Fryderyk Franciszek [Frédéric
François]Chopin
(Born; Zelazowa Wola, ?1 March 1810; Died; Paris,17
Oct 1849). Polish composer. The son of French émigré father (a schoolteacher working in
Poland) and a cultured Polish mother, he grew up in Warsaw, taking childhood music lessons
(in Bach and the Viennese Classics) from Wojciech Zywny and Jósef Elsner before entering
the Conservatory (1826-9). By this time he had performed in local salons and composed
several rondos, polonaises and mazurkas. Public and critical acclaim increased during the
years 1829-30 when he gave concerts in Vienna and Warsaw, but his despair over the
political repression in Poland, coupled with his musical ambitions, led him to move to
Paris in 1831. There, with practical help from Kalkbrenner and Pleyel, praise from Liszt,
Fétis and Schumann and introductions into the highest society, he quickly established
himself as a private teacher and salon performer, his legendary artist's image being
enhanced by frail health (he had tuberculosis), attractive looks, sensitive playing, a
courteous manner and the piquancy attaching to self-exile. Of his several romantic
affairs, the most talked about was that with the novelist George Sand (Aurore Dudevant) -
though whether he was truly drawn to women must remain in doubt. Between 1838 and 1847
their relationship, with a strong element of the maternal on her side, coincided with one
of his most productive creative periods. He gave few public concerts, though his playing
was much praised, and he published much of his best music simultaneously in Paris, London
and Leipzig. The breach with Sand was followed by a rapid deterioration in his health and
a long visit to Britain (1848). His funeral at the Madeleine was attended by nearly 3000
people.
No great composer has devoted himself as exclusively to the
piano as Chopin. By all accounts an inspired improviser, he composed while playing,
writing down his thoughts only with difficulty. But he was no mere dreamer - his
development can be seen as an ever more sophisticated improvisation on the classical
principle of departure and return. For the concert-giving years 1828-32 he wrote brilliant
virtuoso pieces (e.g. rondos) and music for piano and orchestra; the teaching side of his
career is represented by the studies, preludes, nocturnes, waltzes, impromptus and
mazurkas, polished pieces of moderate difficulty. The large-scale works - the later
polonaises, scherzos, ballades, sonatas, the Barcarolle and the dramatic
Polonaise-fantaisie - he wrote for himself and a small circle of admirers. Apart from the
national feeling in the Polish dances, and possibly some narrative background to the
ballades, he intended notably few references to literary, pictorial or autobiographical
ideas.
Chopin is admired above all for his great originality in
exploiting the piano. While his own playing style was famous for its subtlety and
restraint, its exquisite delicacy in contrast with the spectacular feats of pianism then
reigning in Paris, most of his works have a simple texture of accompanied melody. From
this he derived endless variety, using wide-compass broken chords, the sustaining pedal
and a combination of highly expressive melodies, some in inner voices. Similarly, though
most of his works are basically ternary in form, they show great resource in the way the
return is varied, delayed, foreshortened or extended, often with a brilliant coda added.
Chopin's harmony however was conspicuously innovatory.
Through melodic clashes, ambiguous chords, delayed or surprising cadences, remote or
sliding modulations (sometimes many in quick succession), unresolved dominant 7ths and
occasionally excursions into pure chromaticism or modality, he pushed the accepted
procedures of dissonance and key into previously unexplored territory. This profound
influence can be traced alike in the music of Liszt, Wagner, Fauré, Debussy, Grieg,
Albéniz, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and many others.
Piano solo 31 mazurkas (opp.68, 6, 7, 17,
24, 67, 30, 33, 41, 50, 56, 59, 63); 14 nocturnes (opp.72, 9, 15, 27, 37, 48, 55, 62); 14
polonaises (opp.71, 26, 40, 44, 53); 19 waltzes (opp.69, 70, 18, 34, 42, 64); 4 ballades
(opp.23, 38, 47, 52); 24 preludes (op.28); 27 studies (opp.10, 25); 4 impromptus (opp.66,
29, 36, 51); 4 scherzos (opp.20, 31, 39, 54); 3 rondos (opp.1, 5); marches; variations;
Bolero (op.19); sonata, bFlat; (op.35, 1839); Fantasie, f/AFlat; (op.49, 1841); Berceuse,
DFlat; (op.57, 1844) Sonata, b (op.58, 1844); Barcarolle, FSharp; (op.60, 1846);
Polonaise-fantaisie, AFlat; (op.61, 1846)
Piano with orchestra Pf Conc. no.1, e
(1830); Pf Conc. no.2, f (1829-30); 4 other works
Other Pf Trio; Vc Sonata; 2 chamber duos;
Circa;20 songs with pf acc; arrs., trancrs.; 1 pf duet
(c)Groves Dictionaries, MacMillan Publishers Limited, UK