CHOPIN QUOTES

FREDERIC CHOPIN

1810-1849

QUOTES BY CHOPIN

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.

Every difficulty slurred over will be a
ghost to disturb your repose later on.

I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience
intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath,
paralyzed by its curious glances, struck
dumb by all those strange faces.

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which
poison my happiness. And yet I take a
kind of pleasure in indulging them.

Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable
when you have overcome all difficulties.

Simplicity is the final achievement. After
one has played a vast quantity of notes
and more notes, it is simplicity that
emerges as the crowning reward of art.

(Dying of tuberculosis)
The earth is suffocating... As this cough will
choke me, I implore you to have my body
opened, so that I may not be buried alive.

When one does a thing, it appears good,
otherwise one would not write it. Only later
comes reflection, and one discards or accepts
the thing. Time is the best censor, and
patience a most excellent teacher.

Sometimes I can only groan, suffer,
and pour out my despair at the piano!
Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!

It is dreadful when something weighs on
your mind, not to have a soul to unburden

yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell
my piano the things I used to tell you.

If I were still stupider than I am, I should think

myself at the apex of my career; yet I know
how much I still lack, to reach perfection; I see
it the more clearly now that I live only
among first-rank artists and know
what each one of them lacks.

I'm a revolutionary,

money means nothing to me.

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.

But when he asked Chopin whether he was

still in pain, we quite distinctly heard the

answer: 'No more.' These were the

last words heard from his lips.

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.

(About his Op. 11 Piano Concerto)

Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do

wrong against my will. As something has

involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes,

I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.

They want me to be everything in one; a Polish

Rossini and a Mozart and a Beethoven. But I just

laugh under my breath and think to myself that

one must start from small things. I'm only a pianist,

and, if I’m worth anything, that is good, too.

The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles

should be as proud of me as the German

are of Mozart; obvious nonsense.

My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot,

for I am covered with poultices.

(Writing to his father at 8 years old)

I could express my feelings more easily

if they could be put into notes of music.

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.

Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and

Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called

Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone

thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs

about it; but only waltzes get printed.

There are certain times when I feel more inspired,

filled with a strong power that forces me to

listen to my inner voice, and when I feel more

need than ever for a Pleyel piano.

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… she really

a woman? I'm inclined to doubt it.

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 feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew
anything of the keyboard. It is far too
original, and I shall end up not
being able to learn it myself.

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.

I am gay on the outside, especially among my own

folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something

gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety,

dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy,

indifference - desire for life, and the next instant,

desire for death; some kind of sweet peace,

some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness...

They're all cousins here, male and female,
belonging to great families with great names which
no one on the continent has ever heard of. The
whole conversation is conducted along genealogical
lines; it's just like the Gospel - such a one begat so
and-so, and he begat another who begat still others
and so on for two pages, up to Jesus Christ.

A strange adventure befell me while I was
playing my Sonata in B flat minor before
some English friends. I had played the
Allegro and the Scherzo more or less
correctly. I was about to attack the March
when suddenly I saw arising from the body
of my piano those cursed creatures which
had appeared to me one lugubrious night at
the Chartreuse [Majorca]. I had to leave for
one instant to pull myself together after
which I continued without saying anything.

(On the British)

...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...

(On England)

Art, here, means painting, sculpture and

architecture. Music is not art and is not

called art... Music is a profession, not an art,

and no one speaks or writes of any musician

as an artist... These queer folk play for

the sake of beauty, but to teach

them decent things is a joke.

Having nothing to do, I am correcting the

Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's

mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by

those who are supposed to understand Bach

(I have no pretensions to understand better,

but I do think that sometimes I can guess).

Here, whatever is not boring is not English.

(On Scotland)

The population here is ugly, but apparently

good-natured. On the other hand the

cows are magnificent, but apparently

inclined to gore people.

QUOTES BY OTHERS
ABOUT CHOPIN:

"After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had

been weeping over sins that I had

never committed, and mourning over

tragedies that were not my own."

--Oscar Wilde, 1891

"Deeply regretted as he may be by the

whole body of artists, lamented by all

who have ever known him, we must still

be permitted to doubt if the time has

even yet arrived in which he, whose loss

is so peculiarly deplored by ourselves,

can be appreciated in accordance

with his just value, or occupy that high

rank which in all probability will be

assigned him in the future."

--Franz Liszt

"Incomparable genius whom

the heavens envied the Earth."

--Eugene Delacroix

We may be sure that a genius

like Mozart, were he born

today, would write concertos

like Chopin and not like Mozart.

- Robert Schumann

He would lock himself up in his room

for whole days, weeping, pacing back

and forth, breaking his pens, repeating

or changing one bar a hundred times,

writing and erasing as many times,

and beginning again the next day with

an infinite and desperate perseverance.

He sometimes spent six weeks on one

page, only in the end to write it exactly

as he had sketched at the first draft.

--George Sand

There is something fundamentally

personal and at the same time

so very masterly in his playing

that he may be called a really

perfect virtuoso.

- Mendelssohn

Chopin is a pianist of conviction.

He composes for himself, plays

for himself… and everyone listens

with interest, with delight, with infinite

pleasure… Nothing indeed equals

the lightness and sweetness of his

preluding on the piano, nothing

compares with his works in

originality, distinction and grace.

Chopin is unique as a pianist; he

should not and cannot be

compared with anyone.

--La France Musicale

The marvelous charm, the poetry

and originality, the perfect freedom

and absolute lucidity of Chopin’s

playing cannot be described. It is

perfection in every sense.

--C.E. and M. Halle

Chopin is full of health and strength; all

the French women are after him, and

all the French men are jealous. He is

the rage; the world will soon see people

wearing new-fashioned gloves—

gloves à la Chopin.

--Unknown

Here is a young man, abandoning

himself to his natural impressions and

without taking a model, has found, if

not a complete renewal of pianoforte

music, at least a part of what has been

sought in vain for a long time; namely

an abundance of original ideas of which

the type is to be found nowhere.

--Revue Musicale, March 3, 1832

Chopin’s rubato possessed an unshakable

emotional logic. It always justified itself

by a strengthening or weakening melodic

line, by exaggeration or affectation.

--Karol Mikuli, pupil of Chopin

It was an unforgettable picture to see Chopin

sitting at the piano like a clairvoyant,

lost in his dreams.

--Robert Schumann

Chopin is so dear to us precisely because, with

his music, he enters the artistic atmosphere

which surrounds us as our contemporary; as

a close, well-understood and beloved friend.

--Kabalevsky Dmitri

His character was indeed not easily understood.

A thousand subtle shades, mingling, crossing,

contradicting and disguising each other,

rendered it almost undecipherable

at a first view.

--Liszt Franz

What makes Chopin great is the fact that no

matter how simple he is he never becomes

common, while his most complicated works

never become overly sophisticated.

--Tolstoy Leo