Biography Neurasthenic: Frenchified Exile and Parlour Music

biography neurasthenic: That was the kind of Chopin we grew up with back in mid-20th century North American suburbia genteel parlour music, almost cloyingly sweet, according to Vancouver Observer. The notion was only enhanced by what little we knew of the composer's biography neurasthenic, retiring, a creature of salons with an agoraphobic dread of the concert stage, a Frenchified exile from his native Poland, tragically thwarted in love, succumbing to consumption by the age of 40. She meant it appreciatively, no doubt. Poles, it turns out, have a very different take on him. They're obviously onto something, as anyone can hear listening to such passionate outpourings as his bombastic Revolutionary Etude. To them, he's a Lion of the Keyboard, revolutionary both in his music and his nationalist politics. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.