Chopin's Last Day - October 17, 1849 (Vol. 2, No. 12)

The curiosity about Chopin's death appears almost morbid today, when the cult of fitness and health has placed all disabled and sick on the margins of society. As Franz Liszt writes in his biography of Chopin, the hagiography, rather, setting the tone for the legend of the feeble, tortured body and the elevated, spiritual, noble, suffering mind: "None of those who approached the dying artist, could tear themselves from the spectacle of this great and gifted soul in its hours of mortal anguish." And a spectacle it was. As Liszt claims, Chopin planned things in advance:

"By a custom which still exists, although it is now falling into disuse, the Poles often chose the garments in which they wished to be buried, and which were frequently prepared a long time in advance [...] Chopin, who, although among the first of contemporary artists, had given the fewest concerts, wished, notwithstanding, to be borne to the grave in the clothes which he had worn on such occasions [...] He had linked his love for art and his faith in it with immortality long before the approach of death, and as he robed himself for his long sleep in the grave, he gave, as was customary with him, by a mute symbol, the last touching proof of the conviction he had preserved intact during the whole course of his life. Faithful to himself, he died adoring art in its mystic greatness, its highest revelations."

Then, he decided on his burial - the Mozart Requiem at the Church of the Madeleine, the body to be interred at the Parisian cemetery Pere Lachaise, next to Bellini and Cherubini, and the heart, submerged in brandy, carried under the skirts of his sister back to Poland, to be enshrined in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross on the Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street in Warsaw, not far from the place where he spent his youth.

Before burial, came Chopin's last days and moments, so fastidiously and admiringly described by Liszt:

"From week to week, and soon from day to day, the cold shadow of death gained upon him. His end was rapidly approaching; his sufferings became more and more intense; his crises grew more frequent, and at each accelerated occurrence, resembled more and more a mortal agony. He retained his presence of mind, his vivid will upon their intermission, until the last; neither losing the precision of his ideas, nor the clear perception of his intentions. The wishes which he expressed in his short moments of respite, evinced the calm solemnity with which he contemplated the approach of death.



As Liszt had it, everyone was blessed and raised to the heights of a spiritual realm by the very proximity of the dying "seraphic" artist: "—every knee bent—every head bowed—all eyes were heavy with tears—every heart was sad and oppressed—every soul elevated." After the final blessings, the agony began:

"A convulsive sleep lasted until the 17th of October, 1849. The final agony commenced about two o'clock; a cold sweat ran profusely from his brow; after a short drowsiness, he asked, in a voice scarcely audible: "Who is near me?" Being answered, he bent his head to kiss the hand of M. Gutman, who still supported it—while giving this last tender proof of love and gratitude, the soul of the artist left its fragile clay. He died as he had lived—in loving. When the doors of the parlor were opened, his friends threw themselves around the loved corpse, not able to suppress the gush of tears."

To remove the sanctified sheen of Liszt's verbosity let us read what Anne Woodworth wrote about this very moment in her poem published in the Chopin with Cherries anthology:

At the “Hour of Twilight”

– after reading Franz Liszt on Chopin’s death

Anne Harding Woodworth

Franz will write it all down:
that I swooned, that I asked for flowers
and music. Trouble is, I don’t know any Franz.

Tens of friends waited
in the anti-chamber. Trouble is,
I don’t have even four.

And a student held my hand,
because he wanted to return my affection
except that I’ve never had a student who loved me.

I do have a sister. I have two, but they wouldn’t think
of being prostrate at my bedside.
So who will hold my hand?

Where is a Franz who will unabashedly
describe my pillow? my sweat? my bitter suffering?
the unknown shores where next I go?

Of course, it’s true:
I don’t believe I’m going anywhere,
nowhere beyond nothing, that is.

Sing, Countess. Sing, my compatriot.
Trouble is, I’m not Polish. I don’t know any singers,
at least not one who can attain profound pathos.

And there’s no one to roll the piano I don’t own
to my bedroom door. Oh, Liszt, where are you?
I am coughing so. And the pain . . .

And the love . . .
Where is my Franz who will record
the cliché of a final agony?



The association of flowers with paying tribute to the dead, so typical of the West, was amplified in Chopin's death chamber: "His love for flowers being well known, they were brought in such quantities the next day, that the bed in which they had placed them, and indeed the whole room, almost disappeared, hidden by their varied and brilliant hues. He seemed to repose in a garden of roses. His face regained its early beauty, its purity of expression, its long unwonted serenity. Calmly—with his youthful loveliness, so long dimmed by bitter suffering, restored by death, he slept among the flowers he loved, the last long and dreamless sleep!"

The flowers are still there, in abundance. I visited his grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery on October 3, 2011, during a strangely hot Indian Summer day. The tomb was easy to find. That's where everyone was going. The cemetery office distributes maps with notable graves marked, from Heloise and Abelard, to Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Rossini. But there are no fresh flowers at almost any of them - except at Chopin's. The grave is taken care of by a local Polish Historical Society that decorates it with the national symbols (white eagle on a red flag), and vases for flowers. These are always fresh, brought to the grave by the stream of visitors. About fifty people passed by during the ten minutes we were there.

Afterward, I was asked for the location of Chopin's grave five more times on the way out - by an American, a French hobo (visibly drunk), an Italian couple, and a family with teenage kids. Some had flowers to leave at the people's shrine, I brought my poems and a cover of our anthology. I left it there for the grave-keepers to put in a makeshift historical museum, preserving notes, piano keys, and other memorabilia left for Chopin over 150 years after his death.

The intertwined themes of death, mortality and morbidity were associated with Chopin especially strongly at the end of the 19th century and through the early decades of the 20th century. Polish composer Zygmunt Noskowski (1846-1909) elaborated on the topic of the “typically Slavic” feeling of the unspecific, yet overwhelming, “sorrow” (“żal” or “żałość”) and nostalgia permeating Chopin’s music. This overriding expressive tone was associated with a general poetic quality in Noskowski’s 1899 article, “The Essence of Chopin’s Works:”

"Whatever we call the mood in Chopin’s works, be it “elegiac quality,” “longing,” or “sorrowfulness,” it is of primary importance to state that, above all, the purest poetry prevails in them and that the breath of this poetry captures the hearts in a way that cannot be described with words."

Strangely enough, Liszt attempted to do precisely that, "describe the ineffable in words" in his discussions of that most famous, and trivialized of Chopin's pieces, his Funeral March from the Piano Sonata No.

"All that the funeral train of an entire [Polish] nation weeping its own ruin and death can be imagined to feel of desolating woe, of majestic sorrow, wails in the musical ringing of this passing bell, mourns in the tolling of this solemn knell, as it accompanies the mighty escort on its way to the still city of the Dead. The intensity of mystic hope; the devout appeal to superhuman pity, to infinite mercy, to a dread justice, which numbers every cradle and watches every tomb; the exalted resignation which has wreathed so much grief with halos so luminous; the noble endurance of so many disasters with the inspired heroism of Christian martyrs who know not to despair;—resound in this melancholy chant, whose voice of supplication breaks the heart [...] The cry of a nation's anguish mounting to the very throne of God! The appeal of human grief from the lyre of seraphs!"

Seraphs or not seraphs, the music still moves us deeply, still resonates within us, still inspires. The YouTube comments of uneducated teens betray their helplessness under his sway:

"When this song is played while bright sun light shining through a big window. its simply amazing" (on Nocturne Op. 9, no. 2)

"Even when I'm sleeping its playing in my head!! Have to learn this!! Chopin rocks!" (on Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28, no. 15, "The Raindrop")

"Full metal alchemist" (on Pollini playing the Etude Op. 10, no. 3)

"This is how music was meant to sound like, from the soul. Sounds that you can relate to and understand." (on Zimmerman playing the Ballade No. 4)

"Amazing how few notes can make you wonder in your thoughts.....ahhhhhh" (on Aszkenazy playing the Nocturne Op. 55, No. 1)

"Ok the first time I've heared this song, was because Jimmy Page did a cover of it and I must say this song is just like a sweet but really deep pain that is falling slowly and slowly as it's becoming more near to it's end...a very intense short piece of music indeed" (on Prelude Op. 28, No. 4)

So here it is, for your enjoyment, Jimmy Page (I do not even know who that is, but apparently, he plays a guitar):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZXG0fNUUXs&feature=related

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Photos (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk, including the tombs of Bellini and of Chopin at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Vintage postcards with scenes of Chopin's death, from the private collection of Maja Trochimczyk:

Postcard with a caption in Polish: “Portrait of Chopin on his death bed, according to a watercolor by T. Kwiatkowski.” Published in Lwów: Nakł. Spółki Wydawniczej “Postęp,” n.d., ca. 1910.

Postcard The Last Chords of Chopin, based on a painting by Fr. Klimes, Les derniers accords de Chopin. Published by BKWI (Bruder Kohn) in Vienna, Austria, c. 1900-1910.

On Maria Szymanowska in Paris (Vol. 2, No. 11)

The year 2011 has been declared the Milosz Year, celebrating the Nobel-Prize-winning poet, and the Szymanowska Year, commemorating one of the first and most influential women composers of the romantic period. Thanks to the efforts of singer and President of Maria Szymanowska Society, Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle, a series of events will take place in the fall of 2011, as outlined below.

International Project of the Maria Szymanowska Society

Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), Woman of Europe

Honorary committee: Irena Poniatowska, Dominique Bertinotti, Elisabeth Chojnacka, Barbara Przybyszewska-Jarminska, Agata Preyzner, Monique Stalens, Maja Trochimczyk, Daniel Mesguich, Jerzy Pielaszek, Benjamin Vogel, C.Pierre Zaleski

Guest artists: Lowri Blake, Carole Carniel, Florence Launay, Maria Rose, Elisabeth Zapolska, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, Slawomir Dobrzanski, Jay Gottlieb, Bart van Oort

Partners: Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Festival Musique aux Sommets in Zakopane, Institut Polonais à Paris, Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’Ecriture et la Littérature, Fondation Marcelle et Robert de Lacour pour la musique et la danse, Société Historique et Littéraire Polonaise/Bibliothèque Polonaise à Paris, Centre de l'Académie Polonaise des Sciences à Paris, Association Mieczyslaw Karlowicz in Zakopane, Mairie du 4e arrondissement de Paris, Acte Préalable, Kulturalna Europa, Prince Henry Bred&Breakfest in Amsterdam, Air France, Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw

Media partners: Supermedia Interactive, Gazeta Paryska, Muzyka21, Polish Music Information Centre

Events 2011:

▲ Release of the CD Maria Szymanowska, Ballades & Romances (world premiere) by Elisabeth Zapolska, mezzosoprano & Bart van Oort, pianoforte Broadwood 1825 (collection Joop Klinkhamer, Amsterdam), publ.Acte Préalable

▲ Exhibition Maria Szymanowska and Her Times, 15 - 30 September, SHLP/Bibliothèque Polonaise à Paris

▲ Concert Maria Szymanowska, a Portrait of the Queen of Tones, 17 September, Festival Musique aux Sommets in Zakopane, Elisabeth Zapolska, mezzosoprano, Bart van Oort , pianoforte Jacob Weimes 1810 (collection Petr Šefl, Prague), Maciej Negrey, introduction

▲ International Conference Maria Szymanowska and her Times, 30 September - SHLP/Bibliothèque Polonaise à Paris, 1 October - Centre de l'Académie Polonaise des Sciences à Paris. Participants: Irena Poniatowska (Poland), Florence Launay (France), Elena Gretchanaïa (Russia), Maja Trochimczyk (USA), Anna Czarnocka (France), Ewa Talma-Davous (France), Maria Rose (USA), Elisabeth Zapolska-Chapelle (France), Jean Pierre Armengaud (France), Adam Galkowski (Poland), Benjamin Vogel (Sweden)

▲ Concert Salon of Maria Szymanowska, 14 December, Salle des Fêtes de la Mairie du 4e arrondissement de Paris

The conference will include a range of topics, from Szymanowska's pianos (Vogel) to her French contemporaries, Russian social networks, and gendered imagery. I wrote about Szymanowska's songs in the past (for an anthology of Women in Music by Hildegard Publishing Company and for Slawomir Dobrzanski's biography of Szymanowska).

I also looked at Szymanowska's connections to Chopin (in a study of his relationships with women composers) and on the societal constraints placed on her career, as well as careers of other women composers. At this conference, I will speak "On Genius and the Virtues of 'Sense and Sensibility' in the Image of Maria Szymanowska" and touch upon the following topics:


The dualistic feminist music theory of the 1990s represented by Susan McClary, Marcia Citron, Sally Macarthur, and rooted in the embodied feminist literary criticism of Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray, did not attract much attention among 19th-century scholars focusing on Polish artists and musicians. Its radicalism seemed too remote from the ideal feminine types encountered and discussed in Polish culture. The lives and careers of female musicians were interpreted in terms of cultural stereotypes that included the innocent youthful beauty of Zosia from Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz, a self-sacrificial and heroic “Polish Mother” (Matka-Polka), an equally self-sacrificial Romantic Beloved, or the hard-working and virtuous Strong Woman (Silaczka) of the positivistic era.

The validity of a less radical, yet still sophisticated feminist approach to studies of 19th century Polish women was recently proven by Beth Holmgren, the biographer of Helena Modjeska and interpreter of the actress’s continuous self-invention on the stage (Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and the U.S., forthcoming in 2011). Like Modjeska, but two generations earlier, Maria Szymanowska also “re-invented” herself for the music stage, whether that of the public concert hall or the private salon. After leaving her husband and establishing a women’s and children’s household with her sister, Kazimiera Wołowska, Maria created an artistic “persona” of a charming, independent, inspired, beautiful, sensuous musician that – unlike her male counterparts – was also full of feminine virtues of modesty, humility, and “sense and sensibility.”

Szymanowska’s letters as well as her portraits by others depict her as full of “charming modesty” and other feminine virtues articulated in 19th century continental and British novels by such authors as George Eliot, Jane Austen, and George Sand. These virtues, while espoused in the salon and on the recital stage of the stile brillante era, were incommensurable with the aesthetics of the “musical genius” and the sublime, divinely inspired, “absolute music.” Ultimately, they pushed Szymanowska’s oeuvre of mixed value into obscurity, as she lost her struggle to balance the requirements of feminine propriety/modesty and the transgressive nature of a musical talent.

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Illustrations: Portraits of Maria Szymanowska by Henri Benner and Antoni Borel, a litograph based on a drawing by Józef Oleszkiewicz (National Museum, Warsaw). Photo of Elizabeth (Elzbieta) Zapolska-Chapelle, and the cover of an edition of Szymanowska's Romances for Voice and Piano.

