Chopin was gay, maybe

Nothing new here at least not for the French people

That explains Barry Manilow turning one of his pieces into a pop song.

Always thought he pinged.

When I visited his grave in Paris, there were more maps written by gays than by women or straights so yes i knew about that

I bet Chopin got some of the best dick throughout Europe non his travel. Formative gayling years in Poland, say no more...

NO! I had him!

He never sucked my khuy!

What was then Poland at that time, was as homophobic as it is now. His mother was French unlike what the Polish propaganda says which only makes her a Polish. He immigrated in France to escape many things and to study at the Conservatory. In that conservatory, before his meeting with George Sand, he will very often be moved by handsome French homosexual men...

^ makes him

Sizemeat verificatia?

He's ugly, we don't want him.

R8 His mother WAS Polish, it was his father who was a frog.

Georges Sand disagrees

R11: You don’t want somebody who created some of the greatest music of all time to be gay just because he’s not hot?

R8 No his dad was French, not his mom. R12 A frog? Lol coming from a disgusting hamburger it's laughable

R12 says a roosbeef.....

I love his music. He was a genius. He and Debussy, another Frenchman, are the best for me. Funny thing is that George Sand was a lesbian. Chopin and Sand have been a bizarre couple for 9 years.

I love the a flat major ballade

R11 And why would the gay community refuses a genius within it? Speak for yourself I would have welcomed him with open arms

What’s a roosbeef?

I'm always a bit sceptical when someone makes grand claims about having made a great historical discovery that apparently no one else has ever made, especially when they try to make political points in the present day with their supposed discovery.

What does air-brushed mean anyway? Did the Polish state keep these letters hidden? Or have they been accessible to all to read and interpret in their own way for years?

the poles are filled with dread

So he liked the Poles and the holes?

There are also French historians who believe he was gay. Chopin's sexuality has been a hot topic for a long time. Oh and for the troll above, he lived more in France than in Poland, but whatever.

Roosbeef ? Oh just a xenophobic endangered species that lives on a small island and thinks itself superior to all the rest of humanity.

If by fried chicken you think of this nation with the most military victories in all of history, yes I guess they are fried chickens then ... For the assholes

He was hot!

he might have had his good days and his bad days

He died of tuberculosis, which is not known for prettyfying its victims, so the photographs (daguerrotypes?) that were taken near the end of his life probably don't do a healthy young Chopin justice. But they sure do show his BDF!

There was a BBC series about Georges Sand decades ago with, I think Rosemary Harris in the title part, which weirdly featured George Chakiris as Chopin.

If you read the article he clearly WAS gay, no question about it.

SUCK IT, Poland!

Anyway he got the fuck out of there at 20 and never looked back.

In his era his type (& I don't mean just the gay part) went to Paris. Much the way they went to New York in the 1970s or London in the '60s etc...

What was that homophobic island that was so proud of its ancient turtle (which was all it had) that turned out to be gay. That was funny.

He looks like Fran Lebowitz

R17 Ha! Debussy "Clair De Lune" is a masterpiece, can't get enough of that gorgeous music.

One thing is undeniable is that things were bad in bed between Georges Sand and Chopin. She was frustrated and thought he was impotent. He said he was not particularly attracted to sex. Hmmm...

wonder what he would have made of this?

R32 thinks that she can find an easily accessible piece, declare it a "masterpiece," and pose as a musical aesthete. One hopes she's heard his études with such a head bob.

What's a "head bob"?

So much misinformation on this thread. Frederic Francois Chopin was the child of an expatriate French father and a Polish mother. He was born on February 22, 1810 (Julian Calendar in use in Poland at the time) and March 1, 1810 on the Gregorian Calendar at the Skarbek estate at Zelazowa Wola, Poland; he was, therefore, Polish by birth.

He attended the Warsaw Conservatory, not the Paris Conservatory, where is teacher was Jozef Elsner. He settled in Paris at the age of 21 and died there at the age of 39; therefore, he actually did spend the majority of his life in Poland, NOT France as someone has asserted above.

Chopin DID NOT have tuberculosis. In all likelihood, he suffered from a congenital heart defect or some early form of cystic fibrosis. His sister actually died from a disease that had the exact symptoms of CF. His autopsy report (destroyed in WWII) indicated that his lungs appeared fine but that his heart was quite enlarged.

[quote]I love his music. He was a genius.

Did any of his music express his longing to be punched in his fartbox?

R32 CdL is more popular but for many piano aficionados it’s Debussy’s arabesque no.1 in e major l.66 that’s the better composition. IMO more fun to play too and more like an impressionist painting than CdL.

As for the letters with all the flowery writing about kisses, if you go back and study European correspondence at the time it ALL contained exaggerated statements and sentiments, so hanging your “Chopin was gay” hat on that really doesn’t hold up.

I’ve studied Chopin’s music and life for decades - almost obsessively. And as much as I would like to believe he was One Of Us, all evidence clearly points to ASEXUALITY. Let’s face it: Paris in the 1830s and 1840s was a hotbed of rumors and gossip (it still is); if there were any true events or substance to the Chopin-is-gay narrative they would have come to light at the time. Georges Sand’s son, Maurice, LOATHED Chopin and would have made a huge stink about his sexuality just to embarrass him. BUT HE DIDN’T.

sweetheart, there is no such a thing as asexuality, there are people with low libido, but asexuality is only used by repressed gay guys wgen they dont want to come out and no, it was not common for men to be so expressive in letters during that time.

