Chopin: The Reluctant Romantic

The second, revised edition of Jeremy Siepmann’s acclaimed biography, here making its debut in electronic form, amplifies the original with copious musical examples, most of them entire pieces, or movements therefrom. The addition of sound to the textual commentary brings us closer to the face, to the very soul, of Chopin than any number of paintings, poems, photographs or verbal evocations can ever hope to do. In this new context, Chopin is not merely portrayed, and to a certain extent analysed: he speaks to us directly, as one of the greatest of the great composers – and leaves us haunted.