Customer Reviews

Chopin In Paris: The Life And Times Of The Romantic Composer

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After reading most of the Chopin biographies, I wasn't sure that there was more I could learn. Tad Szulc offers a more personal and intimate view of this enigmatic master than any others. This is because he brings into play a great deal of material from Chopin's contempories. So much more of the relationship between George Sand is available with a much more sympathetic portrayal of Chopin's third and last great paramour. We also learn about Chopin's personal views on Beethoven, other musicians and artists, on piano pedagogy, based on discussions with his friend and the artist, Delacroix. Chopin's relationship with the Marquis de Custine, who above all others seemed able to understand the inner soul of Chopin and his music. The fact that the marquis was homosexual and perhaps adds to the empathy of one man for the expression of another does not go unnoticed though the author cautions against any inferences that Chopin may have had an intimate affair with another man. Chopin, the sensitive thinker amidst the rich turbulence of the times is portrayed through letters, correspondences and recalled conversations. Chopin is probably the most personal of all the great masters, yet he was aloof from the artistic excesses of his times, played Bach's well Tempered daily, meticulous in his composing habits and yet, a little appreciated fact emphasized by Tad Szulc that Chopin was an innovator and creator of new and important musical forms. Certainly all popular music and jazz harmonies of the 20th century are direcly derived and based on Chopin. If you love Chopin the musician, his music and fascinated with the rich artistic and political times of the early 19th century, you will treasure this book. Michael Tierra

I'm just reaching the middle of Chopin in Paris right now, and I already have a list of complaints that have become irritating. The book follows Chopin's life from childhood to his death, focusing primarily on the period of his self-selected Parisian exile. Other reviewers have noted the special place this moment holds in European cultural history and, if this is of interest to readers, they should peruse The Parisian World of Frederick Chopin by William Atwood. That work is an exhaustive socio-politico-cultural history of the period, interesting and colorfully written. While it only touches on Chopin peripherally, it explains the why's and how's of Paris as certainly the musical and probably the cultural center of Europe at that time.

Mr. Szulc's book does have its strong points. A recently written, authoritative account of Chopin's life is certainly overdue, and Szulc attempts this. He depends largely on textual sources, obviously, and much of what he says appears at first glance to be documented. For example, Szulc does treat George Sand very evenhandedly, letting the evidence speak for itself. Many, many writers have painted Sand as a depraved, blood-sucking harpy who robbed Chopin of his life, and Szulc resists the temptation. He relies heavily on the Andre Maurois biography of Sand and the correspondence in hand, and this presents a more fair and balanced picture of their relationship. On the plus side, Szulc manages to make it sound very dishy, heightening the interest.

Many things detract from the effort, however, firstly his use of purple ink. Szulc undercuts his own credibility with a turgid, wordy style and the use of hyperbole to describe every event. He often sounds like a partisan trying to convince the reader that Chopin's accomplishments are so great that they prove the superiority of Polish (or French, or I don't know whose) culture, and this is completely unnecessary and very distracting. Chopin did have his detractors early on in the 20th century, but today everyone accepts that Chopin was a genius, his works are masterpieces, and his influence can be felt and heard everywhere subsequently. Chopin carved out an international reputation for his playing alone on the basis of 30 public concerts he gave in his adult life, blowing almost all his peers out of the water in a couple of swift strokes and making Liszt his only serious competitor on the stage. I know of several concert artists alive today who do 30 concerts in 2-months' time as a part of their regular season, so by itself this would make Chopin's accomplishment extraordinary. All of the adjectival puffery just makes it harder to take seriously.

Szulc makes Chopin's sexuality an issue, and he handles the subject most unfortunately. To start with, Szulc bends over backwards to argue that Chopin wasn't gay in a fashion that borders on the offensive. He takes some early letters written to a male childhood friend and tries very lamely to explain that Chopin didn't really mean the epithets he larded the text with (can we say "latency period?"). Szulc is obviously uncomfortable by the profusion of physical affection described there, yet he doesn't bother to explain it in terms of the differing standards of propriety and convention of the day. Enough research has been done regarding this subject that these sentiments appear innocuous and entirely lacking in sexual intent when taken in context. Unless of course, Chopin had a secret, closeted life. The sexuality of many great cultural figures has been argued forensically for a while now, with devastating starkness in the case of Tchaikovsky and spuriousness in that of Schubert. If people are going to bring it up, then the subject now deserves a serious, scholarly treatment. Szulc avoids this, doing his readers a disservice by giving them an embarrassed shiver in its place when touching on any aspect of Chopin's love life. While it is doubtful that Chopin was even bisexual, myths and legends persist. Szulc does not explore the matter in any meaningful way that would lay the question to rest.

