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I think it was supposed to be a sly joke. At least they didn't bring in the anecdote about the dog chasing its tail. There were at least a couple more little "in" jokes, such as when Our Friend anachronistically starts playing 28/15 and the countess pouts that, "it sounds like rain" and when he's noodling around with the Fantasy Impromptu and remarks that he's never been satisfied with it.

BTW I ran across an amusing snippet. According to Hugh Grant the special effects/makeup people tried to give him a fake "Chopin" nose but it kept "wriggling" so they ended up making do with his, less impressive but better behaved.

I care—a lot.

Self-esteem isn't the norm for outsiders and outcasts, and it's easy to feel invalidated in a culture that's intolerant of nonconformity. I think it's important for examples of achievement by diverse individuals to be visible—prominent, even. Gay kids especially need affirmation and positive role models of success and excellence, even if they are historical ones from a time when abnormal sexuality was taboo and hidden.

I definitely felt that need, and figured it safe to hope that Chopin was queer because that's what I heard within my own family. (His boyfriend's name was George, wasn't it? ) I didn't have a word for my nascent gaydar, but I instinctively sought signs of a certain sensibility in Chopin's music—and convinced myself I'd found it in the uniqueness of its textures and exotic harmonic language.

When I was a bit older, I looked for concrete indications that Chopin's most personal yearnings were like my own—and found them in his letters to Tytus. Though I now understand that Chopin's correspondence doesn't constitute evidence of his sexual orientation and there's no known evidence of homosexual behavior on his part, hope does spring eternal.

I still care—a lot.



Steven

Oh, yes, that Minute Waltz scene. Sand: "I only need a minute of your time." Chopin: "I'll give you exactly one minute." Sheesh. Not only a misunderstanding of the piece (which hadn't even been written yet), but to imply that Chopin would be so impolite as to play, loudly, while someone was trying to tell him something important...!

I was also bothered by Chopin saying in one of the intimate scenes toward the end that Sand shouldn't assume that he was a virgin, that he had been "baptized in the brothels of Paris when he first arrived." A logical conjecture, but untrue. (And if that had happened, it would have been Vienna anyway, possibly with the mysterious Teresa.)

The Fantaisie-Impromptu scene was interesting on more than one level. The discussion of Chopin's being unsatisfied with the piece may or may not be realistic; there is evidence that the piece went unpublished not because Chopin didn't like it but because it had been written as a private commission. One way or another, it's a beautiful scene in which the two appear to be making love through the music, mediated by the piano.

My copy of Impromptu is the 1993 Masterpiece Theatre version, in which Hugh Grant gives an introduction that includes this bit, delivered in his deadpan style: "Since Chopin had a distinctive profile, I experimented with a specially made latex nose, but those scenes later had to be reshot, because the piece was too large and rubbery and boinged up and down when I walked."

But since they put a wig on him anyway, you'd think they could have gotten the hair color right.

Gay kids certainly do need positive role models. (Go Tchaikovsky! Go Barber!) Chopin at least provides a model of a highly successful male who didn't fit the stereotypical macho mold and didn't have to. He's also a reminder that there's a whole spectrum of sexual orientation and people can find themselves anywhere along it. And that is normal.

Elene

The origins of the "Minute Waltz" moniker are an interesting puzzle, one I'm still trying to solve (in an admittedly desultory fashion). The earliest references to it that I've found in print are from the 1870s, where it appears in English sources as a German title "Minuten-Walzer" in pianists' programs. The term was in wide enough circulation then that it didn't require further circulation.

If the German form points to its origins (still very much a big "if"), then the sense of the title would point to time rather than size ("Minuten" only describing time; the English term for the tiny size "minute" being "minuziös" in German).

Jeff Kallberg

ROTFL

Re gayness: one of Chopin's close friends was the Alstophe Marquis de Custine, poet, novelist and genius travel writer, who was openly and heroically out and should be better known in the gay community. As a young man he suffered a brutal Matthew Shephard like attack and managed to survive. After that he made no effort whatsoever to disguise his sexuality. He lived openly with his partner, Edward Saint-Barbe (an Englishman in spite of the name), for thirty years and at the end of his life went to extraordinary lenghts to make sure Edward, "the other half of myself," not opportunistic distant relations inherited his estate.

I reckon that the prosthetic proboscis industry had come a long way by 2001 then, when Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for donning one in The Hours.

(And as much as I love that film, don't get me started about the piano music of Philip Glass. )

Steven

Awwww, I kind of like the Metamorphoses. Not music to go to sleep on, but it's nice in it's own way.

"My copy of Impromptu is the 1993 Masterpiece Theatre version..."

Well, now I know I'm badly behind the times. It's what I get for never playing any music more recent than 100 years old. No wonder Hugh Grant looked so young.

Being a Masterpiece Theatre production would explain the attention to getting the period costumes right, and possibly the overarching dramatic values that get it to feel "real" without letting all the details get in the way.

I agree with Steven's post about the importance of having gay role models for the young--- not that many older people couldn't also learn from history. But I accept the opinions of those who have studied this more than I, that Chopin was heterosexual. There are many cases of men with traits that we consider feminine today (and of masculine women). The range is very broad. Times and attitudes were not what they are now, and it can be difficult to project the imagination into the past to get a clear picture. And, what we think of as the gay life or the gay identity is a fairly recent construction, only some tens of years old.

