E!
Launched	July 31, 1987 as Movietime, June 1, 1990 as E! (U.S.) December 2, 2002 (Germany)
Owned by	NBCUniversal
Slogan	Everything entertainment.
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California, United States
Formerly called	Movie Time (1987–1990)
Sister channel(s)	NBC NBCUniversal Cable Networks
Website	http://www.eonline.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV (US)	Channel 236 (SD/HD) Channel 1236 (VOD)
DirecTV (Latin America)	Channel 222
Dish Network (US)	Channel 114 (SD/HD)
Dish Network Mexico	Channel 212
Sky (UK & Ireland)	Channel 151
SKY Italia (Italy)	Channel 129
Foxtel (Australia)	Channel 121
Austar (Australia)	Channel 121
SKY Network Television (New Zealand)	Channel 011
DStv (Southern Africa)	Channel 124
CanalSat (France)	Channel 29
TrueVisions (Thailand)	Channel 53
Astro Nusantara (Indonesia)	Channel 46
Astro (Malaysia)	Channel 712 (SD) Channel 742 (HD)
Cyfrowy Polsat (Poland)	Channel 32
NOVA (Greece)	Channel 210
Digiturk (Turkey)	Channel 112
TotalTV (Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Macedonia)	Channel 17 (Serbia)
Dialogtv (Sri Lanka & Canada)	Channel 19
SKY Brasil (Brasil)	Channel 33
TVCabo (Portugal)	Channel 75
Net Digital (Brasil)	Channel 84
Tring Digital (Albania)	Channel 30
yes (Israel)	Channel 26
Orbit Showtime (Arab World)	channel385
Indovision (Indonesia)	Channel 242
Dolce (Romania)	Channel 144
Bell TV (Canada)	Channel 621
TVCable (Ecuador)	Channel 20
Cable
First Media (Indonesia)	Channel 70
Available on most cable systems	Check local listings
UPC Ireland	Channel 501
Virgin Media (United Kingdom)	Channel 156
StarHub TV (Singapore)	Channel 441
HOT (Israel)	Channel 31
TelstraClear InHomeTV (New Zealand)	Channel 11
UPC (Netherlands)	Channel 115
UPC Austria	Channel 148
UPC Romania	Channel 54
naxoo (Switzerland)	Channel 33
UPC Poland	Channel 113
SBB Serbia	Channel 311
SkyCable (Philippines)	Channel 57
Verizon FiOS
IPTV
AT&T U-Verse (US)	Channel 134 (SD) Channel 1134 (HD)
Now TV (Hong Kong)	Channel 531
Vodafone Casa TV (Portugal)	Channel 102
Fetch TV (Australia)	Channel 118
A1 Kabel TV (Austria)	Channel 519
meo (Portugal)	Channel 84 (SD) Channel 83 (HD)

E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.

E! currently has an audience reach of 88 million cable and satellite viewers in the U.S. and 600 million homes internationally.

History[link]

E! Entertainment Television was founded by Larry Namer and Alan Mruvka.^[1][2]

The network launched on July 31, 1987 as Movietime, a service that aired movie trailers, entertainment news, event and awards coverage, and interviews as an early example of a national barker channel.^[3] Early Movietime hosts included Greg Kinnear, Paula Abdul, Katie Wagner, Julie Moran, Suzanne Kay (daughter of Diahann Carroll), Mark DeCarlo, Sam Rubin and Richard Blade. Three years later, in June 1990, Movietime was renamed E! Entertainment Television^[4] to emphasize its widening coverage of the celebrity-industrial complex, contemporary film, television and music, daily Hollywood gossip, and fashion.

Controlling ownership was originally held by a consortium of five cable companies (Comcast, Continental Cablevision, Cox Cable, TCI, and Warner Cable), HBO/Warner Bros., and various founding shareholders, with HBO directly programming and managing the network. In 1989, after Time-Life bought Warner Brothers to fend off a takeover bid by Paramount, the new Time Warner company held four of the eight major ownership positions and took over management control of Movietime and renamed the network E! Entertainment Television. In 1997, Comcast, one of the minority partners, teamed up with The Walt Disney Company to buy the channel after Time-Warner had exercised their put agreement.^[5] In November 2006, Comcast (which eventually had the largest ownership stake in most of the network through mergers of forerunners of TCI and Continental under various circumstances) acquired Disney's 39.5% share of E! for $1.23 billion to gain full ownership of the network as part of a broader programming carriage agreement between Disney/ABC and Comcast.^[6]

Comcast Entertainment Group, the company's television unit, became a division of NBCUniversal Television Group, after Comcast acquired a 51% majority stake in NBCUniversal in January 2011.^[7] E!'s only sister networks prior to the NBC Universal merger were Style Network and G4, along with Comcast's sports networks: Versus, Comcast SportsNet and Golf Channel. In the case of Versus, E! staff produced that network's Sports Soup, while the Orlando-based Golf Channel featured no crossovers with E! at all due to incompatible audiences and operations. Versus and Golf Channel were taken under the direct control of the NBC Sports division, with the former being renamed NBC Sports Network in January 2012, and are no longer connected to their former sister networks beyond advertising and in-house operations.

On July 9, 2012, E! will undergo a brand refresh with the introduction of a revised logo (the first change to its logo since the network rebranded as E! in 1990), removing the exclamation mark background behind the "E" but retaining the exclamation point underneath, along with a new slogan "Pop of Culture"; the brand refresh will coincide with the premiere of the music-based reality series Opening Act. In addition, the network will eventually introduce scripted series programming, in addition to its existing reality and documentary series. The changes were announced during E!'s programming upfront presentation on April 30, 2012.^[8]

Programming[link]

News[link]

E! is one of the only U.S. general-entertainment cable channels that broadcasts a daily news program; its flagship entertainment news program is E! News, which debuted on September 1, 1991. The weekday program (which also has an hour-long weekend edition) features stories and gossip about celebrities, and the film, music and television industry, and has been broadcast under various formats since its launch, even being aired live for a time in the mid-2000s. First hosted by Dagny Hultgreen, it has been hosted by Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic since 2006.

E! News was the only entertainment news show on the channel for much of its history, until 2006 when the channel launched The Daily 10, hosted by Sal Masekela and Catt Sadler (Debbie Matenopoulos also co-hosted from the show's inception until 2008); the series was cancelled in September 2010 after E! announced that the weekday editions of E! News would be expanded to one hour starting on October 25, 2010,^[9] and in the midst of controversy over a joke by Loveline co-host Mike Catherwood, who filled in for Masekela on the show frequently during 2010, that openly gay singer and ex-American Idol contestant Adam Lambert would enjoy being in jail with all men, during a story on the September 17, 2010 edition of The Daily 10 on an altercation Lambert allegedly had with a paparazzi.

Outside of E! News telecasts, the channel runs an E! News-branded ticker displaying entertainment news headlines each half-hour during regular programming (except during airings of E! News and The Soup, and the channel's early morning infomercial block), which is updated daily; fast-breaking entertainment headlines (e.g., celebrity arrest or death) may also be displayed on a ticker, during any program when warranted.

Original series[link]

E! is known for its live red carpet pre-shows for the industry's three prominent award shows, the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards, famous for its fashion critiques by Joan Rivers; Rivers has also hosted post-awards specials titled Fashion Police, which became a regular weekly series in September 2010. The network also produces a decent amount of documentary and biographical series, most notably E! True Hollywood Story; many of E!'s original specials are entertainment-related ranging from light fare such as 25 Cutest Child Stars All Grown Up to serious fare such as 15 Most Unforgettable Hollwood Tragedies. It also produces specials centering on investigative and crime stories including E! Investigates, which features topical investigative reports on subjects ranging from child prostitution to teenage pregnancy.

In recent years, the network has become popular for its reality television programs. Its most popular series as of 2011 is Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which has spawned three spinoffs (Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami, Kourtney and Kim Take New York, and Khloe and Lamar). Other reality programs that have aired on E! include The Anna Nicole Show, Sunset Tan, Gastineau Girls, The Girls Next Door (which itself has spawned two spinoffs Holly's World and Kendra), The Spin Crowd, Married to Rock, and most recently, Ice Loves Coco, and Dirty Soap.

E! airs three comedy programs: the late night talk show Chelsea Lately, hosted by comedienne Chelsea Handler, its spinoff After Lately, and The Soup (based on the popular 1991-2002 E! series Talk Soup), featuring clips of the previous week's TV shows with humorous commentary delivered by the host, actor/comedian Joel McHale.

Uncharacteristic for any television network, E! airs the full credits of the current program at the show's beginning rather than the end; some programs, most prominently E! News, air their copyright tags in a similar fashion, and many series often feature production company credits at the start of the final segment of a program. However, feature films airing on the channel display the credits at the traditional end of program placement.

