Chopin
Portrait of Chopin by Eugène Delacroix (1838)
In this bibliography, I will
discuss Chopin, his life span and nationality,
and the historical period of his
performance. I will address his types of
major works and titles and discuss his
major contributions to music.
Additionally, I will touch upon his early works,
his dedications and his
teachings. Frédéric François Chopin, (1810-1849),
Polish composer and
pianist of the romantic era, regarded by some as the
greatest of all
composers of music for the piano. Born Fryderyk Chopin in
Zelazowa Wola,
near Warsaw. His father was French and his mother was Polish. He
preferred to
use the French name Frédéric. He began to study the piano at the
age of four,
and he played at a private concert in Warsaw when he was eight
years old.
Later he studied harmony and counterpoint at the Warsaw
Conservatory.
Chopin was also advanced as a composer: His first published
composition is dated
1817. He gave his first concerts as a piano virtuoso
in 1829 in Vienna, where he
lived for the next two years. After 1831, except
for brief absences, Chopin
lived in Paris, where he became noted as a
pianist, teacher, and composer. He
formed an intimate relationship in 1837
with French writer George Sand. In 1838
Chopin began to suffer from
tuberculosis and Sand nursed him in Mallorca, in the
Balearic Islands,
and in France until continued differences between the two
resulted in an
estrangement in 1847. Thereafter his musical activity was limited
to giving
several concerts in 1848 in France, Scotland, and England. The 1830s
have
been called "the decade of the piano" because the piano and the
music written
for it played a dominant role in European musical culture. As
the
Industrial Revolution hit, piano manufacturers developed methods for
building
many more pianos at lower cost. Pianos ceased to be the exclusively
for the
wealthy. Middle class could also own them and make music at home.
Thousands of
amateur pianists began to take lessons, buy printed music, and
attend concerts.
Chopin's piano playing was highly regarded by other
virtuosos and was in great
demand from professional and amateur musicians
alike. Unlike the other
composer-pianists of his time, Chopin rarely gave
public concerts; his
performing was generally confined to the homes of
wealthy aristocrats and
businessmen. Public awareness of Chopin's music came
about primarily through its
publication, and the process of putting his works
into print. However, this was
not simply a matter of converting his
manuscripts into printed form. Chopin felt
that many performance details,
such as phrasing, dynamics, pedaling, and
articulation, were not fixed
elements of his music, even though they have a
substantial impact on the way
it sounds. He was inconsistent about including
performing instructions in his
manuscripts, and when publishers asked him to
supply them at the proof stage,
he often changed his mind several times. Nearly
all of Chopin's compositions
were for piano. Although a refugee, he was deeply
loyal to his war-torn
homeland, his mazurkas reflect the rhythms and melodic
traits of Polish folk
music, and his polonaises contain a heroic spirit. Italian
opera composer
Vincenzo Bellini also influenced his melodies. His ballads,
scherzos, and
études exemplify his large-scale works for solo piano. His music,
which is
romantic and lyrical in nature, is characterized by great originality
of
melody, refined and often adventurous harmony, subtle rhythm, and
poetic
beauty. Chopin greatly influenced other composers, such as the
Hungarian pianist
and composer Franz Liszt, German composer Richard Wagner,
and French composer
Claude Debussy. Chopin's many published compositions
include 55 mazurkas, 27 études,
24 preludes, 19 nocturnes, 13 polonaises,
and 3 piano sonatas. Among his other
works are the Concertos in E minor and
in F minor, both for piano and orchestra,
the cello sonata, and 17 songs.
Among Chopin's most individual works are the Préludes.
Intended to serve
as beginnings to an intimate recital, these pieces range from
tender
melancholy to the dramatic of the stormy Prelude in D minor. Many
of
Chopin's most beautiful compositions come from the series of short,
reflective
pieces he called Nocturnes. As can be heard in the Nocturne in
F-sharp, these
works are usually gentle and dreamlike with a flowing, rocking
bass, and aptly
demonstrate Chopin's preconception for sweet, song-like
melodies, very much in
the style of Italian bel canto opera of the period.
