Was Chopin gay

[zheer]

Was he gay, i mean he was this gentle week feminin man who fell in love with george sand, she drest like a man and smoked a cigar.

[pianistimo]

when i read a biography, i don't look for the peculularities of personality as much as what was innately musical in the person.   the first signs of genius, things like that.  hardship seems to bring out a lot of talent.  you'd think many had it easy, but even down to the present age, there are many pianists with backgrounds that you'd think would have killed them.  i think when movies are made about pianists, they focus on some kind of idealized or non-idealized life.  these people knew how and when to take the next step musically.  following those steps is much more interesting.

[zheer]

No you are wrong, compare the music of Beethoven or Rachmaninoff with those of Chopin, Chopin was less agressive more gentle but strong,feminin not masculine ,soft not hard , dreamy not realistic , sad not happy etc.

[pianistimo]

women on the whole are happier.  i've seen many more depressed men.  what you are interested in, is how chopin actually got to experience life.  i mean, if it wasn't for a woman, he'd have had none.  george sand had to actively go after chopin because he liked to 'hole up' and practice so much.  people say many bad things about her - like she tried to control his life, etc. etc.  didn't chopin have any say in the matter? 

[bernhard]

There is some evidence that Chopin was bisexual, or at least did some experimenting in that area with his childhood friend Titus Woyciechowski. However he clearly enjoyed the ladies as well. The great love of his life was not really George Sand though (she was not a nice person), but more likely Delphina Potocka. (He had other passions as well: Constantia Gladkowska and Maria Wodzinska)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[zheer]

Thank you Bernard. I did'nt know he had bisexual relations in his childhood, i was only gessing that he was gay.
    Who are those other women you mentioned sounds intresting, and why did he not have any children.

[gruffalo]

please dont say he was gay. he was from my country.

[zheer]

Sexuality is an individual not a collective thing, dont worry, poland will survive.

[allthumbs]

Greetings

Sexuality is an individual not a collective thing, dont worry, poland will survive.

Too funny!


On a serious note, I have met and known quite a few males who have exhibited a more feminine side, (which BTW, all males have and most refuse to acknowledge), than what society expects, but that doesn't make them gay.

As males, we have been taught from early childhood to suppress those feminine aspects of our personality in favor of the more 'macho' traits that seem to define what a 'male' is supposed to be in our society. Much to our detriment, I might add.

Many male musicians, (and in other endeavors such as ballet), who are viewed as being effeminate (usually by the males who are not interested in the arts), may be perceived as being gay. The fact that they are pursuing music (or dance) as an activity further supports the stereotype.

So, the fact that Chopin exhibited some feminine characteristics may lead someone to suspect he may have been gay. Maybe he was, or bisexual, as Bernhard has suggested. He would have suppressed such a thing anyway in the time he lived, I would think.

In any case, it matters little to those who love and admire his music. After all, it is the feminine side of mankind, I believe, that gives us the beautiful things in life.


Viva la femme!


Cheers


allthumbs

[chopiabin]

This thread is not only in the wrong section, but it is also very petty. Who cares whether Chopin was gay?! Haven't we debated these same questions in the countless other "Is so-and-so gay?" categories?

Look, none of us, including Chopin's biographers, can go back in time and be with him every second to see who he's f***ing. It doesn't matter!! We do know that he lived with George Sand for many years and that he had affairs with women.

The reason that anyone even knows who Chopin is is because of his music, not his sexuality.

[zheer]

When one thinks of beauty , one thinks of flowers , women, Mozat or a painting.So yes non are masculine and so yes it may take a feminin individual to create beauty. I personaly avoid Chopins raindrop prelude, since it may damage my street cred.however Chopin is more popular with women a little like Van Cliburn.

[zheer]

No it is not in the wrong section,because if we establish his sexuality it may change haw we perform his music.

[leahcim]

When one thinks of beauty , one thinks of .....women.......

I guess you've answered the question then.

