181-456: Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil ( French: [amɑ̃tin lysil oʁɔʁ dypɛ̃] ; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand ( French: [ʒɔʁʒ(ə) sɑ̃d] ), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. Being more renowned than either Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, Sand is recognised as one of
362-818: A concerto by J. S. Bach for three keyboards ; and, on 3 March 1838, a concert in which Chopin, his pupil Adolphe Gutmann , Charles-Valentin Alkan , and Alkan's teacher Joseph Zimmermann performed Alkan's arrangement, for eight hands, of two movements from Beethoven 's 7th symphony . Chopin was also involved in the composition of Liszt's Hexameron ; he wrote the sixth (and final) variation on Bellini 's theme. Chopin's music soon found success with publishers, and in 1833 he contracted with Maurice Schlesinger , who arranged for it to be published not only in France but, through his family connections, also in Germany and England. In
543-590: A crucifix or priest. In his will, he made the same stipulation about his own death and funeral. Yet he believed in life after death and prayed every single morning and night, convinced as he wrote in The Man Who Laughs that "Thanksgiving has wings and flies to its right destination. Your prayer knows its way better than you do." Hugo's rationalism can be found in poems such as Torquemada (1869, about religious fanaticism ), The Pope (1878, anti-clerical ), Religions and Religion (1880, denying
724-460: A "tinge of jealousy and spite" towards Liszt's virtuosity on the piano, and others have also argued that he had become enchanted with Liszt's theatricality, showmanship, and success. Liszt was the dedicatee of Chopin's Op. 10 Études , and his performance of them prompted the composer to write to Hiller, "I should like to rob him of the way he plays my studies." However, Chopin expressed annoyance in 1843 when Liszt performed one of his nocturnes with
905-800: A 1973 French biographical film directed by Michèle Rosier and starring Anne Wiazemsky as George Sand, Alain Libolt and Denis Gunsbourg. In the 2002 Polish film Chopin: Desire for Love directed by Jerzy Antczak George Sand is portrayed by Danuta Stenka . In the French film Flashback (2021 film) directed by Caroline Vigneaux , George Sand is portrayed by Suzanne Clément . Source: "George Sand (1804–1876) – Auteur du texte" . data.bnf.fr . Bibliothèque nationale de France . Retrieved 12 June 2019 . In French: Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo ( French: [viktɔʁ maʁi yɡo] ; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885)
1086-456: A Catholic and professed respect for Church hierarchy and authority. From there he became a non-practising Catholic and increasingly expressed anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views. He frequented spiritism during his exile (where he participated also in many séances conducted by Madame Delphine de Girardin ) and in later years settled into a rationalist deism similar to that espoused by Voltaire . A census-taker asked Hugo in 1872 if he
1267-596: A Condemned Man published in 1829 analyses the pangs of a man awaiting execution; several entries in Things Seen ( Choses vues ), the diary he kept between 1830 and 1885, convey his firm condemnation of what he regarded as a barbaric sentence; on 15 September 1848, seven months after the Revolution of 1848 , he delivered a speech before the Assembly and concluded, "You have overthrown the throne. ... Now overthrow
1448-803: A Condemned Man , was adapted into an opera by David Alagna , with a libretto by Frédérico Alagna and premièred by their brother, tenor Roberto Alagna , in 2007. In Guernsey, every two years, the Victor Hugo International Music Festival attracts a wide range of musicians and the premiere of songs specially commissioned from such composers as Guillaume Connesson , Richard Dubugnon [ fr ] , Olivier Kaspar , and Thierry Escaich and based on Hugo's poetry. Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin ; 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849)
1629-504: A French passport. Chopin remained close to his fellow Poles in exile as friends and confidants. He never felt fully comfortable speaking French or considered himself to be French, despite his father's French origins. He always saw himself as a Pole, Adam Zamoyski wrote. In Paris, Chopin encountered artists and other distinguished figures and found many opportunities to exercise his talents and achieve celebrity. During his years in Paris, he
1810-606: A bad example no longer.... The United States must renounce slavery, or they must renounce liberty." In 1859, he wrote a letter asking the United States government, for the sake of their own reputation in the future, to spare abolitionist John Brown's life, Hugo justified Brown's actions by these words: "Assuredly, if insurrection is ever a sacred duty, it must be when it is directed against Slavery." Hugo agreed to diffuse and sell one of his best known drawings, "Le Pendu", an homage to John Brown, so one could "keep alive in souls
1991-501: A banquet to celebrate the abolition of slavery, in the presence of the French abolitionist writer and parliamentarian Victor Schœlcher, Hugo declared that the Mediterranean Sea formed a natural divide between "ultimate civilisation and ... utter barbarism." Hugo declared that "God offers Africa to Europe. Take it" and "in the nineteenth century the white man made a man out of the black, in the twentieth century Europe will make
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#17327803042462172-453: A cigar smoker, she initially repelled Chopin, who remarked, "What an unattractive person la Sand is. Is she really a woman?" However, by early 1837 Maria Wodzińska's mother had made it clear to Chopin in correspondence that a marriage with her daughter was unlikely to proceed. It is thought that she was influenced by his poor health and possibly also by rumours about his associations with women such as d'Agoult and Sand. Chopin finally placed
2353-417: A complete renewal of piano music, ... an abundance of original ideas of a kind to be found nowhere else ..." After this concert, Chopin realised that his essentially intimate keyboard technique was not optimal for large concert spaces. Later that year he was introduced to the wealthy Rothschild banking family, whose patronage also opened doors for him to other private salons (social gatherings of
2534-594: A composer and performer opened the door to western Europe for him, and on 2 November 1830, he set out, in the words of Zdzisław Jachimecki , "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever". With Woyciechowski, he headed for Austria again, intending to go on to Italy. Later that month, in Warsaw, the November 1830 Uprising broke out, and Woyciechowski returned to Poland to enlist. Chopin, now alone in Vienna,
2715-482: A composer throughout this period declined in quantity year by year. Whereas in 1841 he had written a dozen works, only six were written in 1842 and six shorter pieces in 1843. In 1844 he wrote only the Op. 58 sonata . 1845 saw the completion of three mazurkas (Op. 59). Although these works were more refined than many of his earlier compositions, Zamoyski concludes that "his powers of concentration were failing and his inspiration
2896-474: A comrade of General Hugo's during the campaign in Vendee. In October 1807, the family rejoined Leopold, now Colonel Hugo, Governor of the province of Avellino . There, Hugo was taught mathematics by Giuseppe de Samuele Cagnazzi , elder brother of Italian scientist Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi . Sophie found out that Leopold had been living in secret with an Englishwoman called Catherine Thomas. Soon, Hugo's father
3077-671: A concert in Manchester's Gentlemen's Concert Hall, sharing the stage with Marietta Alboni and Lorenzo Salvi . In late summer he was invited by Jane Stirling to visit Scotland, where he stayed at Calder House near Edinburgh and at Johnstone Castle in Renfrewshire, both owned by members of Stirling's family. She clearly had a notion of going beyond mere friendship, and Chopin was obliged to make it clear to her that this could not be so. He wrote at this time to Grzymała: "My Scottish ladies are kind, but such bores", and responding to
3258-403: A couch. Sometimes, through the window which opens on the garden, a gust of music wafts up from Chopin at work. All this mingles with the songs of nightingales and the fragrance of roses. From 1842 onwards, Chopin showed signs of serious illness. After a solo recital in Paris on 21 February 1842, he wrote to Grzymała: "I have to lie in bed all day long, my mouth and tonsils are aching so much." He
3439-699: A couple of passages that appear to have had a very direct influence on him. In addition to her influences on English and Russian literature, Sand's writing and political views informed numerous 19th century authors in Spain and Latin America, including Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda , the Cuban-born writer who also published and lived in Spain. Critics have noted structural and thematic similarities between George Sand's Indiana , published in 1832, and Gómez de Avellaneda's anti-slavery novel Sab , published in 1841. In
3620-549: A diamond ring. At a subsequent aeolopantaleon concert on 10 June 1825, Chopin performed his Rondo Op. 1 . This was the first of his works to be commercially published and earned him his first mention in the foreign press, when the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung praised his "wealth of musical ideas". From 1824 until 1828, Chopin spent his vacations away from Warsaw, at a number of locations. In 1824 and 1825, at Szafarnia , he
3801-413: A failed engagement to Maria Wodzińska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer Aurore Dupin (known by her pen name George Sand ). A brief and unhappy visit to Mallorca with Sand in 1838–39 would prove one of his most productive periods of composition. In his final years, he was supported financially by his admirer Jane Stirling . For most of his life, Chopin
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#17327803042463982-503: A form through which it can achieve communication...When she appeared upon the stage, with her drooping figure, her listless gait, her sad and penetrating glance...I can say only that it was as though I were looking at an embodied spirit. Theater critic Gustave Planche reportedly warned Sand to stay away from Dorval. Likewise, Count Alfred de Vigny , Dorval's lover from 1831 to 1838, warned the actress to stay away from Sand, whom he referred to as "that damned lesbian". In 1840, Dorval played
