Frederic Chopin is considered one of the leading piano composers of the romantic period. Besides Schoenberg, he is my other favorite composer. The first song I heard by him was his Funeral March in B flat minor. Most of the songs I’ve heard by him I like, among those are Fantasie Impromptu, the Revolutionary Etude in C minor, and the mysterious sounding Nocturne No. 1 in B flat minor. Chopin was born on March 1, 1810, in Poland. He started playing the piano at an early age and was considered a child prodigy. He even gained the reputation as a “second Mozart.” In 1816, he received his first professional violin lessons from Wojciech Zywny. From 1823 to 1826 Chopin attended the Warsaw Lyceum, and in 1826 he began studying music theory and composition with the composer Jozef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory. By 1831 he had already produced a body of important compositions. At age 20 he left to live in Paris, and there he became a performer and a teacher. While in Paris, he met some of the leading pianists of his day, including Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Ferdinand Hiller, and Franz Liszt. In 1835 he had so severe a bronchial attack, that some newspapers even reported him dead. Chopin secretly got engaged in 1836 to a 17 year old Polish girl named Maria Wodzinska, but it was later called off by her parents. That same year, he also met the writer Georg Sand. At first Chopin did not find her attractive, but by 1837 they were believed to be having an affair. By 1845 they were having relationship problems, and Frederic had another health deterioration. Their relationship finally came to an end in 1847, when Georg Sand suspected that Frederic had fallen in love with her daughter, Solange. Chopin gave his last concert in Paris in 1848. By 1849 he was so ill that he could not teach or perform. He died at his house, where his sister was nursing him, on October 17.