while Chopin for Sand was a pacifying figure in a difficult stage for her growing up her children.

They began their life as a couple living in Paris, in adjoining houses, Sand with her children. After the Valldemosa adventure, they began to spend half the year at Nohant, George Sand's estate, in Berry. In October of that year he completed his Studies Op. 25 —which he dedicated to the Countess d'Agoult— and, a month later, the Trio of the Funeral March (which would later become part of the Sonata Op. 35) for the night of the anniversary of the Polish uprisings of 1830.

The numerous public performances returned to their rights in 1838: a concert at the Tuileries —the court of Louis-Philippe I of France—, another in the pope's salons, and a third, private, in the house of the Duke of Orleans. The best names in French culture became Chopin's personal friends: Victor Hugo, the painter Eugène Delacroix, and many others who had known and appreciated him thanks to his recitals.

Majorca

Chopin's bust on the Valldemosa Cartuja, next to the Pleyel piano he used.

As the winter of 1838 approached, his health had suffered and his doctor recommended the healthy climate of the Balearic Islands to improve his health. Thus, the composer, Sand and her two children traveled to Barcelona, where they boarded the packet boat El mallorquín, which would leave them shortly after in Mallorca.

There they spent the winter and composed most of his twenty-four Preludes op. 28. On the island, the diagnosis of his illness was confirmed: the young musician had contracted tuberculosis. This disease, classified as highly contagious, did not affect the writer and her children at all, a fact that has made some experts rethink the diagnosis. The possibility that Chopin suffered from some other type of degenerative condition of the respiratory tract that had not been cataloged until then has gained more strength for a few decades.^{[citation required]}

What was supposed to be a trip of pleasure, health and creation, turned into a disaster: the winter that fell on the islands that year was rainy without interruption. The constant humidity only worsened the condition of his lungs. At the Valldemosa Charterhouse, Sand attended to his ailment while the maestro awaited the arrival of a French Pleyel piano from Paris. After various complications in transporting the instrument, it was installed in the Monastery of the Cartuja de Valldemosa, in the cell that Chopin and George Sand had rented. The same cell they inhabited from December 15, 1838 until their hasty departure from Valldemosa, on February 12, 1839, the eve of his definitive departure from the island of Mallorca due to a worsening of the composer's respiratory ailment. The instrument was the property of the manufacturer, monsier Camille Pleyel, as it had been sent so that the maestro could work properly, and it became, at the time of said departure, one more inconvenience for the couple. of artists, since it was difficult to transport and probably the customs duties of exit were as high as those of entry to the island. For all these reasons, the writer probed the possibility of selling it on the same island. Finally, on the eve of their return to the continent, the couple formed by Bazile Canut and Hélène Choussat de Canut, bankers from Palma, decided to commit themselves to acquiring the piano and making their payment to monsier Pleyel, thus freeing Chopin and Sand of this charge.

So, on February 13, they embarked back to Barcelona, where Chopin spent a week convalescing under the care of the doctor from the French war steamer “Méléagre”. After eight days of rest they moved to Marseille, where the musician's personal doctor, Dr. Cauvières, was waiting. When he finished reviewing the Preludes , he sent them to his friend Pleyel for publication in exchange for 1500 francs.

Paris again

Frédéric Chopin, portrait (inacabado, 1838), by Eugène Delacroix.

Despite the time invested in teaching, in 1840 he published the Sonata Op. 35, the Impromptu Op. 36, the Nocturnes Op. 37, the Ballad Op. 38, the Scherzo Op. 39, the Polonaises Op. 40, the Mazurkas Op. 41 and the Waltz Op. 42. The following year he finished the Polonaise Op. 44, the Prelude in C sharp minor Op. 45, the Allegro de concerto Op. 46, the Ballad Op. 47 and the Nocturnes Op. 48. In 1841, he also completed the Fantasia in F minor Op. 49, and began the composition of the Mazurkas Op. 50 .

In 1842, Frédéric premiered his Ballad Op. 52, the Polonaise Op. 53, the Scherzo Op. 54, the Impromptu Op. 51 and the Mazurkas Op. 56, which he had begun working on the previous year. His fame, already great in Western countries, became enormous in his native Poland, garnering rave reviews and commentary from the press and the public. The poet Heinrich Heine wrote in Lutece: "Chopin is a great poet of music, an artist so brilliant that he can only be compared with Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini and Berlioz."

In the summer of 1843, Chopin and Sand rested in Nohant, where Frédéric finished the Nocturnes Op. 55 and the Mazurkas Op. 56, beginning the composition of the Sonata in B minor, Op. 58, possibly completed the following autumn.

Around 1845, his health began to deteriorate again, leading to the process of weakening that would ultimately lead to his death. Forced to give several recitals in Paris, he received and wrote numerous letters from and to his friends Delacroix and Adam Mickiewicz, while composing the Mazurkas Op. 59, he began the Sonata for cello and piano Op. 65 and finished the Polonaise-fantasy, op. 61.