4163-693: A great source of inspiration for musicians, stirring them to create not only opera and ballet but musical theatre such as Notre-Dame de Paris and the ever-popular Les Misérables , London West End 's longest running musical. Additionally, Hugo's poems have attracted an exceptional amount of interest from musicians, and numerous melodies have been based on his poetry by composers such as Berlioz , Bizet , Fauré , Franck , Lalo , Liszt , Massenet , Saint-Saëns , Rachmaninoff , and Wagner . Today, Hugo's work continues to stimulate musicians to create new compositions. For example, Hugo's novel against capital punishment, The Last Day of
4344-408: A habit, especially in public, although Franz Liszt 's paramour Marie d'Agoult affected this as well, smoking large cigars. While some contemporaries were critical of her comportment, many people accepted her behaviour—until they became shocked with the subversive tone of her novels. Those who found her writing admirable were not bothered by her ambiguous or rebellious public behaviour. In 1831, at
4525-493: A letter to a friend that, thanks to Liszt's piano lessons, he learned how to play a favourite song on the piano – with only one finger. Hugo also worked with composer Louise Bertin , writing the libretto for her 1836 opera La Esmeralda , which was based on the character in The Hunchback of Notre Dame . Although for various reasons the opera closed soon after its fifth performance and is little known today, it has enjoyed
4706-644: A mentor to Hugo and his brothers. In 1811, the family joined their father in Spain. Hugo and his brothers were sent to school in Madrid at the Real Colegio de San Antonio de Abad while Sophie returned to Paris on her own, now officially separated from her husband. In 1812, as the Peninsular War was turning against France, de La Horie was arrested and executed. In February 1815, Hugo and Eugène were taken away from their mother and placed by their father in
4887-526: A modern revival, both in a piano/song concert version by Liszt at the Festival international Victor Hugo et Égaux 2007 and in a full orchestral version presented in July 2008 at Le Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon . He was also on friendly terms with Frederic Chopin . He introduced him to George Sand who would be his lover for years. In 1849, Hugo attended Chopin's funeral. On
5068-409: A passionate and glowing tone that Nourrit used, but with a plaintive sound as soft as an echo from another world. Two or three at most among those present felt its meaning and had tears in their eyes. In May 1839, they headed to Sand's estate at Nohant for the summer, where they spent most of the following summers until 1846. In autumn they returned to Paris, where Chopin's apartment at 5 rue Tronchet
5249-488: A periodical called Le Conservateur littéraire . Hugo published his first novel ( Hans of Iceland , 1823) the year following his marriage, and his second three years later ( Bug-Jargal , 1826). Between 1829 and 1840, he published five more volumes of poetry: Les Orientales , 1829; Les Feuilles d'automne , 1831; Les Chants du crépuscule [ fr ] , 1835; Les Voix intérieures , 1837; and Les Rayons et les Ombres , 1840. This cemented his reputation as one of
5430-458: A playwright grew with subsequent plays, such as Marion Delorme (1831), Le roi s'amuse (1832), and Ruy Blas (1838). Hugo's novel Notre-Dame de Paris ( The Hunchback of Notre-Dame ) was published in 1831 and quickly translated into other languages across Europe. One of the effects of the novel was to shame the City of Paris into restoring the much neglected Cathedral of Notre Dame , which
5611-578: A precursor to his great work on social injustice, Les Misérables . Hugo became the figurehead of the Romantic literary movement with the plays Cromwell (1827) and Hernani (1830). Hernani announced the arrival of French romanticism: performed at the Comédie-Française , it was greeted with several nights of rioting as romantics and traditionalists clashed over the play's deliberate disregard for neo-classical rules. Hugo's popularity as
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5792-568: A prince in weak health – could be interpreted as Sand and Chopin. In Chopin's presence, Sand read the manuscript aloud to Delacroix, who was both shocked and mystified by its implications, writing that "Madame Sand was perfectly at ease and Chopin could hardly stop making admiring comments". That year their relationship ended following an angry correspondence which, in Sand's words, made "a strange conclusion to nine years of exclusive friendship". Grzymała, who had followed their romance from
5973-429: A rift between them; there are claims that Liszt had displayed jealousy of his mistress Marie d'Agoult 's obsession with Chopin, while others believe that Chopin had become concerned about Liszt's growing relationship with George Sand . In 1836, at a party hosted by Marie d'Agoult, Chopin met the French author George Sand (born [Amantine] Aurore [Lucile] Dupin). Short (under five feet, or 152 cm), dark, big-eyed and
6154-703: A rumour about his involvement, answered that he was "closer to the grave than the nuptial bed". He gave a public concert in Glasgow on 27 September, and another in Edinburgh at the Hopetoun Rooms on Queen Street (now Erskine House) on 4 October. In late October 1848, while staying at 10 Warriston Crescent in Edinburgh with the Polish physician Adam Łyszczyński, he wrote out his last will and testament – "a kind of disposition to be made of my stuff in
6335-538: A strong impact there. He also composed or published some of his best work during his period in Guernsey , including Les Misérables , and three widely praised collections of poetry ( Les Châtiments , 1853; Les Contemplations , 1856; and La Légende des siècles , 1859). However, Víctor Hugo said in Les Misérables: The wretched moral character of Thénardier, the frustrated bourgeois,
6516-470: A student, visited Berlin with a family friend, zoologist Feliks Jarocki , enjoying operas directed by Gaspare Spontini and attending concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter , Felix Mendelssohn , and other celebrities. On an 1829 return trip to Berlin, he was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł , governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen – himself an accomplished composer and aspiring cellist. For
6697-572: A superior unity and constitute a European fraternity, just as Normandy , Brittany , Burgundy , Lorraine , have been blended into France", this new state would be administered by "a great Sovereign senate which will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England". Because of his concern for the rights of artists and copyright , he was a founding member of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale , which led to
6878-741: A word to her about my feelings; whom I dream of, who inspired the Adagio of my Concerto". All of Chopin's biographers, following the lead of Frederick Niecks , agree that this "ideal" was Gładkowska. After what would be Chopin's farewell concert in Warsaw in October 1830, which included the concerto, played by the composer, and Gładkowska singing an aria by Gioachino Rossini , the two exchanged rings, and two weeks later she wrote in his album some affectionate lines bidding him farewell. After Chopin left Warsaw, he and Gładkowska did not meet and apparently did not correspond. In September 1828, Chopin, while still
7059-644: A world out of Africa". This might partly explain why in spite of his deep interest and involvement in political matters he remained silent on the Algerian issue. He knew about the atrocities committed by the French Army during the French conquest of Algeria as evidenced by his diary but he never denounced them publicly; however, in Les Misérables , Hugo wrote: "Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in
7240-639: A young girl in love with Diego de la Vega (Zorro). Chopin, Sand and her children are the main characters of the theater play by Polish writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz A Summer in Nohant , which premiered in 1930. The play, presenting the final stage of the writer-composer's relationship, was adapted five times by Polish Television : in 1963 (with Antonina Gordon-Górecka as Sand and Gustaw Holoubek as Chopin), in 1972 (with Halina Mikołajska and Leszek Herdegen ), in 1980 (with Anna Polony and Michał Pawlicki), in 1999 (with Joanna Szczepkowska , who portrayed Solange in
7421-452: Is dated 23 April 1810, gives his birthday as 22 February 1810, and cites his given names in the Latin form Fridericus Franciscus (in Polish, he was Fryderyk Franciszek ). The composer and his family used the birthdate 1 March, which is now generally accepted as the correct date. His father, Nicolas Chopin , was a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland in 1787 at
George Sand - Misplaced Pages Continue
7602-537: Is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother." Gender appears to be likewise ambiguous in Sand's own perspective. Sometimes when writing first person memoirs or essays (including letters and journals), Sand's language "speaks to modern explorations of gender ambiguity" in the consistent use of a first-person "male persona" used to describe Sand's own experiences and identity in masculine terms. However, when writing an autobiography of
7783-470: Is problematic. Other scholars argue that these are clear, or potential, demonstrations of homosexual impulses on Chopin's part. Probably in early 1829, Chopin met the singer Konstancja Gładkowska and developed an intense affection for her, although it is not clear that he ever addressed her directly on the matter. In a letter to Woyciechowski of 3 October 1829 he refers to his "ideal, whom I have served faithfully for six months, though without ever saying
7964-523: Is referred to with feminine pronouns, and positioned as the "Lady of the House" when referring to their domestic life together. However, when speaking of Sand as a public rather than a private figure, even those who clearly knew (or even referenced) the writer's sex also tended to apply masculine terms when speaking of their role as an author. For instance Jules Janin describes Sand as the king of novellists (ie: "le roi des romanciers modernes") rather than as
