As someone recently said: "there are many great composers, and then there is J. S. Bach". Bach composed this beautiful aria, "Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust" ("Contented rest, beloved inner joy") in 1726. It opens his solo cantata BWV 170. Evidently he had an excellent alto soloist in his choir to be able to devote a whole cantata to one soloist (here it's sung by the incomparable Janet Baker). This poignant cantata was first performed in Leipzig on 28 July 1726, just 27 days after the death of his 3 year old daughter Christiana Sophia Henrietta. One can only imagine the emotions Johann Sebastian and his young wife Anna Magdalena must have been feeling at such a sad time as this wistful song rung out for the first time at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.
Janet Baker sings 'Vergnügte Ruh', beliebte Seelenlust' from the Cantata BWV 170 with the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields conducted by Neville Marriner (recorded in London, January 1966)
Monday, January 23, 2012
In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (2)
Bach's B minor mass (of which this Agnus Dei is a part) was hailed in the 19th century as "the greatest artwork of all times and all people". To this day it is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest monuments of western culture. The work was completed in 1749, a year before the composer's death, and is one of Bach's last works, though much of the music was written earlier or adapted from his other works. It was not performed in its entirety until over 100 years after Bach's death. In Beethoven's lifetime the work was already so legendary, despite not having yet received any performance, that Beethoven tried twice (unsuccessfully) to acquire a score. This performance, by Janet Baker, is for me one of the most moving.
J.S. Bach's Agnus Dei from his B minor mass, sung by Janet Baker with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer (recorded October 1967).
J.S. Bach's Agnus Dei from his B minor mass, sung by Janet Baker with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer (recorded October 1967).
In praise of Johann Sebastian Bach (1)
Having used my Facebook music page as a blog for the past year or so I have decided to copy some of those posts to this blog, to make it easier for people to look back over certain subjects, rather than having them lost in the Facebook ether. I will begin with a collection of posts on J.S. Bach, one of my great idols and a key figure in my 'pursuit of happiness'.
Some music is so good it needs no introduction... pure beauty of accompaniment, pure nobility of melody in this extract from Johann Sebastian Bach's secular Cantata BWV 208, composed in 1713. Needless to say I choose my recordings with great care: in the following example we have a truly wonderful rendition by the soprano Gillian Fisher, whose beautiful voice can also be heard, along with that of her husband Brian Kay, on the soundtrack of the 1984 movie Amadeus (in the rôles of Papageno and Papagena).
Johann Sebastian Bach's "Schafe können sicher weiden" (Sheep may safely graze) from his Cantata BWV 208 (composed 1713), sung by Gillian Fisher with the King's Consort conducted by Robert King (recorded 1987).
Some music is so good it needs no introduction... pure beauty of accompaniment, pure nobility of melody in this extract from Johann Sebastian Bach's secular Cantata BWV 208, composed in 1713. Needless to say I choose my recordings with great care: in the following example we have a truly wonderful rendition by the soprano Gillian Fisher, whose beautiful voice can also be heard, along with that of her husband Brian Kay, on the soundtrack of the 1984 movie Amadeus (in the rôles of Papageno and Papagena).
Johann Sebastian Bach's "Schafe können sicher weiden" (Sheep may safely graze) from his Cantata BWV 208 (composed 1713), sung by Gillian Fisher with the King's Consort conducted by Robert King (recorded 1987).
Monday, April 25, 2011
Scenes from childhood
(Schumann awakens my love of music)
From 1958 the BBC introduced a children's radio series featuring "The Lost Noises Office" (created by Desmond Leslie, and narrated by his wife Agnes Bernelle). This strange fictitious establishment kept 'noises' safe until they were claimed by their owners (from whistles, to musical boxes to all manner of curious sounds courtesy of the BBC's sound effects department). When the bossy owner of this store (called Mr Bosseyman) was away the office was the soul charge of a young character called Pickles. My parents had a children's 45 RPM record featuring young Pickles dealing with a visit from a bossy and rather temperamental "Grand Piano" who had lost one of his notes (his middle B). Eventually, after searching through many unrelated noises, young Pickles finds the missing note and as 'Grand Piano' leaves the store he reminds Pickles to tune in to the radio that evening and that if he listens carefully he will hear the piano. At the conclusion of this record Pickles tunes in to the radio in time to hear the closing minute of the Schumann Piano Concerto. I adored this record and without doubt those final bars of the Schumann Piano Concerto, which I listened to over and over again, were the first serious music I ever heard. So you can imagine how emotional I became when eventually, for the first time, I got to play that work as a young concert pianist in May 1983. When I reached that point at the conclusion of the concerto (as heard by Pickles in the Lost Noises Office) I thought of how I had dreamed this music since the age of 4 and now I was truly, and incredibly, living my dream. It's hard for me to remember experiencing a more elated feeling during one of my concerts. I still adore this work and find Schumann a deeply moving and inspiring composer. Interestingly Elgar (one of my musical heros) described Schumann as his ideal. Brahms (who of course had known Robert Schumann and who was very close to Schumann's widow Clara in the years following Schumann's tragic death) thought the same.
Jack Gibbons plays the 3rd movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto Op.54, recorded live in concert, London, May 1983.
