60 Fun Facts About Frédéric Chopin

In which village, 46 kilometres west of Warsaw, was Chopin born in 1810?

The parish record says 22 February, but the family used 1 March, now generally accepted.

From which region of France had Chopin's father Nicolas emigrated to Poland in 1787?

He was sixteen at the time and became so devoted to Poland that he insisted on Polish being spoken at home.

How many public performances did Chopin give after settling in Paris?

He preferred salons and his own apartment, and supported himself by teaching and selling compositions.

Who was Chopin's first professional music tutor, from 1816 to 1821?

The Czech-born pianist received the dedication of Chopin's earliest surviving manuscript, a polonaise of 1821.

By what age had Chopin begun giving public concerts?

He composed two polonaises the same year, 1817.

What did Tsar Alexander I give the teenage Chopin after a recital on the 'aeolopantaleon' in 1825?

Weeks later he played his Rondo Op. 1, his first commercially published work, on the same hybrid instrument.

Under which Silesian composer did Chopin study composition at the Warsaw Conservatory from 1826?

His final report in 1829 read: 'exceptional talent, musical genius'.

Which singer was the 'ideal' who inspired the Adagio of Chopin's concerto?

They exchanged rings after his farewell Warsaw concert in October 1830 and apparently never corresponded again.

Which violinist's Warsaw visit in 1829 prompted a set of Chopin variations and possibly his first Études?

The Op. 10 Études were written between 1829 and 1832 and dedicated to Liszt.

Chopin's Op. 2 Variations, praised by Schumann, are on a duet from which Mozart opera?

'Là ci darem la mano'; he premiered it at his Vienna debut.

How did Robert Schumann conclude his 1831 review of Chopin's Op. 2, his first published article?

It was the first major endorsement Chopin received from an outstanding contemporary.

What broke out in Warsaw less than a month after Chopin left Poland in late 1830?

His friend Woyciechowski went home to enlist; Chopin wrote 'I curse the moment of my departure'.

What did Chopin's passport endorsement say when he arrived in the French capital in 1831?

He never did return to Poland, becoming one of the Great Emigration.

In which year did Chopin receive French citizenship?

He travelled on a French passport thereafter but, per Zamoyski, always saw himself as a Pole.

Which piano maker's instruments did Chopin favour for life after Kalkbrenner introduced him?

His Paris debut in February 1832 was in the 'salons de MM Pleyel'.

Which wealthy banking family's patronage opened Paris salons to Chopin from 1832?

By the end of the year he was earning a handsome income from publishing and teaching.

To whom did Chopin dedicate his Op. 10 Études?

Hearing Liszt play them, he wrote 'I should like to rob him of the way he plays my studies'.

How many times did Chopin and Liszt perform together in public between 1833 and 1841?

The first was a benefit organised by Berlioz for his bankrupt actress wife; the last raised money for the Beethoven Monument in Bonn.

What did Chopin tell Liszt in 1843 after Liszt played one of his nocturnes with embellishments?

Liszt apologised; Chopin still called him 'my friend Liszt' in letters as late as 1848.

To whom was Chopin engaged from 1836 to 1837, until her mother cooled on the match?

He kept her letters in an envelope marked 'Moja bieda', 'My sorrow', in his desk to the end of his life.

What was George Sand's real name?

Short, dark and a cigar smoker, she initially repelled Chopin: 'Is she really a woman?'

What was Chopin's first reaction on meeting the novelist who would become his lover, in 1836?

By July 1838 they were lovers; she was six years older.

On which island did Chopin and Sand spend the miserable winter of 1838-39?

The Catholic islanders shunned the unmarried couple, forcing them into a cold former monastery at Valldemossa.

How did Chopin sum up the three doctors who examined him on the island in December 1838?

He also had to wait weeks for his Pleyel piano to clear Palma customs.

Which set of pieces did Chopin finish on his 'little piano' during that winter abroad?

Inspired by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, they move round the circle of fifths through every key.

What was the name of George Sand's country estate, where Chopin spent most summers from 1839 to 1846?

Delacroix described music wafting up from Chopin's room while nightingales sang in the garden.

How did George Sand refer to the ailing Chopin in letters to others?

Her 1847 novel Lucrezia Floriani was widely read as a portrait of their relationship.

Which Sand family quarrel soured Chopin's relations with George Sand in 1846?

Chopin sided with Solange; the relationship ended in 1847 after nine years.

Which Scottish pupil suggested, organised and largely funded Chopin's 1848 tour of Britain?

She hoped for more than friendship; he told a friend he was 'closer to the grave than the nuptial bed'.

Which royal couple attended Chopin's first London engagement at Stafford House in May 1848?

Albert, a talented musician, moved close to the keyboard to watch his technique.

How much did Chopin charge for a piano lesson in London in 1848?

