Frederic Chopin

Frederic Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin, born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth1 March 1810
CountryPoland
I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.
England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere.
All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.
Here, whatever is not boring is not English.
Among the numerous pleasures of Vienna the hotel evenings are famous. During supper Strauss or Lanner play waltzes...After every waltz they get huge applause; and if they play a Quodlibet, or jumble of opera, song and dance, the hearers are so overjoyed that they don't know what to do with themselves. It shows the corrupt taste of the Viennese public.
Yesterday's concert was a success. I hasten to let you know. I inform your Lordship that I was not a bit nervous and played as I play when I am alone. It went well... and I had to come back and bow four times.
I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world...
I have met a great celebrity, Madame Dudevant, known as George Sand... Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me... What an unattractive person La Sand is... Is she really a woman? I'm inclined to doubt it.
They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me.
After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine...
I don't know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about.
The crowd intimidates me, its breath suffocates me. I feel paralyzed by its curious look, and the unknown faces make me dumb.
I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.
I shall create a new world for myself.