Frederic Chopin Quotes
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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.
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Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two.
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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.
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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.
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Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.
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When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.
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It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place.
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You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat.
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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.
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Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in one's birthplace.
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I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.
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I have met a great celebrity, Madame Dudevant, known as George Sand... Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me... What an unattractive person La Sand is... Is she really a woman? I'm inclined to doubt it.
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Here, whatever is not boring is not English.
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Hats off, gentlemen - a genius! If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin's works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin's works are canons buried in flowers.
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All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.
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Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!
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To be a great composer requires immense experience... One acquires this by listening not only to other men's work, but above all to one's own!
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Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.