The Mazurka in the hands of Chopin changed from being a Polish country dance to being found in the drawing rooms and parlours of the most distinguished homes in the Romantic period. Its origin is in the mazur, a folk

Chopin did not gain an international reputation as a composer until 1833. And while his reception was generally positive, he certainly had his detractors. The influential editor and critic Ludwig Rellstab writes, “In his dances the author satisfies the passion

No single instrument served the cult of self-expression more comprehensively than the piano. It could emulate the rising and falling inflections of human speech and the outlines of non-verbal expressions from a sigh to a scream. Frédéric Chopin (1810-49), more

Frédéric Chopin suffered from serious and chronic health problems throughout his short life. Already in his teens, Chopin suffered from frequent respiratory problems that included coughing, headaches, and the swelling of the cervical lymph glands. Biographers and doctors have detailed

Polish composer Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (1810-1849), better known under the French version of his name, Frédéric Chopin left Poland at age 20, just as the November 1830 Uprising was about to start, and started a new life in Paris. Although

Chopin was inspired by the antics of a small dog chasing its tail to write his Waltz No. 6 in D-Flat Major, Op. 64, No. 1. His publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, added a title on it to let people know

Recently, I had a chat with a young colleague who suggested that the writing of biographies of great composers was a boring myth-making exercise practiced in a cultural galaxy far away and two centuries removed. She had a point about