The best word to describe Frédéric Chopin, both the man and his music, would be “Ambiguous”. His g minor Ballade opens clearly with an A-flat major chord (the Neopolitan functional chord in g minor) which is pretty much as tonally remote as you can get from the Tonic, yet he pulls together an amazing, coherent, and poetical from these seemingly conflicting sounds and tonal relationships. The same is true with his third scherzo.

If you listen to the opening of his Nocturne Opus 27 #1, you will find that it is impossible to determine whether the piece is in a major or minor key (it ends up being minor) until he introduces the minor third (E) in the melody, but even then it immediately moves to a major third (E#) further exacerbating the piece’s tonal ambiguity.

I just don't know...a gay musician, who ever heard of such a thing?

T41 - you sound about as informed as R8, and you’re flat out wrong about the language used in letters at the time. 100 years from now some dimwit will claim that we were all gay because we address people as “Dear” in the salutation.

There may not be many asexual People in existence, but at the same time there was, and only will be, ONE Chopin. Stop trying to cram an enigmatic genius into your pedestrian stereotypes.

[quote]I just don't know...a gay musician, who ever heard of such a thing?

How many very famous classical composers were known to be gay?

Interesting question, R45!

Tchaikovsky for sure.

Ravel and Poulenc for sure.

Schubert maybe.

Handel maybe (but probably not.)

Handel most likely, lots of ink spilled over his closeted ass

Chopin wasn’t the gossiped about with regards to his love life at that time. The biggest “rock star” musician at the time was Franz Lizst. Lizst wrote compositions that were technically innovative and as a musical performer he was considered THE piano virtuoso of that era. Unlike Chopin, he had romantic affairs that had society constantly gossiping. Liszt's piano playing skills/ style became the standard in piano performance in combining virtuosity with showmanship ushering in the era of the modern piano-virtuoso-as-showman. Women used to go into frenzy and faint at his performances.

Chopin had a more sedate personality which compared to his contemporary Lizst, became even more milquetoast.

he was devastatingly handsome, which is why i got the role. and if he did like an occasional walk on the wild side, so what? what man doesn't

-h. grant

R48 - In fact, one of Liszt’s mistresses, Countess Marie d’Agoult, referred to Chopin as “The Polish Corpse”.

R37 His father wasn't an expatriate, he was born in France with both Polish and French parents. This website is so full of bullshit!!!

R35 Another pos ignorant American shameless.

(Achille) Claude Debussy[n (French: [aʃil klod dəbysi]; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term.

He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Go fuck yourself you mfers

Here's a challenge. Try suggesting he was gay on Wikipedia (even with citations) and see how far it gets you. Same with Chopin. The homosexuality of both is aggressively erased.

R44 Let me guess, you are a Polish right? I am French and I know exactly what i ma talking about. Idk why y'all seem to think that Chopin was your propery when he clearly left Poland to study music and he became a genious in France, not in Poland. Chopin sexuality is still a mystery but there are many many things in his behavior that make Historiens think he was gay, whether you like or not. Don't try to teach me anything, you just can't. He did not die in poland, he died in my country and obviously we have more documents on him than you will ever have. You look like one of those Poles claiming rights over Marie Curie when in fact when she immigrated in France, Poland as a country did not even exist yet. It is in France that she studied Sciences, it is thanks to France and not Poland that she won two Nobel Prizes. The same goes for Chopin.

^property ^^Historians

[quote]The best word to describe Frédéric Chopin, both the man and his music, would be “Ambiguous”. His g minor Ballade opens clearly with an A-flat major chord

Yes, before I get bum fucked I always whistle in A-flat major to maintain my ambiguity.

Twat.

R56 LMAO! Good one!

Well Georges was a bisexual so...

I mean Aurore Dupin (well known as Georges Sand), who was living with Chopn for 9 long years and their sex life is also well known to have been non-existent, according to George Sand's diary

...And unlike her very long affair with Chopin, when Georges Sand was with Alfred De Musset (French Writer), she was moaning every single nights.

Is this the face of a straight woman?

Seriously, through gay eyes, the relationship between Sand and Chopin looks a hell of a lot like what we saw in the 1980s, when there were so many lezzies looking after gay male friends, who were slowly dying of an incurable illness.

R60 Alfred de Musset " The Confession of a Child of the Century", was good looking. He was a genius too. Georges Sand had a type.

Okay, Sand had children, she wasn't completely uninterested in men.

But holy shit her pictures ping!

Leave him alone, he just never found the right girl! Like moi!

Impromptu is a great little indie movie.

R29 George Chakiris as Chopin? I have to see if I can find it on line somewhere. It sounds like some kind of 21st century woke, color-blind production shenanigans. And I am here for it.

R54 They say "home is where the heart is", you beret-wearing frog!

I'm sure George Chakiris had the gay part down pat

R54 = Triggered Frog.

Yeah, Chopin was French . . . That’s why his final request was to have his heart removed and returned to Poland.

R21, except that it is pretty common for true revelations to come out this way. Often when public figures have personal traits or beliefs that are out of step with the times, they are kept secret. And they have come out in diaries or letters after death. (This is why so many figures have their papers burned.)