It's well known that many composers lived unhappy lives, or had tragic ends, but I think Schumann's is surely, and sadly, one of the most wretched. Ravaged by mental illness he spent the last two and a half years of his life locked away (inititially at his own insistence) in a mental asylum in Endenich, seeing his beloved Clara only once the whole time he was incarcerated, two days before his death (it was considered at the time to be injurious to his recovery to have contact with his family). By the time Clara did see her husband he was so sick he barely recognised those around him, including the hospital staff (Schumann's suffering and the continual deterioration of his mental state while in hospital is meticulously recorded and preserved in the notes of Dr Franz Richarz, the hospital's director, and makes distressing reading today). At that final meeting, two days before his death, Clara offered her husband what had been his only nourishment for weeks - wine and jellied consommé - and for a very brief moment she received a look from him that told her he knew it was her. In her diary she wrote "he took it [his nourishment] with the happiest expression. He licked the wine from my fingers"
Apart from my very early introduction to great music through Schumann's wonderful piano concerto, another seminal moment in my musical awakening took place when I was 12 or 13 years old. I decided to attend, on my own, a piano recital in my hometown of Oxford, England. The pianist (a lady whose name I haven't so far been able to trace) included in her recital Schumann's Kinderszenen. I had never heard these charming, nostalgic and magical pieces before, or any solo piano music of Schumann for that matter. The music had an immediate and powerful impact on me. I rushed out and bought a score and immediately began learning the pieces and in fact included the set in my first full length public solo recital a year later (March 1976) alongside Liszt's B minor Sonata, Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor, and music by a little known French composer called Alkan. Later, while still a teenager, I fell in love with Schumann's incomparable songs, beginning with Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben. My love of his music and appreciation of his art only continues to grow with the passing years.
Sadly, Clara Schumann had to endure a further occurence of mental illness in her family after her husband's death when her son Ludwig became sick. Ludwig's tragedy is another sad untold story in the history of mental illness. It's impossible to imagine the suffering poor Ludwig had to endure, in the days when even enlightened doctors had little understanding of his illness. Ludwig Schumann spent the last 29 years of his life incarcerated against his will in the asylum in Colditz (later famous as the German POW camp in WWII), and there are no records of any family visits for the last 23 years of his life. His sister Eugenie Schumann wrote of Ludwig in 1927: "The shadows closed more and more around him, and at last he became, as my mother often said in deep distress, 'buried alive'". Since Robert Schumann's large family is often overlooked I have put together a slide show of photographs of Robert and Clara's seven surviving children, together with the first of Schumann's Scenes from Childhood ("Of Foreign Lands and Peoples") played by the wonderful and much underrated French pianist Jacqueline Blancard, who has made some lovely and intensely musical recordings of Schumann's piano music.
Schumann's children: A slide show of photographs of Robert and Clara Schumann and their 7 surviving children (together with "Of Foreign Lands and Peoples" from Schumann's Kinderszenen played by Jacqueline Blancard): of their 8 children, one (Emil) died in infancy, while 3 others predeceased Clara along with her husband Robert. Most tragic of all is the case of Ludwig, who, like his father, was committed to a mental asylum (the famous Colditz castle) where he was kept against his will for 29 years, dying there in 1899.
Finally, here is a link to an interesting article from the New York Times, January 16 1921, going into detail on the fate of Schumann's children: The children of Schumann. The article starts off on a very sad note, trying to raise money from the readers for two of Schumann's children (Marie and Eugenie) who were, at the very end of their lives, living in desperate poverty in Europe. Though their mother, Clara Schumann, had to cope with more than her fair share of grief in her lifetime she typically once said that she may not have been the best parent for her children because of her devotion to music, her frequent concert tours, and above all her devotion to Robert and the promotion of his music. On her death-bed the very last piece she heard, at her request, played to her by her grandson Ferdinand, was Robert Schumann's Romance in F# Major, Op.28 No.2.
The 1921 New York Times article (a PDF copy of the original New York Times page) also lists concerts of the week, one of which, on January 18th 1921 at Carnegie Hall is a piano recital by Rachmaninoff!! N.B. this article was published one year after Gershwin's Swanee had become a hit and 3 years before the premiere of the Rhapsody in Blue!
Schumann's Romance Op.28 no.2, composed 1839, was the last piece that Clara Schumann ever heard, played to her on her death-bed at her request by her grandson Ferdinand. It is played here by Arthur Rubinstein (recorded 2 April 1937).
From 1958 the BBC introduced a children's radio series featuring "The Lost Noises Office" (created by Desmond Leslie, and narrated by his wife Agnes Bernelle). This strange fictitious establishment kept 'noises' safe until they were claimed by their owners (from whistles, to musical boxes to all manner of curious sounds courtesy of the BBC's sound effects department). When the bossy owner of this store (called Mr Bosseyman) was away the office was the soul charge of a young character called Pickles. My parents had a children's 45 RPM record featuring young Pickles dealing with a visit from a bossy and rather temperamental "Grand Piano" who had lost one of his notes (his middle B). Eventually, after searching through many unrelated noises, young Pickles finds the missing note and as 'Grand Piano' leaves the store he reminds Pickles to tune in to the radio that evening and that if he listens carefully he will hear the piano. At the conclusion of this record Pickles tunes in to the radio in time to hear the closing minute of the Schumann Piano Concerto. I adored this record and without doubt those final bars of the Schumann Piano Concerto, which I listened to over and over again, were the first serious music I ever heard. So you can imagine how emotional I became when eventually, for the first time, I got to play that work as a young concert pianist in May 1983. When I reached that point at the conclusion of the concerto (as heard by Pickles in the Lost Noises Office) I thought of how I had dreamed this music since the age of 4 and now I was truly, and incredibly, living my dream. It's hard for me to remember experiencing a more elated feeling during one of my concerts. I still adore this work and find Schumann a deeply moving and inspiring composer. Interestingly Elgar (one of my musical heros) described Schumann as his ideal. Brahms (who of course had known Robert Schumann and who was very close to Schumann's widow Clara in the years following Schumann's tragic death) thought the same.
