POLAND
According to legend, on that Thursday 1st March 1810 (Nicolas, in a late declaration to the parish register, had given the date as 22nd February), some fiddlers, having travelled by sleigh the dozen leagues which separate Warsaw and Zelazowa Wola in Mazovia, were still playing at nightfall, beneath the bedroom windows which witnessed Frederic’s birth.
At the age of sixteen, his father, Nicolas, son of a wheelwright and winemaker, had left Marainville and his native Lorraine without regrets, doubtless to break away from a mediocre future. The former Polish steward of the chateau had provided him with letters of introduction for Warsaw. By the time of Frederic’s infancy, Nicolas had become fully integrated in his new homeland and with its culture. He was known as Mikolaj, husband of Justyna Krzyzanowska. Aged twenty, Chopin had nothing further to prove in his country. The child prodigy had composed two polonaises at the age of seven and performed before the Tsar’s mother; the young adolescent had been frequently invited to Warsaw salons where his pianistic virtuosity and talent for improvising attracted the attention of critics who dared compare him to Mozart. He had already composed around fifty works (some have now disappeared) and made brief visits to Germany and Austria where on 11th August 1829 his concert at the Imperial Theatre was hailed as a triumph, and again, some months later, at the National Theatre of Warsaw where he performed, before a packed hall, his F minor concerto.In agreement with his teachers, his father believed that he should establish his reputation throughout Europe. In contrast with his father’s happy departure from his birthplace, it was with a heavy heart and concern for his future that Frederic boarded the stagecoach on Tuesday 2nd November 1830, after a farewell concert where his second concerto in E minor aroused much enthusiasm. He travelled to Dresden and then on to Vienna.
PARIS
He was planning to leave Vienna for London when he received the news of the Warsaw uprising. Divided between the shame of not joining in the struggle with his rebel friends and the hopelessness of remaining in the city, as Vienna sided with the Tsar, he believed he would be welcomed with more favour in post-revolutionary Paris. And it was there that he arrived on 11th September 1831. Paris, where the meeting on the boulevards with his admirer Prince Radziwill would soon open to him the salon doors: Paris, sympathising with the Polish cause, where he mixed with the likes of Chérubini, Mendelssohn, “La Malibran”, and with renowned pianists, before he would himself become “the darling of the cream of French aristocracy”, as he later wrote to his parents. On 26th February of the following year a first recital took place at the Salle Pleyel. He performed his Variations on "La ci darem la Mano" from Mozart's "Don Giovanni", which inspired Robert Schumann to write his famous line: “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!”, and which so excited Franz Liszt.
GEORGE SAND
It was at one of these soirées during the autumn of 1836 that he found himself in the presence of George Sand. Liszt had had to plead with Chopin to take part in a musical evening at the home of Marie d’Agoult. Confiding to a friend, the novelist admitted to have been touched as much by the frail appearance of “this little creature” as by the force of his talent. For his part, Chopin long delayed the moment which she would later recall as “the final amorous embrace”. They saw each other frequently, either in small circles, or in the salons, before meeting more intimately and for journeys together “to other regions … surrendering to the passing wind”. One must presume that their romantic liaison dates from May 1838; in June, their mutual friend Delacroix began the renowned painting which so strongly unites the master at the piano and the young woman enthralled by the music. Then, in November, departure for Majorca with George Sand’s two children, a sojourn to which the novelist would later make a damning reference concerning Spain: “this country of bandits and rogues… this dog of a country” where Chopin’s health had deteriorated “dreadfully” and where they had been “like outcasts because of Chopin’s coughing fits”.
NOHANT
After the Balearic fiasco, the couple passed through the mansion gates on 1st June 1839. Chopin was about to spend his first summer in Le Berry. He would return during seven long summers until 1846 — more than 1000 days — and henceforth it would become the most favoured place for his creative inspiration. At the end of each winter, he would be happy to leave Paris where the cold and humidity exacerbated his fragile health, happy also to avoid for a time the obligation of giving afternoon lessons and attending tedious worldly soirées. In Nohant, he was sure to regain the warmth of a home, a bedroom overlooking a sunny garden, a companion mindful of his well-being and to enjoy peace and quiet so essential for his work… and a good piano. Even if one refutes the simplistic proposition explaining the genesis of some forty masterpieces composed at Nohant through the unique quality of the air or through the devotion of his hostess, one must admit that Chopin did not compose anything after Nohant and the separation with George Sand in 1847. A final Mazurka that, as he said “had to be torn from his broken heart”, remained incomplete at his death during the night of 17th October 1849.
Text by Sylvie Delaigue Moins “Chopin chez George Sand — Seven summers at Nohant” -
Translated by Ray Alston
