When he heard Variations on the theme “La ci darem la mano” from the opera Don Giovanni by young Chopin, the great composer Robert Schumann said: Hats off, gentlemen, before you is a genius!
Chopin was one of the few musicians who were truly called or called by their souls. In simpler terms, he had a gift that determined his life’s path, marrying him to music for a lifetime. Thanks to this internal movement, he managed to leave an indelible mark on music and create something sublime.
Sister Ludwika
Jozef Ksawery Elsner
George Sand
Childhood in Warsaw
Frederic Chopin is a Polish composer and pianist from the romantic period. He was born on March 1, 1810 in Želazowa Wola, Poland, but grew up in Warsaw, where his parents moved shortly after his birth.
Biographers write that his home was a nest in which, as an only child, he was surrounded by the love of his mother, father, and sisters, as well as music. His father Nicolas was French. He was taught French at the Warsaw Lyceum, and it seems that he was also musically gifted himself; he played the flute and violin. His mother belonged to Polish nobility, she was very religious, played the piano and sang beautifully. Chopin’s older sister Ludwika gave him his first piano lessons and according to biographers, she was a lifelong loyal friend and companion that he couldn’t find among the women who loved him. It was a time when the achievements of European bourgeois society were still alive: beautiful letters were written, people dedicated poems to each other, composed compositions, music was played and sung in homes, and it is known that Chopin and his sister Emilka performed comedies for their parents’ name days that they created themselves, of course accompanied by the piano played by their older sister Ludwika. Chopin’s parents ran a boarding school for boys that had a very good reputation. Foreign language and music lessons were held there, French was spoken, so it was considered very sophisticated to send boys to the “Chopin’s gentry”. “. Sam Frederic often went to the village and there he became acquainted with Polish folk music, the elements of which he later incorporated into his work.
As tradition holds, the family in which a person is born and acquires their first indelible impressions is part of their destiny, corresponding to their needs and task in this world. Thanks to good fortune, Chopin was exposed to positive influences from his earliest days and had the support of his loved ones.
First Teachers and First Compositions
Chopin’s first teacher at the age of seven was Wojciech Zywny. It was then that Chopin’s first printed work, the Polonaise in G minor, appeared. This teacher, who taught him for six years, introduced Chopin to Bach, who at the time was almost forgotten and overshadowed by modern Italian opera. It is believed that Bach became his sanctuary in later years, a refuge from the avalanche of modern music that he struggled against in Warsaw. His next teacher was Wilhelm Würfel.
In Warsaw, there was a lot of playing music at that time, and there was a Evenings take place almost exclusively in the salons of Warsaw’s nobility. From an early age, Chopin attended concerts of great virtuosos like Paganini, he met Jan Nepomuk Hummel and their concerts made a great impression on his soul.
Chopin had his first public performance as a pianist at the age of nine. In the same year, he handed over to the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna the manuscripts of two newly composed polonaises. The lovely Chopin becomes a favorite of Warsaw, a darling of aristocratic salons, and from that time comes his fascination with that illusory paradise of salon dance floors, bright lights, silk dresses, and liveried servants that never completely left him. But he also realizes their superficiality.
From that period, many of Chopin’s letters have been preserved, which exude liveliness, warmth, clarity, wit, often accompanied by caricatures of various people. He had an exceptional power of observation, the letters are full of portraits, sketches, landscapes. He loved drawing and theater, and he also possessed acting skills. improvska talenca.
At the age of twelve, he meets the famous music educator Jozef Ksawery Elsner, the director of the opera and conservatory in Warsaw, who gives him private lessons in counterpoint and harmony. Later, when he moved to the conservatory, Chopin completely came under Elsner’s wing. The conservatory was a place for future musicians with seemingly the same goal, but, as in everything, there were few like Chopin who played purely out of internal necessity. On Chopin’s final exam, Elsner wrote: Chopin Frederic. Exceptional abilities. Musical genius.
