Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, op. 21

Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concertos in e minor op. 11 and f minor op. 21 were written when the composer had just barely entered his twenties. Since he needed effective, virtuoso works for his major concert appearances with orchestral accompaniment, he decided to simply write them himself. Although it is clear that the piano part always holds center stage in these pieces, Chopin never degrades the orchestra by turning it into a stereotypical cue-giver. This is confirmed by the imaginatively orchestrated tutti transition in the first movement, the lengthy string tremolo in the middle movement and the col legno passage in the finale. The first performance of the f-minor concerto took place in Warsaw on 17 March 1830. The first edition of the score was published in 1879 by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. The present edition for two pianos by Ignaz Friedmann was first issued in 1913 in the framework of the 12-volume Chopin edition for which the Polish pianist undertook a careful evaluation of the sources.