That is why there are so many well-documented after-death bombshells ranging from from Gladstone's masochism to Tchaikovsky's homosexuality to Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings.

Chopin was NOT gay. He had a girlfriend in Canada.

R70 - Excellent point and good examples, but . . .

Unlike the examples you cite, in the case of Frederic Chopin, there is not ONE SINGLE MALE with whom it can be demonstrated or even alluded to that he had a sexual relationship. NONE.

Therefore, all we have and have ever had is pure conjecture and wishful thinking by both genders of both sexual orientations. We simply do not know.

However, what we do know is that Chopin was a complex human being unlike anyone who came before or after him. He was a visionary whose greatest compositions lay fallow for decades after his death because they were ahead of their time and it took music theory 50+ years to recognize what he was actually doing in them.

In terms of “evidence” that Chopin was a homosexual, everyone cites correspondence that may or may not have been forged (big money in ephemera, especially if it’s titillating). For example, the London Letter talking about sex in urinals is ridiculous; he was gravely ill at the time and a guest of Lady Jane Stirling. However, I have discovered more concrete and telling evidence of his attraction to men that doesn’t involve conjecture or hearsay.

I’d share it, except: 1) it will doubtless be mocked by the likes of R56 & R57; and, 2) I may want to use it for an article or thesis.

"However, I have discovered more concrete and telling evidence of his attraction to men that doesn’t involve conjecture or hearsay."

So it's not "wishful thinking" when it's coming from you, but when other people say stuff like that, it is?

R54 - yeah, Chopin was French. Where was he born? With whom did he “study” in Paris? If he’s French, then why did he compose a Krakowiak, Polonaises, 60+ Mazurkas, and songs in Polish?

R46, yes to Schubert and Handel, and also Copland, Barber, Britten, Corelli, Lully and Saint-Saens.

Most of the great artists and creatives in history were likely gay, but their sexuality has been straight washed out of history.

So you doubt Moritz Weber's evidence but have some of your own that is more conclusive, R72?

It sounds like maybe Weber beat you to the punch and you need to denigrate him to make your own discovery seem significant.

There are better places to do that than DL.

So did Chopin and Liszt fuck?

[quote] So it's not "wishful thinking" when it's coming from you, but when other people say stuff like that, it is?

R73 - No, it is not. Unlike simpletons who can only use broad brushstrokes to categorize/compartmentalize others and see everything in terms of black and white, I have actually made a longitudinal study of Chopin and his life, and when I speak/write about him I use very precise language in my arguments. Please note that I said “attraction to men”; I did not assert that he was necessarily a homosexual, although he may have been.

There are numerous reasons why one man may be attracted to another that is not necessarily of a sexual nature. For example, in the case of Chopin: he was small, frail, and sickly all his life; therefore, it is plausible that he idealized and was drawn to bigger, stronger, and more robust men - something he admired but could never be.

R77 - Weber’s evidence and assertions are hardly new or groundbreaking. Bernard Gavoty included much of this information in his biography of Chopin published in 1977.

He also wrote at length about the plethora of forged Chopin letters that have been proven as such.

R79 is telling the truth. In the 1950 there were a number of physique magazines where small frail men could look at strong muscular men to admire--and it was not sexual in any way.

People always want to read something dirty into relationships between men. When Liberace or Oscar Wilde express admiration for male muscular achievement and help young men to better themselves with financial support, there are always a few sniggerers who want to read this as improper.

r81, Amen! Just because I admire all the senate pages, my strapping nephews, and all those Myrtle Beach lifeguards does NOT make me a homasexshul

Prelude 28 No 2 - the longing Polonaise No 6 Op53 - the soundtrack of smelling cookies

R67 and R69 The fact that his heart and his body and his soul were in France the greatest and important part of his life and when he died speaks volume. The fact that desperate and homophobic Poles felt the need to make memorials does not change the fact that they are for absolutely NOTHING in Chopin's success and glory. If it wasn't for the French no one would have never known who he was. I understand your frustration because it's FRANCE who still give you work in Europe. Not the opposite. Oh and, he was a frog too. By his father side, Nicolas, born in Marainville Sur Madon (France).... I know Polish are unable to be grateful towards the French for what they did for Chopin but he had French blood and French citizenship and there is nothing you can do about that. Deal with it you pathetic virtual JEALOUS garbage.

His official grave is at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, not in poland. Oh and stop posting compulsively, it's not good for your sake, have a nice day ;-)

R81 "People always want to read something dirty into relationships between men. When Liberace or Oscar Wilde express admiration for male muscular achievement and help young men to better themselves with financial support, there are always a few sniggerers who want to read this as improper."

So being gay is dirty? LOL typically the caricature of homophobic polish. For your information, you illiterate, Oscar Wilde was undoubtedly gay. May 251895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to forced labor for homosexuality. That's why he went to France you son of bitch Polish .

R74 Lol Chopin run away from your shithole Poland and went to France where his French family was living for decades. You really are a complete idiot. Stop embarassing yourself. Chopin had French citizenship and French blood through his father. Unbelievable how the nationalist are ignorants.

Can the Pole and the Frog just fuck already?

R86=

Isaac Newton was a homo also but calling him “asexual” is better for the straights because then they don’t have to admire a brilliant, gay man.

