February 22, 1810—Frederic Chopin—consumptive, bewildered lover of French writer George Sand, the Romantic genius who, together with the more flamboyant Franz Lizst, made the piano the instrument par excellence for mid-19th-century virtuosi—was born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, near Warsaw.
Or, at least, that’s what his birth certificate—written several weeks after the fact—says. The composer-pianist begged to differ, pointing to March 1 as his birthdate. Characteristically about his life, even that elemental fact is open to interpretation and challenge.
There is also the matter of the composer’s sexuality. Notwithstanding his affair of several years with Sand (the pseudonym adopted by Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin), some have speculated, on the basis of ardent youthful correspondence as well as his preference for male friends, that the composer might have gay, or at least bisexual.
At this point, any attempt to ferret out the truth is probably doomed—because of that age’s attitude toward anything outside heterosexual norms; notions of privacy that consigned many, many letters to the flames; and, simply, the passage of time (contemporaries, of course, can’t be interviewed at this juncture!).
The important thing about him, of course, is simply the music—meditative, free-flowing, at times heartbreaking—exhibiting some of the same qualities as one of my favorite jazz pianists, Bill Evans. And indeed, it turns out, the composer of “Waltz for Debby” and other great songs counted Chopin as one of his influences, and the Polish-born composer created his classical pieces in an improvisational style that prefigured jazz.
The sensitive, artistic Chopin is far removed from right-wing Patrick Buchanan, whose visage inspired one of my friends—who, by his own admission, tends toward the liberal, even leftist, side of the political spectrum—to admit that one fact, and one fact only, might make him vote for the cable rabble-rouser: “I’ve always wanted to see a guy who looks like a bartender in the White House.”
Imagine my surprise, then, in 1992, when I read that Pat Buchanan had listed Impromptu as one of his favorite films of recent years. What--the then-preferred candidate of the “Pitchfork Brigade” enjoying a biopic not just about cross-dressing Sand, but about the man who (in a phrase the commentator would probably use) lived in sin with her?
Nearly two decades later, I am—obviously—still not over my initial shock over this discovery. But if you ever have the chance to rent this sprightly film, I strongly urge you to do so.
It not only includes a typically brilliant performance by Judy Davis as the astonishingly prolific Sand, but an atypical—and marvelous--turn by Hugh Grant, when he was still first and foremost an actor, not the winsome rom-com leading man he became after Four Weddings and a Funeral. (Yes, there are the two stars in the image accompanying this post.)
After the latter film, there was a brief flurry of talk that Hugh might be the successor to Cary. Despite the contemporary actor’s considerable charm, such comparisons have done him little good.
But in one sense, a single leitmotif, if you will, runs through both Grants’ role—one that, as it happens, however one might regard his sexuality, also ran through Chopin’s life: suspicion of women.
What I love about Sarah Kernochan’s marvelously witty script for Impromptu is that it takes a life story—Chopin’s—that, because of its denouement (the pianist died at age 39, unable, because of political unrest and his declining health, to return to Poland), has all the potential in the world for a maudlin treatment, but instead—triumphantly—turns it into a delightful romp filled with arch repartee.
Chopin’s anxiety about women—and especially the potential for this one woman, Sand, to upend his life, with her strength and passion, in a way he’ll never understand—is established right from the first scene where they meet.
Chopin—who, because of his frailty and essential shyness, preferred small, intimate gatherings to the big halls that his decidedly randier friend Liszt played—is alarmed to find an unknown presence drinking in every note of his etudes and nocturnes. Just who are you? he asks:
Sand: “I am your slave, and you have summoned me with your music.”
Or, at least, that’s what his birth certificate—written several weeks after the fact—says. The composer-pianist begged to differ, pointing to March 1 as his birthdate. Characteristically about his life, even that elemental fact is open to interpretation and challenge.
There is also the matter of the composer’s sexuality. Notwithstanding his affair of several years with Sand (the pseudonym adopted by Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin), some have speculated, on the basis of ardent youthful correspondence as well as his preference for male friends, that the composer might have gay, or at least bisexual.
At this point, any attempt to ferret out the truth is probably doomed—because of that age’s attitude toward anything outside heterosexual norms; notions of privacy that consigned many, many letters to the flames; and, simply, the passage of time (contemporaries, of course, can’t be interviewed at this juncture!).
The important thing about him, of course, is simply the music—meditative, free-flowing, at times heartbreaking—exhibiting some of the same qualities as one of my favorite jazz pianists, Bill Evans. And indeed, it turns out, the composer of “Waltz for Debby” and other great songs counted Chopin as one of his influences, and the Polish-born composer created his classical pieces in an improvisational style that prefigured jazz.
