Neither a musicological study, nor a biography of Chopin, this book aims to present both the life and the work in a single volume. Music is the key to this biography – that intimate music that murmurs in your ear, that is all good (not a single page of Chopin’s work is unworthy of him) and all short. From masterpiece to masterpiece, we follow the musician’s life from the violence of his twenties (and the scores) to a certain psychological calming and amorous stability (along with a passage into major keys), before the final ruin. A work of light and shadow, entirely inspired by love for Chopin’s music.

The first life of Chopin as seen through the prism of a great love of his music, by a pre-eminent author on the subject of classical music.