Frederic Chopin

Chopin was a pretty good guy. He and his relatives said he was born on March 1, 1810, but baptismal records list it as February 22. Either the Polish Register of People messed up, or Chopin's parents did. Anyway, Chopin got a quick start at being amazing. At age 7, he published two polonaises (who knows what those are...) People read about him in the Warsaw papers, and soon enough he was the belle of the ball.


Somebody at the Polish Register of People probably got fired for this.

In 1816, Wojciech Zwyny, a Bohemian, began honing Chopin's already sizzlin' skills. In 1822, Chopin was too hot to handle, and he switched to Wilhelm Wurfel of the Warsaw Conservatory. After serious success in public performances, Chopin moved to Paris, where he became pal to Bellini, Berlioz, Delacroix, Liszt, and Schumann. Chopin gave very critical reviews to their works, thus inventing making fun of people you like.

One would think that Chopin's musical prowess would have gotten him all the ladies (guys back then didn't play guitar). This assumption is partly correct. A secret engagement to some Polish girl in 1936 fell through. Then, at a high-class-type party, he met novelist George Sand. Letters between the couple show that Chopin was probably asexual like Godzilla, only couldn't lay eggs. One time, while Sand and Chopin were inexplicably staying in a run-down monastery, he complained about how hard it was to get a good piano from Paris up the monastery's hill. This was probably because he pulled it from the capitol unaided.


"Godzilla"? More like "Chopinzilla"!

One day, like most people, Chopin died. He had taphephobia (probably from reading too many Poe stories), so they gave him an autopsy before burial in respect for his request. At his funeral, they sang Mozart's Requiem. Although his body is buried in Paris, his heart is enshrined somewhere in Warsaw, whose airport is named for it. Did I mention that he was Polish?

Interestingly enough, Chopin said he hated Romanticism, but he's now held to be one of the movement's greatest contributors. Funny how those sorts of things work out.

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