Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849); POL

The piano music of Frédéric Chopin is among the most original and influential work of the nineteenth century. With Chopin we leave the world of the eighteenth century piano completely and enter a new realm of idiomatic writing that grows directly out of the technique of the instrument and its development that brought it close to our modern instrument in sonority.

Ironically, Chopin didn't care much for the music of his illustrious contemporaries even though many were friends or acquaintances. Schumann, who had been extravagant in his praise of Chopin in introducing him to Germany, was too idiosyncratic. Berlioz and Mendelssohn didn't interest him and Liszt was often vulgar. Chopin's heroes were Bach and Mozart. This sense of classical proportion and elegance combined with a love of bel canto operatic singing and his Polish heritage form Chopin's basic aesthetic. The Polish expatriate who spent most of his creative life in Paris is the first nationalist composer.

Chopin was born in 1810 in Poland to a French father and Polish mother. Beginning in 1822, he studied harmony and counterpoint at the Warsaw Conservatory with Joseph Elsner who encouraged his appreciation of Bach. By age nineteen he had written his F minor piano concerto and had played two concerts in Vienna. After many foreign concerts during 1829 and 1830, he arrived in Paris in 1831 where he was to stay until his death in 1849.

Paris was the great center of culture at this time and the home of many artists of the highest caliber. Hugo, Balzac, Sand and Heine were among the writers. The supreme painters of the time, Delacroix (painter of the most famous Chopin portrait) and Ingres lived there as did many great composers including Liszt, Rossini, Berlioz and the important pianists Kalkbrenner, Thalberg and Herz. Chopin's debut recital was the talk of the city.

Through his aristocratic Polish friends, Chopin knew the influential Rothschilds and soon could set up a teaching studio that was his primary support and allowed him to live in an elegant style for most of his short life. His concertizing became less frequent and was limited to the semi-public world of the drawing room.

"I have my place among ambassadors, princes, ministers. I don't know by what miracle it has come about...but today that sort of thing is indispensable to me... I have five lessons to give today. You will imagine that I am making a fortune-but my cabriolet and white gloves cost more than that..." Chopin was famously fastidious and looked out the window as his society students placed their payment for the lesson on the mantel.

In spite of the sense that Chopin was somewhat of a dandy and a prude, he apparently had a perfectly healthy and active interest in the opposite sex and an active although discreet, social life in his circle. This life changed however, at age twenty-six when Liszt introduced him to the thirty-two year old George Sand (nom de plume of Aurore Dudevant). Sand was famous not only for her writing but for wearing men's clothes, smoking cigars and her general disdain of convention.

At first Chopin was more shocked by than attracted to Sand and their affair grew slowly. By 1838 they were living together and in 1839-9, they took their famous trip to Mallorca where they spent the winter and Chopin wrote many of the 24 Preludes, Op.28. What was supposed to be an idyll became a disaster as it rained constantly and Chopin's already weak lungs responded badly. He would eventually die of tuberculosis.

Chopin and Sand stayed together until 1847. In Paris they lived in adjoining houses and they spent their summers at Sand's home in Nohant where Sand apparently mothered the increasingly frail Chopin and he wrote some of his greatest music. Family misunderstandings involving Sand's children eventually led to their breakup. Chopin only lived a year more.

After returning from a depressing trip to England, Chopin was so weak that he could neither teach nor barely compose. His sister came from Warsaw to nurse him in his final illness, and ignored George Sand's wish to see him. Instead Sand's daughter Solange was at his side when he died on the morning of October 17, 1849.

Chopin as early as 1831 expressed his "perhaps too audacious but noble wish and intention to create for myself a new world." And so he did. In music that is by turns poetic, proud, defiant, elegant and heroic, it was truly a world like no other. Schumann described Chopin's music as "cannon buried in flowers." The surface of Chopin's music may be of the drawing room particularly in pieces such as the Waltzes (for example, from Opus 64: No.1, Valse in c#, (La Valse Minute), and No.2, Valse in c#; Valse in e, Op.posth.), but works such as the Polonaises (including Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise Brilliante, Op.22; Polonaise in Ab (Heroic), Op.53; Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op.61) and Mazurkas (from his Opus 24, No.1 in G; No.2 in C; No.3 in Ab; No.4 in Bb) are filled with a distillation of folk music and national pride.

