Biographies of Frédéric Chopin

By the first decades of the 21st century, over a hundred biographies of Frédéric Chopin had been published.[1]

Maurycy Karasowski, one of Chopin's early biographers.

Full biographies

Book-length biographies of Chopin's entire life include:

• Liszt, Franz (1852). F. Chopin (in French). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. At Gutenberg.org: 4th edition (1890); English translation by Martha Walker Cook: Life of Chopin (4th edition, 1880).[2][3]
• Karasowski, Maurycy (first name in German: Moritz):
  • — (1877). Friedrich Chopin: Sein Leben, seine Werke und Briefe (in German). (2 vols.). Dresden: Ries.
  • — (1878). Friedrich Chopin: Sein Leben und seine Briefe (in German) (2nd, reworked and enlarged ed.). Dresden: Ries.[4]
  • — (1879). Frederick Chopin: His Life, Letters, and Works. (2 vols.). Translated by Hill, Emily. London: Reeves.[4]
• Niecks, Frederick (1888). Frederick Chopin: As a Man and Musician. I – II. Novello, Ewer & Co.[5][3]
• Zamoyski, Adam (1979). Chopin: A Biography. London: Collins. ISBN 0002160897.[6]
  • — (1980). Chopin: A New Biography (1st USA ed.). Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. ISBN 0385135971.[7][3]
  • — (2010). Chopin: Prince of the Romantics (revised digital ed.). London: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780007351824.[8]
• Walker, Alan (2018). Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374714376.[1][9]

Partial biographies

Book-length biographies concentrating on a limited number of episodes in Chopin's life include:

• Szulc, Tad (1998). Chopin in Paris: The Life and Times of the Romantic Composer. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-0-684-82458-1.[10]
• Eisler, Benita (2007) [2003]. Chopin's Funeral. Knopf Doubleday. ISBN 9780307425256.[11]

Collections of primary documents

Bundled primary documents, such as letters and diaries, pertaining to Chopin's life include:[12][13]

• Chopin's Letters (1931).
  • Based on Henryk Opieński's collection
  • Translations by Ethel Voynich
• Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin (1962).
  • Based on Bronisław Edward Sydow's collection
  • Translations by Arthur Hedley
• Chopin's Polish Letters (2016). ISBN 9788364823190.
  • Published by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.
  • Translations by David Frick

References

1. Pekacz 2019.
2. John Rink and Jim Samson, eds. (2006). Chopin Studies 2. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521034333, p. 23.
3. Smaliek & Trochimczyk 2015
4. Helman-Bednarczyk 2016, p. 18.
5. "Review: Niecks's Chopin". The Musical Times. 30 (552): 73–75. 1 February 1889. doi:10.2307/3359954.
6. OCLC 5948326
7. OCLC 639395617
8. OCLC 891811930
9. da Fonseca-Wollheim, Corinna. "An Ingenious Frédéric Chopin". The New York Times. 19 November 2018.
10. Driver 1998.
11. Miller 2003.
12. Helman-Bednarczyk 2016, pp. 16–17.
13. Milewski 2017.

Sources

• Driver, Paul (5 April 1998). "Heartless Romantic: A biography of Chopin finds the dark side of the composer". The New York Times.
• Helman-Bednarczyk, Zofia (December 2016). "The New Edition of Chopin's Correspondence". Musicology Today. De Gruyter Open. 13 (1). doi:10.1515/muso-2016-0009.
• Milewski, Barbara (10 November 2017). "Book Review: Fryderyk Chopin, Chopin's Polish Letters, trans. David Frick (Warsaw: Fryderyk Chopin Institute, 2016). 552 pp. €60,00". Nineteenth-Century Music Review. Cambridge University Press (published April 2019). 16 (1): 108–113. doi:10.1017/S147940981700074X.
• Miller, Lucasta (21 June 2003). "The composer who never grew up". The Guardian.
• Pekacz, Jolanta (April 2019). "Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times. By Alan Walker. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2018. 727 pp. ISBN 9780374159061". CAML Review. 47 (1): 51–52.
• Smaliek, William; Trochimczyk, Maja (2015). "Biographies". Fréderic Chopin: A Research and Information Guide (2nd ed.). New York and London: Routledge. pp. 7–13, 96–105. ISBN 9780415998840.

External links

• Chopin Biography at Fryderyk Chopin Institute website.
• The Online Books Page: Chopin, Frédéric, 1810-1849 at University of Pennsylvania Libraries website.