George Sand’s estate in Nohant, a magical and inspiring place.
A family home that has become a place of literary and musical creation.
When George Sand inherited from her paternal grandmother the house where she had grown up and to which she remained attached all her life, she was far from imagining that she would welcome so many prominent personalities. Franz Liszt first, who stayed there twice with Marie-d'Agoult in 1837, then Frédéric Chopin whose first meeting with George Sand dates from the same year. On 1 June 1839, Chopin made the first of his seven long stays in Nohant. The couple, returning from Majorca, where they had just spent the winter., and during which Chopin completed his 24 Preludes Op. 28. Exhausted by this winter stay in the Balearic Island, he gradually returns to life in Nohant, where George Sand has had a magnificent grand piano delivered by Pleyel which awaits him upstairs in the room she made ready for him.
Chopin who suffered so much in Majorca to have to wait for a piano by Pleyel to finish his Preludes finds again in Nohant the taste of composing. In this first summer he completed the famous Sonata No. 2 Op. 35, the 3 studies Op. posthumous, the Nocturne Op. 32 No. 2, the Scherzo No. 3 Op. 39 and several other pieces. Chopin’s first summer at Nohant calls for others. Chopin will return six times, until 1846, for long stays from late April to early November. Almost all his works, from Op. 35 to the waltz Op. 64 No. 1 and 2 were either composed, or completed and put to bed in Nohant, making the house of writer George Sand the home of composer Frédéric Chopin.
George Sand, concerned that Chopin would not be bored in Nohant, invited some of their friends to stay with them for several weeks. This was the case of the painter Eugène Delacroix and the singer Pauline Viardot who came to Nohant on several occasions. Chopin’s sister and her husband will also make the trip to Nohant. Later, after the death of Chopin, other great personalities will respond to the invitation of George Sand (the writers Honoré de Balzac, Théophile Gautier, Ivan Tourgueniev, Gustave Flaubert and Alexandre Dumas son, the engraver Alexandre Manceau, the sculptor Auguste Clésinger and politicians such as Prince Jérôme Napoléon or François Arago), contributing to enrich the history of this house of artists to make it one of the high places of romanticism.
From the creation of the Festival in 1966 to that of the Competition in 2026.
In 1961, when George Sand’s last child died, the park and the house became property of the French State and it was in 1966 that the first stone of a music festival was laid by the pianist Aldo Ciccolini whose centenary of birth we celebrate this year. He gave that year two recitals dedicated to Chopin and Liszt in the old sheepfold of the George Sand estate. In view of the emotion aroused by these concerts, it was considered and decided, some time later, to create an annual event designed to honor literary and musical romanticism. First called “Nohant’s Romantic Feasts” until 2010, the year of Chopin’s bicentenary, the Festival is now called “Nohant Chopin Festival”, in order to mark the importance of this place in the creation of the Polish composer.
The list of great artists who came to play in Nohant, and especially pianists, is one of the most impressive, to the point that it is impossible to name all those who have succeeded on stage, including many chopinians: Arthur Rubinstein, Samson François, Byron Janis, Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel, Krystian Zimerman, Jorge Bolet, Arcadi Volodos, Georges Cziffra, François-René Duchâble, Evegeni Kissin, Bruno Rigutto, Stanislas Bounine, Grigory Sokolov, Rafal Blechaz, Kevin Kenner, Garrick Ohlsson, Piotr Paleczny, Elisso Virsaladze, Brigitte Engerer, Ivo Pogorelich, Viktoria Postnikova, Philippe Entremont, Alexis Weissenberg, Yuri Egorov, Nicholas Angelich, Dang Thaï Son, Seong-Jin Cho, Bruce Liu and many others... Not to mention Aldo Ciccolini, who gave Nohant in 2014 one of his last concerts.
To these great names of the piano are added great names of singing (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Barbara Hendricks, Jessye Norman...), violin (Yehudi Menuhin, Gidon Kremer, Christian Ferras, Henryk Szeryng, Arthur Grumiaux, Ivry Gitlis, Renaud Capuçon...), cello (Maurice Gendron, Misha Maïsky, Paul Tortelier, Gauthier Capuçon...), many chamber music ensembles (including the legendary Amadeus Quartet), and great personalities of the theatre scene: Laurent Terzieff, Simone Valère and Jean Dessailly, Jean Piat, Jean-Claude Brialy, Lambert Wilson, Brigitte Fossey, François Cluzet, Marie Christine Barrault, Charles Berling, Robin Renucci, Pierre Arditi, Fabrice Lucchini...
In 2025, the Festival will run from 7 June to 23 July on the theme “Chopin l’Européen”. Devoted mainly to romantic music, a large part of the program is dedicated each year to Chopin’s music and also includes conferences, talks-encounters and masterclasses confronting modern piano and piano d'époque. An academy of young talents sponsored by Brigitte Fossey and Frédéric Lodéon helps each year more than ten artists through the Nohant Chopin Festival Hors les Murs.
In 2026, the Festival will celebrate its 60th anniversary! To mark this anniversary, we have decided, in partnership with the National Monuments Centre and Pleyel Pianos, to create the 1st International Chopin Pleyel Piano Competition in Nohant. The date of 15 August, which marks the beginning of this Competition, is also the anniversary date of the pianist Aldo Ciccolini, born on 15 August 1925, who was one of the main founders of the Festival.