Chopin Is My Spiritual Father

It usually catches people off guard when they find out that I — a straight-A student, a former Komsomol member, and a nuclear physicist — am, in fact, a metalhead. Even more confusing to them is my borderline religious devotion to Chopin. But really, it makes perfect sense. If particles can be waves and waves can be particles, then I have every right to blast the screech of metal guitars one moment and then light a symbolic candle (and maybe sacrifice a few metaphorical cockroaches) for the greatest composer of all time the next. Funny thing is, I only “discovered” Chopin three months ago… and now I’m completely obsessed. I adore everything he ever wrote. I adore how he rests in his grave. I even adore the airport named after him. And get this — there’s a crater on Mars named after Chopin. On Mars! Mozart and Bach can quietly smoke in the corner. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s even a street in Kyrgyzstan named in his honor. What’s Kyrgyzstan, you ask? And how do you eat it? Pfff… don’t worry — most Kyrgyz people have no idea what Europe is either. Score: 1–1. But hey, they know Chopin. That’s what matters. Now, here’s a beautiful bit of symbolism: Chopin is buried in Paris, where he spent most of his life — but his heart is enshrined in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. It fits perfectly, since he was a fierce Polish patriot and never really felt at home anywhere else. One of his most powerful works — the Revolutionary Étude — was born out of sheer rage when he learned that the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire had failed. He had actually packed his things, ready to volunteer for the Polish army. In his diary, he wrote: “God, You exist! You exist and do not avenge! Or have You not yet had enough of Moscow’s villainy — or are You Yourself a Muscovite?! … And I am here, helpless — empty-handed — sometimes I only moan, suffer at the piano — despair — and then what? God, God! Open the earth, let it swallow the people of this age. Let the cruellest torments fall upon the French who did not come to our aid.” Raw, furious, magnificent. And if you know anything about the 1830 Polish uprising, you can feel his anger vibrating in every note of that étude. That piece is the reason I rush home early from my walks — so I can sit down at the piano and pour all my own chaos into the keys before my sacred afternoon nap. https://youtu.be/_0zkp1iEr3A