Sup Trashed Manuscript Saga on Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu
The Backstory
Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66
Yo yo yo, what's good, fam, I'm Chopin, and this right here is the backstory of my Fantaisie-Impromptu, no cap, deadass! You're gonna learn how I never let this banger hit the shelves while I was breathin', and how my buddy Julian Fontana finally dropped it in 1855, bruh, wild, right?! Dive into the Trainer , fam, 'cause on this site my fellow composers and I teach ya to recognize our pieces the second they start, word!
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Paris, Paychecks, and Hiding from Crowds
Yo yo, peep this, fam: it's 1834, I've been livin' in Paris since 1831, and I'm basically a local with a fancy collar, ya feel me?! I'm teachin' rich kids piano and cashin' in on publishin', so my wallet's thicc and my life's cushy, bruh, straight up sweet! Playin' big public shows? Nah, nah, nah, I barely touched those, 'cause a packed hall makes me wanna hide inside a piano, swear to goodness! So I'm kickin' it at home, cookin' up a fresh piece in C-sharp minor, and boom, that's where the whole drama starts, word!Born in 1834, Never Dropped in Stores
Okay, so I wrote this bad boy in 1834, though the record books stretch it to 1835, so the birthday's kinda blurry, yo! Hold up, I hadn't even met George Sand yet, 'cause that didn't happen till 1836, so no famous romance was pushin' me, nada, zip! And here's the wildest part, dawg: I never published it, not once, not ever, my whole life, can ya believe that mess?! Why? Man, nobody knows, and I'm keepin' my lips zipped like a mystery snack, so the story's still swirlin' around, haha!Beethoven's Moonlight Was Totally Peekin' Over My Shoulder
Check it, my buddy Beethoven has this 'Moonlight' Sonata, and it also lives in C-sharp minor, so yeah, we're wearin' the same outfit, awkward! A scholar named Ernst Oster spotted a matching run and cadenza in the finale, plus my D-flat major middle echoin' the sonata's second movement, busted, bruh! Some folks figure that closeness is why I kept the piece locked up, but that's just a theory, fam, 'cause nobody knows for sure! Imagine showin' up to the party in the exact same fit as Beethoven, I'd bail too, lowkey, hahaha!Moscheles Dropped a Lookalike
Ayo, there's more twin trouble, 'cause Ignaz Moscheles put out his Impromptu in E-flat major, Op. 89, in 1834, the very same year I wrote mine, whoa! My piece resembles that one a bit, so now I've got two famous lookalikes breathin' down my neck, can't catch a break, geez! Plot twist, bro: the word 'Fantaisie' in the title was probably not even mine, so somebody slapped a name tag on my baby, rude! That's why I'm not blamin' myself for the naming mess, no sir, I'm out here innocent as a kitten in a hoodie, fr fr!The Baroness Slid Me a Bag, Maybe
Now peep the 1835 manuscript, fam, 'cause the title page says 'Composed for the Baroness d'Este by Frédéric Chopin,' straight-up fancy, huh?! That's not a printed dedication, dude, just words on a handwritten page, so don't go thinkin' it's a shiny public shoutout, nope! Arthur Rubinstein reckoned that wording means somebody paid for it, like ordering a custom pizza, which would explain why I never published it, ooh! Cash for a private piece, then the sheet music vanishes from the market, that's a slick hustle, bruh, I'm kinda proud, ha!My Dying Wish Was Basically 'Delete My Folder'
Fast-forward, homies, 'cause I died in 1849, and before that I begged for all my unpublished manuscripts to be destroyed, like a full-on shred party, yikes! Enter Julian Fontana, my tight friend in Paris, who copied my scores and handled all my random chores, a legit factotum, shoutout! So the guy holdin' the pen and the paper stack is also the one who knows every secret in my notebooks, sketchy, right?! I'm tellin' ya, never hand your messy drafts to your best buddy, 'cause that dude's gonna have opinions, lol!Fontana Told My Wish to Take a Hike
Long story short, my mom and sisters asked Fontana for help, and he picked out 23 unpublished piano pieces, mad generous, right?! He tossed them under posthumous opus numbers 66 through 73, and my Fantaisie-Impromptu got number one on that list, front of the line, baby! Both Paris and Berlin put it out in 1855, with Fontana as editor, so the world finally got the goods, six years after I was gone, whew! Funny thing, Op. 66 sounds like a late masterpiece, but the number doesn't track the order I wrote anything in, so don't trust the math, cuz it's wack!Rubinstein Went Shoppin' at an Auction
Hold up, 'cause in 1960 Arthur Rubinstein bought the d'Este album at a Paris auction, and that's a flex and a half, ya heard?! Two years later, in 1962, he published the manuscript through G. Schirmer, so everybody could peek at my handwritten original, drama! Turns out the autograph and Fontana's printed version differ in several details, tiny tweaks here and there, no big beef, chill! Still, Fontana's version is the one most pianists play, so my buddy basically won the popularity contest, sheesh!A Critic Called It Mawkish, Ouch
Today this thing is one of my most performed and popular pieces, no joke, pianists be linin' up like it's a sneaker drop, wow! But James Huneker came through and called parts of it 'mawkish,' which is a fancy way of sayin' too gooey, savage, bruh! I'm not mad, though, 'cause one grumpy critic against millions of fans is like one raindrop versus the whole ocean, who cares?! And that gooey middle tune? Folks still hum it in the shower, so who's laughin' now, huh, huh?!Rainbows, Remixes, and Random Shoutouts
Guess what, fam: my middle melody got adapted into the song 'I'm Always Chasing Rainbows,' with music by Harry Carroll and lyrics by Joseph McCarthy, crazy! It came out in 1917 and debuted in the Broadway show Oh, Look! in March 1918, so my tune hit the big lights, baby, glow-up! Federico Mompou quotes the piece in Variation 10 of his Variations on a Theme of Chopin, a classy little cameo, yo! And George Crumb sneaks it in three times in Makrokosmos, Vol. 1, No. 11, so my so-called secret piece keeps poppin' up everywhere, peace out!---
Yo yo yo, hold up, fam, did ya enjoy diggin' into the backstory of Fantaisie-Impromptu, or what?! Cuz I'm tellin' ya, bruh, we've barely scratched the surface of this bad boy, no cap! There's a whole pile of stuff left to explore, like the wild way it echoes Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, deadass! And that's not even the end, 'cause my melody got borrowed for a whole Broadway tune years later, can ya believe it, dawg?! So go on and tap those links down below, fam, and keep rollin' through the Fantaisie-Impromptu rabbit hole, for real, for real! Ayo, I'll be waitin' on the other side with my sixteenth notes all warmed up, so don't ghost me, bruh, word!