Frédéric François Chopin (1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano.
He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation".
All of Chopin's compositions include the piano.
Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some 19 songs set to Polish lyrics.
His piano writing was technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument, his own performances noted for their nuance and sensitivity.
His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade (which Chopin created as an instrumental genre), études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes, and sonatas, some published only posthumously.
Maria Wodzińska | Portrait of Frédéric Chopin, 1836 | National Museum Warsaw
Among the influences on his style of composition were Polish folk music, the classical tradition of J. S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert, and the atmosphere of the Paris salons of which he was a frequent guest.
His innovations in style, harmony, and musical form, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period.
Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest celebrities, his indirect association with political insurrection, his high-profile love-life, and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying historical fidelity.
• "Time is still the best critic, and patience the best teacher".
• "Il tempo è ancora il miglior critico e la pazienza ll migliore insegnante".
• "Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art".
• "La semplicità è il risultato finale. Dopo aver suonato una grande quantità di note e più note, è la semplicità che emerge come il coronamento dell'arte".
Watercolor portrait of Polish composer Frederic Chopin was painted by then-16-year-old Maria Wodzińska (1819-96).
The artist and her sitter became engaged the following year but never married each other.
The portrait is described in Tad Szulc's book "Chopin in Paris" as "one of the best portraits of Chopin extant--after that by Delacroix--with the composer looking relaxed, pensive, and at peace".
• "Ogni difficoltà trascurata sarà un fantasma che più tardi disturba il tuo riposo".
• "Berlioz compone schizzando l'inchiostro sullo spartito e lasciando il risultato al caso".
• "Non c'è niente di più odioso della musica senza un significato nascosto".
• "La tristezza mi ha preso - perché? Neppure la musica oggi mi consola - è già notte tarda, e non ho voglia di dormire; non so cosa mi manca - e ho già più di vent'anni".
• "Chi non sa ridere non è una persona seria. Buffone è chi non ride mai".
• "Tutta la teoria dello stile riposa sull'analogia della musica col linguaggio parlato, sulla necessità di separare le differenti frasi, di punteggiare e di dare gradazione alla forza ed alla celerità dei suoni".
• "Bach è un astronomo che ha scoperto le stelle più belle. Beethoven si misura con l'universo. Io cerco solo di esprimere il cuore e l'anima dell'uomo".
• "[A Franz Liszt] Non sono fatto per i concerti. La folla mi fa paura, mi sento paralizzato da quegli sguardi curiosi, ammutolito da quei visi estranei. Dare concerti invece è affare vostro poiché se non vincete il vostro pubblico avete tanta forza d'accopparlo…"
• "[Ultime parole] Poiché la terra mi soffocherà, vi scongiuro di fare aprire il mio corpo perché non sia sepolto vivo".
• "As this earth will suffocate me, I implore you to have my body opened so that I will not be buried alive".
• "I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them".
• "Vorrei poter scacciare i pensieri che avvelenano la mia felicità, ma provo una specie di piacere nell'assecondarli".
• "Berlioz compone schizzando l'inchiostro sullo spartito e lasciando il risultato al caso".
• "[A Delfina Potocka] È dunque per questo che Dio tardava tanto a chiamarmi a Lui? Ha voluto lasciarmi ancora il piacere di vedervi".
• "Se questa Londra non fosse così nera, e la sua gente così pesante, se non ci fosse quest'odore di carbone e nemmeno questa nebbia, mi metterei persino a studiare l'inglese".
Eugène Delacroix | Portrait of Frédéric Chopin, 1838 | Musée du Louvre
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, anche noto con il nome francesizzato di Frédéric François Chopin (1810–1849), è stato un compositore e pianista Polacco.
Fu uno dei più importanti compositori del periodo romantico, talvolta definito «poeta del pianoforte», il cui "genio poetico" è basato su una tecnica professionale che è "senza eguali nella sua generazione".
Gran parte delle composizioni di Chopin vennero scritte per pianoforte solista; le uniche significative eccezioni sono i due concerti, quattro ulteriori composizioni per pianoforte e orchestra, e la Sonata op. 65 per pianoforte e violoncello.
Scrisse anche alcune composizioni di musica da camera e diverse canzoni su testi polacchi. Il suo stile pianistico fu altamente individuale e spesso tecnicamente impegnativo, ma mantenendo sempre le giuste sfumature e una profondità espressiva. Egli inventò la forma musicale nota come ballata strumentale e addusse innovazioni ragguardevoli alla sonata per pianoforte, alla mazurca, al valzer, al notturno, alla polonaise, allo studio, all'improvviso, allo scherzo ed al preludio.
