肖邦出生在波蘭中部小鎮熱拉佐瓦-沃拉（Żelazowa Wola，位於波蘭首都華沙附近）。肖邦的母親是波蘭人，父親Nicolas Chopin（1771年—1844年）是波蘭籍的法國人，原本居住在洛林的一座從父輩繼承下來的葡萄園，1787年移居波蘭並加入波蘭籍，參加過1792年的俄波戰爭和1794年的科希丘什科起義（科希丘什科，Kościuszko，1746年—1817年，波蘭人民英雄），第二次瓜分波蘭後在貴族家庭當法語家庭教師，認識了一個雇主的親戚也就是後來肖邦的母親Justyna Krzyżanowska，他們在1806年結婚，肖邦的父親也得到了一份在中學教授法語的工作。肖邦一家在1810年搬到了華沙。
肖邦在波蘭被視為神童，1816年6歲的時候開始學習鋼琴，相繼由他的姐姐和母親教授鋼琴演奏。肖邦是個音樂天才，從小就展現出他驚人的音樂天賦，7歲時便能作曲，他的第一首作品B大調和g小調波蘭舞曲創作於1817年，體現出肖邦不同尋常的即興創作能力，他在華沙被譽為“第二個莫紮特”。
第二年也就是1818年，8歲的肖邦在一次慈善音樂會上演奏了奧地利作曲家阿德爾伯特·基洛維茨（Adalbert Gyrowetz）的作品，這是肖邦的第一次登台演奏，從此躋身進入了波蘭貴族的沙龍。
1822年起肖邦師從約瑟夫·艾爾斯內（Józef Elsner，1769年—1854年）學習音樂理論和作曲，一年後公開演奏了德國作曲家費迪南德·裏斯（Ferdinand Ries，1784年—1838年）的作品。1826年從中學畢業後，肖邦在音樂學院繼續跟隨約瑟夫·艾爾斯內學習鋼琴演奏和作曲。肖邦作曲相當勤奮，他發表的第二部作品是B大調鋼琴和管弦樂變奏曲（Là ci darem la mano，op.2，1827年），來自莫紮特的歌劇“Don Giovanni”，幾年後在德國引起了轟動，1831年羅伯特·舒曼作為音樂評論家在萊比錫的一份19世紀最重要的音樂報紙中，以《作品二號》為題（德語：Ein Werk II.）寫道：“先生們，向天才脫帽致敬吧”[1]，對肖邦的作品給予極高的評價。
他十九歲時已經創作了兩首鋼琴協奏曲。1829年至1831年間，肖邦在華沙、維也納和巴黎各地舉行了多場音樂會，他的演出受到了專業報刊的高度評價，“柔和的演奏，難以形容的流暢，能夠喚起最深感受的完美演繹。”[2]，他是“音樂地平線上最閃亮流星中的一顆”[3]。1829年肖邦愛上了音樂學院的女同學Konstanze Gladkowska，但是這段秘密的愛情無疾而終。因為1830年波蘭爆發了反對外國勢力瓜分波蘭的起義，蕭邦無法回國，而肖邦的父親也建議肖邦暫時先留在國外，1831年肖邦最終忍痛離開故鄉波蘭移居到了法國巴黎，開始以演奏、教學和作曲為生。
[編輯] 巴黎的生活
1833年的肖邦畫像，作者Francesco Hayez。 移居到巴黎後，肖邦很快愛上了這座城市，巴黎的建築和大城市氛圍深深吸引著肖邦，他在一份寄回波蘭的信中寫道，巴黎是“世界上最美麗的城市”。他在巴黎先是拜他的偶像法國籍德國鋼琴家和作曲家弗裏德裏希·卡爾克布倫訥（Friedrich Kalkbrenner，1785年—1849年）為師，繼續學習鋼琴，但是他感覺受到了教學方式的限製，課程隻進行了不到一個月。肖邦在巴黎參加音樂會的演出以賺取生活費，起先肖邦還未出名，收入僅夠糊口，後來一位極具影響力的資助者帶肖邦參加了銀行家羅斯柴爾德家族的一次接待活動，肖邦的鋼琴演奏打動了客人，轉眼間贏得了一大批的鋼琴學生，其中的大部分是女學生。肖邦通過音樂會、作曲和教授鋼琴課，從1833年起便有了穩定的收入，經濟上沒有了後顧之憂，肖邦甚至有一輛私人馬車和隨從，他的衣服都是高檔的材料製成。而相比之下，19世紀的其他音樂家如理查德·瓦格納和彼得·伊裏奇·柴科夫斯基則還需要指望著資助者的讚助。
在巴黎期間蕭邦做了多次訪問，1834年，他和席勒共同訪問了在亞琛舉行的的萊茵河畔音樂節。蕭邦、席勒還有門德爾鬆三人在此次音樂節中碰麵並一起去了杜塞爾多夫、科布倫茨和科隆，他們三人彼此欣賞對方的音樂才華，並互相學習和切磋了音樂技藝。
肖邦交友廣泛，他的好友包括詩人繆塞、巴爾紮克、海涅和亞當·密茨凱維奇，畫家德拉克羅瓦，音樂家李斯特、費迪南德·希勒，以及女作家喬治·桑。肖邦在李斯特家第一次見到了身著男裝、抽著煙的喬治·桑，並對她一見傾心。
[編輯] 與喬治·桑的戀情
1835年時的喬治·桑 1837年肖邦因為與18歲的Maria Wodzińska一段不幸的戀情，陷入了生活危機，正在這時，他邂逅了比他大6歲的喬治·桑，這使得他又重拾了精神上的信心。
第一眼見到喬治·桑，肖邦就感受到了她與Maria Wodzińska的截然不同，Maria Wodzińska是個典型的大家閨秀，而詩人喬治·桑看上去卻是十分高傲和極具自我意識。但是肖邦與喬治·桑的戀情卻是具有傳奇色彩的，一方麵，喬治·桑是一個熱情似火的女人，受到許多年輕才俊的追求，另一方麵，喬治·桑後來銷毀了大部分寄給她的信件，使得人們無法確定肖邦同她之間的真正關係。
1838年11月喬治·桑帶著她的兩個孩子Maurice和Solange移居西班牙的馬洛卡島上的法德摩薩鎮，Maurice患有風濕症，喬治·桑根據醫生的建議，希望西班牙的氣候可以有助於Maurice健康狀況的好轉。而肖邦也一同搬到了馬洛卡，肖邦一生患有肺結核，他也希望溫暖的氣候能夠緩解他的病痛，但是事與願違，Maurice的病情有了明顯好轉，而肖邦的肺結核卻因為房間條件差，加上糟糕的天氣，發展成了肺炎。98天後肖邦和喬治·桑離開了馬洛卡島，這段旅程雖短，但是對肖邦和喬治·桑都印象深刻，喬治·桑將這段經曆記錄在了她的小說《馬洛卡島上的冬天》中。
1839年到1843年的夏天，肖邦都是在喬治·桑位於家鄉諾昂（Nohant）的莊園裏度過的。這是一些寧靜的日子，肖邦創作了大量的作品，其中包括著名的波蘭舞曲《英雄》。
肖邦和喬治·桑的戀情在1847年畫上了句號，兩人都沒有公開分手的原因。當時喬治·桑的女兒Solange愛上了貧困潦倒的雕刻家August Clésinger，這引發了喬治·桑一家的家庭矛盾，喬治·桑變得非常好戰，當肖邦得知Solange和August Clésinger秘密訂婚的消息後，非但沒有反對，還表現出來讚同，這使得喬治·桑大為惱火。
[編輯] 英年早逝
1849年時的肖邦，肖邦的唯一一張照片，銀版攝影法 肖邦1848年在巴黎舉辦了他的最後一次音樂會，此後他訪問了英格蘭和蘇格蘭，本打算11月在倫敦在舉行幾場音樂會和沙龍演出，但由於肺結核病情嚴重不得不放棄這些計劃返回巴黎。1849年他的病情加重，已無法繼續授課和演出，最終於10月17日在巴黎市中心的家中去世，時年39歲。
肖邦曾希望在他的葬禮上演奏莫紮特的安魂曲，但是莫紮特安魂曲的大部分是由女性演唱的，舉辦肖邦葬禮的教堂曆來不允許唱詩班中有女性，葬禮因此推遲了近兩周，最後教堂終於做出讓步，允許女歌手在黑幕簾後演唱，使得肖邦的遺願能夠達成。有將近三千人參加了10月30日舉行的肖邦葬禮，演唱者還包括Luigi Lablache，他此前曾為1827年貝多芬的葬禮演唱安魂曲，為1835年貝利尼的葬禮演唱Lachrymosa。
根據肖邦的遺願，他被葬於巴黎市內的拉雪茲神父公墓，下葬時演奏了奏鳴曲op.35中的葬禮進行曲。雖然蕭邦被葬在巴黎的拉雪茲神父公墓，但他要求將他的心髒裝在甕裏並移到華沙，封在聖十字教堂的柱子裏。拉雪茲神父公墓裏的蕭邦墓碑前，總是吸引著許多參訪者，即使是在死寂的冬天裏，依然鮮花不斷。後來肖邦在波蘭的好友將故鄉的一罐泥土帶到巴黎，灑在肖邦的墓上，使肖邦能夠安葬在波蘭的土地下。
[編輯] 作品肖邦的作品以鋼琴曲為主，雖然他不少作品技巧頗為艱深，但是他從來不會以炫技為最終目的，肖邦的作品更注重詩意和細膩的情感。
[編輯] 獨奏曲作為一個波蘭作曲家，肖邦為故鄉的波蘭舞曲和瑪祖卡做出了裏程碑式的貢獻。其中最早的作品是1817年的g小調波蘭舞曲（K. 889），那時肖邦才剛7歲，肖邦一生都在作波蘭舞曲，年輕時候的許多波蘭舞曲作品最後都沒有發表，因為他認為這些作品過於單調。肖邦先是專注於先驅卡爾·馬利亞·馮·韋伯和Johann Nepomuk Hummel的作品，此後在巴黎完成的作品中充滿了肖邦對家鄉波蘭的渴望和思念，他所有現存的波蘭舞曲（從op.26 Nr. 1開始），都有一段華彩樂章作為開場。
瑪祖卡與波蘭舞曲不同，在19世紀初還是一個相當嶄新的音樂形式，但很快就風靡了全歐洲。肖邦不僅在城市沙龍中聽瑪祖卡，也在波蘭聽民俗原始形態的瑪祖卡，15歲時完成了他的第一部瑪祖卡（B大調瑪祖卡，891年—895年），最具特色的是對變音階的精彩運用和五度音階的低音，從op.6（1830年—1832年）起的瑪祖卡多使用循環的形式。
總的來說，肖邦的這些作品並不適合於舞蹈，因為它們大都節奏過快，他的華爾茲作品也是如此。肖邦的華爾茲是為沙龍譜寫的，大都使用大調，因為大調比小調更加歡快，其中著名的有《一分鍾圓舞曲》，作品節奏極快，而且充滿激情，其實它並非人們經常所聽到的那樣，不是為了讓人盡量在一分鍾內演奏完畢，肖邦本人或其他鋼琴家是否能夠在一分鍾內完成作品的演奏也不得而知，之所以取名《一分鍾圓舞曲》，是要表達“把握瞬間”的意思；這部作品的靈感來自一條追逐自己尾巴團團轉的小狗，所以這部圓舞曲也被稱為《小狗圓舞曲》。
另一類肖邦所發展的音樂形式是夜曲，肖邦共有21部夜曲作品，他的夜曲作品很大程度上受到愛爾蘭作曲家和鋼琴家、夜曲的發明者John Field的影響，而肖邦的夜曲作品聽上去更加地和諧，充滿變換的韻律，曲調也更加靈活，有美聲唱法的風格。
24首鋼琴前奏曲創作於肖邦在馬洛卡的短暫旅程中，按順序對應著五度音階，從C大調開始，到a小調結束，大小調交替。
[編輯] 奏鳴曲
巴黎拉雪茲神父公墓中的肖邦墓 肖邦大量的鋼琴作品中隻有3部奏鳴曲，當時維也納古典主義音樂對音樂形式的嚴格要求，使得肖邦無法自如掌握，或者肖邦可能是根本不願意受形式所約束。肖邦的第一部奏鳴曲是早期創作的，獻給了他的老師Józef Elsner，他的第三部奏鳴曲（op.58，1844年）是一部紀念作品。