[nightingalesong]

what kind of a forum is this. bisexual relations? lol You don't know anything about 200 years ago! I'm quitting this so called "Discussion about piano works, composers and recordings." I've watched as people claim nearly every historical figure of significance was gay/bisexual. It's really unbelievable seemingly intelligent people fall for this stuff! omg lol I mean, Alexander the Great, Octavian, Richard Coeur de Leon, Jehan de Arc, T.E. Lawrence, Thomas LOL Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, I mean I've read all these ridiculous articles and then i come here and find the same thing about Chopin! It's obvious that with modern times, there seems to be this drive to make foundless conjecture in order to appease certain people of influence. So what if they were, so what if they were not..
Really, I must ask why you'd post this? Is there any reason at all? One rational reason? The core of some of the most beautiful music in the world, the very spirit of romanticism in some respects revolve around the unification of man and woman,m true love, etc. You're turning love into a merely pleasure seeking enterprise and that sickens me which tells me music in a spiritual sense means nothing to you. Everyone who thinks this topic reasonable should quit the forum! Why is it that peace loving, gentle men must be homosexual? You infurate me truly, you're an insult to humanity! Similarly, why must males be shallow, butch, violence loving, monsterous, cold.. Bah! I wish to die among fellow humans who know the truth about things. These fictional divisions are the last insult I will take in this vulgar forum of fakers! You're all fakers! Not a soul respects that music is communion with the eternal. I'll have nothing more to do with you and yet I know it will be I who is exiled for this, not the the people in our very midst who seek to sabotage beauty!

I hope, at least, so long.
C.

[zheer]

Bey bey.

[bearzinthehood]

I personaly avoid Chopins raindrop prelude, since it may damage my street cred.

LMAO

[Siberian Husky]

please dont say he was gay. he was from my country.

yeah you're pretty stupid

[chopiabin]

When one thinks of beauty , one thinks of flowers , women, Mozat or a painting.So yes non are masculine and so yes it may take a feminin individual to create beauty. I personaly avoid Chopins raindrop prelude, since it may damage my street cred.however Chopin is more popular with women a little like Van Cliburn.

Why are you so obsesses with labeling everything in terms of gender? What is it about Chopin's music that seems "effeminate" in any way? How do those things pointed out relate in any direct way to women?

And honestly, Chopin is popular with nearly every classical pianist, not just "women a little like Van Cliburn". What the hell does that even mean?

[JCarey]

what kind of a forum is this. bisexual relations? lol You don't know anything about 200 years ago! I'm quitting this so called "Discussion about piano works, composers and recordings." I've watched as people claim nearly every historical figure of significance was gay/bisexual. It's really unbelievable seemingly intelligent people fall for this stuff! omg lol I mean, Alexander the Great, Octavian, Richard Coeur de Leon, Jehan de Arc, T.E. Lawrence, Thomas LOL Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, I mean I've read all these ridiculous articles and then i come here and find the same thing about Chopin! It's obvious that with modern times, there seems to be this drive to make foundless conjecture in order to appease certain people of influence. So what if they were, so what if they were not..
Really, I must ask why you'd post this? Is there any reason at all? One rational reason? The core of some of the most beautiful music in the world, the very spirit of romanticism in some respects revolve around the unification of man and woman,m true love, etc. You're turning love into a merely pleasure seeking enterprise and that sickens me which tells me music in a spiritual sense means nothing to you. Everyone who thinks this topic reasonable should quit the forum! Why is it that peace loving, gentle men must be homosexual? You infurate me truly, you're an insult to humanity! Similarly, why must males be shallow, butch, violence loving, monsterous, cold.. Bah! I wish to die among fellow humans who know the truth about things. These fictional divisions are the last insult I will take in this vulgar forum of fakers! You're all fakers! Not a soul respects that music is communion with the eternal. I'll have nothing more to do with you and yet I know it will be I who is exiled for this, not the the people in our very midst who seek to sabotage beauty!

I hope, at least, so long.
C.

In through the nose, and out through the mouth.....

[vladhorwz]

women on the whole are happier.  i've seen many more depressed men.  what you are interested in, is how chopin actually got to experience life.  i mean, if it wasn't for a woman, he'd have had none.  george sand had to actively go after chopin because he liked to 'hole up' and practice so much.  people say many bad things about her - like she tried to control his life, etc. etc.  didn't chopin have any say in the matter? 

Incidence of depression in women vs men: 3.62 vs 1.98 per 1000 per year

Publication: Psychology Today

[Siberian Husky]

women are depressed more than men collectively simply because they are more emotionally inclined *collectively*..so pianistimo..you make good arguments on false premices..you are dismissed from pianoforum.net ..you can punch out and drop your name tag off in my office before 4PM..but before doing so cancel my appointment with Jerry, i cant close that sponsorship convention for the 2nd of next month, i have previous engagements with other clients..and refill my stapler thanx

[jim_24601]

I personaly avoid Chopins raindrop prelude, since it may damage my street cred.

Well, perhaps when you're a little older and comfortable with your own sexuality, you won't feel you have anything to prove in that regard. In the meantime, that's all the more beautiful music for us real men, right?

