Fryderyk Chopin

This is the only known photograph of Fryderyk (Frédéric) Chopin.  It was taken by Louis-Auguste Bisson in 1849, the year Chopin died.

A brilliant pianist, even as a child, Chopin (1810-1849) was born in Żelazowa Wola, a village in the Duchy of Warsaw.  Fryderyk's mother was Polish; his father was a Frenchman, living in Poland.  The pianist moved to Paris when he was twenty.

Known as one of the world's great composers, Chopin died young - at age 39.  Suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, he continued to perform but had to abandon lesson-giving. 

Before he died, in Paris, he gave instructions that his heart should be removed from his body.  He had, apparently, a fear of being buried alive. 

His heart, now in Warsaw, is safely sealed within a pillar of the rebuilt Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmieście - a place virtually destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.