Then there is Chopin's mental state. Chopin had a number of personality quirks, especially his hesitancy, his aristocratic manner and certain prejudices prevalent in his letters, and Szulc brings these to the fore. He also spends a good deal of the page in a tiresome and unconvincing effort to analyze the soi-disant `link' between mental instability and creativity, quoting a couple of doctors and psychological experts. Was Chopin really schizoid or bipolar, as Szulc asserts? It's very, very hard to say without any clinical evidence (and there isn't any), yet Szulc takes it as a foregone conclusion that Chopin was, mostly because of his genius, and he concludes that other major artistic figures of the day were also, again because of their genius. I thought people had given that theory up along with the Oedipus Complex long ago! In his defense, Chopin had a diagnosis of consumption early in his life, and he spent the rest of it in indifferent or failing health because of his disease. I can't imagine anyone waking up in the morning in a good mood if they were facing that every single day of their lives. Additionally, the pressures of celebrity certainly heightened Chopin's characterological flaws, a reaction we see today in much-less-talented Hollywood celebrities unable to cope with their fame. Is this to say that Chopin' creativity pushed him to the "edge of madness"? I don't think so, and Szulc just seems to be guessing.

Lastly, Szulc's practice of citing sources is confusing and spotty. The book does have a bibliography, but Szulc dispenses with end- or footnotes in the text. He defends this practice in the preface, saying that the references are cited directly in the text and notes are therefore unnecessary. But I've been looking in the bibliography for two days now for a journal article he quoted as a medical reference, and I can't find it there.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. He doesn't talk about the music, and this is just a shame. Chopin was a leading exponent in the use of chromatic harmony and the evolution, transmogrification really, of formal rhythmic structures from the classical sonata of Haydn, Mozart and even Beethoven, into the very free yet harmonically complex forms that came about later in the 19th century. It is this use of chromatic harmony and coloring, and no other, that makes Chopin's music and that of his contemporaneous peers groundbreaking and as highly influentual as it turned out to be. It is not too much to say that, thanks to Chopin and his contemporaries, Debussy, Stravinsky and Schoenberg became possible. But we don't get that. Instead we are treated to an overblown and even lurid description of the subjective emotional content of the works, without any explanation of "why". Too bad, because an accessible discussion of the musical style would be of great benefit to anyone interested in music. I am reminded of how other non-musicians such as Will and Ariel Durant very succesfully present this subject in interesting yet non-technical terms, so there's no reason why anyone else can't.

Other reviewers have pointed out that there isn't a good, authoritative biography of Chopin available, and I'm sad to say the current effort falls short on several counts. I can't help thinking that this book would have been much better if it had been written by Maynard Solomon.

To concentrate on Chopin's time in Paris, and to try and trace his connections and acquaintances in that extraordinarily fertile artistic stamping ground, is a very good idea and focus for a biography of Chopin's short life. It is a fascinating milieu and it says a great deal for the facts uncovered here that the story can survive a verbose and gushing written style, and some factual carelessness. One is confronted time and time again by statements such as these: 'The year 1834 was a good one for Chopin whose life, like the chord spread of an arpeggio, went alternatively from the bottom upwards or from the top downwards'. Or the final sentence in the whole book, a summing-up: 'Frederick Chopin gave the world a treasure in music. The world gave Chopin a treasure in human beings'. This is typicalof the windy flow that so impedes the sense in this book. Don't editors read this stuff before it gets into print?

Factually, the book falls down particularly badly when dealing with matters musical; for example we are told: 'Hector Berlioz made Romanticism's breakthrough in 1825 when he conducted a performance of his requiem at Saint-Roch Church. No performance of such magnitude and venturesome boldness had ever been presented before'. A muddle here - Berlioz's Requiem was written in 1837 and first performed at 'Les Invalides', and yes, did poleaxe the musical world. There was a Berlioz performance at St.Roch Church in 1825 - that was the Mass, an immature and not particularly large scale work (recently rediscovered and performed by John Eliot Gardiner) which Berlioz himself discarded after one performance, and which had no widespread impact. Also, the idea that Romanticism suddenly took everyone by surprise is fatuous. We are told Meyerbeer's opera 'Robert the Devil' deals with 'religious mythology'. It doesn't - it's a gothic penny-dreadful with skating nuns. These examples are indicative of a careless approach to the facts and make one question the primary research done in this book.

