'Channeling' Chopin - Show uses music of Chopin, lover's words to explore their relationship

Pamela Howland, a classical pianist from Lewisville, said recently that only 4 percent of the public listens to the music she plays.

"I'm not worried about those 4 percent," she said. "I want to reach the other 96 percent."

She hopes to do that with a one-woman show called Remembering Frederic: A Musical Conversation Between Chopin and George Sand, a combination of Chopin's music and the words of Chopin's lover, French novelist George Sand. Howland created it to celebrate the 200th birthday of Chopin (1810-1849), and she will present it Thursday in Shirley Recital Hall at Salem College and Friday in Brendle Recital Hall at Wake Forest University.

"The show is an attempt to relate words and actions and the music, (to) bring those all together," Howland said. "That's a natural connection for people to make."

And what's more, Remembering Frederic recalls the Chopin-Sand affair, which Howland described as both "juicy" and "a dramatic love story of huge proportions that only the 19th century can deliver." It's an affair that Howland, 53, first learned about while listening to a record called The Story of Chopin, a gift that she received for her eighth birthday.

"I've been living with these characters a long time," Howland said.

Love story

Brook Davis and Michael Kamtman served as the directors for Remembering Frederic.

"It was exciting to discover that their romance was a recognizable, relatable love story -- full of love's passions, hurts, regrets and endurance," Davis wrote in program notes for Remembering Frederic. "Pam's decision to tell their story through Chopin's music and Sand's words developed into a beautiful, dramatic piece -- and gives us a glimpse into the creative processes and motivations of these two geniuses."

Sand was the pseudonym of Aurore Dupin, an intriguing and independent woman who smoked cigarettes, wore pants and had lots of lovers before Chopin. She and Chopin, a native Pole whose fame grew in Paris, were together for nine years. They broke up in 1847, two years before Chopin's death, for reasons that have never been entirely clear.

"We don't know what happened," Howland said. "The letters were burned. There's a lot of speculation about what happened between them, why they broke up."

Soul mates

Remembering Frederic conveys the history of the Chopin-Sand relationship in a way that's "like a show on TV with the kicker that there's this glorious live music," Howland said. The story takes place in Sand's living room, six years after Chopin's death. Sand is finishing her autobiography, Histoire de ma vie.

The ghost of Chopin has come to visit her so that they may "speak of things left unresolved" in their relationship.

There are five sections in Remembering Frederic, with each corresponding to a different period in Chopin's life or his life with Sand. Each section ends with Howland performing selections of Chopin's music.

"They were soul mates," Howland said. "They were two geniuses in their own right who really got each other. I'm trying to let them reconcile."

The idea that Sand might converse with a ghost of Chopin is plausible, since as her autobiography points out, she often conversed with the dead.

"He's talking back to me, but only I can hear that," Howland said. "When he really wants to say it, he's at the piano."

"People have asked me, ‘Are you channeling Chopin?'" Howland said of her playing in a show that she first presented last summer during a Chopin workshop in Warsaw, Poland.

"I sort of feel like I am. I'm speaking to Sand. Every phrase has a meaning. What's beautiful to me is that that meaning isn't in stone. Everybody would say something different. Everybody can be touched by the music in a different way."

"If you can find the right dial, he's talking to you, in a language that you'll understand," she said.

kkeuffel@wsjournal.com
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Pianist Pamela Howland will present Remembering Frederic: A Musical Conversation Between Chopin and George Sand. Shows will be at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Shirley Recital Hall at Salem College and at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Brendle Recital Hall at Wake Forest University. Both performances are free. For more information, call 917-5313 (Salem College) or 758-5026 (WFU).