Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Radio Chopin 4: Chopinomics

TEASE: How much would you pay for a piano lesson with Chopin? His fee in 1832 was 20 francs – highway robbery if you’re an ordinary piano teacher - but the instructor in question was The Genius in Vogue, and the price was considered a bargain.

START MUSIC: I’m Jennifer Foster with another edition of “RadioChopin: 200 stories to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Find us on the web at radio-chopin-dot-org. Today, Chopinomics.

[MUSIC:
Money makes the world go around
…the world go around
…the world go around. (fade)
Money makes the world go around
Of that we both are sure…
*raspberry sound* on being poor! ]

“I'm a revolutionary, money means nothing to me.” – a famous quote by Chopin.

So, just how much was a franc worth in Chopin’s day? Debatable, but estimates range from $2.50 to $4.80. That would put the price tag on a piano lesson with Chopin between $50 and $96. Sound reasonable for a piano lesson with the man about whom Robert Schumann shouted, “Hats off, gentlemen — a genius!”? Hats off is right. Dinner’s off, too, considering the average daily wage for an unskilled laborer in Paris was one franc. That’s three weeks’ wages to pay for one lesson if you don’t eat.

[bring up Polonaise]

In 1982 Chopin and the first two bars of this Polonaise in F Minor appeared on the Polish 5000 z?oty bill. This year, The National Bank of Poland is adding their two cents’ worth with a release of special, collectible Chopin banknote valued at 20 z?oty - about $6.77. Fourteen of the new notes if you want a lesson from the old poet of the piano!

VO OVER CLOSE MUSIC – JFW MELANGE II: (tag not read by host) “Radio Chopin is a production of WDAV Classical Public Radio, a service of Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. And supported by the Wachovia Wells Fargo Foundation. To download this and other episodes – and the music that goes with them – visit us online at radio-chopin-dot-org. That’s radio-chopin-dot-org. [close music end]