Acquired series[link]

Over the years, E! has occasionally run acquired programming including reruns of Alice, Absolutely Fabulous, several 20/20 news programs from ABC, and edited 60-minute versions of Saturday Night Live, though fewer of these programs currently air. The only programming currently airing on E! that they do not produce are reruns of the former HBO series Sex and the City and films under the banner "Movies We Love"; the latter was part of a since-abandoned initiative by the network to use films to increase their ratings. The network has also begun to air second runs of NBC series such as The Voice, Fashion Star, Whitney, and Are You There, Chelsea?, and in the past has aired previews of G4 programming to give that network an extended promotional platform due to their lower carriage due to being removed from DirecTV in November 2010.

E! HD[link]

The network launched a high definition simulcast on December 8, 2008, like the rest of E!'s sister lifestyle and sports networks owned by former parent Comcast Entertainment Group and subsequently the NBC cable networks, airing in the 1080i format. Currently filmed content and all of the network's post-2010 content, along with limited pre-2010 content are carried in the format, with HD programming airing in a letterbox format on the SD channel (films remain in 480i due to contractual or technical reasons). The HD feed is available in the United States on DirecTV,^[10] Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, and AT&T Uverse; and in Malaysia on Astro.

During E!'s run as a broadcast service in Canada, the E! Ontario version of the service until the December 2008 discontinuation of the E! broadcast television system was available in HD over Hamilton, Ontario-based CHCH-TV (channel 11) on their channel 18 digital signal.

E! Online[link]

E! Online is the online arm of E!, featuring live updates on entertainment news stories; the website includes a online-only entertainment news bulletin titled E! News Now, which is updated each weekday. The website also provides live streaming video of major red carpet events including movie premieres and award shows such as the Academy Awards and the Emmys, along with some blogs involving shows such as The Soup. Columnists featured on the website include Kristin dos Santos (the "Watch with Kristin" television blog), Ted Casablanca ("The Awful Truth" gossip blog) and Marc Malkin (writer of an eponymous gossip blog and host of a daily videoblog on the site).

As part of the rebrand of the cable channel on July 9, 2012, EOnline.com will undergo a redesign their website to be compatible for tablet computers.^[11]

International versions[link]

Canada[link]

Unlike most international cable channels that have licensed an American cable channel's branding and programming, E! has existed as two separate television channels in Canada.

On September 7, 2007, Canwest Global Communications rebranded its CH television system as E!. CH originally launched on February 12, 2001 by CHCH/Hamilton, Ontario as a secondary service of the Global Television Network; the CH/E! system would later include four additional Canwest-owned stations in Quebec (CJNT/Montreal), British Columbia (CHEK/Victoria and CHBC/Kelowna) and Alberta (CHCA/Red Deer), and three affiliates owned by Jim Pattison Group in British Columbia (CKPG/Prince George and CFJC/Kamloops) and Alberta (CHAT/Medicine Hat). The E! television system shut down on September 1, 2009 due to low ratings and corporate financial difficulties that eventually led to Canwest filing for bankruptcy protection and selling its properties to Shaw Media; the E! O&O stations experienced varied fates (CHCH and CJMT were sold to Channel Zero, CHEK was sold to an employee-led group; CHBC remained with Canwest and was converted into a Global O&O, and CHCA ceased operations outright), while the Pattison Group stations affiliated with the Rogers Media-owned Citytv system.^[12] As E!, local news and other regional programming as well as most local community sponsorships on the O&O station used local branding (using the callsign branding scheme common with Canadian stations not owned by a network or television system); this decision was at least partly made to avoid confusion with E! News, but likely intended to ensure that local newscasts were not perceived as celebrity-oriented.

The E! brand would later return to Canada on November 1, 2010, when CTVglobemedia (whose assets are now owned by Bell Media) signed a multi-year/multi-platform agreement with Comcast to rebrand Category 2 specialty channel Star! (which had a similar format to E! U.S. and had carried some of its programming prior to the 2007 rebranding of CH) into a Canadian version of E! on November 29, 2010.^[13]

See also[link]

• ReelzChannel - an American digital cable and satellite channel that has the same concept as original Movie Time.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• E! Online International Official Site
• E! – Latin America Official Site (In Spanish)
• Wikinews interview with Michael Musto about the art of celebrity journalism

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Vasco Rossi (born 7 February 1952), also known as Vasco or with the nickname Il Blasco, is an Italian singer-songwriter. During his career, he has published 26 albums (not including unofficial releases) and has written over 150 songs, as well as lyrics for other artists. He calls himself a "provoca(u)tore" (an Italian portmanteau for "provoking author") as throughout his career he has been regularly criticized over his choice of lifestyle and the lyrics in his songs.

Biography[link]

Vasco Rossi was born in Zocca, in the province of Modena (Emilia-Romagna). His father, Carlo Rossi, was a truck-driver, and his mother, Novella, a housewife. It was his mother herself who decided to enroll him in singing school when he was a little boy, a choice that must have seemed rather peculiar within the mentality of a small village in the Apennines like Zocca. Nonetheless, Rossi fell in love with music and at the age of 14 began playing with his first band.

Rossi and his family moved to Bologna, Italy, where he studied accounting in high school. Upon graduating he opened a music club, Punto Club, and enrolled in university at the faculty of Economics and Business. In the meantime he supported himself by working as a DJ and founding, along with friends, one of the first private radio stations in Italy, "Punto Radio", with which he began slowly and timidly showcasing his own songs.

Encouraged by his friend Gaetano Curreri (now leading member of Italian rock band Stadio), Rossi released his first EP on 13 June 1977, which included the songs "Jenny è pazza" (Jenny is crazy) and “Silvia", and a full-length album in 1978, Ma cosa vuoi che sia una canzone ("What do you think a song is"). In 1979, he released a second album, Non siamo mica gli americani ("It's not, like, we are the Americans"), which included, "Albachiara" ("Cleardawn"), one of his biggest hits, and a ballad considered emblematic of Rossi’s poetic style. His most controversial album, Colpa d'Alfredo ("Alfredo's fault") followed in 1980; its title-track was censored from the radio and let loose bitter criticism because it contained some lyrics referring to women considered too explicit at that time. The controversy actually increased Rossi’s popularity, and he quickly saw himself famous on a national level, particularly after performing live on Domenica In, a popular Italian television program. The performance did not particularly please journalist Nantas Salvalaggio, who published a scathing article against Rossi calling him drug-addict. Rossi argued that Salvalaggio evidently did not understand his music and remarked how easy it is to criticize a still unknown artist who cannot defend himself.

In 1981, the album Siamo solo noi ("It's only us") was released. The title track, another signature song of his, would become commonly recognized as a generational hymn.

In 1982, Rossi took part for the first time in the Sanremo Music Festival, performing the song "Vado al massimo" ("I'm taking it to the max"). Here, he once again found himself under the harsh criticism, and came in last place in the festival. In April of the same year the album Vado al Massimo was released. The following year, he reappeared at the Sanremo Music Festival, this time performing “Vita spericolata" (Daredevil Life), probably his most popular song, and finishing in second-to-last place due to his apparent state of intoxication. The following album, Bollicine ("Little Bubbles"), published in 1983, was his sixth in seven years, and was the album that consecrated him definitively an idol of the new generation and an icon of Italian rock. The title track, whose lyrics are about Coke (but also demonstrate a clear assonance with cocaine), won the Festivalbar ‘83, and his tour that year was an enormous success.

To celebrate this positive period in his career, Rossi released his first live recording in 1984, Va bene, va bene così ("It’s alright, it’s alright this way"). In April, however, he was arrested on charges of drug possession. He was immediately granted provisional release from jail, but subsequently sentenced to 2 years and 8 months of probation. Shortly thereafter he released his next album, Cosa succede in città ("What goes on in town"), which became one of his weakest critically and did not reach past sales.

In 1987 Vasco Rossi’s ninth album, C'è chi dice no ("There Are Some Who Say ‘No’"), was released; the ever-increasing numbers of fans showing up to his concerts forced him to quit performing in clubs and normal-sized venues and begin the era of something for which he is known to this day—playing in and selling out big arenas and stadiums.

His tenth studio album, Liberi liberi ("[we are] Free, Free"), followed in 1989. The success of his 1989 tour brought the release of the live album Fronte del palco (a pun of the Italian title of Marlon Brando's film "Waterfront" which was "Fronte del porto", and thus meaning "Stage Front") and the organization of two concerts in 1990, one at the San Siro stadium in Milan and the other at the Flaminio in Rome.

Rossi's next album, Gli spari sopra ("The shots above"), released in 1993, went platinum ten times. The title track, which was a major hit, is a cover version of Celebrate by the Irish band An Emotional Fish. In 1994 he gave the unreleased "Senza Parole" ("Without Words") as a gift to members of his official fan-club.

In 1995, Rossi was again the star at San Siro with a double concert, Rock sotto l'assedio ("Rock under siege"), which protested the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rossi invited a few Bosnian bands like Sikter, Lezi Majmune and Protest to perform but was heavily criticized by the press because the proceeds weren't given to charity, despite the fact they were never meant to.

In 1996, Rossi recorded a new studio album, Nessun Pericolo... Per Te ("No Danger... For You"), featured songs “Sally” and "Gli angeli" ("The Angels"), (the video of the latter was directed by Roman Polanski).

