Enviable Ease Irena Portenko plays Chopin - recommended by ROBERT ANDERSON '... easy fluidity of touch and tone ...'

This genius of the keyboard is now two hundred years old, a fact we are rightly celebrating. When Chopin was born, Poland did not exist, having been divided into three parts by Catherine the Great of Russia, the Prussian Frederick the Great, and a vaguely guilty Maria Theresia of Austria. When Czar Alexander I visited Warsaw in 1825, Chopin played to him; but, with musical training complete, it was essential Chopin should leave his country. He went more than once to Vienna, where he played both piano concertos, and then to Paris, cooperating with Liszt in a benefit for Berlioz's beloved, Harriet Smithson.

It seems the first two Op 10 Etudes were ready in fair copy and signed on the actual day Chopin finally left Warsaw, 2 November 1830...

FRYDERYCK CHOPIN

ETUDES

PIANO

POLAND

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA