User:Jeandebeaumont/Sandbox

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[edit] Final two years

In February 1848, Chopin gave his last concert in Paris. To escape the hard times caused by the French revolution of 1848 and like many other artists, he travelled with his former pupil Thomas Tellefsen to London in April.[1] His former pupil Jane Stirling had found him an inexpensive apartment in London at Bentinck Street.[2] Soon after, he met the celebrated soprano and wealthy philanthropist Jenny Lind (1820-1887) who was adored by Queen Victoria and other monarchs in Europe.[3]. Chopin’s letters to family and friends tell upbeat about their many encounters in London and Scotland.[4] The possibility of a romance was apparently first seen in 1932.[5]

Although Chopin admits to be considered “some sort of amateur”[6] John Broadwood & Sons, Appointed Pianoforte Manufacturers to Queen Victoria, assisted him generously with grand pianos and public performances in London and Manchester and during his nearly three-month sojourn in Scotland.[7] However, Chopin’s ill health took a bad turn, and after a last appearance at the Polish Ball at Guildhall in London on 16 November 1848,[8] he returned later in the month to Paris where he was unable to teach or perform anymore.

In May 1849, Chopin was visited by Jenny Lind who, with Queen Victoria in the know, now wanted to marry him.[9] When it failed and Jenny Lind had fled the cholera epidemic in Paris, Chopin continued apparently to benefit from her financial patronage.[10][11]

In early August, Chopin’s sister Ludwika managed to come from the Russian-occupied Warsaw and nursed him in his new apartment at the prestigious Place Vendôme.[12] There in the small hours of 17 October 1849, Chopin died – apparently of tuberculosis. Later that morning, Auguste Clésinger made the death mask and casts of his hands. Before Chopin's funeral and pursuant to his dying wish and fear of being buried alive, his heart was removed and his sister took it in an urn to Warsaw. It remains sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church (Kościół Świętego Krzyża) on Krakowskie Przedmieście, beneath an inscription from Matthew VI:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

According to Paris and London press reports and Frederick Niecks’ biography of Chopin[13], the funeral at the imposing Église de la Madeleine was attended by nearly 3,000 people who did not all know Chopin.[14] Giacomo Meyerbeer led the funeral procession together with Prince Adam Czartoryski.[15] In the aftermath of the popular insurrection and street fights and the rampant cholera which afflicted Paris in 1848-1849, the city is said not to have seen a funeral of such pomp and circumstance since 1838 and 1842.[16]

Chopin had apparently requested that Mozart's Requiem be performed at his funeral. Its movement Tuba Mirum for four voices[17] was sung by the bass Signor Lablache, the tenor Alexis Dupont and – concealed behind a black velvet curtain – the mezzo soprano Pauline Viardot and a soprano whose identity has not been confirmed.[18] Chopin’s Funeral March from Sonata Op. 35[19] and Preludes no. 4 in E minor and no. 6 in B minor were also performed at the ceremony.

Chopin was buried at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery close to Vincenzo Bellini’s tomb.[20] At the graveside, the Funeral March was played again. Later, some of Chopin's Polish friends journeyed to Paris with a jar of earth from their native land and scattered it over his grave so that Chopin would lie under Polish soil. Chopin's grave attracts numerous visitors and is invariably festooned with flowers, even during the winter. – Jenny Lind continued for the rest of her life to pay tribute in many different ways to Chopin's musical legacy.[21] Institutional participation in the continued research on artworks commemorating Chopin well into La Belle Époque would be welcome.[22]