by Piano Player

Anybody who has suffered through piano lessons is probably familiar with the name Frédéric François Chopin. If you’ve met any piano player at the intermediate level or higher, they (like me!) likely won’t shut up about him, so you won’t need any exposition.

For those readers who actually had a life, Chopin is considered to be one of the greatest composers for the piano (and literally nothing else). He was a Romantic composer from Poland and lived his adult life in Paris. Chopin was deeply sensitive and introverted, and rather frail too. He effortlessly embodied Victorian female beauty ideals: pale, translucent skin; wide, dilated eyes; red lips; and a thin, waifish figure. The look, known as tuberculosis chic, made Chopin seem very romantic and desirable (probably because he had the disease for the latter half of his adult life). This man was incredibly fussy about fashion, electing to dress in haute couture even when he couldn’t afford it.

But: was he also secretly bi? 

Historians would caution not to use such labels retroactively—thus, maybe we should ask “is Chopin’s bisexuality even a question?” instead. Chopin. Was. Bi. I love historians,  but this collection of evidence makes it so obvious. Who’s in denial here?

Tytus Woyciechowski–The Antique Snapchat

Tytus was Chopin’s best friend from school in Poland, and Chopin even dedicated his Op 1 to him. Although they never met again after Chopin moved to Paris, they wrote to one another throughout their lives, and many of Chopin’s letters were rather homoerotic in tone, to say the least. One might argue that it was just Polish Romanticism, and while I somewhat agree every time I receive a one word text (or worse, a thumbs up), we have records of Chopin’s platonic declarations of love in letters to friends like Fontana. These are not nearly as visceral and, well, evocative as “You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night”. 

And, as the saying goes, these letters are only the tip of the iceberg—there are two unexplained ten year gaps in their correspondence according to the letters we have today. Now, I doubt that two people with such closeness, platonic or not, could simply cease all contact for a decade. As a matter of fact, we know that some of their correspondence was burned by Woyciechowski, hoping to maintain privacy by making their letters “end-to-end encrypted”. Something is to be said of survivorship bias if what we do have is what passed the threshold. Ultimately, the act of watching the [gentle calligraphy of a loved one curl into flames] is tragic and emotional enough in itself (footnote–Hamilton). 

The tragedy continues further—when Chopin was on his deathbed, Woyciechowski could not visit his lover even then due to international travel restrictions. I would put quotes from the letter, but believe me, you do not want to start sobbing over your newspaper in the cafe of the RCM building (or Myhal, for you engineers). Rather, I would suggest you read them after a particularly middling exam, curled up in a comforter, listening to Op 21 mvt 2 (Chopin wrote this for Tytus) as you think about the fact that Tytus named his firstborn son Fryderyk. All I will say on the matter is that, even once you find someone you’d spell your heart in ink for knowing they’d do the same, bureaucracy will find a way to fuck it up.

George Sand – The Antique bi4bi Relationship (and maybe bi4ace)

Now, now, I know you’re thinking, another random man? Wasn’t Chopin just gay then? But you would be wrong. George Sand is awesome. 

Though her legacy has been buried (misogyny much?), Sand was the most popular author in Europe during her lifetime. She was a bi queen who divorced her husband and took the kids, having numerous passionate relationships with the men and women of France. She wore trousers, smoked cigars, and obtained a cross-dressing permit from the French government. Writers including Hugo, Flaubert, and de Vigny looked up to her, and rightfully so. She. Was. Awesome. Screw Baudelaire.

But how, pray tell,  did such a fiery personality end up with the sickly, depressed Chopin? The only way they could have met was at one of his little salon recitals, while he was hiding in a corner. He would sit there like a little prince, staring aloofly at the walls, floor, ceiling, and concert piano, and improvising songs on his lap, like I do at parties. He’d often sneak out of salons before he’d have to play, and would force all the candles to be turned off before beginning (if only I could perform in the dark!). Either way, this was exactly how SandxChopin came to be–they first met in the salon of Marie d’Agoult, Liszt’s lover (we’ll get to that), and stayed together for nine years. Now, Chopin was barely a footnote in Sand’s life, but she played a very prominent role in his. 

In Chopin’s story, Sand is often portrayed as a manipulative seductress (again, misogyny much?). In reality, their relationship was far more nuanced: Chopin was a drama queen, and she held him together. She provided him a sanctuary in Nohant at her summer estate, where he was the most productive. When he got sick in Mallorca, she wrote to fund their trip, dealt with hostile locals, and resolved his piano-brand drama (yes, he demanded a Pleyel be shipped out to Spain). She cared for him deeply, stage fright, glove meltdowns, expensive demands and all. He’d only wear white kidskin/silk or lilac silk gloves (and I use cotton, thank you very much. My kidskin is for special occasions only). 

Ironically, the “sexual power” Sand was supposedly guilty of was barely existent in their relationship. Sand and Chopin both described the other as an “angel”, not a lover. Furthermore, they became celibate after about 2 years for his fear of ‘soiling their love’ and his weakness. It’s for this reason that some historians (see, I do like historians!) theorize Chopin may have been asexual. 

