“Swear to make them cut me open so I won’t be buried alive!”
No, that was not Edgar Allan Poe, but rather the pianist and composer Frederic Chopin.
Chopin died on this date in 1849.
His music may go straight to the heart, but did you know that when the composer died, his heart went right to Poland?
Chopin had lived in exile in Paris since he arrived there in 1831 and became one of its most celebrated pianists; this in a city teeming with great pianists (including Chopin’s friend and rival, Franz Liszt).
For most of his life, Chopin struggled against poor health. When he sensed his impending death in 1849, he made the request of his sister, Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, that his heart be removed from his corpse and transported back to the land of his birth.
Ludwika complied, smuggling her brother’s heart under her cloak in a jar full of booze (probably cognac), and delivering it to Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. The heart is now immured there in a pillar. A decorative monument to the composer soon became a rallying point for Polish nationalists.
During World War II, understanding the significance of Chopin as a source of national pride, the Nazis stole the heart (paging Indiana Jones!), but it was returned after the war and reinterred.
At Chopin’s funeral in Paris, Mozart’s Requiem was played, as were Chopin’s own Preludes No. 4 in E minor and No. 6 in B minor. His body was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery. At his graveside was heard the famous and now-hackneyed “Funeral March” from his Piano Sonata No. 2, in an orchestration by Napoléon-Henri Reber. The plinth on his grave is capped by a statue of Euterpe, muse of music, weeping over her broken lyre.
Mozart’s Requiem has been performed annually at Holy Cross Church, per the composer’s request, as part of a solemn mass conducted every year on the anniversary of his death. The International Chopin Piano Competition also takes place during this time.
While the ultimate cause of Chopin’s early demise (at 38) has been the subject of speculation – his death certificate reads tuberculosis, but modern medicine has posited, among other things, cystic fibrosis, cirrhosis, and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency – an examination of Chopin’s preserved heart in 2014 (through the unopened jar) suggests the likely cause of his passing was a rare case of pericarditis indeed caused by complications of chronic tuberculosis.
To avoid risking a public outcry, the composer’s heart was exhumed by church officials, scientists, and medical experts under cloak of night. Their motive was no more sinister than ensuring that the container preserving the heart had not cracked. Happily, even though the patient appears to have died of tuberculosis, his heart remains in excellent health.
Actually, despite the recurring fate of premature burial in a number of his fictions, Poe did not seem to have any extraordinary concerns about being buried alive himself. However, taphophobia is definitely a thing.
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli plays Chopin’s Funeral March
Samson François plays the Piano Concerto No. 2
Ballade No. 4
Sviatoslav Richter fires off an Étude
Alexander Brailowsky reduced to offal by Ophüls
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