Chopin, FrÉDÉRic (FranÇOis)

(born March 1, 1810, Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, Duchy of Warsaw—died Oct. 17, 1849, Paris, France) Polish-French composer. Born to middle-class French parents in Poland, he published his first composition at age seven and began performing in aristocratic salons at eight. He moved to Paris in 1831, and his first Paris concert the next year thrust him into the realm of celebrity.

Renowned as a piano teacher, he spent his time in the highest society. He contracted tuberculosis apparently in the 1830s. In 1837 he began a 10-year liaison with the writer George Sand; she left him in 1847, and a rapid decline led to his death two years later. Chopin stands not only as Poland's greatest composer but perhaps as the most significant composer in the history of the piano; he exhaustively exploited the instrument's capacities for charm, excitement, variety, and timbral beauty. His innovations in fingering, his use of the pedals, and his general treatment of the keyboard were hightly influential. Apart from two piano concertos (both 1830) and four other works for piano and orchestra, virtually all his compositions are for solo piano; they include some 60 mazurkas, 27 études, 26 preludes, 21 nocturnes, some 20 waltzes, 16 polonaises, 4 ballades, 4 scherzos, and 3 sonatas.

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