Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Subject: COMPOSER F CHOPIN
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Nov 22 - 12:47 PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fdyy

Subject: RE: COMPOSER F CHOPIN
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Nov 22 - 12:50 PM

Released On: 28 Nov 2022
Available for 29 days

Donald Macleod examines Liszt’s role in Chopin’s first meetings with the novelist George Sand, and explores how their relationship almost led to the composer being killed.

Early in 1837, Franz Liszt introduced Chopin to a woman who would have a profound influence on his life. Her name was George Sand and Chopin’s relationship with the novelist would go on to stretch for almost a decade and prove to be the longest romantic bond of the composer’s life, and a defining creative relationship for both of them. Over the course of this week, Donald Macleod explores the intertwined lives of these two key figures in French romantic-era life.

In Monday’s episode, Donald examines Liszt’s role in Chopin’s first meetings with George Sand. Initially, Chopin was repulsed by the notorious cigar-smoking, trouser-wearing novelist, but the pair eventually formed a romantic relationship which would last for nine years. Donald also explores how the beginning of their relationship sparked an incident which almost led to the composer being killed.

Impromptu No 1 in A flat major, Op.29
Murray Perahia, piano

Piano Concerto no 2 in F minor, Op.21 – I. Moderato
Martha Argerich, piano
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Charles Dutoit, conductor

6 Polish Songs – Narzecczony (The bridegroom)
Luiza Borac, piano

Ballade No 1 in G minor, Op.23
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano

17 Polish Songs, Op 74: no.5 ‘What She Likes’; no.12 ‘My Darling'
Elzbieta Szmytka, soprano
Malcolm Martineau, piano

Etudes, Op.25 nos 1-6
Jan Lisiecki, piano

Producer: Sam Phillips
More episodes
Programme Website

Subject: RE: COMPOSER F CHOPIN
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 22 - 01:00 PM

Aurore Dudevant used the pen name "George Sand." She was quite a remarkable woman, and deserves an examination of her life in which Liszt and Chopin are the footnotes.

Subject: RE: COMPOSER F CHOPIN
From: gillymor
Date: 28 Nov 22 - 04:37 PM

Brings to mind that excellent Masterpiece Theater mini-series Notorious Woman (probably a BBC production) starring Rosemary Harris as Sand with Chopin and Liszt as side characters. It would be cool to see a remake of that.

Subject: RE: COMPOSER Frederic CHOPIN
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Nov 22 - 10:03 PM

Yes! That was my first introduction to her.

Subject: RE: COMPOSER Frederic CHOPIN
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 01:15 AM

Like her great-grandmother, Louise Dupin, whom she admired, George Sand stood up for women, advocated passion, castigated marriage and fought against the prejudices of a conservative society.

Subject: RE: COMPOSER Frederic CHOPIN
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 04:32 AM

from wiki
George Sand
Chopin at 28, from Delacroix's joint portrait of Chopin and Sand, 1838

In 1836, at a party hosted by Marie d'Agoult, Chopin met the French author George Sand (born [Amantine] Aurore [Lucile] Dupin). Short (under five feet, or 152 cm), dark, big-eyed and a cigar smoker,[75] she initially repelled Chopin, who remarked, "What an unattractive person la Sand is. Is she really a woman?"[76] However, by early 1837 Maria Wodzinska's mother had made it clear to Chopin in correspondence that a marriage with her daughter was unlikely to proceed.[77] It is thought that she was influenced by his poor health and possibly also by rumours about his associations with women such as d'Agoult and Sand.[78] Chopin finally placed the letters from Maria and her mother in a package on which he wrote, in Polish, "My Sorrow".[79] Sand, in a letter to Grzymala of June 1838, admitted strong feelings for the composer and debated whether to abandon a current affair in order to begin a relationship with Chopin; she asked Grzymala to assess Chopin's relationship with Maria Wodzinska, without realising that the affair, at least from Maria's side, was over.[80]

In June 1837 Chopin visited London incognito in the company of the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel, where he played at a musical soirée at the house of English piano maker James Broadwood.[81] On his return to Paris his association with Sand began in earnest, and by the end of June 1838 they had become lovers.[82] Sand, who was six years older than the composer and had had a series of lovers, wrote at this time: "I must say I was confused and amazed at the effect this little creature had on me ... I have still not recovered from my astonishment, and if I were a proud person I should be feeling humiliated at having been carried away ..."[83] The two spent a miserable winter on Majorca (8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839), where, together with Sand's two children, they had journeyed in the hope of improving Chopin's health and that of Sand's 15-year-old son Maurice, and also to escape the threats of Sand's former lover Félicien Mallefille.[84] After discovering that the couple were not married, the deeply traditional Catholic people of Majorca became inhospitable,[85] making accommodation difficult to find. This compelled the group to take lodgings in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, which gave little shelter from the cold winter weather.[82]

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 05:51 AM

I don't really think of the piano and Poland together, but I can't think of any more remarkable pianists than Chopin and Paderewski (1860-1941). Paderewski was also a very important part of the political history of Poland.

There's an interesting NPR presentation on Chopin at https://www.npr.org/2011/07/18/123967818/the-life-and-music-of-frederic-chopin

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: DaveRo
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 06:11 AM

I listened recently - on BBC Radio 3 - to a recital on Chopin's own piano

Earlier this year, Alexander Gadjiev joined his fellow Radio 3 New Generation Artists, the period instrument Consone Quartet to realise his dream of playing Chopin on the composer's own 1848 Pleyel piano. Chopin is known to have preferred the soft-voiced Pleyel pianos above all others, describing them as, “the last word in perfection.” It is very likely that this instrument was the one he had kept at his salon at the Square d’Orléans, Paris before bringing it to England in 1848. The piano now forms part of the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands Park in Surrey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001dfzp
(3 days left to listen!)