Le influenze sul suo stile compositivo includono la musica popolare polacca, la tradizione classica di Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven e Franz Schubert, come quella dei salotti parigini dove era ospite frequente.
Le sue innovazioni nello stile, nella forma musicale e nell'armonia e la sua associazione della musica con il nazionalismo, sono stati influenti in tutto il periodo romantico e anche successivamente.
Il suo successo universale come compositore, la sua associazione (anche se solo indiretta) con l'insurrezione polacca, la sua vita sentimentale e la morte precoce hanno fatto diventare Chopin "il musicista romantico per eccellenza".
È stato soggetto di numerosi film e biografie con diversi livelli di accuratezza storica.
• [Murmured by Chopin on his death-bed] "Play Mozart in memory of me - and I will hear you".
• [Mormorato da Chopin sul letto di morte] "Suona Mozart in mia memoria e ti ascolterò".
• "Ogni nota più lunga delle altre è al tempo stesso più forte; mentre la nota di minor durata richiede meno forza, appunto come le sillabe lunghe e le brevi dei versi ritmati. La nota più elevata in una melodia o una nota che forma dissonanza è altresì la più forte.".
about life and philosophy
• "When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher".
• "Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on".
• "I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them".
• "Sometimes I can only groan, suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!"
• "Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!"
• "It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you".
• "I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself".
• "I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness.."
• "If I were still stupider than I am, I should think myself at the apex of my career; yet I know how much I still lack, to reach perfection; I see it the more clearly now that I live only among first-rank artists and know what each one of them lacks".
• "Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess)".
• "I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me".
about concerts and performance
• "Yesterday's concert was a success. I hasten to let you know. I inform your Lordship that I was not a bit nervous and played as I play when I am alone. It went well... and I had to come back and bow four times".
• "All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here".
• "They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me".
• "There are certain times when I feel more inspired, filled with a strong power that forces me to listen to my inner voice, and when I feel more need than ever for a Pleyel piano".
• "A strange adventure befell me while I was playing my Sonata in B flat minor before some English friends. I had played the Allegro and the Scherzo more or less correctly. I was about to attack the March when suddenly I saw arising from the body of my piano those cursed creatures which had appeared to me one lugubrious night at the Chartreuse. I had to leave for one instant to pull myself together after which I continued without saying anything".
• "One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to achieve certain unlimited dexterity. A well formed technique, it seems to me, can control and vary a beautiful sound quality".".
about places and people
• "I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi".
• "I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.."
• "I have met a great celebrity, Madame Dudevant, known as George Sand... Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me... What an unattractive person La Sand is... Is she really a woman? I'm inclined to doubt it".
• "The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles should be as proud of me as the Germans are of Mozart; obvious nonsense".
• "I don't know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about".
• "Among the numerous pleasures of Vienna the hotel evenings are famous. During supper Strauss or Lanner play waltzes...After every waltz they get huge applause; and if they play a Quodlibet, or jumble of opera, song and dance, the hearers are so overjoyed that they don't know what to do with themselves. It shows the corrupt taste of the Viennese public".
• "Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed".
• "Kalkbrenner has made me an offer; that I should study with him for three years, and he will make something really - really out of me. I answered that I know how much I lack; but that I cannot exploit him, and three years is too much. But he has convinced me that I can play admirably when I am in the mood, and badly when I am not; a thing which never happens to him. After close examination he told me that I have no school; that I am on an excellent road, but can slip off the track. That after his death, or when he finally stops playing, there will be no representative of the great piano-forte school. That even if I wish it, I cannot build up a new school without knowing the old one; in a word : that I am not a perfected machine, and that this hampers the flow of my thoughts. That I have a mark in composition; that it would be a pity not to become what I have the promise of being.."
• "It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place".
• "After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine.."
• "England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere".
• "Here, whatever is not boring is not English".
• "My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos... in this respect this is a savage country".
• "England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music.."
about health and death
• "My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot, for I am covered with poultices".
• "How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life.... Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!... Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? ... But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state.."
• "The three most celebrated doctors on the island have been to see me. One sniffed at what I spat, the second tapped where I spat from, and the third sounded me and listened as I spat. The first said I was dead, the second that I was dying and the third that I'm going to die".
• "The earth is suffocating... As this cough will choke me, I implore you to have my body opened, so that I may not be buried alive".".
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