Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin (March 1, 1810 – October 17, 1849) was an important Franco-Polish composer and pianist of the early nineteenth century. Arguably he was the first composer for piano to apply the Romantic ethos to piano technique - his works make physical demands of the performer that surpass the late works of Beethoven, at least in terms of the expression of raw emotion.

Nevertheless, his romanticism concealed a craftsman thoroughly schooled in older contrapuntal and harmonic methods - he was an avid admirer of JS Bach, and his works reveal a masterly combination of textural and harmonic innovation combined with old school discipline.

His works were mostly published as collections of short pieces, with the exception of the Concerti and Sonatas. They are often grouped by category, as follows:

• Etudes - two sets of 12 and one set of three technical studies for piano that to this day are regarded as a watershed in the progress of any pianist. Unlike those of previous composers such as Czerny and Cramer, Chopin's etudes combine technical difficulty with musical expression, thus helping to popularize the form.
• Nocturnes - slow, dreamlike pieces. The form was originally pioneered by the Irish composer John Field.
• Mazurkas - an adaptation of a native Polish dance form. These miniatures often show Chopin at his most harmonically adventurous.
• Polonaises - another Polish dance form, longer and more stately than the mazurka.
• Waltzes - whilst these did much to contribute much to Chopin's reputation as a 'Salon' composer, the best of them rival his Mazurkas in unusual harmonic adventures. Chopin did not particularly like the form, but used it to write some of his most well-known works.
• 4 Scherzi and 4 Ballades - longer works that far extend the Fantasia concept. Chopin was one of the first composers to write the scherzo as a stand-alone piece rather than as a movement in a larger work.
• Preludes - Chopin's most explicit homage to JS Bach, written during a period of intense emotional pressure on the island of Majorca - the extremely fragmentary nature of some of them puzzled contemporaries (the shortest last seconds rather than minutes), but some commentators have come to observe the set as a whole as one of Chopin's most satisfying works. The 24 Preludes, Op. 28 were modeled directly after Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier".
• Impromptus - free-form compositions in an improvisatory style. Most famous of these is the Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66, published posthumously.
• Sonatas - Chopin's first sonata in C minor was composed in his youth and is usually not performed today. His second sonata in B-flat minor is extremely popular, particularly the famous "Funeral March movement", although in his day it was criticized for perceived structural deficiencies. Chopin attempted to address some of this criticism in his third and final piano sonata in B minor.
• Concerti - Chopin wrote two piano concertos in his youth, along with four other pieces for piano and orchestra. The concertos, while written when he was very young, are nevertheless staples of the piano concerto literature.

The Frederic Chopin International Piano Competition is held every 5 years and is considered to be among the top tier of international music competitions today. Named in his honor, it requires entrants to play almost every category of his output, including his concertos. Perhaps the most famous winner of this competition is Martha Argerich.