Though I appreciate the value to history and the importance of the accumulation of true knowledge, it does make me a little sad to think that one is finally buried in a goldfish bowl, with every personal detail forever under scrutiny. But, not so much so that I don't want to learn more.

Jeff Clef, Impromptu wasn't actually a Masterpiece Theatre production. It was just that Masterpiece ran it in 1993, with an introduction and postscript given by Hugh Grant. It was originally released in 1991 in movie theaters-- Hugh Grant was 31 (as was I) and was starving to death and about to give up on his acting career before getting that gig. Hence the extreme skinniness, I guess. The creator was Jane Campion, who was also responsible for the creepy film The Piano and I can't remember what all else just now.

I'm not sure why I didn't go to see Impromptu when it first came out. I wouldn't have watched it in 1993 either except that one of my guitar students pushed me to see it. I thought it was going to be stupid and insulting, or something.

I've spent the bulk of the evening trying to learn to use Finale PrintMusic to make a decent lower-voice copy of "Z gor, gdzie dzwigali...." I can't put in the diacritical marks for the lyrics, and there are some other difficulties. I think it will require using a technical pen once it's printed out. Not sure if I want to buy this program-- I'm using a trial copy right now. Does anyone hear use music printing programs and have an opinion? I don't want to spend big bucks 'cause I won't be using it all that much.

Elene

Elene, if you want all the features, unfortunately you pretty much have to spring for the big apps. I have Finale 2009, and it does everything I could ever want. You might look at Finale Allegro; it won't be as capable as Finale 2010, but it'll be better than PrintMusic.

She's also the creator of the recently released biopic about John Keats called Bright Star. (which may explain why Keats, a strawberry blond, was portrayed as a dark brunette.)

Elene: Folks around my department like the Sibelius music notation software. They claim it has a shorter learning curve than Finale. As in all software-related things, YMMV.

Jeff Kallberg

Dear Steven:

I meant no offense by my post. Of course, you are right. All need role-models. I simply meant (and I admit I expressed myself badly) that I was tired of hearing about Chopin's possible homosexuality. As if that was all he was about.

Off topic: My brother is now the proud grandpa of 6 granddaughters. Number 6, Amy, was born this morning at 1 a.m. She weighed in at 9 lbs, 6 ounces. Our family is noted for very big babies.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Kathleen

Congratulations on your new grandniece!

Kathleen, I understand your point and I didn't take offense. I hope my post didn't come across that way; I just wanted to offer an "insider" viewpoint and admit my own longstanding personal interest in the topic.

Steven

I would disagree about learning curves, but Sibelius is an excellent and fully capable choice as well.

Kathleen -

Congratulations on baby Amy! What a wonderful blessing. I hope mom and baby are doing well.

Kathleen, congratulations on the new family member. And I don't think I answered your recent question-- yes, my daughter and I are definitely planning to go to Warsaw next October, also Paris and probably Bratislava, maybe Prague. And I will be heading for Essex if Mary-Rose can't join me at any other point in the journey.

Frycek, I thought Bright Star was Campion's, but wasn't sure. Did you like it? And what is this with getting the hair color wrong? Dye is cheap!

Horowitzian and Jeff, thanks for the replies about notation programs. I was fooling around with them all day. Only one has the flexibility to put in exactly what you want without artificially "correcting" things, which I need for what I'm doing.* It's Music Publisher from Braeburn in the UK, and unfortunately it doesn't have a Mac version. I downloaded a trial on our Windows desktop, and tried it just a little; looks like it has possibilities. A Mac program, Nightingale, might work but I don't know because there is no Leopard version as yet and my MacBook is recent.

I also downloaded a trial of Sibelius 6. It has the same deficiencies (and same types of strengths) as Finale PrintMusic, but costs twice as much at the educator price and three times as much for everybody else. I do see why a school would very much want it, as you can get lots of educational goodies. The learning curve seems about equally steep for both, from my small experience. They're really pretty similar in a lot of ways.

None of the above will allow me to write lyrics in Polish. I'm resigned to having to write in all the diacritical marks by hand. Strangely, in Finale one can add symbols in titles and other text boxes, but not in lyrics. Sibelius will let you write lyrics in Spanish, French, German, or Italian, but that's no help with Chopin.

Nevertheless, I have completed a copy of "Melodia" for mezzo or alto instead of soprano. This may be the very first such edition with the Polish lyrics.

*At the beginning of the accompaniment for "Melodia," the RH has 4 eighth notes, the first being also marked as a dotted quarter note, and the last having a two-note chord. This is perfectly reasonable, but in Finale or Sibelius the only way to do it is to write two separate lines in two of what they call "layers." That sort of works, but the "extra" line doesn't continue in this piece, and the program insists on putting in a bunch of unnecessary and intrusive rests. The best solution seems to be for me to put the dots in with a pen. Music Publisher allows you to write things that are "wrong" like this.

Elene

I haven't seen it yet, just the trailers. As Keats is "my other man," not quite up there with Our Friend but still much loved, I keep abreast of such things. As I live in the sticks I probably won't see it until it hits Netflix. I'm just hoping it won't be as irritating as Desire for Love!

No problem. I got a screamin' deal on Finale 2009 on education discount at Academic Superstore; might look into that. I don't know about support for Polish lyrics in the full version, though. A lot of people swear by Lilypond (also from the UK, I believe), but it requires programming experience.