Jack Gibbons plays the 3rd movement of Schumann's Piano Concerto Op.54, recorded live in concert, London, May 1983.
It's well known that many composers lived unhappy lives, or had tragic ends, but I think Schumann's is surely, and sadly, one of the most wretched. Ravaged by mental illness he spent the last two and a half years of his life locked away (inititially at his own insistence) in a mental asylum in Endenich, seeing his beloved Clara only once the whole time he was incarcerated, two days before his death (it was considered at the time to be injurious to his recovery to have contact with his family). By the time Clara did see her husband he was so sick he barely recognised those around him, including the hospital staff (Schumann's suffering and the continual deterioration of his mental state while in hospital is meticulously recorded and preserved in the notes of Dr Franz Richarz, the hospital's director, and makes distressing reading today). At that final meeting, two days before his death, Clara offered her husband what had been his only nourishment for weeks - wine and jellied consommé - and for a very brief moment she received a look from him that told her he knew it was her. In her diary she wrote "he took it [his nourishment] with the happiest expression. He licked the wine from my fingers"
Apart from my very early introduction to great music through Schumann's wonderful piano concerto, another seminal moment in my musical awakening took place when I was 12 or 13 years old. I decided to attend, on my own, a piano recital in my hometown of Oxford, England. The pianist (a lady whose name I haven't so far been able to trace) included in her recital Schumann's Kinderszenen. I had never heard these charming, nostalgic and magical pieces before, or any solo piano music of Schumann for that matter. The music had an immediate and powerful impact on me. I rushed out and bought a score and immediately began learning the pieces and in fact included the set in my first full length public solo recital a year later (March 1976) alongside Liszt's B minor Sonata, Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor, and music by a little known French composer called Alkan. Later, while still a teenager, I fell in love with Schumann's incomparable songs, beginning with Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben. My love of his music and appreciation of his art only continues to grow with the passing years.
Sadly, Clara Schumann had to endure a further occurence of mental illness in her family after her husband's death when her son Ludwig became sick. Ludwig's tragedy is another sad untold story in the history of mental illness. It's impossible to imagine the suffering poor Ludwig had to endure, in the days when even enlightened doctors had little understanding of his illness. Ludwig Schumann spent the last 29 years of his life incarcerated against his will in the asylum in Colditz (later famous as the German POW camp in WWII), and there are no records of any family visits for the last 23 years of his life. His sister Eugenie Schumann wrote of Ludwig in 1927: "The shadows closed more and more around him, and at last he became, as my mother often said in deep distress, 'buried alive'". Since Robert Schumann's large family is often overlooked I have put together a slide show of photographs of Robert and Clara's seven surviving children, together with the first of Schumann's Scenes from Childhood ("Of Foreign Lands and Peoples") played by the wonderful and much underrated French pianist Jacqueline Blancard, who has made some lovely and intensely musical recordings of Schumann's piano music.
Schumann's children: A slide show of photographs of Robert and Clara Schumann and their 7 surviving children (together with "Of Foreign Lands and Peoples" from Schumann's Kinderszenen played by Jacqueline Blancard): of their 8 children, one (Emil) died in infancy, while 3 others predeceased Clara along with her husband Robert. Most tragic of all is the case of Ludwig, who, like his father, was committed to a mental asylum (the famous Colditz castle) where he was kept against his will for 29 years, dying there in 1899.
Finally, here is a link to an interesting article from the New York Times, January 16 1921, going into detail on the fate of Schumann's children: The children of Schumann. The article starts off on a very sad note, trying to raise money from the readers for two of Schumann's children (Marie and Eugenie) who were, at the very end of their lives, living in desperate poverty in Europe. Though their mother, Clara Schumann, had to cope with more than her fair share of grief in her lifetime she typically once said that she may not have been the best parent for her children because of her devotion to music, her frequent concert tours, and above all her devotion to Robert and the promotion of his music. On her death-bed the very last piece she heard, at her request, played to her by her grandson Ferdinand, was Robert Schumann's Romance in F# Major, Op.28 No.2.
The 1921 New York Times article (a PDF copy of the original New York Times page) also lists concerts of the week, one of which, on January 18th 1921 at Carnegie Hall is a piano recital by Rachmaninoff!! N.B. this article was published one year after Gershwin's Swanee had become a hit and 3 years before the premiere of the Rhapsody in Blue!
