composer was able to catch his breath again. He asked Delfina Potocka to playsonatas and prayed and called out to God, though only a few days earlier he had refused confession, saying that he did not believe in it. He complained that George Sand had promised that he "would die in her arms." He asked for a piece of paper and wrote: "Comme cette terre m"йtouffera, je vous conjure de faire ouvrir mon corps pour [que] je ne sois pas enterrй vif." ("As this earth will suffocate me, I implore you to have my body opened so that I will not be buried alive.")^[60] Chopin"s death mask, by Clйsinger (photos:Jack Gibbons)

On 17 October, after midnight, the physician leaned over him and asked whether he was suffering greatly. "Not any more," Chopin replied.^[60] He died a few minutes before two o"clock in the morning.^[61]

Chopin"s disease and the cause of his death remained unclear and consequently have become a matter of medical argument. His death certificate stated the cause as tuberculosis. In 2008 an alternative cause of Chopin"s death would be proposed: cystic fibrosis.^[62][63] However, it can well be argued that survival with cystic fibrosis in the 19th century until the age of 39 was virtually impossible, without modern respiratory therapy and medical support.^[64] A full review of the possible causes of Chopin"s long illness was published in 2011.^[65] Given the contextual facts, it is much more likely that Chopin suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis.^[66]

Many people who had not been present at Chopin"s death would later claim to have been. "Being present at Chopin"s death," writes Tad Szulc, "seemed to grant one historical and social cachet."^[67] Those actually around his bed appear to have included his sister Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Solange and Auguste Clйsinger (George Sand"s daughter and son-in-law), Chopin"s friend and former pupil Adolf Gutmann, his friend Thomas Albrecht, and his confidant, Polish Catholic priest Father Aleksander Jełowicki.^[61]

Later that morning, Clйsinger made Chopin"s death mask and a cast of his left hand, to which Chopin had given prominence in his compositions. Before the funeral, pursuant to his dying wish, his heart was removed. It was preserved in alcohol (perhaps brandy) to be returned to his homeland, as he had requested.^[62] His sister smuggled it in an urn to Warsaw, where it was later sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmieście, beneath an epitaph sculpted byLeonard Marconi, bearing an inscription from Matthew VI:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Chopin"s heart has reposed there – except for a period during World War II, when it was removed for safekeeping – within the church that was rebuilt after its virtual destruction during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The church stands only a short distance from Chopin"s last Polish residence, the Krasiński Palace at Krakowskie Przedmieście 5.

[edit]Funeral Chopin"s grave monument, byClйsinger. Euterpe weeps over broken lyre.

The funeral, to be held at the Church of the Madeleine in Paris, was delayed almost two weeks, until 30 October, by the extensiveness of the elaborate organisation. The delay before the funeral enabled a number of people to travel from London, Berlin and Vienna who would not normally have been able to attend.^[68] Many of the notable names in the French literary and artistic world were invited, but most of the musical fraternity were curiously overlooked.^[68]

It was quickly decided that Mozart"s Requiem would be sung. This was said to have been Chopin"s own wish, but his friend Gutmann denied Chopin ever asked for it, and attributed this romantic fancy to journalistic licence. A great deal about Chopin was written in the Parisian press between the death and the funeral, some of it simply made up, and some unfounded stories subsequently made their way into reference books as fact.^[68] The Requiem has major parts for female voices, but the Church of the Madeleine had never permitted female singers in its choir. The Church was nevertheless happy to assist, on condition that the female singers remain behind a black velvet curtain. The soloists in the Requiem were: the soprano Jeanne-Anais Castellan;^[68] the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, Chopin"s and George Sand"s friend;^[69] the tenor Alexis Dupont;^[68] and the bass Luigi Lablache, who had also sung the Requiem at the funerals of Haydn and Beethoven, and had also sung at Bellini"s funeral. Also played were Chopin"sPrйludes No. 4 in E minor and No. 6 in B minor. The organist was Franz Liszt.^{[citation needed]}

The funeral was attended by nearly three thousand people, but George Sand was not among them.

The funeral procession traversed the considerable distance from the church, in the center of town, adjacent to the Opera, toPиre Lachaise Cemetery at the city"s eastern edge, where he had expressed a wish to be buried. It was led by the dean of the Polish Great Emigration, the aged Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski; immediately after the casket, which was borne by shifts of artists (including Eugиne Delacroix, cellist Auguste Franchomme and pianist Camille Pleyel), walked Chopin"s sisterLudwika.^[60]

At the graveside, the Funeral March from his Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, was played, in Napolйon Henri Reber"s instrumentation^[70] (although Giacomo Meyerbeer, who was in attendance, later expressed disappointment that he had not been invited to arrange the work).^[68]

Chopin"s tombstone, featuring the muse of music, Euterpe, weeping over a broken lyre, was designed and sculpted by Auguste Clйsinger. The expenses of the funeral and monument, in the amount of five thousand francs, were covered by Jane Stirling, who also paid for Chopin"s sister"s return to Warsaw.^[60] Jane Stirling wore black mourning dresses for a long time thereafter (some sources say for the rest of her life).

