Fryderyk Chopin: A Life And Times

Fryderyk Chopin: A Life And Times

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. The Sunday Times (U.K.) Classical Music Book of 2018 and one of The Economist's Best Books of 2018."A magisterial portrait." --Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times Book Review A landmark biography of the Polish composer by a leading authority on Chopin and his time Based on ten years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker?s monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker?s work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin. Fryderyk Chopin is an intimate look into a dramatic life; of particular focus are Chopin?s childhood and youth in Poland, which are brought into line with the latest scholarly findings, and Chopin?s romantic life with George Sand, with whom he lived for nine years. Comprehensive and engaging, and written in highly readable prose, the biography wears its scholarship lightly: this is a book suited as much for the professional pianist as it is for the casual music lover. Just as he did in his definitive biography of Liszt, Walker illuminates Chopin and his music with unprecedented clarity in this magisterial biography, bringing to life one of the nineteenth century?s most confounding, beloved, and legendary artists. Review "For a biographer, there's a lot to untangle. Alan Walker does so brilliantly in Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times, a magisterial portrait . . . A polyphonic work that elegantly interweaves multiple strands." --Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times Book Review "An ideal composer biography should combine several qualities: a deep knowledge of the artist?s life and milieu, fortified by a reexamination of all available sources; an intimate understanding of the composer?s personality (and, when possible, some affection for it, too); and an ability to speak of the creative work in a manner that will edify both scholars and the general public, and take us all back to the music. Alan Walker?s Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times manages this hat trick very well indeed . . . This is now the best biography of Chopin ? meticulous, scholarly and well-told." --Tim Page, The Washington Post "There is more than enough for everyone at this literary feast, and come awards time, it?s likely you?ll see this book short-listed for one of the top literary biographies of the year . . . Walker?s narrative style reflects the very music of his subject: He has a light, delicate touch when making apt inferences, and a soft and rather ornate style when providing descriptions of the artist . . . Walker remains faithful to his subject, which only 10 years of extensive research into vast archives of primary source material could manifest." --Richard Horan, Christian Science Monitor "At last, the definitive biography of Chopin has arrived. This substantial new study is a masterpiece, indispensable to specialists and general music lovers alike. It overflows with revelatory information, deft characterisation and pertinent, readable explorations of the music. All this is set against a minutely detailed depiction of his world. Walker?s style is elegant, literary and empathetic, while his unfailing love for the music shines from every page." --Sunday Times (U.K.) "Thorough and authoritative . . . Walker [writes] with the narrative expertise one would expect of the masterly biographer of Liszt . . . Walker is brilliant on piano technique and its musical consequences. These passages are like talk of pigment and brushstrokes in a book about painting: technical in a sense yet free of jargon, easily understood, even perhaps by someone who has never laid hand on a piano keyboard." --Stephen Walsh, The Guardian "Absorbing . . . Walker integrates [many] different aspects into an entire