Schumann's Romance Op.28 no.2, composed 1839, was the last piece that Clara Schumann ever heard, played to her on her death-bed at her request by her grandson Ferdinand. It is played here by Arthur Rubinstein (recorded 2 April 1937).
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
In praise of Wilhelm Kempff
As a music student I didn't appreciate Wilhelm Kempff. I based my opinion on just a couple of his recordings, and on my own musical prejudices at the time. Also I only heard him live once, at his very last London recital at the Royal Festival Hall, when he was clearly infirm, and his playing was marked by a continuous slowing down of the tempo and difficulty in playing. Like many music students today (if the comments on YouTube are anything to go by) I measured pianists in those days as much by their technique as by their soul. Now I am ONLY interested in their soul.
I remember the amazing ovation the audience gave Kempff at that concert at the Festival Hall in London and didn't fully appreciate at the time that that ovation was for his life's work, and not for that concert. Most of all what I didn't hear, because my ears were closed at the time (reference Oscar Wilde's comments in his wonderful 'De Profundis' on the importance of meekness in an audience in order to be moved), and what I now hear SO CLEARLY is the deep and extremely sincere warmth and honesty of Kempff's playing. His interpretations are about as far removed from the typical virtuoso as it is possible to get, characterized by the lack of any intention to 'show off' and instead filled by just a deep, a serious, and at times humble appreciation of the beauty of the music he is playing. It's a 'quiet' approach (not literally of course), and a different universe to the 'in your face' interpretations that so easily seem to capture the musical headlines (to any historian of music that should immediately recall contemporary descriptions of Chopin's performances). For what it is worth (which is not much) Kempff was never known for his technique, and in his occasional finger slips he shares a kinship with Edwin Fischer - another wonderful pianist whose recordings I admire so much- funny that! If only music students today (and the establishments that nurture them) would realise that while audiences may forgive a wrong note they can never forgive a cold heart.
The Bach recording below is a perfect example of Kempff's warm heart. Today, for me, he is one of the very few pianists who move me and whose music making I always look forward to hearing. Thanks to the abundance of his recordings on the internet I can appreciate his art so much more now than sadly when I was lucky enough to have sat in his last London recital counting wrong notes instead of warm hearts. That's a thought to keep me humble...
And for those who know how particular I am about the way pianists play Chopin (or I think the correct phrase is 'murder Chopin') then they may be surprised by my putting a Chopin performance here. In my opinion most pianists suffocate Chopin with completely misguided 'rubatos' (that huge Chopin misnomer) and terrible affectations, so out of place for a composer who was above all, totally honest in his musical expression. Above all, Chopin's music needs an 'honest' interpretation, the ability to let the music speak for itself. Listen to the completely unaffected, deeply serious and moving performance Kempff gives in this 1959 live recording with conductor Karel Ancerl of the slow movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor. Perhaps you'll agree with me that here Kempff is far closer to the composer's spirit than so many so-called 'Chopin specialists'!
I remember the amazing ovation the audience gave Kempff at that concert at the Festival Hall in London and didn't fully appreciate at the time that that ovation was for his life's work, and not for that concert. Most of all what I didn't hear, because my ears were closed at the time (reference Oscar Wilde's comments in his wonderful 'De Profundis' on the importance of meekness in an audience in order to be moved), and what I now hear SO CLEARLY is the deep and extremely sincere warmth and honesty of Kempff's playing. His interpretations are about as far removed from the typical virtuoso as it is possible to get, characterized by the lack of any intention to 'show off' and instead filled by just a deep, a serious, and at times humble appreciation of the beauty of the music he is playing. It's a 'quiet' approach (not literally of course), and a different universe to the 'in your face' interpretations that so easily seem to capture the musical headlines (to any historian of music that should immediately recall contemporary descriptions of Chopin's performances). For what it is worth (which is not much) Kempff was never known for his technique, and in his occasional finger slips he shares a kinship with Edwin Fischer - another wonderful pianist whose recordings I admire so much- funny that! If only music students today (and the establishments that nurture them) would realise that while audiences may forgive a wrong note they can never forgive a cold heart.
The Bach recording below is a perfect example of Kempff's warm heart. Today, for me, he is one of the very few pianists who move me and whose music making I always look forward to hearing. Thanks to the abundance of his recordings on the internet I can appreciate his art so much more now than sadly when I was lucky enough to have sat in his last London recital counting wrong notes instead of warm hearts. That's a thought to keep me humble...
And for those who know how particular I am about the way pianists play Chopin (or I think the correct phrase is 'murder Chopin') then they may be surprised by my putting a Chopin performance here. In my opinion most pianists suffocate Chopin with completely misguided 'rubatos' (that huge Chopin misnomer) and terrible affectations, so out of place for a composer who was above all, totally honest in his musical expression. Above all, Chopin's music needs an 'honest' interpretation, the ability to let the music speak for itself. Listen to the completely unaffected, deeply serious and moving performance Kempff gives in this 1959 live recording with conductor Karel Ancerl of the slow movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto in F minor. Perhaps you'll agree with me that here Kempff is far closer to the composer's spirit than so many so-called 'Chopin specialists'!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Chopin’s photograph?
