Chopin and Liszt interesting facts?! Anyone?

[chopinetta]

hello... i'd like to read a lot of interesting facts on these two people, liszt and chopin!

i'd like to put my chopin facts, i know amee's got many liszt ones!

so here's the start first 5: (this is from my website, chopin biography on https://clik.to/lodc/
everyone probably know this already!

1. Chopin didn’t actually like Fantasie-Impromptu. He thought just little of it (it is thought that he didn’t have any inspiration anymore when he composed it or his frail health just became worse). He never permitted it to be published. But it was still published, though, posthumously.  

           2. We all know that Chopin and Sand broke up because of a misunderstanding between the two. One very reliable source tells us that Sand in fact maneuvered Chopin into the mother-daughter quarrel. Sand intended it so Chopin will take the side of her daughter. This will then result into an estrangement.  

           3. Another source contrasts to the one said above. Since Sand left her home, her children became jealous and undisciplined. So one of them plotted the said misunderstanding between the two, which caused the parting.  

           4. Even before the break-up, Sand and Chopin already grew tensions and had small quarrels.  

           5. It is assumed that Sand got bored of Chopin and didn’t like him anymore because of his frail health (he was already coughing blood).    

[chopinetta]

arghh! what's with the ’!!! that means this little mark: '

[amee]

Hey Chopinetta!

Yeah those &#8217 things happen to me as well, usually when I copy and paste something from a Word Document.  To get rid of them just click Modify at the top of your post, and delete them.

Well here's a fact about Liszt I found quite interesting -
Liszt was very nearly not born!  His mother fell down a disused well when she was pregnant with him, and it was many hours before she was brought up again, freezing and in total shock.  The doctors all thought she had lost the child, but she gave a healthy birth to Liszt.  The day he was born, a comet in the sky shone particularly bright.  (Liszt was born in October and the comet had been there since August).  In a nearby gypsy camp, it is rumoured they foretold a glittering future for young Franz.  This story was told to Liszt so many times he retained a strong sense of destiny even to his death.

[chopinetta]

WOW! Liszt must be the messiah of the gypsies! well not really, they only predicted a star's birth!

liszt must be really destined to be a star and to change the world. if not, it would have been allowed that he died when his mother fell.

liszt is very lucky! why wasn't i born as liszt?! or someone like liszt?!

[amee]

Yeah, Liszt was a very great genius, one of a kind.  However Horowitz was once hailed 'the new Liszt'.

[amee]

When Liszt was still a young boy, he was invited to play at court.  He absolutely swept the audience away; everyone was awed by his playing!  Later he recieved a gold purse from the Prince and a famous name book from the Princess.  This name book was Haydn's - it had precious signatures of all the leading musicians of Europe inside it.  It was an invaluable gift to give to a small boy, and he soon lost it!

[lea]

hehehe funny amee

where did u get that from?

[amee]

I've been reading a book on Liszt  

[Jezzica]

well, this is a weird fact, that, for a while Chopin wore a beard on only one side of his face. he explained that as he sits sideways, the audience saw only one side of him.  

[amee]

The only two composers Chopin really admired were Bach and Mozart.  He composed his Preludes as a tribute to Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues.

[amee]

Chopin first met George Sand in the Countess Marie's apartments (this was during the time when Liszt had first fallen in love with Marie).  However Chopin's heart was already full of love and loyalty to another woman (he had proposed to her but they did not end up marrying).  During a letter home about that first meeting, Chopin actually wrote saying he did not like George Sand's face!

[frederic]

Yeah,
Once he said he was confused whether George Sand was a man or woman. Of course George Sand purposely dressed like a man because in that time people dont like woman writers. And she changed her name. I cant remember her real name.

[amee]

George Sand's real name was Aurora Dupin.  She had come to Paris after seperating from her unintellectual husband, and had promply made a name for herself by dressing like a man, smoking cigars, and indulging in one love affair after another.

