An Introvert as Musician
Let’s consider how introvert Frederic Chopin became world-famous by offering up music in ways that most suited his personality.
If anyone in your family took piano lessons beyond the basics, you’ve undoubtedly heard the music of Polish-French composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). It’s contemplative, intimate music, ranging in mood from melancholy rambling to gently uplifting cascades of chords, perfect for communion with oneself or a few others in a living room. When I recently read up on Chopin’s life, I became impressed at how fortunate he was to be able to fashion a career in tune with his introverted personality and preferences.
After starting piano at age four, he was performing by age seven. Yet he developed such a distaste for large concerts that in more than three decades he gave fewer than 40 concert performances, including his childhood ones. All the same, he was extremely famous during his lifetime, which coincided with the heyday of salons. In Paris, Chopin performed in the homes of the aristocracy and the wealthy, which exposed him to, in Franz Liszt’s words, “the elite of blood, talent, beauty and fortune.” Princesses, countesses and baronesses clamored to have lessons with him, and he made a living from that teaching and from publishing his compositions in France, Germany and England.
People who knew him most often described him as “sensitive” – that is, attuned to emotions and sensations. He could fall in and out of love in an evening, they said. Thin, pale and blond, he was also said to have exquisite manners. Music was his poetry, a medium of communication. Contemporary critics noted that what he composed and the subtle way he played it didn’t carry in a concert hall. One wrote, “He does not elicit enough sound from the instrument.” However, at a salon where he felt at home, the quiet delicacy of his music sparkled. His was reserved music played in a reserved yet eloquent manner by a reserved man.
Although many of his pieces are today known by nicknames such as “The Minute Waltz,” “The Waterfall Etude” or “The Suffocation Prelude,” Chopin himself only numbered them according to whether the musical form was a nocturne, ballade, impromptu or whatever. Free of descriptive scenes or stories, the music could speak for itself, without an agenda that influenced listeners. When George Sand, his lover for close to a decade, suggested that one piece mimicked the sound of raindrops, Chopin became indignant. She wrote:
“When I made him listen to the sound of the drops of water indeed falling in rhythm on the roof, he denied having heard it. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. He protested with all his might—and he was right to—against the childishness of such aural imitations. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds.”
Sand also made it clear that their physical intimacy and proximity didn’t mean that she had easy access to his fears, despairs or delights, writing, “Nothing has ever been disclosed of his inner life because only his works are an imprecise and hazy reflection of all that goes on inside him, for he never put the torments and worries of his soul into words.” His friend and fellow musician Franz Liszt concurred, saying “Even the closest friends have not been granted access to his soul.”
Yet Chopin’s friends displayed great loyalty for him. According to Hungarian pianist/composer Stephen Heller, they helped protect him from unwelcome visitors, hangers-on and casual admirers. Anyone who tried to meet him had to ask, ask, and ask once more. If autograph seekers and groupies existed in his day, Chopin would not have smiled upon them. He treasured his privacy.
With the internal focus and intensity characteristic of introverts, Chopin worked hard to elevate his works to his inner standard of excellence. He revised endlessly, even after pieces were published. And devoted as he was to teaching, he stormed when his pupils didn’t appear to be putting in the proper amount of effort. He left instructions for unfinished works of his, not yet perfected, to be burned after his death.
In poor health much of his life, Frederic Chopin died when he was just 39 years old. Favored by Tsar Alexander the First of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine of Poland, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of England and countless French aristocrats and celebrities, he achieved fame by staying true to his nature. He never tried to compete with the overt, fiery tumult of Beethoven or the string-breaking showmanship of Franz Liszt. The living rooms of piano learners and piano lovers still tingle with his reverent expressiveness.