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1810 |
Frédéric (Fryderyk) Chopin is born on March 1 in Zelazowa
Wola, in the duchy of Warsaw*, a small state that Napoleon carved in 1807
from the territories of Poland occupied by Prussia in the West and Russia in
the East. Frédéric’s father Nicolas has come as a young man from his native
Lorraine in the then Kingdom of France to work as an accountant and teacher
on the estate of a Polish nobleman; his mother Justyna is born in Poland.
* The cities marked in color are given on the contemporary map. At his baptism in April, Frédéric’s birthday is entered incorrectly in the register of the catholic parish of Brochów as February 22. In the fall of 1810, the parents move with Frédéric and his sister Ludwika, who is three years old at the time, to Warsaw, the capital of the duchy. They open a private pension for the sons of the privileged who attend the nearby lycée, and they are quite successful. The father is soon appointed Professor of French language and literature at the renowned lycée, and the family is enlarged by the births of daughters Izabela and Emilia in the two years following. |
|
1814 |
After the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna partitions Polish territory once again between Russia, Prussia and Austria and creates the Republic of Cracow, with the result that the Duchy of Warsaw becomes even smaller. The Chopin family identifies wholly with the plight of the Polish people; the language at home is Polish, but the children are also fluent in French and German. They love music, follow with enthusiasm the lessons given them on the piano by the mother and listen with joy to the father playing the violin or the flute. | |
1816 |
The parents recognize Frédéric’s dexterity on the piano and are amazed at his talents of improvisation. They hire Adalbert (Wojciech) Zywny as a piano teacher; Frédéric takes from him, and shall retain, his love for the music of Bach and Mozart. | |
1817 |
First efforts at composition: two Polonaises, i.e. then modern dances deriving from Polish folk music and with a characteristic rhythmic pattern, in B flat major (op. P1-1) and in G minor (op. S1-1). | |
1818 |
Frédéric earns the reputation of a child prodigy at the piano with his first public recital, shortly before his birthday. He plays a piano concerto by Adalbert Gyrowetz and receives, in addition to the tumultuous applause, invitations to play in the palaces and residences of Warsaw’s high society. | |
1822 |
His virtuosity brings him wide renown and the attention of
the foremost musicians in the cultivated capital. He is possessed with the
idea to excel at the piano as does Niccolò Paganini with the violin, and he
is given to place pegs of wood between the fingers in order to extend the
reach of his hands beyond the octave to the tenth.
Frédéric studies the modern style brillant with the piano virtuoso Wilhelm Waclaw Würfel, and he is introduced to playing the organ. The lessons with Zywny come to an end. |
|
1823 |
He attends the lycée and excels as a student. Several newly
invented instruments fascinate him, such as the Aeolopantalon (a precursor
of the harmonium), for which he
writes some pieces (now lost).
From this time date the first reports about Frédéric’s fragile health. He is of slight build and has to observe a diet, but he is an active boy and is liked by everyone everywhere. He spends much of his vacations on the country estates of his friends from school where he becomes acquainted with Polish folklore in all its forms. FC composes the Polonaise in G sharp minor (op. P1-3) and the Rondo in C minor of which he is particularly proud and which he designates his Opus 1. |
|
1825 |
In April, he plays the Aeolopantalon for the visiting Russian Tsar Alexander I who, impressed with the instrument and by Chopin’s compositions, presents him with a precious diamond ring. This recital is repeated several times and earns FC his first international acclaim through a very favorable review in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung that appears in Leipzig/Germany. | |
1826 |
On graduation from the lycée in July, Frédéric enrolls in
the Warsaw Conservatory whose director is the well-known composer Josef
Elsner. Recognizing Chopin’s exceptional talents and respecting his growing
fame, Elsner grants Frédéric dispensation from attending regular classes.
Shortly after graduating, he leaves Poland for the first time to go with his mother and little sister to Karlsbad, a mountain spa in Prussia about 100 km to the West of Prague, where they hope little Emilia will be cured of her tuberculosis. |
|
1827 |
One of Chopin’s most remarkable compositions from this year
is the Sonata for Piano in C minor (op. 4). Creation and publication
of his first Mazurka (in F major, op. 5).
Frédéric’s sister Emilia dies of tuberculosis |
|
1828 |
Short trip to Berlin, the capital of Prussia. He hears the romantic opera Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber but gives no recitals. | |
1829 |
FC graduates from the conservatory; director Elsner praises
him as “exceptional talent, musical genius”.
