♦ Seminar at CUNY, February 19, Intimate Exiles: Chopin and George Sand in Majorca, James Melo & Antoni Pizà , panelists

♦ Theatrical Concert, February 26 , Max Barros plays Chopin's 24 Preludes on an 1890 Pleyel piano

♦ Historical Background by James Melo

♦ Pleyel Pianos: Background information about Ignace Pleyel and his special pianos

♦ THEATRICAL CONCERT

CHOPIN: Letters from Majorca

A theatrical concert based on the letters, diaries, and memoirs of Chopin and his lover George Sand, featuring the performance of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, op. 28. performed on a 19th-century Pleyel piano, Chopin’s favorite instrument.

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 Chopin’s many love relationships, 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 during the winter of 1838-39. In this program, the lovers’ letters, diaries, and reminiscences will be 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.

Simon Fortin as Fryderyk Chopin
Lynne McCollough as George Sand
Max Barros, piano

Written by James Melo and directed by Donald T. Sanders
Production and Costume Design by Vanessa James
Pre-concert lecturer: James Melo

Eve Wolf & Max Barros, ERC Artistic Directors
James Melo, ERC musicologist

The Liederkranz Foundation
6 East 87th Street
Wed   Jan 21    8:00 pm     7:00 pm pre-concert lecture
$45 General Admission     $15 Students (with ID)

[purchase tickets]

♦ FREE SEMINAR

INTIMATE EXILES: CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND IN MAJORCA

ERC is in residence as a musicological affiliate to the Barry S. Brook Center for Music Research and Documentation at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Panelists:
James Melo, Senior Editor, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, CUNY Graduate Center
Antoni Pizà, Director of the Foundation for Iberian Music, CUNY Graduate Center

When Chopin agreed to go to the island of Majorca in 1838-39 in the company of his lover George Sand and her two children, following his doctor’s advice to search a better climate to help him recover from tuberculosis, they were full of hope that they would find an idyllic, paradisiacal place where they could relax and work together. Their hopes, however, remained sorely unfulfilled. They had the bad luck of arriving in the island during one of the severest winters on record, the locals became increasingly antagonistic to them, and their living conditions deteriorated steadily, until Chopin was on the verge of death. The seminar will examine the cultural and social contexts in Majorca at the time of their sojourn, the repercussions of George Sand’s biased memoir on the cultural milieu of Majorca, and the tormented compositional process that attended the creation of Chopin’s 24 Preludes.

Thu  Feb 19    5:30  - 7:30 pm
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Skylight Room, 9th fl.
Admission is free

♦ HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

By James Melo
The relationship between Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) and the French writer Aurore Dudevant (1805-1874), who became known to posterity under her nom de plume George Sand, was one of the most talked about affairs in the artistic circles of Paris during the early 19th century. Their liaison lasted eight years, from 1838 to late 1846. This period coincided with Chopin’s full maturity as a composer and with his growing fame as the darling of the Parisian salons. Both Chopin and George Sand were by then greatly admired artists. George Sand was one of the most respected writers in Europe, in addition to being active as a political advocate for social causes. She was also the mother of two children, Maurice and Solange, from her failed marriage to the aristocrat Casimir Dudevant in 1821. Chopin was an expatriate in Paris, full of longing for his native Poland, his parents (especially his mother), his siblings, and everything that related to his childhood and adolescence.

Chopin and George Sand had seen each other sporadically in the Parisian salons, for a period of fifteen months before their relationship began in earnest. It was in the spring of 1838 that their mutual attraction became clear, but their relationship remains puzzling in many ways. They had almost no sexual relations; however, throughout their relationship there was clearly a match between George Sand’s need to devote herself to someone (“to sacrifice herself” as she once said), and Chopin’s need to be mothered. The trip they took to Majorca in the fall and winter of 1838-39 was a pivotal moment in their lives. They had gone to the island hoping to improve Chopin’s health and also for a chance to be alone together and thus strengthen their incipient relationship. The journey proved to be disastrous in many ways, but it did offer them the chance to know each other a little better, far from the gossip of Parisian society.

It was during their stay in Majorca that Chopin completed the 24 Preludes that were later published as his opus 28. It is unclear how many of them he actually wrote while in Majorca, because the documentary history of their composition is scant and inconsistent. But it is certain that it was in Majorca that he finally completed the manuscripts for all of them. The circumstances under which these musical jewels were finished and polished were truly appalling. Both Chopin and George Sand were out of their milieu, far from the sophistication and comfort of Paris, and living under precarious conditions. Chopin worked for the most part with a rudimentary piano that they found in Palma, while he waited the arrival of a piano by Pleyel (his favorite model), which he had asked to be sent to the island because he expected to remain there for a relatively long time. However, the progression of Chopin’s tuberculosis forced them to leave Majorca and return to Paris only after a few months in the island. During the time they lived there, mostly in an abandoned Carthusian monastery in Valdemosa, George Sand literally became Chopin’s nurse. It was also during this trip that the seeds were sown for a growing stress in their relationship due to the jealousy of George Sand’s children, especially her younger daughter Solange. Later, as she looked back on this period of their lives, George Sand wrote a memoir (Un hiver à Majorque) that portrayed the island and its inhabitants in rather unflattering terms. The letters that survive from that period, both by her and Chopin, also reveal their growing disappointment and distress.

♦ PLEYEL PIANOS

Chopin wrote the Preludes with a Pleyel piano in mind.

The Pleyel firm of piano makers was founded in 1807 by Ignace Pleyel (1757-1831), a student and friend of Haydn and one of the most prolific composers of the late 18th century. Pleyel's decision to found his firm was motivated by a desire to adapt the piano to the new demands of the composers and performers of his time. He recognized that the profound changes in contemporaneous keyboard music required a new conception of piano building, and from 1807 onward he devoted himself exclusively to this activity. He soon was building pianos for the greatest performers of the time, as well as for the European nobility and high bourgeoisie. Upon his death in 1831, his son Camille Pleyel, himself and accomplished pianist, became head of the firm. It was under Camille's direction that the Pleyel firm acquired its international reputation, which remained undiminished throughout the 19th century.

Pleyel's pianos were renowned for the velvety quality of their sound, the highly distinct sound color of each of the registers (high, medium, and low), and their richly nuanced voicing. Pleyel pianos became extremely popular at European salons, some of which were established by Camille himself with the purpose of showcasing his instruments. While makers such as ƒrard began to cater to the wider audiences in the larger concert halls by making pianos capable of producing more powerful sonorities, Pleyel remained faithful to a sound ideal that was perfectly suited to the salon. Even in the late 19th century, when the Pleyel firm joined other European makers in incorporating technical and mechanical features that brought their pianos definitively within the scope of the concert hall, the firm insisted on retaining a sound quality that would unmistakably set their instruments apart from all others. The choice of wood, the layout of the strings, the covering of the hammers, and the voicing, among other features, continued to be treated according to the sound ideal that had been the firm's desideratum since its creation.

The warm sonority of the Pleyel pianos captivated several composers and pianists, and Chopin was particularly fond of Pleyel instruments, which he considered to be the ultimate in sound quality. Ravel, Debussy, Saint-Sa‘ns, were among other composers who favored Pleyel pianos over other makers.

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