The publication of Chopin's
early works. Chopin first achieved fame as a
child prodigy in his native Poland,
and a few of his works were published in
Warsaw as early as 1817, when he was
only eight years old. He continued to
compose throughout his student years, but
only a handful of these works were
printed. Polish editions were not widely
distributed and are now quite rare.
When Chopin attained prominence in Paris
during the early 1830s, he allowed a
few of his early works (the Rondos, opp. 1
and 5) to be reissued by French,
German, and English publishers, but he made no
further effort to revive the
other music he had composed before 1828. These
works stayed in manuscript
until after his death and have been trickling into
print from widely
scattered sources ever since. Chopin's Dedications Like other
young
composers, Chopin dedicated his early Parisian publications to
well-known
composer-pianists or well-to-do patrons of the arts who were in a
position to
provide recommendations, commissions, or employment
opportunities. More
generally, by associating himself with famous musicians
and wealthy lovers of
music, Chopin enhanced public estimation of his own
music. Publishers recognized
the value of these associations for their sales
and prominently displayed the
names of dedicatees on title pages. After
Chopin became famous, however, most of
his dedications were to personal
friends. Many of these were still members of
high society, since that was the
circle in which Chopin moved, but there is
little to suggest that he felt the
need to court favor. In many cases, he seems
to have been very casual about
selecting dedicatees, often making up his mind or
changing it at the last
minute. Chopin dedicated a significant number of works
to his students,
ranging from aristocratic ladies to professional pianists
like
Friedericke Müller. It is curious that Chopin did not dedicate
published works
to either of the two known loves of his life, Maria Wodzinska
(1819-1896) and
George Sand (1804-1876). Chopin had known the Wodzinski
family since childhood
and fell in love with Maria in 1835, when she was
sixteen. He proposed, but her
family did not approve, probably because of his
chronic ill health. He inscribed
a manuscript of the Waltz, op. 69, no. 1 to
Maria during their courtship, but
the work was not published during his
lifetime. In later years he did not
hesitate to dedicate copies of it to
other ladies. Chopin lived with novelist
George Sand for nine years
(1838-1847) and their relationship was common
knowledge among members of
Paris society, but Chopin may have felt that a public
dedication stretched
the bounds of propriety. Chopin's teaching Chopin took his
piano teaching
very seriously. In the early 1840s, he even sketched the
beginnings of a
method for playing the instrument, but this project was never
completed.
Chopin taught music written by a variety of composers, of whom
Johann
Sebastian Bach was particularly prominent. His students cherished
the
opportunity to study the master's own works with him. During lessons, he
and his
students frequently wrote instructions concerning performance in the
students'
printed copies of his music. Most of these were fingerings, with
occasional
details of dynamics, articulation, and phrasing. The markings were
primarily
educational and tailored to the needs of individual students. From
time to time,
however, Chopin also altered pitches, redistributed chords, and
even completely
rewrote ornamental passagework, changes that are not found in
any other early
sources. Controversy continues over whether these annotations
reflect Chopin's
final revisions of his music or spur-of-the-moment changes
that were never
intended to have any permanent validity. Chopin was certainly
considered one of
the great pianists/composers of our time. He has
contributed much to the music
world. He was nominated the "Composer of the
Year" by the Morrison
Foundation for Music Research, Inc. in 1999, the
50th anniversary of his death.
References: "Chopin, Frederic Francois,
"Microsoft Encarta Online
Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com
Chopin, Frederick, Chicago University
Library, Music Exhibit
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu.com Chopin, Princeton
University
http://www.princeton.edu.com Chopin, Composer of the Year,
1999
http://www.morrisonfoundation.org The Morrison Foundation's - Composer
of the
Year (1849-1999)
Bibliography
References: "Chopin,
Frederic Francois, "Microsoft Encarta Online
Encyclopedia 2000
http://encarta.msn.com Chopin, Frederick, Chicago University
Library,
Music Exhibit http://www.lib.uchicago.edu.com Chopin,
Princeton
University http://www.princeton.edu.com Chopin, Composer of the
Year, 1999
http://www.morrisonfoundation.org The Morrison Foundation's -
Composer of the
Year
(1849-1999)