Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin (/ˈʃoʊpæn/; French pronunciation: ​[fʁe.de.ʁik ʃɔ.pɛ̃]; 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era. Chopin, a child prodigy, grew up in Warsaw, completed his musical education there, and composed many of his works there before leaving Poland shortly before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising.

Effectively cut off from Poland, at age 20 he settled in Paris. During the remaining 19 years of his life, he gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of thesalon; he supported himself by selling his compositions and as a sought-after piano teacher. He formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann. After a failed engagement with a Polish girl, from 1837 to 1847 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit with Sand to Majorca in 1838–39 was also one of his most productive periods of composition. In his last years, he was financially supported by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. Through most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849, probably of tuberculosis.

All of Chopin's compositions include the piano; most are for solo piano, although he also wrote twopiano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. His keyboard style is often technically demanding; his own performances were noted for their nuance and sensitivity. Chopin invented the concept of instrumental ballade; his major piano works also include sonatas,mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, and preludes. Many of these works were published only after Chopin's death. Stylistically, they contain elements of both Polish folk music and of the classical tradition of J.S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert, whom Chopin particularly admired. Chopin's innovations in keyboard style, musical form, and harmony were influential throughout the late Romantic period and since.

Both in his native Poland and beyond, Chopin's music, his association (if only indirect) with political insurrection, his amours and his early death have made him, in the public consciousness, a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy.