Gustave Chouquet
In 1835, Liszt represented the amazing type of the virtuoso, whilst Chopin, for me, was the personification of poetry. The former played in pursuit of effect […] Chopin, by contrast, did not appear to be aware of the audience, but rather to be following an internal voice’
His character was indeed
His character was indeed not easily understood. A thousand subtle shades, mingling, crossing, contradicting and disguising each other, rendered it almost undecipherable at a first view. As is usually the case with the Slavs, it was difficult to read the recesses of his mind. With them, loyalty and candor, familiarity and the most captivating ease […]
The Polish word: ZAL! As
The Polish word: ZAL! As if his ear thirsted for the sound of this word, which expresses the whole range of emotions produced by an intense regret, through all the shades of feeling, from hatred t repentance, he repeated it again and again….Susceptible of different regimens, it includes all the tenderness, all the humility of […]
Chopin was the greatest a
Chopin was the greatest artistic shock which I experienced. My adoration for him continued to grow, and still does so, and I regard Chopin to be the most magnificent phenomenon not only in the history of Polish poetry but in global art as a whole.
Where [John] Field smiles
Where [John] Field smiles, Chopin makes a grinning grimace; where Field sighs, Chopin groans; where Field shrugs his shoulders, Chopin arches his back like a cat, where Field puts some seasoning into the food, Chopin empties a handful of cayenne pepper… In short, if one holds Field’s charming romances before a distorting, concave mirror, so […]
Gustave Flaubert, pessimi
Gustave Flaubert, pessimist and master of cadenced lyric prose, urged young writers to lead ascetic lives that in their art they might be violent. Chopin’s violence was psychic, a travailing and groaning of the spirit; the bright roughness of adventure was missing from his quotidian existence. The tragedy was within.
Deeply regretted as he ma
Deeply regretted as he may be by the whole body of artists, lamented by all who have ever known him, we must still be permitted to doubt if the time has even yet arrived in which he, whose loss is so peculiarly deplored by ourselves, can be appreciated in accordance with his just value, or […]