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Bezig met laden... Requiem voor Chopindoor Benita Eisler
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. With its tortuous prose, this dull book succeeds only in portraying illustrious, sickly composer Frederic Chopin and his lover/maternal figure George Sand as really boring people. At least this book, which, despite the title, covers the whole of Chopin's life, is short. Very little of it is devoted to Chopin's actual funeral. There has to be a better book about the composer for lay readers. ( ) (I originally wrote this review on April 9, 2003 for Amazon.) I was disappointed by this book. Its title and slight size might suggest that it deals almost exclusively with Chopin's last days and burial. Not so. Eisler's description of Chopin's funeral comprises the first nine pages of this book. Another two at the end tell of Chopin's last minutes. (She sheds no new light on either event.) In between, you will find a Reader's Digest version of Chopin's life with particular emphasis on his relationship with George Sand. The book ends when Chopin does: the aftermath of his demise, it's effects on those around him, are not discussed. I assume the author's intent was to quickly distill the couple's relationship so that she could speculate on its unraveling. But the pair's quirky "association" lasted for twenty-one years. So this abridgment leaves much to be desired. If you want a brief recap of the Chopin-Sand story, or are totally unfamiliar with their singular relationship, I suppose this book wouldn't be a bad place to start. However, it's not written particularly well. The convoluted, ungainly sentences were difficult to forgive after a while. If you want a better written and more detailed book on the composer, I recommend "Chopin in Paris" by Tad Szulc. In this new highly touted biography, the author paints the career and downfall of the composer Chopin. Born of a Polish mother and French father, he arrived in Paris as an unknown and was taken in as the lover of arguably one of the most controversial and colorful literary figure, the author George Sand, née Aurore Dupin. In their torrid but brief relationship argues the author, Chopin composed best, and as they fell apart, so his flame gave out. The author also touches upon Chopin as a frail and flawed genius, snobbish and conservative, and introduces us to some of his contemporaries, Liszt in particular, whose role as a latter day Antonio Salieri à la Amadeus the movie, awed by the brilliance but riven by envy, could be debated. I do not know why I bothered with this one. It was a useless and disappointing read, which failed to capitalize on a griping story with a celebrated cast of characters. I found it unstructured, poorly written, and lacking in musical or literary contextual analysis. Music and literature were Chopin and Sand’s raison d’être, and if those aspects are disregarded, what remains is a sordid but very ordinary story ripped from the back pages of any society paper. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Chopin's funeral, bisecting the 19th century, stands as a turning point. Both the life and music of this frail elegant man played out at the crossroads. His decline and death following a series of catastrophes, particularly the breach with his lover Georges Sand and the ebb of his creative energy on the brink of a new style, were both final chapters in his often tragic life and reflected larger historical forces. CHOPIN'S FUNERAL is about a death foretold as the sum of other tragedies: the end of a world that fostered his particular genius; the wounds of exile and most fatally, the loss of love. An intimate close-up of the composer's last years, it is also the story of the artist as hero. At the close of his life, with no home or money, his physical powers failing, Chopin grappled with nothing less than a new musical form. CHOPIN'S FUNERAL is also the larger story of a great nineteenth-century city, Paris, in the grip of revolution. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)786.2The arts Music Keyboard, mechanical, electronic, percussion instruments Piano--about the instrumentLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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