(Aside: Rachmaninoff, whom you hold up as an example of masculinity in another thread, could be every bit as soppy as old Frederic when the mood took him. Try the third movement of his 'cello sonata. Pure goo from start to finish. And I love it.)

[arieln]

gosh get away from this board and help me on my board loll

[pianistimo]

dear vladhorowitz,

george sand had way more fun than chopin (though i'm not saying i condon her fun).  most women know how to have a good time, and relieve pressure by not being so stuffy (or obsessed as someone called it).  i mean, if a woman's tired, she just goes to sleep.  they think basic thoughts - and are not so unrational as scientific magazines make them out to be.  if half the scientists were women, they'd understand a woman's cycle and tell the guys to be caring and more sensitive around times that they don't feel so good or have a major headache.  if men had to deal with childbirth, and lots of other stuff that we deal with from month to month and year to year, they'd not just get depressed, they'd leave the country and never come back.  women are brave.  they stick it out.  usually get treatment.  and, only in very rare cases kill themselves.  whereas men tend to just give up and shoot themselves in the head.

[jas]

He wasn't gay, nor was he bi. The letters exchanged between him and Titus were affectionate, certainly, and suggestive to our modern standards. But it was just the way of the time and place. It's only now that people are suggesting he's gay, because the way they spoke to one another just isn't done any more.
His music has nothing to do with it. If we're talking about "masculine" music, Beethoven has to be near the top of the heap but he's not exactly known for his rampant sex life, is he?

what kind of a forum is this. bisexual relations? lol You don't know anything about 200 years ago! I'm quitting this so called "Discussion about piano works, composers and recordings." I've watched as people claim nearly every historical figure of significance was gay/bisexual. It's really unbelievable seemingly intelligent people fall for this stuff! omg lol I mean, Alexander the Great, Octavian, Richard Coeur de Leon, Jehan de Arc, T.E. Lawrence, Thomas LOL Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, I mean I've read all these ridiculous articles and then i come here and find the same thing about Chopin! It's obvious that with modern times, there seems to be this drive to make foundless conjecture in order to appease certain people of influence. So what if they were, so what if they were not..
Really, I must ask why you'd post this? Is there any reason at all? One rational reason? The core of some of the most beautiful music in the world, the very spirit of romanticism in some respects revolve around the unification of man and woman,m true love, etc. You're turning love into a merely pleasure seeking enterprise and that sickens me which tells me music in a spiritual sense means nothing to you. Everyone who thinks this topic reasonable should quit the forum! Why is it that peace loving, gentle men must be homosexual? You infurate me truly, you're an insult to humanity! Similarly, why must males be shallow, butch, violence loving, monsterous, cold.. Bah! I wish to die among fellow humans who know the truth about things. These fictional divisions are the last insult I will take in this vulgar forum of fakers! You're all fakers! Not a soul respects that music is communion with the eternal. I'll have nothing more to do with you and yet I know it will be I who is exiled for this, not the the people in our very midst who seek to sabotage beauty!

Why does homosexuality have to be a "merely pleasure seeking enterprise"? And what exactly is your point, anyway? You calling everyone here "fakers" doesn't follow on from a single thing you said before. Your whole post is totally incoherent.

Jas

[zheer]

Clearly you have all misunderstod me. I was just wondering if he was gay, not yes he was gay and that his music was gay, however a man of my intelligence will not  get angry or personal, i will leave that the women, and this thread is soundig stupid, since it is filled with personal and angry replies.If you wish to take this any further please do, if not then stay out.I was only asking for an opinion on Chopin not me or men like me .Remember that next time you choose insult me you think twice.

[leahcim]

You certainly have a comic intelligence, assuming the comedy is intentional. But, often someone just slips on a banana skin by accident, and that doesn't make him Charlie Chaplin.

[zheer]

No am serious , if Chopin was bisexual, then one should consider playing the Revelutionart Etude in Cminor in a different key , ie C major.

[allthumbs]

No am serious , if Chopin was bisexual, then one should consider playing the Revelutionart Etude in Cminor in a different key , ie C major.

No, that wouldn't work. It would be like playing Marche Funebre in the major key, it wouldn't give the same mood at the funeral for which it was intended.

EDIT - Actually, at my funeral, go ahead and play it that way, I wouldn't care anyway and maybe it would lighten up the mood.

[prometheus]

Uuh, are you sure you even know what 'gay' means?

[thalbergmad]

Was Bach a Martian??

[JCarey]

Was he gay, i mean he was this gentle week feminin man who fell in love with george sand, she drest like a man and smoked a cigar.

