This multidisciplinary collection addresses Chopin's life and oeuvre in various cultural contexts of his era. Fourteen original essays by internationally-known scholars suggest new connections between his compositions and the intellectual, literary, artistic, and musical environs of Warsaw and Paris. Individual essays consider representations of Chopin in the visual arts; reception in the United States and in Poland; analytical aspects of the mazurkas and waltzes; and political, literary, and gender aspects of Chopin's music and legacy. Several senior scholars represent the fields of American, Western European, and Polish history; Slavic literature; musicology; music theory; and art history.

Leading international scholars uncover the political, social, and aesthetic backdrop to Chopin's life and works.

About the Author

Halina Goldberg is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Indiana University. Her research centers on the musical and cultural environment of Chopin's Warsaw, performance practice issues, questions of reception, and the musical, social, and political creation of national constructs.

Reviews

Emanating from a 1999 interdisciplinary conference at Indiana University, Bloomington, these 13 essays are grouped under four headings: Memories, Images, and Dreams, Analytical Perspectives, Gender, Genre, Genius, and Chopin Appropriated. Likely of interest to inexperienced readers will be the comparison of Eugene (Eugene) Delacroix's 1837 self-portrait with his incomplete 1838 portrait of Chopin; the history of Waclaw Szymanowski's Chopin monument in Warsaw, which was unveiled in 1926, destroyed by the Germans in 1940, and reconstructed in 1958; the reception of Chopin's music with its national character as reflected in 19th-century Polish periodicals; and the spreading popularity of Chopin's music in the US from 1839 to 1900. More specialized essays propose that waltzes Chopin chose to publish were those depicting dancers' physical motions; describe contexts in which Chopin's music is found in ballet, cinema, and television; and examine the Polish spirit, Polish race, and Chopin as a wieszes, or prophet/patriot. Other articles propose that the forerunner of Chopin's nocturnes was the Italian vocal nocturne and investigate the meanings of 19th-century French thinking and whether it was exclusively masculine. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.December 2004

-- J. Behrens * The Glenn Gould School, The Royal Conservatory of Music *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253216281
Author Halina Goldberg
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press