Frederic Chopin took this national dance, developed it, enlarged it and hung upon it his choicest melodies, his most piquant harmonies. His Mazurkas are epigrammatie, fluctuating, bizarre, tender, precise and vertiginous and while other composers have written in this dance form, none has made the same mark as Chopin. In Chopin's varied output, the mazurka is the most abundantly represented genre, in which Chopin permitted himself an astonishing range of expression. In this release, Andrew Rangell brilliantly explores the repertoire that lived so close to Chopin's heart.