8145-423: Is that this book is going to be one of the peaks, if not the crowning point of my work." Publication of Les Misérables went to the highest bidder. The Belgian publishing house Lacroix and Verboeckhoven undertook a marketing campaign unusual for the time, issuing press releases about the work a full six months before the launch. It also initially published only the first part of the novel (" Fantine "), which
8326-726: Is the Fryderyk Chopin Institute , which was created by the Parliament of Poland to research and promote his life and works. It hosts the International Chopin Piano Competition , a prestigious competition devoted entirely to his works. Frédéric Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola , 46 kilometres (29 miles) west of Warsaw, in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw , a Polish state established by Napoleon . The parish baptismal record, which
8507-580: Is unlikely that the two were ever lovers." Chopin's biographer Alan Walker considers that, insofar as such expressions could be perceived as homosexual in nature, they would not denote more than a passing phase in Chopin's life, or be the result – in Walker's words – of a "mental twist". The musicologist Jeffrey Kallberg notes that concepts of sexual practice and identity were very different in Chopin's time, so modern interpretation
8688-578: The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works . However, in Pauvert 's published archives, he states strongly that "any work of art has two authors: the people who confusingly feel something, a creator who translates these feelings, and the people again who consecrate his vision of that feeling. When one of the authors dies, the rights should totally be granted back to
8869-524: The Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49 , Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 58 , and the Ballade No. 3 Op. 47 . In her novel Lucrezia Floriani , Sand is said to have used Chopin as a model for a sickly Eastern European prince named Karol. He is cared for by a middle-aged actress past her prime, Lucrezia, who suffers greatly through her affection for Karol. Though Sand claimed not to have made a cartoon out of Chopin,
9050-504: The February Revolution of 1848. As the composer's illness progressed, Sand had become less of a lover and more of a nurse to Chopin, whom she called her "third child". In letters to third parties she vented her impatience, referring to him as a "child", a "poor angel", a "sufferer", and a "beloved little corpse". In 1847 Sand published her novel Lucrezia Floriani , whose main characters – a rich actress and
9231-523: The Hôtel de France on the Rue Laffitte , a few blocks away. They performed together on seven occasions between 1833 and 1841. The first, on 2 April 1833, was at a benefit concert organised by Hector Berlioz for his bankrupt Shakespearean actress wife Harriet Smithson , during which they played George Onslow 's Sonata in F minor for piano duet. Later joint appearances included a benefit concert for
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#17327803042469412-620: The July Revolution . Chopin was reportedly unimpressed with the composition. During the summers at Nohant, particularly in the years 1839–1843 (except 1840), Chopin found quiet, productive days during which he composed many works, including his Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53 . Sand compellingly describes Chopin's creative process: an inspiration, its painstaking elaboration – sometimes amid tormented weeping and complaining, with hundreds of changes in concept – only to return finally to
9593-861: The Kazimierz Palace (today the rectorate of Warsaw University ). Chopin and his family moved to a building, which still survives, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace. During this period, he was sometimes invited to the Belweder Palace as playmate to the son of the ruler of Russian Poland , Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia ; he played the piano for Konstantin Pavlovich and composed a march for him. Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz , in his dramatic eclogue , " Nasze Przebiegi " ("Our Discourses", 1818), attested to "little Chopin's" popularity. From September 1823 to 1826, Chopin attended
9774-589: The Paris Commune of 1871, where she took a position for the Versailles assembly against the communards , urging them to take violent action against the rebels. She was appalled by the violence of the Paris Commune, writing, "The horrible adventure continues. They ransom, they threaten, they arrest, they judge. They have taken over all the city halls, all the public establishments, they're pillaging
9955-521: The Place Vendôme in 1849. George Sand was notably absent from his funeral. In December 1849, Maurice invited the engraver Alexandre Manceau to celebrate Christmas in Nohant. George Sand fell passionately in love with Manceau, he became her lover, companion and secretary and they stayed together for fifteen years until his death. George Sand had no choice but to write for the theater because of financial difficulties. In Nohant, she even exercised
10136-520: The instrumental ballade (which Chopin created as an instrumental genre), études , impromptus , scherzi , preludes , and sonatas , some published only posthumously. Among the influences on his style of composition were Polish folk music , the classical tradition of Mozart and Schubert , and the atmosphere of the Paris salons, of which he was a frequent guest. His innovations in style, harmony , and musical form , and his association of music with nationalism , were influential throughout and after
10317-536: The queen . Likewise, Flaubert refers to Sand as being a dear master of their shared art (ie: "Chère Maitre"), using a masculine title to denote the masculine professional role, but a grammatically feminine adjective that acknowledges their legal or grammatical sex. In 1822, at the age of eighteen, Sand married (François) Casimir Dudevant , an illegitimate son of Baron Jean-François Dudevant. She and Dudevant had two children: Maurice and Solange (1828–1899). In 1825, she had an intense but perhaps platonic affair with
10498-486: The "man of the estate" and did not wish to have Chopin as a rival. Maurice removed two sentences from a letter Sand wrote to Chopin when he published it because he felt that Sand was too affectionate toward Chopin and Solange. Chopin and Sand separated two years before his death for a variety of reasons. Chopin was never asked back to Nohant; in 1848, he returned to Paris from a tour of the United Kingdom, to die at
10679-787: The 1980 version and Piotr Skiba) and in 2021 (with Katarzyna Herman and Marek Kossakowski). George Sand is portrayed by Merle Oberon in A Song to Remember , by Patricia Morison in Song Without End , by Rosemary Harris in Notorious Woman , by Judy Davis in James Lapine's 1991 British-American film Impromptu ; and by Juliette Binoche in the 1999 French film Children of the Century (Les Enfants du siècle) . Also in George Who? (French: George qui? ),
10860-792: The Academy of Art, and some of his eminent pupils such as Lessing , Bendemann , Hildebrandt and Sohn . In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad , where he spent time with his parents; it was the last time he would see them. On his way back to Paris, he met old friends from Warsaw, the Wodzińskis, their sons, and their daughters, amongst which Maria , whom he occasionally had given piano lessons in Poland. This meeting prompted him to stay for two weeks in Dresden, when he had previously intended to return to Paris via Leipzig . The sixteen-year-old girl's portrait of
11041-567: The Ages ). Hugo was at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play Cromwell and drama Hernani . His works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris . He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime, and campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment and slavery . Although he
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#173278030424611222-499: The Bagne in 1839 and took extensive notes, though he did not start writing the book until 1845. On one of the pages of his notes about the prison, he wrote in large block letters a possible name for his hero: "JEAN TRÉJEAN". When the book was finally written, Tréjean became Jean Valjean . Hugo was acutely aware of the quality of the novel, as evidenced in a letter he wrote to his publisher, Albert Lacroix, on 23 March 1862: "My conviction
11403-777: The Benevolent Association of Polish Ladies in Paris. Their last appearance together in public was for a charity concert conducted for the Beethoven Monument in Bonn, held at the Salle Pleyel and the Paris Conservatory on 25 and 26 April 1841. Although the two displayed great respect and admiration for each other, their friendship was uneasy and had some qualities of a love–hate relationship. Harold C. Schonberg believes that Chopin displayed
11584-636: The Commune subjected to brutal repression. He had been in Brussels since 22 March 1871 when in the 27 May issue of the Belgian newspaper l’Indépendance Victor Hugo denounced the government's refusal to grant political asylum to the Communards threatened with imprisonment, banishment or execution. This caused so much uproar that in the evening a mob of fifty to sixty men attempted to force their way into
11765-440: The Nohant estate. Sand also wrote literary criticism and political texts. In her early life, she sided with the poor and working class as well as championing women's rights . When the 1848 Revolution began, she was an ardent republican. Sand started her own newspaper, published in a workers' co-operative. Politically, she became very active after 1841 and the leaders of the day often consulted with her and took her advice. She
11946-436: The Op. 2 Variations in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (his first published article on music), declared: "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius." On 25 February 1832 Chopin gave a debut Paris concert in the "salons de MM Pleyel" at 9 rue Cadet, which drew universal admiration. The critic François-Joseph Fétis wrote in the Revue et gazette musicale : "Here is a young man who ... taking no model, has found, if not
