User:Smerus/chopforrfc

Please note the following before responding in the RfC.

• The numbering of the sections here is to be ignored: they will fall out as incorporated in the article.
• I propose that para 3 of 'Travel and domestic success' here (begnning 'Letters from Chopin...') be inserted in the article, with references and note as below.

• Please note also alternative for para 3 below, as per Talk:Frédéric_Chopin#Threaded_Discussion

• I propose that the sub-section 'Sexuality' as set out here be relocated to 'Reception and Influence'
• I propose that other discussions (if any) of Chopin's sexual preferences be removed from the article.

Career

Travel and domestic success

Chopin plays for the Radziwiłłs, 1829 (painting by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1887)

In September 1828 Chopin, while still a student, visited Berlin with a family friend, zoologist Feliks Jarocki, enjoying operas directed by Gaspare Spontini and attending concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn and other celebrities. On an 1829 return trip to Berlin, he was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen – himself an accomplished composer and aspiring cellist. For the prince and his pianist daughter Wanda, he composed his Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major for cello and piano, Op. 3.

Back in Warsaw that year, Chopin heard Niccolò Paganini play the violin, and composed a set of variations, Souvenir de Paganini. It may have been this experience which encouraged him to commence writing his first Études (1829–32), exploring the capacities of his own instrument. On 11 August, three weeks after completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, he made his debut in Vienna. He gave two piano concerts and received many favourable reviews – in addition to some commenting (in Chopin's own words) that he was "too delicate for those accustomed to the piano-bashing of local artists". In the first of these concerts, he premiered his Variations on Là ci darem la mano, Op. 2 (variations on a duet from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni) for piano and orchestra. He returned to Warsaw in September 1829, where he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 on 17 March 1830.

Letters from Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski in the period 1829–30 (when Chopin was about twenty) contain erotic references to dreams and to offered kisses and embraces. According to Adam Zamoyski, such expressions "were, and to some extent still are, common currency in Polish and carry no greater implication than the 'love'" concluding letters today. "The spirit of the times, pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature, favoured extreme expression of feeling ... Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it is unlikely that the two were ever lovers." Chopin's biographer Alan Walker considers that, insofar as such expressions could be perceived as homosexual in nature, they would not denote more than a passing phase in Chopin's life. Kallberg, writing in 1994, says that concepts of sexual practice and identity were very different in Chopin's time, so modern interpretation is problematic.

Chopin's successes as a composer and performer opened the door to western Europe for him, and on 2 November 1830, he set out, in the words of Zdzisław Jachimecki, "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever." With Woyciechowski, he headed for Austria again, intending to go on to Italy. Later that month, in Warsaw, the November 1830 Uprising broke out, and Woyciechowski returned to Poland to enlist. Chopin, now alone in Vienna, was nostalgic for his homeland, and wrote to a friend, "I curse the moment of my departure." When in September 1831 he learned, while travelling from Vienna to Paris, that the uprising had been crushed, he expressed his anguish in the pages of his private journal: "Oh God! ... You are there, and yet you do not take vengeance!" Jachimecki ascribes to these events the composer's maturing "into an inspired national bard who intuited the past, present and future of his native Poland."

Para 3 version 2

(see Talk:Frédéric_Chopin#Threaded_Discussion)

Letters from Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski in the period 1829–30 (when Chopin was about twenty) contain erotic references, including one of October 1829 to dreams of an "ideal" associated with adagio of his Piano concerto op. 21, and one of 4 September 1830 invoking dreams and kisses with Woychiekowski himself. Translators Arthur Hedley (1962) and David Frick (2016) assumed that the "ideal", unnamed in Chopin's letter, refers to a woman. According to biographers Frederick Niecks (1888), Adam Zamoyski (1979, rev. 2010) and Alan Walker (2018) that woman was Konstancja Gładkowska. According to Walker, the passage is "[t]he clearest indication we have of Chopin's infatuation with Konstancja." According to Niecks, Chopin had two passions: his love for Gładkowska and his friendship for Woyciechowski, while he expressed his friendship for the latter sometimes in words a lover would use towards his beloved. Zamoyski considered the letter of 4 September consistent with how feelings were expressed in the Romantic era -"The spirit of the times, pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature, favoured extreme expression of feeling ... Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it is unlikely that the two were ever lovers." Walker considers that the passage in the letter of 4 September 1830 is undeniably erotic, and that Chopin transferred what he was feeling for Gładkowska to Woyciechowski. Insofar as such expressions could be perceived as homosexual in nature, they would not denote more than a passing phase in Chopin's life. Kallberg, writing in 1994, says that concepts of sexual practice and identity were very different in Chopin's time, so modern interpretation is problematic.

