“After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies that were not my own.” Gilbert, The Critic as Artist Part I
Polish maestro Frederik Chopin slips into more than one of Oscar Wilde’s works.
The significance of this surely traces back to Wilde’s brother Willie, an accomplished and talented pianist with a particular love of Chopin as Ellmann notes in his celebrated biography Oscar Wilde.
Chopin wrote plenty of nocturnes, traditionally associated with night music, like his charming Nocturne in F Minor which is traditionally associated with night, but his famous Prelude in E Minor captures more the elements of Gilbert’s statement.
Chopin’s Opus 28 No. 4 is suitable for a Moonlight page.