The beginning of the end

A long, hot and stormy summer marked Chopin's last stay at Nohant (1846): he composed the Nocturnes Op. 62, finished the Cello Sonata and gave the final touches to the Mazurkas Op. 63.

From the end of 1845 and during the year 46 the emotional situation of the composer began to become tense, for various reasons. Sand's children are no longer children, they are young people living in complicated situations: of an affective nature —Sand's preferences for Maurice and Solange's reactive jealousy— and sentimental, each looking for a partner. In the midst of this hotbed of passions, Chopin lives the uncomfortable situation of not being the father nor of having formed a legal couple with Sand (which Maurice may resent).

Lucrezia Floriani, the end of love

To all this is added the latest novel by George Sand Lucrezia Floriani, in which she and Chopin are described transparently in the figure of their protagonists: Lucrezia and Karol, and in the Lucrezia, a famous Italian actress, has retired to the countryside to raise her children, meets a sweet and sensitive teenager, who falls in love with her and begins a romance in which Lucrezia takes care of Karol like a "sick kitten" and suffers for the difficult character of Karol, who suffers from jealousy.

One night, Sand reads her novel to Chopin and Delacroix, Chopin pretends not to recognize himself in Karol, but Delacroix will entrust Mme. Jouvert: «I went through torments during that reading! The executioner and the victim astonished me equally (...) At midnight we retired together (...) I took the opportunity to probe their impressions. Was he playing a role with me? No, I hadn't really understood...».

“No one, in the circle of friends of the two lovers, doubted for a single moment the reality of this alleged fiction. Neither Liszt, nor Balzac, nor Leroux, nor Mme Marliani, nor Marie de Rozières, nor Heine (he wrote to his friend Laube: "She scandalously mistreated my friend Chopin in a detestable novel, divinely written").

Chopin daguerrotype in 1846 or 1847, which is displayed at the Fryderyk Chopin Society (Varsovia).

Sand denies any relationship, between them and the protagonists, when questioned. But Chopin, two years later, in a letter he wrote from Scotland, would reveal that he perfectly guessed his lover's maneuver: «I never cursed anyone, but now I feel so fed up that I would feel better if I could curse Lucrezia....”.

The trigger for the end is the complicated situation generated by Solange's marriage to Auguste Clésinger, as Sand forbids Chopin to even mention it if he wants to return to Nohant, Chopin will never return.

Before his departure for London, Chopin writes to his sister Luisa (Ludwika) in Warsaw regarding Sand, after Solange's estrangement:

«... try to forget, to be stunned as possible. He will only wake up when his heart today dominated by the head causes him too much pain (...) May God guide and protect her, for she cannot distinguish between a true affection and an adulation (...) Eight years of a life in a way already arranged were too many years. God has allowed his children to grow up during those years. If it had not been for me, your son and your daughter were no longer with her, but at her father's house. (...) Among us, it only happens that we haven't met for a long time, without any of us being among us. battleNo scene. And I have not gone home because she has imposed on me as a condition of keeping silent about her daughter."

Gavoty reflects on Chopin's character: «For the first time, perhaps, Sand has just collided —without shouting and without drama— with someone who stands up to him: and that someone is that transparent sylph, the pale Karol, the puppet whom he called with a somewhat pitying tenderness, "Chip" or "Chipette". The character, the fundamental virility, the nobility of Chopin, appear at the end of an adventure that had united —Sand naively believed— a strong, irreproachable, infallible woman, and a hesitant, manageable artist, ready to accept everything (...) Once again, the psychology of Berry's Amazon is flawed."

Swan song

Postum mould of Chopin's left hand.

On February 16, 1848, before a packed hall —with tickets difficult to obtain and sold out long before— Chopin gave his last Parisian concert. A long concert that for him was the swan song: he had a syncope in the lobby during the intermission. Even though he gave some concerts in London, none would be like this one in the communion that there was with the present public.

Deserved long praise from the Gazette musicale of September 20, which began «A concert by the pianists' Ariel is something too rare...(...) We will only say that the enchantment did not end to act for a single moment on the auditorium, and that lasted when the concert had already finished."

Chopin writes to Solange on February 17: «Paris is ill...». Six days later the insurrection broke out, the February Revolution of 1848.

Deprived of the beneficial stays in Nohant, Chopin's health deteriorated, the decision to travel to London was little considered, he travels encouraged by Jane Stirling who will inadvertently represent the unfortunate role of angel of death. This 44-year-old Scotswoman, in love with Chopin or his music, intends to marry him with his insistence, since she is very rich and Chopin, still ill, must teach lesson after lesson to live. Chopin writes to a friend about it "I would prefer to marry death", and he specified to his friend Wojciech Grzymała that even if he fell in love, he would not marry under these conditions, "those who are rich look for the rich, and if they find one who is poor, they must not be, in addition sick...».

