You may enjoy two different programmes. One is composed from the most beautiful works of Chopin and the other reveals the highlights of the romanticism.
Programme:
(Listen to the one minute excerpt from the musical pieces by pressing the play buttons.)
All Chopin
Interval
Romantic Highlights
Interval
Buy CDs with these music
The composers:
Ludwig van Beethoven
Frédéric Chopin
Franz Liszt
Robert Schumann
 Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven is acknowledged as one of the giants of Western classical music; occasionally he is referred to as one of the "three Bs" (along with Bach and Brahms) who epitomize that tradition. He was also a pivotal figure in the transition from 18th century musical classicism to 19th century romanticism, and his influence on subsequent generations of composers was profound.
He was one of the first composers to systematically and consistently use interlocking thematic devices, or "germ-motives", to achieve inter-movement unity in long compositions. Equally remarkable was his use of "source-motives", which recurred in many different compositions. He made innovations in almost every form of music he touched. For example, he diversified even the well-crystallized form of the rondo, making it more elastic and spacious, and also bringing it closer to sonata form.
Beethoven composed in various genres, including symphonies, concerti, piano sonatas, other sonatas (including for violin), string quartets and other chamber music, masses, an opera, and Lieder. He is viewed as one of the most important transitional figures between the Classical and Romantic eras of musical history.
Beethoven adopted the principles of sonata form and motivic development that he inherited from Haydn and Mozart, and he greatly extended them, writing longer and more ambitious movements.
 Frédéric Chopin
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin, the Polish composer and pianist, was born on 1 March 1810. The musical talent of Fryderyk became apparent extremely early on, and it was compared with the childhood genius of Mozart. Already at the age of 7, Fryderyk was the author of two polonaises (in G minor and B flat major), the first being published in the engraving workshop of Father Cybulski.
Chopin restricted almost his entire creativity to the piano but his significance and impact went far beyond the boundaries of piano music. He remains one of the greatest, most original and pioneering composers in history. The strikingly distinct style represented by Chopin, immediately distinguishable after a few chords, possesses an inner richness and variety. It developed from the virtuoso brilliant style, represented in the piano music of J. N. Hummel, J. Field, F. Ries, and K. M. Weber, who introduced to classical forms greater richness of rhythms, changes of tempi and moods in the movements of the cycle, and, predominantly, new, effective pianistic and ornamental figures.
Chopin is a great master of melody, both in its simple, mellifluous form, and in the more complicated, ornamental and figurative melodic lines. He is also one of the most subtle and innovative masters of harmony. He considerably eased or modified classical tonal principles, developed new ways of joining chords, applied bold modulations and rapid and unexpected changes of keys, introduced new scales, some of folk origin, and made novel use of dissonances. These changes influenced the further progress of music.
On 17 October 1849, Chopin died of pulmonary tuberculosis in his Parisian flat in the Place Vendôme. He was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. In accordance with his will, however, his heart, taken from his body after death, was brought by his sister to Warsaw where it was placed in an urn installed in a pillar of the Holy Cross church in Krakowskie Przedmiescie.
 Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt has emerged as one of the most awe-inspiring figures in all of music history. Regarded by most as the greatest pianist of all time Liszt's genius extended far beyond the piano to expand musical composition and performance well beyond its 19th Century limitations. His unique compositions bewildered, inspired and inflamed the imaginations of his own era, yet quite miraculously he also laid the seeds for a series of schools that would flourish in the near and distant future. Namely, the Late Romantic, Impressionist and Atonal schools. For this Liszt is unique, and his immense influence is unquestionably monumental.
His piano works have always been well represented in concert programs and recordings by pianists throughout the world. Many of his works have been recorded a multitude of times.
 Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes given as Robert Alexander Schumann, (1810 – 1856) was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is one of the most famous Romantic composers of the 19th century.
He had hoped to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist, having been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe after only a few years of study with him. However, a hand injury prevented those hopes from being realized, and he decided to focus his musical energies on composition. Schumann's published compositions were, until 1840, all for the piano; he later composed works for piano and orchestra, many lieder (songs for voice and piano), four symphonies, an opera, and other orchestral, choral and chamber works.
In 1840, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with his piano instructor Friedrich Wieck, he married pianist Clara Wieck, a considerable figure of the Romantic period in her own right. Friedrich Wieck was Clara Wieck's father. Clara Wieck showcased many works by her husband as well. For the last two years of his life, after an attempted suicide, Schumann was confined to a mental institution.
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