List of Maja's Publications on Maria Szymanowska:

"From Mrs. Szymanowska to Mr. Poldowski: Careers of Polish Women Composers," in A Romantic Century in Polish Music, Maja Trochimczyk, ed., Los Angeles: Moonrise Press, 2009, 1-46.

"Maria Szymanowska's Vocal Music." In Slawomir Dobrzanski, Maria Szymanowska: Pianist and Composer. Los Angeles: USC Thorngton School of Music and Figueroa Press, 2006.

"From Art to Kitsch and Back Again? Chopin's Reception by Women Composers." In Irena Poniatowska, ed., Chopin and His Work in the Context of Culture [Proceedings of the Second International Chopin Congress, October 1999]. KrakĂłw: Musica Iagellonica, 2003, vol. 2, 336-353.

"Maria Szymanowska's Vocal Music (article and an edition of Six Romances)."
Chapter of Women Composers: Music Through the Ages, vol. 4, Composers Born 1700-1799, Vocal Music. Sylvia Glickman and Martha Furman Schleifer, eds. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1998, 396-600.

"Chopin and Women Composers: Collaborations, Imitations, Inspirations." (MAH). The Polish Review 45, no. 1 (2000): 29-52.

Moonday, Chopin and Paderewski (Vol. 2, No. 10)

Among the multitude of poetry events and publications this summer you may find a Poets' Picnic in Benicia, California (August 6, 2011), the Poem Homes Project organized by Benicia's Poet Laureate, Ronna Leon (ongoing through the summer), the Moonday West and Moonday East readings in Pacific Palisades and La Canada-Flintridge, and the Village Poets reading series at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga.

While my participation in the Poets' Picnic is not certain, I have contributed the following selections to the Poem Homes: Tiger Nights, Buddha with Swans, Skydance, "Look at me..." and Rose Window. I have reprinted in my Poetry Laurels blog the Buddha with Swans and the Rose Window. Three other poems were posted on Poetry Laurels, but I thought it would be a fun thing for the summer to also post two of them - those related to music - among Chopin and cherries.

Tiger Nights juxtaposes a strange dream with a re-imagined concert at the Hollywood Bowl, with Joshua Bell as the soloist. It is written in the first person, to strengthen the immediacy of the experience and the intimacy of the voice. The poem appears to be a favorite of editors and publishers, as it was selected to appear in The Epiphany Magazine (No. 6, 2011), along with my profile for the Poets' Cafe radio interview, posted on Tim Green's website, and on the announcement of the upcoming Moonday Poetry Reading. Of course, the incipit of the poem also appears on my Poet Laureate portrait by Ronna Leon posted above.

For those interested, Moonday in the Village will feature myself & Lucia Galloway at Village Books for the August reading that will take place at a private home at 14839 West Sunset Blvd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 on Monday, August 8, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. Moonday is a once-a- month poetry venue, co-produced by Alice Pero & Lois P.Jones. See www.moondaypoetry.com for more details.



Tiger Nights


Someone nailed gold-plated clouds
to the hard, polished turquoise of the sky.

Striated, like the stripes of a tiger
I did not know I had for a pet

until he bared his teeth
at the dogs flowing through the air

to corner him in my backyard.
The blond fur glistened in shadows.

Three golden labs growled
at the cat the size of a calf.

He turned. His stripes shone
with danger. I woke up afraid.

Now I watch the gold of the clouds
change into orange, scarlet and amaranth

in a quickly darkening cupola
that rests on the hills

above the Hollywood Bowl.
Smooth tones of Joshua Bell’s violin

glow in the air, escaping
the relentless chase of the brass.

Wind snatches notes from the bow,
plays with their glossy sheen.

Stars blossom on cloud-stems
in bouquets, wild as tiger lilies

you gave me that night.
Danger lurks in your smile

as you caress my ear
with a whisper: “Remember?”

To all those, who think that "first-person" poetry is strictly autobiographical, I hasten to explain that I went to the Joshua Bell concert described in Tiger Nights with my best friend, Elizabeth, who certainly does not resemble a tiger, did not give me any tiger lilies, and did not whisper dangerous thoughts into my ear. The dream was as real as dreams are, but the tiger's smooth coat appeared to be beige and not striped at all, until I recognized the cornered, graceful creature as one of power and danger: the lovely animal turned its head at the dogs and snarled, becoming a striped beast. That was enough to wake me up. But the word "beige" is too plain for a dream poem, someone said, so I changed it to a more human "blond." The stripes on the sky, the stripes on the tiger, the tiger lilies... this fragmented imagery creates a surreal scene of uncertainty, filled with seductive charm and vague threats. The "gold-plated clouds" become real in a jewel sky as the danger passes, or, at least, seems so.



The second "imaginary romance" poem, also a favorite with audiences and publishers, draws together scattered seeds of experience: a glance from a passing biker, a long ride between slopes of California's dry golden grass, contrasting with the deep green of the live oak, and the favorite melody outlined by the flowing voice of Ella Fitzgerald. No, it did not happen in my real life. Yes, it could have happened, as the poem is cobbled together from fragments of different memories and observations. Regardless of its sources and the degree of realism, the poem works. Here, instead of two contrasting images, I use a refrain that brings back the beguiling singer's voice to lift the biker's narrative high above the melting asphalt of the prosaic.

The poem was published in Loch Raven Review (Spring 2010) and reprinted on the Poetry Super Highway website where I was a Poet of the Week in January 2010. The title comes from the first words of "Misty" as sung on that astounding collection of Ella's Blues and Ballads (Verve). The song, by Johnny Burke and Erroll Garner, ends with "I'm too misty, and too much in love..." You can listen to the version I love on YouTube. Compare it with other interpretations: by Sarah Vaughan, Julie London (with a charming alto and annoying twitter of flutes), and Ella Fitzgerald, again - with the Tommy Flanagan Trio. If you do not like singing, listen to Stan Getz, as delightful as any of the singers.

“Look at me…”

- after Ella Fitzgerald’s “Misty” and a Sunday drive to a peach orchard

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
filled the valley with a golden sheen

The bike stopped at the red light.
The biker looked at me intently.
All in black leather, he did not seem familiar.

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
spilled onto the asphalt

The light changed to green. I was touched
by the brightness in his eyes as he drove by,
turning his head, clearly off-balance. He stopped
to gaze at my metallic Honda. I felt his surprise.

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
blossomed in an aftertaste of sweetness

I knew he realized who I was,
the woman he found irresistible again
and again and again. I wonder if he told
his girlfriend about our sunny encounter.

the dark honey of Ella’s voice
flowed over the wonderland –
the dark honey, oh, the dark honey

The country road led me towards live oak
and grassy slopes, shining yellow and bronze.
There was no hatred, just being alive
after the storm. I was silent. I had nothing to say.


I will read this poem at Moonday, on August 8, 2011, along with my favorite Chopin with Cherries ones, and, of course An Ode of the Lost - published in The Cosmopolitan Review in 2010, along with Dragonfly Days, Rivers, and a personal reflection on the challenges and victories of immigration.

The most recent issue of this wonderful online journal, dedicated to Polish culture in America and around the world, features another music-themed poem by a California poet: Kathabela Wilson's reflection on Paderewski, his love of music and his devotion to Poland - What Paderewski taught me about being. This poem was inspired by her introduction to Paderewski's world at the 2010 Chopin and Paderewski Conference at Loyola University of Chicago. We held a Chopin with Cherries poetry reading there, and Kathabela Wilson read her work, accompanied by her husband Rick Wilson playing historical 19th century flutes.



For the anthology Chopin with Cherries, Kathabela submitted an entirely different love story:

How I Fell in Love with Chopin


he did not own a piano
hesitant shy unsure

I brought him to my mother’s house
where the old upright
moved in by seminarians last winter
still leaked snow

frail on the long walk
uphill he carried
the polonaises

told me how
he’d had polio as a child
came breathless to the bench
transfixed

we were all long afternoon
turned to dark
white moon balanced
ebony benched the sky

polished sound and circumstance
power I leaned into

he moved into my small apartment
took my mother’s piano apart to rework it
keys scattered everywhere
for three years

it did not last

I had to collect them in a box

I don’t think it ever got back together
but I realized in that time

I had fallen in love
with Chopin


Thanks to the scattered piano keys of Kathabela's poem, we celebrated poets and musicians at the Ruskin Art Club back in May 2011 with piano-key bouquets, complete with ribbons and decorative leaves, but without flowers. The poets were delighted...



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"How I fell in love with Chopin" by Kathabela Wilson appears in Chopin with Cherries, edited by Maja Trochimczyk for Moonrise Press, 2010. Used by permission.

Poetry and photographs by Maja Trochimczyk (c) 2009-2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

On Chopin and Film (Vol. 2, No. 9)

The failure of actors and directors to adequately portray a "genius" composer - be it Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin - speaks to the richness of our collective imagination that creates a mental image of the composer of such complexity and sophistication that it becomes virtually impossible to match it with just one man.

When you see Hugh Grant in Impromptu (1991) do you really think of Chopin? Or is the enchanting persona of the famous actor too large for the composer to humbly fit in? Polish fans of Piotr Adamczyk would adore him in Chopin: Desire for Love (CHopin: Pragnienie Milosci) - but would they see the "real Chopin" in this handsome, healthy youth? His love-interest, George Sand, played with incredible charisma by Danuta Stenka stole the show anyway... At least, this film, directed by Jerzy Antczak and with Jadwiga Baranska as Chopin's mother, is recognized as the most historically accurate depiction of Chopin's life.

Much earlier, Charles Vidor attempt to narrate Chopin's life in A Song to Remember (1945), but the main protagonist in this film, Cornel Wilde, looked more like a gun-slinger from a Western than the sick and feeble Romantic. At least the pianist, Jose Iturbi, gave justice to the music.


Paradoxically, the most "Chopin-like" of all actors trying to impersonate the extraordinary pianist was Czeslaw Wollejko in The Youth of Chopin (Mlodosc Chopina) directed by Aleksander Ford in 1952. This film does away with the romance that fascinates virtually all other film makers and focuses on the years 1825-1831, Chopin's first European tours, rise to fame, and emigration. Here, the young composer is filled with patriotic zeal; he is tormented at the thought of being unable to return to Poland from Vienna where the news of the 1830 November Uprising reached him. Portraying Chopin as the friend of peasants and workers, the "soul" of the nation in the new Socialist-Realist aesthetics, the film is invaluable to music historians as it contains a unique scene with original Polish folklore performed by villages and not trained dance troupe based on Soviet models. Just for this scene, a crowded wedding dance with furious obereks, the film is worth its weight in gold...

I have to admit here that my knowledge of filmed Chopins is incomplete, since I have never seen the 1934 film by Géza von Bolváry, released in German, Abschiedswalzer: Zwei Frauen um Chopin (Farewell Waltz). The film starred Wolfgang Liebeneiner as Chopin and Sybille Schmitz as George Sand. Recently found and screened in Japan, The Farewell Waltz apparently inspired a famous Japanese film-maker, Kihachiro Kawamoto to create puppets based on the main characters. It is possible that this film added to the incredible popularity of Chopin in Japan - you may see its fragment on the website of Nishikata Film Review.

Thus, we may conclude that there are no successful "Chopin"'s on the screen. How about the music? In contract to the compser, it seems that it has become the perennial favorite of movie-makers, appearing in just about everything, from romantic comedy to period drama, and action movies. I've adapted the table of credits from another website (Music Timeline by Art Sulit) by adding some titles, including the biographies and The Karate Kid that I discussed on this site:

Titles of Chopin's Works - Title of the Film

Prelude No.2 in A min, Op.28 No.2 "Presentment of Death" - Autumn Sonata

Waltz in C# min, Op.64 No.2 - The Avengers

Nocturne in Eb "Murmures de la Seine", Op.9 No.2 - Blue Lagoon

Nocturne No.8 in Db "Les plaintives 2" - Bodily Harm

Various (played by Janusz Olejniczak) – Chopin: Desire for Love (Chopin’s biography, 2004)

Mazurka, Op.17 No.4 - Cries and Whispers

Mazurka No.13 in A min, Op.17 No.4 - Empire of the Sun

Prelude in Db, Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Face/Off

Various – The Farewell Waltz (Chopin’s Biography, 1934)

Les Sylphides - Getting It Right

Waltz (Waltz No.1 in Eb "Grande valse brillante", Op.18 B62) Les Sylphides - The Hudsucker Proxy

Various – Impromptu (Chopin’s biography, 1991)

Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. Posth. – The Karate Kid

Nocturne in Eb "Murmures de la Seine", Op.9 No.2 - Man Trouble

Nocturne No.19 in E min - Mind Games

Prelude in Db, Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Moonraker

Mazurka No.23 in D, Op.33 No.2 and Waltz No.10 in B min, Op.69 No.3 - Nixon

Polonaise No.6 in Ab "Héroique" - Nothing Lasts Forever

Etude No.23 in A min "Winter Wind" Nothing Lasts Forever

Prelude No.20 "Funeral March" - Paradise Road

Nocturne in C# min, Op.27 No.1 and Nocturne in F min, Op.55 No.1 - The Peacemaker

Mazurka in A min, Op.68 No.2 - The People vs Larry Flynt

Nocturne in C Sharp Minor, Op. Posth. Nocturne in E Minor, Op. Posth.; Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1; Ballade No. 2 in F Minor, Op. 38; Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2; and Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28, No. 4 (Janusz Olejniczak) and Wladyslaw Szpilman, playing Chopin's Mazurka, Op. 17, No. 4, in Warsaw in 1948 - The Pianist

Polonaise in Ab, Op.53 and Prelude in Db, Op.28 No.15 "Raindrop" - Shine

Waltz No.14 in E min - Sneakers

Various (played by Jose Iturbi) – A Song to Remember (Chopin’s biography, 1945)

Marche funébre (Funeral March) Piano Sonata No.2 - Space Jam

Piano Concerto No.1, 3rd mvmt. - 10 Things I Hate About You

Piano Concerto No.1, 2nd mvmt. - The Truman Show

Waltz No.11 in Gb major, Or 70, No. 1 - V.I. Warshawski

Various – The Youth of Chopin (Chopin’s biography, 1952)

Enough? Perhaps for today. The list continues... Let us listen to a non-filmic Chopin, recorded by Artur Rubinstein: Fantaisie Impromptu Op. 66.

