Chopin's works from his first years in Paris include the Nocturnes of Opp.

He found himself in such demand as a teacher that he was able to make a comfortable living, and he hobnobbed with the great artists of the day, forming particularly close friendships with Eugene Delacroix, who would paint a splendid portrait of him in 1838, and Liszt. 26, 1832, with Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn and Luigi Cherubini among those in the audience, Chopin, three days shy of his 22nd birthday, took his place as one of the celebrities of the French capital. After a sensational debut at the Salle Pleyel on Feb. He would never again return to his native country, but Poland's loss would be Paris' gain.īy the 1830s, Paris had become the undisputed center of European culture - a hotbed of new thinking in the arts and letters and the focal point of Romanticism in music. Seeking to expand his horizons, he left Poland for Vienna in November 1830, and after eight months there, headed for Paris. 2, for piano and orchestra on Mozart's 'La ci darem la mano' - written when he was 17 - were published in 1830, prompting Robert Schumann's famous accolade in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: 'Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!' In the spring and autumn of 1830, Chopin treated the Warsaw audience to a pair of newly composed, marvelously poetic piano concertos.

His name became known outside of Poland when his Variations, Op. Young Frederic studied piano with Wojciech Zywny and harmony and counterpoint with Jozef Elsner, gave his first concert when he was 8, and rather quickly outdistanced his teachers. No one before or since has contributed as many significant works to the piano's repertoire, or come closer to capturing its soul.Ĭhopin's mother was Polish, his father a Frenchman who had come to Poland as a young man and held jobs as a bookkeeper and tutor before marrying and settling in Warsaw.

As a pianist, his talents were beyond emulation and had an impact on other musicians entirely out of proportion to the number of concerts he gave - only 30 public performances in 30 years of concertizing. Paris, October 17, 1849)įrederic Chopin was a Polish-born pianist and composer of matchless genius in the realm of keyboard music.

Chopin sonata in b flat minor