最受歡迎的是鋼琴奏鳴曲2號b小調（op.35，1839年），其中的第三樂章是著名的《葬禮進行曲》（marche funèbre），這個樂章與之前的Grave – doppio movimento和詼諧曲（Scherzo）樂章，以及之後Finale的節拍，初聽起來前後沒有關聯，但是音樂學的研究卻發現之間聯係緊密。肖邦的這部鋼琴奏鳴曲作品在當時便引起了爭議，第一，奏鳴曲的所有樂章都是用小調寫的，這在當時是不同尋常的，小調奏鳴曲習慣上至少應當有一個樂章使用大調；第二，各個樂章的主題令人憎惡，這引起了舒曼的抗議，第一樂章Grave – doppio movimento令人喘不過氣來，第二樂章Scherzo詼諧曲近乎粗暴地激烈，第三樂章葬禮進行曲被舒曼形容成“殘暴”（德語：grauenhaft），而第四樂章則缺乏曲調，所有這些在當時都是不合時宜的。
除此之外，肖邦還作有4首敘事曲和4首詼諧曲，都是相當精致的作品。肖邦的練習曲op.10、op.25和另外三首肖邦去世後才發表的作品，對彈奏技術的要求很高，同時又非常適合於音樂會上的演出，代表作品有c小調《革命練習曲》（op.10 Nr.12）。肖邦將練習曲帶入了一個新的境界，此前的練習曲，比如卡爾·車爾尼的練習曲，大都隻專注於教學目的，而後來的弗蘭茲·李斯特、亞曆山大·斯克裏亞賓和克勞德·德彪西也都對練習曲做出了發展。
肖邦的即興曲作品中，代表作品是升c小調《幻想即興曲》，它是在肖邦去世後才發表的，因為肖邦在作曲完畢後才發現，作品的中段與波希米亞作曲家Ignaz Moscheles（1794年—1870年）的一首鋼琴作品驚人地相似，所以肖邦不願意將其發表。
[編輯] 協奏曲除了獨奏作品外，肖邦還有2部鋼琴協奏曲1號（E小調）和2號（F小調）。
[編輯] 代表作品肖邦共發表編號作品65首（op.1—op.65），去世後發表11首（op.66—op.74，其中op.72有3首）。其中包括比較有名的：
- 降E大調華麗大圓舞曲
- 降D大調“小狗”圓舞曲，又稱“一分鍾圓舞曲”
- 升C小調圓舞曲
- 降A大調圓舞曲《離別》
- 降G大調圓舞曲
- A大調波蘭舞曲《軍隊》
- 降A大調波蘭舞曲《英雄》
- 降E大調夜曲
- 升F大調夜曲
- 降B小調夜曲
- 降A大調夜曲
- 第二十三號瑪祖卡舞曲
- 第四十四號瑪祖卡舞曲
- C小調練習曲《革命》
- E大調練習曲《離別》
- 第一號敘事曲
- 第一號詼諧曲
- 第七號前奏曲
- 升C小調幻想即興曲
自蕭邦逝世後，以下以其名命名：
- 小行星蕭邦3784（Asteroid 3784 Chopin）
- 華沙蕭邦國際機場（Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport / Frederic Chopin International Airport）
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Life
Chopin" redirects here. For other uses, see Chopin (disambiguation).
Chopin, by Eugène Delacroix, 1838 
Chopin's autograph · Frédéric Chopin (Polish: Fryderyk [Franciszek] Chopin , sometimes Szopen ; French: Frédéric [François] Chopin ; family-name pronunciation in English: IPA : /ˈ ʃ o ʊ pæn/ ; March 1, 1810[1] – October 17, 1849) was a Polish[2][3] virtuoso pianist and piano composer of the Romantic period. He is widely regarded as the greatest Polish composer, and one of the most influential composers for piano in the 19th century.
Chopin was born in the village of Żelazowa Wola, in the Duchy of Warsaw, to a Polish mother and French-expatriate father, and came to be regarded as a child-prodigy pianist. In November 1830, at the age of twenty, Chopin went abroad. After the suppression of the Polish 1830–31 Uprising, he became one of the many expatriates of the Polish Great Emigration. In Paris he made a comfortable living as composer and piano teacher, while giving few public performances. A great Polish patriot, in
France he used the French version of his given name and, to avoid having to rely on Imperial Russian documents, eventually became a French citizen.[4][5][6] From 1837 to 1847 he conducted a turbulent relationship with the French writer George Sand (Aurore Dudevant). Always in frail health, at 39 in Paris he succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis.[7] Chopin's extant compositions all include the piano, predominantly alone or as a solo instrument among others. Though his music is technically demanding, its style emphasizes nuance and expressive depth rather than technical virtuosity. Chopin invented new musical forms such as the ballade,[8] and made major innovations in existing forms such as the piano sonata, waltz, nocturne, étude, impromptu, and prelude. His works are mainstays of Romanticism in 19th-century classical music. His mazurkas and polonaises remain the cornerstone of Polish national classical music.
Early years
Chopin's birthplace at Żelazowa Wola, now venue to piano recitals. Fryderyk Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, some fifty kilometers west of Warsaw in Sochaczew County in what was then part of the Duchy of Warsaw. His father was Nicolas (in Polish, Mikołaj) Chopin, originally a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland in 1787 at age 16 and served during the Kościuszko Uprising in Poland's National Guard. Mikołaj subsequently worked in Żelazowa Wola as a tutor to some aristocratic families, including the Skarbeks, one of whose poorer relations, Tekla Justyna Krzyżanowska, he married.[9]
According to the composer's family, Fryderyk (Frederick) Chopin, the couple's second child, was born on March 1, 1810. There is no known birth certificate. His baptismal certificate gives the birthdate as February 22, 1810.
In October 1810, when Fryderyk was seven months old, the family moved to Warsaw, where his father took a position as teacher of French language at a school housed in the Saxon Palace. The family lived on the palace grounds.