Reception and Influence

Sexuality

The musicologist Antoni Pizá writes that "Chopin's sexual life has never failed to awaken the curiosity of music lovers and to generate discourse among experts". The music historian Jeffrey Kallberg says that in Chopin's time, "listeners to the genre of the piano nocturne often couched their reactions in feminine imagery", and he cites many examples of such reactions to Chopin's nocturnes. One reason for this may be "demographic" – there were more female than male piano players, and playing such "romantic" pieces was seen by male critics as a female domestic pastime. Such genderization was not commonly applied to other piano genres such as the scherzo or the polonaise. "To be associated with the feminine was also often to be devalorized", and such associations of Chopin's music with the "feminine" did not begin to shift until the early twentieth century, when pianists such as Artur Rubinstein began to militate against a sentimental "salon" style of playing these works and when musical analysis of a more rigorous nature (such as that of Heinrich Schenker) began to assert itself.

Such attitudes may also have influenced opinion about the composer's personal sexuality; debate on this topic began to expand towards the end of the 20th century. Comments on Chopin's letters to Woyciechowski are mentioned above. Research in this area also considered views of Chopin's other social contacts. Chopin's relationship with George Sand was certainly physical in its early stages. Sand claimed (not entirely reliably) that it ceased to be so after June 1839 until the end of their affair in 1847. Sand's daughter Solange, aged 13 at the time, referred to Chopin in 1842 as "Sexless" ("Sans-sexe"), although in later years she seemed to display affection for him herself. Chopin was a friend of the Marquis de Custine, who had been associated with homosexual scandals. A letter from de Custine to Chopin, inviting Chopin to visit, refers to the composer as an "inconstant sylph"; Kallberg recognizes the "impossibility of 'discovering' the truth" of what this may imply.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Ashbrooke, William (n.d). "Chopin", in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera online, accessed 4 August 2014. (subscription required).
• Atwood, William G. (1999). The Parisian Worlds of Frédéric Chopin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-07773-5.
• Barcz, Maria (14 August 2010). "Etiuda paryska" [Paris Étude]. Gwiazda Polarna (in Polish). Vol. 101, no. 17. pp. 15–16.
• Bellman, Jonathan (2000). "Chopin and His Imitators: Notated Emulations of the "True Style" of Performance", in 19th-Century Music, vol. 24, no. 2 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 149–60.
• Bowers, Faubion (1996). Scriabin: A Biography. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-28897-8.
• Brown, Maurice (1980). "Nocturne", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (20 vols.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-333-23111-2. Vol. 13, pp. 258–59.
• Chen, Shu-fen Viola (2009). A Performer's Analysis of the Four Ballades by Frederic Chopin. ISBN 978-1-109-13042-3.
• Chopin, Frédéric, (1988), tr. and ed. E. L. Voynich. Chopin's Letters. New York: Dover Publications ISBN 978-0486255644
• Chopin, Fryderyk (1962). Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, coll. B. Sydow, tr. Arthur Hedley. London: Heinemann.
• Conway, David (2012). Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-01538-8
• Cooke, Charles (1966). "Chopin and Liszt with a Ghostly Twist" in Notes, Second Series, vol. 22, no. 2 (Winter, 1965 – Winter, 1966), pp. 855–61
• De Val, Dorothy, and Cyril Ehrlich. "Repertory and Canon", in David Rowland (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Piano, 176–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47986-8.
• Downes, Stephen (2001). "Eros and PanEuropeanism", in Harry White and Michael Murphy (eds.), Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture 1800–1945, Cork: Cork University Press, pp. 51–71. ISBN 1-85918-322-0.