With a little money from the concert on the 16th, he arrives in London on April 21st, where Jane Stirling and her sister, Mrs. Erskine, have rented him an apartment.

From London Chopin writes:

« Music here is a profession, not an art. They touch eccentricities and present them as works of total beauty; to interest them in serious things is madness. The bourgeoisie demands extraordinary and mechanical. The great world listens to too much music to pay serious attention. Lady X... one of the greatest ladies in London, in whose castle I spent a few days, is considered a music. One night that I had touched, they brought him some sort of accordion, and he got very seriously to execute in him the most horrible airs. All these creatures are a little nuts. Those who know my compositions tell me, "touch your second sigh"... "I like your bells a lot." The only thing you can think of telling me is that "my music flows like water"... Yesterday old woman Rothschild asked me how much I was. As I had asked for twenty guineas to the duchess of Sutherland, I replied, twenty guineas. The good woman then told me that, in effect, I play very well, although she advised me not to ask so much, because in this season it takes more "moderation".

The rent for his London apartment costs Chopin 26 guineas a month; After two months in the country, Chopin will complain about the stinginess and lack of sincere love for the art of the great lords.

Teaching classes again, five students towards the end of May.

Short fragments of letters that Chopin writes from Great Britain that leave no doubt of the unhappiness that accompanies him almost permanently —with brief periods of peace and joy when he stops at his (Polish) friends.

"Despite the weather, they want to keep me in London. As for me, I'd want something else, but what? If that London were less black... if people were less heavy, if they didn't have that sorcery or that coal dust, I would learn English. But the English are so different from the French that I have attached to as my own...!».

From Scotland to Marie de Rozières...

"Many people torment me here to play, and I accept by courtesy. But I always touch with a new sorrow, swearing to me that they will not force me again, because I find myself between the enervation and the rapture."

Why don't you compose anymore?, his hosts and friends would ask him...

"Truly," he wrote to Franchomme, "I don't have a single musical idea in my head; I'm no longer at all in my element. I feel like a donkey in a mask dance, or like a violin string in a bass of rape... I am stunned, I am not comfortable...».

"I see mountains and lakes, and a lovely park; in a word, a show of the most renowned in Scotland. However, I only see some of that when it's in the mood to give a few minutes to an uncombatant sun. And every week I crawl into another place. What to say about the mortal boredom of the evenings, along which I boast striving to keep a good semblance, to pretend some interest in the nonsense that are exchanged from poltrona to poltrona? Everywhere excellent pianos, beautiful paintings, select libraries, canapés, dogs, never ending dinners, duke flood, counts, barons. Is it possible to get bored as much as I am bored?"

"I seem to be happy, especially when I am among compatriots, but I carry something in me that kills me, gloomy pales, uneasiness, insomnia, nostalgia, indifference for everything; in a moment of joy to live, but at once a desire for death, apathy, freezing, absence of spirit and sometimes too clear memories martyr me."

Finally, from London he writes to his friend Grzymała:

"I have exhausted nerves and I cannot finish this letter. I suffer from a stupid nostalgia; in spite of my resignation, I do not know what to do with my person and that torments me... I can no longer be sad or happy; I no longer really feel anything, veget, simply, and I wait patiently for my end... Ah, if I could know that the disease will not end me here next winter!».

On November 23, 1848, he left London to return to Paris, where his friend Grzymała had rented him an apartment facing south, more comfortable than the one he had when he left for Great Britain, where he will spend his last months.

Gavoty concludes this chapter that he has titled “Into the mists of Scotland” in this way: “Thus ends —unfortunately— the British adventure. In seven months he has changed his address sixty-one times, faced different crowds, offered concerts without prestige, wasted his time, seen his state of health worsen, and as a reward for so many efforts, he has not taken a penny to Paris. Surely his final is near, he just ignores the duration of the time he has left ».

Death

Chopin mortuary mask, created by Auguste Clésinger on October 17, 1849.

The beginning of 1849 found Chopin too weak to teach. He was only able to visit his friend Mickiewicz —as ill as he was—, play the piano a little and improvise some chords. When the news spread that his condition was deteriorating, a large part of Parisian society (including his compatriots residing there) wanted to visit him: students, friends, ladies, all those who had applauded him when he was in front of the keyboard wanted to see him to say goodbye.. One of the most frequent was the painter Delacroix, who visited him almost every day to comfort him and give him encouragement.

In that dreary summer, he worked on the drafts of his last piece, the Mazurka in F minor (published after his death as Op. 68 no. 4). Warned of the upcoming end of the brilliant composer, his sister Ludowika traveled from Warsaw with her husband and daughter to see him and attend to him at his house at 12 Place Vendôme. Despite the fact that George Sand insisted on seeing him, Ludowika He refused him entry, although he allowed her daughter, Solange, to visit him.