In 1998 Rossi rediscovered his singer-songwriter side, recording and releasing the album Canzoni per me ("Songs for me") with a softer and less “rock” sound, even remaking never-published songs written at the beginning of his career. The nature of the songs, however, did not impede Rossi from winning his second Festivalbar with the song, "Luna per te" ("Moon for you"). Given the low propensity of these songs to fit in his live show with the songs his fans had up to that time become accustomed, he decided to hold just one concert in 1998, accepting the proposal to be a guest star on the first evening of the new Heineken Jammin' Festival in Imola, Italy. The evening is immortalized in both video and in the 1999 live album Rewind. A few days into the tour, Rossi’s inseparable friend, as well as guitarist and writer/cowriter of many songs and lyrics, Massimo Riva, died unexpectedly. He would be remembered and celebrated by Rossi and fans in nearly every concert that followed.

In 2001, Stupido Hotel ("Stupid Hotel"), was released, and Rossi won his third Festivalbar, this time with the song “Siamo Soli” ("We are alone"). In 2002 Rossi released his first official recording of remastered songs in their original version, Tracks, which was followed by three sold-out performances at San Siro Stadium in Milan. His album Buoni o cattivi ("Good or Bad Ones") was the most successful album in Italy in 2004.

On 12 May 2005, Milan’s IULM conferred an honorary degree in Communication Sciences to Vasco Rossi.

On 9 September 2005, Rossi released the double DVD È solo un Rock'n'Roll show ("It’s Only a Rock’n’Roll Show") with Andrea Lehotská, launching the concept of the ‘movieclip,’ in which all the songs from Buoni o cattivi (Good or Bad [guys])’ are used in a 2-hour long music video. Three months later, Buoni o cattivi live anthology 04.05 was released, a comprehensive box-set comprising a double CD and a triple DVD, recorded live from the record-setting Buoni o cattivi tour of 2004 and 2005. In December 2005 he returned to his home town of Zocca, , where his childhood friends and the rest of the community organized a tribute in his honor, including a photo display and other celebrations.

In 2007, he released the "Vasco Extended Play", that contains the hit single "Basta Poco" ("A Little Is Enough"). The EP topped the Italian FIMI Charts for 21 Weeks, making that the Italian best-selling single of 2007 thus far.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Vasco Rossi

In late 2009, SingStar Vasco Rossi was released.

On 4 May 2010 the "Corriere della Sera" reported Vasco Rossi as saying the American and British governments had been responsible for preventing him and other Italian musicians from becoming known in those countries. “Just as Bob Dylan was banned from playing in China, for 20 years I was barred from London. … It’s one of the many ‘presents’ that America left us after World War II. To favour the sale of American and British music to Italy and discourage the export of our talents abroad.”

In June 2011 Rossi announced he would be retiring from touring and live work although would continue to work in the music business. ^[1]

During 2011, Vasco's lawyers threatened to undertake legal actions against popular Italian satire website "Nonciclopedia", the italian version of Uncyclopedia, arguing that the rock star was offended by the contents of the page about him. On October 3rd 2011 the website shut down after repeated inquiries from the police to the site's admins. The news promptly ran across the web via thousands of tweets, blogposts and eventually spread on some Italian newspapers. ^[2][3]

He is an atheist^[4].

Official discography[link]

LPs[link]

• <<..Ma cosa vuoi che sia una canzone>> (1978)
• Non siamo mica gli americani (1979)
• Colpa d'Alfredo (1980)
• Siamo solo noi (1981)
• Vado al massimo (1982)
• Bollicine (1983)
• Va bene, Va bene così (1984)
• Cosa succede in città (1985)
• C'è chi dice no (1987)
• Liberi... Liberi (1989)
• 10.7.90 San Siro (1990)
• Fronte del palco (1990)
• Gli spari sopra (1993)
• Nessun pericolo... Per te (1996)
• Rock (1997)
• Canzoni per me (1998)
• Rewind (1999)
• Stupido Hotel (2001)
• Vasco Rossi Tracks (2002)
• Buoni o Cattivi (2004)
• Buoni o cattivi - Live Anthology 04.05 (2005)
• Il mondo che vorrei (2008)
• Vasco Rossi Tracks 2 (inediti & rarità) (2009)
• Vasco London Instant Live (2010)
• Vivere o niente (2011)
• L'altra metà del cielo (2012)

EPs and singles[link]

• "Jenny / Silvia" (1977)
• "La nostra relazione / ... E poi mi parli di una vita insieme" (1978)
• "Albachiara / Fegato, fegato spappolato" (1979)
• "Non l'hai mica capito / Asilo repubblic" (1980)
• "Voglio andare al mare / Brava" (1981)
• "Splendida giornata Remix" (1982)
• "Vado al massimo / Ogni volta" (1982)
• "Vita spericolata / Mi piaci perchè" (1983)
• "Brava Giulia / Blasco Rossi" (1987)
• "Non mi va Remix" (1987)
• "Gli spari sopra (Hard Attack Mix) / Delusa (Mode Mix) / Delusa (Club Mix)" (1993)
• "Gli spari sopra (Celebrate)/Delusa (Rock Party Mix) /Se è vero o no/ L'uomo che hai di fronte (B. Mix)" (1993)
• "Senza Parole Remix" (1994)
• "Senza Parole" (1994)
• "Vasco Remixed" (1996)
• "Gli angeli" (1996)
• "Praticamente perfetto Remix / Io Perderò Remix" (1996)
• "Quanti anni hai" (1998)
• "L'una per te" (1998)
• "Io no" (1998)
• "Rewind (single)" (1998)
• "La fine del millennio" (1999)
• "Buoni o Cattivi (single)" (2004)
• "Come Stai (single)" (2004)
• "Buoni o Cattivi Remix" (2004)
• "Un senso (single)" (2004)
• "Anymore (single)" (2004)
• "E... (single)" (2005)
• "Cosa vuoi da me remix" (2005)
• "Vasco Extended Play" (2007)
• "Basta poco" (2007)
• "Il mondo che vorrei (single)" (2008)
• "Gioca con me Remix" (2008)
• "Colpa del Whisky Remix" (2009)
• "Sto pensando a te" (2009)
• "Ad ogni costo" (2009)
• "Ho fatto un sogno" (2010)
• "Eh... già" (2011)
• "I soliti" (2011)
• "Manifesto futurista della nuova umanità" (2011)

DVDs[link]

• Rewind (1999)
• Vasco Rossi Tracks (2002)
• Vasco Rossi @ S. Siro 03 (2003)
• E' Solo Un Rock'N' Roll Show (2005)
• Buoni O Cattivi Live Anthology (2005)
• Fronte Del Palco - Live 90 (2006)
• Gli Spari Sopra Tour (2006)
• Vasco@Olimpico.07 27.28 giugno sold out (2007)
• Vasco Rossi. Il mondo che vorrei. Live (2008)

References[link]

1. ^ End of the road for rockstar Vasco Italy for Beginners, 27-06-2011
2. ^ "Vasco, ti presento l'Effetto Streisand". Attivissimo.blogspot.com. 2009-03-02. http://attivissimo.blogspot.com/2011/10/nonciclopedia-sospesa-avrebbe-diffamato.html. Retrieved 2011-11-08. 
3. ^ "Vasco fa chiudere Nonciclopedia La rete: «Mito di cartapesta»". Unita.it. 2008-09-20. http://www.unita.it/culture/vasco-fa-chiudere-nonciclopedia-br-la-rete-mito-di-cartapesta-1.337942. Retrieved 2011-11-08. 
4. ^ Il gionale, 11th August, 2011.

External links[link]

• Official website

Chopin at 25, by Maria Wodzińska, 1835

Frédéric François Chopin ( /ˈʃoʊpæn/; French pronunciation: [fʁe.de.ʁik ʃɔ.pɛ̃]; Polish: Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, also phonetically Szopen;^[1] 22 February or 1 March 1810^[2] – 17 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of French-Polish parentage. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music.^[3] Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, a village in the Duchy of Warsaw. A renowned child-prodigy pianist and composer, Chopin grew up in Warsaw and completed his music education there; he composed many mature works in Warsaw before leaving Poland in 1830 at age 20, shortly before the November 1830 Uprising.

Following the Russian suppression of the Uprising, he settled in Paris as part of Poland's Great Emigration. During the remaining 19 years of his life, Chopin gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon; he supported himself by sales of his compositions and as a piano teacher. After some romantic dalliances with Polish women, including an abortive engagement, from 1837 to 1847 he carried on a relationship with the French writer Amantine Dupin (pen name "George Sand"). For most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849 at age 39.

The vast majority of Chopin's works are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces and some songs to Polish texts. His piano works are often technically demanding, with an emphasis on nuance and expressive depth. Chopin invented the instrumental ballade and made major innovations to the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu, scherzo and prélude.

Life[link]

Childhood[link]

Chopin's birthplace at Żelazowa Wola.

