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Thoughts on visiting Chopin's grave as his bicentenary draws to a close, with posts on Liszt to follow. Thank you for reading !

The Chopin Society in the UK is re-creating Chopin's London concert at Stafford - now Lancaster - House in St James, given in the presence of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on 15 May 1848. The Pleyel piano originally used by Chopin in London  is being brought from Hatchlands for the concert, on 15 May 2010, in which Stephen Isserlis and Sam Haywood will perform the Chopin Cello Sonata, and Nikolai Demidenko will play  piano solos by Chopin.

In a letter to his family in Poland, Chopin wrote: "All the royal castles and palaces are old: splendid, but neither so tasteful nor so elegant as Stafford House ... for instance, the staircases are famous for their magnificence. They are neither in the entrance nor in the vestibule, but in the middle of the rooms, as if in some huge hall with the most magnificent paintings, statues, galleries, hangings and carpets: of the loveliest design, with the loveliest perspective. On these stairs one could see the Queen, under a brilliant light, surrounded by all sorts of bediamoned and beribboned people with the Garter, and all descending with the utmost elegance, carrying on conversations, lingering on various levels, where at every point there is some fresh thing to admire."

For a true re-creation of the 1848 event, there should be a dinner for 80 guests to start the evening, royal presence, solos from three male Italian singers, Mozart's Variations in G performed on two pianos, and the works by Chopin should include waltzes and mazurkas. Chopin was presented to the Queen, who spoke to him twice; Prince Albert stood near the piano. The Queen, in her diary, recorded the names of the singers, but wrote only that 'several pianists' had also performed. One of the singers, Lablache, had taught her singing; and he had been a torchbearer at Beethoven's funeral. He sang at Bellini's funeral. And then, in Paris on October 30 1849, he sang at Chopin's funeral.

Hamilton Palace, Scotland, 21 October 1848.' I have not yet played to any Englishwoman without her saying to me:'Leik water!!!' They all look at their hands, and play the wrong notes with much feeling. Eccentric folk, God help them. This is a certain lord in a collar and gaiters, stuttering. This one is a duke in high boots with spurs, deerskin breeches and a sort of dressing-gown over them.'

The current Chopin exhibition at the British Library includes one of Chopin's letters written in Polish to his friend Grzymala, with tiny drawings of  two of the 'eccentric' characters Chopin saw in Scotland. I stare, and appreciate the drawings - and the words are meaningless to me. But moving over to the original manuscripts of the two Polonaises Op 40, written during the ill-fated Winter in Majorca, the Mazurka op 59 No 3, written in Nohant, and the Barcarolle Op 60, at a quick glance the music leaps off the page and starts to play itself in my head. The language of Poland I cannot read; the language of Music - I can.

The glass display cases are deep, and a close inspection of Chopin's musical handwriting is not really possible. However, some enlightened visionary has enlarged the beginning of the Barcarolle manuscript to huge proportions, and it lines an angled wall near the final display case - the one which contains Chopin's Death Mask. There, one can gaze at leisure, and in wonder, as the beauty of that late work reveals itself on musical wallpaper in the composer's hand; the Italian directions so carefully notated, the slurs so delicately traced.

Whoever put the exhibition together deserves a round of applause. There are touchscreens and headphones so you can listen to British Library Archive recordings of the works displayed in manuscript. The Mazurka mentioned above has two versions, one by Paderewski and one by Churkassky. All the pianists in the recorded archive are deceased - but here is Zimerman, happily still with us, performing Chopin's Barcarolle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU-5u2dmXdM

Chopin's Death Mask, a plaster cast of his hand, original manuscripts, letters, documents and much more, are currently on display in London at the British Library's free exhibition: 'Chopin, The Romantic Refugee'.

http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/chopin/index.html

More about this in subsequent posts, but meanwhile, here is the link to the Library's online collection of over 1520 Chopin archival recordings - all the Etudes, Preludes, Ballades, Polonaises, Mazurkas - everything, performed by a dazzling array of pianists -  Horowitz, Paderewski, Gilels, Richter, Rubinstein, Cortot, Michelangeli...

http://sounds.bl.uk/Browse.aspx?category=Classical-music&collection=Chopin

All pre-1958 recordings can be played by anyone in the UK.

'Our invalid didn't seem well enough to stand the crossing [to Barcelona], but neither was he capable of putting up with another week in Majorca. The situation was dreadful. There were days when I lost hope and courage...' George Sand - A Winter in Majorca

Conflicting opinions exist about Chopin's time in Majorca, it being described as both 'productive' and 'unproductive'. Consider this: the party arrived in Palma on 11 November 1838, initially having good weather and warmth, but moving location three times before settling into their fourth location, the Cartuja, on December 15. Chopin was then without a piano until about three weeks before he finally left Majorca on February 13 1839. He was ill, sometimes sleepless; the food disagreed with him. It was cold. It rained incessantly. Given these conditions, it's amazing he composed anything at all - and yet we have the Second Ballade, the Third Scherzo, the completed Preludes, the Polonaises Op 40 and the Mazurkas Op 41 all on the go at this time.

As for George Sand, she somehow managed to look after her household of five, deal with the motley assortment of characters who peopled their Valldemossa existence, sort out the problems, write letters, finish one novel and make copious notes for another book. Chopin and Sand - I salute them both.