Well now we’ve established when his birthday is (or not!), how about what he looked like. Have you noticed how in almost every picture of Chopin he looks completely different? His face and character were without question too subtle and mobile for painters to capture, and I can imagine, with the constant changes of expression on his face, he would have looked very different to every artist that tried to paint him. Certainly that is the impression created by all the myriad of different likenesses of him. The paintings that feel more accurate (whether they are or not) are always the ones that concentrate not on his appearance but his personality. Luckily there are one or two irrefutable pieces of evidence to show what Chopin actually looked like, namely two photographs and a death mask. Yes you heard me correctly, two photographs.
There is a famous daguerreotype of Chopin, likely taken in Paris at the studio of L.A. Bisson around 1847. In it Chopin’s deteriorating health and the signs of lack of sleep are clearly evident, though the often quoted description of his face being swollen as a result of his disease (TB) is actually a mistaken observation. What people are seeing (and mistaking for a swollen face in poor reproductions of the photograph) is the angular shape of his jaw line, which matches perfectly his death mask (a life size copy of which I have in my possession). Chopin did complain of a swollen face at times during his final illness and the Chopin biographer Arthur Hedley made the connection with Chopin's description and what he interpreted as swollen features in the Chopin photograph and the description seems to have stuck. The most striking feature of this famous picture is of course Chopin’s expression in his eyes. To some observers his expression might simply convey the anguish of someone suffering in extreme ill-health. I see it differently, and it might explain why I find this picture so inspiring. What I feel we are really seeing is Chopin without any front. He was too ill to hide his feelings in any way (even though Chopin was well known for being a very private person) and what we are indeed seeing is the composer of the Polonaise-Fantaisie, the Barcarolle, the B minor Sonata, etc.. Chopin’s gaze is penetrating, deeply intelligent, scientific as much as artistic (even Liszt noticed this aspect) and filled with an amazing combination of extreme wisdom and extreme distance. Without doubt it’s one of the most extraordinary pictures ever taken.
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): one of only two photographic images of the composer, this one taken at the studio of L.A. Bisson at 65 rue Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois no later than the end of 1847. Also in the image is what appears to be a score of Chopin's music, carefully placed in view on a piece of furniture positioned next to the composer
Now to the second photograph of Chopin. I first became aware of this picture in 1990 when I saw it reproduced in John O'Shea’s excellent 'Music and Medicine: Medical Profiles of Great Composers' (London, Dent, 1990). The image was rediscovered, along with the later daguerreotype, in 1936 at the offices of Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig in 1936 and photographed by Czeslaw Olszewki (the originals were lost during WWII) and first displayed at an exhibition at the Bibliothèque Polonaise in Paris in 1937. When I first saw this second image of Chopin, having thought I’d seen every known reproduction of the composer’s likeness, I was staggered. Sadly the photograph is extremely deteriorated and the photographer is unknown. Although it’s very hard at first to see anything in the photograph, if you keep looking you begin to see more detail. It was my belief that the picture had been printed the wrong way round in John O'Shea's book (I had no proof, only that Chopin’s hair parting, assuming it is Chopin, was on the opposite side of his head compared with the more famous daguerreotype of Chopin). But close scrutiny of this 2nd photograph did indeed show that this person had the exact physical likeness of Chopin from the other photograph, from the death mask, and even from one or two of the portraits done of the composer. Although it’s hard to make out the expression in the face because of the picture’s deterioration, what does come across is the extreme tension of the subject, like a coiled up spring, something that makes sense if you think that at the time this photograph was taken (possibly 1845 or earlier) Chopin was still composing, working on some of his greatest music. Chopin always found composing a huge struggle; initially when he was ensconced at Nohant for the summer, George Sand’s country retreat near Châteauroux south west of Paris where Chopin did most of his writing, George Sand was able to entice him away from the piano when he was stuck and unable to proceed. After an outing in the countryside he usually came back with his equilibrium restored and was able to resume his composing with renewed enthusiasm. But as the years went by even George Sand was worried about interrupting Chopin in his room, as his hypercritical nature laboriously reexamined every bar of his music with an increased passion and commitment as his music became more and more intense. To quote George Sand:
1st August, 1841: George Sand to P. Gaubert
“Maurice [her son] and I are spending eight hours a day together, drawing and painting... Meanwhile Chopin gets on with his own things and gets cross with the piano. When the keyboard does not carry out his orders he aims such a powerful blow at it with his fist that the poor instrument groans!... He thinks that he is slacking if his back is not breaking under a load of work”
It’s a pity that the earlier photograph of Chopin is so deteriorated, as it would be amazing to see more clearly the expression of this “incomparable genius” [Eugène Delacroix] at such a crucial time of his life, perhaps while still working on some of his last masterpieces, or perhaps the photograph was taken a little later, around the time of his acrimonious split with George Sand that left him so devastated.
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): one of only two photographic images of the composer. This one is rarely reproduced due to its deteriorated state. The image was possibly taken in 1845 or earlier.
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): photographic image taken 1845 or earlier (reversed).
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): 1847 pencil drawing my Franz Winterhalter, described by Chopin himself as "a very good likeness".