Chopin's father, Nicolas Chopin, by Mieroszewski, 1829

In 1817–27 Chopin's family lived in this Warsaw University building, now adorned with Fryderyk's profile (center)

Mother, Justyna, by Mieroszewski, 1829

Chopin's father, Nicolas Chopin, was a Frenchman from Lorraine who immigrated to Poland in 1787 at the age of sixteen. During the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising, he served in the Warsaw municipal militia, rising to the rank of lieutenant. In France he had been baptized Nicolas, but in Poland he used the Polish form of the name, Mikołaj. Though he had come from a foreign country, with time he became completely polonized and, according to Łopaciński, "undoubtedly considered himself a Pole."^[4]

Nicolas subsequently tutored children of the aristocracy, including the Skarbeks, whose poor relation, Justyna Krzyżanowska, he married.^[5] The wedding took place at the 16th-century parish church in Brochów on 2 June 1806. (Justyna's brother would become the father of American Union General Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski.^[6][7])

Chopin was the couple's second child and only son. (The eldest child, Ludwika, was to become his first piano teacher, and several decades later was to repatriate his heart from Paris.) He was born at Żelazowa Wola, forty-six kilometres west of Warsaw, in what was the Duchy of Warsaw. The parish baptismal record, discovered in 1892, gives his birthday as 22 February 1810,^[8] but a date one week later, 1 March, was stated by the composer and his family as his birthday;^[9] according to Chopin in a letter of 16 January 1833 to the chairman of the Polish Literary Society in Paris,^[10] he was "born 1 March 1810 at the village of Żelazowa Wola in the Province of Mazowsze."^[11]

He was baptized on Easter Sunday, 23 April 1810, in the same Brochów church where his parents had married. The parish register cites his given names in the Latin form Fridericus Franciscus;^[8] in Polish, he was Fryderyk Franciszek. His godfather was Fryderyk Skarbek (1792–1866), a pupil of Nicolas Chopin's—later a prison reformer who would design the Pawiak Prison of World War II ill fame, and great-great-uncle of World War II SOE agent Krystyna Skarbek; the godfather's son Józef Skarbek would, in 1841, marry Chopin's erstwhile fiancée Maria Wodzińska.

In October 1810, when Chopin was seven months old, the family moved to Warsaw, where his father had accepted an offer from lexicographer Samuel Linde to teach French at the Warsaw Lyceum. The school was housed in the Saxon Palace, and the Chopin family lived on the palace grounds. In 1817 Grand Duke Constantine requisitioned the Saxon Palace for military purposes, and the Lyceum was moved to the Kazimierz Palace,^[12] which also hosted the newly founded Warsaw University. The family lived in a spacious second-floor apartment in an adjacent building. Chopin attended the Warsaw Lyceum from 1823 to 1826.

The Polish spirit, culture and language pervaded the Chopins' home, and as a result the son would never, even in Paris, perfectly master the French language.^[13][14] Louis Énault, a biographer, borrowed George Sand's phrase to describe Chopin as being "more Polish than Poland".^[15]

Others in Chopin's family were musically talented. Chopin's father played the flute and violin; his mother played the piano and gave lessons to boys in the elite boarding house that the Chopins maintained.^[13][16] As a result Chopin became conversant with music in its various forms at an early age.^[13]

Józef Sikorski, a musician and Chopin's contemporary, recalls in his Memoirs about Chopin (Wspomnienie Chopina) that, as a child, Chopin wept with emotion when his mother played the piano. By six, he was already trying to reproduce what he heard or make up new melodies.^[17] He received his earliest piano lessons not from his mother but from his older sister Ludwika (in English, "Louise").^[13]

Chopin's first professional piano tutor, from 1816 to 1822, was the Czech Wojciech Żywny.^[18] Though the youngster's skills soon surpassed his teacher's, Chopin later spoke highly of Żywny. Seven-year-old "little Chopin" (Szopenek) began giving public concerts that soon prompted comparisons with Mozart as a child and with Beethoven.^[13]

That same year, seven-year old Chopin composed two Polonaises, in G minor and B-flat major. The first was published in the engraving workshop of Father Izydor Józef Cybulski (composer, engraver, director of an organists' school, and one of the few music publishers in Poland); the second survives as a manuscript prepared by Nicolas Chopin. These small works were said to rival not only the popular polonaises of leading Warsaw composers, but the famous Polonaises of Michał Kleofas Ogiński. A substantial development of melodic and harmonic invention and of piano technique was shown in Chopin's next known Polonaise, in A-flat major, which the young artist offered in 1821 as a name-day gift to Żywny.^[13]

About this time, at the age of eleven, Chopin performed in the presence of Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, who was in Warsaw to open the Sejm (Polish Parliament).^[17]

As a child, Chopin displayed an intelligence that was said to absorb everything and utilize everything for its development. He early showed remarkable abilities in observation and sketching, a keen wit and sense of humor, and an uncommon talent for mimicry.^[13] A story from his school years recounts a teacher being pleasantly surprised by a superb portrait that Chopin had drawn of him in class.^[19]

In those years, Chopin was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of Russian Poland's ruler, Grand Duke Constantine, and charmed the irascible duke with his piano-playing.^[13] (A few years later, the Duke would flee the Belweder, just in the nick of time, at the very opening of the November 1830 Uprising, escaping the Polish officer cadets who rode up through the Royal Baths Park from their barracks in an effort to capture him.)

Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz attested to "little Chopin's" popularity in his dramatic eclogue, "Nasze Verkehry" ("Our Intercourse", 1818), in which the eight-year-old featured as a motif in the dialogues.^[13]

In the 1820s, when teenage Chopin was attending the Warsaw Lyceum and Warsaw Conservatory, he spent every vacation away from Warsaw: in Szafarnia (1824 – perhaps his first solo travel away from home – and 1825), Duszniki (1826), Pomerania (1827) and Sanniki (1828).^[20]

At the village of Szafarnia (where he was a guest of Juliusz Dziewanowski, father of schoolmate Dominik Dziewanowski)^[21] and at his other vacation venues, Chopin was exposed to folk melodies that he later transmuted into original compositions. His missives home from Szafarnia (the famous self-styled "Szafarnia Courier" letters), written in a very modern and lively Polish, amused his family with their spoofing of the Warsaw newspapers and demonstrated the youngster's literary gift.^[19]

An anecdote describes how Chopin helped quiet rowdy children by first improvising a story and then lulling them to sleep with a berceuse (lullaby) – after which he woke everyone with an ear-piercing chord.^[19]

• 

  Brochów Church: "In this sanctuary, on 23 April 1810, was baptized Fryderyk Chopin, born 22 February 1810 at Żelazowa Wola."

• 

  Chopin's first piano teacher, Ludwika.

• 

  Szafarnia manor where Chopin vacationed in 1824 and 1825

• 

  Wojciech Żywny, 1829

Education[link]

Józef Elsner after 1853

Chopin, tutored at home until he was thirteen, enrolled in the Warsaw Lyceum in 1823, but continued studying piano under Żywny's direction. In 1825, in a performance of the work of Ignaz Moscheles, he entranced the audience with his free improvisation, and was acclaimed the "best pianist in Warsaw."^[13]

In the autumn of 1826, Chopin began a three-year course of studies with the Silesian composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory, which was affiliated with the University of Warsaw (hence Chopin is counted among the university's alumni). Chopin's first contact with Elsner may have been as early as 1822; it is certain that Elsner was giving him informal guidance by 1823, and in 1826 Chopin officially began studying music theory, figured bass, and composition with Elsner.

In year-end evaluations, Elsner noted Chopin's "remarkable talent" and "musical genius." As had Żywny, Elsner observed, rather than influenced or directed, the development of Chopin's blossoming talent. Elsner's teaching style was based on his reluctance to "constrain" Chopin with "narrow, academic, outdated" rules, and on his determination to allow the young artist to mature "according to the laws of his own nature."^[22]

From 1827, the Chopins lived in south annex (left) of Warsaw's Krasiński Palace (middle, background).

In 1827 the family moved to lodgings just across the street from Warsaw University, in the south annex of the Krasiński Palace at Krakowskie Przedmieście 5 (the palace is now the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts). Here the parents continued running their elite boarding house for male students. Young Chopin lived here until he left Warsaw in 1830. (In 1837–39, artist-poet Cyprian Norwid would live here while studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts; later he would pen the poem, "Chopin's Piano", about Russian troops' 1863 defenestration of the instrument.^[23]) The Chopins' parlor (salonik Chopinów) is now a museum open to the public; here Chopin first played many of his early compositions.