Concert tour to Vienna, the capital of Austria and the city of Mozart, (who died about 40 years earlier), of Beethoven (who died two years previously) and Schubert (who died earlier in this same year). Chopin gives a first recital in the famous Theater am Kärntnertor on August 11 with his own compositions plus music by Beethoven, Mozart and others; he receives a good response from the critical Viennese public. In a second concert a week later, the orchestra is not able to read the sheet music of his Krakowiak (in F major, op. 14); FC improvises instead on a theme of Polish folk music and is rewarded with enthusiastic applause. He is honored by the invitation to Beethoven’s old friend and sponsor Count Moritz Lichnowski (the younger brother of Prince Carl L.). Chopin returns home via Prague and Dresden and performs again in Warsaw in December; the press at home celebrates him but complains that he does not appear often enough. He is spending much of his time composing the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in F minor (No. 2, op. 21) and on the first cycle of Études. (It is to be noted that the composition of this precedes the Piano Concerto in E minor, No. 1, op. 11). |
|
1830 |
FC’s Piano Concerto op. 21 is given its premiere
performance in February before a small circle of invited friends and earns
him more of the habitual acclaim but also some criticism because of the
novelty of his musical style. He falls in love with the young singer
Konstancja Gladkowska but does not dare to make his feelings known to her.
Tsar Nikolaus crowns himself King of Poland and has the newly awakened revolutionary activities emanating from France suppressed by a ruthless secret police. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in E minor (No. 1, op. 11) is performed for the first time on September 22, again for only a small audience, and then in October for the public. Chopin leaves Warsaw for Vienna with his closest friend Tytus Woyciechowski in early November, only a few days before an armed rebellion erupts in Poland against the Russians. Tytus returns home to join the revolt; Frédéric stays in Vienna but some of his songs are given patriotic lyrics and become very popular in his homeland. |
|
1831 |
In this period of political strife, Chopin composes
(probably) his famous Revolutionary Etude (in C minor, op. 10-12) and his
Grande Polonaise Brillante précédée d’un Andante Spianato, for piano and
orchestra (op. 22). His oeuvre contains ever more compositions that are
expressions of the Polish character, like the 11 Mazurkas in op. 6
and op. 7.
FC suffers from bouts of melancholy intensifying into depressions, possibly with feelings of guilt for having remained in Vienna while his country is fighting the Russians. Public opinion in Austria is openly on the side of the Russians; Chopin is wearing demonstratively a coat that has the Polish eagle on its buttons. He does not find a publisher for his works; concert recitals are often planned and then postponed again for reasons that remain obscure. The beginning of his romantic period is announced by the Three Nocturnes, op. 9. On July 20, Frédéric Chopin leaves Vienna for Paris via Stuttgart after some considerable hassle with the Russian authorities that do not want to validate his passport for travelling to post-revolutionary France. News of the fall of Warsaw to the Russian army reach him as he travels through Southern Germany. Some of his Twelve Etudes for Piano, op. 10 are completed during his brief stay in Stuttgart. He finally arrives in Paris in late autumn. |
|
1832 |
Frédéric Chopin feels immediately at home in the cultured
atmosphere of the metropolis and is welcomed by the great masters of his
art, Gioacchino Rossini, Luigi Cherubini, Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz,
Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. He
performs in the many private salons of Paris, the artistic elite is
enraptured with him, the 22-year old virtuoso, with his music and his style.
Kalkbrenner, he himself an excellent pianist, gives up studying FC’s
Piano Concerto in E minor, op. 11 and declares it too difficult to play.
Frédéric is very productive; several publishers vie for his works, notably Schlesinger in Paris, Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. He earns a good living from his published music and with piano lessons, during some time a full four hours a day to the Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild alone. He gives a few recitals but he is happy to live without their stress and, the shy person he is, without the critics who keep complaining that he does not play loud enough. The Twelve Etudes op. 10, dedicated to Franz Liszt, are published by Schlesinger. |
|
1834 |
These years are marked by a great number of new
compositions which to this date still count to the most beloved.
FC does not present his passport for renewal at the Czarist Embassy in Paris but prefers to take the status of émigré instead which, however, forbids him to visit his native Poland ever again. |
|
1835 |
Chopin creates a number of the most beautiful Mazurkas
(e.g. op. 24), Polonaises (e.g. op. 26) and Nocturnes (e.g.
op. 27) that are published the following year.
In August, he meets his parents in Karlsbad (Prussia) - for the last time. On the return trip, he pays a visit to the Wodzinski family, close acquaintances from Warsaw who now reside in Dresden. The friendship with their daughter Maria deepens into love. A few days in Leipzig give him the occasion to see Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and his wife, the gifted and accomplished concert pianist and composer Clara Wieck. |
|
1836 |
During all the winter months of 1835/36, Frédéric suffers
from a recurring illness of the lungs, with bouts of a violent cough and
bloody sputum. He performs rather often nevertheless, but nearly always
together with Liszt and with other artists that are well known at the time.