In 1817-27, Chopin's family lived in this Warsaw University building, now adorned (center) with Fryderyk's profile, adjacent to the Kazimierz Palace. In 1817 Mikołaj Chopin became a teacher of French at the Warsaw Lyceum, housed in Warsaw University's Kazimierz Palace. The family lived in a spacious second-floor apartment in an adjacent building. In 1823-26 Fryderyk himself would attend the Warsaw Lyceum.
A Polish spirit, and the Polish language, pervaded Mikołaj Chopin's home, and as a result Fryderyk would never, even in Paris, perfectly master the French language.[10] The boy inherited his blond hair and blue eyes from his mother; his frail health, rather from his father. The father played the flute and violin, and the mother—the piano, and gave lessons to the boys who lived in their boarding house. Thus Fryderyk early became conversant with music in its various forms. He was drawn to the piano powerfully and exclusively from as early as his hands could reach the keyboard. On it he began picking out melodies on his own. He received his earliest "piano lessons" not from his mother but from his three-years-older sister Ludwika (in English, "Louise").[11]
Mikołaj Chopin. Portrait by Ambroży Mieroszewski, 1829 Chopin received his first professional piano lessons, in 1816–22, from the respected, elderly Wojciech Żywny. Chopin later spoke highly of him, though the youngster's skills soon surpassed those of his teacher. Seven-year-old "little Chopin" gave public concerts, prompting comparisons with the earlier little Mozart and with the still living Beethoven. That same year, he composed two polonaises, G minor and B flat major. The first was published in the engraving workshop of Father Cybulski, director of a School of Organists and one of the few music publishers in Poland; the second survives in a manuscript prepared by Mikołaj Chopin. These small works could withstand comparison with the popular polonaises of the leading Warsaw composers, and even with the famous polonaises of Michał Kleofas Ogiński. A very substantial development of melodic and harmonic invention and of piano technique was shown in Chopin's next surviving polonaise, which the young artist offered in 1821 as a name-day present to Żywny.[12]
In these years, Chopin would be invited to the Belweder Palace as a playmate for the son of Russian Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, and charmed the irascible Grand Duke with his piano playing. "Little Chopin's" popularity is attested by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's "dramatic eclogue," "Nasze verkehry" ("Our Intercourse," 1818), in which one of the main motifs in the dialogs was the then-eight-year-old musician.[13]
Justyna Chopin. Portrait by Ambroży Mieroszewski, 1829 As a child, Chopin showed a remarkable "open intelligence" that easily absorbed everything and made use of everything for its development. He retained as well in his mature age a certain ability in sketching, a gift for observation, a keen wit and sense of humor, and an uncommon talent for mimicry.[14] A famous anecdote from his school years recounts that a teacher was pleasantly surprised to find that Chopin had drawn a superb portrait of him in class.[15] During vacations in the countryside when Chopin acquainted himself with the folk melodies that he would later refine into his musical compositions, he wrote home famous letters that parodied the Warsaw newspapers. Another anecdote, from Maurycy Karasowski's family traditions, describes how Chopin helped quiet down the rowdy children by improvising a story, then putting everyone to sleep with a berceuse; after he had shown the charming picture to the mother, he woke everyone with an ear-piercing chord.[16]
To the age of thirteen, Chopin studied at home. In 1823 he enrolled in the Warsaw Lyceum. He continued working on piano under Żywny's direction, and when in 1825 he performed a concert of Moscheles and entranced the audience with his free improvisation, he was acclaimed the best pianist in Warsaw.[17]
In 1827 the family moved to lodgings in the Krasiński Palace just across the street at Krakowskie Przedmieście 5, now the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie). Chopin would live there until he departed Warsaw in 1830.
Thus, from the age of seven months until his final departure from Warsaw and Poland at the age of twenty, Chopin always dwelt with his family either in a palace or in palace precincts.
In the autumn of 1826, Chopin began a three-year course of studies with the composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory, which was affiliated with Warsaw University (hence Chopin is counted among the University's alumni).
Fryderyk Chopin. Portrait by Ambroży Mieroszewski, 1829 It was in 1829, during the latter part of Fryderyk's studies or soon thereafter, that the painter Ambroży Mieroszewski executed a set of five portraits of the surviving members of the Chopin family: the 19-year-old composer (it was his first known portrait), his parents, and his elder sister Ludwika and younger sister Izabela. In 1913 Édouard Ganche would write that the precocious composer's portrait showed "a youth threatened by tuberculosis. His skin is very white, he has a prominent Adam's apple and sunken cheeks, even his ears show a form characteristic of consumptives." Chopin's younger sister Emilia had already died of tuberculosis at age fourteen in 1827, and his father would succumb to the same disease in 1844.[18]
Chopin's contact with Józef Elsner may have dated from as early as 1822, and it is certain that Elsner was giving Chopin informal guidance by 1823. Chopin now studied music theory, figured bass and composition with him. In year-end evaluations, Elsner noted Chopin's "remarkable talent" and "musical genius." Like Żywny, Elsner observed the development of Chopin's talent more than he influenced its blossoming or gave it direction. He did not constrain him with narrow, academic, outdated rules but let him mature according to the laws of his own nature.[19]
On completing his composition studies with Elsner, Chopin was a fully-formed artist. According to Jachimecki, it is difficult to compare him with any earlier composer, for the style of his works already from the first half of his life is incomparably original. At his age, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were still epigones of earlier masters, whereas Chopin virtually from the first was no epigone but rather a precursor of the coming age.[20]
The beauty of Chopin's works is a purely musical one, requiring no reference to literature or painting. Chopin never gave programmatic titles to his works. His compositions did, however, take their origin in his emotional life. The first inspiration for his emotions and imagination was a beautiful young singer at the Warsaw Opera, Konstancja Gładkowska. In letters to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski, Chopin indicated which of his works and even which of their passages had arisen under the influence of his erotic transports. His artistic soul was also enriched through friendships with leading lights of Warsaw's artistic and intellectual world—with Maurycy Mochnacki, Jan Matuszewski, Józef Bohdan Zaleski, Julian Fontana and others.[21]
In 1827–30, Chopin lived with his family at the Krasiński Palace (Krakowskie Przedmieście 5) before leaving Poland forever. In 1837–39 it would be home to poet Cyprian Norwid, author of "Chopin's Piano" about Russians' 1863 defenestration of the instrument. In September 1828 Chopin struck out for the wider world in the company of a Dr. Jarocki, who was going to a scientific congress in Berlin. There Chopin saw several unfamiliar operas directed by Gaspare Spontini, heard several concerts, and saw Carl Friedrich Zelter, Felix Mendelssohn and other famous people. On the way back from Berlin, he was a guest at Antonin of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł, governor of the Grand Duchy of Poznań, himself an accomplished composer and cellist. For his host Chopin composed his Polonaise for Cello and Piano Op. 3.[22]
In 1829, in Warsaw, Chopin heard Niccolò Paganini play and met the German pianist and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel.
In August 1829, three weeks after completing his studies at the Warsaw Conservatory, Chopin made a brilliant début in Vienna. He gave two piano performances and received very favorable reviews (along with some that criticized the small tone that he produced from the piano). This success opened the road for him to western Europe, if he wished to take it.
In December 1829, at Warsaw's Merchants' Club, he performed the première of his Piano Concerto in F minor. On March 17, 1830, at the National Theater, he gave the first performance of his other piano concerto, in E minor.
But Warsaw now seemed too small for Chopin. On November 2, 1830, seen off by friends and admirers, with a ring from his beloved on his finger and carrying with him a silver cup containing soil of his native land, Chopin set out, writes Jachimecki, "into the wide world, with no very clearly defined aim, forever."[23]
Later that month the November 1830 Uprising broke out, and his traveling companion Tytus Woyciechowski returned home to take part. Now alone by himself in Vienna, Chopin, afflicted by nostalgia, disappointed in his hopes of giving concerts and publishing, matured and acquired spiritual depth. From a romantic poet he grew into an inspired bard who intuited the past, present and future of his country. Only now, at this distance, did he see all of Poland from the proper perspective, and understand what was great and truly beautiful in her, the tragedy and heroism of her vicissitudes. When, on the way from Vienna to Paris, in September 1831 he learned in Stuttgart that the November Uprising had been crushed, he poured profanities and blasphemies into the pages of a little journal that he would keep hidden to the end of his life. These outcries of a tormented heart found musical expression in his Scherzo in B Minor, Op. 20, and his Revolutionary Etude.[24]
Paris
Chopin's Polonaise by Teofil Kwiatkowski, watercolour and gouache on paper, 1849-1860 (several versions), The National Museum in Poznan. Chopin arrived in Paris in late September 1831, still uncertain whether he would settle there for good.[25]
With a view to easing his entrance into the local musical milieu, he began taking lessons from the prominent pianist Friedrich Kalkbrenner, but already in February 1832 he gave a concert of his own which garnered universal admiration. The influential musicologist and critic François-Joseph Fétis wrote of him in Revue musicale: "here is a young man who, taking nothing as a model, has found, if not a complete renewal of piano music, then in any case part of what has long been sought in vain, namely, an extravagance of original ideas that are unexampled anywhere..."[26]
Robert Schumann, in reviewing Chopin's Variations on "La ci darem la mano" (from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni), Op. 2, had written in December 1831: "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius."
