8 Unexpected Things Inspired By Chopin
The music of Poland’s eminent Romantic composer and virtuoso pianist Fryderyk Chopin inspired a great many things. Instead of the obvious, like biographical films, here Culture.pl looks at seven things that seem rather surprising, including a video game in which Chopin returns from the afterlife and a painter’s experience of synaesthesia.
A walk in Chopin’s footsteps
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Hotel Chopin in Paris, photo: promo materials
After Poland, Paris was Fryderyk Chopin’s second home. Born in 1810 in the Polish village of Żelazowa Wola near Warsaw, the pianist settled in the capital of France at the age of 21 and lived there for the rest of his life.
Being proud of having had such a meaningful part in the life of the eminent Polish piano player, Paris let’s people know about it through, among other things, a street named after him (Rue Chopin) and the Conservatoire Frédéric Chopin music school. But also, France’s capital boasts a charming little hotel named after the musician.
Hotel Chopin, opened in 1846, dates back to the times when the famous Pole walked the streets of Paris (originally called Family Hotel, it was renamed in 1970). Stylishly located in the well-known Passage Jouffroy, a 19th-century covered shopping arcade, a spot the composer knew well. As the hotel’s website explains:
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[The] name is a tribute to the composer who was regularly in the passage to get from his home to the Pleyel’s pianos demonstration room.
The piano manufacturer Ignace Pleyel provided Chopin with instruments and organised some of his concerts. So, if you want a rather literal walk in the virtuoso’s footsteps, you now know where to go.
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Warsaw’s zebra crossings reminiscent of piano keyboards, built in honour of Chopin in 2010, photo: Helena Czernek
If you want something more metaphorical, you can find two zebra crossings in Warsaw that look like piano keyboards. Built in honour of Chopin in 2010, they silently add a musical flourish to your footsteps as you cross the centrally-located street Emilii Plater.
The first rock from the Sun
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Chopin Crater on Mercury, photo: Wikipedia
A touch further out lies the Chopin Crater on Mercury. Located on the planet’s southern hemisphere, the impact crater was, as the name implies, formed by the falling of a meteor or comet. Surely, naming an extra-terrestrial landform 129 kilometres wide after the Pole only goes to show how stellar an impact he has had.
Nadpisz opis powiązanego wpisu
In her curious MEAKULTURA article about Chopin monuments around the world, Maja Trochimczyk mentions the crater:
In her curious MEAKULTURA article about Chopin monuments around the world, Maja Trochimczyk mentions the crater:
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Chopin is in pretty good company here. There are 398 craters named after historical figures from all countries and cultures (…) numerous composers, among writers, poets, artists, painters and philosophers (…).
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‘Frederic: Resurrection of Music’, photo: promo materials
Like the crater, the protagonist of the video game Frederic: Resurrection of Music is also out of this world. In this quirky 2014 production from the Polish studio Forever Entertainment, the great pianist comes back from the afterlife to save the world of music from the soulless dominance of major labels…
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Soulless music labels and mass-produced popstars have hindered all creativity. And you're the only hope of bringing it back. (…) Battle your opponents in musical duels, intensity of which will make your palms sweat. (…) Play through twelve catchy arrangements of Chopin's greatest classics, each in a different musical genre. Practice your skills until perfection and become the master of the piano.
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From the developer’s description at Steam
Like the famed Guitar Hero, the core of the gameplay consists in striking musical notes representing the game’s soundtrack as they scroll through the screen. Here’s what the nintendolife website wrote about the humorous game which, notably, has received ‘very positive’ reviews from Steam users:
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The new versions of Chopin’s compositions are mostly enjoyable. (…) A particularly interesting highlight is Piano Sonata No 2 in B flat minor (better known as ‘The Funeral March’) played as a bluegrass ditty against a surly county sheriff (…).
Subtle green apple & vanilla nose
Chopin vodka, photo: promo materials A somewhat more down-to-earth Chopin inspiration comes from Polmos-Siedlce, the Polish distillers behind the luxury Chopin Vodka. Distilled in the quaint village of Krzesk in Eastern Poland, the three varieties of the beverage are made of a single ingredient in order to highlight its taste: potato, rye and wheat. The official website makes the potato one sound lovely:
Its uniquely creamy and full-bodied flavour profile makes it a great standalone vodka, ideal for sipping neat or in a vodka martini. A sophisticated vodka for discerning connoisseurs. Tasting notes: Subtle green apple and vanilla nose; Creamy and earthy taste; Full bodied mouth-feel; Long, clean finish, no burn.
