Slowing Our Step for Chopin's Funeral March
The Best Moments

I start the Funeral March in Paris in 1837 with low, heavy chords on the solo piano that trudge along like boots through thick mud. The story goes that I first came up with it after being startled by a prop skeleton sitting at the piano in Félix Ziem's studio, which is one way to find inspiration, though a hot cup of tea would have been much gentler on my nerves.

Right in the middle of the piece, I leave that heavy march behind for a quiet, singing melody that feels like stepping out of a cold downpour into a warm room. I dated the manuscript for this gentle section in November 1837, giving the listener a few minutes to breathe before the dark clouds roll back in.

To finish the movement, I bring back that slow, trudging march from the opening until the final chords quietly fade away, as if the whole procession has walked out of sight. Robert Schumann later complained that in this sonata I had tied together four of my most reckless children, and they even played an orchestral version of the march at my own burial at Père Lachaise Cemetery in 1849, though you will have to forgive me for not taking a bow.