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Frederic Chopin Essay

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Imagine being so good at playing piano that you often embarrassed the ones teaching you by playing better than they could, giving concerts, and even writing professional music, all before age 10. This was the life of Frédéric Chopin, a Polish French composer and professional pianist. Chopin was born in Warsaw, Poland on March 1, 1810. He grew up in an artistically talented family, with his father playing the flute and violin, and his mother playing the piano. After demonstrating a love for music, Frederic was enrolled as a student to Wojciech Żywny. Żywny soon realized Chopin’s gift as a child prodigy. At the age of seven, he composed two polonaises, as well as started publicly performing in concerts. (Chopin) Constantly gaining more and more fame, Chopin perfected his skills and was invited to perform at prestigious concerts and recitals for royalty and commoners alike. When he was 15, he was invited to play for Tsar Alexander I, and was given a diamond ring as a gift. At 16, his parents transferred him to the Warsaw Conservatory of Music to study musical theory. Joseph Elsner, the director of the school, put Chopin through a course of instruction in harmony and composition, while also allowing him to individually develop and hone his piano skills. …show more content…

Charles Hallé, British pianist and composer, visited Chopin in 1844, and described him as "hardly able to move, bent like a half-opened penknife and evidently in great pain”. As he got sicker and sicker, his output of music also declined. In the last 5 years of his life, he only composed 30 pieces of the total 244. On October 17, 1849, Frédéric Chopin died in Paris, France, at the age of 39. It is said that he died from tuberculosis, but other argue that it was cystic fibrosis or temporal lobe epilepsy. He was buried in a cemetery in Paris, and his heart rests in a church near the site of his birth in Warsaw,

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