His F-minor Piano Concerto (op. 21) as well as the Ballade in G
minor (op. 23) are finally published, among many other works.
He travels to Leipzig in September to see Clara and Robert Schumann, his true friends and admirers, to play his latest compositions for them. Back in Paris, he meets George Sand, the famous authoress of romantic-sentimental love stories under this male pseudonym, in the salon of Countess Marie d’Agoult who has left her husband to live with Franz Liszt in a relation that is considered shocking. Chopin likes neither the attitude nor the appearance or mannerisms of George for which she has acquired a certain notoriety. She is far from pretty, six years older than Chopin, has left her husband with their two children and lives at the time with a lawyer, after numerous affairs with, among others, the author Prosper Mérimée and the poet Alfred de Musset. |
|
1837 |
The parents of Maria Wodzinski object to their daughter’s
engagement to FC because of his ill health. They have probably also been
informed that he frequents the salon of Marie d’Agoult. Frédéric keeps
Maria’s letters in a little bundle, with a rose under the ribbon and
inscribed “My grief”.
Voyage to London in July with Camille Pleyel, the piano manufacturer and close friend of FC. George Sand takes an interest in the fragile genius of the piano and invites him on several occasions to her estate in Nohant, near Châteauroux and about 300 km south of Paris. Chopin spurs her advances initially but is soon attracted by her intellect and warmth. He writes the Funeral March that will become the 3rd movement of the Sonata for Piano in B flat minor, op. 35, for the anniversary of the Polish revolt of 1830 against the Russians. |
|
1838 |
Frédéric Chopin has his agenda full of engagements, among
others to play for King Louis Philippe I in the Tuileries Palace, and he has
an even for him phenomenal success with a public recital in
Rouen, in March.
He makes the acquaintance of the writer Victor Hugo, of the German poet
Heinrich Heine, he sits for a portrait done by Eugène Delacroix and is the
star of Paris high society.
George Sand is smitten with Chopin and they become romantically involved in the spring. They are stalked by the young man whom Sand had engaged as a teacher for her children and who now threatens to challenge FC to a duel. Chopin fears to lose his piano students over the impending scandal and agrees to move with George to the island of Mallorca (Majorca) in November, in the Mediterranean south of the coast of Spain, to climatic conditions more favorable for both her rheumatic son Maurice and for the chronically ailing composer. They rent the uninhabited monastery La Chartreuse of Valdemosa north of Palma, very picturesque and beautifully situated but cold in this, the rainy season, and without any comfort. FC falls ill, again suffering from the old symptoms and a particularly nagging cough. Three physicians are consulted of whom the first two predict his imminent death and the third (as FC writes a friend) declares him already deceased. His state of mind is reflected in the 24 Préludes, op. 28. The house and the climate become intolerable for him; none of the inhabitants of Palma is willing to work for “the heathens”. He is nevertheless very productive and enjoys composing with the piano sent him by Camille Pleyel. |
|
1839 |
Chopin leaves Mallorca on February 13 to return to Nohant
but has to rest for a week in Barcelona in the care of a doctor.
The return trip is interrupted several times; once back on the continent, Chopin finds his strength again, seemingly recuperating from his disease that is now diagnosed as tuberculosis. He and George arrive in Nohant on June 1, beginning four months that FC counts as among the happiest of his life. It is the year of the Préludes, his masterworks. In October, they return to Paris but rent separate apartments, not because their relationship were in doubt but because he wants to avoid a scandal. |
|
1840 |
Frédéric keeps filing on his compositions and is hard at work, although the list of his publications this year is short. He enjoys, as before, great success as a piano teacher. | |
1841 |
Chopin dedicates most of his time to writing music and is
otherwise leading a quiet life. The creations of this time are, among
others, the Polonaise (op. 44), the Prélude (op. 45), the
Allegro de concert, op. 46, and the Ballade in E flat major, op.
47.
FC gives two public performances in winter which both turn out as veritable triumphs and also prove lucrative. Liszt writes a jubilant review in the Gazette musicale. |
|
1842 |
George and Frédéric experience some hard times in their
relation. In Nohant for the summer, he enjoys the company of Eugène
Delacroix but detests the loud and boisterous behavior of some of George’s
friends who come to visit.
This and the following year are filled with work on his music and with a number of concert appearances whose reception proves his fame. The poet Heinrich Heine compares him to Mozart and Beethoven. |
|
1844 |
Chopin’s father dies in May at the age of 73 of a chronic
heart disease. Frédéric is inconsolable and locks himself in his apartment
for several days.