Was he deaf, i mean he was this crazy man who rote dissinint music, it was scarey to the peeple when he rote it.

 

[zheer]

No Beethoven was certinly not deaf , he was colour blind.

[chopiabin]

however a man of my intelligence will not  get angry or personal, i will leave that the women

I think it's mostly because you insult others without even seeming to notice it. It may also have to do with the assumption that Chopin's music is somehow effeminate. It's music. It doesn't have a gender or a sexual orientation. The idea of assigning gender to objects and concepts is a very human thing to do, but it simply doesn't make sense. 

[frederic]

No it is not in the wrong section,because if we establish his sexuality it may change haw we perform his music.

I've done my painstaking research, worked day and night, and now finally, I am happy to inform everyone that yes, Chopin was in fact a homosexual.

Now, just a friendly reminder for all the men out there to only wear a leopard skin G-string the next time you give a Chopin Recital.

[apion]

Chopin may have been asexual.

[zheer]

It is hard to believe that one of the most romantic composers was neither intrested in men or women, i feel he had to much fire,romance ,seduction,energy and love in his music to pass as an asexual.HIs Nocturnes are likly to seduse the opposite sex into bed.

[jim_24601]

No Beethoven was certinly not deaf , he was colour blind.

I was wondering whether you were a complete idiot, an obnoxious wanker or a somewhat clever troll. Now I'm decided.

[zheer]

I love you to.

[popndekl]

i completely agree with nightingalesong.
i had a lot of fun reading this topic.

i'd take it simpler and say chopin was romantic... 
lol.
zheer, take it easy. you triggered quite a lot of arguments recently... 

[perfect_pitch]

here's an interesting point....

WHO CARES IF CHOPIN WAS GAY - HE WROTE GREAT MUSIC!!!!

Sorry, but I just fear that the second someone accuses a composer of being gay, all these people get narky and defensive... There's no need for it.

[rachmaninov uk]

I'd try not to drop my music books on the floor when near him. just to be on the safe side 

[zheer]

This is something Chopin said to a close friend, " i like to admire women from a distance", most men admire women in close proximity, hence he avoided intimacy.

[Floristan]

Brahms, a lifetime bachelor, kept love and sex entirely separate throughout his life.  For him sexual expression sullied the beautiful love object.  His solution was to routinely fall in love with women he could admire, but have sex with prostitutes.  I don't think he was the only one in the 19th century with these attitudes and behaviors.  The madonna/*** syndrome.  Women are either saints or evil temptresses.  Anyhow, Brahms was often lonely and he yearned for female companionship (which is obvious in his music, where yearning is the most common emotion).  He was also really hard to get along with and completely dedicated to his art, so he wouldn't have made room for a partner even if he hadn't had his particular sexual hangup.

Couldn't it have been similar with Chopin?

Now Schubert's another story! 

P.S.  The **** bleeping above is another word for prostitute, one that apparently is too naughty for this forum!

[pita bread]

,soft not hard ,

Possibly a description of yourself?

[bernhard]

As I said before there is some evidence that Chopin was bisexual. He was definitely not homosexual in the restrict sense of the word, since he was undoubtedly attracted to women and engaged in sexual intercourse with several of them. And he was certainly not asexual – although at a certain point in his life he might simply have been too sick to be able to “perform”.

In a certain sense his love life was an utter failure since (unlike Schumann’s or Mendelssohn’s and like Liszt’s Beethoven’s, Brahms’s and Schubert’s love lives) he never managed to get the women he truly wanted, and ended up with women who pursued him relentlessly. In a certain sense he betrayed the romantic ideal of “one pure love” (an ideal that goes as far back as the troubadors in middle age) to cavort with whoever was available. Personally I believe that he was aware of such a betrayal and this caused him no small regret and suffering.

Let us make a brief chronology of Chopin’s “love life”. I will try to be non-judgemental and offer you quotes from Chopin himself (in italics) whenever available.

And let me add that although I find this interesting from a biographical point of view, I do not really believe it has any import whatsoever in appreciating or performing his music. Ultimately this is the level of gossip, not art.

1.   Chopin was most definitely into women. (“I would rather play to a small audience of women than to a packed house full of men”)

2.   Chopin was not regarded as a particularly handsome man (as, say, Liszt was). His – undeniable – charisma lay elsewhere. Physically he was fragile (Liszt: ”his whole appearance makes the beholder think of the convolvuli which, on the slenderest of stems, balanced divinely coloured chalices of such vaporous tissues that the slightest touch destroys them” ) but he had aristocratic and refined manners, and dressed with great care and taste: he was a dandy. In a sense this made him a perfect ladies’man.

