The required calling card of any pianist-composer in the 1820s and '30s was a virtuosic piano piece accompanied by an orchestra. When the 21-year-old Chopin...

The required calling card of any pianist-composer in the 1820s and '30s was a virtuosic piano piece accompanied by an orchestra. When the 21-year-old Chopin arrived in Paris in the fall of 1831, he had several such compositions under his arm, including the Concerto in E Minor (which, although the first of his two concertos to be published, was composed after the Concerto in F Minor) and the already heralded Variations (which had inspired Robert Schumann to remark, "Hats off, gentlemen--a genius.").
With this recording, acclaimed Chopin interpreter Emanuel Ax (whom some may recall for providing the actual piano sound to the pantomimed playing of Hugh Grant's Chopin character in the film "Impromptu") ventures into new territory by performing on a piano from Chopin's era, an 1851 Erard grand. The performances are a wonderful revelation: when Ax moves from a low piano register to a high one, it sounds like he's changing instruments, so striking are the individual registers of a mid-19th-century piano. This recording makes one hear Chopin with fresh ears--truly an accomplishment for a composer whose pieces are performed so often.