- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: HarperPress (4 Feb 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007341849
- ISBN-13: 978-0007341849
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.8 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
275,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Classical Music > Composers > Chopin
Chopin
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Product Description
Review
'The best book to have come out of the Chopin bicentenary.' --Financial Times Books of the Year
'Draws on the author's wide knowledge of the historical context and of Polish sources.'
--Sunday Times (Books of the Year)
'Draws on the author's wide knowledge of the historical context and of Polish sources.'
--Sunday Times (Books of the Year)
Product Description
A completely new edition of the definitive biography of Chopin, unavailable for many years, by one of the finest of contemporary European historians. Two centuries have passed since Chopin's birth, yet his legacy is all around us today. The quiet revolution he wrought influenced the development of Western music profoundly, and he is still probably the most widely studied and revered composer. For many, he is the object of a cult. Yet most people know little of his life, of the man, his thoughts and his feelings; his public image is a sugary blur of sentimentality and melodrama. Adam Zamoyski cuts through the myths and legends to tell the story of Chopin's life, and to reveal all that can be discovered about him as a person. He pays particular attention to recent revelations about the composer's health, and places him within the intellectual and spiritual environment of his day.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Man not an Angel,
By Chopinist (Warsaw, Poland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Chopin (Hardcover)
Adam Zamoyski has triumphed once again in this completely new biography of Chopin. He magnificently reassesses this curiously ambiguous composer in light of his many years of research in primary sources written in a number of languages. Certain reviewers have remarked that this is an 'updated' reissue of his previous biography written as a young man and published in 1979. This is patently misleading and unfair as I have read both with the greatest pleasure. His knowledge of the cultural and historical literature of East-Central Europe has broadened immeasurably in the intervening years. There are structural similiarities (it is a biography after all) but so much material is new and enlightening.
Zamoyski's writing style has matured over time to become even more fluent and distinguished since his iconic historical survey entitled 'The Polish Way'. His own aristocratic background (the Zamoyskis are one of the most eminent of Polish szlachta families) has given a particularly refined discrimination to his selection of the revealing detail, the telling anecdote in his conception of Chopin's extraordinary life. I can think of no person better equipped temperamentally to write this challenging biography. Zamoyski writes the compelling story of a real man shorn of all the Hollywood morbid sensationalism and vaporous cosmetics, a man shackled by illness of an unimaginable ghastliness in those medically primitive times. Yet Chopin is not one of us. As a man he possessed many forgivable and essentially trivial foibles. As an artist his music offers deep consolation for troubled hearts throughout the world. What matters it if he was fastidious and supercilious in his day to day relations with the fraught and mercenary world of nineteenth century music publishing. Here was a man fully aware of his musical genius. He was also a man of impeccable taste and surprising moral rectitude (despite the priurient fascination with his sexual proclivities which surely tells us more about the absurd preoccupations of our own age than his). This is simply the finest biography of Fryderyk Chopin available and will remain so for decades. In 'Chopin 2010' you really should celebrate the bicentenary of one of the greatest of composers by purchasing and treasuring your copy.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Intimate Portrait,
By
This review is from: Chopin (Hardcover)
I picked up a copy of this book after reading a favourable review in the Daily Telegraph. Like Chopin's music Adam Zamoyski's biography is accessible, enjoyable and has a lightness of touch. Zamoyski's Chopin is likeable and supremely gifted (albeit the composer is sweetly modest in terms of his greatness) but the biography is far from a hagiography. The author sheds light upon Chopin's sins, as well as virtues. Quoting from letters by Chopin - and his contemporaries - the author builds up an intimate portrait of the composer, his works and his love affairs. Highly recommended for admirers not just of Chopin but for lovers of classical music in general and the romanticism of the age.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A work of genius about a genius,
By
This review is from: Chopin (Hardcover)
I have just finished this unique biography and I am completly lost. The book has been my companion for a month and as a child with a boiled sweet,as they were rationed when I was one, I wanted the book to last and last. Sadly I came to the end just an hour ago. To say the book is beautifully written is one undoubted fact but to bring me into the intimacy of Chopin's life and music in such a manner is genius. Beethoven has been my mentor and companion up till now but Adam Zamoyski has not dislodged him, he has produced for me an equal. I played Chopin while reading and at times I was in another world wrapped in Zamoyski's prose and music both of genius. If you are inert to music or an admitted literary philostine I still beg you to buy this book and also a CD of Chopin's work. There is something very fine about Chopin that the author has brilliantly brought to life. I feel that I am a better person for being associated with this legend....so rare that I have used the word unique.
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