Four boarders at his parents' apartments became Chopin's intimates: Tytus Woyciechowski, Jan Białobłocki, Jan Matuszyński and Julian Fontana. Chopin would share aspects of his Parisian life with the latter two.^[24]

In 1829, Polish portraitist Ambroży Mieroszewski executed a set of five portraits of Chopin family members (the youngest daughter, Emilia, had died in 1827): Chopin's parents, his elder sister Ludwika, younger sister Izabela, and, in the first known portrait of him, the composer himself. (The originals perished in World War II; only black-and-white photographs remain.) In 1913, French musicologist and Chopin biographer Édouard Ganche would write that this painting of the precocious composer showed "a youth threatened by tuberculosis. His skin is very white, he has a prominent Adam's apple and sunken cheeks, even his ears show a form characteristic of consumptives." Chopin's younger sister Emilia had already died of tuberculosis at the age of fourteen, and their father would succumb to the same disease in 1844.^[22][25]

According to Polish musicologist and Chopin biographer Zdzisław Jachimecki, comparison of the juvenile Chopin with any earlier composer is difficult because of the originality of the works that Chopin was composing already in the first half of his life. At a comparable age, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven had still been apprentices, while Chopin was perceived by peers and audiences to be already a master who was pointing the path to the coming age.^[22]

Chopin himself never gave thematic titles to his instrumental works, but identified them simply by genre and number.^[26] His compositions were, however, often inspired by emotional and sensual experiences in his own life. One of his first such inspirations was a beautiful young singing student at the Warsaw Conservatory and later a singer at the Warsaw Opera, Konstancja Gładkowska. In letters to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski, Chopin indicated which of his works, and even which of their passages, were influenced by his erotic transports. His artist's soul was also enriched by friendships with such leading lights of Warsaw's artistic and intellectual world as Maurycy Mochnacki, Józef Bohdan Zaleski and Julian Fontana.^[27]

Youth[link]

In September 1828, eighteen-year-old Chopin struck out for the wider world in the company of a family friend, the zoologist Feliks Jarocki, who planned to attend a scientific convention in Berlin. There Chopin enjoyed several unfamiliar operas directed by Gaspare Spontini, attended several concerts, and saw Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn and other celebrities. On his return trip, he was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen – himself an accomplished composer and aspiring cellist. For the Prince and his piano-playing daughter Wanda, Chopin composed his Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major for cello and piano, Op. 3.^[30]

Back in Warsaw, in 1829, Chopin heard Niccolò Paganini play and met the German pianist and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel. In August the same year, three weeks after completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, Chopin made a brilliant debut in Vienna. He gave two piano concerts and received many favorable reviews – in addition to some that criticized the "small tone" that he drew from the piano.^[17]

This was followed by a concert, in December 1829, at the Warsaw Merchants' Club, where Chopin premièred his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21; and by his first performance, on 17 March 1830, at the National Theater, in Warsaw, of his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11. In this period he also began writing his first Études (1829–32).^[17]

Chopin's successes as a performer and composer opened the professional door for him to western Europe, and on 2 November 1830, seen off by friends and admirers, with a ring from Konstancja Gładkowska on his finger and carrying with him a silver cup containing soil from his native land, Chopin set out, writes Jachimecki, "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever."^[30] He headed for Austria, intending to go on to Italy.

	Chopin Concerto No. 2 in F minor Nico Snel conducts the Seattle Philharmonic.
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	Étude Op. 10, No. 12, Revolutionary Martha Goldstein playing on an Erard (1851) – 2 985kB
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Later that month, in Warsaw, the November Uprising broke out, and Chopin's friend and traveling companion, the future industrialist and art patron Tytus Woyciechowski, returned to Poland to enlist. Chopin, now alone in Vienna, writes Jachimecki, "afflicted by nostalgia, disappointed in his hopes of giving concerts and publishing, matured and acquired spiritual depth. From a romantic... poet... he grew into an inspired national bard who intuited the past, present and future of his country. Only now, at this distance, did he see all of Poland from the proper perspective, and understand what was great and truly beautiful in her, the tragedy and heroism of her vicissitudes."^[30]

When in September 1831 Chopin learned, while traveling from Vienna to Paris, that the uprising had been crushed, he poured "profanities and blasphemies, resembling the final verses of Konrad's^[31] improvisation," in his native Polish language into the pages of a little journal that he kept secret to the end of his life.^[32] He expressed fear for the safety of his family and other civilians, especially the womenfolk at risk of outrages by the Russian troops; mourned the death of "kindly [General] Sowiński" (to whose wife he had dedicated a composition); damned the French for not having come to the aid of the Poles; and expressed dismay that God had permitted the Russians to crush the Polish insurgents – "or are you [God] yourself a Russian?"^[33] These outcries of a tormented heart found musical expression in his Scherzo in B minor, Op. 20, and his "Revolutionary Étude", in C minor, Op. 10, No. 12.^[30]

Paris[link]

Chopin's Polonaise, by Kwiatkowski, depicting a ball at Count Czartoryski's Hôtel Lambert in Paris

Chopin arrived in Paris in late September 1831, still uncertain whether he would settle there for good.^[30] In fact he would never return to Poland, becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration.^[9] In February 1832 Chopin gave a concert that garnered universal admiration. The influential musicologist and critic François-Joseph Fétis wrote in Revue musicale: "Here is a young man who, taking nothing as a model, has found, if not a complete renewal of piano music, then in any case part of what has long been sought in vain, namely, an extravagance of original ideas that are unexampled anywhere..."^[34] Only three months earlier, in December 1831, Robert Schumann, reviewing Chopin's Variations on "La ci darem la mano", Op. 2 (variations on a theme from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni), had written: "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius."^[35]

After his Paris concert début in February 1832, Chopin realized that his light-handed keyboard technique was not optimal for large concert spaces. However, later that year he was introduced to the wealthy Rothschild banking family, whose patronage opened doors for him to other private salons.^[17]

In Paris, Chopin found artists and other distinguished company, as well as opportunities to exercise his talents and achieve celebrity, and before long he was earning a handsome income teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe.^[36] He formed friendships with Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Vincenzo Bellini, Ferdinand Hiller, Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Eugène Delacroix, Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Alfred de Vigny, and Charles-Valentin Alkan.^[36]

Though an ardent Polish patriot,^[37][38] in France he used the French versions of his given names and traveled on a French passport, possibly to avoid having to rely on Imperial Russian documents.^[39] The French passport was issued on 1 August 1835, after Chopin had become a French citizen.^[40]

In Paris, Chopin seldom performed publicly. In later years he generally gave a single annual concert at the Salle Pleyel, a venue that seated three hundred. He played more frequently at salons – social gatherings of the aristocracy and artistic and literary elite – but preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends. His precarious health prevented his touring extensively as a traveling virtuoso, and beyond playing once in Rouen, he seldom ventured out of the capital.^[36] His high income from teaching and composing freed him from the strains of concert-giving, to which he had an innate repugnance.^[17] Arthur Hedley has observed that "As a pianist Chopin was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances—few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime."^[41]

Maria Wodzińska
(self-portrait)

In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad, where, for the last time in his life, he met with his parents. En route through Saxony on his way back to Paris, he met old friends from Warsaw, the Wodzińskis. He had made the acquaintance of their daughter Maria, now sixteen, in Poland five years earlier, and fell in love with the charming, intelligent, artistically talented young woman.^[42] The following year, in September 1836, upon returning to Dresden after having vacationed with the Wodzińskis at Marienbad, Chopin proposed marriage to Maria. She accepted, and her mother Countess Wodzińska approved in principle, but Maria's tender age and Chopin's tenuous health (in the winter of 1835–1836 he had been so ill that word had circulated in Warsaw that he had died) forced an indefinite postponement of the wedding. The engagement remained a secret to the world and never led to the altar.^[43] Chopin finally placed the letters from Maria and her mother in a large envelope, on which he wrote the Polish words "Moja bieda" ("My sorrow").^[36]

Chopin's feelings for Maria left their traces in his Waltz in A-flat major, "The Farewell Waltz", Op. 69, No. 1, written on the morning of his September departure from Dresden. On his return to Paris, he composed the Étude in F minor, the second in the Op. 25 cycle, which he referred to as "a portrait of Maria's soul." Along with this, he sent Maria seven songs that he had set to the words of Polish Romantic poets Stefan Witwicki, Józef Zaleski and Adam Mickiewicz.^[44]

Delfina Potocka

After Chopin's matrimonial plans ended, Polish countess Delfina Potocka appeared episodically in Chopin's life as muse and romantic interest. He dedicated to her his Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64, No. 1, the famous "Minute Waltz".^[36]

During his years in Paris, Chopin participated in a small number of public concerts. The list of the programs' participants provides an idea of the richness of Parisian artistic life during this period. Examples include a concert on 23 March 1833, in which Chopin, Liszt and Hiller performed J. S. Bach's concerto for three keyboards; and, on 3 March 1838, a concert in which Chopin, his pupil Adolphe Gutman, Alkan, and Alkan's teacher Pierre Joseph Zimmerman performed Alkan's arrangement, for eight hands, of Beethoven's 7th symphony.

Chopin was also involved in the composition of Liszt's Hexaméron; Chopin's was the sixth (and last) variation on Bellini's theme.