Wow. Check out R72's use of ye olde homophobe historical erasure techniques.

Step One: seek to suggest the emotions of the said individual were not obvious homoexuality, but rather, a multiplicity of human complexity; a 'shifiting sea of ineffable possibilities' etc etc. They were an artist, and as we all know artists, etc etc. Hence: [quote] Chopin was a complex human being

Step Two: demand solid evidence, as if actually produced, discount it. [quote]everyone cites correspondence that may or may not have been forged

Rinse and repeat. These and endless variations have been done to EVERY gay historical figure that ever was.

Of Chopin's relationship with Woyciechowski: "I'm going to wash myself, don't kiss me now because I haven't washed myself - you? Even if I rubbed Byzantine oils on myself, you wouldn't kiss me if I didn't force you to do so in a magnetic way. There is some force in nature. Today you will dream that you kiss me. "

So FUCK, FUCK OFF R72, and every other fucking homophobe here. Go fuck off to Wikipedia where, as the radio show pointed out, this passage was immediately deleted when it was added to Chopin's article.

R86 - Using your own bizarre and twisted logic means that Nicholas Chopin (Frederic’s father) was actually 100% Polish because he left the shithole Reign of Terror France, moved to Poland, married a Polish woman, raised a Polish family, spent the majority of his life in Poland, died in Poland, and is buried in Poland.

Ergo, Frederic Chopin wasn’t even half French - he’s 100% Polish because both his parents were Polish (according to your own arguments).

Moritz Webster hasn't discovered anything, he's just giving his own interpretation of material that has been published and available for years. The Chopin Institute in Warsaw has published most of Chopin's letters that Webster is using, so the Poles are hardly hiding anything.

The reality is that we don't know much about how men in the 19th century behaved with each other in private. They often shared beds - we do know that, because they write about it often. For that reason there's much speculation about Abraham Lincoln. Melville begins Moby Dick with two male strangers sharing a bed. I tend to think that just as in Middle Eastern countries and southern Europeans even now, where male teens often have sex with one another because it's almost expected that since women will be protected from them, they have to have an outlet, without much societal disapproval, so it was likely in northern Europe and in the US in the 19th century. In such situations, the disapproval only comes when young men don't turn their sexual desires towards women upon reaching adulthood.

I’m a fucking professional musician, always have been, my friends are musicologists working in academia and even at AMS conferences I’ve never seen so much cuntery about a composer

I now understand why British hate the Poles. They are frustrated unbearrable crazy people. Chopin left a poor and insecured Poland, went to France to his French family and became a genius there. End of story. Poles can cry all they want to, they cannot rewrite History

Did he write Chopin Broccoli for Dana Carvey?

^ La grenouille folle frappe à nouveau. Va te coucher, petit fou!

He was gay

R96 - No, but he wrote the Chopin Barcarolle for Baron Stockhausen.

The Polish idiot with a poor culture keep trolling with his pathetic inferiority complexes

I was also asexual. I swear!

R93 Except that in France men weren't sleeping with men unless they were gays or brothers. There is also a big difference between books and real History facts.

I was also a tragic asexual

Polish really need some education. Nicolas Chopin, (not Nicholas), life here. It doesn't suit your fairy tale. Why are you all so jealous? My logic is Frédéric Chopin took the French citizenship. He asked for it. France gave him his studies, his sucess. poland has nothing to do with it and you know that perfectly. Frédéric Chopin He ran away from your instable shithole country who wasn't exactly Poland but Prussia. Oh and about NiCOLAS Chopin, once again, history bellies your fantasies. Here's some real facts. Cry me a river

R102 - So tell us: who was Chopin sleeping with?

Idiot R104 who still actually believes Frédéric Chopin “studied” in Paris at the “Conservatory”.

Chopin’s musical language was already developed at the age of 7. He changed music in France; it did not influence him in the least.

R105 If I knew I would be rich and famous today after writing a bestseller on Chopin's erotic gay life, but I don't know. Some Historians speak of the turmoil Chopin felt when he was in front of these young men. From the way he blushed too and then there's his mute sexuality with women. Not only Georges Sand, all the women he has dated.

R106 Say you pos, you know what a conservatory is and what it is for, don't you? Knowing music and mastering it are two different things. Seriously stop making fun of yourself. The more you post the more ridiculous you are

I never met the right guy

"While in Paris, Chopin found his delicate style didn't always enthrall the larger concert audiences, who had been exposed to the works of Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven. A fortuitous introduction to the Rothschild family opened new doors, however, and Chopin soon found employment in the great parlors of Paris as both recitalist and learned some technicals at the conservatory of Paris. His increased income allowed him to live well and compose such pieces as Nocturnes of Opp. 9 and 15, the Scherzo in B-flat minor, Op. 31 and the Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 35."

Well, the article says it all but some bigots are trying to write their own piece. Maybe Chopin was gay. So what? Why are Poles so homophobic??

The article begins with the following sentences:

"Frédéric Chopin’s archivists and biographers have for centuries turned a deliberate blind eye to the composer’s homoerotic letters in order to make the Polish national icon conform to conservative norms, it has been alleged."

Describing exactly what we can read on this thread from Polish bigots. Just saying...

OK R110 - with whom did he study? If you say Kalkbrenner then 1) Chopin never studied with Kalkbrenner; and, 2) even if he had, Kalkbrenner was GERMAN.

