Posted in: Piano by eddiego65 on October 31st, 2010 | 2 Comments
Everybody loves Chopin. Chopin (1810-1849), a composer and pianist of French-Polish parentage, is widely acknowledged as one of music’s foremost geniuses due to his unparalleled gift for melody, boundless expressive depth and demanding craftsmanship.
Chopin was born in Warsaw, where he grew up and completed his musical education. At the tender age of 7, he started performing in public concerts, prompting comparisons with music greats as Mozart and Beethoven. Around the same age, he composed Polonaise in G minor, which was published and was said to have rivaled even the best Polonaises of prominent Warsaw musicians of the day. Not only did he possess tremendous gift of music, he displayed incredible skills in sketching and an unusual flair for mimicry. Three years later, he even performed before Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
At 13, Chopin was enrolled by his family at the newly founded Warsaw Conservatory of Music. Joseph Elsner, the school director with whom Chopin had already been learning musical theory, noted Chopin’s extraordinary abilities; and instead of saddling the young talent with burdensome academic rules, he allowed his student to mature according to his own individual poetic style.
After completing his studies at the Conservatory in 1829, Chopin made his debut by performing in two piano concerts to favorable reviews. He also successfully premiered his very own Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21 in December 1829; and his Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 three months later. Chopin’s success as a composer and virtuoso pianist eventually opened new opportunities for him to Western Europe.
In November 1830, Chopin left Poland with the intention to visit Italy and Germany for further studies. However, he had not traveled beyond Vienna, when he received reports of the Warsaw Uprising against Russian rule. The news left him pondering the future of his homeland, causing him to stay aimlessly in Vienna until July 1831, when he finally decided to head for Paris.
Upon his arrival in Paris, Chopin realized that he had found the place where his genius could flourish unhindered. Chopin eventually decided to settle there to pursue teaching and composing, becoming one of many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration, especially after learning of the Russian suppression of the Polish Uprising in September 1831, an event that sparked within him strong nationalist feelings that are clearly evident in many of his works during this period.
In 1836, Chopin met the French novelist Aurore Dudevant, better known by her pseudonym George Sand, with whom he had a relationship from 1837 to 1848. For most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849 at age 39.
Chopin composed mainly works that involved the piano. His compositions are not only technically demanding, but are also filled with heartfelt emotion and poetic feeling that is universally appealing. Chopin created new genre of music as he was the first to compose ballades and scherzos as individual pieces; he also made significant innovations in the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu and prelude, expanding on its form and transforming them into elegant and expressive showpieces.
Some of Chopin’s best known pieces include the piano concertos (his concertos No. 1 Op. 11 and No. 2 Op. 21), the sonatas, the 4 scherzi, the 4 ballades, the Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49, the Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor (Op. posth. 66) and the Barcarole in F-sharp major Op. 60; shorter works like his polonaises, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, as well as two magnificent gems of piano music, the Études (Op. 10 and 25), and the 24 Preludes (Op. 28), all of which have taken a significant portion of recorded and performed music.
Mark Gordon Brown October 31st, 2010 at 10:15 am
very amazing child, makes you wonder what our kids could be doing if they were not so busy doing nothing.
thepinkbook November 11th, 2010 at 8:51 am
Great post.