Poor Chopin. A genius with impeccable musical taste, capable of the greatest finesse and beautifully singing melodies on the piano, Chopin lived his life battling against Tuberculosis. It's wild to think that with modern medicine, he would have lived a fuller and much more productive life. What if he died at 70 instead of 39, and produced double the number of pieces he did? His works are already lauded as the the top echelon of piano music, which is easy to hear in Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA

If Beethoven's or Bach's late periods are any indication, brilliant composers can continue innovating and moving forward well into their 50's and beyond. Such a shame that Chopin and Schubert died such premature deaths, though one could argue it's lucky they did indeed live long enough to give us compositions.