In July, his sister Ludwika comes to Paris, they have not seen one another in 14 years. Chopin’s principal compositions in this year are the Berceuse in D flat major, op. 57 and the Piano Sonata in B minor, op. 58. |
|
1845 |
His health worsens steadily. The past winter proved
especially difficult. George Sand notes that she loses her influence on
Frédéric and that her son’s hostility toward him is growing.
Chopin completes the Three Mazurkas, op. 59, the Barcarolle, op. 60, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie, op. 61. He, the Polish patriot, must endure once more the bad news of another revolt against the Russians, this time emerging from the Free State of Cracow that the Congress of Vienna had created in 1814, and of the inevitable defeat of the Poles by the Austrians. |
|
1846 |
This will be the last productive year for the great
composer. He spends the summer in Nohant but is exposed to, and dislikes,
the constant quarrelling of Solange, George’s daughter, and her brother
Maurice who is now an adult and postures as head of the household. Sand’s
gratuitous remarks about Frédéric’s appearance hurt his feelings deeply.
Chopin buries himself in work. He writes the two Nocturnes, op. 62, several Mazurkas and Waltzes, and a Sonata for Piano and Violoncello, op. 65, which he dedicates to the expert cellist Auguste Franchomme, his good friend. He returns alone to Paris in November - the first separation from George Sand of any length of time. Hopes that his mother could come to Paris are dashed when she writes him of her rheumatism. |
|
1847 |
George Sand returns to Paris in February; Frédéric and she resume their habitual social activities together although it is rumored that they will separate. The definitive break comes when Solange gets involved with, and then marries, the sculptor Auguste Clésinger, a rude and brutal man, who attacks Maurice physically over some slight. Chopin takes Solange’s side against her mother. George is furious and hurt; she writes a friend that FC is evidently in love with her 19-year old daughter. | |
1848 |
Frédéric Chopin gives his last larger concert on February
16 in the Salle Pleyel, an extraordinary event for a select audience
of only 300. He plays the piano part of a Trio by Mozart, then his new
Sonata for Piano and Violoncello with August Franchomme, plus an
extensive solo program that features some of his own mazurkas, waltzes and
preludes.
A second concert is cancelled as Paris is in the throes of the revolution that leads to the abdication and escape of King Louis Philippe, then to the proclamation of the Republic. Chopin and Sand meet by accident, for the last time. He tells her that Solange has given birth to a daughter. His livelihood is threatened since the cultural life in the metropolis has ceased. One of his students, a wealthy Scottish lady by the name of Jane Stirling, suggests that he travel to England where he has a vast number of ardent admirers. Chopin leaves Paris on April 19; he shall stay in England and Scotland for a duration of seven months. FC is very well received in London; he meets Charles Dickens and Lady Byron and is invited to give a number of recitals. He also takes a number of students and earns plenty of money. He is presented to Queen Victoria but has more of a success with a concert in June in which he is said to have enchanted the audience with his music. With his travels and all the associated acitvities he does not find much time for composing. He performs in Glasgow and then in Edinburgh on a trip to Scotland, but the constant polite and boring (his words) conversations as well as the bad weather test his patience. He falls ill in London and leaves his bed only once in a few weeks to play at a ball organized by friends. |
|
1849 |
Frédéric Chopin is glad to be back in
Paris after the
strenuous trip through England. He is still very ill, cannot leave the house
and rarely has the strength to sit at the piano. His oeuvre in this, the
last year of his life, contains a number of smaller works; the last is the
Mazurka in F minor (op. 68-4) which he left us only as a sketch.
With the clandestine financial support of friends, he rents a house in Chaillot, the outskirts of Paris. He is destitute and has to accept the amount of 15,000 Franc offered as a loan by his adoring student Jane Stirling. His sister Ludwika and her husband come to Paris in August; Ludwika stays on to care for her brother. Following the advice of his physician, he moves back to the center of Paris, into a sunny apartment at 12 Place Vendôme. He is no longer able to leave this apartment. On October 12 he receives the last rites. Frédéric Chopin dies at 2 o’clock in the night of October 17. Mozart’s Requiem is played at the funeral service in the Église de la Madeleine. As is stipulated in his will, his heart is removed and sent to Warsaw. His body is laid to rest in the Cemetary Père-Lachaise, under a monument sculpted by Solange’s husband Auguste Clésinger. His heart lies in an urn in Warsaw’s Church of the Holy Cross. |
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Recommended reading |
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W.G. Atwood: Fryderyk Chopin. New York: 1987 J. Jansen: Frédéric Chopin. München: 1999 (in German) G. Sand: Un hiver à Majorque. Oeuvres autobiographiques, Tome 2. Paris: 1971 (in French) T. Zielinski: Chopin. Bergisch Gladbach: 1999 (in German) |
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