QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
        —Victor Hugo

“To study music, we must learn the rules.
To create music, we must forget them.”
        —Nadia Boulanger

“When people hear good music, it makes them homesick
for something they never had, and never will have.”
        —Edgar Watson Howe

“I can’t listen to that much Wagner.
I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.”
        —Woody Allen

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress…
Then music, with her silver sound
With speedy help doth lend redress.”
        —Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, IV.v.122, 128

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

MARCH 1, 1810: Famed pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin is born to French and Polish parents in the town of Zelazowa Wola, Poland. Chopin was born Fryderyk Franciszek, but took the French version of his name when he moved to Paris in 1830. Chopin showed musical promise from a very early age, having composed two polonaises by age 7 and two piano concertos by age 20. While in Paris, Chopin became friends with renowned composers Berlioz, Mendelssohn, and Liszt, and quickly built a reputation as a talented musician.
        Chopin succumbed to tuberculosis in 1849. His funeral was held in L’église de la Madeleine and was attended by nearly 3,000 people. Chopin had requested that Mozart’s Requiem be performed at his service, but the piece—which had major parts for female singers—was not allowed at la Madeleine, which had never permitted women to sing in its choir. After a bit of pressure, the church relented and allowed the piece to be performed, provided the women were concealed behind a curtain. Chopin is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, though his heart was removed at his request and sent to Warsaw in an urn, where it was sealed in a pillar in the Church of the Holy Cross.