George Sand[link]

Chopin at 28, by Delacroix. Part of joint portrait with George Sand, 1838. Chopin seems to have disliked this portrait.^[45]

Sand sewing, by Delacroix—the other part of the joint portrait

In 1836, at a party hosted by Countess Marie d'Agoult, mistress of friend and fellow composer Franz Liszt, Chopin met French author and feminist Amandine Aurore Lucille Dupin, the Baroness Dudevant, better known by her pseudonym, George Sand. Sand's earlier romantic involvements had included Jules Sandeau (their literary collaboration had spawned the pseudonym George Sand), Prosper Mérimée, Alfred de Musset, Louis-Chrystosome Michel, the writer Charles Didier, Pierre-François Bocage and Félicien Mallefille.^[46]

Chopin's piano, Valldemossa, Majorca.

Chopin initially felt an aversion to Sand.^[36] He declared to Ferdinand Hiller: "What a repulsive woman Sand is! But is she really a woman? I am inclined to doubt it."^[47] Sand, however, in a candid thirty-two page letter to Count Wojciech Grzymała, a friend to both her and Chopin, admitted strong feelings for the composer. In her letter she debated whether to abandon a current affair in order to begin a relationship with Chopin, and attempted to gauge the currency of his previous relationship with Maria Wodzińska, which she did not intend to interfere with should it still exist.^[48] By the summer of 1838, Chopin's and Sand's involvement was an open secret.^[36]

A notable episode in their time together was a turbulent and miserable winter on Majorca (8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839), where they, together with Sand's two children, had gone in the hope of improving Chopin's deteriorating health. However, after discovering the couple were not wedded, the deeply religious people of Majorca became inhospitable,^{[citation needed]} making accommodations difficult to find; this compelled the foursome to take lodgings in a scenic yet stark and cold former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa.

Chopin also had problems having his Pleyel piano sent to him. It arrived from Paris on 20 December but was held up by customs. (Chopin wrote on 28 December: "My piano has been stuck at customs for 8 days... They demand such a huge sum of money to release it that I can't believe it.") In the meantime Chopin had a rickety rented piano on which he practiced and may have composed some pieces.

On 3 December, he complained about his bad health and the incompetence of the doctors in Majorca: "I have been sick as a dog during these past two weeks. Three doctors have visited me. The first said I was going to die; the second said I was breathing my last; and the third said I was already dead."

On 4 January 1839, George Sand agreed to pay 300 francs (half the demanded amount) to have the Pleyel piano released from customs. It was finally delivered on 5 January. From then on Chopin was able to use the long-awaited instrument for almost five weeks, time enough to complete some works: some Preludes, Op. 28; a revision of the Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; two Polonaises, Op. 40; the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39; the Mazurka in E minor from Op. 41; and he probably revisited his Sonata No. 2, Op. 35. The winter in Majorca is still considered one of the most productive periods in Chopin's life.

During that winter, the bad weather had such a serious effect on Chopin's health and chronic lung disease that, in order to save his life, the entire party were compelled to leave the island. The beloved French piano became an obstacle to a hasty escape. Nevertheless, George Sand managed to sell it to a French couple (the Canuts), whose heirs are the custodians of Chopin's legacy on Majorca and of the Chopin cell-room museum in Valldemossa.

The party of four went first to Barcelona, then to Marseille, where they stayed for a few months to recover. In May 1839, they headed to Sand's estate at Nohant for the summer. In autumn they returned to Paris, where initially they lived apart; Chopin soon left his apartment at 5 rue Tronchet to move into Sand's house at 16 rue Pigalle. The four lived together at this address from October 1839 to November 1842, while spending most summers until 1846 at Nohant.^[49] In 1842, they moved to 80 rue Taitbout in the Square d'Orléans, living in adjacent buildings.^[50]

It was from around this time that there is evidence of Chopin's playing an instrument other than the piano. At the funeral of the tenor Adolphe Nourrit, who had jumped to his death in Naples but whose body was returned to Paris for burial, Chopin played an organ transcription of Franz Schubert's lied Die Gestirne.^[51]

During the summers at Nohant, particularly in the years 1839–43, Chopin found quiet but productive days during which he composed many works. They included his Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53, the "Heroic", one of his most famous pieces. Sand describes Chopin's tumultuous creative process, filled with emotion, weeping, complaints, and hundreds of changes of concept eventually returning to the initial inspiration,^[50] on an evening in Nohant with friend Eugène Delacroix:

Chopin is at the piano, quite oblivious of the fact that anyone is listening. He embarks on a sort of casual improvisation, then stops. 'Go on, go on,' exclaims Delacroix, 'That's not the end!' 'It's not even a beginning. Nothing will come ... nothing but reflections, shadows, shapes that won't stay fixed. I'm trying to find the right colour, but I can't even get the form ...' 'You won't find the one without the other,' says Delacroix, 'and both will come together.' 'What if I find nothing but moonlight?' 'Then you will have found the reflection of a reflection.' The idea seems to please the divine artist. He begins again, without seeming to, so uncertain is the shape. Gradually quiet colours begin to show, corresponding to the suave modulations sounding in our ears. Suddenly the note of blue sings out, and the night is all around us, azure and transparent. Light clouds take on fantastic shapes and fill the sky. They gather about the moon which casts upon them great opalescent discs, and wakes the sleeping colours. We dream of a summer night, and sit there waiting for the song of the nightingale ...^[52]

As the composer's illness progressed, Sand became less of a lover and more of a nurse to Chopin, whom she called her "third child." In the years to come she would maintain her friendship with Chopin while often affectionately venting her impatience in letters to third parties, referring to him as a "child," a "little angel," a "sufferer" and a "beloved little corpse."^[50]

Chopin. Daguerreotype, 1846 or 1847.

In 1845, as Chopin's health continued to deteriorate, a serious problem emerged in his relations with Sand. Those relations were further soured in 1846 by problems involving her daughter Solange and the young sculptor Auguste Clésinger. In 1847 Sand published her novel Lucrezia Floriani, whose main characters – a rich actress and a prince in weak health – could be interpreted as Sand and Chopin; the story was uncomplimentary to Chopin, who could not have missed the allusions as he helped Sand correct the printer's galleys. In 1847 he did not visit Nohant. Mutual friends attempted to reconcile them, but the composer was unyielding.^[50]

One of these friends was mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. Sand had based her 1843 novel Consuelo on Viardot, and the three had spent many hours at Nohant. An outstanding opera singer, Viardot was also an excellent pianist who had initially wanted the piano to be her career and had taken lessons with Liszt and Anton Reicha. Her friendship with Chopin was based on mutual artistic esteem and similarity of temperament.^[53] The two had often played together; he had advised her on piano technique and had assisted her in writing a series of songs based on the melodies of his mazurkas. He in turn had gained from Viardot some first-hand knowledge of Spanish music.^[53]

In 1847, Sand and Chopin quietly ended their ten year relationship.^[50] Count Wojciech Grzymała, who followed their romance from the beginning, commented, "If (Chopin) had not had the misfortune of meeting G.S. [George Sand], who poisoned his whole being, he would have lived to be Cherubini's age." Chopin died at thirty-nine; his friend Cherubini died in Paris in 1842 at the age of eighty-one.^[54] The two composers are buried four meters apart at Père Lachaise Cemetery.

• 

  Jane Stirling, by Devéria, ca. 1830.

• 

  Photo by Bisson, 1849.

Final years[link]

Chopin's public popularity as a virtuoso waned, as did the number of his pupils. In February 1848 he gave his last Paris concert. In April, with the Revolution of 1848 underway in Paris,^[55] he left for London, where he performed at several concerts and at numerous receptions in great houses.^[50] This tour was suggested to Chopin by his Scottish pupil and sometime secretary, Jane Stirling and her elder sister, the widowed Mrs. Katherine Erskine. Jane Stirling also made all the necessary arrangements and provided much of the necessary funding.

Toward the end of the summer he was invited by Jane Stirling to visit Scotland, staying at Calder House near Edinburgh and the castle (Johnstone,^[56] in Renfrewshire, near Glasgow), both owned by Jane Stirling's family members. It was by then being rumored, even internationally, that Miss Stirling and Chopin would soon announce their engagement but apparently Chopin had no amorous feelings for her. While in Edinburgh he also spent time at 10 Warriston Crescent, residing at the home of the Polish GP, Dr. Adam Łyszczyński, and being treated by him. He was generally so weak that Łyszczyński or his servant had to carry Chopin up and down stairs. He gave a single concert in Edinburgh, at the Hopetoun Rooms on Queen Street (now Erskine House).^[57]

In late October 1848, at the home of Dr. Łyszczyński,^[58] Chopin wrote out his last will and testament—"a kind of disposition to be made of my stuff in the future, if I should drop dead somewhere," he wrote his friend Wojciech Grzymała. In his thoughts he was now constantly with his mother and sisters, and conjured up for himself scenes of his native land by playing his adaptations of its folk music on cool Scottish evenings at Miss Stirling's castle.^[50]

Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform at London's Guildhall on 16 November 1848, when, in a final patriotic gesture, he played for the benefit of Polish refugees.^[17] His appearance on this occasion proved to be a well-intentioned mistake, as most of the participants were more interested in the dancing and refreshments than in Chopin's piano artistry, which cost him much effort and physical discomfort.^[59]

At the end of November, Chopin returned to Paris.^[50] He passed the winter in unremitting illness, but in spite of it he continued seeing friends and visited the ailing Adam Mickiewicz, soothing the Polish poet's nerves with his playing. He no longer had the strength to give lessons, but he was still keen to compose. He lacked money for the most essential expenses and for his physicians. He had to sell off his more valuable furnishings and belongings.^[50]

On 24 March 2011, Warsaw's Frédéric Chopin Museum recovered long-lost letters belonging to the composer. The letters are dated from 1845 to 1848, and describe his daily life and his Cello Sonata in G minor. The letters were up for display at the Frédéric Chopin Museum until 25 April 2011.^[60]

Death[link]

Chopin on His Deathbed, by Kwiatkowski, 1849, commissioned by Jane Stirling. Chopin sits in bed, in presence of (from left) Aleksander Jełowicki, Chopin's sister Ludwika, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Wojciech Grzymała, Kwiatkowski.