Indeed, piano style had been fundamentally reshaped by the innovations and techniques that had been introduced by Chopin's works. Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann began drawing on these innovations for their own compositions. Chopin's innovations involved poetic forms such as the ballade, taken from vocal music, and the scherzo, prelude and étude, and they elevated to full-fledged artistic forms, dances: the mazurek, waltz, polonaise, even the tarantella and bolero. Chopin transformed nocturnes from John Field's sentimental genre into what Schumann described as "ideals of the kind, the tenderest and most soulful things that may be conceived of in music."[27]
In Paris, Chopin found all that he needed as an artist: the stimulation of art and distinguished company, opportunities to exercise his talents and achieve celebrity, and before long a handsome income from teaching piano to affluent students from all over Europe. The most famous artists became faithful friends to the young Polish musician: Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Vincenzo Bellini, Ferdinand Hiller, Felix Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Eugène Delacroix.[28] Chopin also formed friendships with Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, residing at the Hôtel Lambert, Alfred de Vigny and Charles-Valentin Alkan.
Chopin seldom performed publicly in Paris. In later years he would generally give only a single concert a year at the Salle Pleyel that seated three hundred. He played more frequently for social gatherings at great aristocratic salons, but preferentially at his own home for a circle of friends. His frail physique did not allow him to become a traveling virtuoso. Outside of Paris he only once played at Rouen, otherwise seldom venturing out of the capital.
In 1834, with Hiller, he visited a Rhenish Music Festival at Aachen organized by Ferdinand Ries. There Chopin and Hiller met with Mendelssohn, and the three went on to Düsseldorf, Koblenz and Cologne, enjoying each other's company and playing music together.
Maria Wodzińska, self-portrait, ca. 1830s In 1835 Chopin went to Carlsbad, where for the last time in his life he met with his parents. En route back to Paris through Saxony, he met at Dresden with old Warsaw friends, the Wodzińskis. Chopin had by then gotten over the loss of Konstancja Gładkowska, who had married shortly after his departure from Warsaw. Seeing the sixteen-year-old Maria Wodzińska, whom he had met in Poland five years earlier, he fell in love with the charming, intelligent, artistically talented young lady. (She painted a remarkable water-color portrait of him that must be one of the best renderings of the young Chopin.) He proposed to her in September 1836, while in Dresden again after vacationing with the Wodziński family at Marienbad. Maria accepted, and her mother approved in principle. But Maria's tender age and his own tenuous health (in the winter of 1835–36 he had been so ill that word had circulated in Warsaw that he had died) forced him to postpone the wedding indefinitely. The engagement remained a secret to the world and never led to the altar. Chopin long suffered in secret, then placed the letters from Maria and her mother into a large envelope, wrote on it the words "My sorrow" ("Moja bieda"), and to the end of his life retained in a desk drawer this keepsake of the second love of his life.[29]
Chopin's feelings for Maria Wodzińska left their traces in his music. He expressed those feelings in his enchanting Waltz in A flat major, Op. 69, no. 1, written on the morning of the September day before his departure from Dresden in his cramped room in the modest Hotel Stadt Berlin near the Frauenkirche, whence he heard the sound of the clock in the tower, reminding him of the hour of his stage coach's departure. On his return to Paris, he composed the Étude in F minor, the second in the Op. 25 cycle, light as a breath of floral fragrances, which Chopin called "a portrait of Maria's soul." In addition, the composer sent her an album with copies of seven of his songs to words by Witwicki, Zaleski and Mickiewicz, mainly from his Warsaw days, and a copy of his earlier Nocturne in C sharp minor, which would be easy enough for her to play.[30]
After Chopin's matrimonial plans had been shattered, there appeared on his erotic horizon, but only episodically, a great lady, the beautiful and talented Delfina Potocka.[31] She would be a muse to him (he composed for her his Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64) but even more so to the Polish Romantic poet Zygmunt Krasiński.
Before long, Aurora Dudevant—the French novelist George Sand—would become the mistress of Chopin's heart.[32]
During his years in Paris, Chopin participated in a small number of public concerts. The programs provide some idea of the richness of Parisian artistic life during this period, such as the concert on March 23, 1833, in which Chopin, Liszt and Hiller played the solo parts in a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's concerto for three harpsichords; and the concert on March 3, 1838, when Chopin, Chopin's pupil Adolphe Gutman, Alkan, and Alkan's teacher Pierre Joseph Zimmerman played Alkan's 8-hand arrangement of Beethoven's 7th symphony.
Chopin was also involved in the composition of Hexaméron (1837) — Chopin's was the sixth (last) variation on Bellini's theme.
A distinguished English amateur described seeing Chopin at a salon:
George SandImagine a delicate man of extreme refinement of mien and manner, sitting at the piano and playing with no sway of the body and scarcely any movement of the arms, depending entirely upon his narrow feminine hand and slender fingers. The wide arpeggios in the left hand, maintained in a continuous stream of tone by the strict legato and fine and constant use of the damper pedal, formed a harmonious substructure for a wonderfully poetic cantabile. His delicate pianissimo, the ever-changing modifications of tone and time (tempo rubato) were of indescribable effect. Even in energetic passages he scarcely ever exceeded an ordinary mezzoforte.[33]
This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (April 2008)In 1836, at a party hosted by Countess Marie d'Agoult, mistress of fellow-composer Franz Liszt, Chopin met Amandine-Aurore-Lucille Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, better known by her pseudonym, George Sand. She was a French Romantic writer noted for her numerous love affairs with Prosper Mérimée, Alfred de Musset (1833–34), her secretary Alexandre Manceau (1849–65) and others, possibly including the actress Marie Dorval.
Chopin initially did not find her attractive. "Something about her repels me," he told his family. Sand, however, in an extraordinary June 1837 letter to her friend Count Wojciech Grzymała, debated whether to let Chopin go with his fiancée Maria Wodzińska or to abandon another affair in order to begin a relationship with Chopin. Sand had strong feelings for Chopin and pursued him until a relationship developed.
Chopin's piano at Valldemossa A notable episode in their time together was a turbulent and miserable winter on Mallorca (8 November 1838 to 13 February 1839), where the four (her two children were included) had problems finding habitable accommodation and ended up lodging in the scenic but stark and cold Valldemossa monastery. Chopin also had problems having his Pleyel sent to him. It arrived in from Paris on 20 December but was held up by customs. (Chopin wrote on 28 December: "My piano has been stuck at customs for 8 days ... They demand such a huge amount of money to release it that I can't believe it".) In the meantime Chopin had a rickety rented piano on which he practised and may have composed some pieces. On 3 December he complained about his bad health and the incompetence of the doctors in Mallorca: "I have been sick as a dog during these past 2 weeks. Three doctors have visited me. The first said I was going to die; the second said I had breathed my last; and the third said I was already dead". On 4 January 1839 George Sand agreed to pay 300 francs half the demanded amount) to have the Pleyel piano released from customs. It was finally delivered on 5 January. From then on Chopin was able to use the long waited instrument for almost five weeks, time enough to complete some works: Preludes (Op. 28); a revision of the Ballade No. 2, Op. 38; 2 polonaises, Op. 40; the Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39; a mazurka (Op. 41); and probably revisited his Sonata No. 2, Op. 35. This became the reason that the winter in Mallorca is still considered one of the most prolific periods in Chopin's life.
During that winter, common bad weather conditions had such a serious effect on Chopin's health and his chronic lung disease that, in order to save his life, the entire party were compelled to leave the island. The beloved French piano became an obstacle to a hasty escape. Nevertheless George Sand managed to sell the piano to a French couple (Canut), today's inheritors of Chopin's legacy on Mallorca and owners of his piano and his cell-room museum in Valldemossa. They went first to Barcelona, and then to Marseille where they stayed for a few months to recover. Although his health improved, he never completely recovered from this bout.
Chopin spent the summers of 1839 until 1843 at Sand's estate in Nohant. These were quiet but productive days during which Chopin composed many works. They included his great Polonaise in A flat major, Op.53 "Heroic," one of his most famous pieces. On Chopin's return to Paris in 1839, he met the pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles.
In 1845, even as a further deterioration occurred in Chopin's health, a serious problem emerged in his relations with George Sand, further soured in 1846 by problems involving Sand's daughter Solange and the young sculptor Jean Baptiste Auguste Clesinger. This was the year that Sand published Lucrezia Floriani, whose main characters — a rich actress and a prince in weak health — may be interpreted as Sand and Chopin; the story was uncomplimentary to Chopin. In 1847 the family problems finally brought to an end the relations between Sand and Chopin that had lasted ten years, since 1837.
