In the bicentennial of the birth of Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) a recording of the works of this composer who, more than anyone else, has devoted his life to the piano, is indeed timely.

The features common to the pieces of this small selection of compositions belonging to various periods of the life of the great Polish composer are the elegance and the extreme refinement of his style.

One begins with the ethereal nuances of the small Mazurkas, followed by the aristocratic elegance of the Waltzer op. 42, the freshness and the endearing charme of the first Impromptu op. 29, a spontaneous composition in the true sense of the word, as acutely remarked Robert Schumann – another composer whose two-hundredth birth anniversary falls this year – before reaching the monumental architectures of the Scherzo op. 31, of the Polonnaise op. 53 and, especially, of the enigmatic Fantasia op. 49 a composition that, as again noted by Schumann, seems to view us with the mocking and ambiguous smile of a sphinx.

This ambiguity becomes one of the dominant traits of the late style of Chopin, in which his extremely refined sense of timbric shades transforms the music into a kaleidoscopic likeness of skilfully blended colours, which appear to glow magically on the keyboard having been strewn with extreme wisdom and ability by an artist’s hand. This is the case of the Berceuse op. 57 and of the Barcarole op. 60, two compositions to which Chopin himself felt particularly attached, that appear to foreshadow certain rarefied atmospheres typical of the impressionistic world of Debussy and Ravel.