Feeling ever more poorly, Chopin longed to have a family member with him. In June 1849 his sister Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, who had given him his first piano lessons, agreed to come to Paris.^[50]

Chopin's death mask, by Clésinger (photos: Jack Gibbons)

In September 1849, Chopin took a very beautiful, sunny apartment at Place Vendôme 12. The second-floor, seven-room apartment had previously housed the Russian embassy; Chopin could not afford it, but Jane Stirling, his wealthy Scottish pupil, rented it for him.^[61]

On 15 October, when Chopin's condition took a marked turn for the worse, his numerous visitors were asked to leave, and a handful of his closest friends remained with him. A couple of times during those last two days, they thought that the end had come, but the composer was able to catch his breath again. He asked Delfina Potocka to play sonatas and prayed and called out to God, though only a few days earlier he had refused confession, saying that he did not believe in it. He complained that George Sand had promised that he "would die in her arms." He asked for a piece of paper and wrote: "Comme cette terre m'étouffera, je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour [que] je ne sois pas enterré vif." ("As this earth will suffocate me, I implore you to have my body opened so that I will not be buried alive.")^[61]

On Wednesday 17 October, after midnight, the physician leaned over him and asked whether he was suffering greatly. "Not any more," Chopin replied.^[61] He died a few minutes before two o'clock in the morning.^[62]

Chopin's disease and the cause of his death remained unclear and consequently have become a matter of medical argument. His death certificate stated the cause as tuberculosis. In 2008 an alternative cause of Chopin's death would be proposed: cystic fibrosis.^[63][64] In counterpoint, it can well be argued that survival with cystic fibrosis in the 19th century until the age of 39 was virtually impossible, without modern respiratory therapy and medical support.^[65] A full review of the possible causes of Chopin's long illness was published in 2011.^[66] Given the contextual facts, it is much more likely that Chopin suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis.^[67]

Many people who had not been present at Chopin's death would later claim to have been. "Being present at Chopin's death," writes Tad Szulc, "seemed to grant one historical and social cachet."^[68] Those actually around his bed appear to have included his sister Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Solange and Auguste Clésinger (George Sand's daughter and son-in-law), Chopin's friend and former pupil Adolf Gutmann, his friend Thomas Albrecht, and his confidant, Polish Catholic priest Father Aleksander Jełowicki.^[62]

Chopin's grave monument, by Clésinger. Euterpe weeps over broken lyre.

Later that morning, Clésinger made Chopin's death mask and a cast of his left hand, to which Chopin had given prominence in his compositions. Before the funeral, pursuant to his dying wish, his heart was removed. It was preserved in alcohol (perhaps brandy) to be returned to his homeland, as he had requested.^[63] His sister smuggled it in an urn to Warsaw, where it was later sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmieście, beneath an epitaph sculpted by Leonard Marconi, bearing an inscription from Matthew VI:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Chopin's heart has reposed there – except for a period during World War II, when it was removed for safekeeping – within the church that was rebuilt after its virtual destruction during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The church stands only a short distance from Chopin's last Polish residence, the Krasiński Palace at Krakowskie Przedmieście 5.

Funeral[link]

The funeral, to be held at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, was delayed almost two weeks, until 30 October, due to the extensiveness of the elaborate organisation. The delay before the funeral enabled a number of people to travel from London, Berlin and Vienna who would not normally have been able to attend.^[69] Many of the notable names in the French literary and artistic world were invited, but most of the musical fraternity were curiously overlooked.^[69]

It was quickly decided that Mozart's Requiem would be sung. This was said to have been Chopin's own wish, but his friend Gutmann denied Chopin ever asked for it, and attributed this romantic fancy to journalistic licence. A great deal about Chopin was written in the Parisian press between the death and the funeral, some of it simply made up, and some unfounded stories subsequently made their way into reference books as fact.^[69] The Requiem has major parts for female voices, but the Church of the Madeleine had never permitted female singers in its choir. The Church was nevertheless happy to assist, on condition that the female singers remain behind a black velvet curtain. The soloists in the Requiem included the bass Luigi Lablache – who had sung the same work at the funerals of Haydn and Beethoven, and had also sung at Bellini's funeral – and Chopin's and George Sand's friend, the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot.^[70] The soprano was Jeanne-Anais Castellan, and the tenor was Alexis Dupont.^[69] Also played were Chopin's Préludes No. 4 in E minor and No. 6 in B minor. The organist was Franz Liszt.^{[citation needed]}

The funeral was attended by nearly three thousand people, but George Sand was not among them.

The funeral procession traversed the considerable distance from the church, in the center of town, adjacent to the Opera, to Père Lachaise Cemetery at the city's eastern edge, where he had expressed a wish to be buried. It was led by the dean of the Polish Great Emigration, the aged Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski; immediately after the casket, which was borne by shifts of artists (including Eugène Delacroix, cellist Auguste Franchomme and pianist Camille Pleyel), walked Chopin's sister Ludwika.^[61]

At the graveside, the Funeral March from his Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 35, was played, in Napoléon Henri Reber's instrumentation^[71] (although Giacomo Meyerbeer, who was in attendance, later expressed disappointment that he had not been invited to arrange the work).^[69]

Chopin's tombstone, featuring the muse of music, Euterpe, weeping over a broken lyre, was designed and sculpted by Auguste Clésinger. The expenses of the funeral and monument, in the amount of five thousand francs, were covered by Jane Stirling, who also paid for Chopin's sister's return to Warsaw.^[61] Jane Stirling wore black mourning dresses for a long time thereafter (some sources say for the rest of her life).

Chopin's grave attracts numerous visitors and is consistently decorated with flowers, even in winter.

• 

  Cast of Chopin's left hand by Clésinger

• 

  Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James, at Place Vendôme 12 in Paris, where Chopin died.

• 

  Chopin on deathbed, by Kwiatkowski, 1849

Memorials[link]

Chopin statue, Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park

Pillar in Warsaw's Holy Cross Church. Within it (bottom) is an urn with Chopin's heart.

In 1909, to celebrate Chopin's centenary, the Russian composer Sergei Lyapunov wrote a "symphonic poem in memory of Chopin", titled Zhelazova Vola, Op. 37 (Russian: Жeлaзoвa Вoлa), a reference to Chopin's birthplace.^[72]

In 1926 a bronze statue of Chopin, designed by sculptor Wacław Szymanowski in 1907, was erected in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park, adjacent to Ujazdów Avenue (Aleje Ujazdowskie). The statue was originally to have been installed in 1910, on the centenary of Chopin's birth, but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I.

On 31 May 1940, during the German occupation of Poland in World War II, the statue was destroyed by the Nazis.^{[citation needed]} It was reconstructed after the war, in 1958. Since 1959, free piano recitals of Chopin's compositions have been performed at the statue's base on summer Sunday afternoons. The stylized willow over Chopin's seated figure echoes a pianist's hand and fingers. Until 2007, the statue was the world's tallest monument to Chopin.

A 1:1-scale replica of Szymanowski's Art Nouveau statue is found in Warsaw's sister city of Hamamatsu, Japan. There are also preliminary plans to erect another replica along Chicago's lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth.

A bronze bust memorializing Chopin stands at Symphony Circle outside Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York.

There are numerous other monuments to Chopin around the world. The most recent, by a small margin taller than the Warsaw statue, is a modernistic bronze sculpture by Lu Pin [4] [5] in Shanghai, China, that was unveiled on 3 March 2007.

The world's oldest monographic music competition, the International Chopin Piano Competition, founded in 1927, is held every five years in Warsaw.

Established in 1954, the Fryderyk Chopin Museum is housed in Warsaw's Ostrogski Palace, seat of the Fryderyk Chopin Society. Refurbished for the 200th anniversary (2010) of Chopin's birth, the Fryderyk Chopin Museum is the most modern museum in Poland.

Periodically the Grand prix du disque de F. Chopin is awarded for notable Chopin recordings, both remastered and newly recorded work.

Named for the composer are the largest Polish music conservatory, the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw; Warsaw Chopin Airport; the Chopin crater on Mercury; and asteroid 3784 Chopin.

