Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 21

Chopin composed his piano concertos around 1829/30, which means that to a certain extent they are the climax and conclusion of his student years in Warsaw. Both works are early masterpieces with which Chopin celebrated great triumphs on his first concert tours abroad, and to this day the popularity of these piano concertos has remained unbroken. The Concerto in F minor – the first to be written – was not published until 1836, when Chopin was already firmly established in Paris. Compared with the E minor concerto, the source material is profuse: along with first editions and student copies, the edition has also made use of what might be called a “half autograph,” in which the orchestral parts stem from an unknown scribal hand, while the piano solo part is written by the composer himself. The piano reduction also makes use of contemporary sources: this is an edition that offers Urtext quality at the highest level.