CASE OF FREDERIC CHOPIN: COULD MUSIC BE A SYMPTOM?

Abstract

The mystery of the illness and death of the great Polish composer Frederic Chopin not yet solved fnally. Numerous attempts of retrospective diagnostics used all available possibilities except for analyzing the music of the composer to search for the manifestations of his disease in it. There are many examples in the history of medicine that music may contain valuable diagnostic information about the authorʹs illness. Aim. Purpose of this study is searching for signs of the manifestation of Chopin's disease in his musical works and to get an answer to the question: can his music contain valuable data for diagnostics. Material and methods. The Frederic Chopin's correspondence, the work of the composer's most respected biographers, as well as scientifc publications devoted to the study of the circumstances of Chopin's life, illness and work. Scopus, WebOfScience, MedLine and PubMed databases were searched without time restriction. Discovered publications were subjected to medical and musicological analysis. Conclusions. Analysis shows that Chopin's creative process did not depend on the circumstances of his personal life, nor on his health. The composer did not write program music, never supplied his works with comments and did not apply sound imitation by musical means. None of the hypotheses that coughing attacks are reflected in Chopin’s music has been confrmed. Analysis of Chopin's music as a component of professional anamnesis does not provide additional information for diagnosis.

Keywords

• frederic chopin
• anamnestic diagnostic
• retrospective diagnostic