R112 - not true. Bernard Gavoty addressed this issue head-on in his 1977 biography of Chopin. Also, please note the qualifing statement “it has been alleged” at the end of the paragraph you cite.

Sounds like the National Enquirer or Paris Match is about your speed.

R113 R114 You are so pathetic I pity you. I wonder what a homophobic Poles is doing on the DL

“The fact that Chopin had to hide part of his identity for a long time, as he himself writes in his letters, would have left a mark on his personality and his art,” said Weber. “Music allowed him to express himself fully, because piano music has the advantage of not containing any words.”

But Weber says his research has found no concrete evidence of Chopin’s love for Gładkowska (woman), or a supposed engagement to 16-year-old Maria Wodzińska. “These affairs were just rumours, based on flowery footnotes in biographies from the previous two centuries,” he told the Guardian in a phone interview. “Neither the Chopin Institute in nor his biographers have been able to deliver any proof.”

"Chopin grew up in Warsaw but left the city aged 20 and never returned."

Well, who would have returned to such a homophobic country?

Well yes, gays like the kitchen, but I’m not sure I’d actually say choppin is gay PER SE.

“You don’t like being kissed,” Chopin wrote to his school friend Tytus Woyciechowski in one of 22 letters. “Please allow me to do so today. You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night.” Letters to the friend, who was actively involved in Poland’s January uprising of 1863, often start with “My dearest life” and end with: “Give me a kiss, dearest lover.”

Lmao and Poles say he wasn't gay. HAHAHAHA!

R115 - I know you are, but what am I?!?

You sound like a brainwashed Republican Trump supporter: “If I say it enough times it will become true eventually.”

R120 = Lost the “Chopin was French” debate so has moved on to the “Chopin was Gay” issue.

L O S E R .

“Give me a kiss, dearest lover.”

He was just experimenting!!! Give it a rest!

[quote]Bernard Gavoty included much of this information in his biography of Chopin published in 1977.

Gavoty danced round it. As he wrote, and I quote: "the idea of love seemed more exciting than love itself, in its physical form."

Bitch, please! This is a standard tactic of gay erasure -- that the poor darlings may have thought about, but not done anything. For FFS.

Damn, everyone on this thread is, like, super fucking gay. You guys broke homosexuality.

On the one hand, Chopin was brazenly writing "give me a kiss, you dirty boy" and "I had a dirty dream about you last night" to his male friend Tytus Woyciechowski. On the other hand, he felt tortured and suppressed his homosexuality.

On the one hand, according to one very ignorant idiot, Chopin went to live in Paris to get away from homophobic Poland, on the other he literally left his gay lover Tytus to do so, as they were abroad together in 1830, when the November uprising broke out and Tytus went back to help out while Chopin stayed in the safe parts of Europe.

This picture doesn't really add up and the extracts from the letters Chopin wrote to Tytus are decontextualised. I'd like to know what's in the rest of the letter, for a start.

R124, Gavoty may have, in your opinion, danced around the issue, but he included the material. It was hardly hidden away, as Weber is arguing.

[quote]Damn, everyone on this thread is, like, super fucking gay.

Fuck off you scumbag BIGOT and don't come back.

[quote]It was hardly hidden away, as Weber is arguing.

Rubbish. There's been absolute fudging, including by the most recent biography

None of the biographies have picked up the possible references to his cottaging (cruising lavs) either. Typical heter obtuseness and deliberate evasion.

R129, the material was not hidden, Chopin's letters are even published by the Chopin Institute in Warsaw. Nothing was suppressed, people were free to come to whatever conclusions they wanted, and Weber is not the first to point out Chopin's potential attraction to men on the basis of these letters.

The letters also need greater contextualisation. When were they written? What is the rest of the content? Guess I'll have to buy a copy of the English translations published by the Chopin Institute.

The Poles are full of poles!

I've found an older edition of Chopin's letters online. The translations are not exactly the same. For example, this edition has the translation "horrible dream" instead of the translation "dirty dream". Maybe it can mean both in the original Polish.

Letter of Saturday, probably 4 September 1830.

Dearest Tycia!

I tell you, Hypocrite, that I am more crazy than usual. I am still here; I have not the strength to decide on my date; I think I shall go away to forget my home for ever; I think I shall go away to die; and how dismal it must be to die anywhere else except where one has lived! How horrible it will be to see beside my death-bed some cold-blooded doctor or servant instead of my own family. Believe me, I am sometimes ready to go to Chodkiewicz's to find tranquillity with you; then, when I leave the house, I walk the streets, get melancholy, and come home again, what for? — Just to mope. I have not rehearsed the concerto yet; somehow or other I must leave all my treasures before Michaelmas and get to Vienna, condemned to perpetual sighing. What stuff! You, who know so much of human powers, explain to me why man supposes that today is only going to be tomorrow. Don't be silly, is the only answer that I can give to myself; if you know another one, send it to me.