12127-416: The Pension Cordier, a private boarding school in Paris, where Hugo and Eugène remained for three years while also attending lectures at Lycée Louis le Grand. On 10 July 1816, Hugo wrote in his diary: "I shall be Chateaubriand or nothing." In 1817, he wrote a poem for a competition organised by the Academie Française , for which he received an honorable mention. The Academicians refused to believe that he
12308-428: The Polish Literary Society, some of whose verses he set as songs. He also was more than once guest of Marquis Astolphe de Custine , one of his fervent admirers, playing his works in Custine's salon. Two Polish friends in Paris were also to play important roles in Chopin's life there. A fellow student at the Warsaw Conservatory, Julian Fontana, had originally tried unsuccessfully to establish himself in England; Fontana
12489-430: The Spanish title was not legally recognized in France. Hugo later titled himself as a viscount, and it was as "Vicomte Victor Hugo" that he was appointed a peer of France on 13 April 1845. Weary of the constant moving required by military life, Sophie separated temporarily from Léopold and settled in Paris in 1803 with her sons. There, she began seeing General Victor Fanneau de La Horie , Hugo's godfather, who had been
12670-528: The Upper Chamber of Parliament as a pair de France in 1845, where he spoke against the death penalty and social injustice , and in favour of freedom of the press and self-government for Poland. In 1848, Hugo was elected to the National Assembly of the Second Republic as a conservative. In 1849, he broke with the conservatives when he gave a noted speech calling for the end of misery and poverty. Other speeches called for universal suffrage and free education for all children. Hugo's advocacy to abolish
12851-623: The Warsaw Conservatory, he made his debut in Vienna . He gave two piano concerts and received many favourable reviews – in addition to some commenting (in Chopin's own words) that he was "too delicate for those accustomed to the piano-bashing of local artists". In the first of these concerts, he premiered his Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" , Op. 2 (variations on a duet from Mozart 's opera Don Giovanni ) for piano and orchestra. He returned to Warsaw in September 1829, where he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor , Op. 21 on 17 March 1830. Chopin's successes as
13032-649: The Warsaw Lyceum, where he received organ lessons from the Czech musician Wilhelm Würfel during his first year. In the autumn of 1826 he began a three-year course under the Silesian composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory , studying music theory , figured bass , and composition . Throughout this period he continued to compose and to give recitals in concerts and salons in Warsaw. He
13213-423: The addition of numerous intricate embellishments, at which Chopin remarked that he should play the music as written or not play it at all, forcing an apology. Most biographers of Chopin state that after this the two had little to do with each other, although in his letters dated as late as 1848 he still referred to him as "my friend Liszt". Some commentators point to events in the two men's romantic lives which led to
13394-654: The age of 14 was probably from tuberculosis . Nicolas Chopin was devoted to his adopted homeland, and insisted on the use of the Polish language in the household. In October 1810, six months after Chopin's birth, the family moved to Warsaw, where his father acquired a post teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum , then housed in the Saxon Palace . Chopin lived with his family on the Palace grounds. His father played
13575-464: The age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising . At 21, he settled in Paris. Thereafter he gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon . He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann . After
13756-454: The age of 27, she chose her pseudonym George Sand. "Sand" was derived from the name of her lover and fellow writer Jules Sandeau, as the pair had previously co-authored a novel under the pseudonym J. Sand. She added George to complete the name and distinguish it from Sandeau's, removing the final "s" from the usual French spelling of the name to heighten its ambiguity as a pseudonym. Victor Hugo commented, "George Sand cannot determine whether she
13937-563: The age of 71. She was buried in the private graveyard behind the chapel at Nohant-Vic . In 2003, plans that her remains be moved to the Panthéon in Paris resulted in controversy. Sand's first literary efforts were collaborations with the writer Jules Sandeau . They published several stories together, signing them Jules Sand. Sand's first published novel Rose et Blanche (1831) was written in collaboration with Sandeau. She subsequently adopted, for her first independent novel, Indiana (1832),
14118-600: The age of sixteen. He married Justyna Krzyżanowska , a poor relative of the Skarbeks, one of the families for whom he worked. Chopin was baptised in the same church where his parents had married, in Brochów . His eighteen-year-old godfather , for whom he was named, was Fryderyk Skarbek , a pupil of Nicolas Chopin. Chopin was the second child of Nicolas and Justyna and their only son; he had an elder sister, Ludwika , and two younger sisters, Izabela and Emilia, whose death at
14299-487: The aristocracy and artistic and literary elite). By the end of 1832 Chopin had established himself among the Parisian musical elite and had earned the respect of his peers such as Hiller, Liszt, and Berlioz. He no longer depended financially upon his father, and in the winter of 1832, he began earning a handsome income from publishing his works and teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe. This freed him from
14480-544: The author William Makepeace Thackeray and the singer Jenny Lind . Chopin was also sought after for piano lessons, for which he charged the high fee of one guinea per hour, and for private recitals for which the fee was 20 guineas. At a concert on 7 July he shared the platform with Viardot, who sang arrangements of some of his mazurkas to Spanish texts. A few days later, he performed for Thomas Carlyle and his wife Jane at their home in Chelsea . On 28 August he played at
14661-448: The author's name and reflected the acute social conscience that would infuse his later work. Le Dernier jour d'un condamné ( The Last Day of a Condemned Man ) would have a profound influence on later writers such as Albert Camus , Charles Dickens , and Fyodor Dostoyevsky . Claude Gueux, a documentary short story about a real-life murderer who had been executed in France, was published in 1834. Hugo himself later considered it to be
14842-449: The author's youth, the person described is a girl/woman whose descriptions aligns with her legal designation as "la demoiselle Aurora." Sand's friends and peers likewise alternate between using masculine or female adjectives and pronouns depending on the situation. For instance, in reviewing the collected letters of Sand's lover Chopin , one finds her consistently addressed as either "Mme Sand" or more familiarly as "George". Either way, she
15023-527: The bad weather had such a detrimental effect on Chopin's health that Sand determined to leave the island. To avoid further customs duties, Sand sold the piano to a local French couple, the Canuts. The group travelled first to Barcelona , then to Marseilles , where they stayed for a few months while Chopin convalesced. While in Marseilles, Chopin made a rare appearance at the organ during a requiem mass for
15204-409: The beginning, commented, "If [Chopin] had not had the misfortune of meeting G. S. [George Sand], who poisoned his whole being, he would have lived to be Cherubini's age." Chopin would die two years later at thirty-nine; the composer Luigi Cherubini had died in Paris in 1842 at the age of 81. Chopin's public popularity as a virtuoso began to wane, as did the number of his pupils, and this, together with
15385-706: The book's publication and widespread readership may have exacerbated their later antipathy towards each other. After Chopin's death, Sand burned much of their correspondence, leaving only four surviving letters between the two. Three of the letters were published in the "Classiques Garnier" series in 1968. Another breach was caused by Chopin's attitude toward Sand's daughter, Solange. Chopin continued to be cordial to Solange after she and her husband Auguste Clésinger fell out with Sand over money. Sand took Chopin's support of Solange to be extremely disloyal, and confirmation that Chopin had always "loved" Solange. Sand's son Maurice disliked Chopin. Maurice wanted to establish himself as
15566-460: The book. Hugo returned to political and social issues in his next novel, L'Homme Qui Rit ( The Man Who Laughs ), which was published in 1869 and painted a critical picture of the aristocracy. The novel was not as successful as his previous efforts, and Hugo himself began to comment on the growing distance between himself and literary contemporaries such as Flaubert and Émile Zola , whose realist and naturalist novels were now exceeding
15747-541: The case of India by the English, with more barbarism than civilization." After coming in contact with Victor Schœlcher , a writer who fought for the abolition of slavery and French colonialism in the Caribbean, he started strongly campaigning against slavery. In a letter to American abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman , on 6 July 1851, Hugo wrote: "Slavery in the United States! It is the duty of this republic to set such
15928-523: The cause of Romanticism, became involved in politics (though mostly as a champion of Republicanism ), and was forced into exile due to his political stances. Along with Chateaubriand he attended the Coronation of Charles X in Reims in 1825. The precocious passion and eloquence of Hugo's early work brought success and fame at an early age. His first collection of poetry ( Odes et poésies diverses )
16109-690: The composer has been considered, along with Delacroix's, as among the best likenesses of Chopin. In October he finally reached Leipzig, where he met Schumann, Clara Wieck , and Mendelssohn, who organised for him a performance of his own oratorio St. Paul , and who considered him "a perfect musician". In July 1836 Chopin travelled to Marienbad and Dresden to be with the Wodziński family, and in September he proposed to Maria, whose mother Countess Wodzińska approved in principle. Chopin went on to Leipzig, where he presented Schumann with his G minor Ballade . At