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 10:26 AM

It may take some digging to confirm or debunk, but years ago I learned that Chopin was responsible for the invention and inclusion of the (Sostenuto) pedal on pianos. If you have three pedals, it is the middle one. My 1885 Weber upright grand only has two, but the early twentieth century piano (I don't remember the make) I grew up with had three.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: gillymor
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 12:10 PM

The guy wrote one of my favorite piano pieces-Barcarolle in F Major

That's an interesting show DaveRo, thanks for the link.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 01:23 PM

I have to confess that I've never quite got my head around Chopin. There's something a bit solitary and un-warm about his music to me. Very subjective, of course. I have a vinyl record of Vladimir Ashkenazy playing the B flat minor sonata which is super-thrilling. On the other hand, I don't get the two piano concertos at all. There's something bleak about the orchestration (to me). I have a recording of the Waltzes that I used to love, played by Dinu Lipatti, who died tragically young before I was born (I can't play vinyl at the moment).

I absolutely can't listen to Liszt at all. I find his music to be empty and egotistical. Shoot!

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Dec 22 - 10:23 AM

Sand/Dupin was an important folk music collector. The "Bourree Aurore Sand" that she published is still played a lot in the balfolk scene. Dunno if all her folk music work has been published in convenient form - if not it should be.

Chopin complained that people kept appreciating his music for all the wrong reasons. What he was most proud of was the rhythmical structures he managed to pull off - complex multilayered textures with several different pulses going on at once. Listen to ALL the notes and you'll get it.

I have ended up with an enormous collection of Chopin interpretations by different players, there are so many different ways to look at it. There are several versions using instruments from his own time including a wonderful large set from the National Frederick Chopin Institute in Poland and I think recordings on his own piano were first done 10 or more years ago. The piano concertos also have some very different versions, my fave is Zimerman's where he conducts from the piano as Chopin would have done.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Dec 22 - 10:42 AM

When I was a piano student, Chopin scared me. I was afraid to play his music.
For me it is Chopin's combination of athleticism and emotionality that frightened me.
Also Chopin contributed hugely to the 19th century culture of pianists as competitors and musical athletes, and that circus atmosphere of piano competitions is one I always hated.

Steve, I don't know if you can find Rosina Lhevinne's recording of the first piano concerto of Chopin. She makes it sound like Mozart -- hard to say how -- it's crystalline and charming. Very different than the driven athletic competitor types.

Steve, another thought:
what do you make of Chopin's Mazurkas?
Pianists from Rubinstein to Horowitz have played the Mazurkas with tender loving care.
I think they are gorgeous.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Dec 22 - 11:13 AM

Bourree Aurore Sand

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 12:29 AM

I read a book about Chopin's life, and I just heard two of his etudes performed by an excellent pianist. Chopin had a problem, and a source of real misery. He could make up music that that creative, sumptuous and complicated, but writing it down was a terrible thrash. He was far from healthy and far from wealthy, and I'm sure the aggravation helped shorten his life.

If only he had had a computer and a MIDI setup, something we moderns can have with little cost or effort.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Dec 22 - 07:41 AM

Frank Zappa had the same issue but solved it by getting an amanuensis to transcribe for him. The result was an insanely overcomplicated mess, utterly precise but unplayable. Zappa insisted that people should take it as holy writ regardless.

Chopin ended up with a better compromise.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Dec 22 - 12:37 PM

Thanks, Jack. That's interesting. Beethoven hired people to write his music down, too.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Dec 22 - 01:07 PM

I have issues with the orchestration of his piano concertos. It's very subjective, of course.

As far as I know Beethoven wrote down his music himself, typically in the form of masses of sketches in a slow and laborious process before the music all came together. He would have had copyists writing out the parts for orchestras (they had a tough job with his very scrappy handwriting and he was known to shout at them on occasion). A famous example of a composer who used an amanuensis was Delius, who had become blind and paralysed and who got the ever-patient Eric Fenby to write his music down.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Dec 22 - 05:40 PM

The best amanuensis story is Olivier Messiaen. He wrote his music normally, but dictated the final corrections to his last composition Éclairs de l'au-delà while lying on the trolley outside the operating theatre for the heart operation he never came round from.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Dec 22 - 07:25 AM

He has been commemorated in statues around the world: this thread reminded me of the rather nice one of himself and his good lady in the Botanic Gardens in Singapore. It was installed close to “Symphony Lake” where outdoor concerts are held, and the sculptor is Polish. Contributors include the Polish Embassy in Singapore.
Other statues in Warsaw (as you might expect), London, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Paris, Vienna and Mallorca.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Dec 22 - 12:09 PM

And Edinburgh.

10 Warriston Crescent

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Tunesmith
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 03:13 PM

I think Liszt's reputation still suffers from the "knee jerk" reaction that has lingered from the 19th century where many music critics/followers couldn't separate the musician from the showman. Chopin was initially bowled over by Liszt's playing, but later criticised his composing skills; however, Chopin died before Franz got into his stride as a composer. Liszt's music skill were mind blowing. In his day he was recognised as the greatest sight reader, the great improvisor and of possessing the greatest music memory.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Tunesmith
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 03:23 PM

I once visited the place in Valldemossa, Majorca, where Chopin stayed with George Sands ( one of his pianos is still there), and as I approached the place, I said to my wife, "If they don't have a resident pianist there performing Chopin's material then they are making a big mistake", Well, the pianist was there and he was playing on Frederic's piano.

Subject: RE: Composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jan 23 - 05:39 PM

I won't listen to any Wagner because of his detestable antisemitism, but I've really tried with Liszt. I just can't get past the ego I hear in every one of his pieces. All very subjective, but there ya go.