RomanticFrédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin was born in Poland.
Frédéric Chopin’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1810👶 Birth
Born on 1 March in Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw
- 1816🌍 Meanwhile
Maelzel patents the metronome (1815–16)
- 1817🎼 Workage 7
Publishes his first polonaise at 7
- 1822🌍 Meanwhile
Champollion deciphers hieroglyphs
- 1826📚 Trainingage 16
Studies at the Warsaw Conservatory with Józef Elsner
- 1829🧳 Journeyage 19
First triumphant concerts in Vienna
- 1832🎩 Careerage 22
First Paris concert; becomes the darling of the salons
- 1833🎼 Workage 23
Études Op. 10
- 1836❤️ Private lifeage 26
Meets the novelist George Sand
- 1839🌍 Meanwhile
Photography is invented (daguerreotype)
- 1840🌍 Meanwhile
Adolphe Sax invents the saxophone (c. 1840)
- 1842🎼 Workage 32
‘Heroic’ Polonaise Op. 53
- 1849🕯️ Deathage 39
Dies in Paris on 17 October; his heart is taken to Warsaw
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Excerpts of up to 90 seconds, freely licensed recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
Once upon a time…
Frédéric Chopin was born in Poland. His dad was French and his mum Polish. At seven he was already composing pieces, and at eight he gave his first concert!
As a young man he left Poland for ever and settled in Paris. He played almost only the piano, but what piano! His nocturnes are like dreams, his waltzes whirl, his polonaises are proud and powerful.
He loved the dances of his country, like the mazurka, and wrote dozens of them to remember Poland. He spent his summers in the countryside with the novelist George Sand, where he composed his finest works.
He died young, of illness. As he wished, his heart was taken back to Poland, to Warsaw.
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