16290-435: The composer's maturing "into an inspired national bard who intuited the past, present and future of his native Poland". When he left Warsaw on 2 November 1830, Chopin had intended to go to Italy, but violent unrest there made that a dangerous destination. His next choice was Paris; difficulties obtaining a visa from Russian authorities resulted in his obtaining transit permission from the French. In later years he would quote
16471-456: The composer. Letters from Chopin to Woyciechowski in the period 1829–30 (when Chopin was about twenty) contain apparent homoerotic references to dreams and to offered kisses. I am going to wash now; don't kiss me, I'm not washed yet. You? If I were smeared with the oils of Byzantium, you would not kiss me unless I forced you to it by magnetism. There's some kind of power in nature. Today you will dream of kissing me! I have got to pay you out for
16652-743: The death of Chopin's youngest sister Emilia, the family moved from the Warsaw University building, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace, to lodgings just across the street from the university , in the south annex of the Krasiński Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście , where Chopin lived until he left Warsaw in 1830. Here his parents continued running their boarding house for male students. Four boarders at his parents' apartments became Chopin's intimates: Tytus Woyciechowski , Jan Nepomucen Białobłocki , Jan Matuszyński , and Julian Fontana . The latter two would become part of his Paris milieu. Chopin
16833-833: The death penalty was renowned internationally. When Louis Napoleon ( Napoleon III ) seized complete power in 1851 , establishing an anti-parliamentary constitution, Hugo openly declared him a traitor to France. He moved to Brussels , then Jersey , from which he was expelled for supporting L’Homme , a local newspaper that had published a letter to Queen Victoria by a French republican deemed treasonous . He finally settled with his family at Hauteville House in Saint Peter Port , Guernsey , where he would live in exile from October 1855 until 1870. While in exile, Hugo published his famous political pamphlets against Napoleon III, Napoléon le Petit and Histoire d'un crime . The pamphlets were banned in France but nonetheless had
17014-445: The dramatist Alfred de Musset (summer 1833 – March 1835), Louis-Chrysostome Michel, the actor Pierre-François Bocage , the writer Charles Didier , the novelist Félicien Mallefille , the politician Louis Blanc , and the composer Frédéric Chopin (1837–1847). Later in her life, she corresponded with Gustave Flaubert , and despite their differences in temperament and aesthetic preference, they eventually became close friends. Sand
17195-464: The end of 1836, he sent Maria an album in which his sister Ludwika had inscribed seven of his songs, and his 1835 Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 1 . The anodyne thanks he received from Maria proved to be the last letter he was to have from her. Chopin placed the letters he had received from Maria and her mother into a large envelope, wrote on it the words "My sorrow" ( "Moja bieda" ), and to
17376-436: The end of his life retained in a desk drawer this keepsake of the second love of his life. Although it is not known exactly when Chopin first met Franz Liszt after arriving in Paris, on 12 December 1831 he mentioned in a letter to his friend Woyciechowski that "I have met Rossini , Cherubini , Baillot , etc. – also Kalkbrenner. You would not believe how curious I was about Herz , Liszt, Hiller, etc." Liszt
17557-554: The first episode of the "Overture" to Swann's Way —the first novel in Marcel Proust 's In Search of Lost Time sequence—a young, distraught Marcel is calmed by his mother as she reads from François le Champi , a novel which (it is explained) was part of a gift from his grandmother, which also included La Mare au Diable , La Petite Fadette , and Les Maîtres Sonneurs . As with many episodes involving art in À la recherche du temps perdu , this reminiscence includes commentary on
17738-610: The flute and violin; his mother played the piano and gave lessons to boys in the boarding house that the Chopins kept. Chopin was of slight build, and even in early childhood was prone to illnesses. Chopin may have had some piano instruction from his mother, but his first professional music tutor, from 1816 to 1821, was the Czech pianist Wojciech Żywny . His elder sister Ludwika also took lessons from Żywny, and occasionally played duets with her brother. It quickly became apparent that he
17919-620: The functions of village doctor, having studied anatomy and herbal remedies with a Doctor Deschartres. But she was not confined to Nohant, and travelled in France, and in particular with her great friend Charles Robin-Duvernet at the Château du Petit Coudray, or abroad. In 1864, Sand took residence in Palaiseau together with her beloved Manceau for a couple of months, where she tended him in his decline. Sand died at Nohant, near Châteauroux , in France's Indre département on 8 June 1876, at
18100-445: The future, if I should drop dead somewhere", he wrote to Grzymała. Chopin made his last public appearance on a concert platform at London's Guildhall on 16 November 1848, when, in a final patriotic gesture, he played for the benefit of Polish refugees. This gesture proved to be a mistake, as most of the participants were more interested in the dancing and refreshments than in Chopin's piano artistry, which drained him. By this time he
18281-739: The government. It was only after Napoleon III fell from power and the Third Republic was proclaimed that Hugo finally returned to his homeland in 1870, where he was promptly elected to the National Assembly and the Senate. He was in Paris during the siege by the Prussian Army in 1870 , famously eating animals given to him by the Paris Zoo. As the siege continued, and food became ever more scarce, he wrote in his diary that he
18462-474: The greatest elegiac and lyric poets of his time. Like many young writers of his generation, Hugo was profoundly influenced by François-René de Chateaubriand , the famous figure in the literary movement of Romanticism and France's pre-eminent literary figure during the early 19th century. In his youth, Hugo resolved to be " Chateaubriand or nothing", and his life would come to parallel that of his predecessor in many ways. Like Chateaubriand , Hugo furthered
18643-596: The highest peaks in the Vosges Mountains , on a journey from Lunéville to Besançon. "This elevated origin," he went on, "seems to have had effects on you so that your muse is now continually sublime." Hugo believed himself to have been conceived on 24 June 1801, which is the origin of Jean Valjean 's prisoner number 24601 . In 1810, Hugo's father was made Count Hugo de Cogolludo y Sigüenza by then King of Spain Joseph Bonaparte , though it seems that
18824-418: The horrible dream you gave me last night. According to Adam Zamoyski , such expressions "were, and to some extent still are, common currency in Polish and carry no greater implication than the 'love ' " concluding letters today. "The spirit of the times, pervaded by the Romantic movement in art and literature, favoured extreme expression of feeling ... Whilst the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, it
19005-614: The incompetence of the doctors in Majorca, commenting: "The three most celebrated doctors on the island have seen me ... The first said I was dead, the second that I am dying, and the third that I'm going to die" He also had problems having his Pleyel piano sent to him, having to rely in the meantime on a piano made in Palma by Juan Bauza. The Pleyel piano finally arrived from Paris in December, just shortly before Chopin and Sand left
19186-439: The initial idea. Among the visitors to Nohant were Delacroix and the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot , whom Chopin had advised on piano technique and composition. Delacroix gives an account of staying at Nohant in a letter of 7 June 1842: The hosts could not be more pleasant in entertaining me. When we are not all together at dinner, lunch, playing billiards, or walking, each of us stays in his room, reading or lounging around on
19367-599: The island. Chopin wrote to Pleyel in January 1839: "I am sending you my Preludes [Op. 28]. I finished them on your little piano, which arrived in the best possible condition in spite of the sea, the bad weather and the Palma customs." Chopin was also able to undertake work while in Majorca on his Ballade No. 2 , Op. 38; on two Polonaises, Op. 40; and on the Scherzo No. 3 , Op. 39. Although this period had been productive,
19548-398: The late Romantic period. Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest celebrities, his indirect association with political insurrection, his high-profile love life, and his early death have made him a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying historical fidelity. Among his many memorials
19729-483: The lead in a play written by Sand, titled Cosima , and the two women collaborated on the script. However, the play was not well-received, and was cancelled after only seven showings. Sand and Dorval remained close friends for the remainder of Dorval's lifetime. Sand spent the winter of 1838–1839 with Frédéric Chopin in Mallorca at the (formerly abandoned) Carthusian monastery of Valldemossa . The trip to Mallorca
19910-401: The letters from Maria and her mother in a package on which he wrote, in Polish, "My Sorrow". Sand, in a letter to Grzymała of June 1838, admitted strong feelings for the composer and debated whether to abandon a current affair to begin a relationship with Chopin; she asked Grzymała to assess Chopin's relationship with Maria Wodzińska, without realising that the affair, at least from Maria's side,
20091-478: The logistical arrangements and provided much of the necessary funding. In London, Chopin took lodgings at Dover Street , where the firm of Broadwood provided him with a grand piano. At his first engagement, on 15 May at Stafford House , the audience included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert . The Prince, who was himself a talented musician, moved close to the keyboard to view Chopin's technique. Broadwood also arranged concerts for him; among those attending were
