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
A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.
Liszt commenting on the music of Frédéric Chopin: He confided . . . those inexpressible sorrows to which the pious give vent in their communication with their Maker. What they never say except upon their knees, he said in his palpitating compositions.
Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.
My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot, for I am covered with poultices.
Hats off, gentlemen - a genius! If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin's works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin's works are canons buried in flowers.
The three most celebrated doctors on the island have been to see me. One sniffed at what I spat, the second tapped where I spat from, and the third sounded me and listened as I spat. The first said I was dead, the second that I was dying and the third that I'm going to die.
I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world...
As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.
England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music...
Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head.
Chopin has done for the piano what Schubert has done for the voice.
Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in ones birthplace.
Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?
I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.