You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night

November 25, 2020 5:27 PM

The Polish-born Romantic-era composer Frédéric Chopin, who lived most of his adult life in exile while the country was partitioned and incorporated Polish folk motifs into his compositions, is a national cultural icon in his country of birth, giving his name to a prestigious music competition, several festivals, Warsaw's international airport and a video game reimagining him as a supercool rock star saving the world, among other things. Now, a radio programme aired on the Swiss public broadcaster SRF reveals ardent letters Chopin wrote to male companions, suggesting that he may not have been, as previously assumed, heterosexual.

One letter, to a school friend, implores the recipient, “please allow me to (kiss you) today. You have to pay for the dirty dream I had about you last night”; another, written from London to a (male) friend in Paris reports with excitement about the city's “great urinals”, and another describes rumours of his affairs with women as a “cloak for hidden feelings”; elsewhere, he wrote, “I confide in the piano the things that I sometimes want to say to you”.

If Chopin had romantic interests in men, the revelation could be awkward for Poland's ultra-conservative governing nationalists, who have recently waged an intensifying culture war against “LGBT ideology”, denouncing it as “worse than communism”.

posted by acb (13 comments total)

Great post.

And: a nice big Nelson laugh to Poland's ultra-conservative governing nationalists.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 5:33 PM on November 25, 2020 [15 favorites]

This is not remotely surprising to me about Chopin, however, it's always interesting when some kind of documentation can be found that can confirm these sorts of things about historical figures. We really can't know about their inner lives until they are revealed to us in diaries and letters. I am intrigued by his relationship with George Sand and find it odd that her name (neither her real name nor her pen name) isn't even mentioned in this article.
posted by NotTheRedBaron at 5:47 PM on November 25, 2020 [8 favorites]

I read this article this morning and the bit that stuck out to me was this:

The erotically charged letters addressed to a man, Walker writes in Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times, were the product of a “psychological confusion”, a “mental twist”, which made Chopin divert thoughts of sexual desire to his friend “that should more properly have been addressed to Konstancja [Gładkowska]”, a Polish soprano with whom the composer has been described as having been infatuated.

... which sounds so absurdly in denial i had to laugh. What year is it again?
posted by Evstar at 7:10 PM on November 25, 2020 [16 favorites]

I have no idea if Impromptu holds up after all these (thirty?!?) years, but I remember enjoying it when it came out, and it was my introduction to the (highly fictionalized) relationship between Chopin and Sand. And the cast is stellar.
posted by vverse23 at 8:06 PM on November 25, 2020 [5 favorites]

Still, my favorite is "Chopin Broccoli"...
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:10 PM on November 25, 2020 [3 favorites]

Yes everyone who likes Chopin must watch Impromptu, it's so fun!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:23 PM on November 25, 2020 [6 favorites]

From the guardian article linked in the OP:

As recently as 2018, a Chopin biography by English-Canadian musicologist Alan Walker described Woyciechowski as a mere “bosom friend”.

The erotically charged letters addressed to a man, Walker writes in Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times, were the product of a “psychological confusion”, a “mental twist”, which made Chopin divert thoughts of sexual desire to his friend “that should more properly have been addressed to Konstancja [Gładkowska]”, a Polish soprano with whom the composer has been described as having been infatuated.

Obscene homophobia, in a biography that was published in 2018. More evidence that large parts of musicology are in desperate need of reform.
posted by yaxu at 12:57 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

"bosom friend" has always sounded like a euphemism to me anyway. Just me?
posted by Dysk at 2:16 AM on November 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

Wow.
That's gonna a tough nut to swallow (*cough*) for a bunch of homophobic assholes.

Good. Let 'em choke on it.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:17 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

I went to read some of the original letters, and yeah, I think you have to be pretty obtuse not to interpret this as a love letter.

Choice excerpts (pardon my own crappy translation):

I have never missed you as much as now; I have no-one to spill my feelings to, I don't have you. Your one look after every concert would be more to me than all the accolades of the newspapers, [various famous families], etc. (...)

[About Chopin's portrait] I will send one to you as soon as I can, you want this, so you shall have it, but no-one but you shall have my portrait. Only one other person could have one, and never before you, because you are dearest to me. No-one but me has read your letter. Now, as always, I keep your letters with me. It will be such bliss for me -- in May having gone outside the city walls, thinking about my impending journey -- to get your letter and sincerely reassure myself that you love me, or at least to look at the hand and the writing of the one who is the only one that I know how to love!

Yup. Just guy pals!

These unredacted letters have been available for years; Polish sources seem puzzled that this is being presented by the foreign press as new knowledge. I guess that someone is shining a spotlight on a translation which has previously been accepted as the final word. And it's noteworthy that this aspect of Chopin's life seems to have been ignored or explained away within Poland, despite the letters being right there this whole time.
posted by confluency at 3:44 AM on November 26, 2020 [11 favorites]

Yeah, any Pole even tangentially interested in LGBT issues already knew that. It's also telling that apart from crushes on idealised women, his one acknowledged longer-term relationship was with George Sand, who definitely did not perform feminity in a socially acceptable way.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 4:26 AM on November 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

One of the challenges of researching LGBTQ+ history is how much of it is actively hidden, destroyed and obscured. Queer history is a world of burnt letters, one-sided correspondences, ciphers and hidden meanings.
posted by acb at 4:33 AM on November 26, 2020 [7 favorites]

Impromptu holds up shockingly well. Except for Hugh Grant's Polish accent, but it was terrible even then. Also, if you've never seen it, you will have a lot of "omg, THIS person is in this?" Several actors in it broke big a couple of years later.

Back to the original post. It's not even clear that he had crushes on idealized women, from the letters. His relatives said he did, but that could have just been laying cover (either by him to his relatives or by his relatives to others).

According to George Sand, Chopin dumped her for her 19-year-old daughter. Sand and Chopin had been together for 9 years at that point, so...ick. Although based on other accounts, that may not have been his reason.

Sand was a big letter-writer, but unfortunately she burned all of their correspondence after his death, so we know very little firsthand.
posted by rednikki at 2:09 PM on November 26, 2020 [2 favorites]