Chopin's harmonic language is also completely original. Complex chromatic harmonies mingle with the droning fifths of folk music and the modal scales of Poland. The fifty-five Mazurkas are a microcosm of his style and within the repetition of a single dance form have something like the variety of the Well-Tempered Clavier.

For all his romanticism, Chopin's forms are abstract and have none of the literary references of a Schumann. Titles such as "Raindrop Prelude" were not his. Although the four Ballades, which are among his greatest works (No.1 in g, Op.23 ; No.2 in F, Op.38 ; No.3 in Ab, Op.47 ; and No.4 in f, Op.52), may have been inspired by poetry, they do not have any direct programmatic implications. Other important forms include Scherzos (No.2, Op.31; No.3, in C#), Etudes (Op.10; Op 25; Op. Posth.), and the Nocturnes (No.2 in Eb, Op.9 No.2; No.9 in B, Op.32 No.1; and No.17 in B, Op.62 No.1), which were inspired by the works of an Irishman, John Field. Chopin is one of the few greatest composers to be known primarily for his work for a solo instrument. His chamber music output was small and his only orchestral works were piano concertos (No.2 in f, Op.21: 1.Maestoso; 2.Larghetto; 3.Allegro vivace).

Chopin was probably one of the greatest and most refined pianists in history. His teaching advocated the Mozart tradition of playing in time with the left hand and freely with the right. Chopin's use of rubato must have been a miracle of subtlety and taste. His elaborate and virtuosic ornamentation is never displayed for its own sake and must always be treated poetically. Chopin's discovery of the piano's potential to inhabit a complete and poetic world of song and color set the standard for all piano writing of the latter part of the century. Only with Debussy, Prokofiev and Bartók do we finally have a departure from Chopin's domination of the medium.

Biography by Allen Krantz. Copyright © Classical Archives, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Chopin, Fryderyk (Franciszek Chopin) [Frédéric François Chopin], (b Zelazowa Wola, 1810; d Paris, 1849). Polish composer and pianist (Fr. father, Polish mother). Began pf. studies with Zywny 1816 and played conc. by Gyrowetz in Warsaw 1818, by then being a favourite in the aristocratic salons. In 1822 began studies in harmony and counterpoint with Józef Elsner, dir. of Warsaw Cons. In 1825 his Rondo in C minor was pubd. as Op.1, though it was far from being his first comp. The next year, entered Warsaw Cons. as full-time mus. student, leaving in 1829. While student, wrote Krakowiak Rondo. In 1829 comp. his conc. in F minor and gave 2 concerts in Vienna. Played the conc. in Warsaw twice in Mar. 1830 and later in year played E minor conc. Left home late in 1830, travelling via Dresden and Prague to Vienna and giving many concerts. In Stuttgart heard that the Russians had captured Warsaw. Arrived Paris Sept. 1831; became pf. teacher to aristocracy, gradually renouncing public career and concentrating on composing. Gave first Paris concert in Feb. 1832 and no other in which he was the principal performer until 1841—it is reckoned he gave barely 30 pub. perfs. in his whole career. Became friend of most of outstanding musicians of day. In an essay taking the form of a discussion between Florestan and Eusebius, Schumann hailed the Là ci darem variations, Op.2, with the words ‘Hats off, gentlemen! A new genius!’ In 1836 Chopin met Fr. novelist George Sand and lived with her 1838-47. From 1836 the first signs of the tuberculosis that was to kill him appeared and the rest of his life was a constant struggle with sickness. After break with George Sand, perf. his E minor conc. in Rouen in March 1848 but left for London after the revolution, in need of money. Gave concerts in Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London and returned to Paris to die in Oct. 1849.

Although Chopin's pf. mus. is beset with romantic stories and nicknames, he himself insisted on its existence only as absolute mus., hence the literal titles which refer only to mus. forms and are never picturesque, as in Schumann and Liszt. His own playing was both powerful and rhythmically subtle, with astonishing evenness of touch. Taking the name ‘nocturne’ from John Field, he transformed the form, as he did everything, by harmonic imagination and melodic distinction. There are bold, prophetic passages in his mus., ornamentation derived from his admiration for It. opera, and, in his Polish works such as the mazurkas and polonaises, a raw passion elemental in its strength. The Victorian conception of Chopin as a consumptive drawing-room balladeer of the kbd., a conception connived at by lesser pianists, has long been exposed as a false trail leading hearers away from the true, poetic, heroic Chopin. Prin. comps.:

PIANO SONATAS: C minor, Op.4 (1828); Bb minor, Op.35 (1839, Funeral March 1837); Bb minor, Op.58 (1844).

