I read yesterday that Frederic Chopin never died, he simply became music. This idea, almost as beautiful and romantic as his own music, has been playing on my mind.
Many critiques write that Chopin’s music does not tell a story. I believe they are woefully wrong. Much as we experience tens and hundreds of emotions, the music of Chopin reflects these emotions. Each and every note is its own small lake under a clear night’s sky. Yet this night’s sky is clear of any human pollution or industry. It is simple and pure – a direct insight into the soul of another.
I believe Chopin used the piano to transfer his streams of thoughts and feelings into physicality by using the right hand to stream conscious thought and the left to stream that which is unconscious.
Take a nocturne (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ8RVjm49hE).
The right hand is the most prominent. It is the part that lightly takes your attention, and trails in chromatic notes that fall close to the previous notes, just as one thought is derived from the last.
The left hand is quieter, yet you can always vaguely hear it. If you concentrate, you can sometimes work out its content. This is the same as unconscious thought. It is always in the back of your mind, mostly ignored.
For Chopin, the unconscious was a background, maybe even a support, to his trail of thought. Just as conscious thoughts can be derived from the unconscious, the melody in the right hand is vaguely mimicked or represented in the left, whether it is a harmonising complement or a chord showing the emotions that each thought might induce.
The many minor keys Chopin used are commonly known to suggest a feeling of sadness. This is by no means a coincidence; Chopin was notoriously moody, and is often thought to have struggled with depression. Negative thoughts and emotions would of course translate to minor keys. Many sources have suggested that Chopin also may have suffered from bipolar disorder. Perhaps this might explain the structure of his waltzes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOcryGEw1NY); a short slow part followed by a contrasting staccato faster section, both somehow hauntingly sad. The sections are repeated over and over, with little in between the moods.
In his famous ‘Fantasie Impromtu’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-HosIOod_A), Chopin undercuts triplets in the right hand with quavers (quarter notes) in the left hand. Both hands are played immensely fast and it is often confusing to determine what one should listen to, both not truly sounding like a true melody. I believe this to also represent the romantic author’s despairing mind. Both his conscious and unconscious are confused strains of half thoughts, both struggling for attention in their own way, both need attention in their own way so they can become untangled and become once again a true melody. Chopin once said that simplicity is the final achievement. I wonder if he was longing for an end from his depressed thoughts: could the refuge he was so longingly seeking be happiness or death?
I imagine, for a number of reasons, that Frederic composed his first ballade (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA) to represent a cycle of psychotic episodes. There are three stages within a psychotic episode – a prodrome phase, an acute phase, and a recovery. The prodrome phase is often the longest phase lasting up to a year of small repeated symptoms that vary from person to person; these interfere with daily life but do not completely take over. This is represented by the repeated phrases in the first two minutes of the piece. This is followed by the acute phase, a time that is completely disorganised and distressing for the individual, quite often leading to delusions and hallucinations. This is represented in minutes 2-3. After this comes the recovery phase, in which the person is left with a couple of symptoms but, overall, this section is said to feel like breathing the outside fresh air after being stuck in the same room for weeks on end. This is represented from minutes 3-4. Chopin repeats the whole cycle starting with the same notes as in the first minute.
Chopin’s first ballade was the favourite of many, including himself. He wrote to Schubert that he held it to his heart most dearly out of all his pieces. Could this be because it represented such a crucial time for his health?
For a moment, let us believe this theory to be entirely truthful. To me, it is utterly heart-breaking to understand how much suffering a person has gone through. It feels as though he was crying out for help his whole life – people heard him and appreciated a reflection of the experience, but no one helped him. He just carried on making music as a way of transferring his emotions and feelings from his own body.
So maybe it’s true, Chopin never really died. His thoughts and feelings live through us when we experience his music. We are given a precious taste of what he once felt.