The slow movement of the B flat minor Piano Sonata has become one of the best known of all funeral marches. Whether it’s the “ Minute Waltz”, which for decades has introduced the BBC panel show Just a Minute, or the most popular of all the nocturnes, Op 9 no 2 in E flat, used as the evocative soundtrack for so many TV adverts and dramas, Chopin’s music has been regularly raided for other purposes. Chopin has a reputation for being an exquisite miniaturist, but he was much more than that: his approach to playing and composing for the piano and his remarkable imagination for keyboard colour and texture – as well as his often startlingly original treatment of harmony and form – left their imprint on piano music well into the next century. His gifts as a pianist and improviser as much as his music brought him fame during his lifetime, but the beauty of his melodies has maintained his popularity ever since. His life – and death at the age of 39 – is almost the archetypal story of the tragic Romantic artist. T hough he wrote no operas, oratorios or symphonies – nothing, in fact, that did not involve a piano – Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was one of the supreme composers of the 19th century.
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