The Spiritual Quartet in Ventura on May 28

The Spiritual Quartet consisting of four female poets - Lois P. Jones, Susan Rogers, Taoli-Ambika Talwar, and Maja Trochimczyk - will be featured at the gorgeous Artists Union Gallery, on May 28 (Saturday) at 7:30 p.m. in Ventura, CA. Each poet comes from a different spiritual background, while sharing the focus on compassion, beauty, enlightenment, and a creative expression of positive energy. They weave their poems around themes of light, love, forgiveness, hope, and friendship. They contemplate nature, mountains, birds and gardens, and draw inspiration from the poetry of Rumi, Rilke, the music of Chopin and Gorecki, and their own spiritual traditions.

Below are short introductions to the worlds of each poet, and a sample of their poetry read during the SQ appearances.

LOIS P. JONES’s poetry and photographs have been or will soon be published in American Poetry Journal, Raven Chronicles, Qarrtsiluni, Rose & Thorn, Tiferet, Kyoto Journal, and other print and on-line journals in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-founder of Word Walker Press and a documentarist of Argentina’s wine industry. You can hear her as host on 90.7 KPFK’s Poet’s Cafe (Pacifica Radio) on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month at 8:30 p.m. and see her as co-host of Moonday’s monthly poetry reading in La Canada, California. She is the Associate Poetry Editor of Kyoto Journal and a 2009 and 2010 Pushcart Nominee. In August 2010 her poem “Ouija” was selected as Poem of the Year by judge Dana Goodyear.


"Show what the light gave her

washing warmth into a neck
until it’s dune, a cliffside

that holds a head of surf.
Paint as you would before you awaken,

when sunlight falls like milkweed
and you are an empty silo

letting her grain fill you–
buttery malt and biscuit

for the love of honey."

(From "Ways to Paint a Woman" by Lois P. Jones)

SUSAN ROGERS considers poetry a vehicle for light and a tool for the exchange of positive energy. She is a practitioner of Sukyo Mahikari— a spiritual practice that promotes positive thoughts, words and action. She is also a photographer and a licensed attorney. Her poems were part of the 2010 Valentine Peace Project and have been performed at museums and galleries in Southern California. Her work can be found in the book Chopin and Cherries, numerous journals, anthologies and chapbooks Her work can be heard online or in person as part of the audio tour for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California. She was recently interviewed by Lois P. Jones for KPFK’s Poets Café.


"The dove knows the way
follow her.

Your heart knows the way
listen well.

Within your deepest self
are wings of light.

They cover the earth
with waves of love.

Do you remember?
You once knew.

Stand in the warmth
of sunlight and recall.

The origin of the world
is one."

From The Origin is One, a poem dedicated to Kotama Okada and inspired by a painting by Susan Dobay.


Long-time educator, published author, artist, TAOLI-AMBIKA TALWAR has been involved in holistic arts/sciences for many years. Her mission is to be a reflective, gentle and creative change agent. Her film, “Androgyne” won the best script award at a festival in Belgium. She has published two books, Creative Resonance: Poetry¬Elegant Play, Elegant Change (2006) and 4 Stars & 25 Roses (2007) and has two chapbooks from Laguna Press, Words for Hungry Tongues (2000) Songs of the Body. Kyoto Journal published her poem titled, “What the Trees Say” for their biodiversity issue. Taoli-Ambika has also been published in the anthology, Chopin with Cherries, Inkwater Ink, vol. 3 and other collections. Her photographs and paintings have appeared in Tiferet Journal. She teaches English at Cypress College, Cypress. “Because poetry is the bridge to new worlds.”

Where Flowers Wander

cells love it
when we smile
even if worlds break

nothing matters
but the great empty
from which all comes

chalice is passages
for the flow
of the fountain

always traveler
longs for the great empty
flowers grow there

© 2011 Taoli-Ambika Talwar



MAJA TROCHIMCZYK, the Sixth Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, is also a music historian and non-profit director born in Poland, educated in Poland and Canada and residing in Sunland. As an author of four scholarly books and hundreds of articles, she is well established in the music history world, with two main specializations: Polish music of the 19th and 20th centuries, and 20th-century contemporary music. She founded Moonrise Press and published three books of poetry: Rose Always, Miriam's Iris and the Chopin with Cherries anthology. Her poetry and photography appears in such journals as the Epiphany Magazine, Loch Raven Review, The Huston Literary Review, Ekphrasis Journal, Phantom Seed, PoeticDiversity and many anthologies by Poets on Site and others. See: www.trochimczyk.net, poetrylaurels.blogspot.com.

Mountains of Grief

For Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, the composer
of The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,
in memoriam

"Euntes ibant et flebant..."
(Psalm 126:6, The Vulgate,
used as one of Gorecki's titles)


“Mom, don’t cry – Mamo, nie płacz –“
the soprano soars above
lush chords of the orchestra

Sorrow, endless sorrow

He grew up bitter,
alone at the keyboard,
waves of sound crashing all around him

His Mama, smothered with a pillow
on her hospital bed,
an orphaned child, sickly

With a leg damaged by illness,
limping gait – a great man comes,
truly great

How do I know? He taught me –

To do everything well,
with my whole heart, whole being,
dance despair into frenzy,
relish that last plate of barszcz

Laugh loudly, play the second fiddle
in góralska muzyka,
find Chopin's mazurka under my fingers

Look beyond the edge of grief,
toward the mountains,
shrouded by the clouds of unknowing

Sing lullabies of consolation,
weave music from strands of pain,
sudden glimpses of grace

Seek safety in the cocoon of timelessness,
under gold stars on the blue cloak
of Mother Mary –
sixteen portraits on one wall
of his studio in Katowice

Give of myself fully –
an offering of daily bread,
beg for crumbs of mercy,
morsels of blessings

Carry the cross, my cross

Walk towards the glimmer of light
on the horizon,
bearing the fruit of my harvest

(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk


The Gorecki poem is reprinted here in honor of the upcoming performances of his music by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Master Chorale in the next two weeks.

Notes to the poem:

* Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010), Polish composer of: Euntes Ibant et Flebant op. 32 (1972), Third Symphony “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” op. 36 (1976), and Kleines Requiem für Eine Polka, op. 66 (1993).
* “Euntes ibant et flebant portantes semina sua – venientes autem venientes in exultatione…” “He went off, went off weeping, carrying the seed. He comes back, comes back singing.” Psalm 126: 6
* “Mamo, nie płacz” – the first words of an inscription on the wall of a Gestapo prison in Zakopane by young Helena Błażusiak, text used the second movement of the Third Symphony.
* “Barszcz” – traditional beet soup we shared in Katowice in 1998.
* “Góralska muzyka” – folk ensemble of four strings playing music from the Tatra Mountains, Górecki’s chosen home. His last name means “of the mountains” and he settled in the village of Ząb in the Foothills area (Podhale) after spending most of his life in his native Silesia, in Katowice.

______________________________

Photos of Gorecki and apple blossoms by Maja Trochimczyk

Photos of members of the Spiritual Quartet - various photographers

"Mountains of Grief" was first published in The San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly and reprinted on this blog.

Cherished Chopin & Poets Cafe (Vol. 2, No. 4)

My October 2010 interview for Poets' Cafe (KPFK 90.7FM) found its permanent home on the website of Timothy Green, editor of Rattle who graciously supports KPFK's initiative to document poetry life in Los Angeles.

