The Romantics and Us

I've been watching a three part documentary series The Romantics and Us on BBC2 and now on iplayer to enjoy again and again. What a lush series. For me it could have continued on and on, never ending and exploring the artists, poets and writers of the period of history from 1800 to 1850. 

The programme's main theme was that our modern politics and activism, stem from many of the Romantic's ideas, as romantic thinkers influenced liberalism, radicalism, conservatism, and nationalism.

 

There is so much to write about but one part I found fascinating was the in the last episode, where Simon Schama discusses the music of Chopin. It was interesting to learn how Chopin was unable to return to his homeland of Poland, and lived in exile due to him being a committed nationalist in a county occupied by Russia. He refused to take a Russian passport and his music was viewed as subversive by Tsarist Russia, and was banned outright by Nazi Germany. 

In this article from The Independent his life and the impact of his music is discussed, both on Polish people themselves and on their oppressors. "In 1863, Russian troops even destroyed the piano Chopin had played as a child prodigy in Warsaw, throwing it out the second storey of a building in symbolic revenge for a failed assassination attempt against the Russian governor of Poland." I learned also about the longstanding suffering, through war and occupation, of the people of Poland that started long before the events of the second world war.

The article ends by noting that while Chopin's body is buried in Paris, his heart was returned to Poland and "lies inside a crystal urn filled with alcohol in Warsaw's sprawling and ornate baroque Church of the Holy Cross."

 Another interesting fact given this is the 10 year anniversary of my blog, is that 2010 was the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth. 

The link above is to a really informative article from 2010, which gives a great overview of Chopin's life and music, and also questions the usual view of Chopin's music as "miniature and feminine". The article again highlights that Chopin is celebrated in Poland as a "lion of the keyboard...a compositional revolutionary." Listening to these two pieces I can quite hear why, both miniature and great... "the world in a grain of sand."

I really enjoyed exploring the work and life of Chopin, and hope to spend some more time reading about his life and listening to his work.