Profile
Frédéric Chopin
Polish Composer
Male
Born
Mar 1, 1810
Hometown
Żelazowa Wola
Died
Oct 17, 1849
Other Names
Fryderyk Francisz...
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish-French composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano". Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, a village in the Duchy of Warsaw. His… Read More
Romance
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Family
Discover the family history of Frédéric Chopin.
Frédéric Chopin
d.1849
parents
siblings
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Ludwika ChopinSister
News + Updates
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Paid Notice: Deaths Atwood, William G.NYTimes - Sep 12, 2011
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Paid Notice: Deaths Atwood, William G.NYTimes - Sep 11, 2011
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Hum That Brand: Nokia Contest Seeks Update Of Signature Tune Brandchannel.ComGoogle News - Sep 09, 2011
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Where Did That Nokia Theme Tune Really Come From? The Next Web (Blog)Google News - Sep 08, 2011
Timeline
Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Frédéric Chopin.
CHILDHOOD
The parish baptismal record, discovered in 1892, gives his birthday as 22 February 1810, but a date one week later, 1 March, was stated by the composer and his family as his birthday; according to Chopin in a letter of 16 January 1833 to the chairman of the Polish Literary Society in Paris, he was "born 1 March 1810 at the village of Żelazowa Wola in the Province of Mazowsze."
1816
6 Years Old
Chopin's first professional piano tutor, from 1816 to 1822, was the Czech Wojciech Żywny.
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TEENAGE
1826
16 Years Old
In the autumn of 1826, Chopin began a three-year course of studies with the Silesian composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory, which was affiliated with the University of Warsaw (hence Chopin is counted among the university's alumni).
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1828
18 Years Old
In September 1828, eighteen-year-old Chopin struck out for the wider world in the company of a family friend, the zoologist Feliks Jarocki, who planned to attend a scientific convention in Berlin.
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In 1829, Polish portraitist Ambroży Mieroszewski executed a set of five portraits of Chopin family members (the youngest daughter, Emilia, had died in 1827): Chopin's parents, his elder sister Ludwika, younger sister Izabela, and, in the first known portrait of him, the composer himself. (The originals perished in World War II; only black-and-white photographs remain.) In 1913, French musicologist and Chopin biographer Édouard Ganche would write that this painting of the precocious composer showed "a youth threatened by tuberculosis.
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TWENTIES
1830
20 Years Old
Chopin's successes as a performer and composer opened the professional door for him to western Europe, and on 2 November 1830, seen off by friends and admirers, with a ring from Konstancja Gładkowska on his finger and carrying with him a silver cup containing soil from his native land, Chopin set out, writes Jachimecki, "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever."
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When in September 1831 Chopin learned, while traveling from Vienna to Paris, that the uprising had been crushed, he poured "profanities and blasphemies, resembling the final verses of Konrad's improvisation," in his native Polish language into the pages of a little journal that he kept secret to the end of his life.
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In February 1832 Chopin gave a concert that garnered universal admiration.
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Though an ardent Polish patriot, in France he used the French versions of his given names and traveled on a French passport, possibly to avoid having to rely on Imperial Russian documents. The French passport was issued on 1 August 1835, after Chopin had become a French citizen.
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The following year, in September 1836, upon returning to Dresden after having vacationed with the Wodzińskis at Marienbad, Chopin proposed marriage to Maria.
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1837
27 Years Old
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After some romantic dalliances with Polish women, including an abortive engagement, from 1837 to 1847 he carried on a relationship with the French writer Amantine Dupin.
1838
28 Years Old
By the summer of 1838, Chopin's and Sand's involvement was an open secret.
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1839
29 Years Old
During the summers at Nohant, particularly in the years 1839–43, Chopin found quiet but productive days during which he composed many works.
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THIRTIES
In 1847 he did not visit Nohant.
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Chopin's public popularity as a virtuoso waned, as did the number of his pupils. In February 1848 he gave his last Paris concert.
For most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849 at age 39.
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Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frédéric_Chopin.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.