Maurizio Pollini

Frédéric Chopin was the most famous composer of Polish origin in the history of Western concert music. He was a progressive who revolutionized the harmonic content, the texture, and the emotional quality of the small piano piece, turning light dance forms, nocturnes, and study genres into profound works that were both daring and deeply inward. Born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin to a French father and a Polish mother, probably on March 1, 1810, he was a native of Zelazowa Wola village west of Warsaw.

A quarter‐century after his death and a half‐century after some of his most controversial music was composed. Arnold Schoenberg still stands in the path of music like the ghost of the king in Hamlet, demanding to be heeded. Not that he is forgotten: Charles Rosen, in his remarkably pithy volume (the latest in the Modern Masters series edited by Frank Kermode) asserts that Schoenberg's 12‐tone and otherwise serialistic works “have, in a strange way, become a normal part of today's music; they are not often heard, but they are the works that have been imitated by hundreds of composers all over the world.” True enough, but that has not been enough to lay the ghost. The fact, which even Mr. Rosen's eloquent advocacy only emphasizes, is that the rigorously atonal works, composed after 1921, have never developed a public outside professional music circles, and even there the attitude is largely respect rather than love.

The grand finale of the Chopin Competition, the prestigious quinquennial piano competition entirely dedicated to the Polish composer, will be held in Warsaw from October 18th. This eagerly awaited 19th edition, chaired by Garrick Ohlsson, marks the centenary of the competition. The list of laureates includes established piano legends such as Maurizio Pollini and Martha Argerich, as well as highly promising young musicians like Aimi Kobayashi, one of the stars of the Warner Classics roster. They are all brought together in this 14 hours-long collection, which covers a large part of Chopin's catalogue. The track listing was compiled with the help of Warner Poland, which owns numerous recordings by the cream of Polish pianists (Halina Czerny-Stefańska, Jan Ekier, Barbara Hesse-Bukowska…)

Claude Debussy, in full Achille-Claude Debussy, (born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France—died March 25, 1918, Paris), French composer whose works were a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. His major works include Clair de lune (“Moonlight,” in Suite bergamasque, 1890–1905), Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894; Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and La Mer (1905; “The Sea”).

Frédéric Chopin was the most famous composer of Polish origin in the history of Western concert music. He was a progressive who revolutionized the harmonic content, the texture, and the emotional quality of the small piano piece, turning light dance forms, nocturnes, and study genres into profound works that were both daring and deeply inward. Born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin to a French father and a Polish mother, probably on March 1, 1810, he was a native of Zelazowa Wola village west of Warsaw.