Frederick Chopin Essay Example For Students

Frederick Chopin Essay The 1830s have been called the decade of the piano because duringthat period the piano and the music written for it played a dominant role inEuropean musical culture. The piano had, of course, already been popular formore than half a century, but by the third decade of the nineteenth century,changes in the instrument and its audience transformed the pianos role inmusical life. As the Industrial Revolution hit its stride, piano manufacturersdeveloped methods for building many more pianos than had previously beenfeasible, and at lower cost. Pianos ceased to be the exclusive province of thewealthy; an expanding middle class could also aspire to own them and make musicat home. Thousands of amateur pianists began to take lessons, buy printed music,and attend concerts. Virtuosos like Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Sigismund Thalberg,and Franz Liszt became the first musical superstars, touring Europe andastonishing audiences with music they had composed to display their pianotechnique. Frederick Ch opin was born in a small village named Zelazowa Wolalocated in Poland on March 1st, 1810. His passionate love of music showed itselfat an early age. There are stories, for instance, of how when his mother andsister played dances on their grand piano he would burst into tears for thesheer beauty of the sounds he heard. Soon he began to explore the keyboard forhimself and delighted in experimenting. By the age of seven he had becomesufficiently good for his parents to try and find him a teacher. Their choicefell on Adalbert Zywny, a Bohemian composer then aged sixty-one and nowremembered solely as Chopins first teacher. Within a few months of beginninghis studies with Zywny, Chopin began to play in public, and by the end of 1817,at the age of seven, had already been described by many as ?Mozartssuccessor. Chopin began to compose around this time, and continued to do sothroughout his student years, but only a handful of these works were printed. Inthe autumn of 1826, Chopin began study ing the theory of music, figured bass, andcomposition at the Warsaw High School of Music. Its head was the composer J?zefElsner. Chopin, however, did not attend the piano class. Aware of theexceptional nature of Chopins talent, Elsner allowed him, in accordance withhis personality and temperament, to concentrate on piano music but was unbendingas regards theoretical subjects, in particular counterpoint. Chopin, endowed bynature with magnificent melodic invention, ease of free improvisation, and aninclination towards brilliant effects and perfect harmony, gained in Elsnersschool a solid grounding, discipline, and precision of construction, as well asan understanding of the meaning and logic of each note. This was the period ofthe first extended works such as the Sonata in C minor, Variations, on a themefrom Don Juan by Mozart, the Rondo ? la Krakowiak, the Fantaisie, and the Trioin G minor. Chopin ended his education at the High School in 1829, and after thethird year of his studies Elsner wrote in a report: Chopin, Fryderyk,third year student, amazing talent, musical genius. After completing hisstudies, Chopin planned a longer stay abroad to become acquainted with themusical life of Europe and to win fame. Up to then, he had never left Poland,with the exception of two brief stays in Prussia. In 1826, he had spent aholiday in Bad Reinertz (modern day Duszniki-Zdr?j) in Lower Silesia, and twoyears later he had accompanied his fathers friend, Professor Feliks Jarocki, onhis journey to Berlin to attend a congress of naturalists. Here, quite unknownto the Prussian public, he concentrated on observing the local musical scene. Now he pursued bolder plans. In July 1829 he made a short excursion to Vienna inthe company of his acquaintances. Wilhelm W?rfel, who had been staying therefor three years, introduced him to the musical environment, and enabled Chopinto give two performances in the K?rtnertortheater. He enjoyed his tremendoussuccess with the public, and although the critics censured his performance forits small volume of sound, they acclaimed him as a genius of the piano andpraised his compositions. Consequently, the Viennese publisher Tobias Haslingerprinted the Variations on a theme from Mozart (1830), a piece he performed atthe K?rtnertortheater. This was the first publication of a Chopin compositionabroad, for up to then, his works had only been published in Warsaw. Upon hisreturn to Warsaw, Chopin, already free from student duties, devoted himself tocomposition and wrote, among other pieces, two Concertos for piano andorchestra: in F minor and E minor. The first concerto was inspired to aconside rable extent by the composers feelings towards Konstancja Gladkowska,who studied singing at the Conservatory. This was also the period of the firstnocturne, etudes, waltzes, mazurkas, and songs to words by Stefan Witwicki. Homemade Education EssayOn 17 October 1849, Chopin died of pulmonary tuberculosis in his Parisian flatin the Place Vend?me. He was buried in the P?re-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Inaccordance with his will, however, his sister brought his heart, taken from hisbody after death, to Warsaw where it was placed in an urn installed in a pillarof the Holy Cross church in Krakowskie Przedmiscie. Chopin published 159 worksdistributed among sixty-five opus numbers, but he also composed more thanseventy other works that he chose not to publish. In some cases, he may havedecided that the music was not up to his standards or that it needed furtherrevision. Other works had been presented as personal gifts to close friends, andChopin may have considered it inappropriate to publish them. On his deathbed, hehad asked that all his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed, but that wish wasnot honored, and in 1853 his mother and sisters asked Julian Fontana, Chopinsfriend and amanuensis, to select from am ong them works that he considered worthyand edit them for publication. He selected twenty-three piano pieces, which hegrouped into eight opus numbers (66-73). Chopins music, no matter what thesetting, is instantly recognizable. His unique sense of lyricism andunparalleled melodic genius produced some of the most purely beautiful musicever written; music which would influence many composers who followed, fromBrahms to Debussy. He was a revolutionary light in Romantic music, the ultimatecraftsman of whimsical melody and heart-rending harmony. In the structure andform of his compositions, he is quite alone; his sense of balance andarchitecture in music was not particularly related to the Classical or buddingRomantic tradition, but seemed to spring from some unknown well-source. Theoverwhelming power and influence of his musical legacy is forever assured. BibliographyThe Unofficial Frederic Chopin Homepage.. March 2000. ? Chopin Foundation of the United States, Inc. Fryderyk Chopin? A Chronological Biography.. March 2000. ? Leszczynski, Krzysztof. Frederic Chopin:Life?Works?Tradition.. November 1999. ? Orga, Ates. Chopin: His Life and Times. Tunbridge Wells:Midas Books, 1976. ? Pourtal?s, Guy De. Polonaise: The Life of Chopin. NewYork: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. ? Szulc, Tad. Chopin in Paris: The Life andTimes of the Romantic Composer. New York: Scribner, 1989.