Frederic Chopin
It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place.Collection: Writing
Chopin was the first piano composer who knew exactly how to make piano sound reach fullness, radiance and grandness. What to regard and what, by all means, to avoid. Chopin was keenly aware of the overtones and he did take care of them so artfully.Collection: Voice
I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.Collection: Paris
Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in ones birthplace.Collection: Birthplace
You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fatCollection: Writing
They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me.Collection: People
All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here.Collection: Artist
Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess).Collection: Life
My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country.Collection: Dream
Hats off, gentlemen - a genius! If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin's works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin's works are canons buried in flowers.Collection: Flower
I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.Collection: Paris
Here, whatever is not boring is not English.Collection: People
Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.Collection: Beautiful
Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.Collection: Stars
Yesterday's concert was a success. I hasten to let you know. I inform your Lordship that I was not a bit nervous and played as I play when I am alone. It went well... and I had to come back and bow four times.Collection: Play
I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.Collection: Life
England is a country of pianos, they are everywhere.Collection: Country
Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.Collection: Mean