Author: CHOPIN (Frederick). NIECKES (Frederick):
Title: Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician.
Description: London and New York, Novello, Ewer & Co., 1888. FIRST LONDON EDITION. 2 volumes. 8vo, 220 x 140 mms., pp. xii, 340; viii, 375 [376 blank], including half-title in volume 2, engraved portrait of Chopin as frontispiece, facsimile folding engraved plate at end of volume, original cloth, blocked in gilt, with gilt and red textured end-papers. A very good to fine set. Frecerick Nieckes (1845 - 1924) was born in Germany but spent most of his life in Scotland, settling there in 1868. Shortly after the publication of this book he was appointed Reid Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh. This was the first biography of Chopin, and it was reprinted several times, being both lauded and criticized. This biography "was [in 1888] unprecedented in format, information sources, detail, etching, volume, multinational distribution, and four rapid editions including the German translation. - It must have boosted Chopin's reputation.... Frederick Niecks' sections on 1841-1849 and the posthumous years are flawed with half-truths, hearsay, misinformation, omissions, hints and puns" (Icons of Europe). "His whole professional life has been one long big accident [including] the manner in which he first came to be regarded as the greatest living authority on Chopin" (The Monthly Musical Record, 1915).

Keywords: music biography prose


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