Personally I have never understood why this 2nd photograph of Chopin has not been taken more seriously. True it's terribly damaged, but for anyone devoted to Chopin's music any photograph of him, no matter how deteriorated, has huge value. Over the last two decades I have regularly reproduced it in concert programmes, CD sleeves, etc. and recently began including it in the photo montages that accompany many of my own Chopin videos on YouTube. I was still mystified as to why the picture was so completely ignored on the internet. Detailed internet searches always failed to turn up anything other than the later photographic image and Wikipedia contributors proudly claimed there was only one known photograph of Chopin. Had I been hoodwinked all these years? Was the picture not even of Chopin? Quite recently a screen shot of the photograph taken from one of my YouTube videos appeared on Wikipedia and before long everyone was talking about the ‘2nd photograph’ of Chopin. So we must thank Dr O’Shea for helping to make the picture more accessible back in 1990, and I feel very proud that my efforts helped to get the photograph better known on the internet and into people's awareness.
As for Chopin’s death mask, it’s truly remarkable (as well as the death mask, another of my most cherished possessions is a life size cast of Chopin's left hand). Chopin’s friends stated that after his death the muscles in his face relaxed and his face resumed a more youthful quality minus all the strain of his last illness. This is certainly evident in the death mask, taken by Auguste Clésinger on the morning of 17 October 1849. Clésinger also created the funeral monument over Chopin’s tomb (of which Chopin’s close friend the painter Delacroix was so disparaging). It’s amazing when viewing this death mask to realise we are looking at Chopin’s exact profile, that so many people must have gazed at at his concerts. I'll never forget the first time I saw the mask: having no idea what Chopin really looked like, I was stunned. I was surprised at the level of expression in the face, considering it was a death mask, and I was equally stunned by the fact that he looked exactly as I had expected him to look, just like his music in fact, even though that's an irrational thing to say (interestingly a century later Kay Swift said the same thing of George Gershwin's appearance). At the same time it’s impossible not to forget the words of Solange Clésinger, George Sand’s daughter and Auguste Clésinger's wife, who was present at Chopin’s death bed. She later wrote of the absolute horror after he passed away, as she looked into his eyes (that so movingly stare back at us in that soul searching way in the 1849 photograph) and saw “that the soul had died too”.
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Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): death mask front view (from Jack Gibbons' own collection)
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Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): death mask side view (from Jack Gibbons' own collection)
There is a famous daguerreotype of Chopin, likely taken in Paris at the studio of L.A. Bisson around 1847. In it Chopin’s deteriorating health and the signs of lack of sleep are clearly evident, though the often quoted description of his face being swollen as a result of his disease (TB) is actually a mistaken observation. What people are seeing (and mistaking for a swollen face in poor reproductions of the photograph) is the angular shape of his jaw line, which matches perfectly his death mask (a life size copy of which I have in my possession). Chopin did complain of a swollen face at times during his final illness and the Chopin biographer Arthur Hedley made the connection with Chopin's description and what he interpreted as swollen features in the Chopin photograph and the description seems to have stuck. The most striking feature of this famous picture is of course Chopin’s expression in his eyes. To some observers his expression might simply convey the anguish of someone suffering in extreme ill-health. I see it differently, and it might explain why I find this picture so inspiring. What I feel we are really seeing is Chopin without any front. He was too ill to hide his feelings in any way (even though Chopin was well known for being a very private person) and what we are indeed seeing is the composer of the Polonaise-Fantaisie, the Barcarolle, the B minor Sonata, etc.. Chopin’s gaze is penetrating, deeply intelligent, scientific as much as artistic (even Liszt noticed this aspect) and filled with an amazing combination of extreme wisdom and extreme distance. Without doubt it’s one of the most extraordinary pictures ever taken.
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): one of only two photographic images of the composer, this one taken at the studio of L.A. Bisson at 65 rue Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois no later than the end of 1847. Also in the image is what appears to be a score of Chopin's music, carefully placed in view on a piece of furniture positioned next to the composer
Now to the second photograph of Chopin. I first became aware of this picture in 1990 when I saw it reproduced in John O'Shea’s excellent 'Music and Medicine: Medical Profiles of Great Composers' (London, Dent, 1990). The image was rediscovered, along with the later daguerreotype, in 1936 at the offices of Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig in 1936 and photographed by Czeslaw Olszewki (the originals were lost during WWII) and first displayed at an exhibition at the Bibliothèque Polonaise in Paris in 1937. When I first saw this second image of Chopin, having thought I’d seen every known reproduction of the composer’s likeness, I was staggered. Sadly the photograph is extremely deteriorated and the photographer is unknown. Although it’s very hard at first to see anything in the photograph, if you keep looking you begin to see more detail. It was my belief that the picture had been printed the wrong way round in John O'Shea's book (I had no proof, only that Chopin’s hair parting, assuming it is Chopin, was on the opposite side of his head compared with the more famous daguerreotype of Chopin). But close scrutiny of this 2nd photograph did indeed show that this person had the exact physical likeness of Chopin from the other photograph, from the death mask, and even from one or two of the portraits done of the composer. Although it’s hard to make out the expression in the face because of the picture’s deterioration, what does come across is the extreme tension of the subject, like a coiled up spring, something that makes sense if you think that at the time this photograph was taken (possibly 1845 or earlier) Chopin was still composing, working on some of his greatest music. Chopin always found composing a huge struggle; initially when he was ensconced at Nohant for the summer, George Sand’s country retreat near Châteauroux south west of Paris where Chopin did most of his writing, George Sand was able to entice him away from the piano when he was stuck and unable to proceed. After an outing in the countryside he usually came back with his equilibrium restored and was able to resume his composing with renewed enthusiasm. But as the years went by even George Sand was worried about interrupting Chopin in his room, as his hypercritical nature laboriously reexamined every bar of his music with an increased passion and commitment as his music became more and more intense. To quote George Sand:
1st August, 1841: George Sand to P. Gaubert
“Maurice [her son] and I are spending eight hours a day together, drawing and painting... Meanwhile Chopin gets on with his own things and gets cross with the piano. When the keyboard does not carry out his orders he aims such a powerful blow at it with his fist that the poor instrument groans!... He thinks that he is slacking if his back is not breaking under a load of work”
It’s a pity that the earlier photograph of Chopin is so deteriorated, as it would be amazing to see more clearly the expression of this “incomparable genius” [Eugène Delacroix] at such a crucial time of his life, perhaps while still working on some of his last masterpieces, or perhaps the photograph was taken a little later, around the time of his acrimonious split with George Sand that left him so devastated.