The sensitive, artistic Chopin is far removed from right-wing Patrick Buchanan, whose visage inspired one of my friends—who, by his own admission, tends toward the liberal, even leftist, side of the political spectrum—to admit that one fact, and one fact only, might make him vote for the cable rabble-rouser: “I’ve always wanted to see a guy who looks like a bartender in the White House.”
Imagine my surprise, then, in 1992, when I read that Pat Buchanan had listed Impromptu as one of his favorite films of recent years. What--the then-preferred candidate of the “Pitchfork Brigade” enjoying a biopic not just about cross-dressing Sand, but about the man who (in a phrase the commentator would probably use) lived in sin with her?
Nearly two decades later, I am—obviously—still not over my initial shock over this discovery. But if you ever have the chance to rent this sprightly film, I strongly urge you to do so.
It not only includes a typically brilliant performance by Judy Davis as the astonishingly prolific Sand, but an atypical—and marvelous--turn by Hugh Grant, when he was still first and foremost an actor, not the winsome rom-com leading man he became after Four Weddings and a Funeral. (Yes, there are the two stars in the image accompanying this post.)
After the latter film, there was a brief flurry of talk that Hugh might be the successor to Cary. Despite the contemporary actor’s considerable charm, such comparisons have done him little good.
But in one sense, a single leitmotif, if you will, runs through both Grants’ role—one that, as it happens, however one might regard his sexuality, also ran through Chopin’s life: suspicion of women.
What I love about Sarah Kernochan’s marvelously witty script for Impromptu is that it takes a life story—Chopin’s—that, because of its denouement (the pianist died at age 39, unable, because of political unrest and his declining health, to return to Poland), has all the potential in the world for a maudlin treatment, but instead—triumphantly—turns it into a delightful romp filled with arch repartee.
Chopin’s anxiety about women—and especially the potential for this one woman, Sand, to upend his life, with her strength and passion, in a way he’ll never understand—is established right from the first scene where they meet.
Chopin—who, because of his frailty and essential shyness, preferred small, intimate gatherings to the big halls that his decidedly randier friend Liszt played—is alarmed to find an unknown presence drinking in every note of his etudes and nocturnes. Just who are you? he asks:
Sand: “I am your slave, and you have summoned me with your music.”
Chopin: “Oh, yes. I think I know who you are: I have heard you described. Madame Sand, rumor has it you are a woman, and so I must ask you to leave my private chambers.”
Sand: “Have I offended your modesty? I apologize. Only play me one more piece and I'll go.”
Chopin: “No! This is ridiculously improper. And frightening, as well.”
Under James Lapine’s direction, Davis as Sand embodies less the spirit of one of Chopin’s swooning etudes than a late 20th-century American folk-rock song: Shawn Colvin’s “Climb On (A Back That’s Strong)”—i.e., hers.
Two other aspects of Chopin’s life and career—among many others—deserve mention.
First, he was a child prodigy, performing his first public concert by age seven. As I mentioned in a prior post on a major Chopin influence, Mozart (another prodigy who died before age 40), child prodigies leave me envious. At an age when they were figuring out the intricacies of a complicated instrument, I was lucky to be able to master a baseball scorecard.
Second, there was Chopin’s relationship to his homeland. As Clive James writes in Cultural Amnesia: “Chopin had been a pioneer of what was to become every talented Polish exile’s historical position: he was under continuous pressure to represent his country.” Though Chopin lived virtually all his short, adult life outside Poland, he requested to be buried in his native land, and today his musical achievements are—rightly—considered a significant source of national pride.
Under James Lapine’s direction, Davis as Sand embodies less the spirit of one of Chopin’s swooning etudes than a late 20th-century American folk-rock song: Shawn Colvin’s “Climb On (A Back That’s Strong)”—i.e., hers.
Two other aspects of Chopin’s life and career—among many others—deserve mention.
First, he was a child prodigy, performing his first public concert by age seven. As I mentioned in a prior post on a major Chopin influence, Mozart (another prodigy who died before age 40), child prodigies leave me envious. At an age when they were figuring out the intricacies of a complicated instrument, I was lucky to be able to master a baseball scorecard.
Second, there was Chopin’s relationship to his homeland. As Clive James writes in Cultural Amnesia: “Chopin had been a pioneer of what was to become every talented Polish exile’s historical position: he was under continuous pressure to represent his country.” Though Chopin lived virtually all his short, adult life outside Poland, he requested to be buried in his native land, and today his musical achievements are—rightly—considered a significant source of national pride.
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