Talk:Frédéric Chopin

Chopin's heart

Thanks for your help in getting this article sorted - there's a fair amount of dead wood to be cleared before it can be properly rebuilt. Do you by the way have a source for Chopin's sister 'smuggling' the ashes to Warsaw (as opposed to just taking them) - I can't find one at present. Best, --Smerus (talk) 10:01, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I've read that Ludwika got Chopin's heart through checkpoints (customs?), concealed beneath her skirts. As I don't recall where I saw this, I propose modifying the current text for now to: "His sister took it in an urn to Warsaw, where it was eventually sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church, beneath an epitaph sculpted by Leonard Marconi..."

Marconi (1835-99) would have been too young in 1849, aged 14, to have at that time sculpted the epitaph, which I understand to have been contemporary with the heart's immuring. Hence I think that took place eventually.

You've done a very creditable job, pruning the article of unneeded, conjectural, incorrect, and long-winded matter, and otherwise revising the article. I think, though, I would have kept a few of the deleted items, such as the mentions (if only in footnotes) of Chopin's first cousin, American Civil War General Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski, and more distant relation, World War II British SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville.

Nihil novi (talk) 14:40, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Jachimeck/ Hedley as a sources

There are numerous citations in the article of a six-page biography by Jachimecki, which is not avaiable in English and dates from the 1930s. Frankly I don't think this is a quality source. From the extracts given it is clear that Jachmiecki treated Chopin in a full-blooded 'romantic' and patriotic style which is not in accord with modern academic evaluations. I should like to remove these citations entirely where modern sources in English can be cited. The same applies to some extent to the citations from Arthur Hedley. I welcome opinions on this.--Smerus (talk) 13:19, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Chopin in his times is not always best viewed through the prism of our times, over a century and a half later. Much of what Zdzisław Jachimecki and Arthur Hedley, both of them serious scholars of music, have to say is valid and should not be too cavalierly discarded.

At one point you deleted – on the ground that you had never heard of such an episode – Hedley's mention (in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., 2005, vol. 3, p. 263) that Chopin, at age eleven, performed in the presence of Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, who was in Warsaw to open the Sejm (Polish Parliament). Subsequently you found another reference to this event, and you reinstated this information.

It may be difficult for citizens of secure modern countries to appreciate the pervasive awareness, for Chopin's generation and several subsequent generations of Poles, of their country's loss of independence in the latter 18th century. It was the central fact that dominated their lives, and to an extent still does so today.

Nihil novi (talk) 08:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes I take your points. I am only concerend when some of these sources tend to go 'over the top' in adding interpretations - e.g. in the case of Alexander I, the original source said something to the effect that Alexander was 'charmed' by the performance - we don't in fasct know even if he listened to or took any notice of the performance, but we do know that he gave Chopin a diamond ring, as the present cistation reports. I propose to proceed as follows; where an element is strictly factual (Chopin lived here, went there, etc.) I will use a recent English citation in preference to an older or Polish citation, and delete the latter; where there is a relevant matter of opinion or interpretaton, where no recent English source is avaialble, I will retain the older and/or Polish citation. I am very conscious of Chopin's status as a national/historical figure in Poland - but that also needs to be clarified, for English readers, within a more objective evaluation (as far as that may be possible!). Best, --Smerus (talk) 07:26, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

You are confusing Tsar Alexander I and his younger brother, Grand Duke Constantine. It was Constantine, for whom Chopin performed privately at Warsaw's Belweder Palace, who was "charmed" by Chopin's playing (Zdzisław Jachimecki, p. 420). Nihil novi (talk) 07:55, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Conceded, apologies again.--Smerus (talk) 15:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Chopin / Maria

I have deleted the following as, although it is credited to a Polish source of 1937, it appears to be a fairy-tale:

'On his return to Paris [in 1836], Chopin composed the Étude in F minor, the second in the Op. 25 cycle, which he referred to as "a portrait of Maria's soul." Along with this, he sent her {Maria Wodzińska] seven songs that he had set to the words of the Polish Romantic poets Stefan Witwicki, Józef Zaleski and Adam Mickiewicz.'

Chopin made no Zaleski settings before 1841, so he cannot have sent one to Maria in 1836. The other settings date from c. 1830, (with the possible exception of a Mickiewicz setting of 1837) so were not inspired by or related to Maria. I also find no mention anywhere else of op. 25/2 being "a portrait of Maria's soul." Of course if citations are avaailbe it would be good to know of them.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Smerus (talk • contribs) 13:29, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Case solved - corrected text and ref now in article.--Smerus (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Nationality

Per WP:OPENPARA, Chopin should be described as a Polish composer. There's not much to argue about here. Thank you for your time, and please drop the edit warring and childish user talk page blanking. Thank you. Toccata quarta (talk) 09:12, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems a bit ridiculous that a guy with a French name and French nationality would be listed as "Polish" without qualificagtion. Personally I have no dog in this fight, but I do believe that you're trying to pull the wool over the reader's eyes by denying that someone called "Frédéric Chopin" is in any sense French. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.222.192.243 (talk) 23:54, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

That's resolvable: call him "Fryderyk", as he was baptized in Poland. As for the French surname, what are all those Americans doing with English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, Haitian, etc., names? Nihil novi (talk) 04:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Except for the small detail that he wrote his own name in French, not Polish. But, if you so insist, change his name to "Fryderyk" then. And change his surname to "Szopen" while you're at it. And are you sure Wojciech Żywny wasn't Polish? You should look into that. Certainly Marie Curie was Polish...

Nihil novi, would you care to explain to me why you have edited three articles so that the Marie Curie, born in Poland but moved to France as a young age is listed as "French-Polish"; Wojciech Żywny, born in Czech but moved to Poland at a young age, is listed as "Czech-born Polish"; and Frédéric Chopin here is listed solely as "Polish"? 178.222.192.243 (talk) 19:52, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

A rose, by any other name, is still a rose.

The great Finnish patriot Johan Julius Christian Sibelius chose, in his published works, to use the French version of his given name Johan. Did that make this famous composer, Jean Sibelius, a Frenchman or any less a Finn?

And I do not take responsibility for the work of other editors of an article. Nihil novi (talk) 22:48, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Jean Sibelius did not hold French citizenship. 178.222.192.243 (talk) 23:19, 12 September 2013 (UTC)