Frederic Chopin Biography

Frédéric François Chopin was a Romantic-era Polish composer and virtuoso pianist who composed mostly for solo piano. He has retained a global reputation as a prominent musician of his generation, one whose "poetic genius" was founded on a professional technique that was unparalleled in his generation.

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When was Fredric Chopin Born? 

Chopin born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, on 1-March-1810, grew up in Warsaw, which became part of Congress Poland in 1815. He was a child prodigy who completed his musical education and created his early compositions in Warsaw before fleeing Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the November 1830 Uprising began. At the age of 21, he relocated to Paris. He only gave 30 public concerts in the next 18 years of his life, preferring the more personal ambiance. He made a living by selling his compositions and teaching piano lessons, which he was in high demand for. Chopin was revered by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann, and forged a friendship with Franz Liszt. He died on 17-October-1849.

Chopin has become a leading emblem of the Romantic era for his music, his prominence as one of the earliest music celebrities, his indirect involvement with political insurgency, his high-profile love life, and his early death. His works are still well-known, and he has been the focus of a number of documentaries and biographies with varying degrees of historical accuracy. The Fryderyk Chopin Institute, established by the Polish Parliament to explore and promote his life and works, is one of his many memorials. The International Chopin Piano Competition, a prominent competition dedicated completely to Chopin's music, is held there.

Childhood of Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin was born in the Duchy of Warsaw, a Polish state formed by Napoleon, in żelazowa Wola, 46 kilometers (29 miles) west of Warsaw. Chopin's family relocated to Warsaw in October 1810, six months after his birth, where his father took a job teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum, which was then housed in the Saxon Palace. Chopin and his family lived on the grounds of the Palace. His father played flute and violin, and his mother taught boys at the Chopins' boarding house and played the piano. Chopin was of small stature and was prone to illness even as a child.

Chopin may have had some piano training from his mother, but Wojciech żywny, a Czech pianist, was Chopin's first professional music tutor from 1816 until 1821. Ludwika, his older sister, also took lessons from żywny and occasionally performed duets with him. It was clear that he was a young prodigy. He began his public performances at the age of seven and composed two polonaises in G minor and B-flat major in 1817. His earliest known musical manuscript is a polonaise in A-flat major from 1821, dedicated to żywny.

Education of Frederic Chopin

Chopin studied organ lessons at the Warsaw Lyceum from September 1823 to September 1826, where the lessons were given by a Czech musician named Wilhelm Würfel in his first year. In 1826, he enrolled at the Warsaw Conservatory to study music theory, figured bass, and composition under Silesian composer Jozef Elsner. The makers of the "aeolomelodicon" engaged him, and he performed his own improvisations and a part of a Moscheles concerto on this instrument in May 1825. Following the success of this concert, he was invited to perform a recital on a similar instrument in front of Tsar Alexander I, who was visiting Warsaw and was honoured with a diamond ring. The Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung commended his "rich of musical ideas" in this, his first commercially released piece, and it gained him his attention from the foreign press.

Chopin spent his vacations away from Warsaw, from 1824 to 1828, at a variety of locations. He was a guest of Dominik Dziewanowski, the father of a classmate, at Szafarnia between 1824 and 1825. He heard Polish rural folk music for the first time here. His letters home from Szafarnia (which he dubbed "The Szafarnia Courier"), written in a very modern and vibrant Polish, thrilled his family with their parodies of Warsaw newspapers and showcased the youngster's creative talent.

Chopin's family moved from the Warsaw University building, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace, to lodgings just across the street from the university, in the south annex of the Krasinski Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście, where Chopin lived until he left Warsaw in 1830, shortly after the death of his youngest sister Emilia. His parents continued to run their boarding house for male students in this location. Tytus Woyciechowski, Jan Nepomucen Biaobocki, Jan Matuszyski, and Julian Fontana were four boarders in his parents' apartments who became Chopin's close friends. The latter two would become an integral part of his Parisian environment.

The romantic style in art and literature favoured intense expression of feeling at the period, while the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it seems improbable that the two were lovers. "Chopin's biographer, Alan Walker, argues that, to the degree that such sentiments can be regarded as homosexual in nature, they represent only a brief moment in Chopin's life.”. Because conceptions of sexual activity and identity were quite different in Chopin's day, the modern interpretation is tricky, according to musicologist Jeffrey Kallberg.

Chopin met the vocalist Konstancja Gładkowska in early 1829 and fell in love with her, however it is unclear whether he ever expressed his feelings to her explicitly. He mentions his "ideal" in a letter to Woyciechowski dated 3 October 1829, “whom I have diligently served for six months, although never expressing my affections to her; whom I dream about, who inspired the Adagio of my Concerto.". Following Frederick Niecks' lead, all of Chopin's biographers conclude that this "ideal '' was Gadkowska. The two exchanged rings after what was to be Chopin's final concert in Warsaw in October 1830, which included the composer performing the concerto and Gadkowska singing an aria by Gioachino Rossini, and two weeks later she wrote some love comments in his album bidding him farewell. They did not meet after Chopin departed Warsaw, and they did not appear to correspond.

