Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52, was composed in 1842 in Paris and Nohant and revised in 1843. The work was dedicated to Baroness Rothschild, wife of Nathaniel de Rothschild.
Chopin’s Prelude No. 4 in E Minor is one of the 24 preludes opus 28 for piano. By Chopin’s request, this piece was played at his own funeral, along with Mozart’s Requiem.
The Prelude No 15 in D-Flat Major, nicknamed “Raindrop”, strikes one at first as an oasis of peace and calm. However, the transition from the bright key of D-Flat Major to the tenebrous C sharp minor brings dark, gloomy, disturbing sonorities.
Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23, dates to sketches Chopin made in 1831 during his eight-month stay in Vienna. It was completed in 1835 after his move to Paris, where he dedicated it to Baron Nathaniel von Stockhausen, the Hanoverian ambassador to France.
Mazurkas, Op 24 are a set of four Mazurkas for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin. The set was composed and published in 1836. Mazurka in C major is essentially a kind of folkloric cliché: a folk provenance can be found in all its themes.
Mazurka in A Minor is the last one from Op 17, a set of four mazurkas composed by Frédéric Chopin between 1832 and 1833. It is a real masterpiece, in the form of a dance poem. Written in A minor, it is in 3/4 and is marked Lento, ma non troppo.
Chopin Prelude No 8, in F sharp minor, counters the calm simplicity of the seventh with a broad stream of sonority of peculiar beauty, diffused in rising and falling waves of airy figuration. Among its admirers was Witold Lutosławski, who called it a ‘wonder’.
Prelude No. 24 is the last one of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. Frédéric Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839.
Chopin’s Berceuse, Op. 57, is a lullaby to be played on the piano. He composed it in 1843/44 as variations in D-flat major. Frédéric Chopin originally called his work Variantes.
Chopin’s Piano Sonata No 3 in B Minor, Op. 58, is the last of the composer’s piano sonatas. Completed in 1844 and dedicated to Countess Émilie de Perthuis, the work is considered to be one of Frédéric Chopin’s most difficult compositions, both technically and musically.
