Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) attained immortality with his breathtaking piano concertos, chamber music, and miniatures, such as the Revolutionary Etude, The Minute Waltz, The Funeral March, and the Ballade No. 4, which endure as pinnacles of the instrument's repertoire. Tragically, while still young, he lived in the shadow of death, painfully aware of the tuberculosis that would kill him prematurely at age 39.

 This classic account of Chopin’s life by Chopin's fellow artist and friend, the legendary Franz Liszt offers a highly informed assessment of the Polish composer's musical legacy. Equally fascinating, it provides a tantalizing glimpse into the mind of the redoubtable Liszt himself and the way he viewed the world around him—including the historical, social and cultural background of the composer's native Poland as well as the Vienna and France in which Chopin spent most of his creative life.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age and perhaps of all time. Some of his most notable contributions were the invention of the long-form symphonic poem, including his Dante and Faust symphonies, his towering Les Preludes and Transcendental Etudes, developing the concept of thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and making radical departures in harmony that presaged the breakthroughs in composition that took place in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.