Visiting Valldemossa brings the one-dimensional portraits and photographs of Chopin and Sand to life, as you walk onto the three-dimensional stage wherein this particular chapter of their lives was set. It strengthens the resolve to look again at scores with meticulous care and attention, but with the balancing caveat that notation can be imprecise, and that a particular instrument in a given acoustical environment has both advantages and limitations which can influence interpretation.

Most of all, it re-affirms a tremendous respect for the music - and literature - that was produced with such a struggle and superhuman effort. How easily, how casually we buy a printed copy of a piece or a book, forgetting its troubled creation. In Valldemossa there are daily concerts of Chopin's music of just fifteen minutes, for the tourists. I sat listening to - frankly - an indifferent performance of one of the Polonaises Op 40, thinking: 'How can you play that with such boredom, in the place where it was written with such effort?'

Here is Horowitz playing that Polonaise, and finally Cortot, who made the first recording of the complete Preludes, playing No 17.

And now - please excuse me. I must go and practise...

The Cartuja houses Chopin's upright Pleyel piano, brought from Paris to Palma, where it languished in customs until mid-January 1839; it was finally released at a cost of 400 francs through the indefatigable efforts and determination of George Sand before being transported up to Valdemossa. Its highest note is F, in the fourth octave above middle C; its lowest a C three octaves below, which explains 'missing' notes in the highest and lowest registers of Scherzo no 3 composed on it. The monastery rooms have quite a lively acoustic being high-vaulted and with stone floors; the piano must have sounded beautifully resonant , especially in passages such as the broad chorale sections of the Scherzo ( recording by Martha Argerich).

On the walls of the room surrounding the piano, covered by glass, is the entire manuscript of the 24 Preludes Op 28 which Chopin completed here; 40 individual pages of fine-nibbed, musical penmanship on landscape-style pages roughly the size of an open exercise book. Each sheet contains 14 narrow staves, with one stave left blank for clarity under each pair of bracketed, notated treble and bass staves.

Chopin wrote to his friend Juljan Fontana in Paris in an early but undated letter of 1839, '...I send you the Preludes. Copy them, you and Wolff; I think there are no errors. Give the copy to Probst, and the manuscript to Pleyel...'

Here are Preludes 8-14 in a live performance by Evgeny Kissin.

So wrote Chopin on 19 November 1838 in a letter from Palma, Majorca, referring to the Real Cartuja de Valldemossa,  where he and George Sand moved on 15 December 1838. They left the island mid-February 1839.

Today, Valldemossa is an attractive jumble of apricot-coloured buildings set against a dramatic mountain backdrop, dominated as one approaches by the Cartuja at the top of the village and the village church tower at the bottom. It's only about eleven miles from Palma, scarcely a half-hour's drive now, but taking around three hours in 1838, with a steep ascent at the end.

Two days ago we visited the two so-called 'cells' - actually two sets of three good-sized rooms - where Chopin, George Sand, her two children and a maid lived. The cells are accessed from a cloister which leads from the monastery church, and each cell has its own small, enclosed garden, overlooking a spectacular view down the valley.

George Sand famously decided that spending late Autumn-Winter 1838-1839 in Majorca would be good for Chopin's health. It nearly killed him; unable to find accommodation in Palma after a few weeks because of the locals' fear of Chopin's worsening consumptive cough, the party of five - including Sand's two children and a French maid - ended up in a draughty, abandoned Carthusian Monastery in the hills at Valldemossa.

In Majorca, Chopin completed the Preludes Op 28 - here is one of them - and worked on the second Ballade Op 38, the third Scherzo op 39, Polonaises Op 40 etc. George Sand was writing her novel 'Spiridion' at the time, and making copious notes on their sojourn, published later as ' A Winter in Majorca'.

I'm currently reading it, as preparation for a visit to Valldemossa in February and as background to performances of some of those works later this year. Hoping for winter sun? No, winter gloom, the better to appreciate the conditions surrounding the composition of some of Chopin's finest works.

...as Schumann wrote when he encountered Chopin's Variations on 'La Ci Darem La Mano' Opus 2. He might have added, 'Shoes off, gentlemen - we're on holy ground!' - having found these manuscripts online: here is Chopin's autograph sketch for the Prelude Op 28 no 4 in Eminor - and the autograph and a copy prepared by Georges Sand ...
Other fantastic resources for Chopin 2010 include the Chopin Institute site -
- and Chopin's First Editions Online; check out the first French, German and English Editions of the same prelude, if you are so inclined :)


 

Yes - I will get a clean, urtext edition, check the sources and re-discover what Chopin actually wrote. But I will also refer to my old copy, fingerprinted by pianists past and present. And, as Yonty suggested, I will 'taste the dissonances, colour the bass chords - and explore the mysterious'.

The future of CDs, downloads, and blogs.... Catch this online for the next 6 days from BBC's Music Matters. Try 27:22 for the Head of Decca on CDs and downloads, then try 34:34 for Arts Journal's Greg Sandow on music blogging, followed by The Times' Richard Morrison's response...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p8bjs

Or listen to the whole programme for musical highlights of the decade.