Frédérick Chopin is widely acknowledged as the greatest of Polish composers and was also an outstanding pianist.
He was born in 1810, in central Poland, to a French father and Polish mother.

Chopin started his musical education in 1816; he composed his first work in 1817 and first appeared on stage in 1818. He began his musical studies with Joseph Elsner and, after 1826, at the Music School in Warsaw. In 1830 he left Poland for France and lived the rest of his life in Paris where he died of tuberculosis in 1849.

Chopin was companion to novelist George Sand for ten years, but she left him when he developed tuberculosis, and he died soon after. Among his friends were Franz Liszt and Vincenzo Bellini, beside whom he is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.

The great majority of Chopin's compositions were written for the piano. They are technically demanding, but emphasize nuance and expressive depth. Chopin invented musical forms such as the instrumental ballade, and made major innovations in the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, etude, impromptu and prelude. Of his four scherzi this is the sunniest and most capricious, the other three being rather dark, impassioned and brooding documents.

Chopin
Excerpt from Scherzo No 4 Op 54 in E
BBC Radio 3 recital