In July 2026, the Swiss publishing house Schwabe released Weber’s book, Chopins Männer (“Chopin’s Men”). For more than five years, Weber researched the composer’s life and work, examining letters, notebooks, manuscripts and other archival materials, including documents that had previously received little attention from scholars.

As Die Zeit notes, Weber is not the first researcher to notice the unusually emotional nature of Chopin’s correspondence with men. The letters have been known since the 19th century.

As early as 1888, German biographer Friedrich Niecks, quoting several of the composer’s letters, observed that if it were not known who had written them and to whom they were addressed, they could easily be mistaken for letters between lovers.

Later scholars generally explained such language as a feature of male friendship during the Romantic era. At the same time, Chopin’s relationships with women were often given a romantic interpretation even when there was little direct evidence to support it.

One example is the long-standing story of the composer’s supposed secret engagement to 17-year-old Maria Wodzińska. Weber argues that stories like this are largely rooted in 19th-century biographical tradition and were subsequently rarely subjected to critical re-examination. In his view, Chopin’s relationships with women were romanticized even when the surviving sources primarily pointed to close friendship.

The researcher also revisits several other familiar stories. He found no evidence of a romance between Chopin and singer Henriette Sontag. Weber likewise sees Chopin’s relationship with George Sand as more complicated than a conventional romantic affair between a man and a woman, suggesting that Sand at times occupied a caring, almost maternal role in his life.

As a result, Weber argues, a kind of double standard emerged: Chopin’s closeness with women was readily interpreted as romantic, while his explicit declarations of love to men were explained for decades as nothing more than friendship.

Thirteen Men

The main sources for Weber’s research were Chopin’s correspondence, archival documents, dedications and musical manuscripts. His book examines the lives of 13 men from the composer’s inner circle.

One of the most important figures is Tytus Woyciechowski, Chopin’s childhood friend, a landowner and participant in the Polish national movement. For a time, the two even lived together. Traditional biographies have generally described Woyciechowski simply as a close friend of the composer. Weber, however, believes the surviving evidence points to a romantic dimension to their relationship.

It was Woyciechowski who received some of Chopin’s most emotionally charged letters. In October 1829, Chopin wrote: “I speak to the piano about what I would often like to say to you.” He then added: “If you can, write me a few lines — then you will make me happy again for several weeks… because I love you madly.”

In another letter, the composer wrote: “I penetrate your mind… let us embrace… Give me one more kiss… Forgive me for being such a pig when we talk to each other.”

Woyciechowski also received Chopin’s music. The composer sent him scores in which, Weber believes, he left hidden signs of affection. In one such message, Chopin wrote: “Pay attention to the place marked with a +. No one knows about it except you.”

According to Weber, such markings suggest that Chopin and Woyciechowski shared a private code that existed not only in their letters but also in music.

Some passages in the correspondence are even more intimate. In one letter, Chopin first emphasizes that he is writing while naked, then tells his friend: “Tonight you will dream that you are kissing me. I must repay you for the unpleasant dream you gave me last night.”

In another letter, the composer refers to a message from Woyciechowski in which his friend wrote that he had to kiss him. Weber also points out that in some letters Chopin used the Polish word kochanek, meaning “lover” or “beloved,” when referring to his friend.

Weber argues that there are simply too many such passages to dismiss them all as nothing more than the emotional language of 19th-century male friendship.

The researcher also examines Chopin’s correspondence with Jan Matuszyński. More than two dozen letters survive, in which Matuszyński repeatedly expressed deep affection for the composer. Among his declarations are statements that “Chopin is everything to me” and that “Chopin is the flower and fragrance of my heart.”

This new interpretation of Chopin’s biography also changes, in Weber’s view, the way his music can be understood. Speaking to Tagesspiegel, the researcher said that while working on the book, he alternated between studying archival documents and playing the piano, allowing him to rediscover familiar compositions from a new perspective.

For example, Weber interprets Chopin’s famous A-flat major Étude as a kind of musical portrait of Antoni Wodziński, whom the researcher believes may also have inspired strong feelings in the composer.

The Debate Over Chopin’s Legacy Continues

According to Weber, even some representatives of the “old school” of Chopin scholarship privately acknowledge the possibility that the composer had a romantic relationship with Tytus Woyciechowski. Within the academic community, however, the interpretation remains far from universally accepted.

For example, a 2024 publication by the National Fryderyk Chopin Institute stated that the theory of a “homoerotic character” in Chopin’s correspondence with Woyciechowski “has no basis” and was intended merely to “produce a certain effect and shock the reader.”

As Die Zeit reports, translations of some of Chopin’s letters displayed at the Chopin Museum in Warsaw still use feminine pronouns for the recipients — as though the composer had been writing to a woman.

Yet according to Weber, Chopin “did not write a single love letter to a woman” — at least, no such letter has survived.

That does not mean, however, that it is appropriate to simply label Chopin “gay” in the modern sense. Concepts of sexual identity in the 19th century were fundamentally different from those of today, and the surviving correspondence cannot provide a complete picture of the composer’s private or sexual life.

Weber himself emphasizes that he is not trying to impose a modern identity on Chopin. His goal, rather, is to restore to the composer’s biography sources that were previously ignored or largely overlooked.

Such an interpretation does not diminish the familiar image of Chopin or the importance of his music. Instead, it offers a chance to see behind the canonical figure of the great composer a real human being — with his attachments, passions, doubts and feelings that may have remained hidden from society for nearly two centuries.