Were Chopin, Schubert and Tchaikovsky attracted to men? Their letters suggest they were, but as Nico de Napoli explains, generations of archivists, musicologists and biographers have systematically overlooked, fudged and hidden the evidence.

A fridge magnet from Żelazowa Wola, Chopin’s birthplace, based on Agata Dudek’s poster entered into a competition commemorating the centenary of Chopin’s birth.

Frédéric Chopin isn’t merely admired in Poland. Warsaw’s main airport is named after him and so are the music schools in nearly every Polish city of any size. He is venerated at a level usually reserved for saints and statesmen, alongside national figures such as painter Jan Matejko, poet Adam Mickiewicz, the father of Polish national opera Stanisław Moniuszko, Prince Józef Poniatowski, Nobel laureate...