1 March: Frederic Chopin

Frederic Chopin, Polish pianist and composer, was born on this date in 1810. Here are ten things you might not know about him.

1. His father was a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland at the age of 16. He was working as a tutor to a rich family when he met and married one of the poor relations, Justyna Krzyżanowska, a Piano teacher. Frederic was born in a house belonging to the family estate.
2. It sounds as if having a mother who was a piano teacher gave Chopin a head start. He was writing and composing poetry at age 6; he performed his first public concerto at 8. By the time he was 12, Chopin had performed in the drawing rooms of several Polish aristocrats and was already writing original compositions.
3. He was a somewhat shy person who, from childhood, preferred to play the piano in the dark. This included if he played at a party or event – he'd ask the hosts to turn the lights off before he played. He didn't like public concerts much and only ever played about 30 of them, much preferring intimate gatherings in people's homes.
4. He was one of many Polish people who left their homeland as a result of the failure of the uprising there in 1830. His initial plan was to go to Italy but there was violent unrest there, too, so he initiated plan B – Paris. It wasn't plain sailing. He was at first refused a visa to go there and eventually got a transit visa giving him permission to stay in Paris "on the way to London". He spent the rest of his life in Paris and used to joke that he was only there "in passing".
5. Unlike many well-known composers, he didn't write huge symphonies. He didn't write any symphonies at all and just a handful of sonatas. His pieces were usually around 3-5 minutes long, about the same length as a modern pop single. One of his famous pieces is The Minute Waltz, 138 bars long, although it doesn't actually last a minute, but around 90-120 seconds. It was the publishers which gave the piece that nickname. Another of his works is Op. 64 Waltz, which is nicknamed the Little Dog Waltz because the inspiration for it was apparently watching a small dog chasing its tail.
6. In 1836 he became engaged to Maria Wodzińska, the daughter of a countess. He'd first met her when she was 11. However, Maria got cold feet, possibly because Chopin's health wasn't good, or because she'd heard rumours that he was carrying on with other women in Paris. The last letter she wrote him was a lukewarm thanks for an album of his music that he'd sent her, and then her mother wrote to tell him the engagement was off. Chopin placed the letters he had received from Maria and her mother into a large envelope, wrote "My sorrow" on it, and kept in in a drawer for the rest of his life.
7. Meanwhile, another woman, an author using the name George Sand (her real name was Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin) had her eye on him. They'd been introduced at a get together at Franz Liszt's house. It wasn't exactly love at first sight for Chopin though, who at that first meeting, didn't like her at all. He commented, "What an unattractive person la Sand is. Is she really a woman?" However, she clearly grew on him as they eventually become lovers and were together for 10 years, until they fell out over a disagreement about Sand's daughter from her previous marriage.
8. He had a love-hate relationship with Liszt. While they admired each other's work and would each perform pieces written by the other, they both got annoyed with the way the other interpreted their work. Chopin thought Liszt played his works rather too well while Liszt got annoyed when Chopin added embellishments to his. They both had the impression that the other was getting too interested in their mistress, which didn't help. That said, Liszt wrote the first biography of Chopin’s life, and is quoted as saying, 27 years after Chopin’s death, that “no one compared to him: he shines lonely, peerless in the firmament of art.”
9. Chopin's health was never good, but it's entirely possible he milked it and was a bit of a hypochondriac and a drama queen. George Sand commented after they split that a lot of his health issues were mostly in his head. That said, she did agree to spend a winter in Majorca for the sake of his health, and that of her son. Not that it worked out that way, since once the conservative population of the island worked out this couple was living in sin, accommodation became very hard to find. All they could get in the end was in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, which was cold and damp and ultimately did Chopin's health more harm than good. As if that wasn't enough, there were problems getting his favourite piano shipped there, and when they left, he had to abandon it to avoid paying even more customs duties.
10. Chopin died at the age of 39 in 1849, probably of TB. He might well have been justified in having his tombstone engraved with "I told you I was ill". Although he'd emigrated to France, Chopin always thought of himself as Polish and as he lay dying he asked the woman caring for him to sing the Polish national anthem. It's said he expired just as she finished singing. His last words, presumably before she started singing, were “mother, my poor mother.” In his will, he asked two things. One that his Heart be removed from his body and taken back to Poland. His sister had it preserved in alcohol for the trip. Chopin's heart is now sealed in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church. His other wish, however, was ignored – that all of his unpublished compositions be destroyed. Thanks to his family disregarding that, several dozen compositions were published posthumously.

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