Final two years This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (April 2008)
Only known photograph of Chopin, by Bisson, ca. 1849 
Ludwika Chopin. Portrait by Ambroży Mieroszewski, 1829 In February 1848, Chopin gave his last concert in Paris. To escape the hard times caused by the French revolution of 1848 and like many other artists, he travelled with his former pupil Thomas Tellefsen to London in April.[34] His former pupil Jane Stirling had found him an inexpensive apartment in London at Bentinck Street.[35] Soon after, he met the celebrated soprano and wealthy philanthropist Jenny Lind (1820-1887) who was adored by Queen Victoria and other monarchs in Europe.[36]. Chopin’s letters to family and friends tell upbeat about their many encounters in London and Scotland.[37] The possibility of a romance was apparently first seen in 1932.[38]
Although Chopin admits to be considered “some sort of amateur”[39], the piano manufacturer Henry Broadwood, appointed to Queen Victoria, assisted him generously with grand pianos and public performances in London, Manchester and Scotland.[40] However, Chopin’s ill health took a bad turn, and after a last appearance at the Polish Ball at Guildhall in London on 16 November 1848,[41] he returned later in the month to Paris where he was unable to teach or perform anymore.
In May 1849, Chopin was visited by Jenny Lind who, with Queen Victoria in the know, now wanted to marry him.[42] When it failed and Jenny Lind had fled the cholera epidemic in Paris, Chopin continued apparently to benefit from her financial patronage.[43][44]
Postmortem cast of Chopin's left hand In early August, at Chopin’s request, his sister Ludwika Jędrzejewiczowa, who had given him his first piano lessons, arrived in Paris and joined him in his new apartment at the prestigious Place Vendôme.[45] There in the small hours of 17 October 1849, Chopin died – apparently of tuberculosis. Later that morning, Auguste Clésinger made the death mask and casts of his hands. Before Chopin's funeral, pursuant to his dying wish (which stemmed from a fear of being buried alive), his heart was removed. His sister later took it in an urn to Warsaw, where it was sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church (Kościół Świętego Krzyża) on Krakowskie Przedmieście, beneath an inscription from Matthew VI:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." There Chopin's heart remains, within the church that was rebuilt after its virtual destruction in World War II.
According to Paris and London press reports and Frederick Niecks’ biography of Chopin[46], the funeral at the imposing Église de la Madeleine was attended by nearly 3,000 people who did not all know Chopin.[47]. Giacomo Meyerbeer led the funeral procession together with Prince Adam Czartoryski.[48] In the aftermath of the popular insurrection and street fights and the rampant cholera which afflicted Paris in 1848-1849, the city is said not to have seen a funeral of such pomp and circumstance since 1838 and 1842.[49]
Chopin had apparently requested that Mozart's Requiem be performed at his funeral. Its movement Tuba Mirum for four voices[50] was sung by the bass Signor Lablache, the tenor Alexis Dupont and – concealed behind a black velvet curtain – the mezzo soprano Pauline Viardot and allegedly the soprano “Madame Castellan”[51]. However, as it is suggested that Jenny Lind arranged the whole funeral,[52][53][54] it is seen as more likely that she herself sang for Chopin.[55] - Chopin’s Funeral March from Sonata Op. 35[56] and Preludes no. 4 in E minor and no. 6 in B minor were also performed at the ceremony.
Chopin was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery near Vincenzo Bellini.[57] At graveside, the Funeral March was played again. Later, some of Chopin's Polish friends journeyed to Paris with a jar of earth from their native land and scattered it over his grave so that Chopin would lie under Polish soil. Chopin's grave, with its monument carved by Clésinger, attracts numerous visitors and is invariably festooned with flowers, even in winter. – Jenny Lind continued for the rest of her life to pay tribute in many different ways to Chopin's musical legacy.[58] Institutional participation in the continued research on artworks commemorating Chopin well into La Belle Époque would be welcome.[59]
Memorials
Chopin statue, Warsaw's Łazienki Park In 1926 a bronze statue of Chopin, which had been designed by sculptor Wacław Szymanowski in 1907, was erected in the upper part of Warsaw's Łazienki Park, adjacent to Aleje Ujazdowskie (Ujazdów Avenue). The statue was originally to have been erected in 1910, on the centennial of Chopin's birth, but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I.
During World War II, the statue was destroyed by the Germans, on May 31, 1940. It was reconstructed after the war, in 1958. At the statue's base, since 1959, on summer Sunday afternoons are performed free piano recitals of Chopin's compositions. The stylized willow over Chopin's seated figure echoes a pianist's hand and fingers. Until 2007, the statue was the world's tallest Chopin monument.
A 1:1-scale replica of the statue is found in Hamamatsu, Japan.
There are numerous other monuments to Chopin around the world. The most recent, and by a small margin taller than the Warsaw statue, is a modernistic bronze sculpture in Shanghai, China, that was unveiled on March 3, 2007.
Every five years, the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition is held in Warsaw; and periodically the Grand prix du disque de F. Chopin is awarded for notable Chopin recordings, both remastered and newly-recorded work.
Named for the composer is the largest Polish conservatory, the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw.
MusicChopin's music for the piano combined a unique rhythmic sense (particularly his use of rubato), frequent use of chromaticism, and counterpoint. This mixture produces a particularly fragile sound in the melody and the harmony, which are nonetheless underpinned by solid and interesting harmonic techniques. He took the new salon genre of the nocturne, invented by Irish composer John Field, to a deeper level of sophistication. Three of his twenty-one nocturnes were only published after his death in 1849, contrary to his wishes.[60] He also endowed popular dance forms, such as the Polish mazurka and the waltz, Viennese Waltz, with a greater range of melody and expression. Chopin was the first to write ballades[8] and scherzi as individual pieces. Chopin also took the example of Bach's preludes and fugues, transforming the genre in his own preludes.
Chopin's grave, with monument by Clévenger, at Paris' Père Lachaise Cemetery Chopin reinvented genres, namely the étude [citation needed] . Chopin changed this by expanding on the idea and making them into gorgeous, eloquent and emotional showpieces. He also used his études to teach his own revolutionary style, for instance playing with the weak fingers (3, 4, and 5) in fast figures (Op 10 No 2) and playing black keys with the thumb (Op 10 No 5). Despite their poor reception [citation needed] , the études have become standard repertoire for all serious pianists.
Several of Chopin's pieces have become very well known—for instance the Revolutionary Étude (Op. 10, No. 12), the Minute Waltz (Op. 64, No. 1), and the third movement of his Funeral March sonata (Op. 35), which is often used as an iconic representation of grief. Chopin himself never named an instrumental work beyond genre and number, leaving all potential extra-musical associations to the listener; the names by which we know many of the pieces were invented by others. The Revolutionary Étude was not written with the failed Polish uprising against Russia in mind; it merely appeared at that time. The Funeral March was written before the rest of the sonata within which it is contained, but the exact occasion is not known; it appears not to have been inspired by any specific personal bereavement.[61] Other melodies have been used as the basis of popular songs, such as the slow section of the Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op. posth. 66) and the first section of the Étude Op. 10 No. 3. These pieces often rely on an intense and personalised chromaticism, as well as a melodic curve that resembles the operas of Chopin's day — the operas of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and especially Bellini. Chopin used the piano to re-create the gracefulness of the singing voice, and talked and wrote constantly about singers.
Chopin's style and gifts became increasingly influential. Robert Schumann was a huge admirer of Chopin's music, and he used melodies from Chopin and even named a piece from his suite Carnaval after Chopin. This admiration was not reciprocated.
Pillar in Warsaw's Holy Cross Church, containing Chopin's heart (just above bouquet near bottom) Franz Liszt was another admirer and personal friend of the composer, and he transcribed for piano six of Chopin's Polish songs. However Liszt denied that he wrote Funérailles (subtitled "October 1849", the seventh movement of his piano suite Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses of 1853) in memory of Chopin. Although the middle section seems to be modelled upon the famous octave trio section of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53, Liszt said the piece had been inspired by the deaths of three of his Hungarian compatriots in the same month.
Chopin performed his own works in concert halls, but more often in his salon for friends. Later in life, as his disease progressed, Chopin gave up public performance altogether.
Chopin's technical innovations also became influential. His Préludes (Op. 28) and Études (Op. 10 and Op. 25) rapidly became standard works, and inspired both Liszt's Transcendental Études and Schumann's Symphonic Études. Alexander Scriabin was also strongly influenced by Chopin; for example, his 24 Preludes, Op. 11 are inspired by Chopin's Op. 28.
Jeremy Siepmann, in his biography of the composer, named a list of pianists he believed to have made recordings of works by Chopin generally acknowledged to be among the greatest Chopin performances ever preserved: Vladimir de Pachmann, Raoul Pugno, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Moriz Rosenthal, Jozef Hofmann, Benno Moiseiwitsch, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman, Raoul Koczalski, Arthur Rubinstein, Mieczysław Horszowski, Claudio Arrau, Vlado Perlemuter, Sviatoslav Richter, Vladimir Horowitz, Dinu Lipatti, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini, Murray Perahia, Krystian Zimerman, Evgeny Kissin.
Arthur Rubinstein said the following about Chopin's music and its universality:
StyleChopin was a genius of universal appeal. His music conquers the most diverse audiences. When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall there is a happy sigh of recognition. All over the world men and women know his music. They love it. They are moved by it. Yet it is not "Romantic music" in the Byronic sense. It does not tell stories or paint pictures. It is expressive and personal, but still a pure art. Even in this abstract atomic age, where emotion is not fashionable, Chopin endures. His music is the universal language of human communication. When I play Chopin I know I speak directly to the hearts of people!
