Emanating from a 1999 interdisciplinary conference at Indiana University, Bloomington, these 13 essays are grouped under four headings: Memories, Images, and Dreams, Analytical Perspectives, Gender, Genre, Genius, and Chopin Appropriated. Likely of interest to inexperienced readers will be the comparison of Eugène (Eugene) Delacroix's 1837 self-portrait with his incomplete 1838 portrait of Chopin; the history of Waclaw Szymanowski's Chopin monument in Warsaw, which was unveiled in 1926, destroyed by the Germans in 1940, and reconstructed in 1958; the reception of Chopin's music with its national character as reflected in 19th-century Polish periodicals; and the spreading popularity of Chopin's music in the US from 1839 to 1900. More specialized essays propose that waltzes Chopin chose to publish were those depicting dancers' physical motions; describe contexts in which Chopin's music is found in ballet, cinema, and television; and examine the Polish spirit, Polish race, and Chopin as a wieszes, or prophet/patriot. Other articles propose that the forerunner of Chopin's nocturnes was the Italian vocal nocturne and investigate the meanings of 19th-century French thinking and whether it was exclusively masculine. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.December 2004
J. Behrens
The Glenn Gould School, The Royal Conservatory of Music