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Frédéric Chopin Quotes

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has maintained renown worldwide as a leading musician of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw and grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.

At 21 he settled in Paris. Thereafter, during the last 18 years of his life, he gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by teaching piano, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann. In 1835 he obtained French citizenship. After a failed engagement to Maria Wodzińska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French woman writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with Sand in 1838–39 was one of his most productive periods of composition. In his last years, he was financially supported by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. Through most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health. He died in Paris in 1849, at the age of 39, probably of tuberculosis.

All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. His keyboard style is highly individual and often technically demanding; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin invented the concept of the instrumental ballade. His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, preludes and sonatas, some published only after his death. Influences on his composition style include Polish folk music, the classical tradition of J. S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert, as well as the Paris salons where he was a frequent guest. His innovations in style, musical form, and harmony, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period.

Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest superstars, his association with political insurrection, his love life and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era in the public consciousness. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy.

✵ 22. February 1810 – 17. October 1849   •   Other names Frédéric François Chopin
Frédéric Chopin photo
Frédéric Chopin: 30   quotes 117   likes

Famous Frédéric Chopin Quotes

Frédéric Chopin quote: “I tell my piano the things I used to tell you”

“I tell my piano the things I used to tell you”

Frédéric Chopin

“I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness.”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in Chopin.
Variant translation: I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness. And yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.
Variant: I wish I could throw off the thoughts that poison my happiness, and yet I love to indulge in them;
Source: Chopin's Letters

“Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.”

Frédéric Chopin

“Play Mozart in memory of me— and I will hear you.”

Frédéric Chopin

Murmured by Chopin on his death-bed.
Source: The opera reader, Biancolli, 1953, p. 271

“Time is still the best critic, and patience the best teacher.”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils.
Source: Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils (1986) by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Roy Howat, Naomi Shohet, and Krysia Osostowicz, p. 23

“It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin Quotes about music

“I could express my feelings more easily if they could be put into the notes of music, but as the very best concert would not cover my affection for you, dear daddy, I must use the simple words of my heart, to lay before you my utmost gratitude and filial affection”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in Chopin's Letter.
Source: Chopin's Letter (1988) by Henryk Opieński,E. L. Voynich, p. 4

“Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.”

Frédéric Chopin

Said to one of his students, according to "Chopin: Pianist and Teacher: As Seen by His Pupils" by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger

“I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country.”

Frédéric Chopin

Letter to Camille Pleyel.
Context: My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos... in this respect this is a savage country.

“My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos... in this respect this is a savage country.”

Frédéric Chopin

Letter to Camille Pleyel.
Source: (21 November 1838); published in Fryderyk Chopin, Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina (1955), edited by Bronisław Edward Sydow, (2 vols.), Vol. 1, p. 443

Frédéric Chopin Quotes about feelings

“How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life…. Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!… Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? … But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state…”

Frédéric Chopin

Stuttgart. After 8th September 1831.
Source: "Selected Correspondence Of Fryderyk Chopin"; http://archive.org/stream/selectedcorrespo002644mbp/selectedcorrespo002644mbp_djvu.txt

“How great a joy I feel in my heart. That a day so pleasant, so dear and glorious begins, a day that I greet with the wish. That long years may pass in happiness. In health and vigour, peacefully, successfully. May the gift of heaven fall richly upon you”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in his letter to his father, dated December 6th 1817[citation needed]

“I am cross and depressed, and people bore me with their excessive attentions. I can't breathe, I can't work; I feel alone, alone, alone, although I am surrounded. There are a whole lot of ladies, 70 to 80 year-old lords, but no young folk: they are all out shooting. One can't get out of doors because it has been raining and blowing for several days.”

Frédéric Chopin

Source: Cited in chopin-society.org.uk http://www.chopin-society.org.uk/articles/chopin-britain.htm

Frédéric Chopin Quotes

“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in If Not God, Then What?
Source: If Not God, Then What? (2007) by Joshua Fost, p. 93

Art

“Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in Chopin and the Swedish Nightingale.
Source: Jorgensen's Chopin and the Swedish Nightingale (2003), p. 26

Suffering , Despair

“You know how easily things grow out of nothing, when they pass through a mouth that smears them all over and makes something else out of them”

Frédéric Chopin

Source: Chopin's Letters

“When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”

Frédéric Chopin
Teachers , Appearance , Time , Patience

“You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in his letter to Jan Bialoblocki, written in Zelazowa Wola and dated back to December 24th 1826[citation needed]

“I have met Rossini, Cherubini, Baillot, etc.—also Kalkbrenner. You would not believe how curious I was about Herz, Liszt, Hiller, etc. — They are all zero beside Kalkbrenner. I confess that I have played like Herz, but would wish to play like Kalkbrenner. If Paganini is perfection, Kalkbrenner is his equal, but in quite another style.”

Frédéric Chopin

His letter to Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn. Paris, 12 December 1831.

Perfection

“One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity… A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils.
Source: Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils (1986) by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Roy Howat, Naomi Shohet, and Krysia Osostowicz, p. 16

Beauty , Study

“I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted when he talked about his piano concerto, op.11.
Context: Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do wrong against my will. As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes, I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.

Love

“Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do wrong against my will.”

Frédéric Chopin

As quoted when he talked about his piano concerto, op.11.
Context: Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do wrong against my will. As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes, I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.

