CHOPIN, this beloved composer’s life and music will be the centerpiece of my upcoming concert at the Lafayette Library Community Hall on Sunday, Oct 21, 2018. While performing his preludes, waltzes, mazurkas, polonaises, ballades and his Fantasie Impromptu, I will also be weaving in Chopin’s most interesting life stories that include the politics of his time affecting his music and his romantic loves.
One of Chopin’s most devastating news was when he was in Stuttgart traveling from Vienna to Paris. He heard that the Russian tsarist army had conquered Warsaw. Notably furious and despairing, he recorded this in his diary and inevitably wrote some very powerful music to express his angst and anger at Tsar Nicholas I who revoked a promise to keep Poland independent.
Chopin brought tremendous patriotic fervor to his countrymen, such that the tsar censored all public performances of his music that defined a nation’s long struggle for independence.
One can only imagine Chopin’s deepest grief when he learned of friends from Warsaw killed during the failed 1830-31 Polish insurrection. Chopin wanted to return to Poland to fight, but his health would not permit it nor did he want to get a Russian passport. With his music, he spoke boldly and eloquently for his anguished soul and devoted love for Poland. All these I feel most intensely when performing his powerful “Revolutionary Etude”.
Tickets at LifeofChopin.eventbrite.com.