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{shoh-pan'}
Frederic Francois Chopin was one of the most eminent composers
of piano music. He was born on Mar. 1, 1810, in Zelazowa Wola,
near Warsaw, Poland. His father was French, and his mother
Polish.
CAREER
Chopin gave his first public piano recital at the age of eight
and began concert tours in 1828. After visits to several German
cities and to Vienna with a return to Warsaw in 1829, he gave
a concert in Paris in 1832. He then decided to settle in Paris
permanently.
Robert Schumann had acclaimed Chopin's variations on "La
ci darem la mano" (from Mozart's Don Giovanni) with the
words "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!" and later
called him "the boldest and proudest poetic spirit of
the time." Chopin excelled as a piano teacher, gave yearly
concerts of his own music, and frequently performed in the
fashionable Parisian salons; he was renowned for his subtle
and refined playing.
In 1837, Franz Liszt introduced Chopin to the writer George
SAND. She spent the winter of 1838-39 on the island of Majorca
with Chopin, who was suffering from a respiratory ailment.
Their relationship continued until 1847, and after they separated,
Chopin's ailment was diagnosed as tuberculosis. Exhausted
by a concert tour of England and Scotland in 1848, Chopin
returned to Paris, where he died on Oct. 17, 1849.
MUSIC
Aside from several songs and pieces for cello and piano, Chopin
wrote almost exclusively for the piano and its sonorities.
His playing included rubato, a flexibility of tempo essential
for the proper interpretation of his music.
Chopin's shorter works can be divided into two groups: stylized
dances and free lyrical forms. Among the dancelike compositions
are the MAZURKAS, which are based on Polish dances in 3/4
time. Important among the smaller lyrical forms are the preludes
(1836-39; 1845) and two books of etudes (1829-32; 1832-36),
a genre that Chopin raised from the level of a technical exercise
to a work of musical merit.
Among the longer forms, the POLONAISES--aristocratic dances
that Chopin filled with the spirit of his native Poland--NOCTURNES,
and ballades deserve special mention. Chopin's nocturnes range
from melodious salon pieces to deeply pessimistic compositions.
The ballades consist of aptly juxtaposed sections that make
up a musical whole.
Of Chopin's large-scale works, the two piano concertos (F
minor and E minor) are early compositions; his mature piano
sonatas (in B-flat minor, which contains the well-known funeral
march, and in B minor) show many structural and harmonic ingenuities.
His F Minor Fantasy was one of the works that influenced Liszt's
new concepts of musical form. Chopin's style includes delicate
passage work and subtle melodic ornamentation. His harmonic
innovations influenced Liszt, Wagner, and Scriabin.
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