This paperback documents the unique gala concert The Dream of Chopin, performed as music-with-a-story for piano and voice in Christ Church, Malvern (England) mid-July 2013. Chopin masterpieces are introduced by citing dramatic elements of Jenny Lind's life. The story reveals her real identity (the king's daughter), as well as the depth of her secret and tragic romance with Chopin (implicating George Sand and Wagner) and the power of the cult she later instigated to immortalize his oeuvre. - The script and its annotations and artworks draw on a large body of period information from many years of historical research by Icons of Europe, much not published or juxtaposed before. The booklet also contains a little cadenza probably written by Chopin during a singing lesson with Jenny Lind who, incognito, was his pupil in 1841-1842. The concert and the booklet provide new insight into the life and legacy of both Jenny Lind and Chopin and into the cultural evolution of the 19th century.

A new look at the life, times, and music of Polish composer and piano virtuoso Fryderyk Chopin Fryderyk Chopin (1810–49), although the most beloved of piano composers, remains a contradictory figure, an artist of virtually universal appeal who preferred the company of only a few sympathetic friends and listeners. Chopin and His World reexamines Chopin and his music in light of the cultural narratives formed during his lifetime. These include the romanticism of the ailing spirit, tragically singing its death-song as life ebbs; the Polish expatriate, helpless witness to the martyrdom of his beloved homeland, exiled among friendly but uncomprehending strangers; the sorcerer-bard of dream, memory, and Gothic terror; and the pianist's pianist, shunning the appreciative crowds yet composing and improvising idealized operas, scenes, dances, and narratives in the shadow of virtuoso-idol Franz Liszt. The international Chopin scholars gathered here demonstrate the ways in which Chopin responded to and was understood to exemplify these narratives, as an artist of his own time and one who transcended it. This collection also offers recently rediscovered artistic representations of his hands (with analysis), and—for the first time in English—an extended tribute to Chopin published in Poland upon his death and contemporary Polish writings contextualizing Chopin's compositional strategies. The contributors are Jonathan D. Bellman, Leon Botstein, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Halina Goldberg, Jeffrey Kallberg, David Kasunic, Anatole Leikin, Eric McKee, James Parakilas, John Rink, and Sandra P. Rosenblum. Contemporary documents by Karol Kurpiński, Adam Mickiewicz, and Józef Sikorski are included.

Nearly 300 letters reveal Chopin as both man and artist and illuminate his fascinating world — Europe of the 1830s and 1840s. "Delightful gossip . . . merry rather than malicious . . . engagingly witty." — Books. Preface. Index.

In this indispensable volume, fourteen intellectually compelling essays consider Kate Chopin's life and art from a variety of critical perspectives—biographical, New Historicist, materialist, poststructuralist, feminist—with several of the pieces focusing on Chopin's classic novel, The Awakening.

Dynamic contrast is featured in this flowing, "Reflective" song for the late elementary pianist. The hands drift dreamily, sometimes hand-over-hand, in a call-and-echo fashion, with overlapping pedal and long phrases.

In this indispensable volume, fourteen intellectually compelling essays consider Kate Chopin's life and art from a variety of critical perspectives—biographical, New Historicist, materialist, poststructuralist, feminist—with several of the pieces focusing on Chopin's classic novel, The Awakening.