Waltz in A minor, Op. 34, No. 2

Chopin’s third waltz has been called a “piece full of melancholy, gloom and grief, expressed in mournful simplicity.”
Though, according to the Vancouver Chopin Society,
The composer Stephen Heller related that Chopin called this slow (Lento) waltz his favorite. When Heller told the Pole that he, too, loved it best, Chopin immediately invited him for lunch [...]

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Variations in A Major, “Souvenir de Paganini” KK 1203

This rare bit of Chopiniana was supposedly written after violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini came through Warsaw in the summer of 1829, a concert we know that Chopin attended. A month later he graduated from the Higher School of Music in Warsaw, where a teacher wrote, “Chopin, Fryderyk: third-year student, amazing capabilities, musical genius.”

 

 
 

CLICK ON THE [...]

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Mazurka in A minor, Op. 68 No. 2

The Mazurkas, like the Polonaises, are the compositions closest to Chopin’s Polish roots. In fact, many Chopin scholars say the Mazurkas are Chopin at his most personal, experimental, and confessional: “In his Mazurkas, you get to know the very soul of Poland and Chopin never forgot his home land or the poor farmers singing [...]

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Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9, No. 2 (w/additional cadenzas)

Arthur Greene:
“Today’s entry takes us into far more familiar Chopin territory. The Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9 No. 2 comes from around 1830, -after Chopin had left Warsaw forever. But the version I’m playing here has a bit of a twist. There are some scores of Chopin’s [...]

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Three Ecossaises, Op. 72

 
Arthur Greene:
“In Warsaw, when Chopin was growing up, the social scene was extremely active, and anyone who wasn’t sick or crippled would go to dance parties almost every night. And the star of these events was usually Chopin, because he was both a great dancer himself – and he played for all of the [...]

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Rondo in C minor, Op. 1 – Chopin’s First Published Piece

 

Arthur Greene:
By the time he was 15, Chopin had developed has piano technique considerably, and he was writing pieces that were firmly in the virtuoso tradition of the early Romantic period. Now, the general aesthetic at the time was not particularly deep or profound — it was more about varied and pretty effects. [...]

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Barcarolle in F-sharp minor, Op. 60

 
This is one of the last pieces that Chopin played in public. The excellent notes from the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s website sets the stage:
When in 1846 Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) completed the Barcarolle, the last work of its relatively large size to come from his pen, [...]

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Chopin’s First Piece

“The very first piece on the program is a piece that Chopin wrote when he was seven years old. It’s very typical of the music that was being written at that time in Warsaw…a little Polonaise…with even a little virtuosic flourish in it. But Chopin was too young to write the notes down [...]

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What does the “KK” Mean?

As you look through the entries and listings of Chopin’s keyboard works on these pages, you may run into this funny “KK” designation, particularly in the early recitals.   It stands for the Kobylanska Katalog, and it’s assigned to works by Chopin that don’t have opus numbers.    It’s named after Polish musicologist (and former Curator of [...]

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Welcome to the Chopin Project!

Experience the musical life of Fryderyk Chopin through his complete works for solo piano: from his earliest surviving work, a polonaise written at age 7, through his last mazurka penned in 1849.

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