Chopin tomb at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Chopin knew he was dying, but, surprisingly, he said to the bystanders:

You will find many scores, more or less worthy of me. In the name of the love you have me, please burn them all except the first part of my piano method. The rest must be consumed by fire without exception, because I have too much respect for my audience and I do not want all the pieces that are not worthy of it to be circulating because of me and under my name.

Nobody paid attention to that request. Already in full agony, he still had enough strength to grant each visitor a handshake and a kind word. He passed away at two in the morning on October 17, 1849, at the age of 39. In 2017, a study by researchers from the Polish Academy of Sciences revealed that his direct cause of death was pericarditis, a rare complication of chronic tuberculosis from which he suffered.Michael Witt noted that:

We do not open the bottle (...) but by the state of the heart we can say, with high probability, that Chopin suffered from tuberculosis while the complication of pericarditis was probably the immediate cause of his death.

The obituary published in the newspapers says verbatim: "He was a member of the Warsaw family by nationality, a Pole by heart and a citizen of the world by his talent, who today has left the earth."

The solemn funeral of Frédéric Chopin was held in the church of Saint Madeleine in Paris on the 30th. In compliance with the provisions of his will, his Preludes in E minor and in B minor were performed, followed by Mozart's Requiem. Later, during the burial in the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, the Marche funèbre of his Sonata Op. 35 was played.

Although his body remains in Paris, the musician's last will was obeyed, removing his heart and depositing it in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw.

Work

	Prelude to my minor Op 28 n° 4 Porticodoro / SmartCGArt Media Productions - Steinway Piano Studio for piano Op. 10 n. 1 Studio for piano in do mayor Op. 10 n. 1 Piano Studio Op. 10 n. 12 Studio for piano in do menor Op. 10 n. 2 Night in my major bemol Nocturno Op. 9 n° 2
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Chopin represents a rare case among performing composers (in his case, piano) who has achieved a reputation as a great composer. His chamber and vocal music is scarce and the orchestral includes a few concertante works. In all of them, there is always a piano involved. His friends and colleagues encouraged him to tackle other genres; when the Count of Perthuis encouraged him to write a melodrama, the musician replied: "Let me be what I must be, nothing more than a piano composer, because that is the only thing I know how to do."

Chopin and the piano

The piano reached its maximum popularity in the XIX century. Chopin had completely abandoned the harpsichord and was perfectly suited to the individual expression of feeling characteristic of Romanticism. Makers refined the instrument by improving its variety of nuances, purity and richness of timbre, and sonic possibilities.

Faced with the possibility that Chopin was a self-taught piano player, Alfred Cortot stated that he "never received piano lessons" and several studies on the musician emphasize the same thing: "a pianist without piano teachers". that Chopin did receive piano lessons but from musicians who were not professional pianists: Żywny was a violinist and Elsner was a composer. Both gave him the basic tools and supervised his first steps, but they did not direct the young man towards a particular method, school or style. He probably received irregular lessons from Wilhelm Würfel; if that were true, these would have been the only lessons from a real pianist. In any case, the adolescent Chopin was aware of his personal style and the need to continue alone in search of his own technique and sound, without following or imitating anyone in particular. He declined piano lessons when he entered the Warsaw Conservatory in 1826, and then, arriving in Paris in 1831, politely declined an invitation to take piano lessons from Kalkbrenner, one of the most notable and technical pianists of his time..

It was so important to Chopin that he needed the instrument to compose., its full range of nuances, a faithful reflection of the deepest feeling" (in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, 1829). However, its small volume was also criticized. One of the most outstanding testimonies was offered by Robert Schumann in 1837, when he wrote:

Imagine that a wind harp had all the scales and the hand of an artist would clutter them with all kinds of fantastic ornaments, so that there was always a more serious fundamental and a more sharp voice in a soft and maintained way — so they will have an approximate image of their way of playing.

NZFM, 1837

From these and other comments, it is known that Chopin's sonority at the piano was delicate; he was not impressed by strength or sound, but by nuances and contrasts. The lack of strength was not necessarily due to illness, as has sometimes been claimed; it was part of his own playing style. For that reason, Chopin's sound suited the soirées or soirées of the aristocracy very well; the musician preferred to appear in those small rooms, with a brief and select audience, where a singular communion was possible. Chopin was not a concert pianist (like Thalberg or Liszt), but a pianist-performer of his own works, and came to have an enviable position as such. He, too, was not a sweeping and theatrical performer.Another reason why he perhaps avoided large audiences was his extraordinary nervousness in facing them. Liszt transcribed a confession by his colleague in his Autobiography : «I don't have the mettle to give concerts: The public intimidates me, I feel suffocated, paralyzed by their curious glances, mute before these unknown physiognomies». Also in a letter to his friend Titus W. Chopin says: «You don't know what a martyrdom the three days before the concert are for me».