PIANO & ORCH.: conc. No.1 in E minor, Op.11 (1830); No.2 in F minor, Op.21 (1829-30); Variations on Là ci darem la mano, Op.2 (1827); Grande Fantaisie on Polish Airs, Op.13 (1828); Krakowiak Rondo, Op.14 (1828); Andante Spianato (1834); Grande Polonaise brillante in E flat, Op.22 (1830-1).

PIANO: Ballade in G minor, Op.23 (1831-5), in F major/A minor, Op.38 (1836-9), in Ab, Op.47 (1840-1), in F minor, Op.52 (1842); Scherzo in Bb minor, Op.20 (1831-2), in Bb minor/Db, Op.31 (1837), in C# minor, Op.39 (1839), in E, Op.54 (1842); 12 Études, Op.10 (1829-32), 12 Études, Op.25 (1832-6); 3 Nocturnes, Op.9 (1830-1), 3 Nocturnes, Op.15 (1830-3), 2 Nocturnes, Op.27 (1835), 2 Nocturnes, Op.32 (1836-7), 2 Nocturnes, Op.37 (1838-9), 2 Nocturnes, Op.48 (1841), 2 Nocturnes, Op.55 (1843), 2 Nocturnes, Op.62 (1846), 2 Nocturnes, Op.72 (1827, 1830); 24 Preludes, Op.28 (1836-9), Prelude in C# minor, Op.45 (1841); Valses, in Ab (1827), in E (1829), in Eb (1829-30), in E minor (1830), in Eb (1840), in Eb, Op.18 (1831), 3 Valses, Op.34 (1831-8), in Ab, Op.42 (1840), 3 Valses, Op.64 (1846-7), 2 Valses, Op.69 (1835, 1829), 3 Valses, Op.70 (1829-41); Polonaises, in G minor (1817), in Bb (1817), in Ab (1821), in G# (1822), 2 Polonaises, Op.26 (1834-5), 2 Polonaises, Op.40 (1838-9), Polonaise in F#, Op.44 (1840-1), Polonaise in Ab, Op.53 (1842), 3 Polonaises, Op.71 (1825-8); Polonaise Fantaisie in Ab, Op.61 (1845-6); 4 Mazurkas, Op.6 (1830), 5 Mazurkas, Op.7 (1831), 4 Mazurkas, Op.17 (1834), 4 Mazurkas, Op.24 (1834-5), 4 Mazurkas, Op.30 (1836-7), 4 Mazurkas, Op.33 (1837-8), 4 Mazurkas, Op.41 (1838-40), 3 Mazurkas, Op.50 (1842), 3 Mazurkas, Op.56 (1843), 3 Mazurkas, Op.59 (1845), 3 Mazurkas, Op.63 (1846), 4 Mazurkas, Op.67 (1835, 1846, 1849), 4 Mazurkas, Op.68 (1827-49); Berceuse, in Db, Op.57 (1843-4); Barcarolle in F#, Op.60 (1845-6); Boléro, Op.19 (1833); 3 Écossaises, Op.72 (1826); Fantasie in F minor, Op.49 (1841); Fantasie Impromptu in C# minor, Op.66 (1835); 3 Impromptus, Ab, Op.29 (1837), F#, Op.36 (1839), Gb, Op.51 (1842); Allegro de concert, Op.46 (1832-41); Tarantelle in Ab, Op.43 (1841). 2 PIANOS: Rondo in C, Op.73 (1828).

CHAMBER MUSIC: piano trio in G minor, Op.8 (1828-9); vc. sonata in G minor, Op.65 (1845-6); Introduction and Polonaise in C, vc. and pf., Op.3 (1829-30); Grand Duo in E on themes from Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, vc. and pf. (1832).

SONGS: 17 Polish Songs (1829-47).

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