Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion by Christine Lee Gengaro

Abstract

Reviewed by: Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion by Christine Lee Gengaro Laura Pita Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion. By Christine Lee Gengaro. (The Listener's Companion.) Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. [xxiv, 181 p. ISBN 9781442260863 (hardcover), $42; ISBN 9781442260870 (e-book), $39.50.] Timeline, glossary, bibliography, discography, index. Christine Lee Gengaro's Experiencing Chopin: A Listener's Companion appears nearly simultaneously with two other books on Chopin: Alan Walker's comprehensive biography Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2018) and the essay collection Chopin and His World (ed. Jonathan D. Bellman and Halina Goldberg [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017]), which brings together a substantial group of Chopin scholars. Experiencing Chopin is Gengaro's first publication on nineteenth-century music, as her principal area of research is film music and music in popular culture. (An earlier book is Listening to Stanley Kubrick: The Music in His Films [Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013].) With Experiencing Chopin, Gengaro explores the niche of critical literature for the nonspecialist. The book belongs to the Listener's Companion series, which provides readers "a deeper understanding of pivotal musical genres and the creative work of … iconic composers and performers." This task is accomplished by placing readers "in specific listening experiences in which the music is examined in its historical context with regard to both compositional and societal parameters" (p. ix). Experiencing Chopin is organized into ten chapters, supplemented by a timeline, a glossary of musical terms, and selected readings and listening lists. Most of the chapters use biography as a context to discuss a set of pieces, usually from a specific genre. Chapter 1, "The [End Page 473] Piano Lesson," examines Chopin's etudes in relation to his experiences as a music student in Poland and as a teacher in Paris. Chapter 2, "Chopin's Concert Life," deals with Chopin's performances from his years as a child prodigy through adulthood and the composition of the two piano concertos. Chapter 3, "Confidants and Collaborators," explores Chopin's relationships with some of his Polish mates and close friends in Paris while commenting on his collaborative work with Auguste Franchomme on the Grand duo concertant sur des thèmes de Robert le diable and his Sonata for Cello and Piano in G Minor. Chapter 4, "Creative Nocturnes," looks at Chopin's stay in Vienna in 1830 and the influence of John Field on his nocturnes, while chapter 5, "Devotion to Poland," considers Chopin's mazurkas and polonaises in the light of his nationalism. The ballades and Chopin's relationship with George Sand are the focus of chapter 6, "Love, Chopin Style." Chapter 7, "Chopin and the Voice," discusses Chopin's songs in the context of his fondness for vocal music and his association with the poets Stefan Witwicki and Adam Mickiewicz. In chapter 8, "Musical Inheritance," Gengaro observes the influence of Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Chopin's preludes and the variations on "La ci darem la mano." As part of an examination of his piano sonata, chapter 9, "Maladies among the Melodies," presents various theories on Chopin's fragile health and the cause of his death. The last chapter, "Modern Chopin," offers a study of the endurance of Chopin's legacy in popular culture as reflected in the use of his music in cartoons and his presence as a character in films and video games. Gengaro's book is not a standard text of music history and criticism but rather an investigation of both Chopin's artistic and mundane self—a "portrait of an actual man, touched by genius" (p. xv). The author makes clear from the beginning that her aim is to use the historical contexts of creation and reception, and musical commentary on the pieces, to connect readers with Chopin's musical world and thus inspire them "to sit back and really listen" (p. xv). In doing so, she draws from historical facts and quotes extensively from correspondence and other personal sources—by Chopin, his lovers, friends, and students—while also indulging "in some invention and speculation" (p. xv). Whether Gengaro has been successful in such a venture is not easy to answer...