Facts about Frederic Chopin

Some sources state that he was born on 22 February 1810.

Nicolas Chopin was a polonised Frenchman. He was a French teacher and a tutor. Among other things, he worked in Czerniewo as a tutor for the Łączyński family (one of his daughters, Maria, later became the wife of Anastazy Walewski, but became famous as the lover of Napoleon Bonaparte).

He spent about six years with them, and the next he worked for the Skarbek family in Żelazowa Wola, taking care of their four children. There he met Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska, a poor relative of the Skarbeks who lived there and ran the house. The two were united by a common passion - music. Justyna played the piano and sang, while Nicolas played the flute and violin. A year later they had a daughter, Ludwika, and in 1810 their only son, Frederic.

They settled in a tenement house on Krakowskie Przedmieście Street, which no longer exists, and soon moved into their official residence at Saski Palace. There was the Warsaw Lyceum, where Nicolas Chopin taught French.

His mother gave him lessons.

Żywny taught Chopin for six years. He acquainted Frederic with works of the baroque and classical music and explained to him the structure of the piano works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Hummel.This education developed in Chopin a taste for the old composers.

The eleven-year-old Frederic dedicated to him the Polonaise in A flat major, composed in 1821. Wojciech Żywny is buried at the Powazki Cemetery in Warsaw.

At the age of seven, Frederic was already the author of several small compositions. These were polonaises, a musical dance form based on the polonaise dance. The young Chopin grew up in the atmosphere of this music.

Thanks to Żywny, who wrote down his compositions of variations and dances according to Frederic's instructions and showed them in various Warsaw houses, Chopin became known there. Count Skarbek also became one of the most active protectors of the young composer.

The prince asked him to perform it again. The military march, which pleased the Duke so well, appeared in print, but without a name. The march was played by military orchestras at the prince's favourite military parades.

Their neighbours were then: Juliusz Krzysztof Kolberg with his sons, Samuel Bogumił Linde and Kazimierz Brodziński.

It was published in the parish typographical establishment of the Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the New Town in Warsaw.

It was a charity concert organised by Zamoyska.

Young Chopin also played for Tsar Alexander I, who came to Warsaw for the session of the Parliament. At that time Frederic played a newly invented instrument - the eolomelodikon.

The Tsar was delighted, he gave the artist an expensive diamond ring, which Chopin later sold during his stay in Paris. He also received an offer to become the Tsar's court composer, but refused it.

He visited Szafarnia, from where he sent his famous letters to his parents, "Kuriery Szafarskie" ("Couriers Szafarskie"), where he celebrated idyllic holidays at the Juliusz Dziewanowski estate, as well as in Sannik, Poturzyn, Duszniki, Toruń, Gdańsk, Płock, and other towns in Greater Poland, Pomerania, and Silesia. He became acquainted with the treasures of Polish culture and folk music, which was one of his main sources of inspiration throughout his life.

He drew caricatures of his teachers, which aroused the admiration of those drawn. He also improvised stories for his loved ones, wrote poems and comedies for fun, and showed his skills as a painter and actor. Honore de Balzac once said that Chopin had an intimidatingly genuine gift for imitating anyone he wanted.

Joseph Elsner was a Polish composer of German origin, educator, music culture activist, music theorist, and teacher. In his report after the third year of study he wrote: "The third year of Chopin Frederic - a special suitability, musical genius".

The first serious compositions were written at this time:

• Sonata in C minor
• Fantasy on Polish Airs
• Variations in B flat major Op. 2 on the theme "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni".

At school, Chopin was exempt from the instrument because of his unusual playing character and style.

Chopin aroused the enthusiasm of the public there, and after the publication of his Variations Op. 2 by a Viennese publisher, he received an enthusiastic review by Schumann with the famous "Hats off, here's a genius." Soon after, he composed two piano concertos that were considered masterpieces of the genre.

Before leaving, he said goodbye to Konstancja Gładkowska and gave her the ring, which she kept for the rest of her life.

During his journey to Paris, Stuttgart,he learned of the fall of the November Rising and suffered a nervous breakdown. It was probably at this time that the first sketches for the 'Revolutionary' Etude were written.

He quickly entered the circle of the most outstanding artists of the era. He made friends with Liszt, Berlioz, Hiller, Hein, Mickiewicz, Delacroix and others, established contacts with the Polish Great Emigration, befriended Prince Adam Czartoryski and Delfina Potocka.

He gave piano lessons to many great people: Baroness Rothschild, Princess Noailles, Caroline Hartmann and Adolf Gutmann.

He also maintained constant contact with Polish intellectuals (Adam Mickiewicz, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Józef Bem), and hosted his closest childhood friend Jan Matuszyński.

Maria's family did not agree to the wedding, claiming that Frederic was too sickly a candidate for a husband and the engagement was broken off.

The couple existed as a relationship only in gossip; George Sand herself claimed to be Chopin's second mother, and their nine-year friendship was a life of cloistered celibacy. There were various rumours about her, about her fascinating life, about the number of her lovers, among whom were Balzac, Musset, and Merimee.

She wore men's clothes, smoked cigars and swore a lot. With Baron Dudevant she had two children: a daughter Solange and a son Maurice, a painter.

Fleeing from her jealous lover, Sand took Chopin and her children to Valldemossa, Mallorca, where they lived in a former convent. There Chopin's health deteriorated and he began to spit blood.

There he composed, among other works, the Ballade in A flat major, Nocturnes Op. 48, the Fantasy in F minor, the Polonaise in A flat major, the Scherzo in E major, and the Berceuse in D flat major. Nohant was visited by Balzac, Liszt, singer Paulina Viardot and Delacroix.

Chopin greatly outlived this separation, and after leaving Nohant he did not compose any significant works.

In London, Chopin's last public concert took place in 1848. The concert was organized by his pupil Jane Stirling, a Scotsman who loved Chopin and even proposed to him. Frederic, however, declined, feeling too ill and did not return feelings. Jane Stirling was called "Chopin's widow".

Chopin's state of health was very bad, and the only homeopath doctor who could help the artist died.

His apartment became a place for evening meetings of friends. Most of his time was spent in the company of Eugene Delacroix, who for many years was Chopin's closest friend and partner in intellectual disputes.

Stirling took care of him, but she annoyed Chopin, the Czartoryski family sent the musician one of their nannies. When Frederic's state of health began to deteriorate, his sister Ludwika tried to come to Paris.

In his last moments he was surrounded by a few people close to him. In the death certificate tuberculosis was indicated as the cause of death.

Auguste Clesinger made a posthumous cast of the artist's face and hand. He also designed and manufactured the Chopin tombstone.

The heart, which was in a vessel filled with alcohol, was secretly smuggled into the country in January 1850 by his sister Ludwika Jędrzejewiczowa. At first she kept the vessel in her own apartment, later entrusting it to missionary priests from the Holy Cross Church. The heart was placed in the pillar of the nave of the church. The epitaph in the form of a plaque designed by Leonardo Marconi was placed on it.

It is the oldest monographic music competition in the world. Its author was Jerzy Żurawlew, a Polish pianist, composer, professor and later rector of the Warsaw Conservatory. The competition is held every five years.

He created 3D models of various celebrities and created a computer version of Chopin's silhouette. He had at his disposal two photographs of the composer, a clump of his hair from the museum in Warsaw and a posthumous mask, made by Clesinger.