Sunday, May 18, 2008

Chopin prefers Mozart

I just heard the tail-end of a blurb on NPR (I think it was about Mahler). The piece included the tidbit that Chopin's last words were "Play Mozart for me, will you?"

[Update: Oh, for Pete's sake. Apparently there's some conflict about what Chopin's last words were. There's this, that describes he died of TB and said this: "The earth is suffocating . . . Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive." And there's this account: "But when he asked Chopin whether he was still in pain, we quite distinctly heard the answer: 'No more.' These were the last words heard from his lips." - Charles Gavard, witness to Chopin's death. And this: "Play Mozart's Requiem in memory of me."

While I was looking for this, I came across this quote attributed to Robert Schumann: "We may be sure that a genius like Mozart, were he born today, would write concertos like Chopin and not like Mozart."]

No comments: