Was Chopin really epileptic? Or just in the groove?

A team of Spanish medial researchers think that Chopin may have been an epileptic. And perhaps he was. His early death at 39 has never been explained, and that he had serious health problems is obvious. Maybe, along with tuberculosis and cystic fibrosis, epilepsy is a contender.

But without claiming the slightest medical expertise here, I'm not convinced by the medics' argument that his recorded instances of apparent hallucination are proof of epileptic seizure.

The traditional explanation for these time-out moments has usually to do with the hypersensitivity of a romantic soul; and to talk in such terms is always suspect. But at the same time, there are (or at least were) such things as romantic souls; hypersensitivity among creative or performing artists isn't exactly uncommon; and stepping out of time and/or reality in the process of performance does happen.
Only last night I went to a Royal Philharmonic Society event at which my friend and fellow Telegraph blogger, the pianist Stephen Hough, was giving a public talk. Being one of those rare specimens, a musician who can talk – with enviable clarity, authority and fluency – about what he does, it was an illuminating hour or so that covered a lot of ground. But one thing that stood out was a discussion of what happens when, in the course of a performance that's going particularly well, you get into the groove (my phrase not his: I'm sure he put it more elegantly) and stop having to work at it – because the music literally takes over.
However you define this phenomenon, it seems to have some connection with a detachment of the mind from immediate reality. And though the detachment is necessarily limited, because when you're playing the piano in public you have to maintain some kind of control, it does at some level turn the performer into a vehicle for his music rather than its master. Chopin's 'hallucinations' strike me as something that could perhaps be of the same nature. They don't have to be a sign of epilepsy.
Neurosis, of course, is another matter – and Hough had things to say about that last night as well. Basically, he doesn't subscribe do it. And though it's a trait you'd expect to find in any romantic figure, he told a story about Liszt that presents this year's big anniversary composer in surprisingly grounded terms.
Arriving for a concert in Dublin, Liszt was slightly taken aback to find himself provided with an upright piano. Worse still, it had keys that got stuck. But did he storm off in a fit of justifiable pique? No. He accepted the situation, played the upright, and got his page-turner to reach into the piano case and give the offending keys a prod when necessary.
The personal rider to this story was an admission that when Hough takes a new programme on tour, facing heaven knows what by way of pianos, he tends to avoid pieces with a lot of repeating notes. Just in case. Such are the low practicalities that lie behind high artistic decision-making.

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Fryderyk Chopin's polonaises

Fryderyk Chopin's polonaises are tightly linked to the national strand in his music. The most celebrated among them are difficult to understand without an awareness of Chopin's patriotic feelings and the tragic situation of Poland during his lifetime. He composed them from his childhood to his late years; altogether, he left eighteen works in the genre: sixteen piano polonaises, one for piano and orchestra and one for piano and cello. Their style changed over time, and their rank and importance grew gradually, evolving from conventional salon miniatures to expansive dance poems.



Yet all the Chopin polonaises, regardless of when they were written, are connected by the supreme idea of the polonaise-the most important Polish national dance. The polonaise developed in Poland long before Chopin's time, and since the Baroque era it had been a fashionable society dance at many European courts. The most eminent composers not infrequently wrote polonaises, including Bach, Telemann, Beethoven and Weber. In Poland, the polonaise ("Polish dance"), also known under other names, including "chodzony", "chmielowy" and "świeczkowy", was danced by the Polish gentry, townsfolk and populace. The polonaise in Polish music was given an artistic form by Michał Kleofas Ogiński (1765-1833), composer of the famous polonaise "Pożegnanie Ojczyzny" [Farewell to the homeland]. The young Chopin was also familiar with the polonaises of Maria Szymanowska, Józef Elsner and Karol Kurpiński, and imitated many of these homespun models as a child.

The basic features of an authentic polonaise are 3/4 time, a moderate tempo, a distinguished character and typical rhythmic formulas. From Ogiński's times onwards, the usual form of the artistic polonaise was a tripartite A B (trio) A. Chopin's earliest polonaises - in B flat major and in G minor - are the work of a seven-year-old boy, and in spite of their conventionality they are really quite charming, revealing the talent of this Polish wunderkind. In successive polonaises from his childhood and youth in Warsaw we note a gradual enrichment of pianistic and compositional means (the childhood Polonaise in A flat major from 1821, the polonaises in G sharp minor and B flat minor). Increasingly bold virtuosity appears in further youthful Warsaw polonaises from the years 1826-1828: in D minor, F minor and B flat major. These are already longer pieces, pianistically highly effective (in the "brilliant" style). These works, which were no more than testimony to the young composer's development, were not included by Chopin in the "official" strand of his oeuvre.

Chopin wrote his most splendid polonaises subsequent to his departure from Poland. They are seven in number:

2 Polonaises, Op. 26, in C sharp minor and E flat minor (completed 1835, published 1836)
2 Polonaises, Op. 40, in A major and C minor (1838-1839, published 1840)
Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op. 44 (composed and published 1841)
Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53 (1842-1843, published 1843)
Polonaise-fantasy in A flat major, Op. 61 (composed and published 1846)

There is also the Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise brillante, Op. 22

With the Polonaises, Op. 26 Chopin opened a new chapter in the history of the genre: henceforth he would abandon conventional stylisations and head in the direction of the "epic-dramatic poem" (Zieliński). Each of these seven mature works has its own distinctive shape, pianistic style and expression. The Polonaise in E flat minor from Op. 26 is already marked by strong dramatic elements. Relatively the most traditional are the two works from Op. 40: the A major displays features of the heroic polonaise, whilst the C minor is elegiac, even tragic in expression (both types refer to Ogiński). The last three polonaises are grand dance poems, far removed from the earlier conventions of genre and form. The F sharp minor Polonaise, Op. 44 is close in its epic-dramatic gesture to the idea of the free Romantic fantasy "on a polonaise theme", and it is unusual in the appearance of a mazurka in its middle section, as a contrasting lyrical passage. The Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53 brings back the grand pianistic panache and heroic tone; the stormy octaves in the middle section have evoked to the minds of commentators the image of attacking hussars. Chopin's final work in this genre, the late Polonaise-fantasy in A flat major, possesses the most complex form, the unravelling of which represents a true challenge to pianists and listeners alike.

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Chopin the anti-Semite: not a fanatic, but he didn't like Jews

Chopin is one of the greatest composers of all time (a genius of a higher order than Brahms, in my opinion) and the 200th anniversary of his birth is a fine cause for celebration. But I'm interested that the subject of his anti-Semitism is so often brushed aside. There are odd references to him being a "virulent anti-Semite", but after a quick denunciation the author moves on without citing chapter and verse. Also, the government of Poland – which has invested heavily in the festivities – understandably doesn't want the subject brought up at all. Ever.

But this rather evades the truth, because it leaves people either not knowing that the poet of the piano didn't like Jews, or assuming that he was a foaming nutjob like Richard Wagner (who couldn't trip on the pavement without blaming Jewish stonemasons).
Chopin's anti-Semitism may have been nurtured in his native Poland, which he left at the age of 20 and never made any effort to revisit (another point the Polish government doesn't emphasise). But according to this account of the year 1824 he was not a bigoted teenager:
When some Jews arrived at the neighbouring manor in Obrów to purchase grain, Fryderyk called them over and played them a ceremonial Jewish song. His playing drove the traders to such ardour and forgetfulness that they leapt and danced in merriment… for he played as if he were born a Jew.
The adult Chopin wouldn't have liked that last comment. As a composer in Paris, he was driven into rages by Jewish publishers, or publishers he imagined were behaving "like Jews". These quotes are from two letters of 1839:
I did not think that Pleyel would play the Jew with me … Get 500 for the ballade from Probst, and then take it to Schlesinger. If I have got to deal with Jews, let it at least be Orthodox ones. Probst may swindle me even worse, for he’s a sparrow whose tail you can’t salt. Schlesinger has always cheated me but he has made a lot out of me and won’t want to refuse another profit. Be polite to him because the Jew likes to pass for somebody …
Good Lord, why must one have dealings with scoundrels! Well, I prefer to do business with a real Jew … I would rather sell my manuscripts for nothing as in the old days, than have to bow and scrape to such fools. And I’d rather be humiliated by one Jew then three… Scoundrels, scoundrels.
This is what we might today call casual racism: it's indefensible, but Chopin doesn't then go off into a rant about how the publishing trade is controlled by Elders of Zion who are trying to bankrupt him. It reeks of the cruel, instinctive, bad-tempered anti-Semitism of Paris in the 1830s and 40s, which Wagner picked up and then developed into something far more monstrous.
So do we conclude that, alas, Chopin simply adopted the stereotypes of Jews floating around the Parisian salons? Perhaps. I did, however, come across an essay by Thurma Jurgrau on anti-Semitism in the letters of George Sand which suggests otherwise.
Sand, who was of course Chopin's lover, went through a phase of saying vile things about Jews, blaming them for killing Jesus. Jurgrau quotes the scholar Georges Lubin, who notes that Sand's outbursts coincided with her relationship with Chopin and claims that he "brought it with him from Poland". But he doesn't offer proof. Indeed, so far as I can work out, relatively little research has been done in this area: entire biographies of Chopin fail to mention his feelings about Jews.
Is that because there is so little evidence in addition to the unambiguous examples above? (Letters he allegedly wrote to the Countess Delfina Potocka, which surfaced in 1945, do contain viciously anti-Semitic comments as well as untypical sexual badinage and have been dismissed as forgeries.) Or is it because we can't bear the thought of this romantic figure – so different from the ugly and sexually perverted Wagner – nurturing such horrible thoughts?

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