Composer
Frédéric Chopin
A pianist-composer who wrote almost exclusively for his own instrument.
Frédéric Chopin is unusual among major composers for how narrow his focus was: almost his entire output is for solo piano (or piano with orchestra), and he wrote comparatively little for any other combination of instruments. That narrowness let him refine piano writing to an extraordinary degree - his music is prized for how naturally it sits under the hands and how completely it exploits the instrument's expressive range.
Life in brief
Chopin was born in 1810 in the village of Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, to a French father and a Polish mother. He was a child prodigy - his first published piece, a polonaise, appeared when he was seven - and he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory before setting out to make his name abroad.
He left Poland in 1830, just weeks before an uprising against Russian rule broke out, and never returned. He settled in Paris in 1831, the year a review by Robert Schumann hailed him in Germany - "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" Chopin made his living teaching piano to wealthy pupils and selling his music to publishers, and moved among the city's artists, including Liszt and the painter Eugène Delacroix.
His relationship with the novelist George Sand lasted nearly a decade, and during a winter they spent on Majorca he finished his Preludes. His health was always fragile, and he died in Paris in 1849, aged 39, most likely of tuberculosis. At his request, his heart was carried back to Warsaw, where it rests in the Holy Cross Church.
Music and style
Chopin's melodies are often compared to opera singing - long, floating lines decorated like a singer's ornaments - and he loved the bel canto opera of his day. Underneath them, his harmony is bold and full of surprising chromatic turns. He used the sustain pedal to create rich washes of sound, and he taught his students to play with rubato: flexing the tempo expressively while the accompaniment keeps a steady pulse.
His Nocturnes perfected a genre he didn't invent but made entirely his own: quiet, singing, deeply intimate piano pieces evoking nighttime reflection. His Etudes turned technical practice pieces into genuine concert repertoire, each one built around a specific pianistic challenge. His Polonaises and Mazurkas draw directly on Polish folk dance forms, reflecting the nationalist strand running through much Romantic-era music and Chopin's own lifelong identification with Poland, even after he settled permanently in Paris.
Chopin rarely performed in large public concert halls, generally preferring smaller, more intimate salon settings - a fitting match for music built around such personal, confiding expression.
Key works
- 21 Nocturnes - including Op. 9 No. 2 in E-flat major.
- 27 Etudes - including the "Revolutionary" and "Winter Wind."
- 24 Preludes, Op. 28 - one in every key, some barely a minute long.
- 4 Ballades - dramatic, story-like pieces, among his greatest works.
- Polonaises and Mazurkas - including the "Heroic" Polonaise in A-flat.
- Waltzes - including the "Minute" Waltz.
- Two piano concertos, both written in his teens and early twenties.
Legacy
Chopin changed how the piano could sound, and every pianist-composer after him - from Liszt and Rachmaninoff to Debussy, who dedicated his own Etudes to Chopin's memory - learned from him. In Poland he is a national hero, and the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, held every five years, is one of the most prestigious in the world.
Where to start listening: the Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2, is Chopin's single most beloved piece; the "Revolutionary" Etude shows his more turbulent, dramatic side. Then try the First Ballade, which packs a whole drama into ten minutes.