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Frederic Chopin is known to be one of the greatest composers of piano
music of all time. He spent most of his life in Paris and was good
friends with
famous artists such as Ingres and Delacroix. His music is considered to
be
romantic in content, but very different from the romanticism of the
time. In
fact is said that he very much disliked the music under this
classification,
and he thought most of it was quite vulgar. (Schonberg)
At age 16 Chopin was already very well known for his music, and at that
time he was already enrolled in the Warsaw Conservatory of Music. His
teacher
Joseph Elsner was said to have done a brilliant job preparing him for
his life
in composition and music. Elsner was able to see ChopinŐs potential as a
great
musician and did nothing to impede his own personal progress, but at the
same
time he gave Chopin a solid background in harmony and composition.
(Britannica)
ChopinŐs music is quite different from anything the world had ever
seen. One thing that sets it apart is the fact that it received little
or no
criticism from anyone. It was universally considered to be the work of a
master, and its content has never been called into question. His music
has
consistently received commendation from musicians and the general public
a like
which is very uncommon. ChopinŐs work has given him the status of
somewhat of
and immortal in the sense that no one before or since has had such an
ability
to bring out the beauty of piano music. He has an uncanny ability to
grab and
hold the attention of the reader, and also a keen sense and
understanding of
the secret places inside the human soul. He uses this understanding to
move
people with beauty and power of his work. (Britanica)
Very much unlike many other famous musicians, Chopin could not stand to
preform in concerts and as a result it is said that he performed in less
than
thirty over the course of his entire life. Despite this lack of
conformity to
the expectations of Parisian life, he was able to maintain a very
extravagant
lifestyle through piano lessons. He commanded as much as thirty francs
per
lesson, which at the time was a very large amount money. His reputation
and
ability allowed him to request these sums with no problem. As a result
he was
teaching only the richest members of Parisian society. (World Book
Encyclopedia)
Chopin was known to be a very likable man whose personality and tastes
allowed him to be welcomed into the homes of the elite families of
Paris. He
was very conservative in his private life as well. He was not at all
effeminate, and he lived a very modest life in terms of his lovers and
affairs.
There were a few women in his life, but the number was apparently quite
low
considering his stature and position in society. He did have a long
lasting
affair with famous novelist woman who wrote under the pen name George
Sand.
She was described as short and dumpy, but his love for her was strong,
and she
helped nurse him through a a very hard fight with tuberculosis which
later
killed him. (Schonberg)
In SchonbergŐs book The Lives of Great Composers, he states:
Chopin had no false modesty about himself and his work. As early as 1831
he was
writing about his Ňperhaps too audacious but noble wish and intention to
create
for myself an new world.Ó He did precisely that. As a pianist he
created a
style that dominated the entire second half of the nineteenth century
and was
not substantially changed until until Debussy and Prokofiev came along.
It was
a style that broke sharply from everything that went before it. For the
first
time the piano became a total instrument: a singing instrument, and
instrument
of infinite color poetry, and nuance, a heroic instrument, and intimate
instrument. SchumannŐs piano music, wonderful as it is, original as is,
sounds
thick by comparison. ChopinŐs music flowered naturally out of his own
way of
playing the piano, as a pianist he was light years ahead of Schumann,
exploiting the instrument in an idiomatic and completely modern manner.
In any
case, the piano music of Schumann, exerted relatively influence in its
day,
whereas the new ideas about pedaling, fingering, rhythm, and coloristic
resource that Chopin invented were immediately taken up by every one of
the
younger pianists. (Schonberg 171-172)
This passage gives a nice summation of the importance of ChopinŐs
contributions to the music world. He was a man who knew his value, and
did his
best to educate the future musicians of the world. It is difficult to
choose
one of ChopinŐs works as being his defining contribution because so many
of
them as great. All in all he is one of the greatest pianist to ever
live.
Word Count: 820
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