Frédéric Chopin

He was once engaged to Maria Wodzińska though the marriage was ultimately called off.

Later on he had a love affair with French novelist Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, better known as George Sand.

Frederic Chopin died on October 17, 1849 at the age of 39. Officially, it was said that he died due to tuberculosis but this is disputed. Other possibilities that have been attributed to his death include: cystic fibrosis, cirrhosis and alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency.

Frederic Chopin was born as Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin near Warsaw, Poland. His date-of-birth remains disputed. The parish baptismal record gives his birthday as February 22, 1810 but according to the statements of the artist and his family, it is March 1, 1810.

He was the second of four children of Nicholas Chopin, a Frenchman, and his Polish wife, Justina, who was a well-educated but poor relative of the Skarbeks, a family Nicholas worked for.

Frederic received some piano instructions from his mother, and later studied piano from Wojciech Zywny, and harmony and counterpoint from Jozef Elsner.

The ruler of Russian Poland, Grand Duke Constantine often invited him as a playmate for his son. He played the piano and also composed a march for the Duke's army.

Frederic Chopin gave his first public concert at the age of seven and was compared to the legendary composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He also composed two polonaises the same year, one in G minor and the other in B-flat major.

In 1821, Frederic Chopin composed a polonaise in A-flat major. He dedicated this to his tutor Zywny. The composition is his earliest surviving manuscript.

He attended the Warsaw Lyceum from September 1823 to 1826 and the Czech musician Wilhelm Wurfel gave him organ lessons in the first year.

In 1825, he performed with a new instrument called 'eolomelodicon' in front of the Tsar Alexander I who was visiting Warsaw. Impressed with the young boy's talents, the Tsar gave him a diamond ring.

On June 10, 1825, at an eolomelodicon concert he performed his Rondo Op 1. The performance was commercially published and earned him his first mention in the foreign press.

In 1826, he began a three-year course under the Silesian composer, Josef Elsner, at the Warsaw Conservatory. He studied music theory, figured bass and composition.

His major works include sonatas, the four scherzos, the four ballads, the Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49 and the Barcarole in F-sharp major, Op. 60.

In shorter works, his major accomplishments were mazurkas, waltzes, polonaises, etudes, impromptus, scherzos and preludes.