Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Francis Schonken portion (revised 31/12/2020)
Proposal by Francis Schonken (talk), 31 December 2020 revision (Rink source added):
3rd and last subsection to be added to Frédéric Chopin#Early Life
[edit]The text proposed below would replace the explanatory footnote "n 6":
====Passions====
Early October 1829 Chopin wrote to Woyciechowski:[1][2]
[...] mam mój ideał, któremu wiernie, nie mówiąc z nim już pół roku, służę, który mi się śni, na którego pamiątkę stanęło adagio od mojego koncertu, który mi inspirował tego walczyka dziś rano, co ci posyłam. |
[...] I [...] have my own ideal, which I have served faithfully, though silently, for half a year; of which I dream, to thoughts of which the adagio of my concerto belongs, and which this morning inspired the little waltz I am sending you. |
—Chopin to Woyciechowski (3 October 1829)[1] | —Translation by Ethel Voynich (1931)[2] |
The "adagio" is the second movement (Larghetto) of his Piano Concerto Op. 21,[3] and the "little waltz" is his Op. posth. 70, No. 3, in D-flat major.[4] Translators Arthur Hedley (1962) and David Frick (2016) assumed that the "ideal", unnamed in Chopin's letter, refers to a woman.[4][5] According to, among others, biographers Frederick Niecks (1888), Adam Zamoyski (1979, rev. 2010) and Alan Walker (2018) that woman was Konstancja Gładkowska.[3][6][7][8] According to Walker, the passage is "[t]he clearest indication we have of Chopin's infatuation with Konstancja."[8] In April 1830 Chopin wrote Woyciechowski that the new concerto he was composing (Op. 11) has no value until Woyciechowski has heard it and approved of it.[9] The summer of that year Chopin spent a few weeks with his friend on his estate in Poturzyn.[5] From a letter he wrote him after returning to Warsaw:[10][11]
Idę się umywać, nie całuj mię teraz, bom się jeszcze nie umył. — Ty? chociażbym się olejkami wysmarował bizantyjskimi, nie pocałowałbyś, gdybym ja Ciebie magnetycznym sposobem do tego nie przymusił. Jest jakaś siła w naturze. Dziś Ci się śnić będzie, że mnie całujesz. Muszę Ci oddać za szkaradny sen, jakiś mi dziś w nocy sprowadził. |
I am going to wash now; don't kiss me, I'm not washed yet. You? If I were smeared with the oils of Byzantium, you would not kiss me unless I forced you to it by magnetism. There's some kind of power in nature. Today you will dream of kissing me! I have got to pay you out for the horrible dream you gave me last night. |
—Chopin to Woyciechowski (4 September 1830)[10] | —Translation by Ethel Voynich (1931)[11] |
According to Niecks, Chopin had two passions: his love for Gładkowska and his friendship for Woyciechowski, while he expressed his friendship for the latter sometimes in words a lover would use towards his beloved.[12] Zamoyski considered the quoted passage from the letter of 4 September consistent with how feelings were expressed in the Romantic era.[13] According to Walker, the passage is undeniably erotic, and Chopin transferred what he was feeling for Gładkowska to Woyciechowski.[14] Music critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim saw hand-wringing in such explanations of this and other fervent letters Chopin wrote to his friend.[14][15] According to a 2020 radio broadcast by Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, the "ideal" which Chopin mentioned in his letter of 3 October 1829 was Woyciechowski himself, the object of the composer's affection for many years.[5][16][17][18]
Paragraph to be added between the 4th and 5th paragraphs of the "Reception and influence" section
[edit]In this part of the proposal, the prose and section title of the "Sexuality" section are removed, and replaced by this text, placed as a new paragraph between the current 4th and 5th paragraphs of the "Reception and influence" section:
Musicologist Erinn Knyt writes: "In the nineteenth century Chopin and his music were commonly viewed as effeminate, androgynous, childish, sickly, and 'ethnically other.'"[19] The music historian Jeffrey Kallberg says that in Chopin's time, "listeners to the genre of the piano nocturne often couched their reactions in feminine imagery", and he cites many examples of such reactions to Chopin's nocturnes.[20] Such genderization was not commonly applied to other piano genres such as the scherzo or the polonaise.[21] "To be associated with the feminine was also often to be devalorized",[22] and such associations of Chopin's music with the "feminine" did not begin to shift until the twentieth century, when pianists such as Artur Rubinstein began to play these works in a less sentimental manner, away from "salon style", and when musical analysis of a more rigorous nature (such as that of Heinrich Schenker) began to assert itself.[23]
References and sources
[edit]References
- ^ a b To Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn (1829-10-03) at Fryderyk Chopin Institute website.
