CHOPIN AND THE SKELETON.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1049, 11 February 1911, Page 9

CHOPIN AND THE SKELETON.

', HOW .THE FAMOUS FUNERAL-'■■' • • MARCH. WAS COMPOSED. A picturesque account of tho inspiration sought by Chopin for tho composition of his'famous Funeral March—afterwards inserted in his Piano' Sonata in B flat miuor—is told by tho venerable painter M. Zicm in the "Annates." M. Zicm, who is now aged ninety, relates that, when little more than a boy, after a dinner party in a friend's studio ho had tho idea, in a fit of high spirits, to bring from a cupboard a skeleton. Tho Prince do Polignac, who. was of the party, insisted on placing" the skeleton on a music stool and guiding tho liones of tho fingers over the keys of the piano. This was in tho romantic 'thirties, and tho savour of tho exploit was v much appreciated. Not long after Chopin .called on M. Zicm, "to 6eck respite after nn appalling night passed in a" strugglo with ghosts that had stroked him, twined round him, and sought to cntico him to. the underworld." The recital of his nightmares .recalled, to M. Zicm the pinno perform-, nnco by tho skeleton and the Prince do Polignac.

Chopin shuddered: then ho asked "Have you a skeleton?" M. Ziem had not, but promised to obtain ono that very evening. "Then," ho. goes on, "what had been only,a frolic became something grand, agonising, terrible. Pale,, his eyes burning with fever, Chopin wrapped himself in a long winding sheet, and as he sat at the piano held against his bo>«m the skeleton, tho suectro of his sleepless nights. "In the lugubrious silenco tho notes streamed from the piano, broadly, slowly, overwhelmingly—an unimagined music— tho Funeral March! It was created there before our eyes, and it dragged our souls into its holy rhythm. "Then tho strains died down. We rushed towards Chopin. Ho had. put forth so prodigious an effort that wo thought he had fainted in his winding ehect."