Chopin and his 'espaces imaginaires' - The Fortress of Venus - An escapist thought in these disordered times
The Fortress of Venus Michael Moran In the summer of 1844 Chopin was at Nohant with George Sand, her children, his sister Ludwika Jędrzejewicz and his sister's husband Kalasanty. After they left to return to Warsaw he wrote a letter to her expressing his sense of loss at her departure: 'I feel strange this year [...] but I am not at all here at this moment, only as usual in some strange space. This must be espaces imaginaires, but I am not embarrassed by it.' It is now exactly 50 years since I left civilization as a young man and went to live on a South Pacific Island. I took with me my C. Bechstein upright grand piano and a great deal of the music of Fryderyk Chopin. I intended, among other escapist tendencies, to practice and realize the utterly false hope of turning myself into a concert pianist. As much of the world is now living in strange and unaccustomed isolation during one ...