Chopin"s grave attracts numerous visitors and is consistently decorated with flowers, even in winter.

[edit]Memorials Chopin statue, Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park

In 1909, to celebrate Chopin"s centenary, the Russian composer Sergei Lyapunov wrote a "symphonic poem in memory of Chopin", titled Zhelazova Vola, Op. 37 (Russian: Жeлaзoвa Вoлa), a reference to Chopin"s birthplace.^[71]

In 1926 a bronze statue of Chopin, designed by sculptor Wacław Szymanowskiin 1907, was erected in the upper part of Warsaw"s Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park, adjacent to Ujazdуw Avenue (Aleje Ujazdowskie). The statue was originally to have been installed in 1910, on the centenary of Chopin"s birth, but its execution was delayed by controversy about the design, then by the outbreak of World War I.

On 31 May 1940, during the German occupation of Poland in World War II, the statue was destroyed by the Nazis.^{[citation needed]} It was reconstructed after the war, in 1958. Since 1959, free piano recitals of Chopin"s compositions have been performed at the statue"s base on summer Sunday afternoons. The stylized willow over Chopin"s seated figure echoes a pianist"s hand and fingers. Until 2007, the statue was the world"s tallest monument to Chopin.

Pillar in Warsaw"s Holy Cross Church. Within it (bottom) is an urn with Chopin"s heart.

A 1:1-scale replica of Szymanowski"s Art Nouveau statue is found in Warsaw"s sister city ofHamamatsu, Japan. There are also preliminary plans to erect another replica along Chicago"s lakefront in addition to a different sculpture commemorating the artist in Chopin Park for the 200th anniversary of Chopin"s birth.

A bronze bust memorializing Chopin stands at Symphony Circle outside Kleinhans Music Hallin Buffalo, New York.

There are numerous other monuments to Chopin around the world. The most recent, by a small margin taller than the Warsaw statue, is a modernistic bronze sculpture by Lu Pin [4] [5] in Shanghai, China, that was unveiled on 3 March 2007.

The world"s oldest monographic music competition, the International Chopin Piano Competition, founded in 1927, is held every five years in Warsaw.

Established in 1954, the Fryderyk Chopin Museum is housed in Warsaw"s Ostrogski Palace, seat of the Fryderyk Chopin Society. Refurbished for the 200th anniversary (2010) of Chopin"s birth, the Fryderyk Chopin Museum is the most modern museum in Poland.

Periodically the Grand prix du disque de F. Chopin is awarded for notable Chopin recordings, both remastered and newly recorded work.

Named for the composer are the largest Polish music conservatory, the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw; Warsaw Chopin Airport; the Chopin crater on Mercury; and asteroid 3784 Chopin.

For the 2010 bicentennial of Fryderyk Chopin"s birth, fourteen "Chopin"s Warsaw" ("Warszawa Chopina") benches were placed in Warsaw near Chopin landmarks such as his last Warsaw residence (the Krasiński a.k.a. Czapski Palace), Warsaw"s Carmelite Church where he played organ as a boy, and the Wessel Palace where in 1830 he boarded astagecoach bound for Vienna. Pressing a button on a "Chopin"s Warsaw" bench makes it play a few bars of a Chopin composition.^[72]

[edit]Music Main articles: List of compositions by Frйdйric Chopin by genre and List of compositions by Frйdйric Chopin by opus number "Chopin"s Warsaw" bench (foreground), one of 14 created for 2010 bicentennial of Chopin"s birth. The benches stand near Chopin landmarks. Pressing a button makes the bench play a few bars of a Chopin composition.

The great majority of Chopin"s compositions were written for the piano as solo instrument; all of his extant works feature the piano in one way or another. Chopin, according to Arthur Hedley, "had the rare gift of a very personal melody, expressive of heart-felt emotion, and his music is penetrated by a poetic feeling that has an almost universal appeal.... Present-day evaluation places him among the immortals of music by reason of his insight into the secret places of the heart and because of his awareness of the magical new sonorities to be drawn from the piano."^[40]

It is difficult to characterise Chopin"s oeuvre briefly. Robert Schumann, speaking of Chopin"s Sonata in B-flat minor, wrote that "he alone begins and ends a work like this: with dissonances, through dissonances, and in dissonances", and in Chopin"s music he discerned "cannon concealed amid blossoms". Franz Liszt, in the opening of his biography about Chopin (Life of Chopin), termed him a "gentle, harmonious genius". Thus disparate have been the views on Chopin"s music. The first systematic, if imperfect, study of Chopin"s style came in F. P. Laurencin"s 1861 Die Harmonik der Neuzeit. Laurencin concluded that "Chopin is one of the most brilliant exceptional natures that have ever stridden onto the stage of history and life, he is one who can never be exhausted nor stand before a void. Chopin is the musical progone^[73] of all progones until now."^[74]

According to Tad Szulc, though technically demanding,^[75] Chopin"s works emphasize nuance and expressive depth rather than sheer virtuosity.