Memorials to Frédéric Chopin

The following is a compilation of memorials to the composer Frédéric Chopin in the form of physical monuments and institutions and other entities named after him.

Frédéric Chopin monument in Żelazowa Wola, the composer's birthplace

Chopin's Polish residences
Saxon Palace, seen from Saxon Garden behind the Palace, 1764. Chopin and his family lived here, 1810–17. The Saxon Palace was destroyed in World War II.

Fryderyk Chopin's principal Polish residences survive — most of them rebuilt from the devastations of World War II — except for the Saxon Palace, where his father Mikołaj Chopin in October 1810 (when Fryderyk was six months old) took a post teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum, housed in the Saxon Palace. The Chopin family lived on the premises.

In 1817 the Saxon Palace was requisitioned by Warsaw's Russian governor for military use, and the Warsaw Lyceum was reestablished in the Kazimierz Palace (today the rectorate of Warsaw University).[1] Fryderyk and his family moved to an extant building (center photo, below) adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace.

In 1827, soon after the death of Chopin's youngest sister Emilia, the family moved from the Warsaw University building adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace, to lodgings just across the street from the university, in the south annex of the Krasiński Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście. Chopin lived there until he left Warsaw in 1830. The Krasiński Palace is now the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts.

Chopin's Żelazowa Wola birthplace, and the Chopin family parlor in Warsaw's Krasiński Palace, are maintained as museums open to the public.

The Saxon Palace was destroyed by the Germans in World War II. Plans have been put forward to rebuild it. It was in the Saxon Palace (at the time, the Polish General Staff building) that civilian mathematicians working at the General Staff's Cipher Bureau, beginning in 1932, broke Germany's Enigma machine ciphers—an achievement that would be of great importance to the outcome of World War II.[2]

  • Some of Chopin's Polish residences
  • Chopin's Żelazowa Wola birthplace. He lived here for six months in 1810.
  • Warsaw University building where Chopin's family lived, 1817-27, embellished (center) with his profile and (foreground) with a piano keyboard formed of flowers, June 2018
  • Chopin family parlor, in Warsaw's Krasiński Palace. Chopin lived here, 1827–30.

Physical monuments

Poland
  • Chopin's heart, preserved in alcohol,[3] was sealed in 1882 within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church, behind a tablet carved by Leonard Marconi.[4] The tablet bears an inscription from Matthew VI:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."[5] (See photo of the Church pillar, with epitaph.)
  • The Holy Cross Church stands only a short distance from Chopin's last Warsaw residence, the Krasiński Palace, which bears a plaque commemorating Chopin.
  • There are three Chopin monuments in Żelazowa Wola: an obelisk from 1894, a bronze statue from 1969 and a sandstone bust from 1984.[6]
  • There is a monument to Chopin at the Szafarnia manor house where he stayed for holidays with a schoolfriend in 1824 and 1825.
  • In 1897 a Chopin memorial was erected in the town of Duszniki-Zdrój, where in 1826, 16-year-old Chopin played his first concert outside of the Russian Partition of Poland. A Chopin statue was erected in 1976 and it stands in the Spa Park in front of the Fryderyk Chopin Theatre.
  • In 1926 a bronze statue of Chopin, designed by sculptor Wacław Szymanowski in 1907, was erected in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park.
  • Other statues and busts of Chopin stand in Poznań (1923), Wrocław (2004), Żychlin (2010),[7] Antonin, Brdów, Radziejowice, Międzyzdroje,[8] Bydgoszcz (ca. 1973), Słupsk (1976), Ustka (1979), Kraków (2005).
  • For the 2010 bicentennial of Chopin's birth, 14 "Chopin's Warsaw" ("Warszawa Chopina") benches were placed in Warsaw near Chopin landmarks. They stand near Chopin landmarks such as the Krasiński Palace, the Carmelite Church where he played organ as a boy, and the Wessel Palace where in 1830 he boarded a stage for Vienna. Pressing a button on a bench makes it play a few bars of a Chopin composition.[9]
  • Memorial plaques in Warsaw (numerous), Antonin (commemorating two visits to the Radziwiłł Palace), Toruń (commemorating a visit in 1825), Kalisz (commemorating visits in years 1826-1830),[10] Sanniki (commemorating a visit in 1828),[11] Sulechów (commemorating a visit in 1828),[12] Silna (commemorating a visit in 1828),[13] Wrocław (commemorating a concert in 1830), Poznań (on the courtyard of the Poznań Society of Friends of Learning).[14]
  • Monument in Poturzyn, commemorating a visit in 1830 (1985).
  • Memorial stones in Kozłowo (commemorating a visit in 1825),[15] Waplewo Wielkie (commemorating a visit and concert in 1827) and Strzyżew.[16]
  • In 2007, a bronze bust of Frédéric Chopin, the patron of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, by sculptor Gennady Jerszow was placed in the Philharmonic in Gdansk.
  • Obelisks in the Chopin Park in Gliwice (1949) and in Sochaczew (2010).[17]

Europe

North America

Asia
Chopin monument, Singapore Botanic Gardens, Singapore

South America

Musical homage

Musical institutions
Fryderyk Chopin Theatre, Duszniki-Zdrój
  • The largest Polish music conservatory is named Fryderyk Chopin University of Music.
  • The world's oldest monographic music competition, the International Chopin Piano Competition, founded in 1927, is held every five years in Warsaw. Periodically the Grand prix du disque de F. Chopin is awarded for notable Chopin recordings.
  • The Chopin Festival, founded in 1946, is held annually in the Fryderyk Chopin Theatre in Duszniki-Zdrój.

Chopin societies

Museums
Ostrogski Palace in Warsaw, home of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum

Other
"Chopin" rose, Żyła 1980

Named for the composer are:

See also

Notes
  1. Fryderyk Chopin Information Centre.
  2. Harry Hinsley, "The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War" (transcript of a lecture given on 19 October 1993 at Cambridge University), 1996 .
  3. Samson (1996), 193.
  4. Holy Cross Church (Kościół Św. Krzyża) on Inyourpocket.com website, accessed 7.12.2013
  5. Zdzisław Jachimecki, "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek", Polski słownik biograficzny, vol. 3, Kraków, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1937, pp. 424–25.
  9. "Walking Around Chopin's Warsaw (Chopin's Benches", Visit Chopin in Warsaw website, accessed 6 August 2013.
  18. http://bazawiedzy.chopin2010.pl/en/places/chopin-locations-today/world.html
  19. http://www.polishheritage.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=143:unveiling-chopin-monument-at-manchester-sept-2011&catid=57:archived-news&Itemid=160
  21. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-12-19. Retrieved 2014-11-21.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  22. http://www.chopinmonumentinchicago.com/index.php
  23. "Exploring South America". Warsaw Voice. 3 July 2003. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  24. Website of the Bibliothèque Polonaise de Paris (in French).

Sources
  • Samson, Jim (1996). Chopin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816703-7.
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