The Parisian Worlds of Frederic Chopin

Atwood's third book on Chopin (Fryderyk Chopin: Pianist from Warsaw) views the composer's life against the backdrop of Paris, from Chopin's arrival in 1831 until his death in 1849. Atwood captures historical details of the City of Light, nicely describing, for example, the Polish emigre community and the city's leading salon hostesses. Chopin's own insights into these various milieus are revealed in pointed comments drawn from his correspondence (""I am launching myself little by little into society, alas, with nothing more than a ducat in my pocket!""). Beginning with a panoramic tour through the arrondissements of Paris, Atwood notes Chopin's various residences and other landmarks of importance in his life. Several chapters on the intensely active musical life of Paris, from the salons to Chopin's beloved opera, and on the rise of journalistic music criticism, are of central interest. Yet Atwood's thoroughness becomes a problem in chapters that, by his own admission, explore aspects of Parisian life with which Chopin had little to do. For instance, his lover George Sand was a link to literary and radical political circles, but Atwood stresses Chopin's lack of interest in politics only after providing a detailed political history. A chapter on the visual arts includes Sand's observation that ""her lover was a musician and only a musician, with little feeling for the other arts."" Atwood's urge toward panorama takes the book away from its supposed central figure into the realm of more general cultural history from which Chopin often disappears. But what this study lacks in focus it makes up for in colorful anecdotes and personality sketches that will surely interest aficionados of music in 19th-century Paris. 151 illus. (Dec.)