ANew York Times Book ReviewEditors’ Choice. TheSunday Times(U.K.) Classical Music Book of 2018 and one ofThe Economist‘s Best Books of 2018.

“A magisterial portrait.” —Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim,The New York Times Book Review

A landmark biography of the Polish composer by a leading authority on Chopin and his time

Based on ten years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walkers monumentalFryderyk Chopin: A Life and Timesis the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walkers work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.Fryderyk Chopinis an intimate look into a dramatic life; of particular focus are Chopins childhood and youth in Poland, which are brought into line with the latest scholarly findings, and Chopins romantic life with George Sand, with whom he lived for nine years.

Comprehensive and engaging, and written in highly readable prose, the biography wears its scholarship lightly: this is a book suited as much for the professional pianist as it is for the casual music lover. Just as he did in his definitive biography of Liszt, Walker illuminates Chopin and his music with unprecedented clarity in this magisterial biography, bringing to life one of the nineteenth centurys most confounding, beloved, and legendary artists.