200th Anniversary of Chopin's Birth
To Be Celebrated Around the World

 

For the bicentennial of Fryderyk Chopin's birth, many cities around the world are planning tributes to one of the world's most beloved composers. Hundreds of events celebrating his music will take place in the next 12 months. Chopin Year 2010 officially kicked-off in Warsaw on January 7th with a concert at the Warsaw Philharmonic featuring the Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

Poland's Chopin Bicentennial celebrations include the opening of a new museum dedicated to the composer, as well as numerous concerts in Poland, a ballet premiere, and a variety of educational programs. Other events include the 16th International Chopin Piano Competition; concerts at the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall and the Polish National Opera; and a touring festival that will play 1,200 concerts worldwide. The Chopin Museum will open in March 2010 in Warsaw as part of a Chopin Route that will highlight significant landmarks of the composer's life. A Chopin Center near the Museum is set to launch in February. It will include a library, conference room, and offices.

Concerts, exhibits, and competitions will also take place this year in France, Austria, Britain, the United States, and China, among many other countries. The international appeal of the pianist and composer echoes his personal life. He was born in a small Polish village on March 1, 1810, to a Polish mother and a father with French origins; he lived in Warsaw as well as Vienna and Paris, and traveled extensively in Europe. He was a virtuoso performer and an innovative composer who changed the way music for the piano was composed and played by giving it a new prominence as a solo instrument. Chopin lives on in his music-which often echoes Polish folk tunes and ballads-and his waltzes, mazurkas, polonaises, ballades, etudes, preludes, nocturnes, sonatas, and concertos continue to find an enthusiastic audience around the world today, as they have for many generations of music lovers in the past.

For more information on Chopin's Bicentennial events around the world, visit the official Chopin 2010 website at www.chopin2010.pl/en.

 

 

Fryderyk Chopin, born on March 1, 1810, in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw, is widely considered to be one of the greatest composers for piano of all time. His talent was apparent from an early age and he was considered a child prodigy, like Mozart. His father, Mikolaj Chopin, was a music teacher who had immigrated to Poland from France. His mother, Justyna Krzyzanowska, was also musically talented. Chopin grew up surrounded by music.

He began to play the piano at the age of 5, at first taught by his older sister Ludwika and then by a well known composer and piano teacher, Wojciech Zywny, a kind and generous man who was a close friend of the family. Just before he turned 8, Chopin gave his first recital in Warsaw for a Russian prince and his early compositions were published in a Warsaw newspaper. He continued his studies at the Warsaw High School of Music under his father and at the Warsaw Conservatory under Josef Elsner, and he continued to compose and perform, establishing a name for himself in Warsaw. After he had completed his formal education, Professor Elsner wrote in a report: "Chopin, Fryderyk, third-year student, amazing talent, musical genius."

Chopin now planned a longer trip abroad in order to establish his reputation beyond Poland. In 1830 he traveled to Vienna and shortly after his arrival there, he learned of the November Uprising against Russian rule in Poland. He spent the following months worried about the civil unrest at home and about the fate of his friends and family. In 1831, at the age of 21, he traveled to Paris and was never to return to Poland. In Paris he became a member and financial supporter of the Great Emigration that included other famous Polish political exiles like Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Slowacki, and Prince Adam Czartoryski.

In Paris, Chopin's reputation as an artist grew quickly and he became friends with other Romantic composers of the time, including Liszt, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, and Schumann. He traveled to many European cities, giving widely acclaimed performances while continuing to work on his compositions and giving piano lessons to support himself. In 1837, he met and developed a close relationship with French writer George Sand; she offered support and care when his health slowly started to deteriorate. The years 1837 to 1847 were the happiest and most productive of his life. By 1847, with his health in rapid decline, Chopin stopped performing and composed only a few minor pieces. His sister Ludwika came from Warsaw to care for him. He died on October 17, 1849, in Paris from tuberculosis. The world lost a musical genius much too soon.

Chopin is buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, but his heart was brought back to Poland by his sister in an urn and placed in a pillar in Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.