• “Hats off gentlemen, a genius!”, thus started Robert Schumann’s review of the Op.2 by the young virtuoso Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), freshly arrived from Warsaw, and conquering the astonished audiences of Germany.
• Chopin composed his works for piano and orchestra during just one period in his life: in his youth in Warsaw. This was the period of his composition studies under Józef Elsner at the High School of Music (1826– 1829), and shortly afterwards his final year in Poland before he left his homeland for good in November 1830. Thus all his works for piano and orchestra (with the exception of the Grande Polonaise brillante, Op.22) were written in the years 1827-1830, when the composer's individual style was taking shape and maturing.
• On this new recording the 4 works for piano and orchestra are presented: The Variations on La Ci Darem La Mano Op.2, Fantasia on Polish Airs Op.13, Krakowiak Op.14 and the Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise Brillante Op.22. We hear echoes of Polish dances and folklore in these delightful works, whereas the piano writing is spectacularly brilliant, full of the intricate figurations and acrobatics the young Chopin reveled in.
• Ekaterina Litvintseva is one of the most remarkable pianists of her generation. Her recordings won her enthusiastic acclaim in the international press: “a notable moment in the history of Chopin interpretation” (Fanfare); “a sense of spontaneous invention” in Mozart’s K.271 (Gramophone) and “an expressive depth” in Brahms’s 1st Piano Concerto (BBC Music Magazine). She previously recorded for Piano Classics an album with piano works by Dora Pejačević .
