Chopin

74 Posts
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Frédéric Chopin and His Circle of Friends
No single instrument served the cult of self-expression more comprehensively than the piano. It could emulate the rising and falling inflections of human speech and the outlines of non-verbal expressions from a sigh to a scream. Frédéric Chopin (1810-49), more
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Are You Familiar With the Stories of Chopin’s Frenemies, Lovers, and Piano Works?
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On This Day
17 October: Frédéric Chopin Died
Frédéric Chopin suffered from serious and chronic health problems throughout his short life. Already in his teens, Chopin suffered from frequent respiratory problems that included coughing, headaches, and the swelling of the cervical lymph glands. Biographers and doctors have detailed
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Bringing Poland to the Keyboard: Chopin’s Mazurkas
Polish composer Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1810-1849), better known under the French version of his name, Frédéric Chopin left Poland at age 20, just as the November 1830 Uprising was about to start, and started a new life in Paris. Although
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The Title Is a Lie: Chopin’s Minute Waltz
Chopin was inspired by the antics of a small dog chasing its tail to write his Waltz No. 6 in D-Flat Major, Op. 64, No. 1. His publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, added a title on it to let people know
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Famous Composers as Subjects of Opera
Recently, I had a chat with a young colleague who suggested that the writing of biographies of great composers was a boring myth-making exercise practiced in a cultural galaxy far away and two centuries removed. She had a point about
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The Sound of the Night: Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 9, No.2
Best-Known Chopin Music: Nocturnes for the Piano At age 20, Frédéric Chopin composed one of his best-known nocturnes for the piano, the iconic Chopin music. Nocturnes were brief piano works that were inspired by the night. It was Chopin who
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Frédéric Chopin and Maria Wodzińska
Funeral March for the Heart
Frédéric Chopin had turned twenty-five when he fell passionately and hopelessly in love with sixteen-year old Maria Wodzińska. He had known her as a child, and “used to chase her through the rooms at Pszenny.” She in turn greatly “annoyed
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