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Vienna is a handsome, lively city, and pleases me exceedingly.
Frederic Chopin -
One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to achieve certain unlimited dexterity. A well formed technique, it seems to me, can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.
Frederic Chopin
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The three most celebrated doctors on the island have been to see me. One sniffed at what I spat, the second tapped where I spat from, and the third sounded me and listened as I spat. The first said I was dead, the second that I was dying and the third that I'm going to die.
Frederic Chopin -
My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country.
Frederic Chopin -
I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.
Frederic Chopin -
I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.
Frederic Chopin -
Time is the best of critics; and patience the best of teachers.
Frederic Chopin -
The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles should be as proud of me as the Germans are of Mozart; obvious nonsense.
Frederic Chopin
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If I were still stupider than I am, I should think myself at the apex of my career; yet I know how much I still lack, to reach perfection; I see it the more clearly now that I live only among first-rank artists and know what each one of them lacks.
Frederic Chopin -
Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach. I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess.
Frederic Chopin -
The earth is suffocating... Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive.
Frederic Chopin -
Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.
Frederic Chopin -
I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath, paralyzed by its curious glances, struck dumb by all those strange faces.
Frederic Chopin -
I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.
Frederic Chopin
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I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.
Frederic Chopin -
A strange adventure befell me while I was playing my Sonata in B flat minor before some English friends. I had played the Allegro and the Scherzo more or less correctly. I was about to attack the March when suddenly I saw arising from the body of my piano those cursed creatures which had appeared to me one lugubrious night at the Chartreuse. I had to leave for one instant to pull myself together after which I continued without saying anything.
Frederic Chopin -
England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere.
Frederic Chopin -
It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.
Frederic Chopin -
Simplicity is the highest goal, achievable when you have overcome all difficulties.
Frederic Chopin -
I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.
Frederic Chopin
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Liszt commenting on the music of Frédéric Chopin: He confided . . . those inexpressible sorrows to which the pious give vent in their communication with their Maker. What they never say except upon their knees, he said in his palpitating compositions.
Frederic Chopin -
Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two.
Frederic Chopin -
I could express my feelings more easily if they could be put into the notes of music, but as the very best concert would not cover my affection for you, dear daddy, I must use the simple words of my heart, to lay before you my utmost gratitude and filial affection.
Frederic Chopin -
They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me.
Frederic Chopin