Fontana, Józef Bohdan Zaleski, and Stefan Witwicki were among Chopin's friends in Warsaw's young creative and intellectual circles. "Chopin F., third-year student, great talent, musical genius," read Chopin's final Conservatory report (July 1829). Ambrozy Mieroszewski painted a series of portraits of members of the Chopin family in 1829, including the composer's first known portrait.

Frederic Chopin Works

Chopin visited Berlin with a family friend, naturalist Feliks Jarocki, in September 1828, while still a student, to see operas directed by Gaspare Spontini and attend concerts by Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn, and other notables. He was a guest of Prince Antoni Radziwi, governor of the Grand Duchy of Posen– himself an outstanding composer and aspiring cellist– on a return trip to Berlin in 1829. He created his Introduction and Polonaise Brillante in C major for cello and piano, Op. 3 for the prince and his pianist daughter Wanda.

Chopin saw Niccol Paganini play the violin in Warsaw that year and composed Souvenir de Paganini, a sequence of variations. This encounter may have prompted him to begin writing his first Études (1829–32), in which he explored the capabilities of his own instrument. He made his debut in Vienna after finishing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory. He gave two piano concerts and received mostly positive feedback, with some critics remarking that he was "too sensitive for people accustomed to the piano-bashing of local performers", in Chopin's words. In the first of these occasions, he performed his Variations on Là ci darem la mano, Op. 2 (variations on a duet from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni) for piano and orchestra. In September 1829, he returned to Warsaw, where he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 on March 17, 1830.

Relationships of Frederic Chopin

In 1838, he began a relationship with Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, also known as George Sand, a French novelist (Chopin girlfriend). Chopin grew ill during winter on the Spanish island of Majorca. Sand recognized Chopin's need for medical attention in March 1839 and drove him to Marseille, where he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. 

Chopin and Sand settled south of Paris in Nohant, Sand's country residence, in May 1839 after a time of recuperation in Marseille. Chopin's life was at its happiest and most creative throughout the next seven years. The Sonata in B Minor, the Opus 55 Nocturnes, and the Opus 56 Mazurkas are only a few of his many masterpieces. Chopin's income climbed as the demand for his new compositions grew, and he gained a better understanding of the publishing business, allowing him to live a more opulent lifestyle.

Death and Funeral

Chopin wished to have a family member with him as his health deteriorated. In June 1849, his sister Ludwika arrived in Paris with her husband and daughter, and in September, he moved into the Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James on the Place Vendôme, thanks to a loan from Jane Stirling. Only a few of his closest friends remained with him as his condition deteriorated dramatically on October 15th. "All the great Parisian ladies deemed it de rigueur to faint in his room", Viardot sarcastically observed.

The physician leaned over him after midnight on October 17th and asked if he was in excruciating pain. He said, "No longer". He passed away just before two o'clock in the morning. He was 39 years old at the time. On his deathbed, he was accompanied by his sister Ludwika, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Sand's daughter Solange, and close friend Thomas Albrecht. Clesinger, Solange's husband, created Chopin's death mask and a cast of his left hand later that morning.

The funeral, which was conducted in the Madeleine Church in Paris, was postponed for over two weeks, until October 30. As a large number of people were expected to attend, access was limited to ticket holders. Over 3,000 people from as far as London, Berlin, and Vienna showed up without invitations and were turned away.

Chopin's illness and death have been a source of debate. His death certificate listed tuberculosis as the cause of death, and his physician, Cruveilhier, was the foremost French authority on the condition at the time. Cystic fibrosis, cirrhosis, and alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency have all been suggested as other reasons. The likely cause of Chopin's death, according to a visual examination of his preserved heart (the jar was not opened) conducted in 2014 and initially reported in the American Journal of Medicine in 2017, was an unusual case of pericarditis caused by persistent TB problems.

Some Interesting Chopin Facts

• Chopin was a child prodigy who began writing and composing poetry at the age of six and gave his first public concerto at the age of eight. Chopin had already performed in the drawing rooms of innumerable Polish aristocracy and created original compositions by the age of twelve. His parents were also musicians; his mother was a piano instructor, while his father was a flutist and violinist.

• Chopin's "Minute Waltz" does not refer to a little piece of music, but rather to a unit of time measurement. However, the 138 bars of music take about 90 to 120 seconds to play. Chopin's publishers chose the moniker.

• Chopin first name is pronounced as 'Shoh-pan'.