When one says Frédéric Chopin, one says PIANO. Indeed this romance composer’s entire lifetime activity had the clavier instrument as the centrepiece.

Frédéric François Chopin was born the son of Nicolas Chopin and Justyna Krzyżanowska on 1^st March, 1810. When Frédéric was 6 months old, the Chopins moved to Warsaw, where his father started working as a teacher of French in the local high school. Music was always playing in young Frédéric’s house: his mother - a pianist and a teacher at the family’s orphanage, and his father as a flute and violin player.

He began studying music at the Warsaw High School, under Józef Elsner, a teacher of theory and composition. During high school he got to perform for Alexander I, the Tsar of Russia. Frédéric would later receive a diamond ring from him.

At the age of 21, Frédéric Chopin went to Paris, where his career would bloom. There he met Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt, the latter of which would become one of his closest friends.

His scores related to native Poland: the nocturnes, mazurkas and waltzes have become part of an immeasurable musical heritage, alongside those of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.

At the age of 39, Frédéric Chopin departed to Paris on 17^th October, 1849. He left behind more than 230 solo piano scores, two piano concerts and various chamber music pieces.

It has been said that his music has no sense of humour. Like those of his friend, Franz Liszt, though, some of Frédéric Chopin’s works would inspire cartoon makers, as the following radio show will prove:

The Composer of the week - Frédéric Chopin on Arpeggio: Monday to Friday, starting at 10:00.