Although Chopin lived in the 1800s, he was educated in the tradition of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart and Clementi; he used Clementi's piano method with his own students. He was also influenced by Hummel's development of virtuoso, yet Mozartian, piano technique. One of his students, Friederike Müller of Vienna, wrote the following in her diary about Chopin's playing style:
His playing was always noble and beautiful; his tones sang, whether in full forte or softest piano. He took infinite pains to teach his pupils this legato, cantabile style of playing. His most severe criticism was "He—or she—does not know how to join two notes together." He also demanded the strictest adherence to rhythm. He hated all lingering and dragging, misplaced rubatos, as well as exaggerated ritardandos ... and it is precisely in this respect that people make such terrible errors in playing his works.
—20px, 20pxThe series of seven polonaises published in his lifetime (another nine were published posthumously), beginning with the Op. 26 pair, set a new standard for music in the form, and were rooted in Chopin's desire to write something to celebrate Polish culture after the country had fallen back into Russian control. The A major polonaise Op. 40 No. 1, the "Military," and the polonaise in A flat major Op. 53, the "Heroic," are among Chopin's best-loved and most-often-played works.
RomanticismChopin regarded most of his contemporaries with some indifference, although he had many acquaintances associated with romanticism in music, literature and the arts (many of them via his liaison with George Sand). Chopin's music is, however, considered by many to be a peak of the Romantic style.[62] The relative classical purity and discretion in his music, with little extravagant exhibitionism, partly reflects his reverence for Bach and Mozart. Chopin also never indulged in explicit "scene-painting" in his music, or used programmatic titles, castigating publishers who renamed his pieces in this way.
In popular cultureChopin's life and his relations with George Sand have been fictionalized in film. The 1945 biopic A Song to Remember earned Cornel Wilde an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his portrayal of the composer. Other film treatments have included Impromptu (1991) starring Hugh Grant as Chopin; La note bleue (1991); and Chopin: Desire for Love (2002).
Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport is named for Chopin, as is asteroid 3784 Chopin.
The role-playing video game Eternal Sonata is based on the fictional proposition of a world based on Chopin's music and life, as dreamt by Chopin while on his deathbed. Chopin is a playable character in the game, and much of the music within the game is based on his compositions. The game includes brief descriptions of major events in Chopin's life that reflect on the events and characters in the game.[63]
Works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin
又名：Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,弗雷德裏克·弗朗西斯克·肖邦
偉大的波蘭音樂家 作曲家
代表作：馬厝卡舞曲、圓舞曲
自幼喜愛波蘭民間音樂，在七歲時寫了《波蘭舞曲》，八歲登台演出，不滿二十歲已成為華沙公認的鋼琴家和作曲家。後半生正值波蘭亡國，在國外渡過，創作了很多具有愛國主義思想的鋼琴作品，以此抒發自己的思鄉情、亡國恨。其中有與波蘭民族解放鬥爭相聯係的英雄性作品，如：《第一敘事曲》、《bA大調波蘭舞曲》等；有充滿愛國熱情的戰鬥性作品，如《革命練習曲》、《b小調諧謔曲》等；有哀慟祖國命運的悲劇性作品，如《降 b小調奏鳴曲》等；還有懷念祖國、思念親人的幻想性作品，如不少夜曲與幻想曲。
肖邦一生不離鋼琴，所有創作幾乎都是鋼琴曲，被稱為“鋼琴詩人”。他在國外經常為同胞募捐演出，為貴族演出卻很闈俊?837年嚴辭拒絕沙俄授予他的“俄國皇帝陛下首席鋼琴家”的職位。舒曼稱他的音樂象“藏在花叢中的一尊大炮”，向全世界宣告：“波蘭不會亡”。肖邦晚年生活非常孤寂，痛苦地自稱是“遠離母親的波蘭孤兒”。他臨終囑附親人把自己的心髒運回祖國
