CHOPIN, PRINCE OF THE ROMANTICS
Few composers elicit such strong emotions as Chopin. Few have been more revered and cherished. And few had had so much sentimental nonsense written about them. Adam Zamoyski’s compelling new biography cuts through the mass of anecdote and myth that has sprung up around the composer’s life and the ebullient and striking personalities of Romantic Paris among whom he lived, which included Liszt, Berlioz, Victor Hugo and George Sand, in search of the real Chopin. Zamoyski brings to the subject an unrivalled knowledge of the historical, social and cultural background of the composer’s native Poland as well as of France in which he spent most of his creative life. He has scoured the archives of Warsaw, Krakow, Paris and London in his quest for the truth, and has based his account exclusively on primary sources and contemporary accounts.
The result is a biography of authority, perception and wit. Chopin emerges from the sugary romantic mist in which he has been shrouded as a real, palpable personality, a man of intelligence and humour; in music and innovator of genius; in business a feckless spendthrift; in love hesitant and tender; in friendship passionately loyal but often intolerably exacting. Through a close reading of his letters and the use of everyday detail, Zamoyski draws the reader into the private world of this most complicated and reticent of men – ‘a man made for intimacy’, as the poet Heinrich Heine called him – and reveals the real passion, suffering and ultimate tragedy of his life.
Extracts from reviews of CHOPIN, PRINCE OF THE ROMANTICS
‘Zamoyski’s highly readable account brings non-technical insights to the music itself and he is superb at conveying what is known of Chopin’s own playing. Cutting through the sugary image that still mars Chopin’s reputation in some quarters, he shows how the composer’s gods were Bach and Mozart, not the ‘father’ of musical Romanticism, Beethoven.’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Scholarly yet highly readable’.
The Economist
‘Such a biography is really successful only if it manages to enhance a reader’s understanding and enjoyment of the music. Zamoyski does not describe a single bar of Chopin, but in drawing a close, intimate and thoroughly absorbing portrait of the man, he had me bounding between pages to the CD player where I found new levels of pathos emerging from the music. … a thoughtful, lively and moving account of an extraordinary and exceptional man…’
Mail on Sunday
‘Zamoyski is terrific at probing the subtle contradictions of Chopin.’
Evening Standard
‘Those seeking to revisit the genius of the man who Camille Saint-Saëns described as; the sweet evening star that shone only for a moment’ could do no better than to have this book at their side.’
Daily Telegraph