Frederic Chopin is one of the most significant figures in the history of world music. Works of the genius composer are still performed in the best concert halls around the world, and Chopin himself serves as an idol and an object for imitation by far not one generation of musicians.
The future composer inherited the love of music from his mother, who received a good education and played beautifully on the pianoforte. Father Frederik was engaged in raising the children of the Polish count.
The Warsaw Duchy, in whose territory Chopin was born, was at that time part of the Russian Empire.
Frederick had three sisters, each of whom also had a talent for creativity.
Chopin from childhood was obsessed with music: the boy could jump out of bed in the middle of the night to pick up on the piano a newly composed sketch. The child generally liked to play music in the dark, so that nothing distracted him from creativity.
Little Chopin because of the length of his fingers did not manage to take on the piano some chords. Then he came up with a special device for stretching his fingers – extremely painful, but effective, and did not part with him even at the time of sleep.
As a child, Chopin claimed to see the spirits and ghosts of deceased relatives. Researchers of his work believe that this is how one of the forms of epilepsy manifested itself.
The article about the polonaise of Chopin, then a pupil of the elementary school, was published in one of the Warsaw newspapers. Its author called the boy a genius and a child prodigy.
When Chopin was 12 years old, he was not inferior in skill to any adult Polish pianist. The musician who gave him lessons, refused to continue training the boy, because he could not teach him anything else.
At the age of 20, Chopin began to tour Europe with concerts and left Warsaw for good. In the same year, an uprising broke out in Poland, and the composer was determined to go to the battlefield. However, earlier, than he reached his homeland, the riot was suppressed.
Chopin had a violent romance with writer George Sand for 10 years. And the relationship itself, and the gap that they ended, undermined the health of a musician suffering from lung disease (probably tuberculosis).
Because of the heavy parting with his beloved Chopin decided to leave Paris and go to London to give concerts and teach there. The British capital enthusiastically accepted a talented composer, but the local climate finally ruined his health. Returning to Paris in a year, Chopin died. He was only 39 years old.
According to the last will of Chopin, at his funeral, famous musicians performed Mozart’s Requiem. It was this composer that he considered the greatest of all.
Chopin’s ashes rest in Paris, and his heart, as the composer wanted it, was sent to Warsaw. There, the musician’s heart was embedded in one of the columns of the Church of the Holy Cross.
Musicologists maintain that Chopin’s waltzes are a kind of “diary” of the composer, whose character can be traced to his whole life.
Chopin’s admirers were many of his great contemporaries – for example, Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and Robert Schumann.
Chopin himself characterized his work in one word – “I’m sorry”, meaning that his works are imbued with sadness and mournful intonations.
The name of Chopin is named one of the craters on Mercury.
