Chopin: Letters from Majorca
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) spent most of his adult life in Paris, in exile from his beloved native Poland, which was then under Russian control. Among the many love relationships that formed an important part of the composer’s life, the longest and best known was his nine-year liaison with the writer George Sand (pseudonym of Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant). During their tumultuous love affair, she was witness to the composition of several masterpieces of Chopin’s maturity, including the 24 Preludes, opus 28. These musical jewels were composed or completed during a disastrous three-month stay in Majorca, where George Sand had brought Chopin in the hope that he would recover from tuberculosis.
In this program, the lovers’ letters, diaries, and reminiscences are interwoven with a performance of the composer’s complete 24 Preludes, offering an intimate look into the inner dramas of two artists in physical and emotional exile.
Chopin: Letters from Majorca was part of our 2008-2009 and 2004-2005 Seasons.
2008-2009 Season
Artists in Exile
Ensemble for the Romantic Century celebrated its eighth season by examining the lives of exiled artists. Exile can take many forms. It can be political or spiritual, or it can be caused by an isolating physical condition. Artists in exile sometimes withdraw into themselves, as was the case of the exiled Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who said that “the condition we call exile accelerates tremendously one’s otherwise professional flight-or drift- into isolation, – into an absolute perspective: into the condition in which all one is left with is oneself and one’s own language, with nobody or nothing in between.” Yet some exiled artists become mediators between the culture or situation they have left behind and the new one in which they find themselves. They take from and contribute to their new worlds, transforming their experience as exiles into artistic expression and in some cases into political activism.
More from our 2008-2009 Season: