Chopin's Funeral [Hardcover]

Benita Eisler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2003

The author of the acclaimed biography Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame brings to life a closely fo-
cused portrait of another great romantic artist, Frédéric Chopin.

At twenty-one, Chopin fled Russian-occupied Poland for exile in France. He would never see his native country again. With only two public concerts in as many years, he became a star of Parisian society and a legendary performer at its salons, revered by his great contemporaries Schumann, Liszt, and the painter Eugène Delacroix. Blessed with genius, success, and the love of Europe’s most famous—and infamous—woman novelist, George Sand, Chopin’s years of triumph ended with his expulsion from paradise: less than two decades after his conquest of Paris, the composer lay destitute and dying in the arms of Sand’s estranged daughter, Solange. Chopin’s Funeral is the story of this fatal fall from grace, of an Oedipal tragedy unfolding, and of illness and loss redeemed by the radical breakthrough of the composer’s last style.

Richly textured and artfully compressed, Chopin’s Funeral is an intimate close-up of an embattled man, grappling with conflict on all sides: family violence, political passions, and, not least, his own dependency and pride. With consummate skill Benita Eisler tells the story of the artist as exile, of an explosive love affair, and of worlds—private and public—convulsed by momentous change.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Biographer Eisler, whose last book was on Byron, has moved to much more heavily trodden ground with this one, and it is to her credit that she manages to make the brief arc of the exiled Polish composer's life so affecting. She begins with a journalistic close-up of Chopin's funeral, which ironically was a lavish affair, though in his last months of sickness he was neglected by most of his society friends. Eisler then proceeds to the familiar story of his triumphant arrival on the Paris scene and the swift liaison with the notorious George Sand. Wisely skipping over the couple's disastrous and endlessly dramatized winter together on Majorca, Eisler focuses her well-researched attention on the closing years of the composer's life. She has an excellent chapter on Chopin's unhappy time in England and Scotland; and she writes with real vigor and sympathy of the byzantine family politics that embroiled the Sand household, both at the country retreat Nohant and in Paris, where the novelist turned away from her daughter Solange and rested her hopes on her far less worthy son, Maurice. In the end it was Solange who comforted the dying composer after Sand had ruthlessly thrust him from her life. Chopin's failings-his rigid conservatism and snobbishness, his political timidity and frequent financial selfishness-are made clear; but Eisler, deeply sympathetic to the quality of the music, also shows that he never ceased to struggle, despite perpetual illness, to expand his extraordinary gift into areas where no musician had previously ventured. The book adds little to the sum of Chopin scholarship, but is a skillfully written and mercifully brief overview that hits the right notes.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The innovative pianist-composer Chopin (1810-49) moved in the highest circles of French society but, frail and tubercular throughout his adult life, lived in emotional solitude. His story, which Eisler starts to retell from its end in a massive funeral in Paris, is entwined with that of his famous lover, novelist and political activist George Sand, with whom, from 1838 to 1846, he shared Nohant, her home in the French countryside, in the summer and apartments in Paris in the winter. Trained in Warsaw, Chopin performed mostly his own music, concertizing in Vienna and Warsaw before moving in 1831 to Paris, where, with Sand as his manager, he made a career of playing in private salons as well as publicly. Temperamentally conservative and Catholic, he escaped to England during the1848 revolution, returning to Paris after seven months. There he died, a broken man, deeply in debt, surrounded by his closest friends. Eisler portrays him as tender but also as a dandy, whose life constitutes a cameo in a French society torn by revolution. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (March 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375409459
• ISBN-13: 978-0375409455
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,122,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Chopin and Sand "Lite", April 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Chopin's Funeral (Hardcover)

I was disappointed by this book. Its title and slight size might suggest that it deals almost exclusively with Chopin's last days and burial. Not so. Eisler's description of Chopin's funeral comprises the first nine pages of this book. Another two at the end tell of Chopin's last minutes. (She sheds no new light on either event.) In between, you will find a Reader's Digest version of Chopin's life with particular emphasis on his relationship with George Sand. The book ends when Chopin does: the aftermath of his demise, it's effects on those around him, are not discussed.

I assume the author's intent was to quickly distill the couple's relationship so that she could speculate on it's unraveling. But the pair's quirky "association" lasted for twenty-one years. So this abridgement leaves much to be desired.

If you want a brief recap of the Chopin-Sand story, or are totally unfamiliar with their singular relationship, I suppose this book wouldn't be a bad place to start. However, it's not written particularly well. The convoluted, ungainly sentences were difficult to forgive after a while. If you want a better written and more detailed book on the composer, I recommend "Chopin in Paris" by Tad Szulc.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The unromantic daily lives of two pillars of romanticism., July 29, 2003

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Chopin's Funeral (Hardcover)

Focusing on the last fifteen years of Frederic Chopin's life, this biography of the composer shows how his relationship with the "liberated" author George Sand, her household, and her children dominated Chopin's life in France from shortly after his arrival there in 1831 until his death from tuberculosis in 1849. Carefully researched and footnoted, the biography describes this unlikely relationship, sometimes mutually supportive and sometimes strained, either from Chopin's increasing debilitation from his devastating illness or from Sand's promiscuity and desire for excitement.

Confining herself to those details which can be historically verified, author Eisler documents her vivid account of their life together primarily through references to the letters of the participants and eyewitness accounts. Unlike writers of fictionalized biography, she presents the facts and avoids drawing conclusions, even when they seem obvious to the lay reader. The one arena in which she allows herself some imaginative leeway is in analyzing some of the creative works of Chopin and Sand, relating them to events in their lives. For Chopin she suggests that the mood or form of a work might be related to particular events or circumstances, while for Sand she suggests that it might be the subject matter itself.

Straightforward and scholarly, the biography presents facts, rather then bringing events to life, and while some insight can be gained into the participants from their letters, there are some gaps in the historical record which sometimes leave the reader wishing for more transitions, especially as the Chopin/Sand relationship deteriorates and eventually ends. While music history scholars may be familiar with much of this material, Eisler's story is, for the novice, a fascinating glimpse into the life and times of these romantic artists, their friends, and patrons in Paris near the mid-point of the 19th century. Mary Whipple

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem of a book, April 24, 2003

By 

Jon Hunt "musician, teacher" (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chopin's Funeral (Hardcover)

Benita Eisler had written a concise and powerful book about the life of Frederic Chopin, including his loves, his music and his friends. Beginning with a colorful account of Chopin's funeral, the author then begins to weave together a tormented picture of him. His many illnesses, the distance from those he loved, his constant need for funds....all describe a life of unbelievable turmoil. Eisner is able to capture the essence of Chopin brilliantly and relate it to the reader with strokes of understanding and compassion.

While Chopin's relationship with George Sand has been well-documented over the years, the author, nonetheless, gives an emotional portrayal of their lives together...and apart. It is the central part of this book, as it should be. But how many readers know the influence that Sand's children had on him....especially Solange? Chopin relied heavily on both women but it was Solange who comforted him at the composer's end.

As a pianist, I enjoyed Eisner's brief and occasional comments on Chopin's compositions. They always seemed to complement her narrative and they were never too weighty to drag down any chapter. Her writing style is often brisk but not in any way capricious. The "photo" taken of Chopin towards the end of his life says it all. A man barely five feet tall, weighing little by a body wracked with suffering....a man in this condition who could still write some of the most expansive music. Eisner secures it all...she allows the reader to have great empathy and awe for Chopin.

It's a rare occurrence that a dust jacket adds so much to the book. It's really designed to give the look and feel of a first edition classic. Eisner's "Chopin's Funeral" is a highly recommended, thoroughly enjoyable book.