Birth of Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin was born on 1 March 1810 in Żelazowa Wola. A Polish composer and pianist of the Romantic era, Chopin was born near Warsaw, was a child prodigy and left Poland in 1830, shortly before the November Uprising against Russian rule. He settled in Paris, where he became a fashionable teacher and a performer in salons rather than large concert halls. His music, written almost entirely for the piano, includes nocturnes, waltzes, mazurkas, polonaises, preludes, études and ballades, which draw on Polish folk music and have a poetic, refined style. He had a long relationship with the writer George Sand. He died of tuberculosis in Paris, and his heart was taken to Warsaw.

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