Chopin: The (Non)Salon Composer

Hear the opening of Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise—is this music in keeping with the popular notion of Chopin (1810-1849)as the delicate consumptive composer-performer of tinkly little salon pieces?

What were salons by the way? These were small domestic gatherings of the rich and famous, the “beautiful people” at some stately home where music and poetry were performed and discussed; nothing wrong in that by the way, except that such occasions were pitifully small-scale and exclusive.

Of course Chopin was a darling of such groups and of course he wrote some of the most delicate music of all time for the piano (for many pianists, Chopin IS the piano!). Lion of the keyboard he was not, a la Liszt, the other great pianist-composer of the day: reminiscence tells us that Liszt had much the bigger sound and brassier personality, whereas Chopin was indeed, the quieter one. It is also true that he suffered from consumption (tuberculosis) for most of his adult life and his frail health would have failed him even earlier, had it not been for his dominating innamorata, George Sand (the French authoress).

But Chopin was not merely the delicate Francophile exile in Paris that he was perceived to be in the 19^th century: he was a Polish patriot, able to write “big” music for piano and orchestra, music that is as virile as it is tender. His music is full of his love and longing for his motherland...the Polonaises and Mazurkas are after all, magically transfigured Polish dance music, while in works like the “Revolutionary” Etude, he was asserting his anger and defiance at the failed Polish uprising against the occupying Russians.

While his most typical works are his intimate, ephemeral Nocturnes and Waltzes, he could also write in larger forms for the solo piano: his sonatas (especially the 2^nd “Funeral March” Sonata), Ballades and Scherzos are grand creations, containing a wealth of detail. 

Chopin could and did write, for instruments other than the piano..his cello works are particularly entrancing, while I love his 2 piano concertos.... for long dismissed as episodic and  lacking in understanding of the orchestra, these are miracles of balance, perhaps the most poetic of all the great Romantic piano concertos.

It is time to stop taking poor Fryderyk Franciszek for granted and explore the depth and complexity of his music.