“Messieurs, I should like to be granted the favour of performing at one of your admirable concerts, and this I beg to ask of you. Trusting, since I lack other qualifications to obtain this, in your goodwill towards artists, I dare to hope that you will greet my request favourably, I have the honour to be, Messieurs, your very humble servant.
Frédéric Chopin
Cité Bergère, No. 4”

Frédéric Chopin

Letter of application to the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire.
Source: (13 March 1832); published in At the Piano with Fauré (1963) by Marguerite Long, p. 31

Hope

“But why should one be ashamed of writing badly in spite of knowing better – it’s results that shows errors”

Frédéric Chopin
Error

“I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.”

Frédéric Chopin

Quoted in Arthur Hedley, Chopin (1947).

Money

“I astonished Kalkbrenner, who at once asked me, was I not a pupil of Field, because I have Cramer's method and Field's touch.”

Frédéric Chopin

That delighted me.
His letter to Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn. Paris, 12 December 1831.

“Fingers of steel. Wrist of silk.”

Frédéric Chopin

“I must go now and wash. So don't embrace me now, as I haven't washed myself yet.”

Frédéric Chopin

Polish: To Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn (1830-09-04) https://chopin.nifc.pl/en/chopin/list/675_to-tytus-woyciechowski-in-poturzyn at Fryderyk Chopin Institute website.
Translation 1: Voynich, Ethel (1931). Chopin's Letters https://archive.org/details/chopinsletters00chop. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 102 https://archive.org/details/chopinsletters00chop/page/102
Translation 2: Zamoyski, Adam (1979, revised 2010). "4. Adolescent Passions", pp. 43ff in Chopin: Prince of the Romantics https://books.google.com/books?id=_OqgmBgPd5IC. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780007351824
Translation 3: Walker, Alan (2018). Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374714376, pp. 109 https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT109– 110 https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT110.
Translation 4: —
See also:
da Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna (19 November 2018). "An Ingenious Frédéric Chopin" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/books/review/fyderyk-chopin-alan-walker-frederic-chopin-biography.html in The New York Times.
Oltermann, Philip and Walker, Shaun (25 November 2020). "Chopin's interest in men airbrushed from history, programme claims: Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s letters" https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/25/chopins-interest-in-men-airbrushed-from-history-programme-claims in The Guardian.
Picheta, Rob (29 November 2020). "Was Chopin gay? The awkward question in one of the EU's worst countries for LGBTQ rights" https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/29/europe/chopin-sexuality-poland-lgbtq-debate-scli-intl/index.html at CNN.
Chilton, Louis (30 November 2020). "Frédéric Chopin’s same-sex love letters covered up by biographers and archivists, claims new programme: Swiss radio documentary explored evidence of the great composer’s attraction to men" https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/chopin-frederic-composer-gay-letters-b1761548.html in The Independent.
From Chopin's Polish letters
Original: (pl) Idę się umywać, nie całuj mię teraz, bom się jeszcze nie umył.
Original: (pl) Ty? chociażbym się olejkami wysmarował bizantyjskimi, nie pocałowałbyś, gdybym ja Ciebie magnetycznym sposobem do tego nie przymusił. Jest jakaś siła w naturze. Dziś Ci się śnić będzie, że mnie całujesz. Muszę Ci oddać za szkaradny sen, jakiś mi dziś w nocy sprowadził.

“Now I am going to wash myself. Please do not embrace me as I have not washed yet. And you? Even were I to anoint myself with fragrant oils from Byzantium, you would not embrace me—not unless forced to by magnetism. But there are forces in Nature! Today you will dream that you are embracing me! You have to pay for the nightmare you caused me last night!”

Frédéric Chopin

Translation 2: I'm going to wash myself, don't kiss me yet, while I haven't washed myself yet. – You? even when I would rub myself with Byzantine oil, you wouldn't kiss me, unless I'd force you with magnetic powers. There's a certain power in nature. Today you will dream you are kissing me. Payback time for the bad dream you caused me last night.
Translation 1: Walker, Alan (2018). Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374714376, pp. 109 https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT109– 110 https://books.google.com/books?id=6ThIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT110.
da Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna (19 November 2018). "An Ingenious Frédéric Chopin" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/books/review/fyderyk-chopin-alan-walker-frederic-chopin-biography.html in The New York Times.
Oltermann, Philip and Walker, Shaun (25 November 2020). "Chopin's interest in men airbrushed from history, programme claims: Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s letters" https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/25/chopins-interest-in-men-airbrushed-from-history-programme-claims in The Guardian.
Picheta, Rob (29 November 2020). "Was Chopin gay? The awkward question in one of the EU's worst countries for LGBTQ rights" https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/29/europe/chopin-sexuality-poland-lgbtq-debate-scli-intl/index.html at CNN.
Chilton, Louis (30 November 2020). "Frédéric Chopin’s same-sex love letters covered up by biographers and archivists, claims new programme: Swiss radio documentary explored evidence of the great composer’s attraction to men" https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/chopin-frederic-composer-gay-letters-b1761548.html in The Independent.
From Chopin's Polish letters
Original: (pl) Idę się umywać, nie całuj mię teraz, bom się jeszcze nie umył. Ty? chociażbym się olejkami wysmarował bizantyjskimi, nie pocałowałbyś, gdybym ja Ciebie magnetycznym sposobem do tego nie przymusił. Jest jakaś siła w naturze. Dziś Ci się śnić będzie, że mnie całujesz. Muszę Ci oddać za szkaradny sen, jakiś mi dziś w nocy sprowadził.
Source: Polish: To Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn (1830-09-04) https://chopin.nifc.pl/en/chopin/list/675_to-tytus-woyciechowski-in-poturzyn at Fryderyk Chopin Institute website.

Dreams , Night , Nature

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