One of the particular characteristics of his playing and his works was the rubato (probably Schumann was referring to it when he said «disorderly [...]»). Chopin himself wrote about him:

The right hand may deviate from the compass, but the accompanying hand must touch him with attachment. Imagine a tree with its branches shaken by the wind: the trunk is the inflexible compass, the leaves that move are the melodic inflexions.

In Chopin's scores, the rubato is present above all in the parts in which irregular values or groups of small notes (ornaments) occur. According to Chopin, these should not be played exactly, but with style and good taste. Perhaps for this reason, this and other characteristics of his music have led to several affected interpretations, and even to "edited" scores by musicians who without any respect or Critical judgment have made changes in several passages. According to testimonies by Moscheles and Müller, Chopin rejected exaggeration and mannerisms regarding the rubato and other interpretive aspects. Rigor and simplicity were the constants of his way of playing.

Departing from Johann Nepomuk Hummel and John Field, Chopin discovered the true potential of the piano to build a poetic world of melody and color. His works are of a profoundly pianistic nature: he understood the instrument's cantabile capacity, very different from singing or violin, as was claimed then, he "invented" a new way of playing (dynamics, fingering) and explored its timbral resources through harmony, extension, resonance and pedal. As he deepened in it, he approached a more hallucinated sensitivity to sound. For this reason, his transcendence and influence on piano music was immense, making possible the subsequent investigations of Fauré, Debussy and Skriabin, or even those of Messiaen. or Lutosławski, as they have acknowledged.

Chopin and Romanticism

	Concert n.o 2 en fa menor Nico Snel runs the Seattle Philharmonic.
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	Étude Op. 10, No. 12, Revolutionary Martha Goldstein interpreting in an Erard (1851) – 2 985kB
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	Ballade n.1 Interpreted by Eunmi Ko Scherzo n.2 Interpreted by Eunmi Ko
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Chopin's career (from 1831 in Paris to 1849) took place during Romanticism, in his second period known as "full Romanticism". In addition to him, composers such as Berlioz, Paganini, Schumann shone in Europe in those years, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer and highlighted the first operas of Verdi and Wagner.

Many features of Chopin's life are symbols of Romanticism: his air of mystery, his painful exile, his tormented inspiration, his refinement, even his early death from consumption are typical romantic themes. However, it should be noted that fictional biographies (also some movies) and exaggerated interpretations have ended up falsifying the image of the musician and his genius. De Candé has said that "the myth with which his genius has been victimized is the most tenacious and most disastrous in the history of music."

Another romantic aspect in Chopin is the fact that his lyrical feeling always ends up breaking the obvious reality. «Roses, carnations, writing pens and a bit of sealing wax [...] and at that moment I am no longer in myself, but, as always, in a totally different and amazing space [...] those espaces imaginaires» (Nohant, 1845). His preference for short forms, especially for the character piece (the nocturne, the ballad) is typically romantic. He also collects classical or historical genres to treat them in an unconventional way (the sonata, the concert and the prelude). And above all, his marked musical nationalism, manifested in the adoption and stylization of forms from Polish folk music such as the polonaise and the mazurka, vindicating the patriotic feeling, precisely in times of Russian oppression.

Unquestionably a romantic, there are other characteristics in him that place Chopin in a singular position. For example, his preference for the aristocracy and the monarchy. Possessor of a great literary culture, his forms are, however, abstract and free of references of this nature, unlike Robert Schumann or Liszt, for example ( Kreisleriana or Years of pilgrimage ). The titles that have been applied to them ("Revolutionary", "The Drop of Water") do not belong to him. Chopin avoided looking for extra-musical references in his works —in this sense he can be compared to Brahms—, in fact, all of his works have generic titles (sonata, concerto, polonaise, prelude...). His music is pure, like that of Mozart. For this reason, it is not surprising that his anger was great when he saw his Nocturnes Op. the Nocturnos Op. 15 as “Los zafiros” or the Scherzo Op. 20 as “The Infernal Banquet”. This situation continued, especially in England, until well into the 20th century.

His indifference to the music of his contemporaries (including Beethoven and Schubert) is also known. Instead, he expressed his admiration and constant inspiration in Bach, Scarlatti and Mozart, and also the French harpsichordist school (Chopin is, according to Wanda Landowska, "a Couperin tinged with Romanticism").

In contrast, Chopin always showed great interest in the opera of his time, especially the Italian bel canto (Rossini and his friend Bellini). Although his teacher Józef Ksawery Elsner saw in him the creator of Polish opera and encouraged him to do so, he did not compose anything related to it. However, Italian melodismo for him was an important source that allowed him "to discover the secrets of truly singable melody, and enhanced by the bel canto technique" (Bal y Gay). Chopin frequently employed the traditional texture of the accompanied melody, like Mozart. Another important source of his melodismo was the folklore of his homeland. His melodies are lively, emotional and perfectly elegant, he admirably knew the secrets of melodic constitution.

