Frederic Chopin

Frdric-Franois Chopin
1849) is widely seen as the
an outstanding pianist as well.

(March 1, 1810 - October 17,

greatest of Polish composers and

Chopin was Born in

Zelazowa Wola in central Poland to
a French father and Polish
mother. Chopin started his musical
education in 1816, and he
composed his first work in 1817,
and Chopin made his first
appearance on stage in 1818.
Chopin studied music first with
Joseph Elsner, and after 1826 in the
Musical School in Warsaw. In 1830 Chopin left Poland for France and lived the rest of his life in
Paris, where he died of tuberculosis in 1849. Chopin was companion to novelist George Sand for
ten years, but she left him when Chopin got tuberculosis, and he died soon after that. His friends
were Franz Liszt and Vincenzo Bellini (beside whom he is buried in the Pre Lachaise).
Although Chopin is buried in Paris, his heart is entombed in a pillar in the Church of the
Holy Cross in Warsaw, Poland.
Chopin's music belongs to the Romantic period of classical music.
He made his debut in 1818, playing a concerto by Gyrowetz. In 1824 Chopin entered the
Warsaw Conservatory; the following year saw the publication of his Rondo in C minor, Op.1. He
premiered his own F minor and E minor Concerti in Warsaw in March and October of 1830. Late
in that same year, Chopin left Poland forever. Chopin lived and performed in Vienna for eight
months and in 1831 arrived in Paris, where he played his F minor Concerto and the La' ci darem
Variations early in 1832. After 1835, his appearances as a concert pianist were infrequent. In
1837 he entered into his celebrated liaison with the writer George Sand, which ended in 1846.
His main source of income was teaching. He gave his last recital in Paris early in 1848, and later
that year arrived in Great Britain. He died in Paris in 1849. At his funeral, which was held at the
Madeleine, Mozart's Requiem was given. He is buried at Pere-Lachaise, where, according to
legend, there has never been a day when flowers were not placed on his grave.
Chopin spent most of the first twenty years of his life in Warsaw. The Polish capital was
rather provincial; still he was able to hear many of the best artists of the time perform there.
Italian opera and singing in general had an indelible effect on him, through the performances of
such great singers as Angelica Catalani. Long before Liszt heard Paganini, Chopin was learning
from his violinistic feats.
Hummel, too, played in Warsaw, and his tentative Romanticism and richly ornamented
keyboard layout ignited Chopin's precocious genius. Other influences during his adolescence
included Spohr's then strangely exotic chromaticism, Field's fragrant nocturnes, and the
mysteriousness of Weber. Of equal importance were the dance forms of his homeland. From the
age of eight, Chopin occupied himself with them, haunted by their rhythms, dreaming of an
idealized Poland. The last page of music he wrote was a mazurka.

As a pianist, Chopin was left to develop on his own. Warsaw had no piano teachers of
importance, and Chopin's instruction was given over to a local violinist, Adalbert Zywny.
Awestruck by his pupil's talents, he let Chopin sprout his own unique wings. To his credit, he
instilled in him a love for Bach and Mozart, the only masters whom Chopin admired without
reservation. There was also the fatherly guidance of his composition teacher Josef Elsner at the
Warsaw Conservatory, who understood him and nourished him without too many strictures.
When the twentyone-year-old Chopin arrived in Paris, Chopin was momentarily dazed by the
old-fashioned perfection of Kalkbrenner, who tried to convince him to enter upon a three-year
course of study with him. Opinions on the matter roared back to him from Warsaw: the pianist
Maria Szymanowska screamed, "He is a scoundrel. His real aim is to cramp his genius." Elsner,
too, quickly realized that "they have recognized genius in Frederic and are already frightened
that he will outstrip them, so they want to keep their hands on him for three years in order to hold
back something of that which nature herself might push forward."
Indeed, Chopin was a new and freer pianist, free from the conventional discipline of stiff
bodily action. And his music was entirely new, demanding novel forms of hand coordination.
Schumann was the first to understand this, ending his review of the Variations on "La ci darem la
mano," Op. 2, with the now-celebrated line: "Hats off, gentlemen. A genius!" Chopin was well
aware of his own originality. At nineteen, he announced to a friend the creation of his Etudes: "I
have written a big technical exercise in my own special manner." These would soon be known as
his Twenty-four Etudes, Opp. 10 and 25. When first composed, they offered severe stumbling
blocks to older players of the day. The German critic Ludwig Rellstab advised, "Those who have
distorted fingers may put them right by practicing these studies; but those who have not, should
not play them, at least, not without having a surgeon at hand." But the Chopin Etudes have come
to rule the world of piano playing, forming an encyclopedic methodology, a summary of
Chopin's enlarged vision of piano technique. They provide the equipment for the rest of Chopin's
almost invariably difficult music, and give the key to music after Chopin. If only one set of piano
etudes were to be preserved, these would be the unanimous choice. They contain all that
Clementi, Cramer, Czerny, Berger, Moscheles, Hummel, Steibelt, and others were striving for
technically, couched in music of incomparable beauty. They are a challenge for every generation
of pianists, and few can feel equally comforTABLE in all. They are small in form; as each
develops a single technical idea, they demand an enormous endurance, while musically they are
as exposed as Mozartian writing.