Fryderyk Chopin is considered the greatest Polish composer after emerging from the 19th century Romantic period with innovative piano solos which display technical difficulty and inventive form.

Fryderyk Francisk Chopin was born in the village of Zelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw where Chopin's father, a Polonized Frenchman, served as the tutor of Count Skarbek. Despite his French heritage, Chopin was raised as a Pole along with his three sisters, Ludwika, Izabela and Emilia. "Little Chopin," as he was referred to in the Warsaw newspapers, was hailed a child prodigy and often compared to Mozart. Chopin's musical talents were fostered by Wojciech Zywny and Wilhelm Würfel of the Warsaw Conservatory. Although Chopin attended the Warsaw School of Music, he did not take any piano courses until the head of the school, composer Jozef Elsner, recognized his talents and deemed his pupil a "musical genius" upon his graduation in 1829.

Chopin's piano compositions expanded beyond the realm in Warsaw after he played Mozart's Variations along with his own improvisations at a Vienna performance and Viennese publisher Tobias Haslinger published Chopin's Variations on a theme from Mozart in 1830. Chopin devoted himself to composition upon his return to Warsaw, producing his first nocturne as well as etudes, waltzes, mazurkas, two Concertos- F minor and E minor and songs to words by Stefan Witwicki. In the fall of 1830 Chopin was in Vienna when he learned of the uprising in Warsaw that would lead to the Russo-Polish War; the composer was distraught but remained in Vienna and devoted himself to music, later saying that his only response to the upheaval in his home country was through his music. Chopin joined a group of exiled countrymen in Paris and became part of the local music milieu including Schumann and Friedrich Kalkbrenner. Chopin's compositions were widely distributed during this time and he was considered among the great composers of his era including Kalkbrenner, Thalberg, Herz and Liszt, despite his immense dislike of public performances.