Orłowski is in Paris; Norblin has promised to obtain for him by new year a post at the Variétés theatre. Le Sueur received him well and has promised to remember his musical education. That fellow can do well if he wants to. My plans for the winter are: 2 months in Vienna, and then to Italy, and perhaps to spend the winter in Milan. I shall have letters. Moriolles's daughter came back from the waters two days ago. Ludwik Rembieliński is in Warsaw; I saw him at Lours's, where I got into a dispute with Ernemann about the Turk and Agniesz, the Italian and the Pole. Soliwa is still conducting those operas in which his girls have appeared ; you will see, he will gradually harness Kurpiński. Already he has one foot in the stirrup, and a certain bewhiskered cavalry man will support him. He has Osiński also on his side. Palstet saw Rastawiecka a few days before her death; he says, she knew what her condition was. Pani Palstet wishes me to say that she is annoyed with you for not coming straight to Telatyn. That's her joke; the sort of old woman's joke that is peculiarly irritating to people who like to joke with only one person.

[cont.]

4 September 1830 cont.

Today we had the Alpine singers in the theatre: something on the lines of those Tyroleans who came two years ago ; no doubt you remember. Gresser told me they are worse, and the Warsaw Courier says they are better than those. I shan't go to them today; I'd rather go on Wednesday to hear them in the Resource in the Mniszek palace. There's to be a big evening there, and they are to sing in the garden. Win. Skarżyński tells me his side has lost in the lawsuit between the two legs of the Resource (i.e. between Zejdler Zakrzewski & Co. and Steinkeler [sic], Żelazowski & Co.) ; but they are to appeal. They are called Honey because they live in the Miodowa St. and the Steinkeler gang call themselves the Mniszkovs. This explanation is in order to tell you that Honey has lost, but unjustly. Bucholtz is finishing his instrument à la Streicher, he plays well on it; it is better than his Viennese one, but far less good than the Vienna Viennese one. Today my letter ends with nothing, even less than nothing, just with what I've written; that is because it's 11:30 and I'm not yet dressed and sit writing while Moriolka x waits for me; then to Celiński to dinner, then I promised to go to Magnuszewski, so there won't be time to come back before four and finish out this sheet, for whose emptiness I grieve and suffer, but can't help it. Anyhow I'm writing you something, and it seems to me that's good of me. I can't let myself go in this letter, for if I did Moriolka would not see me today, and I like to give pleasure to decent folk when I believe in their goodwill. I have not been there since I came back, and I confess that sometimes I attribute the cause of my grief to her; and I think that is what people believe, and I am composed on the outside. Her father laughs, and perhaps would rather weep ; and I laugh too, but also on the outside.

Let us go to Italy, dear; from today you will get no letter from me for a month, neither from Warsaw nor perhaps from elsewhere; so till we meet, you will have no news of me. Stuff and nonsense is all I can manage ; but to get away, — and you too. You'll keep me waiting for you. I shall receive letters: " I must just finish the mill, and start the distillery, and see to the wool, and the lambs, and then it will be next sowing time " ; and it will be neither mill, nor distillery, nor wool that will keep you, but — something else. A man can't always be happy; perhaps joy comes for only a few moments in life; so why tear oneself away from illusions that can't last long anyhow. Just as on the one hand, I regard the tie of comradeship as the holiest of things, so on the other hand, I maintain that it is an infernal invention, and that it would be better if human beings knew neither money, nor porridge, nor boots, nor hats, nor beefsteaks, nor pancakes, etc. — better than as it is. To my mind, the saddest part of it is that you too think the same way, and would perfer to know nothing of them. I am going to wash now; don't kiss me, I'm not washed yet. You? If I were smeared with the oils of Byzantium, you would not kiss me unless I forced you to it by magnetism. There's some kind of power in nature. Today you will dream of kissing me ! I have got to pay you out for the horrible dream you gave me last night.

F. Chopin

— for ever a lover of the personification of Hypocrisy. A propos: Write to me, and don't forget about Rinaldi; that's all. Mamma and Papa send you best greetings. The children came downstairs to remind me to send messages from them; and please tell them that I forgot. Żwyny always sends greetings. The Italian, Soliwa, asked me when you are coming to Warsaw, and sends best compliments. Pani Linde is in Gdańsk. I have not seen your sister in Warsaw. Pani Plater has come back.

Probably the next letter from Chopin to Tytus.

Warsaw, 18 September 1830.

My Dearest Life!

Beastly hypocrite! Disgusting, loathsome Count Ory! Abélard, etc.

I don't know why, but I feel happy, and Father and Mother are pleased about it. Pawłowski brought me the letter and book; you did well to send it back, for the Italian was worrying my life out if I met him in the street. Last Wednesday I rehearsed my Concerto with the quartet. I was pleased, but not altogether; people say the finale is the best part of it, because the most comprehensible. Next week I will write you how it goes with the orchestra; we shall try it on Wednesday; tomorrow I want to go through it again with the quartet. When we have rehearsed it, I shall go; but where, when I don't want to go anywhere? All the same, I don't mean to stay in Warsaw; and if you suspect any love-affair, as many persons in Warsaw do, drop it, and believe that, where my ego is concerned, I can rise above all that, and if I were in love, I would manage to conceal the impotent and miserable passion for another few years. Think what you like; anyhow, a letter brought by the count, whom I met two days ago in the Cellar (and who promised to honour our threshold with his podgy person before leaving), will explain things better. I don't want to travel with you. I'm not making it up; indeed as I love you, it would spoil that moment, worth a thousand monotonous days, when we embrace each other abroad for the first time. I could not now await you, receive you, talk to you, as I could do then, when joy will shut out all cold conventional phrases and let one heart talk to the other in some divine tongue. Divine tongue, — what an unfortunate expression ; like divine navel, or liver ; — horridly material. But to come back to the moment when I meet you there. — Then, perhaps, I could let myself go; could tell you what I always dream of, what is everywhere before my eyes; what I constantly hear, what causes me more joy and more sorrow than all else on earth. But don't think that I'm in love ; — not I ; I have put off that till later.

