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Speaking of sick ol' Chopin...

In all of his paintings he appears to have a skinnier face than this picture which was taken during his last year. Do you think his illness was causing facial bloating/swelling?

I love Paul Barton.

Check out his videos about hauling a piano into the jungle to play for the elephants. Beautiful stuff.

Kidney disease (like Mozart's Henoch-Schönlein that he suffered from in his last days) can cause bloating due to fluid retention, but Chopin had TB/consumption which is a wasting disease causing a gaunt appearance. Death is usually from bleeding into the lungs causing suffocation.

Artist's licence perhaps?

That was another movie.....

Such a crying shame that medical science wasn't more advanced in the 19th century. Just imagine the gifts that composers like Schubert and Chopin might have given us had they lived longer.

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Such a crying shame that medical science wasn't more advanced in the 19th century. Just imagine the gifts that composers like Schubert and Chopin might have given us had they lived longer.
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still, some of chopin's great pieces he wouldn't have released if he stayed alive so I guess it worked out well for us! RIP chopin

TB (if that's what he had) wasn't actually what killed Chopin. His heart killed him. The doctor that did his autospy told Chopin's sister that Chopin's heart was in worse shape than his lungs. Unfortunately, the actual autospy report has not survived. He probably had a heart condition called cor pulmonale which is heart failure caused by the heart overworking to compensate for the lack of oxygen supplied by compromised lungs. Heart failure can cause fluid accumulation. That's why Chopin's face is a bit puffy. (And probably a tab bluish). It probably actually improved his looks at that point. He also complained of bad swelling in his legs.

Speaking of Chopin pieces that I don't like anymore... the first two scherzi are pretty boring to me these days. Only the 3rd and 4th still hit it home for me. Am I the only one?

The 1st and 4th have never done much for me - but love 2 and 3. Guess we're all different.

Again, there's no reason to think that Chopin had anything against the Fantaisie-Impromptu, and although I'm extremely fond of the movie Impromptu, that scene is purest fantasy and it insults a truly great piece of music.

It is taking me forever to get beyond about 95% of the way toward learning this piece. I've been at "almost" for far too long now. But the more time I spend with it, the more respect I have for it. When it is going well, it's an ecstatic experience.

For those who are learning the Fantaisie-Impromptu, please check out the original version sold to the Baroness d'Est. While the differences are not huge, it is definitely more interesting than and superior to the Fontana version, which is what one finds in most editions.

Frycek is right about heart failure being the cause of the facial edema seen in the photograph, and the direct cause of death. (The edema couldn't very well be "artist's license" being that we're talking about a photograph. Which BTW was not colored like the version given in this thread.) And Chopin almost certainly had one or the other of two genetic conditions, rather than TB-- although there's no reason he could not have been infected with that common disease on top of the underlying illness.

I'm not crazy about the scherzi, compared with most of Chopin's output, but it's hard for me to understand the concept of being bored by any music at that level of complexity. Annoyed by some pieces, perhaps, but not bored.

Elene

I'm bringing back the first scherzo, spending 1-2 hours a day with it, getting it ready for a performance in a couple days. If I ever start to feel a little tired of it, I just have to play it slowly, and listen. It's wondrous and beautiful down to its very core. Every measure. The trick is to not lose sight of that in the seething fury.

-J

I don't know... I guess I've just really steered away from early Chopin. Not to say that scherzo 2 is early or anything, but its form just doesn't seem as masterful as the last two. By the time he wrote the third scherzo his form was ratcheting up another notch. IMO...