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): one of only two photographic images of the composer. This one is rarely reproduced due to its deteriorated state. The image was possibly taken in 1845 or earlier.
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): photographic image taken 1845 or earlier (reversed).
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): 1847 pencil drawing my Franz Winterhalter, described by Chopin himself as "a very good likeness".
Personally I have never understood why this 2nd photograph of Chopin has not been taken more seriously. True it's terribly damaged, but for anyone devoted to Chopin's music any photograph of him, no matter how deteriorated, has huge value. Over the last two decades I have regularly reproduced it in concert programmes, CD sleeves, etc. and recently began including it in the photo montages that accompany many of my own Chopin videos on YouTube. I was still mystified as to why the picture was so completely ignored on the internet. Detailed internet searches always failed to turn up anything other than the later photographic image and Wikipedia contributors proudly claimed there was only one known photograph of Chopin. Had I been hoodwinked all these years? Was the picture not even of Chopin? Quite recently a screen shot of the photograph taken from one of my YouTube videos appeared on Wikipedia and before long everyone was talking about the ‘2nd photograph’ of Chopin. So we must thank Dr O’Shea for helping to make the picture more accessible back in 1990, and I feel very proud that my efforts helped to get the photograph better known on the internet and into people's awareness.
As for Chopin’s death mask, it’s truly remarkable (as well as the death mask, another of my most cherished possessions is a life size cast of Chopin's left hand). Chopin’s friends stated that after his death the muscles in his face relaxed and his face resumed a more youthful quality minus all the strain of his last illness. This is certainly evident in the death mask, taken by Auguste Clésinger on the morning of 17 October 1849. Clésinger also created the funeral monument over Chopin’s tomb (of which Chopin’s close friend the painter Delacroix was so disparaging). It’s amazing when viewing this death mask to realise we are looking at Chopin’s exact profile, that so many people must have gazed at at his concerts. I'll never forget the first time I saw the mask: having no idea what Chopin really looked like, I was stunned. I was surprised at the level of expression in the face, considering it was a death mask, and I was equally stunned by the fact that he looked exactly as I had expected him to look, just like his music in fact, even though that's an irrational thing to say (interestingly a century later Kay Swift said the same thing of George Gershwin's appearance). At the same time it’s impossible not to forget the words of Solange Clésinger, George Sand’s daughter and Auguste Clésinger's wife, who was present at Chopin’s death bed. She later wrote of the absolute horror after he passed away, as she looked into his eyes (that so movingly stare back at us in that soul searching way in the 1849 photograph) and saw “that the soul had died too”.
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Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): death mask front view (from Jack Gibbons' own collection)
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Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849): death mask side view (from Jack Gibbons' own collection)
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Chopin’s birthday?
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin was born on 1 March 1810, according to all the statements of both Chopin, his friends and contemporaries, and his family including his mother. But in 1892, 43 years after his death, a baptismal record was found that gave his birth date as 22 February, exactly one week earlier. The baptismal certificate was written nearly two months after his birth, on 23rd April, when the infant was presented at the local church by his father (also oddly enough ‘22 February’, the date written on this document, happened to be the birth date of Chopin’s godfather, who was supposed to be at the baptism but didn't make it). If you’re the kind of person who favours the ‘status quo’ then you’ll probably side with the ‘official’ church document. And if your approach is more emotional you’re more likely to favour the date that Chopin and his mother gave for his birth!
