The Age of Chopin: Interdisciplinary Inquiries

by Halina Goldberg (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253216281
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	05/07/2004
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

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.

Table of Contents

PREFACE
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION: "Chopin Then and Now: A Fantasy" Daniel Stone
PART I. Memories, Images, and Dreams
1. "Chopin at Home" Bozena Shallcross
2. "Delacroix's Portrait of Chopin as a Surrogate Self-Portrait" John Nici
3. "The Monument of Fryderyk Chopin: Concepts and Reality" Waldemar Okon
4. "'Remembering that tale of grief': The Prophetic Voice in Chopin's Music" Halina Goldberg
PART II. Analytical Perspectives
5. "Idiosyncrasies of Phrase Rhythm in Chopin's Mazurkas" Carl Schachter
6. "Dance and the Music of Chopin: The Waltz" Eric McKee
7. "Chopiniana and Music's Contextual Allusions" Marianne Kielian-Gilbert
PART III. Gender, Genre, Genius
8. "'Nuit plus belle qu'un beau jour': Poetry, Song, and the Voice in the Piano Nocturne" James Parakilas
9. "Gender and Genius in Post-revolutionary France: Chopin and Sand" Whitney Walton
PART IV. Chopin Appropriated
10. "Chopin Reception as Reflected in Nineteenth-Century Polish Periodicals: General Remarks" Zofia Chechlinska
11. "The Polish Reception of Chopin's Biography by Franz Liszt" Irena Poniatowska
12. "Chopin and the 'Polish Race': On National Ideologies and Chopin Reception" Maja Trochimczyk
13. "'A composer known here but to few': Reception and Performance Styles of Chopin's Music in America, 1839-1900" Sandra P. Rosenblum
Contributors
Index

Editorial 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 Eugène (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

From the Publisher

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 Eugène (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

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

"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 Eugène (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." —J. Behrens, The Glenn Gould School, The Royal Conservatory of Music, Choice, December 2004

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

Choice