Chopin was obviously a complex, contradictory character - he comes across as self-obsessed, cold, intellectually rather narrow and rather snobbish (I would have much rather had dinner with Georges Sand),a self professed ardent Polish patriot who never went back to Poland, or showed much desire to do so - there is meat here for a good probing biography. Instead this book is capsized by pseudo-Hollywood puffery and rank journalese.

There are a lot of things to say about this book, most of them good. You come away from the book with the feeling that you have a pretty good understanding of Chopin's personality and also of what his day to day existence was like. For example, I always had a picture of him being a very serious and uptight person. And while he could be very stiff and formal in public, Mr. Szulc shows that in private he could be quite different. Chopin did not like to give public concerts and you could pretty much count on your fingers and toes how many such concerts he gave in his whole career. But he did enjoy going out at night to the homes of friends for little "get togethers" and he would play the piano for hours at a time and would get people laughing with his imitations of acquaintances. He apparently had a great gift for mimicry. One of the best features of the book is that it quotes extensively from the letters, journals, etc. of Chopin and George Sand and also of friends such as the artist Eugene Delacroix. Chopin's personality really comes through in his letters. You can see his charm and his sense of humor but also his snobbery and nastiness. It also seems pretty clear that he was an anti-semite, although Mr.Szulc tries rather desperately to rescue him from that charge by saying that Chopin really just didn't like the Jews in the music publishing business, because he felt they were trying to cheat him! He really didn't mind "other" Jews. Unfortunately, Chopin is quoted about 4-5 times making anti-semitic remarks but no examples are given of him having anything nice to say so I don't know why Mr. Szulc even tried to come to his defense in this particular area...I also learned from this book how highly regarded Chopin was as a pianist. I knew he was a great composer but he was also considered to be a great virtuoso, on the same level as Liszt. When playing at those private parties I mentioned above he would improvise for hours and it was said by knowledgeable people at the time that it was a great shame that the public never got to hear these remarkable improvisations. I also never knew that Chopin spent a great deal of his time giving piano lessons. He was apparently a very good teacher and the money he made teaching was a large part of his total income. There is a very touching section of the book that deals with the death at age 15 of Chopin's favorite (and most gifted) student, Carl Filtsch. Chopin felt that this boy had a unique and innate understanding of his music and this created a special bond between the two of them.Mr. Szulc explains early on that he is not a musician and therefore the book does not provide any musical insights. Mr. Szulc is forced into relying on and quoting the opinions of others when he makes brief forays into the technical aspects of the music. Professional musicians will probably find the book disappointing unless they only read the book to get a feel for the personalities involved. One last note of interest: The picture on the cover is an enlargement of the only known photograph of Chopin and is so revealing of his nature that it alone is almost worth the purchase price!

Hesitated to get this book for a long time because of the negative feedback from previous one, two, and three star reviewers.

After finally getting my hands on it, those negative comments turned out to be either untrue, or so trivial compared to the enormous amount of information provided about our great composer.

It is very readable. Lots of details. Lots of quotes directly from Chopin, his friends, Sand, AND most importantly, the circumstances for their remarks. Controversial evidences and author's own opinions were usually pointed out clearly. I felt this is very necessary. If writers inject too many their imaginations, opinions, and guidance into their biography books, then 1520 years from now, nobody will know what truly happened. I hope not only Chopin's music will last for thousands of years, his life story will also be carefully preserved.

In case I'm biased, you probably want to know that I'm
1. A big Chopin fan.
2. Haven't read other Chopin biographies yet (otherwise will claim to be the "biggest fan") so don't know how this one compared to others.
3. Did read "Chopin's Letter". I'll go back to read that again because this book helped me a lot understanding all the names and their roles, and the context when a letter was written.
4. English is my second language. Since this book is very readable and easy to follow for me, you might find it too plainly written but I really doubt that'll be the case.
You'll appreciate this book if you are close to my situation.

Submitted on a special day -- October 17.