• Eddie, William (2013). Charles Valentin Alkan: His Life and His Music. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4094-9364-8.
• Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques (1988). Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by his Pupils. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36709-7.
• Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques (2001). "Chopin and Pleyel", in Early Music, August 2001, pp. 389-396, accessed 10 December 2020.
• Ferguson, Howard (1980). "Study", in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: Macmillan, vol. 18, pp. 304–05.
• Golos, George S. (1960). "Some Slavic Predecessors of Chopin" in The Musical Quarterly vol. 46 no. 4, pp. 437–47.
• Goldberg, Halina (2004). The Age of Chopin: Interdisciplinary Inquiries. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21628-1.
• Hall-Swadley, Janita R. (15 July 2011). The Collected Writings of Franz Liszt: F. Chopin. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1-4616-6409-3.
• Hamilton, Kenneth (2008). After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517826-5
• Hedley, Arthur et al. (2005). "Chopin, Frédéric (François)," Encyclopædia Britannica, 15th ed., vol. 3, pp. 263–64.
• Hedley, Arthur and Maurice Brown (1980). "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek [Frédéric François]", sections 1–6 in S. Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: Macmillan, vol. 4, pp. 292–98.
• Hutchings, A.G.B. (1968). "The Romantic Era", in Alec Robertson and Denis Stevens (eds.), The Pelican History of Music 3: Classical and Romantic, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, pp. 99–139.
• Jachimecki, Zdzisław (1937). "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek". Polski słownik biograficzny (in Polish). Vol. 3. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności. pp. 420–26.
• Jakubowski, Jan Zygmunt, ed. (1979). Literatura polska od średniowiecza to pozytywizmu [Polish Literature from the Middle Ages to Positivism] (in Polish). Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. ISBN 978-83-01-00201-5.
• Jones, J. Barrie (1998a). "Piano music for concert hall and salon c. 1830–1900", in David Rowland (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Piano, pp. 151–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47986-8.
• Jones, J. Barrie (1998b). "Nationalism", in David Rowland (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Piano, pp. 176–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47986-8.
• Kallberg, Jeffrey (2001). "Chopin's March, Chopin's Death", in 19th-Century Music, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Summer 2001), pp. 3–26.
• Kallberg, Jeffrey (2006, e-book version of 1994 publication). "Small fairy voices: sex, history and meaning in Chopin" in Chopin Studies 2 edited by John Rink and Jim Samson. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521034333.
• Kallberg, Jeffrey (2010). "The Harmony of the Tea Table: Gender and Ideology in the Piano Nocturne", in Representations , No. 39 (Summer, 1992), pp. 102–133
• Kennedy, Michael (1980). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-311315-2.
• Kubba, Adam and Madeleine Young (1998). "The Long Suffering of Frederic Chopin", in Chest, vol. 113 (1998), pp. 210–16. accessed 16 August 2014.
• Kuhnke, Monica (2010). "Oryginalne kopie, czyli historia portretów rodziny Chopinów" (PDF). Cenne Bezcenne Utracone (in Polish). 62 (1): 8–12. Retrieved 16 December 2020.(English summary). Summary accessed 28 December 2013.
• Kuzemko, J.A. (1994). "Chopin's Illnesses" in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine volume 87 (December 1994) pp. 769–72, accessed 16 August 2014.
• Lanza, Andrea (n.d.). "Orefice, Giacomo" in Oxford Companion to Music, Oxford Music Online, accessed 8 August 2014. (subscription required).
• Latham, Alison (n.d.). "Rubato" in Oxford Companion to Music, Oxford Music Online (subscription required), accessed 15 July 2014.
• Leikin, Anatole (1994-12-08). "The sonatas". In Samson, Jim (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Chopin. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-82499-6.
