Chopin: Poet of the Piano

In the pantheon of the piano, the name of Frédéric Chopin, born Fryderyk in Poland before settling in France halfway through his short life (he died at 39), may be the most iconic of them all. He wrote no string quartets, symphonies, or operas, and he was less prolific than some of his illustrious forebears and contemporaries—but he left behind what is perhaps the greatest collection of works ever composed for the piano, a corpus that tests the limits of technique and celebrates a previously unheard capacity for tone color, atmosphere, and emotion. Celebrate the poet of the piano and all of his masterfully evoked moods—from the Polish-inflected Mazurkas and Polonaises to the sprightly Waltzes, epic Ballades, dreamy Nocturnes, and virtuosic Sonatas and Concertos.