20272-471: The masses that the issues it highlighted were soon on the agenda of the National Assembly of France . Today, the novel remains his best-known work. It is popular worldwide and has been adapted for cinema, television, and stage shows. An apocryphal tale has circulated, describing the shortest correspondence in history as having been between Hugo and his publisher Hurst and Blackett in 1862. Hugo
20453-423: The memory of this liberator of our black brothers, of this heroic martyr John Brown, who died for Christ just as Christ. Only one slave on Earth is enough to dishonour the freedom of all men. So the abolition of slavery is, at this hour, the supreme goal of the thinkers. As a novelist, diarist, and member of Parliament, Victor Hugo fought a lifelong battle for the abolition of the death penalty. The Last Day of
20634-481: The most notable writers of the European Romantic era . She has more than 50 volumes of various works to her credit, including tales, plays and political texts, alongside her 70 novels. Like her great-grandmother, Louise Dupin , whom she admired, George Sand advocated for women's rights and passion, criticized the institution of marriage , and fought against the prejudices of a conservative society. She
20815-410: The munitions and the food supplies." George Sand was an idea. She has a unique place in our age. Others are great men ... she was a great woman. Victor Hugo , Les funérailles de George Sand Sand's writing was immensely popular during her lifetime and she was highly respected by the literary and cultural elite in France. Victor Hugo , in the eulogy he gave at her funeral, said "the lyre
20996-629: The music of Gluck , Mozart , Weber and Meyerbeer . In Les Misérables , he calls the huntsman's chorus in Weber's Euryanthe , "perhaps the most beautiful piece of music ever composed". He also greatly admired Beethoven and, rather unusually for his time, appreciated works by composers from earlier centuries such as Palestrina and Monteverdi . Two famous musicians of the 19th century were friends of Hugo: Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt . The latter played Beethoven in Hugo's home, and Hugo joked in
21177-454: The narrator refers to sentiments he expresses as, "I launch off at that point into European, inexplicably lofty subtleties à la George Sand". The English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) wrote two poems: "To George Sand: A Desire" (1853) and "To George Sand: A Recognition". The American poet Walt Whitman cited Sand's novel Consuelo as a personal favorite, and the sequel to this novel, La Comtesse de Rudolstadt , contains at least
21358-701: The other hand, he had low esteem for Richard Wagner , whom he described as "a man of talent coupled with imbecility." Well over one thousand musical compositions have been inspired by Hugo's works from the 19th century until the present day. In particular, Hugo's plays, in which he rejected the rules of classical theatre in favour of romantic drama, attracted the interest of many composers who adapted them into operas. More than one hundred operas are based on Hugo's works and among them are Donizetti 's Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Verdi 's Rigoletto (1851) and Ernani (1844), and Ponchielli 's La Gioconda (1876). Hugo's novels, as well as his plays, have been
21539-435: The other, the people." He was one of the earlier supporters of the concept of domaine public payant , under which a nominal fee would be charged for copying or performing works in the public domain, and this would go into a common fund dedicated to helping artists, especially young people. Hugo's religious views changed radically over the course of his life. In his youth and under the influence of his mother, he identified as
21720-509: The passport's endorsement "Passeport en passant par Paris à Londres" ("In transit to London via Paris"), joking that he was in the city "only in passing". Chopin arrived in Paris on 5 October 1831; he would never return to Poland, thus becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration . In France, he used the French versions of his given names, and after receiving French citizenship in 1835, he travelled on
21901-421: The pen name that made her famous – George Sand. By the age of 27, Sand was Europe's most popular writer of either gender, more popular than both Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac in England in the 1830s and 1840s, and she remained immensely popular as a writer throughout her lifetime and long after her death. Early in her career, her work was in high demand; by 1836, the first of several compendia of her writings
22082-536: The period that she and Chopin spent on that island from 1838 to 1839. Her other novels include Indiana (1832), Lélia (1833), Mauprat (1837), Le Compagnon du Tour de France (1840), Consuelo (1842–1843), and Le Meunier d'Angibault (1845). Theatre pieces and autobiographical pieces include Histoire de ma vie (1855), Elle et Lui (1859, about her affair with Musset), Journal Intime (posthumously published in 1926), and Correspondence . Sand often performed her theatrical works in her small private theatre at
22263-439: The police chief of Paris issued an order requiring women to apply for a permit in order to wear male clothing. Some women applied for health, occupational, or recreational reasons (e.g., horseback riding), although many women chose to wear trousers and other traditional male attire in public without receiving a permit. Sand obtained a permit to wear men's clothing in 1831, justifying it as being less expensive and far sturdier than
22444-565: The political strife and instability of the time, caused him to struggle financially. In February 1848, with the cellist Auguste Franchomme , he gave his last Paris concert, which included three movements of the Cello Sonata Op. 65 . In April, during the 1848 Revolution in Paris, he left for London, where he performed at several concerts and numerous receptions in great houses. This tour was suggested to him by his Scottish pupil Jane Stirling and her elder sister. Stirling also made all
22625-544: The popularity of his own work. His last novel, Quatre-vingt-treize ( Ninety-Three ), published in 1874, dealt with a subject that Hugo had previously avoided: the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution . Though Hugo's popularity was on the decline at the time of its publication, many now consider Ninety-Three to be a work on par with Hugo's better-known novels. After three unsuccessful attempts, Hugo
22806-405: The previous success of Les Misérables . Dedicated to the channel island of Guernsey , where Hugo spent 15 years of exile, the novel tells of a man who attempts to win the approval of his beloved's father by rescuing his ship, intentionally marooned by its captain who hopes to escape with a treasure of money it is transporting, through an exhausting battle of human engineering against the force of
22987-466: The prince and his pianist daughter Wanda, he composed his Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major for cello and piano , Op. 3. Back in Warsaw that year, Chopin heard Niccolò Paganini play the violin, and composed a set of variations, Souvenir de Paganini . It may have been this experience that encouraged him to commence writing his first Études (1829–1832), exploring the capacities of his own instrument. After completing his studies at
23168-412: The scaffold." His influence was credited in the removal of the death penalty from the constitutions of Geneva , Portugal , and Colombia . He had also pleaded for Benito Juárez to spare the recently captured emperor Maximilian I of Mexico , but to no avail. Although Napoleon III granted an amnesty to all political exiles in 1859, Hugo declined, as it meant he would have to curtail his criticisms of
23349-474: The sea and an almost mythical beast of the sea, a giant squid. Superficially an adventure, one of Hugo's biographers calls it a "metaphor for the 19th century–technical progress, creative genius and hard work overcoming the immanent evil of the material world." The word used in Guernsey to refer to squid ( pieuvre , also sometimes applied to octopus) was to enter the French language as a result of its use in
23530-565: The spring of 1834, Chopin attended the Lower Rhenish Music Festival in Aix-la-Chapelle with Hiller, and it was there that Chopin met Felix Mendelssohn. After the festival, the three visited Düsseldorf , where Mendelssohn had been appointed musical director. They spent what Mendelssohn described as "a very agreeable day", playing and discussing music at his piano, and met Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow , director of
23711-401: The strains of public concert-giving, which he disliked. Chopin seldom performed publicly in Paris. In later years he generally gave a single annual concert at the Salle Pleyel, a venue that seated three hundred. He played more frequently at salons but preferred playing at his own Paris apartment for small groups of friends. The musicologist Arthur Hedley has observed that "As a pianist Chopin
23892-572: The summer of 1849, his friends found him an apartment in Chaillot , out of the centre of the city, for which the rent was secretly subsidised by an admirer, Princess Yekaterina Dmitrievna Soutzos-Obreskova. He was visited here by Jenny Lind in June 1849. With his health further deteriorating, Chopin desired to have a family member with him. In June 1849 his sister Ludwika came to Paris with her husband and daughter, and in September, he took an apartment at
24073-474: The tenor Adolphe Nourrit on 24 April 1839, playing a transcription of Franz Schubert 's Lied Die Sterne (D. 939). George Sand gives a description of Chopin's playing in a letter of 28 April 1839: Chopin sacrificed himself by playing the organ at the Elevation – and what an organ! Anyhow our boy made the best of it by using the less discordant stops, and he played Schubert's Die Sterne , not with
24254-498: The threats of Sand's former lover Félicien Mallefille . After discovering that the couple were not married, the deeply traditional Catholic people of Majorca became inhospitable, making accommodation difficult to find. This compelled the group to take lodgings in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa , which gave little shelter from the cold winter weather. On 3 December 1838, Chopin complained about his bad health and
24435-415: The typical dress of a noblewoman at the time. In addition to being comfortable, Sand's male attire enabled her to circulate more freely in Paris than most of her female contemporaries and gave her increased access to venues that barred women, even those of her social standing. Also scandalous was Sand's smoking tobacco in public; neither peerage nor gentry had yet sanctioned the free indulgence of women in such
