Frédéric Chopin

Born in Żelazowa Wola in 1810, Chopin grew up in Warsaw as a child prodigy, finishing his musical education there before leaving Poland at 20, less than a month before the November 1830 Uprising broke out. At 21 he settled in Paris, where he gave only 30 public performances total, supporting himself instead by selling compositions and teaching piano to high-demand students. He befriended Franz Liszt, earned the admiration of Robert Schumann, and after a failed engagement to Maria Wodzińska maintained a turbulent relationship with the French writer George Sand - their brief, unhappy 1838-39 stay in Mallorca turned out to be one of his most productive compositional periods. In poor health most of his life, Chopin died in Paris in 1849 at 39, leaving behind mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade as a newly created genre, and a body of technically demanding solo piano work that expanded what the instrument could do.