Lois P. Jones, an amazing, spiritual, insightful, and incredibly talented poet (I forgot sensuous and erudite), is a fantastic hostess at the Poets' Cafe, airing on Wednesday evenings at 8:30 p.m. She prepares well for her interviews, reading poetry, talking to her prospective guests, asking them to bring a lot of poems. She is warm and lovely and then... ambushes her guests with completely unexpected questions. Thrown off their planned path, guests have to reveal more about themselves than they knew they would, or would have planned to. The hosts laughs with them, shares her favorite lines of their poems, and leads them into a deeper self-understanding and, might I say, enlightenment. Well done, Lois!

After my hour in the studio, that was to be about the "Chopin with Cherries" anthology, but turned out to be all about the poetic me: Who am I? Why am I here, in Los Angeles? Writing in English? What and who do I love? How do I capture the ineffable in words?

Interview: Maja Trochimczyk on Poets' Cafe, hosted by Lois P. Jones and broadcast on Pacifica Radio, KPFK, on March 30, 2011.

Our lovely friend, Kathabela Wilson organized a listening party for the broadcast date of the interview, on March 30, 2011, which she did not know for I did not tell her, nor shared it with Lois, was the 25th anniversary of my baptism during the Easter Vigil at St. Martin's Church in Warsaw, Poland. That miraculous night opened the way across the ocean for me, a Californian by choice. Ultimately, it led to a level of illumination that only now I'm slowly beginning to grasp.

I read one poem from the "Chopin with Cherries" anthology - the title poem, a memory from my Polish childhood, spent in the villages where my grandparents lived. That one is dedicated to my maternal grandparents, Stanislaw and Marianna Wajszczuk who settled in his ancestral village of Trzebieszow in the Lublin region after escaping from the area taken over by the Soviets during World War II. My mother was born in Baranowicze, now in Belarus. Each house in the village was surrounded by gardens, neatly divided by fences into sections where children were allowed into (orchard) and those they were not (flower and vegetable gardens). Children were like pets, or like livestock, in their capacity for destruction. My grandmother took no chances with her crop of tomatoes and strawberries...

We were not allowed to climb the cherry trees, either - the branches were too fragile, cracked easily. But the ancient Italian Walnut tree, with a smooth broad trunk and a perfect spot to sit in, with a book and a cup of cherries, that was something else.

The walnuts, first covered in smooth green skin, and completely white (if you peeled off the yellowish skin off each bitter-sweet nut), were scattered to dry in the attic. Full of old clothes, spinning wheels, weird instruments, and bunches of herbs hanging from the rafters, the attic was my refuge on rainy days. I'd read the old weeklies or books, and eat the walnuts or cherries, or whatever other edibles could be found, scattered on old newsprint. Who said, children had to watch TV or play video games to have fun? All you need is the rain, and a little bit of Chopin.

A Study with Cherries

After Etude in C Major, Op. 10, No. 1 and the cherry orchard
of my grandparents, Stanisław and Marianna Wajszczuk

I want a cherry,
a rich, sweet cherry
to sprinkle its dark notes
on my skin, like rainy preludes
drizzling through the air.

Followed by the echoes
of the piano, I climb
a cherry tree to find rest
between fragile branches
and relish the red perfection –
morning cherry music.

Satiated, sleepy,
I hide in the dusty attic.
I crack open the shell
of a walnut to peel
the bitter skin off,
revealing white flesh –
a study in C Major.

Tasted in reverie,
the harmonies seep
through light-filled cracks
between weathered beams
in Grandma’s daily ritual
of Chopin at noon.

_____________________________________

I was ready to read two other poems from the Chopin anthology, but Lois moved on, first to my "Ode of the Lost" - about the pain of emigration, dedicated to Adam Mickiewicz of the Great Emigration generation of Poles who settled in France after the fall of the November Uprising of 1830. An Ode of the Lost was published in The Cosmopolitan Review, in a special issue about immigrant experience in poetry that I edited, based on materials from a session at the Polish American Historical Association meeting held in San Diego in January 2010. Since that version (The Cosmopolitan Review) did not include any line breaks, I think it will be nice to see the poem with its stanza divisions.

An Ode of the Lost

~ to Adam Mickiewicz and all Polish exiles

Tired exiles in rainy Paris listen to Mickiewicz
reciting praises of woodsy hills, green meadows —
distant Lithuania, their home painted in Polish verse,
each word thickly spread with meaning,
like a slice of rye bread with buckwheat honey.

“Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie.
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił” — he says, and we, homeless Poles
without ground under our feet, concur,
sharing the blame for our departure.
There’s no return.

Are not all journeys one way? Forward,
forward, go on, “call that going, call that on.”
The speed of light, merciless angel with a flaming sword,
moves the arrow forward. Seconds, minutes
stretch into years. Onwards. Go.
The time-space cone limits the realm of possibility.
If you stay, you can go on. If you leave—

Can you find blessing in the blur of a moment?
In a glimpse of soft, grassy slopes shining
like burnished gold before the sun turns purple?
Can you learn to love the sweet-fluted songs
of the mockingbird, forget the nightingale?

How far is too far for the lost country
to become but a dream of ancient kings—
where children never cry, wildflowers bloom,
and autumn flutter of brown, drying leaves
whispers of the comforts of winter?
Sleep, sleep, eternal sleep,
in the spring you will awaken…

Note: Quotation from Adam Mickiewicz’s Invocation to Pan Tadeusz, or the Last Foray in Lithuania (“My country! You are as good health: /How much one should prize you, he only can tell who has /lost you”), from Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable, and from the author.

__________________________________

Quickly moving through time in an interview that became my best portrait, I then came to my California inspirations. I read one poem from that strange novella in verse, "Rose Always - A Court Love Story" that preoccupied me from 2005 to 2008 (and still echoes in various love poems I write from time to time, they are all related!). Published just with a number (76), but often entitled just "The Music Box," this poem is the most miraculous, I feel, of the whole interview.

The magic comes from an actual music box, the one you see in my portrait above. I bought it for five dollars at a garage sale from a neighbor on my street. A white porcelain box with a pink rose in a gold frame on the lid, it plays a lovely song. I found it and then the poem just wrote itself, as I put this and that into the box. I do have a weakness for music boxes: my collection is not large, maybe ten or twenty boxes, mostly carved from wood with decorative inlays and carvings. The white china box, delicate and elegant, was a perfect expression of the nostalgic tone of the poem.

The Music Box

What the world needs now
is love, sweet love…

My china music box plays a song
from your childhood.
Under the lid with one pink rose
I keep my sentimental treasures –
the miniature portrait
in a grey enamel frame echoing
the color of your tank top
worn in defiance
of my sophistication.

The white tulle ribbon – a memento
from my wedding gown?
It held the ornament up
on the bough of the Christmas tree
after that second, numinous summer.

My broken ring, bent not to be worn again,
with a deep scar from your blunt saw,
a shape marked by the strength of your fingers.

It was a moment of liberation –
I don’t have to – anything – any more.

The three little diamonds –
faith, hope and love – embedded
in the scratched gold, still shine,
though not as brightly as the forty three
specks of light surrounding your face.

The missing ring piece hit the ceiling
when it broke off with the pent-up energy
of unwanted love – the marriage that wasn’t.
It is still somewhere in the corner
of the coldest room in my house.

What else?
Three brown leaves from the ash tree
that grew by itself and died,
unwelcome. The Cross of Malta
waiting to shine on your chest.

* * *

What the world needs now
is light, God’s light. . .
My music box plays on. I make up the words
just as I made up this love of clay and gold,
the dust of the earth and starlight –
partly fragile and partly eternal.

