Frédéric Chopin Quotes

“A long time ago I decided that my universe will be the soul and heart of man.”

“A strange adventure befell me while I was playing my Sonata in B flat minor before some English friends. I had played the Allegro and the Scherzo more or less correctly.

I was about to attack the March when suddenly I saw arising from the body of my piano those cursed creatures which had appeared to me one lugubrious night at the Chartreuse. I had to leave for one instant to pull myself together after which I continued without saying anything.”

“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.”

“As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art.”

“England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night.

For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music.”

“Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.”

“I am not fitted to give concerts. The audience intimidates me, I feel choked by its breath, paralyzed by its curious glances, struck dumb by all those strange faces.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere.”

“I shall create a new world for myself.”

“I tell my piano the things I used to tell you”

“I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.”

“I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.”

“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!”

“It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.”

“Liszt commenting on the music of Frédéric Chopin: He confided . . . those inexpressible sorrows to which the pious give vent in their communication with their Maker. What they never say except upon their knees, he said in his palpitating compositions.”

“Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?”

“Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head.”

“My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot, for I am covered with poultices.”

“Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two.”

“Nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning.”

“Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in one's birthplace.”

“Oh, how miserable it is to have no one to share your sorrows and joys, and, when your heart is heavy, to have no soul to whom you can pour out your woes.”

“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.”

“Play Mozart in memory of me – and I will hear you.”

“Put all your soul into it, play the way you feel!”