The Chopin Nocturnes have a power to move the night.   The Chopin "Revolutionary Étude" had the power to move a nation.   Frederic Chopin was a poet, a patriot, and a romantic and his piano compositions were capable of reflecting great tranquility, inexpressible melancholy, as well as rage and fierce indignation.

Chopin was born in Poland, the son of a French father and Polish mother.   In his twenties he adopted Paris as his home, although he always remained the strongest of Polish nationalists, almost militant in his passions.   In Paris, Chopin began his liaison with George Sand and a colorful circle of literary and artistic friends the likes of Victor Hugo, Liszt, Balzac, and Dumas.   Chopin's musical genius opened for him the best circles of Polish society and his compositions include a great many mazurkas, ballades, waltzes and polonaises, which express the national character of Poland.

Chopin preferred the minor key and in beauty of expression and harmony he remains the unrivaled master of the tender tones.   The last eleven years of Chopin's life were frail and melancholy.   He died in Paris, of consumption (tuberculosis) at the age of 39.   Some of Chopin's most well-known compositions include Fantaisie-Impromptu, The Complete Nocturnes; Berceuse; Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-Minor; Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor ("Funeral March"); Polonaise in A Flat, Opus 53; Polonaise in A, Opus 40, #1; Mazurkas #7 and #33, Etude #10, Waltzes # 18 and 64, and Prelude #28.