Changes
/* Works */ re-arranged list of works and added information
Chopin is unique among the great composers in that his output is almost entirely for the solo piano. While the early 19th century witnessed many piano virtuosi who toured and played their own music, Chopin distinguished himself from them by shunning most public performances, preferring to play in salons. He considered himself first and foremost a composer, and developed an aversion to the public displays of virtuosity which were a dime a dozen in early 19th-century Paris. His music was thus born out of an interesting contradiction which still confronts pianists today: it is immensely difficult music to perform, requiring the highest level of piano technique, but the goals are the expression of pure musical poetry. The performer must be both a master of the instrument as well as in possession of a noble and unostentatious spirit.
* [[Études (Chopin)|Études]] - two sets of 12 and one set of three technical studies for piano that to this day are regarded as a watershed in the progress of any pianist. Unlike those of previous composers such as Czerny and Cramer, Chopin's Études combine technical difficulty with musical expression, thus helping to popularize the form.
* [[Nocturne]]s - slow, dreamlike pieces. The form was originally pioneered by the Irish composer [[John Field]].
* Mazurkas - an adaptation of a native Polish dance form. These miniatures often show Chopin at his most harmonically adventurous.
* [[Waltz]]es - whilst these did much to contribute much to Chopin's reputation as a 'Salon' composer, the best of them rival his Mazurkas in unusual harmonic adventures. Chopin did not particularly like the form, but used it to write some of his most well-known works.
* [[Prelude]]s - Chopin's most explicit homage to JS Bach, written during a period of intense emotional pressure on the island of Majorca - the extremely fragmentary nature of some of them puzzled contemporaries (the shortest last seconds rather than minutes), but some commentators have come to observe the set as a whole as one of Chopin's most satisfying works. The 24 Preludes, Op. 28 were modeled directly after Bach's ''[[Well-Tempered Clavier]]''.
* Impromptus - free-form compositions in an improvisatory style. Most famous of these is the Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66, published posthumously.
Chopin also composed several longer standalone works, both in single and in multiple movements:
* 4 Scherzi - Set in a large [[ternary form]], these works depart from the usual humorous connotation of the scherzo genre. Chopin was one of the first composers to write the scherzo as a stand-alone piece rather than as a movement in a larger work.
* 4 Ballades - Works with no set form, likely inspired by the poetic "Ballade," which seem to follow an inexplicit dramatic narrative. These four works, especially the first and fourth, are some of the composer's most popular large works.
* 10 Polonaises - another Polish dance form, longer and more stately than the mazurka.
* [[Fantasia]], op. 49 and the "Polonaise-Fantasie" - Two large, free-form works which are difficult to categorize but very effective dramatically, containing some of his most sophisticated music.
* [[Sonata]]s - Chopin's first sonata in C minor was composed in his youth and is usually not performed today. His second sonata in B-flat minor is extremely popular, particularly the famous "Funeral March movement", although in his day it was criticized for perceived structural deficiencies. Chopin attempted to address some of this criticism in his third and final piano sonata in B minor.
* [[Concerto|Concerti ]] - Chopin wrote two piano concertos in his youth, along with four other pieces for piano and orchestra. The concertos, while written when he was very young, are nevertheless staples of the piano concerto literature.