3.   In childhood he was surrounded by women: his mother and sisters (he was the youngest), and like Mozart, he was a child prodigy feted by dotting and admiring females from the aristocracy.

4.   In Warsaw he attended a boy’s school, but was always making up with his friends’ sisters. At age 14 he fell in love with a young girl form the nearby convent school. ”Her father was annoyed with me for trying to arrange a secret rendez-vous with his daughter. Our go-between was a Jewish boy called Leibush, son of a shopkeeper who supplied us with pens and writing paper. Leibush had a good ear. He would not accept payment for his services. He only wanted to have lessons with me and would listen under my window for hours when I was playing. This messenger of love was a very important person in my life at the time”.

5.   Chopin was also deeply attached to his classmate Titus Woyciechkowski to whom he wrote many passionate letters. In one of them he “longs to kiss” his faithful friend, but notes: “you don’t like to be kissed” . Are we reading too much in this, and this is just brotherly friendship? Meanwhile, Chopin was composing and dedicating his compositions to a number of ladies, Amongst them Countess Alexandrine de Moriolles (he dedicated his “Rondo a la Mazur” to her), who had been a childhood friend, and Emily Eisner, the daughter of his music teacher at the conservatory. Emily use to listen to his compositions and copy them for him. (He dedicated … to her)

6.   Around that time, Chopin went on holidays on the country state of Countess Pruzsak. While he was there, the governess got pregnant and Chopin was the prime suspect. As it turned out he was innocent (and was subsequently offered a job to teach piano to the Countess children), but he felt quite proud of the charge.

7.   In a letter to Titus dated 12. 9. 1829 – after a detailed account of his first concerts in Vienna - he ends his letter: “I kiss you heartily, right on the lips, if I may.” In another letter of the same period: “Don’t kiss me now, for I have not washed yet […] How silly of me! You wouldn’t kiss me even if I were to bathe in all the perfumes of Byzantium, unless I forced you by some super natural power. I believe in such powers. Tonight you shall dream you are kissing me”. Chopin dedicated his “Variations” to him.

George Sand once remarked that Chopin was “emotionally versatile” and while in Vienna he fell in love with 17 year-old Leopoldine Blatheka, who also composed and presented Chopin with signed copies of her piano works. However this did not last. Back in Varsaw, he met – as he told Titus – his ideal woman: Constantia Gladkowska. She was at the last year in the conservatory and was to have a brilliant career as a singer. He was so smitten that he could not even talk to her.  In spite of that, he was still writing to Titus in a most affectionate manner: “I love you to distraction” and “You are the only one I love”, or “I know you love me, but I am afraid of you. God knows you are the only one who has power over me, you  and… well, no one else.”. Chopin carried around a bundle of Titus’ letters tied with a pretty ribbon.

8.   In Warsaw, Chopin was the man of the hour, with a successful recital at the National Theater. Eventually he was formally introduced to Constantia. Unfortunately Chopin could not get to speak to her alone, so his love remained a secret (although she may have noticed something was afoot).

9.   At this point the famous singer Henrietta Sontag was making a tour which included Warsaw. She was 24 and famous in all the European capitals. Chopin could not have enough of her, attending all her recitals and visiting her often at her apartment. On one occasion, when he went to visit her, he found Constantia and her companions there. Chopin was undecided and confused. In that state, he went to Titus farm and spend a couple of weeks there hunting and playing the piano together. He needed to go back to Vienna, but kept procrastinating it. He only decided to go after Titus promised to meet him there in the Autumn.

10.   Just before Chopin left for Vienna, Constantia gave him a ring and a poem. But as soon as he left she got married to a Warsaw merchant. She gave up her career, had five children and went blind at age 35 (but survived Chopin for 40 years). Chopin never again spoke to her.

11.   Meanwhile, Chopin was not having much time to think about Constantia, since in Dresden he met Countess Delphina Potocka. Delphina was unhappily married to Count Potocki, who gave her an allowance to set up in Dresden, while he remained in Poland. She was 25, extremely beautiful, well read and played the piano, composed and was an accomplished singer. She also had a string of lovers which included the painter Delacroix (who was to paint the famous portrait of Chopin). She became Chopin’s pupil and their affair Chopin became the talk of the town. Now, you guys who regard Chopin as asexual, check out the letters below from Chopin to Delphina. But first let me give the background.