This is why I am a little disappointed with some figures in the music world, who favour 22 February for Chopin’s birth, sighting as reference the London Chopin Society’s position which in turn bases its position on the views of its founder Lucie Swiatek. Rose Cholmondeley from the Society tells an interesting, though hard to verify, story that Jane Stirling, Chopin’s pupil, was told by Chopin that she was the only one to know Chopin’s ‘real’ birthday. This is odd, because the same Chopin Society article also sights confusion between ‘name-days’ and ‘birthdays’ being the reason for the discrepancy of dates over Chopin’s birth, even though Chopin and his family also celebrated his name-day separately on 5th March, and even went to some trouble to celebrate and acknowledge birthdays and name-days within the family. And why would Chopin, one of the most down-to-earth and rational people to have existed in this world (who even initially refused ‘last rights’ on his deathbed ‘to avoid being a hypocrite’) try to knowingly hide his ‘real’ birth date from everyone, including presumably George Sand, his mother and family, and closest friends, but not from Jane Stirling, a pupil to whom Chopin was not particularly close. Jane Stirling’s position makes this story, assuming it to be a true Jane Stirling recollection, unreliable to say the least: her fanatical devotion to Chopin was such that she would have done everything she could to preserve a story about Chopin to which she alone held the key! Having had the pleasure of meeting Lucie Swiatek and bearing in mind Jane Stirling’s partisan position, I can safely say that neither of these sources should be considered trustworthy when it comes to facts regarding Chopin (to put it mildly!). If one day it is proved I am wrong I will be prefuse in my recantation! Jane Stirling however does deserve considerable credit for keeping everything in her possession connected with Chopin after his death (including music scores with Chopin’s annotations, letters, etc.) and which now serves as a very valuable study source. Unfortunately some music bloggers are so swayed by Lucie Swiatek and the London Chopin Society’s position that they don’t wish Chopin a 200th birthday greeting today, 1st March, on their blogs, even though Chopin’s own mother wrote these words to her only son:
“Dear Fryderyk, The 1st and the 5th of March [Fryderyk’s birthday and name-day] are approaching and I am prevented from embracing you… “
[Chopin’s mother (Justyna Chopin) to Fryderyk in Paris;
Warsaw, end of February 1837]
Of course we still have the problem of the date written into the church baptismal document of 23 April 1837 (which remember is also, coincidentally, the date of birth of Chopin’s godfather – it should also be pointed out that there are other mistakes on Chopin’s birth document, such as wrong form of employment given to the co-signatories and so on). So let me put this to the test. Do YOU know when your birthday is? And does your MOTHER know when your birthday is? If you or your mother cannot remember your birth date then I would suggest you go with the 22 February date for Chopin’s birth. If on the other hand you have, during the course of your life, come across a document from a government official or civil servant with a mistake on it then you should go with the 1 March date for Chopin’s birth. Problem solved! Personally I favour trusting myself and especially my mother for confirmation of my birthday!
So HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY CHIP-CHIP!
1st March 2010
This is why I am a little disappointed with some figures in the music world, who favour 22 February for Chopin’s birth, sighting as reference the London Chopin Society’s position which in turn bases its position on the views of its founder Lucie Swiatek. Rose Cholmondeley from the Society tells an interesting, though hard to verify, story that Jane Stirling, Chopin’s pupil, was told by Chopin that she was the only one to know Chopin’s ‘real’ birthday. This is odd, because the same Chopin Society article also sights confusion between ‘name-days’ and ‘birthdays’ being the reason for the discrepancy of dates over Chopin’s birth, even though Chopin and his family also celebrated his name-day separately on 5th March, and even went to some trouble to celebrate and acknowledge birthdays and name-days within the family. And why would Chopin, one of the most down-to-earth and rational people to have existed in this world (who even initially refused ‘last rights’ on his deathbed ‘to avoid being a hypocrite’) try to knowingly hide his ‘real’ birth date from everyone, including presumably George Sand, his mother and family, and closest friends, but not from Jane Stirling, a pupil to whom Chopin was not particularly close. Jane Stirling’s position makes this story, assuming it to be a true Jane Stirling recollection, unreliable to say the least: her fanatical devotion to Chopin was such that she would have done everything she could to preserve a story about Chopin to which she alone held the key! Having had the pleasure of meeting Lucie Swiatek and bearing in mind Jane Stirling’s partisan position, I can safely say that neither of these sources should be considered trustworthy when it comes to facts regarding Chopin (to put it mildly!). If one day it is proved I am wrong I will be prefuse in my recantation! Jane Stirling however does deserve considerable credit for keeping everything in her possession connected with Chopin after his death (including music scores with Chopin’s annotations, letters, etc.) and which now serves as a very valuable study source. Unfortunately some music bloggers are so swayed by Lucie Swiatek and the London Chopin Society’s position that they don’t wish Chopin a 200th birthday greeting today, 1st March, on their blogs, even though Chopin’s own mother wrote these words to her only son:
“Dear Fryderyk, The 1st and the 5th of March [Fryderyk’s birthday and name-day] are approaching and I am prevented from embracing you… “
[Chopin’s mother (Justyna Chopin) to Fryderyk in Paris;
Warsaw, end of February 1837]
Of course we still have the problem of the date written into the church baptismal document of 23 April 1837 (which remember is also, coincidentally, the date of birth of Chopin’s godfather – it should also be pointed out that there are other mistakes on Chopin’s birth document, such as wrong form of employment given to the co-signatories and so on). So let me put this to the test. Do YOU know when your birthday is? And does your MOTHER know when your birthday is? If you or your mother cannot remember your birth date then I would suggest you go with the 22 February date for Chopin’s birth. If on the other hand you have, during the course of your life, come across a document from a government official or civil servant with a mistake on it then you should go with the 1 March date for Chopin’s birth. Problem solved! Personally I favour trusting myself and especially my mother for confirmation of my birthday!
So HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY CHIP-CHIP!
1st March 2010
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