Publisher's Synopsis
Life of Chopin, BRAND NEW EDITION, By Franz Liszt, Frederic François Chopin: 22 February or 1 March 1810 - 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, was a Romantic-era Polish composer. A child prodigy, Chopin grew up in Warsaw, completed his musical education there, and composed many of his works there before leaving Poland, aged 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At the age of 21 he settled in Paris (obtaining French nationality in 1835). During the remaining 18 years of his life, he gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon; he supported himself by selling his compositions and as a sought-after piano teacher, and gained renown as a leading virtuoso of his generation. He formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann. After a failed engagement with a Polish girl, from 1837 to 1847 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit with Sand to Majorca in 1838-39 was one of his most productive periods of composition. In his last years, he was financially supported by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. Through most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849, probably of tuberculosis.