24616-416: The usefulness of churches) and, published posthumously, The End of Satan and God (1886 and 1891 respectively, in which he represents Christianity as a griffin and rationalism as an angel ). The Hunchback of Notre-Dame also garnered attention due to its portrayal of the abuse of power by the church, even getting listed as one of the "forbidden books" by it. In fact, earlier adaptations had to change
24797-447: The villain, Claude Frollo from being a priest to avoid backlash. Vincent van Gogh ascribed the saying "Religions pass away, but God remains," actually by Jules Michelet , to Hugo. Although Hugo's many talents did not include exceptional musical ability, he nevertheless had a great impact on the music world through the inspiration that his works provided for composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Hugo himself particularly enjoyed
24978-751: The work. Sand is also referred to in Virginia Woolf 's book-length essay A Room of One's Own along with George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë as "all victims of inner strife as their writings prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man." Frequent literary references to George Sand appear in Possession (1990) by A. S. Byatt and in the play Voyage , the first part of Tom Stoppard 's The Coast of Utopia trilogy (2002). George Sand makes an appearance in Isabel Allende 's Zorro , going still by her given name, as
25159-641: The writer's house shouting, "Death to Victor Hugo! Hang him! Death to the scoundrel!" Hugo, who said "A war between Europeans is a civil war," was a strong advocate for the creation of the United States of Europe . He expounded his views on the subject in a speech he delivered during the International Peace Congress which took place in Paris in 1849. Here he declared "nations of the continent, will, without losing your distinctive qualities and glorious individuality, be blended into
25340-503: The young lawyer Aurélien de Sèze . In early 1831, she left her husband and entered upon a four- or five-year period of "romantic rebellion". In 1835, she was legally separated from Dudevant and took custody of their children. Sand had romantic affairs with the novelist Jules Sandeau (1831), the Polish-Russian Prince Norbert Przanowski (February 1832 – Summer 1833) the writer Prosper Mérimée ,
25521-469: Was Antoine Delaborde, master paumier and master birder. For much of her childhood, she was raised by her grandmother Marie-Aurore de Saxe , Madame Dupin de Francueil, at her grandmother's house in the village of Nohant , in the French province of Berry . Sand inherited the house in 1821 when her grandmother died, and used the setting in many of her novels. Sand was one of many notable 19th-century women who chose to wear male attire in public. In 1800,
25702-470: Was a child prodigy . By the age of seven he had begun giving public concerts, and in 1817 he composed two polonaises , in G minor and B-flat major . His next work, a polonaise in A-flat major of 1821, dedicated to Żywny, is his earliest surviving musical manuscript. In 1817 the Saxon Palace was requisitioned by Warsaw's Russian governor for military use, and the Warsaw Lyceum was reestablished in
25883-685: Was a Catholic, and he replied, "No. A Freethinker ." After 1872, Hugo never lost his antipathy towards the Catholic Church. He felt the Church was indifferent to the plight of the working class under the oppression of the monarchy. Perhaps he also was upset by the frequency with which his work appeared on the Church's list of banned books . Hugo counted 740 attacks on Les Misérables in the Catholic press. When Hugo's sons Charles and François-Victor died, he insisted that they be buried without
26064-428: Was a French Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). In France, Hugo is renowned for his poetry collections, such as Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles ( The Legend of
26245-566: Was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period , who wrote primarily for solo piano . He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation". Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola and grew up in Warsaw , which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland . A child prodigy , he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at
26426-418: Was a committed royalist when young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed, and he became a passionate supporter of republicanism , serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism , and his literary stature, established him as a national hero. Hugo died on 22 May 1885, aged 83. He
26607-401: Was a guest of Dominik Dziewanowski , the father of a schoolmate. Here, for the first time, he encountered Polish rural folk music . His letters home from Szafarnia (to which he gave the title "The Szafarnia Courier"), written in a very modern and lively Polish, amused his family with their spoofing of the Warsaw newspapers and demonstrated the youngster's literary gift. In 1827, soon after
26788-409: Was a member of the provisional government of 1848, issuing a series of fiery manifestos. While many Republicans were imprisoned or went to exile after Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état of December 1851, she remained in France, maintained an ambiguous relationship with the new regime, and negotiated pardons and reduced sentences for her friends. Sand was known for her implication and writings during
26969-676: Was a wood merchant. Léopold enlisted in the army of Revolutionary France at fourteen. He was an atheist and an ardent supporter of the Republic. Hugo's mother Sophie was loyal to the deposed dynasty but would declare her children to be Protestants. They met in Châteaubriant in 1796 and married the following year. Since Hugo's father was an officer in Napoleon's army, the family moved frequently from posting to posting. Léopold Hugo wrote to his son that he had been conceived on one of
27150-424: Was also close friends with the actress Marie Dorval . Whether they were physically involved or not has been debated, yet never verified. The two met in January 1833, after Sand wrote Dorval a letter of appreciation following one of her performances. Sand wrote about Dorval, including many passages where she is described as smitten with Dorval. Only those who know how differently we were made can realize how utterly I
27331-492: Was an unabashed admirer. Honoré de Balzac , who knew Sand personally, once said that if someone thought she wrote badly, it was because their own standards of criticism were inadequate. He also noted that her treatment of imagery in her works showed that her writing had an exceptional subtlety, having the ability to "virtually put the image in the word." Alfred de Vigny referred to her as " Sappho ". Not all of her contemporaries admired her or her writing: poet Charles Baudelaire
27512-519: Was attracting thousands of tourists who had read the popular novel. Hugo began planning a major novel about social misery and injustice as early as the 1830s, but a full 17 years were needed for Les Misérables to be realised and finally published in 1862. Hugo had previously used the departure of prisoners for the Bagne of Toulon in Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné . He went to Toulon to visit
27693-451: Was beset by anguish, both emotional and intellectual". Chopin's relations with Sand were soured in 1846 by problems involving her daughter Solange and Solange's fiancé, the young fortune-hunting sculptor Auguste Clésinger . The composer frequently took Solange's side in quarrels with her mother; he also faced jealousy from Sand's son Maurice. Moreover, Chopin was indifferent to Sand's radical political pursuits, including her enthusiasm for
27874-588: Was called to Spain to fight the Peninsular War . Madame Hugo and her children were sent back to Paris in 1808, where they moved to an old convent, 12 Impasse des Feuillantines , an isolated mansion in a deserted quarter of the left bank of the Seine. Hiding in a chapel at the back of the garden was de La Horie, who had conspired to restore the Bourbons and been condemned to death a few years earlier. He became
28055-460: Was close to Sand's rented accommodation on the rue Pigalle. He frequently visited Sand in the evenings, but both retained some independence. (In 1842 he and Sand moved to the Square d'Orléans , living in adjacent buildings.) On 26 July 1840, Chopin and Sand were present at the dress rehearsal of Berlioz's Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale , composed to commemorate the tenth anniversary of
28236-477: Was confused and amazed at the effect this little creature had on me ... I have still not recovered from my astonishment, and if I were a proud person I should be feeling humiliated at having been carried away ..." The two spent a miserable winter on Majorca (8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839), where, together with Sand's two children, they had journeyed in the hope of improving Chopin's health and that of Sand's 15-year-old son Maurice , and also to escape
28417-487: Was considered scandalous because of her turbulent love life, her adoption of masculine clothing, and her masculine pseudonym. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, the future George Sand, was born on 1 July 1804 on Meslay Street in Paris to Maurice Dupin de Francueil and Sophie-Victoire Delaborde. She was the paternal great-granddaughter of the Marshal of France Maurice de Saxe (1696–1750), and on her mother's side, her grandfather
28598-539: Was described in her Un hiver à Majorque ( A Winter in Majorca ), first published in 1841. Chopin was already ill with incipient tuberculosis at the beginning of their relationship, and spending a cold and wet winter in Mallorca where they could not get proper lodgings exacerbated his symptoms. Sand and Chopin also spent many long summers at Sand's country manor in Nohant from 1839 to 1846, skipping only 1840. There, Chopin wrote many of his most famous works, including
28779-502: Was engaged by the inventors of the "aeolomelodicon" (a combination of piano and mechanical organ), and on this instrument in May 1825 he performed his own improvisation and part of a concerto by Moscheles . The success of this concert led to an invitation to give a recital on a similar instrument (the "aeolopantaleon") before Tsar Alexander I , who was visiting Warsaw; the Tsar presented him with