______________________________________


If one were to look for a poem, amidst all I wrote, that better defines me, not as a music scholar, nor an administrator, nor a award-winning historian, nor an usher who's always late for Mass, nor a mother who only cooks for holidays, nor even a poet, but simply as a person, this is that poem. T.S. Eliot ended "Little Gidding" - the fourth of the Four Quartets, with these prophetic words:

"And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."

_______________________________________

PHOTOS: Maja with Lois in KPFK Studio, October 2010. Maja with Lois at Kathabela and Rick Wilson's Salon, summer 2009; Collage art by Barbara Koziel Gawronski in a California landscape (Tujunga Wash in Sunland) photo by Maja Trochimczyk, and portrait of Maja Trochimczyk by Jolanta Maranska-Rybczynska.

On Letter-writing and the Intimate Chopin (Vol. 2, No. 6)

Is the art of letter-writing dead? How little would we know about the lives of people long gone if not for their letters, or diaries and letters... Many of them had a chance to sift and sort, deciding which letters to keep and which to burn, creating their own portrait for posterity. When future historians gain access to every single email, FB status update, and Tweet, in addition to realms of recordings, would they be able to create a better, more insightful, more complete picture of the subject of their study? I think not. It seems that it will be much harder to distill the essence of a person's character, interests, and passions from this avalanche of trivial information and redundant data.

Who knows what type of "letters" will scholars study in the future. For now, we have the letters of Fryderyk Chopin and his friends, hundreds of letters and notes, a dozen of editions. The image that emerges from these handwritten notes is not that of a sublime romantic genius, conversing with the greatest minds of his time about the most elevated subjects, dwelling in a spiritual realm. Not at all: in Chopin's letters we discover his humanity, we learn how vulnerable and weak he was, how angry at his illness, self-centered and inconsiderate of his friends, yet often greatly concerned about the well-being of his parents and sisters. The Chopin that we feel we know from his music does not seem to be the same Chopin that we discover in his letters.

There is a lot of suffering there, true, and a lot of humor. There are quick notes left when visiting someone who happened not to be at home (the equivalent of a phone call or texting). There are discussions about arrangements of the most mundane matters - ordering sets of evening gloves, tailored suits and shirts, or bill payments and earning from teaching.

All the collections of Chopin's letters start from a card he wrote for his father. It is his epistolary message no. 1 in the following collections and editions:

• Bronisław Edward Sydow, editor - Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of F. Chopin], in 2 volumes. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955.
  
• Bronisław Edward Sydow, editor - Correspondance de Frédéric Chopin. Paris: Richard-Masse, 1953-1960. In three volumes, reprinted in 1981.
  
• Arthur Hedley, editor and translator - Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, abridged from Sydow. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963.
  
• Krystyna Kobylańska, editor - Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina z rodziną. [F. Chopin’s Correspondence with his family]. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972.
  
• Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron, and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus, editors. Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Fryderyk Chopin's Correspondence] , volume 1: 1816-1831. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Universytetu Warszawskiego, 2009.
  
• Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina [The Fryderyk Chopin Institute]. Chopin’s Letters. Warszawa: Internet Chopin Information Centre, 2010. http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/letters/search/

What did the boy say to his dad? The equivalent of "Happy birthday" and "I love you, Dad" - but in a more formal fashion, surprising for a six-year old. The lovely card was written for Nicholas Chopin's "Name-day" - a far more important celebration in Poland than that of a birthday. The Chopin family paid homage to their patriarch on the feast day of St. Nicholas, December 6 (1816):

Gdy świat Imienin uroczystość głosi Twoich, mój Papo, wszak i mnie przynosi Radość, z powodem uczuciów złożenia, Byś żył szczęśliwie, nie znał przykrych ciosów, Być zawsze sprzyjał Bóg pomyślnych losów, Te Ci z pragnieniem ogłaszam życzenia. F. Chopin. Dnia 6 grudnia 1816

Whereas the world proclaims the celebration of your Name-day, my dear Papa, thus it is also a great joy of mine, occasioned by the expression of heartfelt feelings, to wish you a happy life, that does not know sorrow, nor adversity, that is always blessed by God with good fortune, so these are, longingly expressed, my wishes. F. Chopin. On the 6th day of December, 1816.

If written by a child, and not dictated by his mother, older sister, or caretaker, these wishes surprise with the maturity of vocabulary and complication of syntax. What was Chopin's last letter, then? And how many letters did he write? This remains an issue of contention.

Scholars Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron, and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus have been working for more than two decades on a fully annotated critical edition of all currently known Chopin's letters. The national edition, handsomly issued by the University of Warsaw (available in Polish only) features not only detailed context of each letter, revised and defined placement in chronology, but also extensive notes about every single person mentioned in the letters or in any way associated with them. The hosts of summer vacations, the musicians and friends of musicians, the students and their families - all find their life-stories briefly noted. They were blessed and immortalized by their encounters with a genius whom the world does not want to forget. The one issue that makes it difficult to use along with older edition is letter numbering. The universally accepted numbering by Sydow has been changed, as new letters were inserted in the proper slots and those that were assigned to wrong dates or years, were moved to the appropriate point on the chronology.

The first volume, covering the years up to Chopin's departure from Poland and ending with the famous, tortured pages from his so-called Stuttgart Diary, written after Chopin heard about the end of the November Uprising (started in November 1830), with the fall of Warsaw to Russian troops on September 7, 1831. As the editors ascertained, the Stuttgart press published the first reports about these tragic events on September 16. The famous, dramatic and despairing monologue of an embittered exile was written partly before and partly after that date. Following von Sydow, it is customarily attributed to September 8, a day after the fall of Warsaw, but Helman and her team were able to argue for a more accurate date. After the outburst of despair, on September 18, 1831, Chopin left Stuttgart to continue his way on to Paris where he spent the rest of his life.

The long and dramatic text, permeated with interruptions and exclamations, written in a stream-of-consciousness narrative expresses the composer's distress at a turning point of his life. The format and accusatory tone recall the - written much-later - monologue from Adam Mickiewicz's romantic play, The Forefather's Eve Part III. Chopin really sounds like Konrad in his Grand Improvisation: "Oh God, You are there! You are there and take no revenge! Have You not had Your fill of Muscovite crimes – or – or else You are Yourself a Muscovite! And I sit here idle, and I set here with my hands bare, sometimes just groaning, grieving at the piano, in despair..."

___________________________

The "national edition" of the last letters is not ready yet, though the second volume went to print. Therefore, for Chopin's final word in epistolography, I turned to the online edition of full text of his letters in Polish and the original languages found on the Fryderyk Chopin Information Centre website, managed by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Poland. Alas, the list compiled by NIFC includes mistakes in dates in the summaries of letters - so much so that it appears that he was still writing letters to Auguste Franchomme while dying (listed on October 17, the actual date was September 17) and to Tytus Wojciechowski, that Chopin appears to have written three days after breathing his last (listed on October 20, but actually written on August 20).

The last words, scribbled on a piece of paper, were not a letter but a somber instruction to his attendants, family and friends: "When all this coughing will finally suffocate me, I beg you, please order my body to be opened, so that I will not be buried alive." (Comme cette toux m'étouffera je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour je suis pas enterré vif). These are customarily dated "somewhat before October 17, 1849" - not by Chopin.

