Chopin wrote his Second Piano Concerto, the first that he wrote, as an ambitious young man of 20. Still living in Poland, the composer desired the fortune and notoriety of a traveling virtuoso, something he would find later in life, though the notoriety would be more for his compositions. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. It was in Poland that he composed this work, and it was composed, too, for a matter less materially ambitious: Chopin was in love with a young lady, though that young lady would not find out until much later when she was being read FC's biography. This love, he wrote, was the inspiration for the second movement, the slow movement, the movement that Chopin would return to in later life, playing it for himself.
Chopin's Second Piano Concerto