Elsner immediately recognized Chopin’s talent, so he directed him more than he taught him. This approach was ideal for Chopin, who was not a “musical craftsman” but needed to bring something new. In one place, Elsner wrote: In learning composition, we should not give too detailed instructions, especially to students whose abilities are visible and striking: let them discover on their own in order to overcome themselves and make discoveries about what else they can do. It has not been uncovered.
The true happiness was that Chopin encountered such a teacher who, as his biographer Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz said, vigilantly watched over his development, fearing that excessive pedantry would wipe away the dust from the butterfly wings of his genius. His teacher openly expressed his opinion about Chopin’s innate genius in letters, reminding him, with pride, that he was the first one to notice his extraordinary abilities: “…it is too well known to our Frederic that I greatly respect and love him – truly love him, because he deserves it as a man of genius from everyone capable of recognizing it.”
Therefore, Chopin’s childhood was spent in the embrace of adoration. He was made aware from a very early age that he had something great within him, a gift that needed to be utilized. He struggled between this great task and all the things that youth brings – the desire for amusement, falling in love, socializing, and the fickleness of character. From his earliest childhood, Chopin had delicate health and was very thin, making it difficult for him to cope with health difficulties. I have followed him throughout his entire life.
The Warsaw audience at that time, accustomed to dance and popular music, demanded the same from composers as a condition for a good reception. The audience, lovers of mediocrity, about which the great Goethe, director of the Weimar theater, also spoke, was inclined to dictate artistic life. That is why Goethe says that he tried to educate the audience and elevate their taste, because if banal things are presented on stage, the audience becomes accustomed to it and demands the same, which is a vicious circle detrimental to the fundamental role of art – the refinement of man. Chopin expressed what he carried within himself, and not only what pleased the audience. So in one place he writes: The First Allegro, accessible to only a few, was successful, but, it seems to me, only because it was fitting to admire – “how beautiful it is” – and play the connoisseur!
At the age of nineteen, Chopin briefly traveled to Krakow, Prague, Berlin, Vienna, and gained his first experiences of the “great world”. When he was in Berlin, he listened to several operas and according to him… In the court of justice, only Handel’s oratory Feast of St. Cecilia came close to the ideal created by great music.
In Vienna, the city where the great Viennese classics Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn once created, there was no trace of the brilliance of these giants who had stepped off the stage. What was found there became the subject of Chopin’s not so gentle remarks. In Vienna, he gives free concerts with a meager number of works, but they exude freshness and novelty, thus becoming the “new toy of Viennese aristocracy”. From that time, Rondo a la Krakowiak and Variations on the theme “La ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni stand out.
In his youth, he performed many musical improvisations (inspired playing without preparation), of which nothing has been preserved. The tradition of improvisation, which is almost non-existent in the performance of compositions today, originates from great artists. Bach was a great master of improvisation and could improvise for two hours on one theme.
Chopin’s youth was exceptionally fruitful in terms of creativity. no period. Rondo a la Mazurka, Rondo a la Krakowiak, Concerto in E minor, Concerto in F minor, Fantasy on Polish themes, nocturnes, etudes stand out. All of these works have a bright tone, filled with the most beautiful and purest feelings of a young, adored artist.
Going to Vienna
Chopin leaves Warsaw at the age of twenty. His first stop was Vienna, where he stayed for eight months this time. In the foreign world, he experienced what great writers like Balzac, Proust, and others had depicted when speaking about bourgeois society, i.e. how people behave when a former friend in distress asks them for help. It was a period of his maturing in solitude and getting acquainted with the darker side of the world, which he, carried away by success and youthful enthusiasm, had only seen in a rosy light. In a letter from that time, he says: All these lunches, dinners, concerts, dances that I am fed up with, they bore me: here it is so sad, deafening, and gloomy. I love all of this, but not when it is so cruel. I can do whatever I want, I have to dress up, groom, and put on shoes; in the salon, I pretend to be calm, and when I return home, I thunder on the piano.