Schumann had written a critical article in his music magazine about Chopin’s “La ci Darem variations”. In it he had compared a passage in the third variation to the scene in Mozart’s Don Giovanni where Giovanni kisses Zelina on the D flat (“Des Dur” in
German). In Polish “Des dur” resembles “des durka” a café in Warsaw which was a meeting point of artisits and intellectuals. It translates as “The little hole”. This immediately became a private joke between the lovers: Chopin would write to Potocka  and say ” I long to kiss your des durka very, very hard.”

Here is his written instruction to her on the use of the pedal:

”Treat it carefully, for it is not easy to win its intimacy and love. Like a society lady anxious about her reputation, it won’t yield just like that. But when it does, yield, it can perform miracles, like an experienced mistress. PS. I would like to plonk something down your little hole in D flat major again. Do not refuse me. F.C.”

Chopin had firm ideas about the relationship between sex and creativity:

Inspiration and ideas only come to me when I have not had a woman for a long time. When I have emptied my fluid into a woman so much I am pumped dry, inspiration deserts me and no new musical ideas come into my head. Think how strange and beautiful it is, that the force used to fertilise a woman, creating new life in her, is the same force that creates a work of art. It is the same life-giving fluid, yet man wastes it on one single moment of pleasure. The same is true of science. Those who make great discoveries must stay away from women. The formula is simple enough: A man must renounce women, then the energy accumulating in his system will go – not from his cock and balls into a woman – but into his brain in the form of inspiration where it might give birth to a work of art. Think of it, the sexual desire that drives men into women’s arms can be transformed into inspiration. But only for those who have talent. A fool who lives without women will go mad with frustration. For the genius, unrequited love and unfulfilled passion, sharpened by the unattainable image of their beloved, is an endless source of inspiration”.

How much Chopin and Delphina were at it, can be gathered from this letter written in 1833 (Phindela is an anagram of Delphina):

“Oh my sweetest Phindela, think of how much of that precious fluid I have wasted on you ramming away at you to no good purpose. I have not given you a baby and think how many musical ideas have been squandered inside you. Ballads, Polonaises, perhaps even an entire concerto have been lost forever up your D flat major, I cannot tell you how many. I have been so deeply immersed in my love for you I have hardly created anything, everything creative went straight from my cock into your “des durka”. Works that could have seen the light of day are forever drowned in your D flat major. You are now carrying so much of my music in your womb that you are pregnant with my compositions. The saints were right when they said that women were the gates of hell. No, no, I take that back. You are the gates of heaven. For you I will give up fame, work, everything.

[he then writes her a little poem]

*** you is my favourite occupation
Bed beats inspiration
I long for your lovely tits
So says your faithful Fritz

[it probably reads better in French]
 […] Oh Phindela, my own little Phindela, how I long to be with you. I am trembling and shivering as if ants were crawling all over me from my brain down to my cock. When the coach will at long last bring you back I’ll cling so hard that for a whole week you won’t be able to get me out of your des durka. Bother all inspiration, ideas and works of art. Let my works vanish up that black hole forever.[…] I kiss you all over your dear little body and inside.
 
Your faithful Frycek, your most talented pupil who has mastered the art of love .

The main problem is that Delphina was insatiable and have lovers right and left. Chopin’s was often fuming with jealousy. Eventually, in spite of all his pleas, Delphina went back to her husband (apparently in spite of allher promiscuous behaviour she was at a heart a very conservative woman – go figure!).

Chopin was then 26 year old, and decided that the time had come for him to settle down and get married, and he set his eyes on his fellow compatriot, 17 year old Maria Wodzinska.

[to be continued when I have time]

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bearzinthehood]

I read all of that...

[rimv2]

As I said before there is some evidence that Chopin was bisexual. He was definitely not homosexual in the restrict sense of the word, since he was undoubtedly attracted to women and engaged in sexual intercourse with several of them. And he was certainly not asexual – although at a certain point in his life he might simply have been too sick to be able to “perform”.

In a certain sense his love life was an utter failure since (unlike Schumann’s or Mendelssohn’s and like Liszt’s Beethoven’s, Brahms’s and Schubert’s love lives) he never managed to get the women he truly wanted, and ended up with women who pursued him relentlessly. In a certain sense he betrayed the romantic ideal of “one pure love” (an ideal that goes as far back as the troubadors in middle age) to cavort with whoever was available. Personally I believe that he was aware of such a betrayal and this caused him no small regret and suffering.

Let us make a brief chronology of Chopin’s “love life”. I will try to be non-judgemental and offer you quotes from Chopin himself (in italics) whenever available.

