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Did you know that? !
1. Chopin didn’t
actually like Fantasie-Impromptu. He thought just little of
it (it is thought that he didn’t have any inspiration
anymore when he composed it or his frail health just became
worse). He never permitted it to be published. But it was
still published, though, posthumously.
2. We all know that Chopin and Sand broke up
because of a misunderstanding between the two. One very
reliable source tells us that Sand in fact maneuvered Chopin
into the mother-daughter quarrel. Sand intended it so Chopin
will take the side of her daughter. This will then result
into an estrangement.
3. Another source
contrasts to the one said above. Since Sand left her home,
her children became jealous and undisciplined. So one of
them plotted the said misunderstanding between the two,
which caused the parting.
4. Even before
the break-up, Sand and Chopin already grew tensions and had
small quarrels.
5. It is assumed
that Sand got bored of Chopin and didn’t like him anymore
because of his frail health (he was already coughing blood).
6. Chopin really loves
Sand. She is the inspiration I said above.
7. Since he really loves
Sand, he carried a lock of her hair till his death.
8. Chopin was
afraid to be buried alive. He told his sister to cut his
body open after he dies. He said this just a few days before
he passed away. (Weird!!!)
9. He carries an urn filled with Polish soil.
It was given to him by Elsner, his teacher in Warsaw. “May
you never forget your native land wherever you may go, nor
cease to love it with a warm and faithful
heart,”—Elsner.
10. He told the people to sprinkle the soil
from the urn on his grave. And it was done. He was buried in
France but the soil was from Poland.
11. His heart is already in Church of the Holy
Cross in Warsaw. It is preserved, and this is again done by
his words.
12. The stupid Chopin
(forgive me for saying that) actually told his sister to
burn all his unpublished manuscript!
13. When
revolution broke out in Poland, he was in Vienna, then. So,
he thought he might want to fight the Russians, too. He
actually decided to go back since his friend who was living
with him did so. But in the middle of the journey, he
instructed the driver (if that’s what you call it) to turn
back. He was convinced of the argument with his mother that
he shouldn’t come back because of his feeble health. (What
the! He considered to do that. The stupid idiot. He is just
going to contribute to the losses of Poland against the
Russians if that were so.)
14. So what he did, he
poured his furiousness to the piano and composed the
Revolutionary etude.
15. When he came to
Paris in 1831, the known composers were so excited of him.
They planned his debut concert on January 25, 1832. But the
Parisians didn’t like his playing. One of the critics said
that his playing was too soft and that there is “too much
luxuriance in the modulation, and disorder in the linking of
phrases…” But some composers like Liszt, Mendelssohn,
Berlioz and etc. were fond of him.
16. Since the
Parisians didn’t like him, he considered the thought of
leaving France for America.
17. Then he met Prince Radziwill, who
persuaded him to stay, brought him to the salon of Baron
Jacques de Rothschild. There, he was praised and was made to
teach the children for 20 francs a lesson.
18.
He said himself that, “I give myself an impression
of… a violin’s E string on a bass viol,”
19. He also
stated, “Our best tuner has drowned himself… now I do
not even have a piano tuned as I like it… All I have left
is a big nose and an underdeveloped fourth finger.”
20. He had small
fingers, but as someone stated, it stretched like the jaws
of a snake. This astonished most pianists.
21. Chopin was in fact surrounded with such
beautiful things. Sand once wrote:
“To
tear Chopin away from so many gateries, to associate
him with a simple, uniform, and constantly studious life, he
who had been brought up on the knees of princesses, was to
deprive him of that which made him live, a factitious life,
it is true…”
22. Chopin
visited many salons each night to play. He goes to about
20-30 salons a day just to satisfy himself.
23. He was
“great in small things” even though he was “small in
great things” as someone said.
24. Szopen is
supposed to be his family name but then it was changed to a
more Gallic—Chopin.
25. Schumann said
that Chopin is “the boldest and most proudest poetic
spirit of our time”.
26. Chopin adores
Mozart. That is why Mozart's Requiem was played during his
funeral.
27. He once stated when
he arrived in Paris—“I don’t know where there can be
so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many
virtuosi.”
28. He told Liszt once, “The crowd
intimidates me. I feel asphyxiated by its breath, paralyzed
by its curious looks, dumb before the strange faces.”
29. Berlioz said
he was dying all his life.
30. He fell in
love with a popular singer but never spoke to her. Then he
got secretly engaged to a young lady but her family wouldn’t
allow marriage for Chopin’s insubstantial health.
31. The love affair
between Sand and Chopin was a scandal for Sand was “that
woman” to most of Chopin’s acquaintances.
32. Sand and a
few other people once saw him before his piano, his eyes
wild and his hair almost standing on end. It was many
moments later before he recognized them.
33. He composed
his piano concerto no. 2 before his piano concerto no. 1,
the second was just published after the first.
34. His first published work was Rondo in C major,
op. 1 when he was 15.
35. “Chopin once wrote
to a friend after his break-up with Sand, “I do my best to
work, but it just won’t do. If I go on like this, my new
works will not remind you of warbling birds and not even of
broken china. …I work a little. I scratch a lot.”
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