Chopin and His World (The Bard Music Festival)

Chopin and His World (The Bard Music Festival)

A new look at the life, times, and music of Polish composer and piano virtuoso Fryderyk Chopin Fryderyk Chopin (1810–49), although the most beloved of piano composers, remains a contradictory figure, an artist of virtually universal appeal who preferred the company of only a few sympathetic friends and listeners. Chopin and His World reexamines Chopin and his music in light of the cultural narratives formed during his lifetime. These include the romanticism of the ailing spirit, tragically singing its death-song as life ebbs; the Polish expatriate, helpless witness to the martyrdom of his beloved homeland, exiled among friendly but uncomprehending strangers; the sorcerer-bard of dream, memory, and Gothic terror; and the pianist's pianist, shunning the appreciative crowds yet composing and improvising idealized operas, scenes, dances, and narratives in the shadow of virtuoso-idol Franz Liszt. The international Chopin scholars gathered here demonstrate the ways in which Chopin responded to and was understood to exemplify these narratives, as an artist of his own time and one who transcended it. This collection also offers recently rediscovered artistic representations of his hands (with analysis), and―for the first time in English―an extended tribute to Chopin published in Poland upon his death and contemporary Polish writings contextualizing Chopin's compositional strategies. The contributors are Jonathan D. Bellman, Leon Botstein, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Halina Goldberg, Jeffrey Kallberg, David Kasunic, Anatole Leikin, Eric McKee, James Parakilas, John Rink, and Sandra P. Rosenblum. Contemporary documents by Karol Kurpiński, Adam Mickiewicz, and Józef Sikorski are included. "The enduring appeal of [Chopin’s] music is brilliantly articulated." ---John Allison, BBC Music Magazine Jonathan D. Bellman is professor of music history and literature and head of academic studies in music at the University of Northern Colorado. Halina Goldberg is professor of musicology at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, and affiliate of the Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program, Slavic Languages and Literatures Department, Polish Studies Center, and Russian and East European Institute. Chopin and His World By Jonathan D. Bellman, Halina Goldberg PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 2017 Princeton University Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-691-17776-2 Contents Acknowledgments, ix, Permissions, x, Introduction HALINA GOLDBERG AND JONATHAN D. BELLMAN, 1, PART I. CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL CONTEXTS, Chopin's Oneiric Soundscapes and the Role of Dreams in Romantic Culture HALINA GOLDBERG, 15, Józef Sikorski's "Recollection of Chopin": The Earliest Essay on Chopin and His Music TRANSLATED BY JOHN COMBER INTRODUCED AND ANNOTATED BY HALINA GOLDBERG, 45, Chopin and the Gothic ANATOLE LEIKIN, 85, Revisiting Chopin's Tubercular Song, or, An Opera in the Making DAVID KASUNIC, 103, Chopin and Jews JEFFREY KALLBERG, 123, PART II. MUSICAL AND PIANISTIC CONTEXTS, Middlebrow Becomes Transcendent: The Popular Roots of Chopin's Musical Language JONATHAN D. BELLMAN, 147, Karol Kurpinski on the Musical Expression of Polish National Sentiment TRANSLATED BY JOHN COMBER INTRODUCED AND ANNOTATED BY HALINA GOLDBERG, 171, Dance and the Music of Chopin: The Polonaise ERIC MCKEE, 187, The Barcarolle and the Barcarolle: Topic and Genre in Chopin JAMES PARAKILAS, 231, Chopin and Improvisation JOHN RINK, 249, Chopin Among the Pianists in Paris SANDRA P. ROSENBLUM, 271, The Hand of Chopin: Documents and Commentary JEAN-JACQUES EIGELDINGER TRANSLATED BY VIRGINIA E. WHEALTON, 297, AFTERWORD Chopin and the Consequences of Exile LEON BOTSTEIN, 315, Index, 357, Notes on Contributors, 366, CHAPTER 1 Chopin's Oneiric Soundscapes and the Role of Dreams in Romantic Culture HALINA GOLDBERG [A composer's] logic ... is the dreamlike logic that combines the most daring and contradictory visions, and yokes them together. To understand it, one must be dreaming oneself. — Józef Sikorski The notion of dreaming in music immediately brings to mind Chopin's nocturnes. Indeed, this genre's explicit association with the night invokes the oneiric realm, the domain of dreams. Yet, as we investigate listeners' responses to Chopin's music more closely, we discover that they repeatedly refer to dreamlike episodes in his compositions in other genres, and that in addition to timbral representations of nocturnal haziness Chopin employs other compositional techniques that bring about the experience of dreaming. Modern-day scholars' responses to the perceived dreamscapes in Chopin's compositions follow on the heels of a long tradition of hearing his music as a dream, a tradition that originated with his friends and contemporaries. While other modern scholars, for example James Parakilas in this volume, highlight the compositional and stylistic language of Chopin's dream world and seek to interpret the experien