Frédéric Chopin

Who is Frédéric Chopin?

Frédéric Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, born in Żelazowa Wola near Warsaw to a French father and Polish mother. A child prodigy, he composed and performed in Warsaw before leaving Poland in 1830, shortly before the November Uprising against Russian rule. He settled in Paris, where he spent most of his adult life, composing, teaching, and performing in intimate salon settings rather than large concert halls. Almost all of his works feature the piano, and he expanded the instrument's expressive and technical possibilities through nocturnes, études, preludes, mazurkas, polonaises, ballades, and sonatas. His mazurkas and polonaises drew on Polish folk idioms and became powerful symbols of national identity. He suffered from chronic ill health, likely tuberculosis, and died in Paris at the age of thirty-nine. His heart was returned to Warsaw at his request.

Sources: Alan Walker, 'Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times', 2018 · Jim Samson, 'Chopin' (Master Musicians Series), 1996