• Liszt, Franz, tr. M.W. Cook (1880). Life of Chopin (4th edition). E-text in Kindle version at Project Gutenberg accessed 27 December 2013.
• Majka, Lucyna, Joanna Gozdzik and Michał Witt (2003). "Cystic fibrosis – a probable cause of Frédéric Chopin's suffering and death" in Journal of Applied Genetics, vol 44(1), pp. 77–84, accessed 16 August 2014.
• Methuen-Campbell, James (1981). Chopin Playing from the Composer to the Present Day. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.
• Michałowski, Kornel, and Jim Samson (n.d.), "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek", Grove Music Online (accessed 25 July 2013). (subscription required)
• Milewski, Barbara (1999). "Chopin's Mazurkas and the Myth of the Folk", in 19th-Century Music, vol. 23, no. 2 (Autumn 1999), pp. 113–35.
• Müller-Streicher, Friederike (1949). "Aus dem Tagebuch einer Wiener Chopin-Schülerin (1839–1841, 1844–1845)" in Chopin Almanach, Potsdam, pp. 134–42. In German.
• Niecks, Frederick (1902). Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician, 3rd edition. E-text in Kindle version at Project Gutenberg accessed 4 January 2014.
• Petty, Wayne C. (Spring 1999). "Chopin and the Ghost of Beethoven". 19th-Century Music. 22 (3): 281–299. doi:10.2307/746802. JSTOR 746802.
• Pizá, Antoni (2010). "La vida sexual de Chopin". Itamaer. Revista de investigación musical: territorios para el arte. 3. ISSN 2386-8260.
• Reiss, Jozef and Maurice Brown (1980). "Polonaise", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (20 vols.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-333-23111-2. Vol. 15, pp. 49–52.
• Rosen, Charles (1995). The Romantic Generation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-77933-4.
• Samson, Jim (8 December 1994). The Cambridge Companion to Chopin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-47752-9.
• Samson, Jim (1996). Chopin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816703-7
• Scholes, Percy (1938). The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Schonberg, Harold C. (1987). Great Pianists. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-671-63837-5.
• Schumann, Robert (1988), tr. and ed. Henry Pleasants. Schumann on Music: A Selection from the Writings. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-25748-8.
• Szklener, Artur (2010). "Fryckowe lato: czyli wakacyjne muzykowanie Chopina" [Fritz's Summers: Chopin's Musical Vacations]. Magazyn Chopin: Miesięcznik Narodowego Instytutu Fryderyka Chopina (in Polish) (4): 8–9.
• Szulc, Tad (1998). Chopin in Paris: the Life and Times of the Romantic Composer. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-82458-1.
• Taruskin, Richard (1996). Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-816250-2.
• Taruskin, Richard (2010). Music in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538483-3.
• Temperley, Nicholas (1980). "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek [Frédéric François]", sections 1–7 in S. Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 4. London: Macmillan, pp. 298–307.
• Turnbull, Michael T.R.B. (1989). Monuments and Statues of Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Chambers. ISBN 0-550-20050-9.
• Walker, Alan (2018). Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374714376
• Weber, Moritz (7 December 2020). "Chopin war schwul – und niemand sollte davon erfahren" [Chopin was gay and no one must know about it]. Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (in German).
• Wheeldon, Marianne (2009). Debussy's Late Style. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-35239-2.
• Young, Pablo et al. (2014) "Federico Chopin (1810–1849) y su enfermedad", Revista médica de Chile, vol. 142, no. 4, pp. 529–35. In Spanish (summary in English). Accessed 16 August 2014.
• Załuski, Iwo and Pamela (1992). "Chopin in London", in The Musical Times, vol. 133, no. 1791 (May 1992), pp. 226–30.
• Zamoyski, Adam (2010). Chopin: Prince of the Romantics (e-book ed.). London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-735182-4. OCLC 891811930. Revised from Chopin: A Biography (1979){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)