Chopin played an important role in the development of harmony in the 19th century. He possessed an extraordinary genius and innovative for her, which is revealed in its richness, its harmonic rhythm, its modulations and its subtle chromaticisms, anticipating its contemporaries by half a century. For this reason, it found some opposition among the most conservative musicians. Sigismund Thalberg once said: "The worst thing about Chopin is that sometimes you don't know when his music is right or wrong."

Chopin has sometimes been considered a "flat" musician, who maintained a single style from the artistic maturity he reached by the time he left Warsaw (1830), without marked stages or an evolutionary line as occurs in other composers. However, a last creative period or "late style" can be distinguished in him, in which drama and violent effects give way to great concentration, moderation of gesture and deeper lyricism. To him belong the Scherzo no. 4, the Sonata no. 3 , the Ballad no. , the Polonaise-fantasy, the Nocturnes Op. 55 and 62 and the Sonata for cello. These works reveal the search for new formal, harmonic and sonorous molds.What his later compositions would have been is only conjecture.

Compositions

Concert works

The only works by Chopin that include orchestra are of a concertante character: piano and orchestra. Significantly, these six compositions practically belong to the early period of his career in Warsaw, when he was studying with Elsner between 1827 and 1831, the year he arrived in Paris. The first was Variations on a Theme from Don Giovanni Op. 2, which received Schumann's famous praise. There are three works inspired by Polish folklore and finally two piano concertos: the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 Op. 21 in F minor (1829-30) and the Concerto for piano and orchestra no. 1 Op. 11 in E minor (1830).

Both are classic works of the international repertoire. The originality of their form stands out in them, which rejects conventional sonatism, replacing it with the idea of segmentation. Also the brilliance and expressiveness of the piano part and the grace and supreme elegance, based on the natural aristocracy of the gesture, which distances itself from the romantic fieryness and rather recovers a new dimension of Classicism. The slow movements are reminiscent of future nocturnes. He composed the Larghetto of Op. 21 inspired by his adolescent love for Konstancja Gladkowska; about the Romance of Op. 11, Chopin wrote to Tytus W.: «It is like daydreaming on a beautiful moonlit spring night [...] Hence also the accompaniment with mute". The final movements have a danceable character: one of the themes of the Allegro vivace of Op. 21 is a mazurka, and the Vivace of Op. 11 has been considered a polka or a krakowiak. Schumann saw a Beethovenian continuity in these concertos that has since been refuted: "Just as Hummel spread Mozart's style, Chopin brought the Beethovenian spirit to the concert hall" (1835).

Several have criticized the "bad" orchestration of these compositions, Berlioz among them, Today it is considered that the model for these concertos is not Beethoven's or Mozart's, but the works of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller or Sigismund Thalberg. In the concertante works of these contemporary composers, the piano had an absolutely dominant and leading role, while the orchestra passed into the background, limiting itself to making the initial presentation of the musical material and highlighting certain expressive moments of the soloist. Therefore, the weakness of the orchestration was a purpose and not the result of an inability. Other orchestrations of these concertos have been performed: by Tausig, Burgmeister, Messager, and Klindworth, but it is significant that the most performed versions are the originals, as the new versions are not considered to have improved the situation much.

Polish music: polonaises, mazurkas and others

Home page of the Heroic Polonesa at Bemol Op. 53.

	Andante spianato and Gran Polonesa brilliant Op. 22 in my major bemol, composed in 1831 The prayer of a maid Op. 74 No. 1

Starting his career symbolically under the imprint of Polish folklore, Chopin's first composition (at the age of seven) was Polonaise in G minor (found and republished in 1946). This work, along with his first polonaises, has more of a carbon copy of the "folk" music by Karol Kurpiński, Meyseder, Oginski, Lipinsky and Elsner, among others. A century ago the polonaise, the popular Polish dance, had become within classical instrumental music one more slow and gallant conventional dance, with a singular rhythmic foot. Soon, on his summer vacations, the adolescent Chopin would learn the nature of true polonaise at peasant festivities, where he danced, transcribed melodies, and even played folk instruments: his assimilation of folklore was not superficial. Thus, in his At maturity his polonaises collected the rhythmic vigor and the chivalrous and heroic spirit of his country, full of bold harmonies and under a brilliant and emotional piano writing. Particularly noteworthy are the polonaises in A flat (Op. 53), in F sharp minor (Op. 44) and the Great Brilliant Polonaise for piano and orchestra Op. 22, preceded by an Andante spianate.

The same thing happened with their mazurkas. However, in them the impregnation of the rhythms, harmonies, forms and melodic features of Polish popular music is more evident: he uses "exotic" resources, such as the fifth strings and the traditional modal scales of his country (for example, the typical "Lydian" augmented fourth). He made very little use of real folkloric themes: he created an "imaginary folklore" as Béla Bartók did later. life, resorting to them to convert them -in its brevity- into verification instruments of the musical self, to capture various compositional problems and moods. They represent a musical microcosm in themselves that are a complete sampler of his unique style. Symbolically closing his career, his last work was the Mazurka in F minor Op. 68 no. 4. Other works based on folklore were the Krakowiak (in his Great concert rondo, Op. 14) and the kujawiak in his early Fantasy on Polish airs, Op. 13.

