Frederic Chopin Quotes
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There are certain times when I feel more inspired, filled with a strong power that forces me to listen to my inner voice, and when I feel more need than ever for a Pleyel piano.
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The last thing is simplicity. After having gone through all the difficulties, having played an endless number of notes, it is simplicity that matters, with all its charm. It is the final seal on Art. Anyone who strives for this to begin with will be disappointed. You cannot begin at the end.
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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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Chopin was the first piano composer who knew exactly how to make piano sound reach fullness, radiance and grandness. What to regard and what, by all means, to avoid. Chopin was keenly aware of the overtones and he did take care of them so artfully.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.
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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.
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Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!
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Here, whatever is not boring is not English.
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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!