And let me add that although I find this interesting from a biographical point of view, I do not really believe it has any import whatsoever in appreciating or performing his music. Ultimately this is the level of gossip, not art.

1.   Chopin was most definitely into women. (“I would rather play to a small audience of women than to a packed house full of men”)

2.   Chopin was not regarded as a particularly handsome man (as, say, Liszt was). His – undeniable – charisma lay elsewhere. Physically he was fragile (Liszt: ”his whole appearance makes the beholder think of the convolvuli which, on the slenderest of stems, balanced divinely coloured chalices of such vaporous tissues that the slightest touch destroys them” ) but he had aristocratic and refined manners, and dressed with great care and taste: he was a dandy. In a sense this made him a perfect ladies’man.

3.   In childhood he was surrounded by women: his mother and sisters (he was the youngest), and like Mozart, he was a child prodigy feted by dotting and admiring females from the aristocracy.

4.   In Warsaw he attended a boy’s school, but was always making up with his friends’ sisters. At age 14 he fell in love with a young girl form the nearby convent school. ”Her father was annoyed with me for trying to arrange a secret rendez-vous with his daughter. Our go-between was a Jewish boy called Leibush, son of a shopkeeper who supplied us with pens and writing paper. Leibush had a good ear. He would not accept payment for his services. He only wanted to have lessons with me and would listen under my window for hours when I was playing. This messenger of love was a very important person in my life at the time”.

5.   Chopin was also deeply attached to his classmate Titus Woyciechkowski to whom he wrote many passionate letters. In one of them he “longs to kiss” his faithful friend, but notes: “you don’t like to be kissed” . Are we reading too much in this, and this is just brotherly friendship? Meanwhile, Chopin was composing and dedicating his compositions to a number of ladies, Amongst them Countess Alexandrine de Moriolles (he dedicated his “Rondo a la Mazur” to her), who had been a childhood friend, and Emily Eisner, the daughter of his music teacher at the conservatory. Emily use to listen to his compositions and copy them for him. (He dedicated … to her)

6.   Around that time, Chopin went on holidays on the country state of Countess Pruzsak. While he was there, the governess got pregnant and Chopin was the prime suspect. As it turned out he was innocent (and was subsequently offered a job to teach piano to the Countess children), but he felt quite proud of the charge.

7.   In a letter to Titus dated 12. 9. 1829 – after a detailed account of his first concerts in Vienna - he ends his letter: “I kiss you heartily, right on the lips, if I may.” In another letter of the same period: “Don’t kiss me now, for I have not washed yet […] How silly of me! You wouldn’t kiss me even if I were to bathe in all the perfumes of Byzantium, unless I forced you by some super natural power. I believe in such powers. Tonight you shall dream you are kissing me”. Chopin dedicated his “Variations” to him.

George Sand once remarked that Chopin was “emotionally versatile” and while in Vienna he fell in love with 17 year-old Leopoldine Blatheka, who also composed and presented Chopin with signed copies of her piano works. However this did not last. Back in Varsaw, he met – as he told Titus – his ideal woman: Constantia Gladkowska. She was at the last year in the conservatory and was to have a brilliant career as a singer. He was so smitten that he could not even talk to her.  In spite of that, he was still writing to Titus in a most affectionate manner: “I love you to distraction” and “You are the only one I love”, or “I know you love me, but I am afraid of you. God knows you are the only one who has power over me, you  and… well, no one else.”. Chopin carried around a bundle of Titus’ letters tied with a pretty ribbon.

8.   In Warsaw, Chopin was the man of the hour, with a successful recital at the National Theater. Eventually he was formally introduced to Constantia. Unfortunately Chopin could not get to speak to her alone, so his love remained a secret (although she may have noticed something was afoot).

9.   At this point the famous singer Henrietta Sontag was making a tour which included Warsaw. She was 24 and famous in all the European capitals. Chopin could not have enough of her, attending all her recitals and visiting her often at her apartment. On one occasion, when he went to visit her, he found Constantia and her companions there. Chopin was undecided and confused. In that state, he went to Titus farm and spend a couple of weeks there hunting and playing the piano together. He needed to go back to Vienna, but kept procrastinating it. He only decided to go after Titus promised to meet him there in the Autumn.

10.   Just before Chopin left for Vienna, Constantia gave him a ring and a poem. But as soon as he left she got married to a Warsaw merchant. She gave up her career, had five children and went blind at age 35 (but survived Chopin for 40 years). Chopin never again spoke to her.