As Chopin grew ill, Sand became more of a caregiver, even calling him a third child with his health and moods. However, this was not what finally ended their relationship–at least, not the only thing. Sand was infuriated when Chopin sided with her daughter after a monetary dispute. She burned nearly all their letters (a continuing theme), and when he died two years later, she was strikingly absent from his funeral. 

Franz Liszt–The Antique Faux Moi 

A fellow legend of the 1830s Parisian virtuoso scene, Liszt and Chopin could only be described as intense frenemies. They met at Chopin’s first Paris concert in 1832, and the difference between them was immediately obvious. Chopin was quiet and intimate. Liszt was flashy and showy. Chopin played the Pleyel, a piano known for nuance and subtlety. Liszt favoured the Érard, known for being loud. 

Despite being polar opposites, though, they shared some ground. Both of them revolutionised piano technique and teaching. They were also jealous of (and therefore in awe of) each other: Liszt was secretly envious of Chopin’s artistic playing; and Chopin, despite claiming to hate Liszt’s flowery playing, praised Pagganini’s (Liszt’s idol) immensely similar style (secret envy much?). 

Throughout their careers, the two pianist-composers had… an interesting relationship. Liszt was obsessed with Chopin, writing to a friend “[he] loved me tenderly and exclusively” and having the keys to his apartment. They played each other’s piece, fought over how the other played each other’s pieces, and fought over their respective (actual) partners. Sand and Liszt were good friends, and it was at Marie d’Agoult’s salon that Sand met Chopin. Marie d’Agoult was Liszt’s lover, and a novelist in her own right – she and Sand had their own friendship, then literary rivalry and subsequent falling out. They both wrote books hating on these two idiots, then Sand wrote a book mocking d’Agoult.

Now, the real drama begins in Chopin’s dedications to his études. Op 10 was dedicated à son ami Franz Liszt. How quaint. Chopin showed these études to his friend, who proceeded to sight-read them perfectly at tempo. Somebody must have felt a bit jealous. But then comes the juicy part: Op 25, originally dedicated to Liszt, was published with a dedication à Madame la Comtesse Marie d’Agoult ! What may have triggered this, you may ask? Apparently, when Chopin was on holiday, Liszt decided to use his empty flat for some romantic trysts with Marie Pleyel. Yes, that Pleyel–the estranged wife of Chopin’s favourite piano manufacturer and friend! He decided to get back at Liszt with this little dedication, and this was the first real problem in their relationship.

Liszt would strike back, too. In 1841, Liszt wrote a piece about Chopin’s 1841 Pleyel salon concert. His writing was filled with undeniable admiration for Chopin as an artist, but excluded any mention of Chopin as a composer. The absence was obvious–he made no mention of Chopin’s recently composed works, which was half of his set. Chopin became horrifically paranoid that Liszt was insulting him under his own nose, and Sand had to convince him otherwise to protect his health. The final slight, though, wouldn’t be intentional, and wouldn’t involve Pleyels (at least not directly). Liszt, showman he was, played Chopin’s pieces but ignored the score, adding musical ornaments on top of one of his delicate Nocturnes, so that it sounded more flashy. Chopin was infuriated, thinking his “friend” an opportunist in need of artistic integrity, and though Liszt gave a semi-apology by letter, Chopin would die hating him. 

Chopin’s two mentioned lovers burned their letters after his death; Liszt, however, wrote more. He composed Consolation No 3 in Db major shortly after Chopin’s death, emulating the style of his Nocturnes. He went through an entire phase of composing Chopin-adjacent works. Liszt went through a bit of a mid-life crisis when Paganini (1840, aged 57), Mendelssohn (1847, aged 38), then Chopin (1849, aged 39) all dropped dead young within a decade. They were some of the most prominent figures of the early Romantic era Liszt started in, and their absences prompted the Weimar period, his best era as a composer. Liszt, wreaked with survivor’s guilt, saw himself as the sole person left who could honour his friends’ legacies. He was especially considerate of Chopin’s legacy in his grief (who, again, died hating him), and he went about this in maybe the worst way possible: he wrote a book.

F. Chopin par Liszt was, for many years, taken as the best biography on Chopin’s life there could ever be. It was also laughably bad. Liszt idealised and effeminated Chopin, exalting him as an angel and cementing his projection of his dead maybe-situationship as the most prominent. The writing is embellished and grandiloquent, and it might even have been ghostwritten–Tchaikovsky himself was amazed by its emptiness, noting, “It is full of empty phrases and waffle”. To make matters more parodic, Liszt tormented the mourning family for information, angering his sister, sponsor, and roommate with his incredibly invasive questions, only to not even use their answers! But not even writing an entire biography made him sick of Chopin: he spoke idealistically of him for the rest of his life, telling a friend:

“No other should be compared to him— he shines alone and unique in the firmament of art. His tenderness, his graces, his tears, his energies and his outbursts are his alone. He is a divine aristocrat— a feminine archangel with prismatic wings! Forgive the strange expression which makes up my thoughts.”

Oh, and the “friend” he made this comment to? She was also his girlfriend. My lord.