Frédéric Chopin
(1810—1849)
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Frédéric Chopin was a Polish piano composer of the Romantic period. He is widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential, and prolific composers for piano of all time. Chopin was born in the village of Żelazowa Wola, Poland, to a Polish mother and French-expatriate father. Hailed in his homeland as a child prodigy, at age twenty Chopin left for Paris. There he made a career as performer, teacher and composer, and adopted the French version of his given names, "Frédéric-François." From 1837 to 1847 he had a turbulent relationship with the French writer George Sand (Aurore Dudevant). Always in frail health, at 39 he succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis. All of Chopin's extant work includes the piano in some role (predominantly as a solo instrument), and his compositions are widely considered to be among the pinnacles of the piano's repertoire. Although his music is among the most technically demanding for the instrument, Chopin's style emphasizes nuance and expressive depth rather than mere technical display. He invented some musical forms, such as the ballade, but his most significant innovations were within existing structures such as the piano sonata, waltz, nocturne, étude, and prelude. His works are often cited as being among the mainstays of Romanticism in 19th-century classical music. Additionally, Chopin was the first western classical composer to imbue Slavic elements into his music; to this day his mazurkas and polonaises are the cornerstone of Polish nationalistic classical music. (from: Wikipedia.org)