1810年3月1日，肖邦生於華沙郊區熱拉佐瓦沃拉。父親原籍法國，是華沙一所中學的法語教師，後來開辦了一所為來華沙學習的外省貴族子弟的寄宿學校。母親是波蘭人，曾在一個貴族親戚的家庭中任女管家。肖邦幼年時向一位捷克音樂家W.日夫尼學習鋼琴，8歲時開始公開演奏。1824年師從德國音樂家、華沙音樂學院院長J.A.F.埃爾斯納學習音樂理論。1826年中學畢業後入華沙音樂學院學習，同時開始了他的早期創作活動，1829年畢業於該院。當時正值波蘭民族運動走向高潮的年代，反對外國奴役、爭取自由獨立的民族鬥爭對青年肖邦的思想產生了深刻影響，培育了他的民族感情和愛國熱忱。1830年3月肖邦在華沙演出了自己的早期代表作《第二鋼琴協奏曲》（f小調），同年10月在告別華沙的音樂會上演奏了自己的另一部代表作《第一鋼琴協奏曲》（e小調），均獲得成功。11月2日肖邦攜帶一抔朋友們贈送的波蘭泥土離開華沙，出國深造，從此永遠離開了祖國。12月初在維也納逗留期間得知華沙爆發起義的消息，他為未能參加這次起義而焦急。當時曾想返回波蘭參加鬥爭，被友人勸阻，未能實現。次年初在赴巴黎途經斯圖加特時得知起義遭沙俄鎮壓、華沙陷落的噩耗，精神受到強烈震撼，這些，都在他當時的創作中留下了深刻印記。抵巴黎後，他放棄了去倫敦的計劃，在巴黎定居，從事鋼琴演奏教學和創作活動。在這裏他除了與流亡巴黎的波蘭僑民密切交往之外，還結識了西歐文藝界許多重要人物，其中包括波蘭流亡詩人A.密茨凱維奇，德國詩人H.海涅，法國畫家E.德拉克洛瓦，意大利音樂家V.貝利尼，匈牙利音樂家F.李斯特等人。這些交往對肖邦精神生活的影響是不能低估的，特別是同法國女作家喬治·桑的關係，對肖邦的思想、生活產生了深刻的影響。他們從1838年同居到1846年關係破裂，前後共生活了8年。從30年代初抵巴黎到40年代中期，肖邦的思想和藝術高度成熟，在創作上獲得了極其豐碩的成果。從1846年起肖邦的創作開始出現衰退的趨勢。其原因是多方麵的：40年代波蘭民族運動的幾次挫折，使對此一直抱著熱烈期望的肖邦在精神上受到了沉重打擊，深深陷入了失望和消沉的情緒之中；同喬治·桑之間愛情的破裂，故鄉親人和摯友的相繼去世，自己健康情況的不斷惡化，這一切都給他的身心造成深深的創傷，加重了他的悲哀和孤獨。1848年衰弱的肖邦去英國逗留了一段時間，從事短期的教學和演奏活動。在那裏他為流亡國外的波蘭僑胞開了最後一次演奏會。回巴黎後健康情況急劇惡化，1849年10月17日逝世於巴黎寓所，臨終時囑咐死後將自己的心髒運回祖國波蘭安葬。
肖邦的創作可分為4個時期，即華沙時期、華沙起義時期、在巴黎的全盛時期、晚期。
華沙時期（早年～1830） 這一時期的創作除少數作品外，在肖邦的整個創作中不占很重要的地位。但是，它是肖邦一生創作的起點，其中已經閃耀著民族感情和民族風格的光輝，這在他的《d小調波洛奈茲舞曲》（1827）鋼琴與樂隊合奏的《降E大調大波洛奈茲舞曲》（1831）《C大調馬祖卡舞曲》（1829） 《F大調馬祖卡舞曲》（1829）、鋼琴與樂隊合奏的《波蘭主題幻想曲》（1828）和《克拉科維亞克舞曲風格回旋曲》（1828）中都有鮮明的體現。這個時期最重要的作品是1830年作的兩部鋼琴協奏曲。這兩部作品富於浪漫主義氣質，對愛情生活的體驗，對幸福的熱烈向往，以及由此而產生的明朗歡快情緒貫穿全曲。音樂富於民族民間彩，《第二鋼琴協奏曲》的末樂章主題有質樸優美的馬祖卡舞曲風格，《第一鋼琴協奏曲》的末樂章主題則是一支帶有強烈的克拉科維亞克舞曲風格的強勁、粗獷的旋律。
華沙起義時期（1830年末～1831年） 在這一短暫的時間裏，肖邦的創作出現了一個飛躍。《b小調諧謔曲》（1831）寫於逗留維也納時期。起義激起的愛國熱情同對祖國親人的思念交織在一起，構成一首既嚴峻又溫存的音詩。《c小調練習曲》（別稱《革命練習曲》，1831）《d小調前奏曲》（1831）則寫於得知華沙淪陷之後，激憤悲痛之情同嚴整洗練的藝術形式之間達到高度完美的統一，成為肖邦早期音樂創作中的傑作。同時期創作的《a小調前奏曲》則充滿了迷惘、茫然的情緒，音樂構思奇特而新穎。
在巴黎的全盛時期（1832～1845） 在肖邦這一時期的創作中，深刻的民族內容，富於獨創性的藝術形式和嫻熟的音樂風格使他的藝術達到了爐火純青的地步。他的創作涉及到鋼琴音樂的各種體裁，從練習曲、前奏曲、馬祖卡舞曲、波洛奈茲舞曲、夜曲、圓舞曲、即興曲，直到結構更為複雜的敘事曲、諧謔曲、奏鳴曲，都獲得了豐碩的藝術成果。肖邦的絕大部分練習曲都是在這個時期創作的，其中《E大調練習曲》（1832） 《b小調練習曲》（1834）、《a小調練習曲》（1834）等最為突出。《E大調練習曲》是一首感情溫存、深沉的哀歌，它的曲調屬於肖邦創作的最優美的曲調之一，傾注了對祖國無限愛戀的感情。《b小調練習曲》則是一首充滿了陰鬱激憤情緒的作品。它的主題緊張強烈富於戲劇性，而它的中部卻滲透著一種沉思寧靜的悲涼氣氛。在適宜於主要表現單一形象的練習曲體裁中，采用如此強烈的雙主題對比的原則以造成尖銳的戲劇性衝突，這在肖邦的練習曲中也是不多見的。《a小調練習曲》則情感嚴峻，氣勢磅礴，全曲由號角性的簡單音樂動機發展成為波瀾壯闊的巨流，把音樂推向戲劇性的悲壯的高潮，具有震撼人心的力量。肖邦的3首奏鳴曲中，在內容的深刻性和藝術的獨創性方麵最突出的是《降b小調鋼琴奏鳴曲》（1839），其中的第3樂章《葬禮進行曲》，寄托著對華沙起義中為民族解放而獻出生命的烈士的哀思，是肖邦音樂中最膾炙人口的篇章之一。夜曲是肖邦創作中最富於浪漫主義氣質的體裁。他早年創作的夜曲深受英國作曲家J.菲爾德夜曲的影響，追求音樂風格的細膩、華美和典雅秀麗，有比較濃厚的浪漫主義感傷情調。流亡巴黎後創作的夜曲在內容上愈加深刻，音樂風格也更富於個性化了。他的《c小調夜曲》（1841）完全擺脫了菲爾德的影響，主題樸實無華、嚴肅而又悲哀，音樂的發展愈來愈富於戲劇性。它標誌著肖邦已經將夜曲的創作提高到前所未有的水平，大大地挖掘了夜曲的表現潛力，使它成為一種能容納深刻社會內容的音樂體裁。肖邦的4首敘事曲全是這個時期創作的，其中有的是直接同波蘭的民族史詩和民間傳說相聯係。如《g小調敘事曲》（1835）的創作是直接受到了波蘭民族詩人密茨凱維奇的長詩《康拉德·華倫洛德》的啟示。肖邦把握了為民族獻出生命的英雄華倫洛德的深沉、嚴肅、大無畏的性格以及貫穿整個長詩的緊張的悲劇性氣氛，將它們體現在嚴整的奏鳴曲快板樂章的形式中。《F大調敘事曲》（1839）則取材於同一位詩人的民間幻奇故事詩《希維德什揚卡》。原詩描寫一個負心的少年獵人，由於背叛了愛情誓言終於受到了懲罰，被希維德什揚卡仙女拖入湖底。肖邦在這首敘事曲中沒有企圖去描繪或暗示原詩的故事情節，而是用高度概括的方法展現了兩個相互對立的情境，通過它們之間矛盾衝突的發展來揭示原詩的意境和感情氣氛。波洛奈茲舞曲是肖邦在這個時期創作中民族精神體現得最為強烈的體裁。他早年創作的波洛奈茲舞曲中的那種注重外在華麗效果的傾向被一種深刻、強烈的民族精神和樸實無華、剛毅豪放的藝術風格所代替。肖邦或從波蘭民族曆史上的英雄人物中吸取精神力量，或從緬懷祖國光榮的往昔，悲歎今日淪亡的苦難中激勵自己的民族感情，以抒發他內心的鬱憤，振奮民族精神。《A大調波洛奈茲舞曲》（1838）是一首勝利凱旋的頌歌，貫穿始終的管弦樂隊般的豐滿強大的音響，展現了古代波蘭慶祝民族勝利時光輝燦爛的情景。《c小調波洛奈茲舞曲》（1839）則是一首哀歎祖國淪亡的沉痛音詩，主題的感情基調是悲哀和壓抑的，但絲毫沒有感傷。《升f小調波洛奈茲舞曲》（1841）規模宏大，富於戲劇性，它同對波蘭曆史上的民族戰爭情景的想象有聯係。悲壯嚴峻的首尾部分同色彩暗淡、感情憂鬱的中間部分形成對照，在波洛奈茲舞曲體裁中別具一格。《降A大調波洛奈茲舞曲》（1842）是同類體裁樂曲中性格最剛毅、豪邁，氣勢最宏偉、磅礴的一首。它的主題具有果斷、剛健的節奏，熱情豪邁的旋律以及明亮的大調式和聲，體現著不屈不撓的民族英雄豪傑的形象。樂曲的中部富於鮮明的造型性，馬蹄聲同號角聲交織在一起，構成了一幅戰馬奔馳、月光劍影的古代沙場的情景。作曲家思古的幽情同現實的感情融合在一起，形成了一股洶湧澎湃的民族感情的巨流，不可抑製。
晚期（1846～1849） 這一時期肖邦的創作呈現出明顯的衰退趨勢。《幻想波洛奈茲舞曲》（1846）是這個時期的重要作品，雖然在這裏已經聽不到像《降A大調波洛奈茲舞曲》那樣高昂、豪邁的聲音，但它的那些由於對祖國、民族未來的某種憧憬而唱出的激昂慷慨的段落仍是極富於感染力的。《g小調馬祖卡舞曲》（1849）、《f小調馬祖卡舞曲》（1849）是肖邦最後的兩部作品。前者是一首親切、溫存的歌，表達了對生活的最後一點眷戀；後者在淡淡的哀愁中傾訴著對故國和親人的最後思念。
1.《夜曲》
《夜曲》為英國作曲家費爾德（1782—1837）所首創。他采用平靜的和弦伴奏下的優美旋律這種形式，表現夜的幽靜和夢幻的情調。肖邦繼承了這種形式，又極大地發展、創新了這種形式。肖邦的《夜曲》，包含了相當多樣的意境，甚至是熱情的戲劇性形象。令人驚疑的是，無論音樂多麽複雜、激動，卻仍不失“夜”的總的感覺。由於肖邦賦予了《夜曲》以新麵貌，後人都將《夜曲》看作是肖邦創作特有的標誌之一。
肖邦的《夜曲》，幾乎每一首都是那麽迷人。其中最為廣大聽眾熟悉的可能是第二號《bE大調夜曲》，它的主旋律早已深入人心：中段開始是聖詠般的和弦進行，從容而又威嚴，蘊涵著內在的力量。這力量開始是片斷的顯露，逐漸積累，顯露的片斷在增大，終於，釀成雙手八度齊奏從上往下排山倒海式的暴發，此時，真是身在“黑夜”心在“白晝”了。經過中段的暴發，“夜”再也無法平靜，當第一段再現時，同樣的曲調用了織體完全不同的伴奏，原來嚴整的節奏現在變成了惶惶不安的三連音，音樂變得哀怨、悲痛，久久不能平息。在增加了一段擴充的終止後，才勉強安靜下來，最後消失在延長音裏，可留下的沉重心緒始終沒有消失。
