Here Comes Treble: Fascinating Frédéric
Musician and writer Isabel Bradley tells of the life of the great composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth.
According to his family, Frédéric Chopin was born on 1 March 1810. According to his baptismal certificate, however, he was born on 22 February. Whichever date is correct, 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth and many classical music concerts world-wide have contained Chopin’s works, or references to Chopin, in celebration.
Though he was born in Poland, Chopin lived about half of his life in France, thus both Poland and France claim him as their own.
Frédéric’s father, Nicolas, was from Lorraine in France, but he moved to Poland at the age of 16. He took the Polish form of his name, Mikolaj, and married Tekla Justyna Krzyzanowska, a Polish housekeeper to Count Skarbek and his family. Mikolaj tutored the Skarbek children, and the four Chopin children, of whom Frédéric was the second and the only son, were born at the manor house.
Shortly after Frédéric’s birth, the family moved to Warsaw. His childhood was that of a prodigy, his musical talents having been discovered early. From the age of 13, he attended the Warsaw Lyceum, spending summers with friends in various parts of Poland. While in the countryside, he absorbed the tunes and texts of folk songs, took part in peasant festivals, and danced and played in folk ensembles. The dances and music of the Polish plains, their tonality and exciting rhythms, became ingrained in his psyche, forming the basis of his compositions throughout his life.
From 1826, he studied at the Warsaw High School of music, which was part of the Conservatory and of the University. The head of the school was Józef Elsner, whose teaching gave Chopin’s composition a solid foundation of discipline, precise construction, and ‘an understanding of the meaning and logic of each note’. Chopin’s first extended works were written during this time.
After his formal education ended in 1829, Chopin travelled to Berlin and Vienna, performing and composing etudes, waltzes, mazurkas, songs and nocturnes. While in Vienna, there was an uprising in Warsaw, the people protesting against the rule in Poland of the Russian Tsar.
Changing plans to travel to Italy because of the unrest in that country, he moved to Paris. Chopin never returned to Poland, though his emotional ties to that country remained strong throughout his life. He became a political refugee, taking on the status of an émigré. He only saw his parents and sisters when they left Poland, and was, to all intents and purposes, cut off from his homeland.
Chopin earned his living in Paris by teaching the offspring of the aristocracy. He enjoyed a brief engagement to a young Polish friend of the family, Maria Wodzinski, but her parents disapproved and eventually broke the engagement, fearing that Frédéric’s health was too precarious to give their daughter a secure future.
After a trip to London with his close friend, piano-manufacturer Camille Pleyel in 1837, Chopin returned to France where he met the famous author, George Sand. This eccentric lady, who insisted on dressing in men’s clothing, was six years older than him, legally separated from her husband and had two children. Chopin and Sand became lovers, an intense liaison which lasted ten years. Their relationship brought Chopin comfort, passion, joy and security, and nurtured his musical inspiration. In 1847, however, George Sand ended the affair. Chopin was emotionally devastated and his health deteriorated.
In spite of increasingly bad health, he went to England and Scotland, where the strain of touring and performing combined with cold, damp weather to weaken him further. His last concert was given at the Guildhall in London, performing for Polish émigrés.
When Chopin, by now very ill, returned to Paris, his older sister, Ludwika, travelled from Warsaw to care for him. On 17 October 1849, Chopin died of pulmonary tuberculosis in his flat in the Place Vendôme. His body is buried in the Pčre-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. His sister, honouring his will, had his heart removed before his burial. She took it to Warsaw, where it is installed in an urn in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church in Krakoskie Przedmiscie.
Until next time…. ‘here comes Treble!’
References: http://www.ourchopin.com/biography.html
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by Isabel Bradley
