Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 (with Score)

Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 (with Score) Composed: 1830 Piano: Krystian Zimerman Orchestra: Polish Festival Orchestra 00:00 1. Allegro maestoso (E minor) 23:31 2. Romanze: Larghetto (E major) 36:04 3. Rondo: Vivace (E major) Chopin, the son of a French father and a Polish mother, was born the same year as Schumann (one later than Mendelssohn, one before Liszt). Before consumption killed him in his 40th year, he had developed both an elegantly sensual pianism and a keyboard oeuvre without expressive parallel. His twin gods were Bach and Mozart (as if Haydn, Beethoven, and Schubert never existed); in turn he influenced keyboard composers for nearly a century after -- Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Dvorák, Debussy, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, and Ravel. Although we cannot ignore developments in piano manufacture, especially by Pleyel of Paris, it was Chopin&artistry that prompted Schumann to write in 1830, "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!" Parisian critics, who were then Europe&most cosmopolitan, dubbed him "the Ariel of the piano," although in his lifetime he played in public only 50 times, just once a solo recital, and for audiences usually no larger than 100 listeners. Before his emigration to Paris in 1831 he had composed six works for piano and orchestra (but nothing orchestral after those), including two concertos published in reverse order. The E minor was issued in 1833, the F minor "Second" in 1836 although Chopin composed it in 1829, when he was...