Chopin: A Poet in Sound
The duality of Chopin's nature, divided between the claims of an unsatisfied idealism and a deep inbred pessimism, is reflected in his music. Noel Goodwin profiles the great composer and musician.
Not only do we love him, we love ourselves in him.Marquis de Custine on Chopin.
After more than a century of upheavals in style and fashion, of revolutions in manners and modes of life, the music of Chopin is as much valued today as it was by the fortunate few who first heard it spring from the touch of his fingers. Moreover, unlike those of his contemporaries in different branches of art, Chopin’s star has never waxed and waned but, alone among musicians of his period, it has remained constant in its power to delight each succeeding generation.
The art of Chopin has survived the legends and distortions, the adulterations of sentimental novelists and film-scenario writers, as well as of the manufacturers of musical popcorn, and has challenged every variety of performers from the international virtuoso to the Sunday pianist at his cottage piano.
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