I have read many reviews of Chopin's music and listened to as much of his music as I could get a hold of, and so I was happy to find this book which concentrates on what Chopin was like as a person. Unlike several other Chopin biographies I have read, this one was very readable and easy to follow. Through the many accounts of his comtemporaries and selections from his own letters, we have no doubt that Chopin was a very complex person. He seems petty,insecure,and prone to speaking negatively about most of the people he knew. But he also had many friends who would do anything for him. If the author can be accused of being repetitive, it is because much of Chopin's life was repetitive-living with illness with short breaks of good health,giving lessons to survive,travelling back and forth between Paris and Nohant, and composing masterpiece after masterpiece. I particulary enjoyed anecdotes such as the story of how his friend Dr. Aleksander Hoffman suggested a slow introduction to the "Winter Wind" Etude. Imagine having your little suggestion used by one of the ultimate geniuses in music in one of the greatest bravura pieces for the piano! I wonder if Chopin had Dr. Hoffman's slow intro idea in mind when he was working on the first movement of his 2nd Sonata, Op. 35-one of the greatest intros in all of music? As a musician, I could also identify with the sad account of his last public appearance, which was at a Polish benefit concert and ball in England. Chopin gave a concert after the audience had enjoyed lively dancing, and no one was in the mood to listen. Even the great Chopin was booked in a bad "gig"-a fate which any musician, who has played for the public, is bound to experience. The book is a treat for anyone who loves Chopin's music. It leaves us to wonder how music so noble,eloquent, and simply "out-of-this-world", could come from someone who had many flaws and eccentricities, and who suffered greatly throughout his adult life.

This is an extraordinarily vivid and detailed portrait. Mr. Szulc has woven together intimate details about Chopin with the broader history of politics and society of Paris and Poland in the 1800's. That may sound rather dry, but it actually makes for incredibly engaging reading - even if you are already quite familiar with the life of Chopin.

I do have strong objections to Szulc's "diagnosis" of Chopin as manic-depressive however. With all the information he provides, he fails to set forth any concrete evidence that Chopin suffered from that illness. It's a completely inaccurate label for Chopin. And, the author does seem rather adamant in his assurances that Chopin had no bisexual predilections. While there is "no evidence to suggest" that he had homosexual liaisons (with the Marquis de Custine for example), there is also no evidence to indicate that he did not.

But those are minor points in a biography that will otherwise not fail please. This book truly transports the reader into Chopin's world and, ultimately, provides a framework for a greater appreciation of the genius of his music.

I'm glad I gave this book a chance because I enjoyed it quite a lot. Why only 4 stars? A good editor would have cut out some repetitious details. It's annoying, but don't let it stop you from reading it.

The tragedy of Chopin's short life was consumption (tuberculosis of the lungs). You'll marvel that he could give lessons and even perform in public when he seemed to be perpetually short of breath. In this sense, it's a story of triumphing over the odds.

In another sense, it's a love story, i.e., his 8 year affair with George Sand (aka Aurore Dudevant). These were years of extraordinary creativity for Chopin. Their breakup was like many another - faults on both sides, misplaced pride, lack of communication, friends taking sides, etc.

Your heart will break for Chopin in this final tragedy, particularly since we all know (with the benefit of hindsight) that his time was running short and his strength was failing. And he couldn't quite forget her, pathetically asking about her through her grown children. Was she at his bedside when he breathed his last? You'll have to read the book.

One test of a good book (for me) is whether it inspires and opens the door onto other books. This book easily passes that test. Not only does it make me want to read more about Chopin and his friends, but when I listen to his music, I am more moved than ever.

Szulc's biography of Chopin is the first biography I have read about a musician. My purpose in reading the book was to become acquainted with the man Chopin. I am a history major and a pianist and very impressed with Szulc's work. Using a multitude of primary sources, Szulc accurately describes who Chopin was. Szulc's greatest success is in portraying Chopin's personality. As a result of reading this book, I have become enthralled with Chopin's music and now delight to play it much more than I did before I read the book. This book has the ability to attach the reader to Chopin and even let him feel some of Chopin's emotion, which made him the finest Romantic pianist and composer. This book is a marvelous achievement, historically sound and musically inspirational.

This book is a great read for anyone interested in learning more about Chopin and his love for music. You also get to learn about his love interest in George Sand. Szulc does a great job of keeping the material interesting as Chopin's contributions for all of time.

This is a great book to have for anyone that loves Chopin!