[amee]

During their stay in Majorca, George Sand and Chopin liked to explore the rich, exotic countryside around their home.  Maurice and Solange (Sand's two children) would come back laden each day with so many twigs and stones that Sand feared the villagers would think their household was one full of lunatics!

[amee]

In another post I had referred to another woman Chopin was in love with and had proposed to, but whom he did not end up marrying.  Her name was Maria Wodzinska, and Chopin had stayed with their family as a guest in 1835.  Maria was also a good pianist, and in music she and Chopin found an excuse to spend many hours in each others company.  Before Chopin left, he gave Maria the Waltz in A flat op 69 no 1 (La Valse de l'Adieu).  All the next year the only thing Chopin could think about was going back, and sure enough in the summer of 1836, there came a further invitation.  This time music was not enough for Chopin to express his feelings for Maria.  They took long country walks and spent many an enjoyable hour on the piano.  Then one evening Chopin found himself alone with Maria, and he proposed.  Maria was delighted and her mother was as well, though for different reasons.  However her mother and father were both worried about Chopin's ill health.  Maria's mother did all she could to convince her husband that the match would be suitable, but another serious illness during the winter changed their minds.  Chopin did all he could to extract a further invitation the following year, but it never came.  Gradually the letters between Paris and Geneva dried up, and the silence lengthened.  It was during that time that Chopin met George Sand for the first time.

[amee]

Hi Chopinetta!

I'd like to add on to what you said in your first post, about how Chopin and George Sand broke up.

Chopin and George Sand had several points they disagreed on.  Religion was just one of them; but these differences never really affected their love for each other.  However, Chopin did not like the fact that George Sand treated him like a son; he did not know it was largely for his own good, and tormented himself with the suspicioun that one of her many other admirers was stealing her away.  In his misery he became more moody and demanding each day.  Maurice (Sand's son), resented Chopin's possessive attitude towards Sand.  Tension was mounting, and the final crisis came from Sand's daughter, Solange.  There was a mother-daughter quarrel, and Sand turned Solange out of the house.  Away in Paris, Chopin could not understand the nature of the trouble, and when Solange appealed to him for financial assistance he gave it away without a moment's though.  Sand chose to interpret his gesture as a personal insult to her.  By chance he ran into George in Paris in 1848, but pride prevented either of them from speaking the hoealing words for which both of their hearts secretly longed.  They never saw or heard from each other again.

[Aurelio]

:Psorry about my english

I have read that Liszt played Chopin studies at Chopin presence.

a time later in a Chopin letter to  (i-don't-remember-who-but-not-liszt) he recognized he'd like to know "liszt secret" on playing his own studies

[Aurelio]

:Psorry about my english

Also, I have heard about a "duel" in Paris between Liszt and another great virtuoso of the time named Thalberg.

Of course Liszt "won" that duel.

Actually, that duel was just a coincidence in time of many alternating concerts offered by both pianists in consecutive days. Both pianist treat to play most dificulty pieces and arrangements than the other.

A legend says that they were played several chopin's studies "in octaves" (for example Revolutionaire left hand in octaves, right hand  equals to original, or op. 25 nº 2 rigth hand in octaves)

Perhaps "Applausemeter" of the public was the jury

[Aurelio]

Liszt was a kind of "rock star" of the piano, he has been one of the artist that had more sex with more women, perhaps top 1 in his time

Chopin was much more timid

[amee]

That is true, but Liszt was not a sex predator.  According to his second great love, Caroline, he did not go after women but if one of them really wanted him, he merely could not resist them.

Chopin was very sick and weak most of his life and this prevented him from marrying his first real love, Marie I think her name was.

[NetherMagic]

just a minor error there amee but George Sand's real name is Aurore Dudevant, not Aurora Dupin

(says so in my theory textbook, The Enjoyment of Music)

[Black_Key]

Dupin was her maiden name I believe. She was married to a writer f some sort named Dudevant, so that name stuck.

[NetherMagic]

haha i wonder who'd marry her?  

just sayin =]