28960-469: Was finally elected to the Académie française in 1841, solidifying his position in the world of French arts and letters. A group of French academicians, particularly Étienne de Jouy , were fighting against the "romantic evolution" and had managed to delay Victor Hugo's election. Thereafter, he became increasingly involved in French politics. On the nomination of King Louis-Philippe , Hugo entered
29141-679: Was forced by illness to decline a written invitation from Alkan to participate in a repeat performance of the Beethoven 7th Symphony arrangement at Érard 's on 1 March 1843. Late in 1844, Charles Hallé visited Chopin and found him "hardly able to move, bent like a half-opened penknife and evidently in great pain", although his spirits returned when he started to play the piano for his visitor. Chopin's health continued to deteriorate, particularly from this time onwards. Modern research suggests that apart from any other illnesses, he may also have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy . Chopin's output as
29322-400: Was friendly with members of Warsaw's young artistic and intellectual world, including Fontana, Józef Bohdan Zaleski , and Stefan Witwicki . Chopin's final Conservatory report (July 1829) read: "Chopin F., third-year student, exceptional talent, musical genius." In 1829 the artist Ambroży Mieroszewski executed a set of portraits of Chopin family members, including the first known portrait of
29503-752: Was given a state funeral in the Panthéon of Paris , which was attended by over 2 million people, the largest in French history. Victor-Marie Hugo was born on 26 February 1802 in Besançon in Eastern France. He was the youngest son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828), a general in the Napoleonic army , and Sophie Trébuchet (1772–1821). The couple had two other sons: Abel Joseph (1798–1855) and Eugène (1800–1837). The Hugo family came from Nancy in Lorraine , where Hugo's grandfather
29684-533: Was hopeless; it was in America what it had been in Europe. Contact with a wicked man is sometimes enough to rot a good deed and cause something bad to come out of it. With Marius's money, Thénardier became a slave trader. Like most of his contemporaries, Hugo justified colonialism in terms of a civilizing mission and putting an end to the slave trade on the Barbary coast. In a speech delivered on 18 May 1879, during
29865-530: Was in attendance at Chopin's Parisian debut on 26 February 1832 at the Salle Pleyel , which led him to remark: "The most vigorous applause seemed not to suffice to our enthusiasm in the presence of this talented musician, who revealed a new phase of poetic sentiment combined with such happy innovation in the form of his art." The two became friends, and for many years lived close to each other in Paris, Chopin at 38 Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin , and Liszt at
30046-479: Was in poor health. He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39. All of Chopin's compositions feature the piano. Most are for solo piano, though he also wrote two piano concertos , some chamber music , and 19 songs set to Polish lyrics . His piano pieces are technically demanding and expanded the limits of the instrument; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin's major piano works include mazurkas , waltzes , nocturnes , polonaises ,
30227-403: Was in thrall to her...God had given her the power to express what she felt...She was beautiful, and she was simple. She had never been taught anything, but there was nothing she did not know by instinct. I can find no words with which to describe how cold and incomplete my own nature is. I can express nothing. There must be a sort of paralysis in my brain which prevents what I feel from ever finding
30408-637: Was launched simultaneously in major cities. Installments of the book sold out within hours and had an enormous impact on French society. The critical establishment was generally hostile to the novel; Taine found it insincere, Barbey d'Aurevilly complained of its vulgarity, Gustave Flaubert found within it "neither truth nor greatness", the Goncourt brothers lambasted its artificiality, and Baudelaire —despite giving favourable reviews in newspapers—castigated it in private as "repulsive and inept". However, Les Misérables proved popular enough with
30589-494: Was nostalgic for his homeland, and wrote to a friend, "I curse the moment of my departure." When in September 1831 he learned, while travelling from Vienna to Paris, that the uprising had been crushed, he expressed his anguish in the pages of his private journal: "Oh God! ... You are there, and yet you do not take vengeance!". The journal is now in the National Library of Poland . Jachimecki ascribes to these events
30770-465: Was on vacation when Les Misérables was published. He queried the reaction to the work by sending a single-character telegram to his publisher, asking ? . The publisher replied with a single ! to indicate its success. Hugo turned away from social/political issues in his next novel, Les Travailleurs de la Mer ( Toilers of the Sea ), published in 1866. The book was well received, perhaps due to
30951-700: Was one contemporary critic of George Sand: "She is stupid, heavy and garrulous. Her ideas on morals have the same depth of judgment and delicacy of feeling as those of janitresses and kept women ... The fact that there are men who could become enamoured of this slut is indeed a proof of the abasement of the men of this generation." Fyodor Dostoevsky "read widely in the numerous novels of George Sand" and translated her La dernière Aldini in 1844, only to learn that it had already been published in Russian. In his mature period, he expressed an ambiguous attitude towards her. For instance, in his novella Notes from Underground ,
31132-449: Was only fifteen. Hugo moved in with his mother to 18 rue des Petits-Augustins the following year and began attending law school. Hugo fell in love and secretly became engaged, against his mother's wishes, to his childhood friend Adèle Foucher . In June 1821, Sophie Trebuchet died, and Léopold married his long-time mistress Catherine Thomas a month later. Hugo married Adèle the following year. In 1819, Hugo and his brothers began publishing
31313-430: Was over. In June 1837, Chopin visited London incognito in the company of the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel, where he played at a musical soirée at the house of English piano maker James Broadwood . On his return to Paris his association with Sand began in earnest, and by July 1838 they had become lovers. Sand, who was six years older than the composer and had had a series of lovers, wrote at this time: "I must say I
31494-493: Was published in 1822 when he was only 20 years old and earned him a royal pension from Louis XVIII . Though the poems were admired for their spontaneous fervor and fluency, the collection that followed four years later in 1826 ( Odes et Ballades ) revealed Hugo to be a great poet, a natural master of lyric and creative song. Victor Hugo's first mature work of fiction was published in February 1829 by Charles Gosselin without
31675-543: Was published in 24 volumes. In total, four separate editions of her "Complete Works" were published during her lifetime. In 1880, her children sold the rights to her literary estate for 125,000 Francs (equivalent to 36 kg worth of gold, or 1.3 million dollars in 2015 USD). Drawing from her childhood experiences of the countryside, Sand wrote the pastoral novels La Mare au Diable (1846), François le Champi (1847–1848), La Petite Fadette (1849), and Les Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré (1857). A Winter in Majorca described
31856-426: Was reduced to "eating the unknown". During the Paris Commune —the revolutionary government that took power on 18 March 1871 and was toppled on 28 May—Victor Hugo was harshly critical of the atrocities committed on both sides. On 9 April, he wrote in his diary, "In short, this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. From both sides, folly." Yet he made a point of offering his support to members of
32037-429: Was to become acquainted with, among many others, Hector Berlioz , Franz Liszt , Ferdinand Hiller , Heinrich Heine , Eugène Delacroix , Alfred de Vigny , and Friedrich Kalkbrenner , who introduced him to the piano manufacturer Camille Pleyel . This was the beginning of a long and close association between the composer and Pleyel's instruments. Chopin was also acquainted with the poet Adam Mickiewicz , principal of
32218-500: Was to become, in the words of the music historian Jim Samson, Chopin's "general factotum and copyist". Albert Grzymała , who in Paris became a wealthy financier and society figure, often acted as Chopin's adviser and, in Zamoyski's words, "gradually began to fill the role of elder brother in [his] life". On 7 December 1831, Chopin received the first major endorsement from an outstanding contemporary when Robert Schumann , reviewing
32399-407: Was unique in acquiring a reputation of the highest order on the basis of a minimum of public appearances – few more than thirty in the course of his lifetime." The list of musicians who took part in some of his concerts indicates the richness of Parisian artistic life during this period. Examples include a concert on 23 March 1833, in which Chopin, Liszt, and Hiller performed (on pianos)
32580-414: Was very seriously ill, weighing under 45 kg (99 lb), and his doctors were aware that his sickness was at a terminal stage. At the end of November Chopin returned to Paris. He passed the winter in unremitting illness, but gave occasional lessons and was visited by friends, including Delacroix and Franchomme. Occasionally he played, or accompanied the singing of Delfina Potocka , for his friends. During
32761-521: Was within her." In this country whose law is to complete the French Revolution and begin that of the equality of the sexes, being a part of the equality of men, a great woman was needed. It was necessary to prove that a woman could have all the manly gifts without losing any of her angelic qualities, be strong without ceasing to be tender ... George Sand proved it. Eugène Delacroix was a close friend and respected her literary gifts. Flaubert
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