Instead, Chopin declared that Bach was his favorite composer. It’s unlikely that Fred heard the 1829 revival of the “St. Matthew Passion” that Mendelssohn staged in Leipzig, which started the great Bach revival that continues today. Bach’s music was unknown to the general public, but professional musicians held his keyboard and organ works in high esteem. Fred probably was familiar with his inventions and his collection of preludes and fugues. What is funny is that there is very little of Bach in Chopin’s music.
The real influence was bel canto opera. The idea behind bel canto was that vocal technique – and pyrotechnics – were more important than plot and the actual quality of the music. This was why Rossini’s operas had replaced Handel’s in the repertory, and composers like Donizetti and Bellini were kings of the opera house. What Chopin did was treat the piano as an opera singer. The wonderful ornamentation that Fred wrote for piano came straight out of the opera house.
Chopin had barely arrived in Vienna when word came of the November Uprising against Russia back in Poland. Fred’s friends in Vienna journeyed back to Poland to fight, but Fred was already suffering from the early stages of the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him.
At age 21, Chopin’s work for 1831 showed that he had reached a high level of professionalism. None of the works from this year went into the desk drawer. All were published. The first was a set of mazurkas. The first mazurka in B-flat is a piece that every child pianist is forced to tackle. It’s still fun.