One of the final dates Chopin wrote in his own hand was that of August 1849, when he sent a note to Auguste Franchomme in Paris, asking for some good wine to be delievered at Chailot where the composer was spending his summer:

"My Dear. Send me some of your Bordeaux. I must drink wine today and I do not have any at home. But pack the bottle well and do not forget to mark it with your seal; oh, these messengers! I do not know to whom you will entrust this package. How suspicious have I become! Yours truly, C. (Mon Cher, Envoie-moi un peu de ton Bordeaux. Il faut que je boive aujourd'hui un peu de vin et je n'en ai d'aucune sorte. Mais enveloppe bien la bouteille et n'oublie pas d'y mettre ton cachet, car les porteurs!! Je ne sais à qui tu confieras cet envoi. Comme je suis devenu soupçonneux! Tout à toi C.

From filial devotion, to patriotic duty, to mundane concerns: Chopin's letters reveal a complicated, conflicted man whose idyllic childhood was followed by adult age tormented by loneliness and disease, yet transfigured in the most inspired music. Two studies of letters of his friend Julian Fontana and his lover George Sand reveal Chopin's character and habits to a greater extent and merit further exploration.

_______________________________


As if Chopin's own letters were not enough, poets wrote new letters in his name. The anthology Chopin with Cherries includes three imaginary letters to and from Chopin by Tammy L. Tillotson. She tries to capture Chopin’s heartbreak in the 1830s, marked by a packet of letters, that he had tied with a ribbon and inscribed “moja bieda” (“my misery”).

Similarly, through two epistolary poems, Martin Willitts Jr. recreates the growing discord between Chopin and Sand after their romance fell apart and the sick pianist was close to death in 1847. Willitts was nominated for four Pushcart Awards. His recent poems appeared in Blue Fifth, Parting Gifts, Bent Pin, New Verse news, Storm at Galesburg and other stories (anthology), The Centrifugal Eye, Quiddity, Autumn Sky Poetry, Protest Poems, and others. His tenth chapbook was The Garden of French Horns (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and his second full length book of poetry is The Hummingbird (March Street Press, 2009). He also has won many national storytelling contests and was invited to Denmark to tell many of the Hans Christian Andersen stories.

"Discord" consists of two letters, one from Chopin to George Sand and one from her to her "beloved little corpse" that she lovingly nicknamed her former lover and patient. Through these invented letters, Willitts tells the story of a romance with a bitter end.

Discord

by Martin Willitts, Jr.


1. Chopin to George Sand, 1847

The delicate touch you felt on your neck
is the same as on a piano, with the same lyrical rush,
the music of leaves in the resolute winds.
It is the same idiomatic language of geese leaving.
My heart has the same feeling, restless, yearning.
When I play a rondo, no one can hear the silence after.
I leave these early movements behind
like I must leave you.
Some things are finished when they are finished.

I thought of returning to you.
I hesitated at your window.
I knew if you saw me with that melodic look you have,
it would enrapture me.
Our bodies would become counterpoints.
But it would be fragmentary motifs. Textural nuances
of what used to be.

Our love was illicit, some say.
I say, it was melodic, rhythmic, and full of music.
Our love was repetitions of a single note.

You criticized me for my primitive sense of form
when we would lie in bed, soaked in harmonic intonations.
You were right about me as well as everything else.
I cannot help being in the soundscape of textures,
in the lightness of sound, in the last moment leaving you.
For life is opening one door and descending unknown stairs.


Would the real Chopin ever write anything like it? We do not know. That is what poetic license is for. Another poet, Roxanne Hoffman, writes in Chopin's persona to Sand. Hoffman is an experienced and widely published poet. Her poems and stories appears on and off the net, most recently in Amaze: The Cinquain Journal, Danse Macabre, The Fib Review, Lucid Rhythms, MOBIUS The Poetry Magazine, Word Slaw and two anthologies: The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology By Gang Members And Their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), and Love After 70 (Wising Up Press). She and her husband own the small press, POETS WEAR PRADA, www.reverbnation.com/pradapoet

Taking the cue from the composer’s notebooks, Hoffman entitles her letter-poem, “G” for George and signs it “F” for Frédéric.
G

by Roxanne Hoffman

G,

I tell my piano
the things I used to tell you,
pull back its fallboard
after propping up the lid,
stroke its sturdy trusses,
hear the strings vibrate in sympathy,
undampered escapement permits,
as my fingers depress and release its keys
to unlock unsaid thoughts,
the music I dream.
The solid back frame
understands the balanced tension
of romance:
the give and the take
of the player and the played,
the rhythm of two heartbeats, even at rest,
the somber melody
of disharmony.
We of equal temperament
speak at length,
practice our arpeggios and scales,
regulate our voices,
and play Mozart in your absence.

F.

Poet's Note: Lines 1 and 2 are a quotation attributed to Chopin. Toward the end of his life he had a falling out with his long time love George Sand, they separated, and she was absent from his funeral. A final request of Chopin’s was to have Mozart’s Requiem sung in his memory. After his death, among his possessions, a lock of her hair was found in a small envelope embroidered with their initials “G.F” tucked in the back of his diary.

A different Chopin emerges as the lyrical subject and protagonist in a poem by Elizabyth Hiscox, ostensibly narrated by "3784 Chopin" a small asteroid up in the sky:


Fryderyk Speaks to George of the Sky

by Elizabyth A. Hiscox

“3784 Chopin” – small asteroid in main belt

They’ve placed me in the vault:
fashioned me
near Jupiter and Mars;
fastened me to the side of old gods.

Power and War, my love,
a chaos created by moveable giants;
an uprising of stone circling itself
all orbital resonance and constant revolution.

Crowded together like notes
written in failing health.

I miss the way the earth broke
over itself each morning:
tender eyedawn of aurorean love.
Broke all of us.

Space, its extended nocturne
is a grand room, my love.
But, as with the past, there is no sound
– only music.

Poet's Note: Italicized line is from John Keat’s “Ode to Psyche.”
George Sand was the pseudonym for Chopin’s one-time lover, Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin.
Hiscox's venture into the night skies is an imaginative way of personalizing astronomy with a musical romance. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals – most recently The Fiddlehead and Hayden’s Ferry Review. She is the author of the chapbook Inventory from a One-Hour Room (2009) from Finishing Line Press. Former poet-in-residence at Durham University U.K., she currently serves as Program Coordinator for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

She "met" with Willitts and Hoffman in Chopin with Cherries, a book that provided a meeting space for poets and music lovers. Three of the epistolary poems cited here explored the fascinating love affair of Chopin and Sand, and this will be the subject of our next exploration on this forum.

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PHOTO CREDITS:

Photo of the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, with the pillar containing Chopin's heart on the left. (c) copyright February 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk.

Photo of Zelazowa Wola, Chopin's birthplace by Wojsyl (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo of Chopin's piano at the Chopin Museum in Warsaw, Poland. (c) copyright February 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk.

Rare Autograph Musical Quotation Signed of Frederic Chopin Op.53 Polonaise. Provenace: Private Collection. May 25, 1845. Frederic Chopin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

First known photograph of Chopin (1847) published in John O'Shea, Music and Medicine: Medical Profiles of Great Composers (London, Dent, 1990). O'Shea's source is the Fryderyk Chopin Society in Warsaw. The original is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

George Sand. Paper art decoration at the Chopin's Birthday Concert in Warsaw, Poland, Grand Theater of Opera and Ballet, March 1, 2010, (c) copyright by Maja Trochimczyk (photograph only).