|
A biography of Chopin
- Chopin
is remembered today as the composer of some of the most challenging and
subjective music in the whole of the keyboard repertoire. A Pole who spent
his mature years in France, he brought to his music a keen interest in
his native musical forms and was a precursor of the 'nationalist' composers
who did so much to bring new life to Classical music during the course
of the 19th century.
- Chopin was another of the blighted Romantic generation who was doomed
to die young through physical infirmity; in his case it was not syphilis
which claimed Schubert and Schumann. but tuberculosis which also killed
Weber. Fr�d�ric was the only boy of four children born to Nicholas Chopin,
a professor of French at Warsaw Lyceum, and his wife Justine. His father
taught him until he was old enough to go to the Lyceum, but his musical
proclivities manifested themselves early and at the age of seven he began
piano lessons with Adalbert Zywny. The lessons were so successful that
the young boy played at a public concert before he was nine. He also wrote
a little march for the Russian Grand Duke Constantine, who not only accepted
the dedication but had the work scored for military band.
- At the age of 16 Chopin entered Warsaw Conservatory where he was taught
by the composer Joseph Elsener. Elsener was helpful in a number of ways,
but two in particular: he taught Chopin the value of sheer hard work,
and ignited in him a passionate interest in the music and culture of Poland;
the latter was to become especially significant to Chopin later in life.
By 1828 his student days were over and he departed for Berlin, where he
heard a series of new operas and also caught glimpses of musical personalities
such as Spontini (then very fashionable) and Mendelssohn (only 20 at the
time but already making his way). Duly inspired, he travelled to Vienna
where a Count Gallenberg, apprised of his abilities, had organized two
concerts. These went well, and this early success was enough to convince
Chopin that he could earn his living as a travelling virtuoso.
- Returning to Warsaw, Chopin lost his heart to a Conservatory student,
Constantia Gladkowska. It is believed that his feelings for her inspired
the beautiful slow movement of the F minor Piano Concerto (called No.
2, although written prior to No. 1). Whatever the emotional reasons for
this work, it is true to say that both concertos were written to satisfy
the young virtuoso's need for concert works to play while establishing
himself as an international performer. In late 1830 he embarked on an
extensive tour which took him to various German towns, then on to Prague,
Vienna, Munich and finally to Paris, where he arrived in 1831. The tour
had not been financially rewarding, but it had at least kept him away
from the ferment of the Polish uprising of 1831 which at one point he
was tempted to join, but the brutal Russian response persuaded him to
keep clear of his homeland for a while.
- In his music he poured out his reaction to what was happening to Poland,
especially in the Etude in C minor, Op. 10, No 12. Paris was receptive
to a gifted Pole at such a time, and Chopin quickly met the cream of Parisian
musical life, including Cherubini, Meyerbeer and Liszt. At his first concert,
at which he played his Concerto for Piano in F minor, Mendelssohn led
the way by applauding with great enthusiasm. But Chopin's style of playing
was not generally delivered with sufficient bravura to set the Parisian
audiences alight. It was not until the intervention of the Rothschild
family, offering him tutoring work and engagements for private functions,
that he earned sufficient income to spend the majority of his time composing.
In the year that followed he gradually began to acquire a reputation in
both France and Germany, and his works�waltzes, mazurkas, etudes and preludes,
as well as other keyboard pieces�began to receive regular publication.
- Chopin remained single, although an affair with Marie, daughter of Count
Wodzinski, was terminated by her parents only after a prolonged attempt
by the couple to win them over. One of the Wodzinski's reasons for discouraging
the match was Chopin's already poor state of health. In July 1837 he visited
England to obtain professional advice on his condition; the prognosis
was not good, and Chopin returned to Paris with a good idea of what ailed
him: he had consumption.
- Prior to his London visit, Chopin had been introduced by Liszt to the
fashionable and free-thinking novelist George Sand, a woman of generally
gargantuan appetites. On Chopin's return to Paris the two began an affair
which would last for a decade and was characterized by violent emotional
storms and constant jealousy on Chopin's part. A woman of resource and
experience, Sand had already been married and separated, and for her Chopin
was the latest affair. In late 1839 she persuaded him to escape Paris
with her and winter in Majorca. While this adventure began happily enough,
things began to unravel as winter arrived in earnest and Chopin fell seriously
ill. Due to Chopin's illness, they were asked to leave their comfortable
apartments, finding refuge in a damp, cold monastery. Sand, with a family
of her own to support, tended to the sick composer and managed to get
him back to Marseilles, where she arranged for the best doctors available
to aid his recovery. From Marseilles they moved to Sand's country house
at Nohant, where Chopin put the finishing touches to his 24 Preludes and
the famous Sonata for Piano No. 2 in B flat minor into which he interpolated
an earlier funeral march; such was his state of mind at the time.
- For the next few years Chopin's life revolved around George Sand and
the company she kept: whether they were in Paris or spending their summers
at Nohant, Chopin either composed or spent as much time with Sand as she
was prepared to give him. This should have sounded warning bells to the
increasingly dependent Chopin, but if they tolled, he did not hear them.
Sand was bound to tire of such dependency, and by the mid-1840s the danger
signs were multiplying. Sand wanted her freedom once more, and although
she still admired him, he no longer stimulated her. He never felt completely
at ease with her children, and grew increasingly unwilling to share her
with them. One of the characters in her novel Lucrezia Floriani
was a Polish prince by the name of Karol; a thinly-disguised portrait
of Chopin, it was almost entirely unflattering, and gave the distinct
impression that Sand was looking for an excuse to break with Chopin long
before the series of quarrels in 1847 which finally drove them apart.
The novel was published soon after their separation, causing the ailing
man considerable distress.
- Such turmoil did not improve his state of health; when his Sonata for
Cello and Piano Op. 65 was published, it was not hard to believe that
it would be the last work published in his lifetime. The following February
he gave what proved to be his final Paris concert. With the outbreak of
the revolution in 1848, he hastily left for London. Although a tour of
Britain was organized for him with every good intention, it clearly overtaxed
his waning strength, and when he reached Scotland in October, he collapsed
and took to his bed. He was tended closely by friends and admirers, and
his journey back to Paris was arranged with every consideration. He arrived
in the French capital in November, low in spirits and unable to rally
his strength. Although he continued to plan new works, he no longer had
the strength to compose the music which had given his life its shape and
meaning. He survived into the summer of 1849, but the arrival of autumn
and the cold weather brought about the final collapse, and he died that
October. At his funeral in the Chapelle de la Madeleine, Mozart's Requiem
was performed, as he had requested.
- Chopin's legacy consists almost entirely of works for the piano. The
instrument was everything to him, and he found previously undreamt of
levels of subtlety and expression within its keys. He was acknowledged
as a virtuoso, but one who had a very distinctive style, concentrating
on delicacy of touch and extreme variations of dynamics and colour. He
was singularly gifted in the realm of melody, and was also a key figure
in the popularizing of the polonaise, mazurka and other dance rhythms
which was to lead many other composers to listen closely to the music
of their own countries. Chopin's music is mercurial, and can move from
the dreaminess of the nocturnes to the fire and spirit of the ballades
and polonaises, the elegance and dash of his waltzes to the brutal emotional
realism of his sonatas. His output was relatively slim, and of his orchestral
works only the two piano concertos have held their place in the popular
repertoire, but the diversity and variety of his keyboard achievements,
and the phenomenal technical challenges set by his solo pieces, have given
him a special place in the development of music.
|
