A new edition of Adam Zamoyski's definitive biography of Chopin, first published
in 1979 and unavailable in English for many years. Few composers elicit such st
rong emotions as Chopin. Few have been more revered and cherished.
And few ha
ve had so much sentimental nonsense written about them. Published to coincide wi
th the bicentenary of Chopin's birth, Adam Zamoyski's compelling new biography c
uts through the mass of anecdote and myth that has sprung up around the composer
's life and the ebullient and striking personalities of Romantic Paris among who
m he lived, including Liszt, Berlioz, Victor Hugo and George Sand, in search of
the real Chopin. Zamoyski brings to the subject an unrivalled knowledge of the h
istorical, social and cultural background of the composer's native Poland as wel
l as of the France in which he spent most of his creative life.
