Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) wrote almost exclusively for solo piano and almost exclusively in small forms — nocturnes, preludes, mazurkas, polonaises, études, ballades, waltzes. He wrote no symphonies. He wrote two piano concertos and barely anything else for orchestra. He understood the piano better than anyone before or since, including Liszt, who had superior technique.

Chopin was Polish but spent most of his adult life in Paris. His music is saturated with Polish folk idioms — the mazurka and polonaise are Polish dance forms, and he elevated them from party music into serious art — but filtered through a French refinement and an Italian operatic influence (he adored Bellini's long vocal lines). The result is something entirely his own: music that sounds improvisatory but is precisely structured, music that expresses violent emotion in the most delicate possible language.

He died of tuberculosis at 39. He had been ill most of his adult life and knew it. There is a quality in his later work — particularly the late nocturnes and the Ballade No. 4 — of someone squeezing everything possible into the time available.

StyleRomantic piano poetry. Ornamented melody, rubato (flexible rhythm), unexpected harmonic colors, singing right-hand line above the left's structural support. More interested in beauty than argument.

Listen: Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 — eight minutes that cover the full emotional range. Or Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9 No. 2 if you want something quieter.