Yet in his own day, according to a close friend, "Chopin would turn into a lusty musician and start thundering out mazurkas and waltzes until, tired of playing and eager to join in on the dancing himself, he would cede the piano to a humbler replacement.
Which is the true Chopin? According to Eric McKee of Penn State's School of Music, it was perhaps Chopin's tuberculosis, which would eventually claim his life, that created "the aura of otherworldliness surrounding him and his music. Despite political unrest, during the first 20 years of Chopin's life, Warsaw was a thriving cosmopolitan center well connected to the social trends of Vienna and Paris.
As one traveler of the period wrote of this erotic dance, "The men grasped the long dress of their partners so that it would not be trodden upon, and lifted it high, holding them in this cloak, which brought both bodies under one cover, as closely as possible against them and in this way the whirling continued in the most indecent positions; the supporting hand lay firmly on the breasts, at each movement making lustful pressures; the girls went wild and looked as though they would drop.
At many dances, a single pianistโoften Chopin himselfโwould provide the dance music. Many first-hand accounts tell of Chopin's ability to move the feet of the dancers.
Only after he left Warsaw in did Chopin's music begin to become "undanceable. And yet it's not always apparent, merely by listening, whether Chopin intended a piece as "art music" or "dance music. Of Chopin's Mazurka in B-flat major , Op. What do you say about being profaned like that? The Mazurka is more properly for listening. What will you say about my being at the Lebruns one evening and having had to profane you? They had asked me if I could play your magnificent Mazurka, and.
