Born near Warsaw in 1810, the
son of a French émigré and a Polish mother, Chopin won early fame in the
relatively limited circles of his native country, before seeking his fortune
abroad, in Paris. His departure
from Warsaw coincided with the
unsuccessful national rising against Russian domination and Chopin found
himself in Paris in the company of
a number of other Polish exiles. He was able to establish himself as a pianist
and as a teacher of the piano, primarily in fashionable society. For some ten
years Chopin enjoyed a liaison with the writer George Sand, but broke with her
during the last years of his life, brought to a close by the tuberculosis from
which he had long suffered. His compositions, principally for the piano, make a
remarkable use of the newly developed instrument, exploring its poetic
possibilities while generally avoiding the more obvious ostentation of the Paris
school of performers.
As a young musician embarking on a career as a pianist, Chopin provided himself
with half a dozen works for piano and orchestra, a form for which he later
found no necessity. These include two piano concertos, three works based on
Polish themes, a Fantasia, a Krakowiak and a Grand
polonaise, and a set of variations on a theme by Mozart.
Chopin wrote an Introduction and Polonaise for cello and piano for an early
patron and towards the end of his life a Cello Sonata.
His G minor Piano Trio is a valuable addition to recital repertoire.
Piano Music
Chopin created or developed a number of new forms of piano music, vehicles
for his own poetic use of the instrument, with its exploration of nuance, its
original harmonies and its discreet but often considerable technical demands.
He used the popular form of the Waltz in a score of such compositions, of which
the so-called Minute Waltz is probably the best known of many of almost equal
familiarity. The Polish dance, the Polonaise, elevated from village to
ball-room, provided the basis of another characteristic form, in sixteen such
works, written between 1817, when Chopin was seven, and 1846. The best known,
among generally familiar works, are the Polonaise in A major, Opus 40 No. 1,
the Polonaise in A flat, Opus 53, and the Polonaise- Fantaisie,
Opus 61. Other Polish dances used by Chopin include the 62 Mazurkas. The four
Ballades are supposedly based on patriotic poems by Chopin's friend Mickiewicz,
evocative narrative works with no precise extra-musical association. The 21
Nocturnes continue an evocative form initiated by the Irish pianist John Field.
Chopin wrote 26 Preludes, 24 of them completed during an ill-fated winter with
George Sand in Mallorca and 27
Studies, of which the Revolutionary Study is perhaps the best known. Other
compositions include four Scherzos, expansions of the earlier form into a more
extended virtuoso piece, three Sonatas, a Berceuse, a Barcarolle, four
Impromptus and a number of other works. The whole body of Chopin's music is of
the greatest musical and technical importance, melodies often of operatic
inspiration and harmonies and forms of considerable originality.
Life and Works of Chopin
Naxos new "Composer Sound-Portraits", containing 4 CDs and a 164 page booklet
