Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin was born near Warsaw, Poland, to a French father who taught French and a Polish mother. He was a child prodigy who performed in public at seven and published his first polonaise the same year. He studied at the Warsaw Conservatory and in 1830 left Poland to make his career abroad. Weeks later, Poland rose against Russian rule, and the uprising was crushed; Chopin never returned home. He settled in Paris in 1831, where he gave few public concerts but became famous through private performances in salons, teaching and publishing. Nearly all his music is for solo piano: nocturnes, études, preludes, ballades, waltzes, and mazurkas and polonaises drawn from Polish dances. He developed new ways of using the piano's sound, with singing melodies and rich harmonies. From 1838 to 1847 he had a relationship with the novelist George Sand and spent summers at her country house at Nohant, where he wrote many of his finest works. He suffered for years from a lung illness, probably tuberculosis. He died in Paris in 1849 at thirty-nine. At his request, his heart was taken back to Warsaw.

Faith: Baptized Catholic; his adult beliefs are not well documented. Source: Wikipedia