POLAND, WARSAW: CHOPIN

June 27-28, 2019

Quick, name a famous musician who was born in Poland! 

Did you come up with Frederic Chopin? That is who I think of first, but you may have thought of Ignacy Paderewski or Arthur Rubinstein. But I doubt it. Chopin is one of the major figures of the Romantic period, right up there with Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Verdi, Wagner, Dvorak, Strauss, Grieg . . . It's a big list.

Chopin was born in a small town about 30 miles from Warsaw in 1810. He grew up in Warsaw, where he was quickly discovered to be a child prodigy, much like Mozart. (In fact, Chopin is sometimes referred to as "the Polish Mozart.") He began composing and giving concerts at age seven. At age 20, he left for Italy just as war was breaking out in Poland, but unrest in Italy caused him to go to Paris in 1831. Tragically, he was never permitted to return to Poland. He died at age 39 in 1849. The cause of death was listed as tuberculosis. He had been sick with respiratory problems most of his life, but scientists and historians have speculated on many other possible causes of the composer's final illness. A examination of Chopin's heart 165 years after his death, however, established that he did, in fact, likely die of complications of tuberculosis.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. More on Chopin's heart later.

Poland ADORES Chopin. In the US, we have John F. Kennedy Airport, Reagan Airport, and George Bush Airport, among others, but Poland's largest international airport is Lotnisko Chopina w Warszawie, or Warsaw Chopin Airport.

Picture by Adrian Grycuk, from Wikipedia

And guess what you can buy there? Chopin chocolates, of course! It reminds me of Austria's Mozart chocolates. Sadly, I didn't buy any. This little box cost almost $35. Sigh. 

But back to Warsaw. On our walking tour of the city, our guide pointed out a simple black bench.

On closer examination, we saw that the bench had an engraving of what is known as the Royal Route, and the location of this particular bench was marked by a gold square on the map. There was also a button with the word "Play" next to it. We pressed the button and enjoyed a 30-second concert of Chopin's piano music.

There are fifteen such musical benches scattered around the city at key sites related to Chopin's life. Besides the map and music, each contains a explanation of the role of the site's relevance to Chopin.

This building, for example, was the last place Chopin lived before leaving Warsaw forever.

A few years after Chopin moved out, Cyprian Norwid, a highly esteemed Polish poet and artist, moved in for a few years.

Another bench is placed in front of the Holy Cross Church and notes that "an urn holding Chopin's heart lies buried in this church." Poland's favorite musician may have died in Paris, but his heart belongs--literally--to Warsaw.

It is pretty inside, but not really spectacular. We didn't go all the way inside because a service was going on.

But from a distance we saw the famous pillar that contains the great composer's heart. The heart is pickled in 70% proof alcohol in a glass jar, which is in a little sealed-off cubby in the pillar. This "crypt" is at the bottom of the plaque adorned with Chopin's bust. I didn't realize where it was when I was taking these pictures, so I inadvertently missed it. It is just below the bottom of the photo on the right.

Legend has it that Chopin asked that his heart be sent back to his beloved homeland, so it was smuggled into the country after his death. It became a popular icon of sorts, and the Nazis even allowed the heart to be moved for safekeeping during the war. (Although some sources say the Nazis stole it to demoralize the Poles, but then gave it back after the war. That seems unlikely.)  It was placed in this column in 1945 and has been venerated like the holy relic of a saint ever since.  In 2014, a group of priests and forensic scientists secretly opened the tiny crypt, withdrew the pickled heart, and took hundreds of photos of it. Based on a visual examination, they eventually determined that the immediate cause of death was pericarditis, or inflammation of the membrane around the heart, a likely complication of tuberculosis.

Ah Poland, I do love you.

Columns are a thing in this church, declared a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II in 2002. Notice of that event is written in both Latin and Polish on another, more accessible column in the entry of the church.

Another important Chopin site is a large bronze statue that stands in Warsaw's beautifully landscaped  Lazienki Park. I love the dozens of benches facing the statue.

Of course, you can also bring your own, more comfortable chair. I'm telling you, these people love Chopin.

The original statue was erected in 1926, but it was the very first monument in Warsaw destroyed by the occupying Germans in May 1940.  Luckily, the original mold for the statue made it through the war and was used to cast a replica that was placed here in 1958.

The willow under which Chopin is sitting looks like a hand poised to play a piano, and Chopin's right hand also looks like it is about to rest on piano keys.


Look closely and you can also see the Polish eagle in the tree top. This stylized design was very controversial in the early 20th century.