- ^ a b Voynich, Ethel (1931). Chopin's Letters. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 69
- ^ a b Rink 1997, p. 12.
- ^ a b Hedley, Arthur (1962). Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin. Heinemann, p. 34
- ^ a b c Weber 2020.
- ^ Niecks 1888, pp. 124–125].
- ^ Zamoyski 2010, pp. 50–52 (locs. 801–838).
- ^ a b Walker (2018). p. 108.
- ^ Niecks 1888, pp. 126–127.
- ^ a b To Tytus Woyciechowski in Poturzyn (1830-09-04) at Fryderyk Chopin Institute website.
- ^ a b Voynich, Ethel (1931). Chopin's Letters. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 102
- ^ Niecks 1888, pp. 125–126.
- ^ Zamoyski 2010, locs. 850-886.
- ^ a b Walker (2018). pp. 109–110.
- ^ da Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna . "An Ingenious Frédéric Chopin". The New York Times. 19 November 2018.
- ^ Oltermann, Philip and Walker, Shaun (25 November 2020). "Chopin's interest in men airbrushed from history, programme claims: Journalist says he has found overt homoeroticism in Polish composer’s letters" in The Guardian.
- ^ Picheta, Rob (29 November 2020). "Was Chopin gay? The awkward question in one of the EU's worst countries for LGBTQ rights" at CNN.
- ^ Chilton, Louis (30 November 2020). "Frédéric Chopin’s same-sex love letters covered up by biographers and archivists, claims new programme: Swiss radio documentary explored evidence of the great composer’s attraction to men" in The Independent.
- ^ Knyt, Erinn E. (2017-04-01). "Ferruccio Busoni and the "Halfness" of Frédéric Chopin". Journal of Musicology. 34 (2): 280. doi:10.1525/jm.2017.34.02.241. ISSN 0277-9269.
- ^ Kallberg (2010), pp. 104–106.
- ^ Kallberg (2010), pp. 106–107.
- ^ Kallberg (2010), p. 110.
- ^ Kallberg (2010), p. 112.
- Sources
-
- Kallberg, Jeffrey (2010). "The Harmony of the Tea Table: Gender and Ideology in the Piano Nocturne", in Representations , No. 39 (Summer, 1992), pp. 102–133
- Niecks, Frederick (1888). Frederick Chopin: As a Man and Musician. Vol. I. Novello, Ewer & Co.
- Niecks, Frederick (1888b). Frederick Chopin: As a Man and Musician. Vol. II. Novello, Ewer & Co.
- Rink, John (1997). Chopin: The Piano Concertos. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521446600.
- Walker, Alan (2018). Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374714376
- Weber, Moritz (7 December 2020). "Chopin war schwul – und niemand sollte davon erfahren" [Chopin was gay and no one must know about it]. Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (in German).
- Zamoyski, Adam (2010). Chopin: Prince of the Romantics (e-book ed.). London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-735182-4. OCLC 891811930. Revised from Chopin: A Biography (1979)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
Versions of the proposal
[edit]The main versions of the proposal are:
- 3rd statement version: 07:38, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
- 4th statement version: 07:51, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
- 5th statement version: 21:29, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
- 6th statement version: 16:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC): version at the start of RfC
- 31/12/20 revision: 06:55, 31 December 2020 (UTC)