Portrait of Fryderyk Chopin (1836)
Maria Wodzińska, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Chopin's father was a French immigrant who had traveled to Poland in 1787 to escape the collapsing French economy, and was unable to return due to the French Revolution. While there, Poland was partitioned between Prussia and Russia and erased from the map, although the native Polish population grew more fiercely independent and loyal to their culture. Into this milieu, Fryderyk (or Frédéric) Chopin was born in 1810 and was soon a child prodigy on the piano, which he began to play at the age of 4. Chopin gave his first public performance at the age of 8. He studied at Warsaw Conservatory, where he forged a unique style of music combining classical techniques and styles with traditional Polish music. He popularized the mazurka, a type of Polish dance, and is well known for pieces called nocturnes and fantasies, terms which really don't tell you anything about the piece but are typically evocative Romantic titles. Inspired after hearing the Italian virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, Chopin dedicated himself to the piano, composing over two hundred solo works, as well as some chamber music and piano concerti.

He left Poland in 1830 on a concert tour of Western Europe, but after a Polish uprising was squashed by Russian forces, he never returned to his homeland, continuing on to France on a travel visa (which technically gave him permission to enter the country en route to London.) He was close friends with Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, and Robert Schumann, and also knew Felix Mendelssohn. Despite spending the rest of his life in Paris, he always considered himself Polish and remains deeply associated with his homeland.

In Paris, Chopin made a living by teaching and composing. Although he performed occasionally, he was not fond of public concerts. Although he was just as good a pianist, he lacked the virtuosic performance flare of his friend Franz Liszt. Chopin preferred the intimate salon atmosphere popular among Parisian artists, and often requested the lights be extinguished before he play.

In 1838, Marie d'Agoult, the mistress of Franz Liszt, introduced Chopin to Aurore Dupin. Dupin was a brash, tomboyish French feminist who wrote under the pen name "George Sand." Sometimes opposites attract, and Dupin began a relationship with the quiet, vulnerable Chopin, which lasted for the next nine years. They travelled to Majorca (a Mediterranean island off the coast of Spain), hoping the climate would help Chopin's worsening tuberculosis. The locals, however, put off by their scandalous relationship and fearing Chopin carried plague, forced them to return to the mainland on a cargo boat filled with pigs.

They returned to France and moved to a country estate. The next several years were among Chopin's most productive.

In 1847, Dupin published a novel (as "George Sand") entitled Lucrezia Floriani, about a talented actress held back by her relationship with moody, jealous aristocrat. The metaphor was obvious enough to wound Chopin emotionally. He soon sided with her daughter during a dispute, and Chopin and Dupin broke off their relationship.

Chopin's tuberculosis worsened and his health deteriorated. On his deathbed, he made two requests: for Mozart's Requiem to be performed at his funeral, and, due to a lifelong fear of being buried alive, for his heart to be removed from his body upon death. He died at the age of 39. At his funeral in Paris, Mozart's Requiem was performed, and his heart was removed from his body. Chopin's older sister preserved it in a bottle of cognac and smuggled it Russian customs back into Poland, where it remains to this day.