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.
Topic: Was Chopin gay