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Chopin in High Society

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At age 21 Polish composer Frederick Chopin left his native country, little knowing that the departure would be permanent. Within a year he was a great success in Paris as a pianist and teacher. But he retained his modesty and good humor in a letter to a friend back home:

“I have gotten into the highest society. I sit with ambassadors, princes, ministers, and don’t even know how it has happened because it didn’t result from any effort of mine. It is necessary for me because good taste is supposed to depend on it. Right away you supposedly have a bigger talent if you’ve been heard at the English or Austrian embassy. You play better if princess so-and-so was your protector.

“Although this is only my first year among the artists here, I have their friendship and respect. People with huge reputations dedicate their compositions to me before I do so to them. People compose variations on my themes. Finished artists take lessons from me and compare me with John Field.

“If I were even more stupid than I am, I would consider myself at the pinnacle of my career, but I know how much I still lack to attain perfection. I see it all the more clearly now that I live only among first-rate artists and know what each one of them lacks.

“Anyway, maybe you haven’t forgotten what my personality is like. I am today what I was yesterday, with just this one difference—I now have one whisker. The other still refuses to grow.

“I have five lessons to give today. You think I’m making a fortune? Carriages and white gloves cost more, and without them I wouldn’t be in good taste. Otherwise I care nothing for money, only for friendship, and I pray that I still have yours.”

Written in 1832, a letter from Frederick Chopin in Paris to a friend in Poland.

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