On the elegant bottle is a reproduction of Chopin’s portrait by Eliza Radzwiłł, daughter of the Polish duke Antoni Henryk Radziwiłł, composer of the first Faust opera (Chopin visited the duke in 1829, that’s when his daughter made the drawing). Below the portrait is a quote from the pianist:
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Simplicity is the final achievement.
There's also some musical context and an explanation linking the award-winning liquor with Chopin:
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After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art. (...) The same passion Frederic Chopin conveyed so eloquently in his music is captured in every bottle of his namesake vodka.
Green leaves in the spring
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Alexander Scriabin’s ‘clavier à lumières’, a keyboard with notes corresponding to colours, photo: Wikipedia
An even more ethereal Chopin-inspired phenomenon was mentioned by the English psychologist Charles S. Myers in his paper Two Cases Of Synaesthesia, published in 1914 in the British Journal of Psychology. For those unacquainted with the term, let’s quickly remind what ‘synaesthesia’ means:
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Synesthesia is a ‘crossing’ of the senses. For example, ‘colour-hearing,’ in which people say that specific sounds evoke in them the actual experience of certain colours, is relatively frequent. Some musicians and others report that they see particular colours whenever they hear given tones and musical passages; poets sometimes claim to hear sounds or musical tones when they see words, images, and colours.
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Excerpt from Encyclopaedia Britannica’s article on illusions
In the first case of the paper, Myers asks the noted Russian composer Alexander Scriabin to say a little about his ‘coloured hearing’. The Russian mentions, for instance, that ‘to him the key of F♯ major appears violet’.
In the second case, the psychologist questions ‘a lady (Subject B) who is an accomplished painter and takes a keen enjoyment in hearing music although she does not play on any instrument’. The painter says that the works of Chopin inspire her to see:
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Very translucent colours such as green leaves in the spring.
A fashionable society dance
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Unexpected Chopin inspiration can also be found in the world of typography. The Chopin Script font, downloadable free of charge, have a Romantic, hand-written style. However, it ought to be said that the curvy script is only a digitalisation of an older font called Polonaise created in the 1970s by the American type designer Phil Martin. We owe the 21st-century digitalization to Claude Pelletier, a designer from Quebec.
Pelletier’s choice of namesake isn’t by any means random – Chopin was well-known for composing polonaises:
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Fryderyk Chopin's polonaises are tightly linked to the national strand in his music. (…) All the Chopin polonaises, regardless of when they were written, are connected by the supreme idea of the polonaise – the most important Polish national dance.
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From the website of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute
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Nocturne Serif Font, photo: Font Spring
Another Chopin-inspired font, this time by one of his most famous pieces, is Nocturne Serif designed by Poland’s Mateusz Machalski. Its stylish modern lettering will be featured throughout Culture.pl’s upcoming book exploring Polish words, due to be published in late 2018.
Baseball fields & tennis courts
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Chopin Park in Chicago, photo: Google Maps
Although Chopin never visited America, there are plenty of things named after him there, like Chopin Avenue in San Jose or the Frost Chopin Academy at the University of Miami. More unexpectedly, there’s a park in Chicago, Illinois.
The eight-acre park in the Portage Park area dates back to the 1930s, the choice of its namesake a nod to the numerous citizens of Polish descent living there. The park features a number of attractions: baseball fields, tennis courts and a historic fieldhouse with an auditorium. The latter is where a number of cultural activities take place including guitar and piano lessons. The Chicago Park District’s website says of the fieldhouse:
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Over the years, the facility drew neighbourhood residents for a wide variety of indoor activities, including pre-school and mothers' clubs, gymnastics, social dancing, crafts, citizenship classes. Particularly appropriate given its name, a local orchestra practiced at the fieldhouse, performing concerts in the auditorium.
The newest unexpected Chopin inspiration comes in the form of... perfume. The Chopin Perfumes website states:
Chopin perfumes are an olfactory interpretation of the Master’s compositions.
Chopin-lovers can choose from three different fragrances which 'combine the atmosphere of classical music with modern minimalism, where the power of scent is equal to that of sound'. Each scent is named after a different musical composition and each bottle is embossed with the composer's signature. So if you love Chopin so much you'd like to smell like his music – this is definitely the product for you!
A piano lesson or a concert at Chopin Park in Chicago, Illinois? Sounds like nothing the hero of Frederic: Resurrection would want to fight against. On the contrary, perhaps he’d even have a little glass of Chopin Vodka to celebrate…
Written by Marek Kępa, Jun 2018, updated by NR, Mar 2019
