Chopin and the Piano Music of the Romantic

Frédéric François Chopin ( ) His Life Has been called the poet of the piano and his art constitutes the Golden Age of the instrument Considered the national composer of Poland, but was half French Educated at the Conservatory of Warsaw but left for Paris at 21 and never left

1830s Paris the centre of Romanticism and Chopin moved in a circle with Liszt and Berlioz as well as literary figures like Victor Hugo Through Liszt he met Aurore Dudevant, known to the world as novelist George Sand (a pen name she used because female novelists were not taken seriously or even allowed to work). She was brilliant and domineering; Chopins need to be ruled fit well with her personality

Her account of his work: His creative power was spontaneous, miraculous. It came to him without effort or warning….But then began the most heartrending labor I have ever witnessed. It was a series of attempts, of fits of irresolution and impatience to recover certain details. He would shut himself in his room for days, pacing up and down, breaking his pens, repeating and modifying one bar a hundred times.

Chopin stayed with Sand for 8 years during which he was highly productive, but their relationship eventually fell apart and they departed in bitterness Died of tuberculosis in Paris at age 39

Chopin His Music The only master composer whose creative life centred around the piano He transformed the major limitation of the instrument its inability to sustain tone into a source of beauty by disguising the limitation through the use of widely spaced chords in the bass, sustained by pedal. This set up masses of tone that encircle the melody Further, his use of delicate ornaments trills, grace notes, runs serve to further prolong single tones

Output included Noctures (night songs) melancholy in nature; Preludes short pieces, some only two or three lines, but still in standard piano rep today; Etudes crowning achievement in the development of piano technique; Impromptus fanciful, sounds improvised; Mazurkas derived from Polish dances He also produced several scherzos, two Sonatas and two Concertos

The Polonaise in E-Flat Ternary form Left hand octaves in the B section approach the limits of piano technique Chopin uses rubato throughout so characteristic of Romantic style Chopins approach to this is to have the left hand accompaniment be in strict time, while the right hand melody would be freer