Music

Frédéric Chopin

1810–1849 · Polish

Romantic

Chopin was the Polish-born "poet of the piano" who spent his adult life in Paris. Almost everything he wrote involves the piano, and his nocturnes, études, ballades, mazurkas and polonaises redefined what the instrument could express.

How to spot them

▸Solo piano almost always: a singing right-hand melody over wide, flowing left-hand arpeggios
▸Expressive rubato, ornamental filigree and bel canto-style lines
▸Polish dance rhythms: mazurkas and proud, martial polonaises
▸Clues about George Sand, Majorca, the fall of Warsaw in 1831 or a heart buried in Warsaw

Key works — listen

Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2 (1832)

His best-known nocturne: a gently rocking 12/8 song for the piano

Recording: Frédéric Chopin / Frank Lévy · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Étude in C minor, Op. 10 No. 12, "Revolutionary" (c. 1831)

Stormy left-hand torrents, linked to the failed Polish uprising

Recording: Frédéric Chopin · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35 ("Funeral March") (1839)

The third movement is the famous Marche funèbre

Prelude in D-flat major, Op. 28 No. 15, "Raindrop" (1838–1839)

A repeated A-flat/G-sharp like dripping rain; linked to the Majorca winter

Polonaise in A-flat major, Op. 53, "Heroic" (1842)

Grand, patriotic polonaise with thundering left-hand octaves

Waltz in D-flat major, Op. 64 No. 1, "Minute Waltz" (1847)

"Minute" means small, not sixty seconds; it usually takes longer

Recording: Frédéric Chopin · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Quick-fire facts

•He was born at Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, to a French father and a Polish mother.
•He left Poland in 1830 and settled in Paris, never returning home.
•His relationship with the novelist George Sand (Aurore Dupin) lasted from about 1837 to 1847.
•He spent the winter of 1838–39 with George Sand at Valldemossa on Majorca, where he completed the 24 Preludes, Op. 28.
•He died, probably of tuberculosis, in Paris in 1849 aged 39; his heart was taken to Warsaw's Holy Cross Church.
•The International Chopin Piano Competition has been held in Warsaw since 1927.
•The Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66, was published posthumously in 1855.
•Schumann greeted Chopin's Op. 2 variations with the line "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!"

Drill it — 9 cards

1 / 9new card

Sources

Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press) — Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Frédéric Chopin