Fryderyk Chopin

Starred review from April 30, 2018
Nineteenth-century pianist and composer Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849) emerges as a reserved, inward man who creates passionate music in this expansive, authoritative biography. Musicologist and biographer Walker (Franz Liszt) paints Chopin, who was born in Poland and spent his adult life in Paris, as frail, consumptive and fussy, with a polite but aloof manner, a dry wit, and an aversion to disruptions and tumults. Though a Polish patriot, he avoided involvement in Polish uprisings against imperial Russian and Prussian rule and the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The saga’s great adventure is Chopin’s years-long relationship with the cigar-chomping, cross-dressing, scandal-courting novelist George Sand; he at first considered her an “antipathetic woman,” but she seduced and then became a caregiver to the sickly musician. Walker sets Chopin’s life against a vivid re-creation of the culture of virtuoso piano-playing in 19th-century Paris, where Chopin’s music stood out for its unaffected delicacy amid the clanging histrionics of rivals. Chopin sometimes seems like a cold fish, but Walker manages to unearth a warm, intelligent soul that matches the sublime music he wrote. The study is packed with information and insightful analyses of Chopin’s major works that will interest professional musicians, and even nonspecialists will be entranced by Walker’s piquant storytelling and graceful prose. Photos.

September 1, 2018
A sensitively discerning examination of a 19th-century superstar.Citing a proliferation of newly available material relating to Chopin (1810-1849), award-winning musicologist Walker (Emeritus, Music/McMaster Univ.; Hans von Bülow: A Life and Times, 2009, etc.) delivers a magnificent, elegantly written biography of the famed composer. Besides Chopin's revealing correspondence and recollections of him by childhood friends, the author's extensive sources include a 26-volume edition of George Sand's letters as well as a groundbreaking biography of Sand, which illuminate the French writer's liaison with Chopin; and two recent, richly detailed studies of Chopin's family and youth in Warsaw. Although Walker admits that Chopin's "life and music unfolded along parallel planes, with no point of intersection," his findings amply support the contention that the composer's works "are woven so closely into the fabric of his personality that the one becomes a seamless extension of the other." Investigating his life and times, the author argues persuasively, illuminates "the conditions that aroused the creative process from its slumbers." Chopin was a prodigy: Before he turned 8, he gave his first public concert, and by 12, he dispensed with lessons, developing into "a fully formed virtuoso" by age 19. Although he gave fewer than 20 public concerts, Chopin became renowned for the grace and sweetness of his technique. "The lightness with which those velvet fingers glide, or rather flit across the keyboard is astonishing," one listener remarked. Chopin the man was hardly sweet: He coveted admiration, became terribly upset over any change to his daily routine, could be irritatingly demanding of friends, and, according to Sand, was "terrifying when angry." But he was indisputably a genius whose composing process, wrote Sand, "was spontaneous, miraculous." Walker authoritatively analyzes his compositions and closely examines his friendships, relationships with family, early loves, tormented affair with Sand, debilitating illnesses, and, above all, his desire to create "a new world" with his composing.An absorbing biography unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 1, 2018

Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1810-49) has been called the patron saint of the piano. "Whatever the time zone, the sun never sets on Chopin's music," declares much-awarded Walker (professor emeritus, McMaster Univ., Canada; Franz Liszt, 3 vols.) in what is sure to become the definitive biography on the great composer. Born in Poland, Chopin evinced a talent at an early age and required only minimal instruction in piano. He journeyed to Paris as a young man at the time of the Warsaw uprising against Russia, never to return to his native land. In France, he famously had a long-term liaison with writer George Sand (n�e Aurore Dupin). Walker effectively weaves here the events of his subject's life with the development of his music, elucidating where appropriate how various life events affected Chopin's compositions, providing a copious historical backdrop for the unfolding of his all-too-brief existence. Examples of his music are judiciously cited. VERDICT General readers should find this accessible as well as engrossing, despite the abundant scholarly apparatus--annotated contents, list of works, illustrations, musical notations, and genealogical charts. Heartily recommended to everyone with an interest in the subject. [See Prepub Alert, 4/9/18.]--Edward B. Cone, New York

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society Book Award for his three-volume Franz Liszt, Walker now gives us Chopin.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.