The world celebrates Chopin 200 years after his birth

Chopin's piano

PARIS - The world of music has set the year 2010 under the sign of Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), who had two countries (Poland and France) but a single kingdom: the piano, he remains the master of the most beloved specialists and public, 200 years after his birth.

•    Chopin is not the only composer whose birthday is celebrated, but his would eclipse that of the German Robert Schumann, another figure of the "Generation 1810".
  
     Institutions and the music industry did not wait for the anniversary date (March 1, according to the composer and his family, February 22 by the act of baptism) to launch hundreds of initiatives.
  
     Festivals, concerts, audiovisual events, exhibitions and publications of books and boxes of records will succeed in honour of this subtle composer, pianist and educator.
  
     Frédéric Chopin was born from a Polish mother and a French father in Zelazowa Wola, in the heart of Poland that this will mark both his music (Polonaises, Mazurkas) happy nostalgia.
  
     He left Warsaw in 1830, occupied by the Russians, to Vienna and France, where he will attend the arts community (the composer Vincenzo Bellini, the painter Eugène Delacroix) and compose the bulk of his work, between Paris and the rural home of his muse George Sand in Nohant in the center of France.
  
     Died October 17, 1849, Chopin rests in the Parisian cemetery of Pere-Lachaise cemetery - the grave is constantly flowered - except his heart, preserved in the Holy Cross church in Warsaw, as a sign of its double Franco-Polish belonging.
  
     The two countries also have not skimped on ways to honour their great musicians, each bringing up a committee to encourage and unite efforts.
  
     The Polish Commissioner for the year Chopin 2010, Waldemar Dabrowski, a former culture minister, made no secret that the festivities would provide "the greatest campaign of Poland today. Still "greater than the organization of the Euro 2012 football championship in Poland, which lasts only a few weeks," he said.
  
     In France, too, "which is fond of dates, the bicentenary of composer known also raises interest," assures the French celebrations Commissioner, Alain Duault.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.