the composer's city
Chopin's Warsaw: the years before Paris
Where Chopin grew up, studied and wrote his first music before he left at twenty.
Reserve seats for the Chopin recital ↗Chopin in Warsaw, in order
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1810 | Born at Żelazowa Wola; the family moves to Warsaw that October |
| By age seven | Giving public concerts; two polonaises composed in 1817 |
| 1816 to 1821 | First professional teacher, Wojciech Żywny |
| 1823 to 1826 | Pupil at the Warsaw Lyceum |
| 1826 to 1829 | Three years at the Warsaw Conservatory under Józef Elsner |
| Age 20 | Leaves Poland; settles in Paris a year later |
Born outside the city
Chopin was born at Żelazowa Wola, 46 kilometres west of Warsaw. Six months later, in October 1810, his family moved into the city, where his father had a post teaching French at the Warsaw Lyceum.
A child at the piano
His first professional teacher was the Czech-born pianist Wojciech Żywny, from 1816 to 1821. By seven he was giving public concerts, and in 1817 he composed two polonaises.
The Lyceum and the Conservatory
He attended the Warsaw Lyceum from 1823 and in 1826 began a three-year course under Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory. His final report in July 1829 called him an exceptional talent and a musical genius.
Folk music in the countryside
On holidays in 1824 and 1825 at Szafarnia, Chopin met Polish rural folk music for the first time. Its dances stayed with him, and the polonaise and the mazurka run through his music.
Leaving at twenty
Chopin left Poland aged twenty and settled in Paris at twenty-one. He lived mostly in Paris from then on and gave only about thirty public concerts, preferring salons.
The heart comes home
He died in Paris in 1849. As he had asked, his sister Ludwika took his heart back to Poland in 1850, and it is preserved in a pillar of Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.