In 1836 Chopin introduced the term 'ballad' into piano music with the publication of his Ballad op. 23, although up to then it had only been used in literature and in vocal music. Indeed, all four of...
When Chopin gave his Opus 23 the title 'Ballade” in the mid 1830s, he established the piano ballade as a new musical genre which was subsequently taken up by others, including Brahms, Liszt and Grieg....
Fréderic Chopin's stay with George Sand on Mallorca in the winter 1838/1839 was ill-fated. Yet Chopin still managed to finish his 'Préludes” there which he had begun to compose in Paris. Today's inter...
With this poetic masterpiece all four of the recently revised 'Ballades” (HN 862) are now available as single editions. Following a restrained opening in C major and the first dreamy sounds of the the...
Along with the beautiful facsimile edition of the autograph score to be published on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin's birth (HN 3221), we are also publishing a completely rev...
Chopin's circumstances were rather strained in 1845, so that a planned trip to Italy with George Sand looked as if it would fall through. Yet with his 'Barcarolle' he immersed himself in the atmospher...
Johann Pachelbel, born in Nuremberg in 1653, a generation before Bach, is one of Southern Germany's most important post-Reformation organ composers. His compositions were already widely known at the t...
Frédéric Chopin spent his fifth summer at George Sand's country estate in Nohant in 1844. The time away from Paris gave the composer the necessary creative free space to produce the delicate Berceuse...
One of Chopin's most radical compositions, the B minor Scherzo leaves hardly any listener untouched. The wild main section, interspersed with brutal dissonances, frames the intimate trio, in which Cho...
Chopin gave the 'scherzo' a character all of its own, and his second Scherzo is probably the best known of the four works that he composed in that genre. In contrast to the first Scherzo, which surviv...
Bach's harpsichord concerti, extremely popular among pianists, are presumably reworkings of pieces originally written for the violin. Bach, however, succeeded in transferring the diverse idiosyncrasie...
Who does not know Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne, the final piece from his Partita in D minor for solo violin? Time and again, composers have been inspired to open up this exceptional work for other...
Señor Albéniz may well inscribe upon his escutcheon the words 'Veni, vidi, vici'.' The London press thus commented on the Spaniard's triumphal tour of Britain between 1889 and 1893. It was in the Brit...
Frédéric Chopin's 4 Scherzi are high points in the Romantic piano repertoire. Chopin here takes a traditional genre and fills it with radically new content. They are wild, demonic in tone, and there i...
On 23 August 1841 Chopin wrote to the Viennese publisher Mechetti: 'I currently have a manuscript available for you. It is a kind of fantasia in the form of a polonaise that I would call Polonaise”. C...
Schönberg’s publisher Emil Hertzka provided the impetus for composition of the Piano Piece op. 33a in 1928. In fact, he had merely asked for permission to print an older work in the collection Musik d...
Chopin's Scherzo no. 3 was connected to his legendary winter in Mallorca in 1838/39, as were his Préludes op. 28. On 22 January 1839, the composer sent the autograph of the latter work to Camille Pley...
Chopin published his Scherzi nos. 1-3 at more-or-less regular intervals, in 1835, 1837 and 1840 - almost as if he'd planned them in advance. He published his fourth and final work in this genre after...
It is almost impossible to tell from listening to them that Bach's extremely popular concerti for harpsichord were probably his own transcriptions of solo concerti which had originally been composed f...
One of the answers found by Schönberg's circle to the question about how musical processes could be shaped without a tonal context was in the extreme streamlining of the form. With Schönberg's Six Lit...
The stories surrounding Frédéric Chopin's winter holiday on Mallorca with George Sand in 1838/39 are widely known. It was there, in adverse conditions, that Chopin completed his 'Préludes' op. 28 whic...
When the Catalan composer Albéniz wrote his six album leaves 'España' at the age of 30, he was in London and his piano recitals were causing a sensation. At these concerts he often performed his own c...
Chopin left behind only a few works in the main form of the classical era, the sonata - of these, the Piano Sonata op. 58 certainly numbers among his most important. Formally, it is more conventionall...
Chopin's early works include a wealth of new stimuli for anyone wishing to take a closer look at the creative works of the Polish genius. Up to now the four Rondos have been missing from our catalogue...
When Chopin left with George Sand for his oft-cited winter sojourn on Mallorca in autumn 1838, he also took his second ballade with him, which was not yet finished. Chopin's health and other unfavoura...
Chopin was probably the first to apply the word 'ballade' to music', Robert Schumann once wrote. He and his contemporaries were only familiar with the term 'ballad' as a literary generic concept. Poem...
The early Piano Sonata op. 4 offers interesting insights into the young Chopin's compositional development. In all probability written during his student years at the Warsaw Conservatory and highly pr...
Johann Kuhnau, who preceded Johann Sebastian Bach as Thomas Cantor in Leipzig, left a wealth of works, including pivotal compositions for keyboard instruments. Now for the first time all of these work...
Reicha published a total of 24 wind quintets for the 'classical' scoring of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon; op. 88 no. 2 is one of the best-loved and most played. 'If it were possible to surp...
We not only owe three of Mozart's horn concertos to his friendship with Ignaz Leutgeb; the solo part of this unusual chamber music work was also written especially for him. Instead of having two violi...
Johann Pachelbel, born in Nuremberg a generation before Bach, in 1653, is one of the most important organ composers in southern Germany after the Reformation. His compositions were already widespread...
