Chopin bicentennary: show revisits composer's French years
PARIS — During his 18-year exile in France, Frederic Chopin was a regular visitor to a two-storey house on a quiet street in Paris where the Polish composer often performed for…
PARIS — During his 18-year exile in France, Frederic Chopin was a regular visitor to a two-storey house on a quiet street in Paris where the Polish composer often performed for friends and renowned artists.The house - now a museum but off the beaten path and often missed by tourists -- is hosting one of two exhibitions for the bicentenary of the great 19th century musician in the city where he spent his final years and is buried."Frederic Chopin, the Blue Note" opened this week in the green-shuttered Musee de la Vie Romantique at the foot of Montmartre to mark the anniversary of Chopin's birth, variously given as February 22 and March 1, 1810.It revisits his life in his father's home country through some 90 paintings, drawings and other works by contemporary greats including Delacroix, Corot, Courbet and Ingres.The 1843 Pleyel piano Chopin played in France is also on display, along with an 1839 sketch by the musician entitled "Man's Head", showing his talent as a portraitist.The show captures the heady days when Chopin, fellow composers Liszt, Rossini, Berlioz and other luminaries of the Romantic movement including Chopin's companion, feminist and writer George Sand, and friend Eugene Delacroix, gathered for Friday night salons in what was the home of Dutch-born painter Ary Scheffer on Rue Chaptal.The exhibition's name comes from Sand and Delacroix, who said they heard "colour" when Chopin played his music. It opens with an 1838 Chopin portrait by Delacroix on loan from the Louvre.Though browns dominate, "the blue note resonates," Sand once wrote, saying the painting had the same "azure of the transparent night" as the preludes, nocturnes and polonaises Chopin wrote for piano."When the idea was proposed two years ago to organise an exhibition in honor of Chopin's bicentenary, we decided to explore the relationship between his music and painting, stressing the 'blue note' that George Sand and Delacroix said they heard in his musical works," said curator Jerome Godeau."This 'blue note' is like a reverberati
last modification 2010-03-05 13:45:03
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