Frederic Chopin Quotes
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If the newspapers cut me up so much that I shall not venture before the world again, I have resolved to become a house painter; that would be as easy as anything else, and I should, at any rate, still be an artist!
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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.
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Here, whatever is not boring is not English.
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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.
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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
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I have met a great celebrity, Madame Dudevant, known as George Sand... Her appearance is not to my liking. Indeed there is something about her which positively repels me... What an unattractive person La Sand is... Is she really a woman? I'm inclined to doubt it.
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I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.
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I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.
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Time is the best of critics; and patience the best of teachers.
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After a rest in Edinburgh, where, passing a music-shop, I heard some blind man playing a mazurka of mine.
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I feel like a novice, just as I felt before I knew anything of the keyboard. It is far too original, and I shall end up not being able to learn it myself.
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Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars . . . Beethoven embraced the universe with the power of his spirit . . . I do not climb so high. A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.
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I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.
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Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.
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As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.
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It's a huge Carthusian monastery, stuck down between rocks and sea, where you may imagine me, without white gloves or hair curling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin, with an enormous dusty vaulting, a small window... Bach, my scrawls and waste paper - silence - you could scream - there would still be silence. Indeed, I write to you from a strange place.
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Here, waltzes are called works! And Strauss and Lanner, who play them for dancing, are called Kapellmeistern. This does not mean that everyone thinks like that; indeed, nearly everyone laughs about it; but only waltzes get printed.
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Among the numerous pleasures of Vienna the hotel evenings are famous. During supper Strauss or Lanner play waltzes...After every waltz they get huge applause; and if they play a Quodlibet, or jumble of opera, song and dance, the hearers are so overjoyed that they don't know what to do with themselves. It shows the corrupt taste of the Viennese public.
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I don't know where there can be so many pianists as in Paris, so many asses and so many virtuosi.
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The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles should be as proud of me as the Germans are of Mozart; obvious nonsense.
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Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.
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I don't know how it is, but the Germans are amazed at me and I am amazed at them for finding anything to be amazed about.
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Play Mozart in memory of me - and I will hear you.
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A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.
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I am gay on the outside, especially among my own folk (I count Poles my own); but inside something gnaws at me; some presentiment, anxiety, dreams - or sleeplessness - melancholy, indifference - desire for life, and the next instant, desire for death; some kind of sweet peace, some kind of numbness, absent-mindedness.
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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
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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 achieve certain unlimited dexterity. A well formed technique, it seems to me, can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.
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Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two.
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Chopin was the first piano composer who knew exactly how to make piano sound reach fullness, radiance and grandness. What to regard and what, by all means, to avoid. Chopin was keenly aware of the overtones and he did take care of them so artfully.
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As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes,I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.
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