[cont.]

18 September 1830 letter cont.

I've only just realized what a lot of nonsense I have scribbled to you; clearly my imagination dates from yesterday; I've had no sleep, so forgive my fatigue; I danced the Mazurka. Mamma and Papa embrace you warmly. The children too. Ludwika is not quite well, we hope she will soon be better.

I met the President; he was glad of the count's arrival and wants to send you letters or parcels or something from Gdańsk by him. Walery is always Walery. His neighbour, Panna Kolubakin, has died. Wincenty is well, splendid. Kostui is probably in Dresden with the others.

Sokołowska has arrived; still unwell. Your letters are still on my heart and on the ribbon — for though they don't know, they feel, these dead things, that they both came from familiar hands.

Do you intend on publishing the entire book?

No r136, I just posted two full letters to put the "kissing" comments in their full context, which seems to suggest that Chopin and Tytus were just friends.

Well you needn't have bothered R137. Because the extracts published by the press didn't need the slightest context to make Chopin's intentions perfectly plain. You don't write to someone who's just 'a friend' that you have sexual dreams about them; nor do you write to them saying you are mesmerically imparting to them the desire to kiss you.

So you may as well take your sad little efforts at erasure elsewhere, where the might be appreciated.

He didn't write to his friend that he had sexual dreams about him, r138. The Polish has apparently been translated into "dirty" in English, but it can also be translated as "horrible". It can mean a whole bunch of things, there's nothing clearly sexual about it and the rest of the letter and the following letter doesn't seem to imply that there was anything sexual or romantic between them, just that they were friends.

R118 is the exception to the rule:

R140 Edith Massey in a thread about Chopin. Hence, DL.

R123 This thread is about Chopin being gay or not. Poles are the only ones here ruining it because they are HOMOPHOBIC AND XENOPHOBIC!!!! Can't you read the OPtitle? "Chopin was gay maybe" you DUMB!

Lol the homophobe above tries to falsify the content of the letters by erasing all traces of his homosexuality. Weber is right, conservative Polish homophobes are vomitable. We can also observe how the gays are currently treated in Poland to understand why Chopin hid and repressed his homosexuality. A mentally retarded and medieval people who respect neither the right of women to abortion nor the right of everyone's sexual orientation. Moreover, it is the European country where Trump is the most popular. Nothing suprising here coming from Polish.

Motormouth Maybelle weighs in on Frenchie:

R144 It's still better than the stupidity that eats away at the half-brain of the Poles. Again, Poles are the ones who keep coming to France to look for work, not the other way around. There are also more and more gay political refugees in France. Soon it will be your wives since they are still not free in your middle ages shithole.

To bring harmonious resolution to this somewhat strident thread, I give you one of Chopin’s finest, peaceful, and delicate creations: the Berceuse, Op. 57.

It is based on a song that Chopin’s mother sang to him when he was a child, "Już miesiąć zeszedł, psy się uśpily" (The moon has risen, the dogs are asleep).

You couldn't find anyone better than Lisitsa, r346?

Actually, NO, R147. I went through about 15 different available performances and hers was the only one that possessed a crystalline quality, showed the performer playing the piece, flowed smoothly, didn’t feature punched/over-punctuated notes, and wasn’t DEADLY SLOW. Tempo is critically important with this piece, and it’s better to take it a bit too quickly than lifelessly plod through it.

Alfred Cortot’s 1923 recording is actually my go-to, and Tatiana Shebanova’s original instrument performance is a close second. Also, given the high number of incredibly ignorant posts and responses on this thread, I figured providing either one of those performances would be like casting pearls before swine.

Please feel free to share your preferred performance and explain why it is your favorite.

Lisitsa can sound technically perfect because she's in a studio r148, but she doesn't move me much. I don't have a favourite of the Berceuse, but I just checked out a couple of performances on YouTube and Gulda (one of my faves) live in 1986 is beautiful, whatever this music is supposed to do to the listener, his performance here just does it for me.

I'll check out Cortot and Shebanova's performances. I like old/period instrument recordings.

Thanks for calling me out on the pretty, but substandard, performance of the Berceuse.

Here’s the 1923 Cortot recording. For me, this is the Gold Standard:

R147 here again. The other favorite performance of the Berceuse comes from an original instrument set of recordings called “The Real Chopin” issued by the National Chopin Institute. There are 3-4 different pianists performing the Opus 57, but the one I love is played by Colleen Lee, NOT Tatiana Shebanova.

Couldn’t find Lee’s version online, but here is Shebnova’s:

The Polish song "Już miesiąć zeszedł, psy się uśpily" (The moon has now risen, the hounds are asleep) was first used by Chopin in his youthful work for piano and orchestra Fantasy on Polish Airs (composed as a student at the Warsaw Conservatory), and then later "recycled" as the theme of the Berceuse. Here is Artur Rubinstein performing that section of the Fantasy:

There's a small cabal of bigots on Wikipedia aggressively reverting any suggestion of homosexuality from Chopin's entry.