11.   Meanwhile, Chopin was not having much time to think about Constantia, since in Dresden he met Countess Delphina Potocka. Delphina was unhappily married to Count Potocki, who gave her an allowance to set up in Dresden, while he remained in Poland. She was 25, extremely beautiful, well read and played the piano, composed and was an accomplished singer. She also had a string of lovers which included the painter Delacroix (who was to paint the famous portrait of Chopin). She became Chopin’s pupil and their affair Chopin became the talk of the town. Now, you guys who regard Chopin as asexual, check out the letters below from Chopin to Delphina. But first let me give the background.

Schumann had written a critical article in his music magazine about Chopin’s “La ci Darem variations”. In it he had compared a passage in the third variation to the scene in Mozart’s Don Giovanni where Giovanni kisses Zelina on the D flat (“Des Dur” in
German). In Polish “Des dur” resembles “des durka” a café in Warsaw which was a meeting point of artisits and intellectuals. It translates as “The little hole”. This immediately became a private joke between the lovers: Chopin would write to Potocka  and say ” I long to kiss your des durka very, very hard.”

Here is his written instruction to her on the use of the pedal:

”Treat it carefully, for it is not easy to win its intimacy and love. Like a society lady anxious about her reputation, it won’t yield just like that. But when it does, yield, it can perform miracles, like an experienced mistress. PS. I would like to plonk something down your little hole in D flat major again. Do not refuse me. F.C.”

Chopin had firm ideas about the relationship between sex and creativity:

Inspiration and ideas only come to me when I have not had a woman for a long time. When I have emptied my fluid into a woman so much I am pumped dry, inspiration deserts me and no new musical ideas come into my head. Think how strange and beautiful it is, that the force used to fertilise a woman, creating new life in her, is the same force that creates a work of art. It is the same life-giving fluid, yet man wastes it on one single moment of pleasure. The same is true of science. Those who make great discoveries must stay away from women. The formula is simple enough: A man must renounce women, then the energy accumulating in his system will go – not from his cock and balls into a woman – but into his brain in the form of inspiration where it might give birth to a work of art. Think of it, the sexual desire that drives men into women’s arms can be transformed into inspiration. But only for those who have talent. A fool who lives without women will go mad with frustration. For the genius, unrequited love and unfulfilled passion, sharpened by the unattainable image of their beloved, is an endless source of inspiration”.

How much Chopin and Delphina were at it, can be gathered from this letter written in 1833 (Phindela is an anagram of Delphina):

“Oh my sweetest Phindela, think of how much of that precious fluid I have wasted on you ramming away at you to no good purpose. I have not given you a baby and think how many musical ideas have been squandered inside you. Ballads, Polonaises, perhaps even an entire concerto have been lost forever up your D flat major, I cannot tell you how many. I have been so deeply immersed in my love for you I have hardly created anything, everything creative went straight from my cock into your “des durka”. Works that could have seen the light of day are forever drowned in your D flat major. You are now carrying so much of my music in your womb that you are pregnant with my compositions. The saints were right when they said that women were the gates of hell. No, no, I take that back. You are the gates of heaven. For you I will give up fame, work, everything.

[he then writes her a little poem]

*** you is my favourite occupation
Bed beats inspiration
I long for your lovely tits
So says your faithful Fritz

[it probably reads better in French]
 […] Oh Phindela, my own little Phindela, how I long to be with you. I am trembling and shivering as if ants were crawling all over me from my brain down to my cock. When the coach will at long last bring you back I’ll cling so hard that for a whole week you won’t be able to get me out of your des durka. Bother all inspiration, ideas and works of art. Let my works vanish up that black hole forever.[…] I kiss you all over your dear little body and inside.
 
Your faithful Frycek, your most talented pupil who has mastered the art of love .

The main problem is that Delphina was insatiable and have lovers right and left. Chopin’s was often fuming with jealousy. Eventually, in spite of all his pleas, Delphina went back to her husband (apparently in spite of allher promiscuous behaviour she was at a heart a very conservative woman – go figure!).

Chopin was then 26 year old, and decided that the time had come for him to settle down and get married, and he set his eyes on his fellow compatriot, 17 year old Maria Wodzinska.

[to be continued when I have time]

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Time to break out the pimp glove

[apion]

PS. I would like to plonk something down your little hole in D flat major again. Do not refuse me. F.C.

This confirms it: Chopin was straight! 

[prodigy1220]

Was he gay, i mean he was this gentle week feminin man who fell in love with george sand, she drest like a man and smoked a cigar.

This is a very dumb thread! cant you think of something smarter