Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre (Convergences) [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Kallberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0674127900 | ISBN-13: 978-0674127906

The complex status of Chopin in our culture--he was a native Pole and adopted Frenchman, and a male composer writing in "feminine" genres--is the subject of Jeffrey Kallberg's absorbing book. Combining social history, literary theory, musicology, and feminist thought, Chopin at the Boundaries is the first book to situate Chopin's music within the construct of his somewhat marginal sexual identity and to explore how this should figure in our understanding of his compositional methods. Through this novel approach, Kallberg reveals a new Chopin, one situated precisely where questions of gender open up into the very important question of genre.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Chopin at the Boundaries aim[s] 'to expose and partially recover aspects of Chopin's style perceived in his day to be marginal or foreign, but which today's listeners have transformed or repressed.' In this respect and in others, [it] succeed[s] brilliantly; Kallberg's scholarship is consistently of the highest caliber, his research meticulous and exhaustive, his arguments engaging. (John Rink Times Literary Supplement )

Mr. Kallberg...[explores] connections between 'gender and genre' by way of showing Frederic Chopin's small forms and surface beauties congruent with 19th-century concepts of feminine expression. Most of the pages [of his book] are given over to fine analysis of Chopin's work. There is in particular an excellent examination of that strange end piece to Chopin's career, the F-minor Mazurka. (Kenneth LaFave Washington Times )

[Kallberg's] meticulous scholarship is presented lucidly, and his acquaintance with pertinent literature of the past century and a half is impressive. (Choice )

Review

Kallberg is internationally accepted as one of the most knowledgeable writers on Chopin today. This book shows that he is also the most original. It is an extremely successful attempt to open out the study of Chopin into both social criticism and the history of reception...It is certainly the most stimulating book of Chopin criticism I have ever read. (Charles Rosen )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674127900
• ISBN-13: 978-0674127906
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,816,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FINALLY, May 17, 2000

By 

John S. Hilliard (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre (Convergences) (Hardcover)

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.

10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sand was a killer!!!, April 17, 2007

By 

Mr Bassil A MARDELLI "Antoun" (Riad El-SOLH , Beirut Lebanon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre (Convergences: Inventories of the Present) (Paperback)

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.