By Andrea Guachalla
August 1st, 1944
Warsaw, Poland
This was the day in which tens of thousands of people took the few firearms they were able to gather and fought Nazi Germany dictatorship that had taken their home hostage, and the lives of so many. They took courage at the thought of their nation, Poland, and their capital, Warsaw, that had seen so many of them grow up.
A place that would soon be gone – an act of evil retaliation.
They’d had five years to plan an uprising in the city that had countless times witnessed the evil and greed of man, Warsaw, the capital of the country that would some years later witness the rising of the Third Republic of Poland.
The Home Army and the Polish Government-in-exile set the hour and the date: 17:00 on August 1st of 1944. The W-Hour. The clock would reach the 5th and thus mark the beginning of the fighting, and the beginning of death. They thought they would fight a good battle for a couple of weeks, but they bravely fought until day 63, filled with uncertainty of what the next day would bring.
They knew. There was no rainbow awaiting after the storm and no freedom that their eyes would witness and celebrate. Knowledge of the dark future that awaited them robbed them of the luxury of cowardice, seeing death approach their very front doors robbed them from being fearful. For as long as the uprising lasted, the thoughts of some might have turned to the significance of the buildings that were being destroyed. “Will we ever be able to walk downtown to Saxon Palace?” Perhaps not…
August 1st, 1817 – 1830
Warsaw, Poland
It was in this very same palace, where a 7-year-old fragile little boy had had the same feeling 127 years before, in 1817. Sick and pale, delicate since the day he was born. Even at such a young age as 7 years old, he knew that there was no happy ending waiting for him, and no freedom from his illnesses. He knew fate had a particularly dark future in store for him and that’s exactly what robbed him from being a coward in regards to his ingenious musicality. Knowing that death for him would come sooner rather than later robbed him from being fearful.
In both cases, the knowledge of disaster and despair, and the awareness of the possibility of an end was what made them love their country all the more. And what inspired in them a different kind of admiration for Warsaw, the centenary city that fell and rose again and again. The city all of them considered home. And for some time: a lost home.
The situation was not all that different when this boy turned 20 years old, which is when the November Uprising began. That summer saw Poland being threatened by Prussia and invaded by the Russian Empire, adding to the political instability and insecurity, forcing the fearless young man to flee the country in search of a new home, carrying nothing but the music he had composed.
1830 – 1849
France, Poland
The early Mazurkas and Polonaises pieces that he had composed and that had been so strongly influenced by Polish Folk Music were to shift to a different tone and fervor in the years to come as this young man got used to life in France. The place that had offered him refuge. At the same time, he would have a major influence on the Romantic Era, and on the works of all his fellow musicians that so rightly admired him. Among them: Liszt, Debussy, Mendelssohn, and countless critiques, and music lovers.
However, regardless of fame and wealth, many admirers, and the overall praise, there was something that was missing, something that he secretly longed for: Home.
The desire of his ever-aching heart: To be home, to see Warsaw no matter how changed it was, to see familiar faces, and to speak the language that he loved, Polish. Because truth be told, he never got quite comfortable speaking French. Because France, for him, was not home.
While all the music he composed in the first few decades of his life was mainly influenced by Poland, and the Etudes and Waltzes he composed while living in France were greatly influenced by his dynamic social life in that country, there was an intermediate period that had none of those influences. This intermediate was the 21 Nocturnes he composed, which spoke of neither land but of “Sehnsucht…” a longing. Longing for a home he would never see again. A longing that hurt unbearably and could not be overcome and forgotten.
The nocturnes meant the following to him and to anyone else: An expression of knowing that his home was no longer the same, and he was not the same either, bringing to remembrance his first love that didn’t love him back, and the short life his youngest sister had. The nocturnes were complaints about his illnesses and an ache for his nation. They were a longing for the unattainable, a hope for something infinite and ideal, a reality where he is home.
It was a similar kind of longing that all those warriors of the Second World War must have experienced. A longing to see Saxon Palace where Frederic Chopin had grown up. That sick pale, albeit brilliant, boy who never had the chance to see his ever-loved land again, and who died too young to even have the chance.
August 1st, 2020
Historians say that Chopin never gave a title to his pieces, he would only state the genre, Opus and Number, leaving the listeners to imagine what the music was supposed to picture and portray. However, over time musicians would give his pieces titles related to the age he lived in and the calamities he endured.
If I might dare, while listening to his renowned Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2, to reflect on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 where Chopin’s home – Saxon’s Palace – was turned into ashes, and never rebuilt again; if I reflect on the thousands of Poles that lost their lives, and humbly dare to remember all the people that fought for their country and the fact that Chopin never had the chance to go home, I might as well dare to title this piece (even if it’s just for myself):
LONGING.
LONGING FOR A LOST HOME.
References:
Gabriella Smith. (2019). FREDERIC CHOPIN: MORE THAN A POLISH MAN.
Adam K. Kubba, Madeleine Young. (1998). The Long Suffering of Frederic Chopin. CHEST Journal, Vol. 113, Issue 1, p. 210-216.
Warsaw, a city always reminds me of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp Minor. It was played by Szpilman during the last live broadcast of Polish radio as Warsaw was besieged by German invaders in 1939. Later in the film “The Pianist”, Polanski constructed one of the most touching scenes in film history, Szpilman playing Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp Minor in front of a German official, who later saved his life, around them was the already destructed city after the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Just as the music starting melancholy and ending with a brisk melody, the main emotion is sentimental, but there’s still a feeling of hope at the end. War destroys history and memories, but there are things like music that remains, which is essentially the fundamental part of humanity.
Just a small correction in the article, Prussia and the Soviet Union never existed in the same historical periods.
So glad you shared this story about Szpilman, I never knew “The Pianist” was based on true facts. I read somewhere that the most significant and perdurable form of art often comes from the most terrible situations. As you say: music remains.
You’re very right about Prussia and the Soviet Union, will correct that.