Lazienki Park, originally designed in the 17th century, is the largest park in Warsaw, covering almost 200 acres, which is almost 150 football fields.

The windswept hair of the statue is often repeated in other depictions of Chopin, such as on this bronze statue we saw in a store window. (But why is the ballerina dancing on his grand piano?)

Finally, the International Chopin Piano Competition started in Warsaw in 1927 and has been held every five years since 1955. In all those years, an American has won only once, in 1970. (Russians have won six times, and Poles have won four times.) Being able to play Chopin's difficult music is a must for any self-respecting Polish pianist.

Lucky for us, a lot of the competitors from past competitions want to show off their skills (and perhaps earn a little money in the process). There are several piano salons around town that offer an evening of Chopin's piano music. Our guide suggested one, and somehow I convinced Bob that we should go. I believe that all 48 seats in the salon were filled, and we were incredibly lucky to get front row, left side seats, the best seats in the house. We were only four or five feet from the Kawai grand piano keyboard and had a perfect view of both the pianist's hands and their reflection in the polished backboard.

The man we heard play had made it to the second level on the most recent Chopin Piano Competition. He was fantastic, his fingers flying so fast on the keys that sometimes they were a blur. Bob slept through most of it, but for me it was a memorable experience--hearing the master of piano's music being performed in his city in an intimate setting like this one.  Wow!

Besides the music, there were other things to appreciate in the salon, such as this porcelain rendition of Chopin's head, a mere 450 euro, or just under $500 US.

There was a 2010 painting of Chopin by an artist named Engelmanna, and a copy of an 1838 oil painting by Eugene Delacroix that made Chopin appear to be much more handsome than the original painting did.

My favorite piece of art in the salon was this copy of the death mask that was made on the very day of Chopin's death. How would you like this on your piano?

By the way, in 2001, we traveled to Paris and visited the Pere LaChaise Cemetery, where Chopin is buried. I remember being shocked that no one was standing before Chopin's monument, although there was a small bouquet of flowers at the base. On the other hand, Jim Morrison's grave, just around the corner, had four or five mourners paying homage, one of them even singing quietly.

Chopin's grave in the Pere LaChaise Cemetery
in Paris. Photo from Wikipedia

READING/VIEWING

The definitive biography of Frederic Chopin is probably Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times by Dr. Alan Walker. There is only one problem with it: it is 768 pages long. I am too far behind in my reading to tackle a book of that length right now.

Instead, I chose Life of Chopin by Franz Liszt, who was a brilliant composer and pianist in his own right and a contemporary (albeit a Hungarian) and on-again off-again friend of Chopin. It is only 92 pages long. Shallow reason for making a reading choice, I know. However, I thought it would be interesting to see Chopin through the eyes of someone who actually knew him.

For the first half of the book, Lizst focuses primarily on Chopin's music.  There are l-e-n-g-t-h-y explications of the evolution of the traditional Polish dances the Polonaise and the Mazourka, and then there are more l-e-n-g-t-h-y discussions of Chopin's compositions that are based on these folk dances. This is all done with very flowery writing. (E.g.: "Their manners caress without emboldening; the grace of their languid movements is intoxicating; they allure by a flexibility of form, which knows no restraint, save that of perfect modesty, and which etiquette has never succeeded in robbing of its willowy grace.")

However, there are plenty of little gems that make this book worth at least skimming, particularly in the latter half of the book. For example:
- Chopin disliked giving performances. Sometimes he went years without giving a single concert.
- Apparently he looked so ill that "more than once hotel keepers demanded payment for the bed and mattress he occupied, in order to have them burned, deeming him already arrived at that stage of consumption in which it becomes so highly contagious."
- He was a fabulous host. He was very attentive to his guests' needs but did not reveal much about himself in conversation.
- He was very close to his sister Louise, who spent the last three months of his life at his side.
- He was desperately in love with the French novelist and memoirist Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, more commonly known by her pen name, George Sand. She, in fact, nursed him back from the brink of death of more than one occasion. Her break-up with him surely hastened his death.
- He asked to be buried next to Vincenzo Bellini, an Italian opera composer, in Pere LaChaise Cemetery in Paris.
- When he died, his friends brought so many flowers to his bed that his corpse was almost hidden by them.


Another recommendation is the 2015 movie In Search of Chopin. (The cover is the original of the Delacroix painting that was copied for the portrait that we saw in the piano studio.)

The documentary includes interviews with musicians and historians who know Chopin's life and work intimately. Places associated with his life are spotlighted, and many of his wonderful piano pieces are used both as background and as the center focus of the movie.

The movie is available on Amazon Prime.