There’s a story behind the piece below, Chopin’s “Heroic” Polonaise, performed by Vladimir Horowitz, the pianist most people deem to be the world’s top interpreter of Chopin.
Frederic Chopin was born in 1810 near Warsaw, Poland, and was known as a child prodigy as a pianist and composer by the time he was six or seven.
Russia had long ruled Poland, but in the 1820s, Russian rule grew more arbitrary, and secret societies were formed by Polish intellectuals in several cities to plot an insurrection. In November 1830, Polish troops in Warsaw rose in revolt.
Chopin moved to Paris shortly after his 22nd birthday, where he would spend the rest of his life composing, teaching, and concertizing, but his love for his native land remained fierce.
But what could he do? Chopin was a small and sickly person, barely five feet tall, perhaps 90 pounds in weight. He certainly couldn’t be a physical part of an uprising, but he could inspire his native Poles with his compositions.
There are a few good examples of his works along these lines, but the Heroic polonaise stands by itself. When I hear it, a single word comes to fore: bravery.
Enjoy, and don’t be embarrassed if you have goosebumps.
Here’s a very short video on the subject of metaphysics, the philosophy of being and reality.
It’s a great example of what I mean when I say that it has been a terrible last few centuries for philosophers.
In ancient times, if you wanted to know what the fundamental building blocks of the universe, you asked a philosopher, perhaps the ancient Athenian Democritus, who propounded the theory of the atom, which was, by definition, indivisible. Now we refer this question to the realm of particle physics.
Far more recently, those who struggled to know the ultimate nature of reality asked a metaphysician. Now, once again, we’ve put our trust in science.
I hope you’ll check out the video linked above.
As a PhD colleague once told me, “If you don’t care how much of pay for electricity, I’ll get you all the renewable energy you could ever ask for.”
They want you to invest. Have you ever asked why people with their own money at stake have abandoned these ideas 20 years ago?
At left we see why Lincoln would have done well to let the Confederacy cede from the Union. He could have simply written a letter to Robert E. Lee stating:
Keep your slaves and your land…for now. Wait until you experience the effects of near-zero industrial and military technology development and the civilized world’s refusal to trade with you barbarians. By the end of the 19th Century, a stiff breeze will blow you away. Maybe some future U.S. president will invade you with a troop of Boy Scouts with slingshots, or maybe a handful of banditos will ride up from Mexico.
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