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Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre (Convergences: Inventories of the Present)

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We are all aware of the greatness of Chopin. A few are privy to the greatness of George Sand. Here finally we learn a little of the chemistry which flowed between these two giants of the artistic Paris in the 1840's; also importantly, the details, clearly presented, of the questions concerning Chopin's music of his last years. This is a calm and reasoned book, showing the author's comprehensive knowledge of the subject. This is not a biography per se, rather a set of vignettes on particulars of Chopin's life and gorgeous music. If you desire some brilliant and clear-headed discussion of his gender ambiguity as a person and as expressed in his Nocturnes, I encourage you to read this fine work.

For instance, Aurore Dupin, pseudonym George Sand, the French novelist - later Baroness Dudevant - who wrote in masculine genres, was grotesque in her absurd ideas of love and she tortured the Polish Chopin who mainly composed in feminine styles.

Chopin must have felt her mind was a region utterly difficult to penetrate under the best of circumstances (she was six years his senior) hence the approaches he made to her daughter Solenge.

Chopin, fearing to be in the shadow of the strong willed George Sand of aristocratic lineage (through her father) and a distant relative of Louis XVI, would have none of it. Both were unhappily powerless.