Chopin : the Man and His Music
- Pages
- about 279
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5.1 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
Gustave Flaubert, pessimist and master of cadenced lyric prose, urged
young writers to lead ascetic lives that in their art they might be
violent. Chopin's violence was psychic, a travailing and groaning of
the spirit; the bright roughness of adventure was missing from his
quotidian existence. The tragedy was within. One recalls Maurice
Maeterlinck: "Whereas most of our life is passed far from blood, cries
and swords, and the tears of men have become silent, invisible and
almost spiritual." Chopin went from Poland to France--from Warsaw to
Paris--where, finally, he was borne to his grave in Pere la Chaise. He
lived, loved and died; and not for him were the perils, prizes and
fascinations of a hero's career. He fought his battles within the walls
of his soul--we may note and enjoy them in his music. His outward state
was not niggardly of incident though his inner life was richer,
nourished as it was in the silence and the profound unrest of a being
that irritably resented every intrusion. There were events that left
ineradicable impressions upon his nature, upon his work: his early
love, his sorrow at parting from parents and home, the shock of the
Warsaw revolt, his passion for George Sand, the death of his father and
of his friend Matuszynski, and the rupture with Madame Sand--these were
crises of his history. All else was but an indeterminate factor in the
scheme of his earthly sojourn. Chopin though not an anchorite resembled
Flaubert, being both proud and timid; he led a detached life, hence his
art was bold and violent. Unlike Liszt he seldom sought the glamor of
the theatre, and was never in such public view as his maternal admirer,
Sand. He was Frederic Francois Chopin, composer, teacher of piano and a
lyric genius of the highest range.
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