Private recitals cost 20 guineas; Broadwood lent him a grand piano.

Where did Chopin make his last public appearance, playing for Polish refugees on 16 November 1848?

Most of the audience cared more about dancing and refreshments; he weighed under 45 kg.

How did Chopin describe his Scottish hostesses in a letter to Grzymała?

He stayed at Calder House and Johnstone Castle and wrote his will in Edinburgh.

How old was Chopin when he died in Paris in October 1849?

Asked by his doctor whether he was suffering greatly, he replied 'No longer'.

To whom did Chopin bequeath his unfinished notes on a piano method?

Alkan and Chopin had shared a platform in 1838 playing an eight-hand Beethoven arrangement.

Which work was sung at Chopin's funeral at the Madeleine on 30 October 1849?

The Funeral March from his own Second Sonata was played at the graveside in Père Lachaise.

What did Chopin's sister Ludwika carry back to Poland in 1850, as he had requested?

His doctor Cruveilhier had removed it; a 2014 examination of the jar suggested pericarditis from tuberculosis killed him.

Who paid the 4,500 francs for Chopin's tombstone in Père Lachaise?

Clésinger's monument shows Euterpe, muse of music, weeping over a broken lyre.

What did George Sand do with the 200 letters she had written to Chopin when they were returned?

Ludwika had taken them to Poland with the composer's heart.

What did a 2014 examination of Chopin's preserved heart suggest as the likely cause of death?

The jar was not opened; the finding was published in 2017.

Which Irish composer invented the nocturne, a genre Chopin took 'to a deeper level of sophistication'?

Chopin met him in 1832; his own nocturnes have agitated middle sections that Field's lack.

Which two genres did Chopin create as free-standing concert pieces?

He also established the free-standing prelude with his Op. 28 set.

Which is the only instrumental work Chopin himself gave a descriptive title?

Names like 'Revolutionary' and 'Minute' were invented by others; the March predates the rest of the Sonata Op. 35.

What was the last opus number Chopin himself assigned, to the Cello Sonata in G minor?

He asked that unpublished manuscripts be destroyed; Fontana instead published 23 more pieces as Opp. 66-73.

How many of Chopin's works survive?

All involve the piano; besides solo pieces there are two concertos, some chamber music and 19 Polish songs.

Which two composers did Chopin name as the most important in shaping his musical outlook?

He used Clementi's piano method with his own students.

Chopin's cycle of short pieces in every key progresses through them in what order?

Schumann called them 'the beginnings of studies'.

What did Schumann and others find 'shocking and unmusical' about the finale of Chopin's Sonata Op. 35?

It is a brief 75-bar perpetuum mobile after the Funeral March.

Which Polish dance did Chopin 'put on the European musical map', writing it for the concert hall?

His waltzes, too, were meant for the salon and are often faster than ballroom tempo.

Which body, created by the Polish parliament, hosts the international piano competition in his name?

The competition is devoted entirely to his works.

How did Charles Hallé describe Chopin when he visited him late in 1844?

His spirits returned as soon as he began to play; modern research suggests he may also have had temporal lobe epilepsy.

After whom was Chopin named, his eighteen-year-old godfather and a pupil of his father?

Chopin's mother Justyna was a poor relative of the Skarbeks, one of the families Nicolas Chopin worked for.

What subject did Chopin's father teach at the Warsaw Lyceum from 1810?

The Lyceum was housed in the Saxon Palace, and the family lived on its grounds; his father played flute and violin, his mother piano.

How many of Chopin's songs, all set to Polish lyrics, survive?

Seventeen of them were gathered and published as Op. 74 in 1857; every one of his compositions features the piano.

Which zoologist accompanied the student Chopin on his 1828 visit to Berlin?

In Berlin he enjoyed operas directed by Spontini and heard concerts by Zelter and Mendelssohn.

Roughly how many uninvited mourners were turned away from Chopin's funeral at the Madeleine?

Entry was restricted to ticket holders, and the service was delayed almost two weeks until 30 October 1849.

Which muse is shown weeping over a broken lyre on Chopin's tombstone in Père Lachaise?

Clésinger designed and sculpted the monument, installed on the first anniversary of the composer's death in 1850.

How many unpublished piano pieces did executor Julian Fontana group into Opp. 66-73 in 1855?

Chopin had wanted all his unpublished manuscripts destroyed, but his mother and sisters asked Fontana to preserve them.

Which set of Chopin's scores, edited by Jan Ekier, is recommended to Chopin Competition entrants?

Published between 1967 and 2010, it superseded the Paderewski edition, against which scholarly opinion has turned.

Which actor earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for playing Chopin in A Song to Remember (1945)?

Later screen Chopins include Hugh Grant in Impromptu (1991); the composer had first been fictionalised in a 1919 German silent film.