You have to provide evidence on Wikipedia, r153. A few decontextualised, inaccurately translated and misunderstood phrases from his youthful letters are not evidence. Someone could start a "controversies" section and put forward these claims I guess.

Even suggesting that Chopin wasn't a pass around party bottom for the Polish Policja means you're a sexual bigot and bully.

no straight man tells the things he said in his letter to another male, no matter how close they are, not even to their own brothers.

He was no Mozart. Meh.

[quote] A-flat major chord is as tonally remote as you can get from the Tonic

You sound knowledgeable. We need some of your analysis in this thread—

[quote] Impromptu is a great little indie movie.

R65 I've heard Judy Davis moan in an interview that the director named 'James Lapine' was Stephen Sondheim's bum-boy and that his only qualification for the job was that he was a Manhattan hairdresser.

[quote] Gladstone's masochism

R70 Why do 21st century Americans find themselves so lacking in empathy that they impose their beliefs into others in other nations and other centuries?

I would describe Gladstone as being driven by overwork, and his love of duty and Calvinism.

[quote] I’m a fucking professional musician

R94 which are the verbs and adjectives here?

[quote] real History facts…men weren't sleeping with men unless they were gays or brothers

[R93] in 'History' men sleep with men because they can't afford two beds.

[quote]You have to provide evidence on Wikipedia,

Wikipedia has become pretty much useless, and a sink of wasted energy. Important entries are held hostage by factions of morons that hold to their own 'truths' however false (e.g. the Marcos family were saints; X was never gay; etc etc.) and never permit contradictory edits to last more than a day.

My advice is to have nothing to do with it, because very little of it can be relied upon.

R162, and yet people use that same bullshit excuse for rich guys who slept with guys because they felt like it

"no straight man tells the things he said in his letter to another male, no matter how close they are, not even to their own brothers."

At this distance in space and tine, and with the language and cultural barriers between us and Chopin, it's actually difficult to distinguish between a love letter and a letter to an intimate friend. There are still cultures on Earth where straight men kiss each other on the lips or hold hands in public, and I can't say I'm familiar enough with 19th century European expressions of friendship to say exactly what was up in any given instance.

I mean, I WANT another gay hero, and possibly an ancillary lez hero if Sand was his friend/beard rather than his lover, but nothing presented here is completely definitive. "Strong possibility" is all I'm willing to admit, skeptic that I am.

Why are people "skeptical" about homosexuality but not heterosexuality? Funny how people with no real history of dating the opposite sex are assumed to be straight, but you need a sworn affidavit to prove someone was gay?

R166, skepticism about a claim of one person being homosexual does not imply a belief that they are heterosexual. In the case of Chopin, we don't really know either way, and God knows he wasn't exactly a ladies' man. I just don't know enough about the culture he moved in to read between the lines, and I don't think anyone else here does, either.

[quote] people with no real history of dating the opposite sex are assumed to be straight

It would be safer to assume that they have no real history of dating.

When you go through life, R166, you will find masses of people who have masses of other things to think about and do rather than sex.

R168, what makes you think I haven't been through life? I'd say the ones who don't are the people who can't handle someone being gay. You know, like the fangirls who used to insist Wentworth Miller was just a virgin who was too shy to meet women

r165, that is bullshit, I have mentioned on DL a few times the conversation that I had with a mexican professor who has worked in prestigious universities in the US and europe. I was talking about ghis same topic about gays in history and I asked her if it was normal for straight guys to use homoerotism in their letters. I asked the questioned because Im cuban and in cuba Jose Marti, is refered as the father of the country, and he is seen as a straight guy, however in a letter to a "friend" he tells him: to love women is good but loving men is better. she said, if that was so normal back then, especially during the victorian times, how come we dont have letters from napoleon bonaparte, pancho villa, simon bolivar, washington, etc with overtly homoerotic tones, in such a way that their heterosexuality could be questioned.

this woman was a serious historian, and no, straight men never used homoerotism to let their best friends know how much they missed them.

R169 I pay no attention to those kind of people.

The point is, every historical gay figure outside of the Greeks and Oscar Wilde has been defended as being heterosexual in the past. The tear-down of lies continues.

Despite the bleeding obviousness of it, Shakespeare is slowly being recognised in the mainstream as bisexual, but that's been a battle going on for a hundred years. Beethoven is a still due for truthful reassessment, as are hundreds of other historical figures, their pasts mostly very deliberately hidden.

And heterosexual fascists continue to ask: "why is this important", as if one's sexuality doesn't impact one's work as an artist or public figure.

[quote] …if one's sexuality doesn't impact one's work as an artist or public figure…

Did Thomas Edward Lawrence's lack of sexuality impact his work as an army colonel?

Does being a repressed homo count as a lack of sexuality?

[quote] He was no Mozart.

He wasn't even a Schumann.

It's scary that utterly unreliable websites like Wikipedia and Quora are gaining ground as the go-to place for information for online users.

The leading entry on Quora's "Was Chopin Gay" page was writen by someone called Mohamed -- never a name that inspires confidence when dealing with homosexuality. And of course, the writer claims he isn't it. Fuck me dead.

[quote] Fuck me dead.

No, I will throw you from a seven storey building