FREDERIC CHOPIN,BORN 1ST MARCH,THE POLISH COMPOSER WHO LIVED IN VALLDEMOSSA, MALLORCA.
You are probably not the first, neither the last one to look up your horoscope to find out what the future has in store for you, or tried to find out the kind of character someone has. I don´t know if the parents of Chopin checked their son´s horoscope. But if they had done so, they would have red that “people born on the first of March have a big talent for music and are very sensitive for all the impulses they receive out of their surrounding”. That really hit the nail on the head.
Chopin was born the 1st of March 1810 in the bosom of an art loving family. At a very early age, Frederic Chopin received piano lessons from his older sister Ludwika, with whom he will play duets. Can you imagine an 8 year old child that can barely read and write preforming a concert! He must have been the pride of his mother, the envy of her friends. If the child should have been living today, he would have been the absolute star in programs as “xfactor” , «american Idol»or “Britain has talent”.
Chopin was without any doubt a wonder child and was lucky to be able to study in the Lyceum of Warschau ,where his father was a teacher. Of course he got good grades and graduated Cum Laude in july 1826. Two more years in the Supreme School for Music would complete his study. His professor would describe Frederic Chopin as “ Surprisingly talented , a musical genius” .
Frederic Chopin was ready for the real work and was invited to preform concerts in cities as Vienna, Prague and Dresden. He really conquered the audience and was a celebrated star. Today he would have been on TV, on big tours and followed by screaming fans.
After a few years of big success, Chopin decides it is time to grow more and on the 2nd of november, Frederic Chopin leaves Poland for a trip that will take him through Europe. He leaves his homeland with the intention of coming back, but while he is in Vienna, he learns about the November Revolt, the revolt of the Polish people against the Russian.
He will never go back to his beloved country. A sad and difficult time will start for our young artist but this experience will help him create an own style. Frederic Chopin can let go his frustration, anger and impotence on the keyboard and composes nocturnes and studies.
Chopin has it very difficult in Vienna and leaves the hostile city. He goes through different places and cities before he arrives in Paris in october 1831.
Paris is the capital of art and music. Frederic Chopin soon finds himself accepted in a group of intellectuals and artists. There he meets Liszt, with whom he becomes good friends. Liszt takes Chopin to a meeting with other friends and that is how the polish composer meets the baroness Dudevant, know as the writer George Sand. It is not exactly love at first sight! A second meeting a bit later will do the trick and Chopin and George Sand start living as a couple in the summer of 1838.
Chopin has always been having problems with his health. A doctor advises him to spend a time in Mallorca, in a Mediterranean climate.
So off they go, the baroness with her children and Chopin, for the long trip to the island.
They arrive in Palma where they rent a house in Establiments «SON VENT» But they have to abandon the house and find a place to stay in Valldemossa.
In this beautifull village in the Tramuntana, they will be staying in the charter house from the 15 of december1838 until the 12th of february 1839.
Frederic Chopin and George Sand were really not lucky with the weather. It rained and rained and of course, that did not make Chopin get any better. They did not stay all that long in Valldemossa, but long enough to compose the world famous “rain drop “ prelude Op 28no15.
I hope you take a moment of your time to look up that beautiful melody and listen to it while you go off daydreaming about Mallorca, the island that inspired, and still is a source of inspiration, to so many people of all kind.