The 1830s have been called "the decade of the piano" because during that period the piano and the music written for it played a dominant role in European musical culture. The piano had, of course, already been popular for more than half a century, but by the third decade of the nineteenth century, changes in the instrument and its audience transformed the piano's role in musical life. As the Industrial Revolution hit its stride, piano manufacturers developed methods for building many more pianos than had previously been feasible, and at lower cost. Pianos ceased to be the exclusive province of the wealthy; an expanding middle class could also aspire to own them and make music at home. Thousands of amateur pianists began to take lessons, buy printed music, and attend concerts. Virtuosos like Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Sigismund Thalberg, and Franz Liszt became the first musical superstars, touring Europe and astonishing audiences with music they had composed to display their piano technique.

Frederick Chopin was born in a small village named Zelazowa Wola located in Poland on March 1st, 1810. His passionate love of music showed itself at an early age. There are stories, for instance, of h

On his return from Majorca in the spring of 1839, and following convalescence in Marseilles, Chopin, still greatly weakened, moved to George Sand's manor house in Nohant, in central France. Here, he was to spend long vacations up to 1846, with the exception of 1840, returning to Paris only for the winters. This was the happiest, and the most productive, period in his life after he left his family home. The majority of his most outstanding and profound works were composed in Nohant. In Paris, the composer and writer were treated as a married couple, although they were never married.

Maria Wodzinski, the sister of three brothers of whom Chopin was close friends of, was engaged to Chopin shortly after a return to Warsaw Chopin had made. She had shown considerable musical and artistic talent, which resulted in Chopin falling in love with her and wanting to create a family home of his own in exile. The following year, during a holiday spent together with the seventeen-year-old Maria and her mother in Marienbad (modern day Marianske Lazne in the Czech Republic), and then in Dresden, he proposed and was accepted on the condition that he would take better care of his health. The engagement was unofficial, and did not end in marriage.

Chopin's reputation as a composer was principally that of a miniaturist who achieved great melodic and harmonic richness within brief and simple musical forms. Once firmly established in Paris, however, Chopin began to experiment with more complex musical structures, most notably in his scherzos, ballades, and polonaises. As titles for independent piano pieces, scherzo (Italian for "joke") and ballade (usually a lyrical vocal work) had no specific meaning for nineteenth-century audiences, so Chopin was free to define these genres himself.

Upon his return to Warsaw, Chopin, already free from student duties, devoted himself to composition and wrote, among other pieces, two Concertos for piano and orchestra: in F minor and E minor. The first concerto was inspired to a considerable extent by the composer's feelings towards Konstancja Gladkowska, who studied singing at the Conservatory. This was also the period of the first nocturne, etudes, waltzes, mazurkas, and songs to words by Stefan Witwicki. During the last months prior to his planned longer stay abroad, Chopin gave a number of public performances, mainly in the National Theatre in Warsaw where the premiere of both concertos took place.

¨ Orga, Ates. Chopin: His Life and Times. Tunbridge Wells: Midas Books, 1976.

¨ Bachelder, Brian. "The Unofficial Frederic Chopin Homepage." . March 2000.

In the autumn of 1826, Chopin began studying the theory of music, figured bass, and

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