However, the influence of Polish music was not limited to these two musical genres. The characteristics of folklore invaded all its musical parameters. Friedrich Nietzsche highlighted in Chopin the Slavic essence as liberating energy (of German influence), together with the overcoming of the ethnic sphere with the supreme elegance of the cosmopolitan gesture, of the classical ideal of beauty. According to the philosopher, all this allowed Chopin to free himself from his inclinations towards what is ugly, obscure, petty bourgeois, rude or pedantic. In his painful situation as an exile, like popular artists, he turned to popular sources to express the affirmation of his people in danger: Schumann already said it when he spoke of "cannons among the flowers" or as Paderewski said, Chopin was "a "smuggler" that made the music that represented the freedom and essence of his homeland come out of his staves ».

The only surviving vocal compositions by Chopin are Polish Songs Op. 74 plus others without opus numbers. They are songs for voice and piano, in the lied style, based on poems by his compatriots (Stefan Witwicki, Adam Mickiewicz, Bohdan Zaleski, Zygmunt Krasinski, Ludwik Osinski, Wincenty Pol and Ignacy Maciejowski), which were generally composed for particular occasions (events social or emigrants). They are considered minor works, of little or no significance in the history of the lied. In them he makes use of a less sophisticated language, a simpler style and of a light nature. However, they have the characteristics «Polish» of the composer's music. As he did with various outside vocal works (as well as orchestral and stage ones), Liszt arranged these songs for solo piano (for example Zyczenie ( A Maiden's Prayer ) Op. 74 no. 1).

Waltzes and other dances

	Walls of the minute Op. 64 No. 1 Valse op. post. a-moll Interpreted by Patrizia Prati

In addition to polonaises and mazurkas, Chopin composed works based on other dances. Like those, these pieces are not exactly dance music, but a stylization, "salon music" (like a good part of Chopin's production), written to be played in salons, combining rhythmic impulse, expression and instrumental brilliance. These works include Bolero Op. 19, Tarantela Op. 43, Eccosaises Op. 72 no. 3-5 and Barcarola Op. 60, among others. He also wrote two funeral marches: the early Op. 72 No. 2 and the extremely famous one that would later encourage Chopin to complete the Sonata No. 2 . However, the best known are the waltzes.

At that time, the waltz was the Viennese dance that was beginning to be all the rage in the salons of Europe, thanks mainly to Josef Lanner and Johann Strauss (Sr.). Schubert or Weber composed waltzes (for piano) in this style. However, most Chopinian waltzes are far from that character. For Mendelssohn, these had no more than the name of a waltz. Perhaps what can be danced should not be sought in these, since they seem to transmit suggestions that do not allude directly to the dance, but to the personal memory left by the environment (an evocation that reminds us of the origin of the dance). of Ravel's La Valse). dance". It is significant that two of his waltzes are dedicated to his first two loves: Op. 70 No. 3, dedicated to Konstancja, or Op. 69 No. 1, the Farewell Waltz dedicated to Maria. In addition to being a declaration of love, lightness is expressed in these works as in Op. 64 no. 1 (the so-called Waltz of the minute) or the melancholy of the Vals du regret (Op. 34 no. 2), in addition to the brilliant waltz (Op. 18). On the other hand, to reconsider the ethereal danceable quality of this music, the ballet Las Sílfides is highly suggestive, entirely composed in orchestrations of works by Chopin (among them some waltzes).

Other works

Monument to Chopin in Żelazowa Wola (author: J. Gosławski).

In 1831, Chopin wrote that the motivation for composing was his "bold perhaps, but noble desire to create a new world for myself." His music confirms his intentions: sometimes poetic, sometimes proud, always graceful and often full of heroism, it truly is a world unto itself and unlike any other composer's work. Robert Schumann defined it as cannons buried among flowers. Schumann was precisely a faithful follower and a bold critic of the Polish composer, having the good fortune to discover him in a famous article (published on December 7 in the Algemeine Musikalische Zeitung magazine) that includes the famous quote «! Take off your hat, gentlemen, here is a genius!».

Often, the works appeared in the mind (and in the fingers) of the master quickly; however, a posteriori he used to spend a lot of time transcribing and finalizing them.

A very representative part of his works, such as his Polonaises (including the Andante spianato and Great Brilliant Polonaise Op. 22; the Polonaise in A flat Op. 53 and the Polonaise-Fantasy Op. 61), as well as the Mazurkas (such as Op. 24), are the result of an innovative fusion between Polish folklore, the influence of military, patriotic or nationalist melodies, the bel canto and the music of the romantic current itself.

