I thought it was pretty funny.

Nobody knows when Chopin contracted TB (if that's what he had). He was having serious pulmonary trouble by the time he was fifteen if not a good bit earlier. He was fifteen when he was treated at a spa along with his younger sister who was also ill. His sister died, he got better, temporarily at least. He first used the dreaded C word, consumption, in his late 20's when he became very ill while in Majorca with George Sand. He was described as a consumptive by third parties a good bit earlier than that. And possibly diagnosed for all we know. He had a lion's heart and was a master of denial.

Chopin never concertized extensively. His lifetime total is something like thirty and almost none of them were the extensive affairs we would think of as a concert by a major artist today. You may be thinking of the killing concert schedule he was depicted as following in A Song to Remember. Blood on the keys and all that. That never happened, though ironically he did give his last concerts, a handful, in England and Scotland, when he was very ill because he was adrift after George Sand dumped him and very broke.

Chopin flat out hated playing for strangers in public. He said it suffocated him. According to George Sand, his ideal venue would've been a dark stage, an empty hall, and a muted piano.

Freddy Krueger was (? is) invincible, unlike Frederyk Chopin.....

I think what they called consumption probably included the thing that is our dreaded C word, as well as TB (which was probably what it usually was) and other things.

BTW great post, Frycek -- and great to see you on here.

What you said about his performing is in line with what I've ever come across. And I don't think even "Song to Remember" gives much of an impression that it was otherwise, even though they have him doing that breakneck final tour.

I've often wondered the same thing, how much of a catch all term consumption was, though I suppose even then a canny physician would have realized a difference in the symptoms between lung cancer and tuberculosis - which are distinctly different. Don't really know how prevalent lung cancer was in the early 19th century.


It was the breakneck final tour I was thinking about. You're right though, now that I remember, in the movie some Polish rebels/exiles (?) guilt tripped him into doing even that.

As I recall, the film (which I saw a couple of years ago) was an entertaining piece of fiction which wove Chopin's hit tunes into a series of implausible vignettes. For example, the scene where Chopin first met Liszt featured the Opus 53 Polonaise which I'm certain was composed well after their initial meeting actually took place. The breakneck final tour just made me laugh. But, to its credit, "Song" increased public awareness of Chopin's music in general.