The First Printed Work

Fryderyk Chopin listened to music from an early age. His father played the flute, his mother sang, and his older sister Ludwika played the piano. The future genius quickly picked up the artistic atmosphere of his home.
 

It was probably with Ludwika that Fryderyk took his first music lessons. Little Chopin did not stop at performing exercises, etudes and works written by other composers. Soon, he began to wish to create his own compositions.
 

However, melodic invention is not enough. In order to compose a piece, Fryderyk also needed knowledge of musical forms, harmony and counterpoint, but most of all… musical notation.
 

Fortunately, he could count on the support of those who were more privy to the mysteries of music. He was helped not only by Ludwika, but also by Wojciech Żywny, the first teacher of the future outstanding composer.
 

In 1817, Fryderyk wrote the Polonaise in G minor, which –most likely thanks to his father's efforts– was issued at the printing house run by Józef Cybulski, who also published works by Chopin's future teacher, Józef Elsner. 
 

It was long before Chopin was born that the polonaise had been an evolving genre. The most famous Polish national dance gained recognition at European monarchs' courts as early as in the Baroque era. Pieces signed as "polonaises" were written by such geniuses as Bach.

In the piece, young Chopin used tricks known from the then fashionable repertoire, for example, transferring the melody to the bass or crossing the hands to impress the audience. The piece got a press review which contained an unintentional mistake...

the composer of this Polish dance, a young man of eight years of age [the mistake was made here] with [...] a real musical genius: not only does he play out the most difficult pieces on the piano with the greatest ease and extraordinary taste, but he is already a composer.

Chopin was then seven, not eight, but we can forgive this minor mistake to an anonymous reviewer who noticed the ambitious boy's extraordinary talent.

Today we can only suppose how much Countess Wiktoria Skarbek, to whom the seven-year-old Chopin dedicated his first work in print, was touched.