Chopin's music has always posed a challenge to its interpreter. Thousands of recordings exist ? yet has that challenge ever truly been met?

In this unique study, concert pianist Angela Lear examines all twenty-four of Chopin's Grandes Etudes, Op. 10 and Op. 25, not as biography or technical treatise, but "from the inside" ? sharing a lifetime's insight into how this revelatory music should be played.

Drawing on extensive research into Chopin's autograph manuscripts and the original published editions, with illustrations from the Fryderyk Chopin Institute (Warsaw) and the Bibliothèque nationale (Paris), Lear offers a detailed commentary on each etude. Linked recordings of her own performances of all 24 etudes let the reader hear each point of interpretation as it is discussed.

An essential companion for pianists, teachers, students and lovers of Chopin who want to move beyond the notes to the meaning behind them.