Frederic chopin biography book
Chopin: A New Biography
July 1, 2018
Well I have mixed feelings about it. Author Zamoyski has researched his subject well and he portrays Chopin and those around him clearly. At various points in the biography Zamoyski relates common public opinion from Chopin's contemporaries as well as opinions of Chopin's biographers and states his own well researched opinion, at times in disagreement with the commonly held belief.
So I appreciated the author's clear prose style, thoroughly researched as it was but at the same time I found it somewhat tedious to read and a bit dry because he often goes into great detail about day to day events in the composer's life and sprinkles it liberally with quotes taken from letters of Chopin's friends and contemporaries. I am glad I have read this none the less, as it gave me a clearer picture of Chopin and his life, whose music I love.
The book has corrected some of the mistaken beliefs I had about Chopin. I didn't realize that he had made quite a name for himself in his youth in Poland. He was born there and moved away at age 19 never to return, though he did make initial plans to return a couple of times. Those plans never materialized. But before leaving Poland he had left quite a mark on the musical scene of that country. I had always believed that he was virtually unknown before he came to Paris. I am glad to have a clearer picture. Also it is interesting to see how the Polish culture influenced his various genre (i.e. Polonaises, Mazurkas, etc.). Another interesting tidbit was that Chopin's teacher in Poland, (not remembering his name right now), gave to Chopin what may be the best gift he ever received and may be the core of Chopin's musical genius. That gift was that he (the teacher) gave Chopin mostly free reign on what to explore and how to do it in his compositions. The teacher broke with the tradition (at least in Poland) of giving students definite and fairly strict compositional guidelines. So in his formative years, Chopin never went through what most music/composition students went through to become musicians and composers.
Also, most other biographies of Chopin have usually stated that the composer died penniless. While true in some respects, Zamoyski paints a slightly different picture. Immediately after his death Chopin's sister, who was present at his death, found among his affects a moderately large sum of cash. Zamoyski doesn't state how much but it was apparently much more than anyone expected to find and it was enough to pay off nearly all of Chopin's outstanding debts. So while Chopin wasn't fabulously wealthy nor did he leave any money to his friends or family, he did have more money than most people thought given his habit to spend so freely during his lifetime. Chopin was a poor money manager as Zamoyski clearly portrays but this somewhat unexpected discovery after his death was interesting.
This book is a biography only and the author does not talk in much depth about Chopin's music. He mentions many of Chopin's works but mostly in reference to when they were written or published with an occasional comment about how the mood of a given piece matches Chopin's at the time it was written. Zamoyski does include quite a few quotes from Chopin's contemporaries about particular pieces but there is no musical assessment or analysis that a musician or musicologist would appreciate. As a musician I was hoping for that.
The book also clarified for me the cause of Chopin's death at age 39. While in retrospect it can't be confirmed definitively, all the available evidence was that he had Tuberculosis or Consumption as it was called back then. Apparently he had it for several years prior to his death in spite of the fact that some of the doctors who treated him stated that he didn't.
Also it would have helped to have a glossary of people in the back. I understand that isn't common in biographies but there were so many people in Chopin's day to day life that I found it confusing to keep track of which were which. I had no problem with all the musicians (e.g. Liszt, Schumann, Berlioz, etc.) since I know of them well, nor of a few others (e.g. George Sand, Fontana). But everyone else, especially all the Polish names and some of the French names, were difficult to keep track of. So a glossary of people would have been helpful.
Worth reading for a clear portrayal of Chopin's life.
So I appreciated the author's clear prose style, thoroughly researched as it was but at the same time I found it somewhat tedious to read and a bit dry because he often goes into great detail about day to day events in the composer's life and sprinkles it liberally with quotes taken from letters of Chopin's friends and contemporaries. I am glad I have read this none the less, as it gave me a clearer picture of Chopin and his life, whose music I love.
The book has corrected some of the mistaken beliefs I had about Chopin. I didn't realize that he had made quite a name for himself in his youth in Poland. He was born there and moved away at age 19 never to return, though he did make initial plans to return a couple of times. Those plans never materialized. But before leaving Poland he had left quite a mark on the musical scene of that country. I had always believed that he was virtually unknown before he came to Paris. I am glad to have a clearer picture. Also it is interesting to see how the Polish culture influenced his various genre (i.e. Polonaises, Mazurkas, etc.). Another interesting tidbit was that Chopin's teacher in Poland, (not remembering his name right now), gave to Chopin what may be the best gift he ever received and may be the core of Chopin's musical genius. That gift was that he (the teacher) gave Chopin mostly free reign on what to explore and how to do it in his compositions. The teacher broke with the tradition (at least in Poland) of giving students definite and fairly strict compositional guidelines. So in his formative years, Chopin never went through what most music/composition students went through to become musicians and composers.
Also, most other biographies of Chopin have usually stated that the composer died penniless. While true in some respects, Zamoyski paints a slightly different picture. Immediately after his death Chopin's sister, who was present at his death, found among his affects a moderately large sum of cash. Zamoyski doesn't state how much but it was apparently much more than anyone expected to find and it was enough to pay off nearly all of Chopin's outstanding debts. So while Chopin wasn't fabulously wealthy nor did he leave any money to his friends or family, he did have more money than most people thought given his habit to spend so freely during his lifetime. Chopin was a poor money manager as Zamoyski clearly portrays but this somewhat unexpected discovery after his death was interesting.
This book is a biography only and the author does not talk in much depth about Chopin's music. He mentions many of Chopin's works but mostly in reference to when they were written or published with an occasional comment about how the mood of a given piece matches Chopin's at the time it was written. Zamoyski does include quite a few quotes from Chopin's contemporaries about particular pieces but there is no musical assessment or analysis that a musician or musicologist would appreciate. As a musician I was hoping for that.
The book also clarified for me the cause of Chopin's death at age 39. While in retrospect it can't be confirmed definitively, all the available evidence was that he had Tuberculosis or Consumption as it was called back then. Apparently he had it for several years prior to his death in spite of the fact that some of the doctors who treated him stated that he didn't.
Also it would have helped to have a glossary of people in the back. I understand that isn't common in biographies but there were so many people in Chopin's day to day life that I found it confusing to keep track of which were which. I had no problem with all the musicians (e.g. Liszt, Schumann, Berlioz, etc.) since I know of them well, nor of a few others (e.g. George Sand, Fontana). But everyone else, especially all the Polish names and some of the French names, were difficult to keep track of. So a glossary of people would have been helpful.
Worth reading for a clear portrayal of Chopin's life.
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