Lived 1810 – 1849
Mostly in Paris
Best Known For Études, Preludes, Nocturnes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, Waltzes, Ballades, Sonatas, Impromptus, Scherzos, Concertos
Similar To Liszt, Schumann, Field

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin died young, in Paris on October 17, 1849, a few months short of his 40th birthday, but at least he lived just long enough to become one of the first composers whose image is preserved in photographic form. The French capital was home of the daguerreotype, and thanks to this we have an extraordinarily truthful portrait of the composer in his final year. Louis-Auguste Bisson’s famous image portrays a world-weary composer with sunken eyes, still exhausted from his tour the previous autumn to London and Scotland and susceptible to illness – tuberculosis is thought to have killed him.

Though Chopin had begun composing his Études in Warsaw in 1829, a year before leaving his Polish homeland for what turned out...