2.《前奏曲》
肖邦在24個大小調上寫了24首《前奏曲》。關於這些樂曲，曾有各種不同的評說。有的認為是《練習曲》的雛形，甚至認為有些是草稿，有的認為是音樂的格言，有的認為是即興式的音樂意念，類似“音樂瞬間”。有的鋼琴家將24首當作一個套曲，從頭至尾連續演奏，有的按自己的理解重新組合。的確，這些作品有長有短、情趣各異、手法多樣，從哪個角度看都是五顏六色。
我們知道肖邦生前曾不肯出版自己的某些作品，而後人將其出版後都公認是音樂的珍品。由此判斷，肖邦對正式發表自己的作品是十分嚴肅的。既然肖邦於1839年將這批《前奏曲》出版，恐怕不會是草稿。事實上，隨時間的推移，人們越來越珍愛這些《前奏曲》。下麵介紹其中常被演奏的兩首。
第15號《bD大調前奏曲》，又名《雨滴前奏曲》。這裏又遇上了別人為樂曲起名的事情。說來耐人尋味，標題音樂是浪漫主義音樂的特征之一，但是肖邦這位偉大的浪漫主義作曲家卻從不為自己的作品加上一個說明音樂內容的曲名。對於別人給他的樂曲命名，他也十分反感。可見，浪漫主義音樂，根本上在於音樂的氣質本身，不在於有名無名。肖邦反對一個具體的名稱，說明他的音樂有廣泛的概括性。所以，我們欣賞那些已被命名的樂曲時，隻能將名稱作為理解的一個媒介，一個入門的途徑，絕對不必限製自己聯想、體驗的自由。比如這首《雨滴》的得名，顯然是伴奏部中一個bA（＃G）音，幾乎從頭至尾在八分音符平穩的律動上，持續不停，恰似從屋簷上滴下的雨珠，滴滴答答不絕於耳，行板：
雨滴聲襯托出恬靜，心中升出高尚、美麗的歌。隨著雨滴聲聲，慢慢地，思緒轉向沉重，在低音區出現了小調的曲調，雨滴聲化為了宏亮的鍾聲，心情激動起來。最後又回到開頭的安靜，仍在雨滴聲中結束。
第24首《d小調前奏曲》，有人稱之為《雷雨時的祈禱》。這裏確有雷雨閃電的氣氛而“祈禱”，則絕無此事。這首作品與《革命練習曲》寫於同時，也同樣是沙皇俄國軍隊攻占華沙這一事件，在肖邦心中激起的驚濤駭浪。所以，音樂的性質與《革命練習曲》相似。所不同的，這裏隻有憤怒，“來不及”在悲哀中逗留；這裏是慷慨激昂，不屈不撓，已經沒有眼淚。左手低音從頭至尾這樣轟鳴，似沉雷，如戰鼓：
主題音調堅定、果敢，一派英姿：衝擊力直達末尾，最後三次猛擊鋼琴最低音區的主音D，以表達作曲家那義無反顧、鋼鐵般堅強的意誌。
3.《瑪祖卡舞曲》
《瑪祖卡舞曲》是肖邦另一個獨特的創作領域。在整個鋼琴音樂文獻中，提起《瑪祖卡》，首先想到的就是肖邦。其他作曲家也有《瑪祖卡》。但唯有肖邦寫了大量的、閃耀著特異光彩的《瑪祖卡》。在肖邦本人的作品中，《瑪祖卡》也很特殊。一是這批作品，最具波蘭泥土的芳香。另外，這是他較少帶有戲劇性、悲劇性成分的創作領域之一。
瑪祖卡舞，是波蘭瑪祖維亞地方的民間舞蹈。它的音樂，都是三拍子的，典型的節奏是：
此外還有庫亞維亞克舞曲和奧別列克舞曲也都是三拍子的。肖邦的《瑪祖卡舞曲》，是集合上述三種舞曲的特點創作出來的。瑪祖卡舞曲的典型節奏，在肖邦《瑪祖卡舞曲》中經常顯露，但肖邦是出神入化地應用它，遠不是刻板地重複民間節奏。旋律，肖邦是天才地吸取民間音樂的精華，按照高度專業化的藝術標準創造出來的。和聲、調式更有肖邦獨出心裁的創造。盡管如此，《瑪祖卡舞曲》的波蘭鄉土風格毫不減弱；相反，是以更高雅、更詩意的風度，婷婷玉立於鋼琴音樂的百花園之中。評論家們說，《瑪祖卡舞曲》是肖邦對故鄉、土地、人民和對人民光輝精神的生動感覺，是波蘭人民的“整個靈魂”。
由於《瑪祖卡舞曲》是這麽波蘭化的音樂，有位波蘭鋼琴家說隻有波蘭人才能彈好。然而，值得中國人自豪的一件事是，1955年在華沙舉行了第五屆肖邦國際鋼琴比賽，中國鋼琴家傅聰不但獲得了第三名，而且還得了《瑪祖卡》的最佳演奏獎。
（Op代表作品編碼，例如Op.10-3表示作品十號的第三首）
1，圓舞曲(華爾滋) （Waltzes）
蕭邦著名的圓舞曲，相信小朋友一定聽過！這些圓舞曲是蕭邦在維也納時，運用維也納華爾滋三拍的節奏，加上優美的曲調與抒情性，同時也發輝高度的鋼琴技巧，因此蕭邦的圓舞曲適合聆賞與演奏，比較不適合跳舞喔！
◎第1號圓舞曲降E大調Op. 18
◎第3號華麗圓舞曲a小調Op. 34-1
◎第6號圓舞曲降D大調「小狗」Op. 64-1
小狗圓舞曲是描述喬治桑的小狗追逐自己的尾巴的一首曲子，因為曲子很短，因此也被稱為「小圓舞曲」(Minute)
◎第7號圓舞曲升c小調Op. 64-2
◎第8號圓舞曲降A大調Op. 64-3
◎第9號圓舞曲降A大調Op. 69-1
◎第10號圓舞曲b小調Op. 69-2
◎第14號圓舞曲e小調Op.Posth
2，鋼琴協奏曲(Piano Concertos)
蕭邦不太喜歡管弦樂器，所以他的鋼琴協奏曲（以鋼琴為主，管弦樂搭配的曲子）也隻有兩首而已。第二號協奏曲的第二樂章就是寫給初戀情人的優美「情書」，大家可以聽聽看唷！
◎第2號鋼琴協奏曲f小調Op.21第一樂章
◎第2號鋼琴協奏曲f小調Op.21第二樂章
◎第2號鋼琴協奏曲f小調Op.21第三樂章
3，夜曲(Noctunes)
夜曲是英鋼琴師兼作曲家菲爾德首創的曲式，以優美的旋律為主。蕭邦受他的影響，第一首夜曲也已旋律為主，但後來的夜曲則加上更豐富的內容，不單是優美的旋律而已，所以是蕭邦獨特風格的夜曲。
◎第1號夜曲降b小調Op.9-1
◎第2號夜曲降E大調Op.9-2
4，練習曲(Etudes)
學鋼琴的人，一定會彈到蕭邦的練習曲！這些曲子運用了高度的鋼琴技巧，包括快速的八度音程、還有三或六度的連續平行等等。不過這些練習曲並不隻是教學用的，而是同時兼具藝術性，演奏者必須兼顧技巧、節奏、旋律、和聲還有音樂的情緒表現，所以還是很到受樂迷的喜愛。
◎第3號練習曲E大調「離別」 Op.10-3
這首練習曲是蕭邦離開波蘭前往巴黎時的創作，離開祖國與思念故鄉的感情都表露無遺。
◎第5號練習曲降G小調「黑鍵」Black Key Op10No.5
◎第12號練習曲c小調「革命」Revolutionary Op.10-12
這首是蕭邦在聽到波蘭遭俄國攻占時所創作的曲子。
5，前奏曲(Preludes) Op.28
作品28的二十四首前奏曲集是蕭邦晚年為了籌措療養的旅費而創作的曲子。
◎第4號前奏曲e小調「窒息」Suffocation
◎第11號前奏曲B大調「蜻蜓」Dragon Fly
◎第15號前奏曲降D大調「雨滴」Raindrop
◎這首前奏曲左手規律的節奏像雨滴的聲音，因此得名。
◎第23號前奏曲F大調「快樂之船」Pleasure Boat
◎第24號前奏曲降D大調「暴風雨」The Storm
6，波蘭舞曲(Polonaises)
波蘭舞曲是以宮廷為中心，華麗而壯大的民族舞曲。蕭邦七歲時就創作了兩首波蘭舞曲（G小調與降B大調），而後來的創作不但有舞曲，還有波蘭語的詩喔！
◎第三號波蘭舞曲A大調「軍隊」MilitaryOp.40-1
象征波蘭旗士精神的宏偉。
◎第六號波蘭舞曲降A大調「英雄」HeroicOp.53
7，馬厝卡舞曲(Mazurkas)
馬厝卡舞曲是波蘭東普魯士與俄國之間一帶，屬於農民的民族舞曲，熱愛祖國的蕭邦創作了55首馬厝卡舞曲，將思鄉的情感轉化為豐富的旋律。
第五號馬厝卡舞曲降B大調Op.7-1
8，奏鳴曲(Sonatas)
蕭邦不喜歡被固定的奏鳴曲曲式所拘束，所以他的創作當中隻有二首奏鳴曲而已。其中第二號的第三樂章的「送葬」進行曲，是西方葬禮中的送葬曲。
◎第二號奏鳴曲降b小調Op.35第三樂章「送葬」
（Marche Funebre）
9，其他名曲
以下曲子也是蕭邦的名曲：
◎幻想即興曲升c小調Fantaisie-ImpromptuOp.66
◎船歌升F大調BarcarolleOp.60
◎第4號敘事曲f小調BalladeOp.52-4
肖邦音樂的高度思想價值在於它反映了19世紀30～40年代歐洲資產階級民族運動總潮流的一個側麵，喊出了受壓迫受奴役的波蘭民族憤怒、反抗的聲音。肖邦的音樂具有濃厚的波蘭民族風格。他對民族民間音樂的態度非常嚴肅，反對獵奇，同時又不被它所束縛，總是努力體會它的特質加以重新創造。這樣，他既提高了民間音樂體裁的藝術水平，又保持了它純淨的風格，從不喪失其鮮明的民族民間特色。他對當時西歐在音樂創作手段方麵獲得的經驗和成果有深刻的了解和掌握，並將它作為自己創作的起點，從而使自己的音樂具有同古典傳統有深刻聯係的嚴謹完整的藝術形式。但是肖邦又從來不受傳統的束縛，敢於大膽突破傳統，進行創新。這特別表現在他深入地挖掘和豐富了諸如前奏曲、練習曲、敘事曲、夜曲、即興曲、諧謔曲等一係列音樂體裁的潛在的藝術表現力，賦予它們以新的社會內容。他的旋律有高度的感情表現力，極富於個性，他的和聲語言新穎大膽，鋼琴織體細膩而富於色彩。這一切因素融合在一起，形成了一種新穎的獨特的“肖邦風格”，為歐洲音樂的曆史發展做出了貢獻。
