THE LIFE AND DEATH OF FREDERIC CHOPIN

by Casimir Wierzynski ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

A biography of considerable seriousness and substance, and one which is based on some recently released correspondence, the interpretation here adds a certain strength to an often over-romanticized figure, dispels the image of the soul-sad salon artist, the frail solitary. Here too an emphasis is placed on the often neglected years of youth, the strong family attachments, the fervent patriotism which survived all the years abroad. There is not too much of his music, or musical interpretation, and Chopin's life is closely followed; the early recognition of his great gifts; the departure from Warsaw for Paris where his success was spontaneous; the passionate affair with Delphine; the subsequent love for Maria; and finally George Sand, from the sequestered idyll at Majorca to the return with her to Nohant which became his adoptive home for eight years. Here, although George Sand refused to continue the romantic relationship, Chopin was to have the strong sense of home and family his nature demanded, and the separation- over her alignment with her son against Chopin- was for him ""a sentence of death"" which he survived a short time only... By one of Poland's leading poets, this is a careful, exhaustive study which has more permanent than popular values.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1949

Categories: NONFICTION