Chopin's harmonic language is absolutely original, full of complex chromatic harmonies; he also employs more "exotic" resources, such as the fifth strings of folk dances and the traditional modal scales of his country. The fifty-five Mazurkas that he composed represent a musical microcosm in themselves: they are a complete showcase of his unique style, and the way he treats them, repeating the same dance in different forms. The Etudes de él and Preludes are strongly influenced by the desire for variety and technical mastery of The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Chopin Statue in Rio de Janeiro

Other important forms in his work are the Scherzi (Op. 20, 31, 39 and 54), the Studies (Op. 10, Op. 25 and Trois nouvelles études) and the Nocturnes (Op. 9, Op. 32, Op. 62...). The latter were influenced by the compositions of the same name by the Irish composer John Field, and in them Chopin openly exhibited his taste for bel canto . In the case of the Etudes, it could be said that it is the most important didactic work since Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier,^{[citation required]} in the sense that it combines the purest technical work with great care in the construction and musical content. Chopin's Scherzi are the first independent works to bear that title, except for the case of Beethoven's A Bagatelle (op. 33 no. 2), and the Two Scherzi Schubert's D. 593. Despite sharing a formal scheme with the classical scherzi, and also the 3/4 time signature, Chopin creates four extensive works, with very dramatic contrasts.

Being one of the most outstanding pianists in history, perhaps the most technical and most refined,^{[citation needed]} the teachings he will leave for later composers are linked to in the purest Mozartian tradition: “in time with the left hand and free with the right” (what is known as melodic rubato). The ornamentation is extremely elaborate and virtuous, but it is never evident by itself (avoiding technical display), but must be sought intertwined in the poetic treatment that it gives to each piece.

Chopin's work is among the most original and influential in the history of music, and for this reason he is often compared to Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Chopin definitively abandoned the eighteenth-century style to fully enter a "new world" (the one he wanted for himself) of quasi-verbal composition, a kind of sound language that emanates directly from the technique of his instrument and develops in sonority to lead to the piano. 20th century modern. Chopin discovered the true potential of the piano to build a poetic world of melody and color. This advance laid the foundations for all subsequent piano composition. To overcome it, we had to wait for Bartók, Debussy, Ravel and Prokofiev, among others.

The Chopinian aesthetic, then, was formed by mixing the classical proportion of Bach and the love of operatic bel canto of Mozart and Bellini, also combined with the Polish musical heritage. Thanks to the latter, the émigré also became the first nationalist composer of his country.

Instruments

While living in Warsaw, Chopin composed and played the Buchholtz piano. Later, while living in Paris, Chopin purchased a Pleyel instrument. He called Pleyel's pianos "non plus ultra" (nothing more than that!). Liszt became friends with Chopin in Paris and described the sound of Chopin's Pleyel piano as "the marriage of glass and water". In Chopin's house in London he had three pianos, which he mentions in his letters: "I have a large drawing room with three pianos, a Pleyel, a Broadwood and an Erard".

In 2018, a copy of Chopin's Buchholtz piano, made by Paul McNulty, was heard for the first time in public at the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera and was used by the Warsaw Chopin Institute for its First International Chopin Competition Period Instruments.

Chopin in popular culture

Monument to Chopin in Monceau Park, Paris

Throughout the world there are many festivals, musical associations, schools, institutes, as well as streets and avenues that bear the name of Frédéric Chopin. One of the most prominent is the Frédéric Chopin International Piano Competition, which is held in Warsaw every five years in memory of the Polish composer.

Warsaw International Airport is named after Frédéric Chopin.

The asteroid discovered in 1986 by astronomer Eric Walter Elst has been named (3784) Chopin. Several other objects in the Solar System have been named after Chopin, including a crater on the planet Mercury. ^{[citation required]}

The alternative rock group Muse has included in the song «United States of Eurasia», from their album The Resistance, a fragment of their work Nocturno in E flat major Op. 9 #2. In addition, Matthew Bellamy, singer and pianist of the group, says that Chopin's work and composition have been strongly influenced by the Puerto Rican salsa music duo Richie Ray & amp; Bobby Cruz included Estudio Op. 10, no. 12 in his song "Sonido bestial" from 1971. The Argentine alternative rock group ¿Que paso con Marta Ramos? He talks in his song "Chopin" about a fictional meeting between the Polish composer and a time traveler.

Eternal Sonata, a game developed by Tri-Crescendo and published by Namco Bandai Games in 2007, tells the story of Chopin on his deathbed and during his last sleep. In another game published by Namco Bandai Games and developed by Namco Tales Studio, Tales of Vesperia, Chopin's skin is an alternate costume for the character Flynn Scifo.

The 2018 anime series, Forest of Piano airing on Netflix, makes extensive references to Chopin's music as a benchmark for great virtuoso pianists in an epic story, in which the characters, their lives, and their music will change. forever with the magic of this great composer.

Chopin in film and television

Chopin's works have been used as part of the original soundtrack in more than 1,100 films and television series. In addition, several films and short films have been set in the life of the Polish composer.