4 ms·

Frédéric Chopin and George Sand Go to Majorca

46 points by tintinnabula 8y ago

WhompingWindows 8y ago
Poor Chopin. A genius with impeccable musical taste, capable of the greatest finesse and beautifully singing melodies on the piano, Chopin lived his life battling against Tuberculosis. It's wild to think that with modern medicine, he would have lived a fuller and much more productive life. What if he died at 70 instead of 39, and produced double the number of pieces he did? His works are already lauded as the the top echelon of piano music, which is easy to hear in Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA If Beethoven's or Bach's late periods are any indication, brilliant composers can continue innovating and moving forward well into their 50's and beyond. Such a shame that Chopin and Schubert died such premature deaths, though one could argue it's lucky they did indeed live long enough to give us compositions.
- smortaz 8y ago
  Yep. If I had a time machine some of the first stops would include dropping off some meds for Chopin, Mozart, Schubert, Pergolesi, ...
  - WhompingWindows 8y ago
    What blows my mind: which composers would you be able to save that never got old enough to get famous? Or would antimicrobial resistance kick in? Alas, the pitfalls of time travel
- byproxy 8y ago
  His preludes are top-notch. He packs so much story into those short forms. That first prelude...what a damn tender 30 seconds (or so).
- furgooswft13 8y ago
  A bit unrelated but I sometimes wonder what Bach would have thought of, and how he might take advantage of modern day electronic keyboards. The ability to change voices at will (even on different areas of the keyboard), and importantly for Mr. Well Tempered, the ability to change tunings with the press of a button. Surely even these days keyboards should be sensitive to key aftertouch to get a clavichord like vibrato that Bach was fond of. It'd be like Switched-on-Bach^10 but improvised live by a single madman on his electro-organ.
  - tsunamifury 8y ago
    Thats a plot point played for gags in the original Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UGAbAPPkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UGAbAPPkk
pseudolus 8y ago
The Guardian is currently featuring (21/08/2018) a very enlightening podcast with the author (Paul Kildea). It's available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/books https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/books
- vixen99 8y ago
  Kildea's latest book tracks the fascinating history of one of Chopin's pianos - the one he had in Majorca on which he composed some of the preludes.
  - romwell 8y ago
    That's the piano the article is about.
Rotdhizon 8y ago
There was an old game called Eternal Sonata that based around the life of Chopin. One of my all time favorites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sonata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sonata
anonymouslee 8y ago
Great article. Perhaps his trials and tribulations were essential to his compositions of melancholy genius also filled with joy & beauty & rage. One of his last works, his Op. 60 Barcarolle is incredible if you haven't heard it yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9umBE2Gn7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9umBE2Gn7Q
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hnzix 8y ago
>"There was then no one single way to build one: it was much like the automobile industry at the end of the century, inventors and keen-eyed engineers advancing their own ideas, often their own patents, consensus following only later." Kind of like how we're now standardizing on Javascript as the one true programming language, as all others fall into disuse. (ducks)

46 points by tintinnabula 8y ago

Poor Chopin. A genius with impeccable musical taste, capable of the greatest finesse and beautifully singing melodies on the piano, Chopin lived his life battling against Tuberculosis. It's wild to think that with modern medicine, he would have lived a fuller and much more productive life. What if he died at 70 instead of 39, and produced double the number of pieces he did? His works are already lauded as the the top echelon of piano music, which is easy to hear in Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA If Beethoven's or Bach's late periods are any indication, brilliant composers can continue innovating and moving forward well into their 50's and beyond. Such a shame that Chopin and Schubert died such premature deaths, though one could argue it's lucky they did indeed live long enough to give us compositions.

smortaz 8y ago
Yep. If I had a time machine some of the first stops would include dropping off some meds for Chopin, Mozart, Schubert, Pergolesi, ...
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  What blows my mind: which composers would you be able to save that never got old enough to get famous? Or would antimicrobial resistance kick in? Alas, the pitfalls of time travel
byproxy 8y ago
His preludes are top-notch. He packs so much story into those short forms. That first prelude...what a damn tender 30 seconds (or so).
furgooswft13 8y ago
A bit unrelated but I sometimes wonder what Bach would have thought of, and how he might take advantage of modern day electronic keyboards. The ability to change voices at will (even on different areas of the keyboard), and importantly for Mr. Well Tempered, the ability to change tunings with the press of a button. Surely even these days keyboards should be sensitive to key aftertouch to get a clavichord like vibrato that Bach was fond of. It'd be like Switched-on-Bach^10 but improvised live by a single madman on his electro-organ.
- tsunamifury 8y ago
  Thats a plot point played for gags in the original Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UGAbAPPkk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UGAbAPPkk

pseudolus 8y ago

The Guardian is currently featuring (21/08/2018) a very enlightening podcast with the author (Paul Kildea). It's available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/books https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/books

vixen99 8y ago
Kildea's latest book tracks the fascinating history of one of Chopin's pianos - the one he had in Majorca on which he composed some of the preludes.
- romwell 8y ago
  That's the piano the article is about.

Rotdhizon 8y ago

There was an old game called Eternal Sonata that based around the life of Chopin. One of my all time favorites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sonata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sonata

anonymouslee 8y ago

Great article. Perhaps his trials and tribulations were essential to his compositions of melancholy genius also filled with joy & beauty & rage. One of his last works, his Op. 60 Barcarolle is incredible if you haven't heard it yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9umBE2Gn7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9umBE2Gn7Q

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hnzix 8y ago

>"There was then no one single way to build one: it was much like the automobile industry at the end of the century, inventors and keen-eyed engineers advancing their own ideas, often their own patents, consensus following only later." Kind of like how we're now standardizing on Javascript as the one true programming language, as all others fall into disuse. (ducks)