- Chopin didn't actually like Fantasie-Impromptu. He thought just little of it (it is thought that he didn't have any inspiration anymore when he composed it or his frail health just became worse). He never permitted it to be published. But it was still published, though, posthumously.
- We all know that Chopin and Sand broke up because of a misunderstanding between the two. One very reliable source tells us that Sand in fact maneuvered Chopin into the mother-daughter quarrel. Sand intended it so Chopin will take the side of her daughter. This will then result into an estrangement.
- Another source contrasts to the one said above. Since Sand left her home, her children became jealous and undisciplined. So one of them plotted the said misunderstanding between the two, which caused the parting.
- Even before the break-up, Sand and Chopin already grew tensions and had small quarrels.
- It is assumed that Sand got bored of Chopin and didn't like him anymore because of his frail health (he was already coughing blood).
- Chopin really loves Sand. She is the inspiration I said above.
- Since he really loves Sand, he carried a lock of her hair till his death.
- Chopin was afraid to be buried alive. He told his sister to cut his body open after he dies. He said this just a few days before he passed away.
- He carries an urn filled with Polish soil. It was given to him by Elsner, his teacher in Warsaw. "May you never forget your native land wherever you may go, nor cease to love it with a warm and faithful heart, - Elsner."
- He told the people to sprinkle the soil from the urn on his grave. And it was done. He was buried in France but the soil was from Poland.
- His heart is already in Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw. It is preserved, and this is again done by his words.
- Chopin told his sister to burn all his unpublished manuscripts!
- When revolution broke out in Poland, he was in Vienna, then. So, he thought he might want to fight the Russians, too. He actually decided to go back since his friend who was living with him did so. But in the middle of the journey, he instructed the driver to turn back. He was convinced of the argument with his mother that he shouldn't come back because of his feeble health. So what he did, he poured his furiousness to the piano and composed the Revolutionary etude.
- When he came to Paris in 1831, the known composers were so excited of him. They planned his debut concert on January 25, 1832. But the Parisians didn't like his playing. One of the critics said that his playing was too soft and that there is "too much luxuriance in the modulation, and disorder in the linking of phrases". But some composers like Liszt, Mendelssohn, Berlioz etc. were fond of him.
- Since the Parisians didn't like him, he considered the thought of leaving France for America.
- Then he met Prince Radziwill, who persuaded him to stay, brought him to the salon of Baron Jacques de Rothschild. There, he was praised and was made to teach the children for 20 francs a lesson.
- He said himself that, "I give myself an impression of a violin's E string on a bass viol."
- He also stated, "Our best tuner has drowned himself - now I do not even have a piano tuned as I like it - All I have left is a big nose and an underdeveloped fourth finger."
- He had small fingers, but as someone stated, it stretched like the jaws of a snake. This astonished most pianists.
- Chopin was in fact surrounded with such beautiful things. Sand once wrote:
"To tear Chopin away from so many gateries, to associate him with a simple, uniform, and constantly studious life, he who had been brought up on the knees of princesses, was to deprive him of that which made him live, a factitious life, it is true." - Chopin visited many salons each night to play. He goes to about 20-30 salons a day just to satisfy himself.
- He was "great in small things" even though he was "small in great things" as someone said.
- Szopen is supposed to be his family name but then it was changed to a more Gallic Chopin.
- Schumann said that Chopin is "the boldest and most proudest poetic spirit of our time".
- Chopin adores Mozart. That is why Mozart's Requiem was played during his funeral.
- He once stated when he arrived in Paris: "I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi."
- He told Liszt once: "The crowd intimidates me. I feel asphyxiated by its breath, paralyzed by its curious looks, dumb before the strange faces."
- Berlioz said he was dying all his life.
- He fell in love with a popular singer but never spoke to her. Then he got secretly engaged to a young lady but her family wouldn't allow marriage for Chopin's insubstantial health.
- The love affair between Sand and Chopin was a scandal for Sand was "that woman" to most of Chopin's acquaintances.
- Sand and a few other people once saw him before his piano, his eyes wild and his hair almost standing on end. It was many moments later before he recognized them.
- He composed his piano concerto no. 2 before his piano concerto no. 1, the second was just published after the first.
- His first published work was Rondo in C major, op. 1 when he was 15.
- Chopin once wrote to a friend after his break-up with Sand, "I do my best to work, but it just won't do. If I go on like this, my new works will not remind you of warbling birds and not even of broken china. - I work a little. I scratch a lot."
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