Going to Paris
After eight months of unproductive creativity, he decides to go to long-dreamed-of Paris. Chopin’s first impressions of Paris were that it was the greatest virtue and the greatest vice, you can do whatever you like and no one will even look at you. In the Parisian jungle where everyone is busy fighting for profit, careers, where man is a wolf to man, our sensitive and noble artist found himself completely alone. It was difficult for him because he felt like there were more pianists in Paris than anywhere else, and he himself had no money and relied on his parents’ last supplies. But luck was on his side, and thanks to the support of some Polish families, the doors of high society in Paris opened to him. He gave piano lessons, and a great source of income were the compositions he composed as dedications to the aristocrats of the time, so over time he gained recognition and success. He was one of the wealthiest Poles in Paris. He quickly established himself in the high Parisian aristocracy. He knew Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Vincenzo Bellini, Eugène Delacroix, Honoré de Balzac, and many others.
One of Chopin’s qualities, highlighted by composer Franz Liszt, was that his individuality never stifled anyone and he never interfered in others’ lives. Liszt also said that Chopin, although seemingly connected to the well-known people of the time, always remained a stranger to them.
I enter the highest circles, sitting among ambassadors, princes, ministers; and even I don’t know how, because I never pushed myself. It is very necessary for me, because they say that’s where good taste comes from; because you are immediately more gifted if you have been listened to in the English or Austrian embassy, if you have been favored by Princess Vaudemont…
Chopin and George Sand
One of the most intriguing parts of Chopin’s life was his love affair with the famous George Sand. considered one of the most influential composers of the Romantic era. He was known for his expressive and virtuosic piano compositions. His relationship with the writer George Sand, an extravagant woman famous throughout Paris, is believed to have been beneficial for Chopin as it allowed him to create his works in peace. They spent their summers together with Sand’s two children at her country estate in Nohant from 1839 to 1846. It was here that Chopin could separate himself from the hustle and bustle of Paris, and it is where his most important, magnificent, and mature works were born. George Sand took on a maternal and protective role towards Chopin, who was already in poor health at the time. One of the many guests who visited Madame Sand was the great painter Eugène Delacroix, who was immediately enthralled by Chopin. Delacroix even painted a portrait of Chopin and wrote in his diary: “I now have endless conversations with Chopin, whom I greatly love; he is truly an exceptional man, the most genuine artist I have ever met. He is one of the few artists whom one can admire and respect.” He exclusively composed music for the piano, which is now an encyclopedia for all those who want to become pianists, especially when it comes to his etudes. Chopin’s oeuvre includes 166 very diverse works such as polonaises, waltzes, mazurkas, scherzos (jokes), nocturnes, etudes, sonatas, preludes, ballads, etc. In them, one can feel the influence of his native Poland and its motifs, so the mazurkas and polonaises he composed represent a complex whole made up of Polish folk dances – mazurkas, kujawiaks, and oberkas. Chopin’s waltzes are not suitable for dancing like Viennese waltzes: they are either too fast or too slow, and not all have a cheerful tone. Generally, different moods emerge in Chopin’s works, from joyful to melancholic.
Chopin was a virtuoso on the piano. Franz Liszt noted: He gave everything an indescribable elegance, a vibrating impulse that, it seemed, wiped away all materiality, directly addressing the listener’s soul without the mediation of the senses.
After ending a nine-year relationship with George Sand, Chopin’s health condition deteriorated rapidly due to advanced tuberculosis.
In his last days, his protectors were his student Jane Stirling from Scotland and her sister. Before visiting them in London, he held his final concert in Paris, seven days before the start of the 1848 revolution. La Gazette musicale published the enthusiasm for Chopin’s last concert in Paris.
Although very sick, he continued to perform concerts in England, in Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Overwhelmed by illness, he returned to Paris and died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-nine. While lying on his deathbed, many friends and acquaintances visited him, increasingly aware of the greatness of this composer and pianist. His body was buried in Paris, and his heart was transferred to the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw, in accordance with his will.
And finally, the words of Chopin’s student George Mathias: Those who listened to Chopin can say that they have never heard Nothing similar. His playing was like his music; what freedom and what power, yes, power. But it lasted only for a few measures… That man was shaking all over. The piano began to live its most intense life. The instrument you listened to when Chopin played, never existed; it was only under Chopin’s fingers that the instrument became a piano.