Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor

Chopin loathed playing in front of a large audience—“I feel asphyxiated by its eager breath,” he despaired, “paralysed by its inquisitive stare, silenced by its alien faces”—and is estimated to have given only around 30 concert performances in his entire career. But as an ambitious 20-year-old, eager to make his mark, he set out for Vienna in November 1830, armed with sheaves of self-penned piano music, including his two concertos—he would never see his Polish homeland again. His Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor (composed before but published after his First Piano Concerto) had already received its public premiere in Warsaw on 17 March, conducted by his mentor Karol Kurpiński. The dedication went to pupil Delfina Potocka, although Chopin confessed in a letter that the inspiration behind the nocturne-like central “Larghetto” was Konstancja Gładkowska, a young soprano with whom he had fallen in love. This is offset by two volatile outer movements (the finale in mazurka style), which combine passages of glittering pyrotechnics with gentle filigree melodies that create the impression of being extemporised as they gently unwind.