In Tuesday’s (3/9) Wall Street Journal, pianist Byron Janis writes, “March 1 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great composer and pianist Frédéric François Chopin. Or was it? Not according to his sister Ludwika, Franz Liszt and Chopin’s close friend Jules Fontana. They all said, at one time or another, that he was born on March 1, 1809, despite Chopin’s insisting his birthday was a year later. To add to the mystery, there is a birth certificate issued by the parish church in Brochów, Poland (and on display there to this day)—near Zelazowa Wola, the small town outside Warsaw where Chopin was born. It gives us still another date: Feb. 22, 1810, the same date inscribed on Polish monuments and on his burial site at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Chopin was born of a French father and a Polish mother, and though he lived half his life in Paris, his heart and soul were always with Poland. … Chopin said the Polish word zal—a ‘bittersweet melancholy’—best described much of his music. Paradoxically, it can also mean anger, even rage, an emotion also found in Chopin’s musical vocabulary. Schumann agreed, describing Chopin’s music as ‘cannons buried in flowers.’ ”
Posted March 9, 2010