Music[link]

Autograph musical quotation from Op. 53, signed by Chopin on 25 May 1845

Chopin's autograph, stylised as a half note

The great majority of Chopin's compositions were written for the piano as solo instrument; all of his extant works feature the piano in one way or another. Chopin, according to Arthur Hedley, "had the rare gift of a very personal melody, expressive of heart-felt emotion, and his music is penetrated by a poetic feeling that has an almost universal appeal.... Present-day evaluation places him among the immortals of music by reason of his insight into the secret places of the heart and because of his awareness of the magical new sonorities to be drawn from the piano."^[41]

It is very difficult to characterise Chopin's oeuvre briefly. Robert Schumann, speaking of Chopin's Sonata in B-flat minor, wrote that "he alone begins and ends a work like this: with dissonances, through dissonances, and in dissonances," and in Chopin's music he discerned "cannon concealed amid blossoms." Franz Liszt, in the opening of his biography about Chopin (Life of Chopin), termed him a "gentle, harmonious genius." Thus disparate have been the views on Chopin's music. The first systematic, if imperfect, study of Chopin's style came in F. P. Laurencin's 1861 Die Harmonik der Neuzeit. Laurencin concluded that "Chopin is one of the most brilliant exceptional natures that have ever stridden onto the stage of history and life, he is one who can never be exhausted nor stand before a void. Chopin is the musical progone^[73] of all progones until now."^[74]

According to Tad Szulc, though technically demanding,^[75] Chopin's works emphasize nuance and expressive depth rather than sheer virtuosity. Vladimir Horowitz referred to Chopin as "the only truly great composer for the piano."^[76]

Chopin's music for the piano combined a unique rhythmic sense (particularly his use of rubato), frequent use of chromaticism, and counterpoint. This mixture produces a particularly fragile sound in the melody and the harmony, which are nonetheless underpinned by solid and interesting harmonic techniques. He took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication. Three of Chopin's twenty-one Nocturnes were published only after his death in 1849, contrary to his wishes.^[77] He also endowed popular dance forms, such as the Polish mazurek and the Viennese Waltz, with a greater range of melody and expression.

Chopin's mazurkas, while based somewhat on the traditional Polish dance (the mazurek), were different from the traditional variety in that they were suitable for concerts halls as well as dance settings. With his mazurkas, Chopin brought a new sense of nationalism, which was an idea that other composers writing both at the same time as, and after, Chopin would also incorporate into their compositions. Chopin’s nationalism was a great influence and inspiration for many other composers, especially Eastern Europeans, and he was one of the first composers to clearly express nationalism through his music. Furthermore, he was the first composer to take a national genre of music from his home country and transform it into a genre worthy of the general concert-going public, thereby creating an entirely new genre.

Chopin was the first to write ballades^[78] and scherzi as individual pieces. He also took the example of Bach's preludes and fugues, transforming the genre in his own Préludes.

Chopin reinvented the étude,^[79] expanding on the idea and making it into a gorgeous, eloquent and emotional showpiece. He also used his Études to teach his own revolutionary style,^[17] for instance playing with the weak fingers (3, 4, and 5) in fast figures (Op. 10, No. 2), playing in octaves (Op 25, No.10) and playing black keys with the thumb (Op. 10, No. 5).

Influence[link]

	Waltz in D-flat major, Minute Waltz, Op. 64, No. 1 Played by Peter Gerwinski Étude Op. 25, No. 2 in F minor Martha Goldstein, piano
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	Frédéric Chopin: Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4 Performed by Giorgi Latsabidze
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	Prelude Op. 28, No. 4 in E minor Porticodoro / SmartCGArt Media Productions
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	Prelude Op. 28, No. 15 in D flat major Giorgi Latsabidze, piano
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Several of Chopin's pieces have become very well known—for instance the Revolutionary Étude (Op. 10, No. 12), the Minute Waltz (Op. 64, No. 1), and the third movement of his Funeral March Sonata No. 2 (Op. 35), which is often used as an iconic representation of grief. Chopin himself never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number, leaving all potential extra-musical associations to the listener; the names by which we know many of the pieces were invented by others.^[80] The Revolutionary Étude was not written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind; it merely appeared at that time. The Funeral March was written before the rest of the sonata within which it is contained, but the exact occasion is not known; it appears not to have been inspired by any specific personal bereavement.^[81]

Other melodies have been used as the basis of popular songs, such as the slow section of the Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op. posth. 66) and the first section of the Étude, Op. 10, No. 3. These pieces often rely on an intense and personalised chromaticism, as well as a melodic curve that resembles the operas of Chopin's day – the operas of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and especially Vincenzo Bellini.^[82] Chopin used the piano to recreate the gracefulness of the singing voice, and talked and wrote constantly about singers.

Chopin's style and gifts became increasingly influential. Robert Schumann was a huge admirer of Chopin's music, and he used melodies from Chopin and even named a piece from his suite Carnaval after Chopin. This admiration was not generally reciprocated, although Chopin did dedicate his Ballade No. 2 in F major to Schumann.

Franz Liszt was another admirer and personal friend of the composer, and he transcribed for piano six of Chopin's Polish songs. However, Liszt denied that he wrote Funérailles (subtitled "October 1849", the seventh movement of his piano suite Harmonies poétiques et religieuses of 1853) in memory of Chopin. Though the middle section seems to be modeled on the famous octave trio section of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53, Liszt said the piece had been inspired by the deaths of three of his Hungarian compatriots in the same month. However, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C-sharp minor borrows heavily^{[citation needed]} from the "funeral march" third movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor. This influence can be seen in the first segment of Liszt's piece: this section expands on Chopin's minimalist melody.^{[citation needed]}

Johannes Brahms and the younger Russian composers, too, found inspiration in Chopin's examples.^[74] Chopin's technical innovations became influential. His Préludes (Op. 28) and Études (Opp. 10 and 25) rapidly became standard works, and inspired both Liszt's Transcendental Études and Schumann's Symphonic Studies. Alexander Scriabin was also strongly influenced by Chopin; for example, his 24 Preludes, Op. 11, are inspired by Chopin's Op. 28.

Ostrogski Palace, Warsaw seat of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum

Jeremy Siepmann, in his biography of the composer, lists pianists whose recordings of Chopin are generally acknowledged to be among the greatest Chopin performances ever preserved: Vladimir de Pachmann, Raoul Pugno, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Moriz Rosenthal, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman, Raoul Koczalski, Arthur Rubinstein, Mieczysław Horszowski, Claudio Arrau, Vlado Perlemuter, Vladimir Horowitz, Dinu Lipatti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Murray Perahia, Krystian Zimerman, Evgeny Kissin.

Arthur Rubinstein said the following about Chopin's music and its universality:

Chopin was a genius of universal appeal. His music conquers the most diverse audiences. When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall there is a happy sigh of recognition. All over the world men and women know his music. They love it. They are moved by it. Yet it is not "Romantic music" in the Byronic sense. It does not tell stories or paint pictures. It is expressive and personal, but still a pure art. Even in this abstract atomic age, where emotion is not fashionable, Chopin endures. His music is the universal language of human communication. When I play Chopin I know I speak directly to the hearts of people!

Style[link]

Chopin's autograph of first 32 bars of Polonaise in A flat major, 1842

Although Chopin lived in the 19th century, he was educated in the tradition of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Clementi; he used Clementi's piano method with his own students. He was also influenced by Hummel's development of virtuoso, yet Mozartian, piano technique. Chopin cited Bach and Mozart as the two most important composers in shaping his musical outlook.^[83]

The series of seven Polonaises published in his lifetime (another nine were published posthumously), beginning with the Op. 26 pair, set a new standard for music in the form, and were rooted in Chopin's desire to write something to celebrate Polish culture after the country had fallen into Russian control.^[84] The Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1, the "Military," and the Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, the "Heroic," are among Chopin's best-loved and most-often-played works.

Chopin also wrote 24 different preludes as a tribute to J. S. Bach's "The Well Tempered Clavier." Chopin's preludes move up the circle-of-fifths, whereas Bach uses the chromatic scale to create a prelude in every major and minor tonality achievable on the clavier.^{[citation needed]}

Rubato[link]

Chopin's music is well known for benefiting from rubato (which was how he himself performed his music),^[85] as opposed to a strictly regular playing. Yet there is usually call for caution when the music is performed with wobbly, over-exaggerated, inappropriate "rubato" (e.g. attempting to justify insecure playing, with reference to expressive rubato).

His playing was always noble and beautiful; his tones sang, whether in full forte or softest piano. He took infinite pains to teach his pupils this legato, cantabile style of playing. His most severe criticism was "He—or she—does not know how to join two notes together." He also demanded the strictest adherence to rhythm. He hated all lingering and dragging, misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated ritardandos ... and it is precisely in this respect that people make such terrible errors in playing his works.

—Friederike Müller, "From the Diary of a Viennese Chopin Pupil"^[86]

However, while some can provide restrictive quotes about Chopin such as the above, often to the effect that "the accompanying hand always played in strict tempo", these quotes need to be considered in better context^[87] in terms both of the time when they were made and of the situations that may have prompted the original writer to set down the thoughts. Constantin von Sternberg (1852–1924) has written: