Chopin, like many of his countrymen, was forced into exile, and this was a source of great anguish, which he often expressed in his music. The first song, Melodia, captures these feelings rather poignantly – telling the story of the Polish people being forced from their homes, looking back at their country with nostalgia and pain, knowing that they would never be able to return. As well as a nationalist, Chopin was a romantic. He knew from personal experience that this could open the door to pain – Dumka tells the story of a person searching for love, looking to all sides and finding only loneliness.

We then take a little detour to some of our favourite songs from the Auvergne region and Canteloube’s vivid settings of these varied and beautiful folk songs. We’ve included four favourites: a bizarre set of verses, Lo Calhe, where a quail is questioned [yes, a quail!] “How, what and where is your nest? It’s here and filled with the most beautiful egg”; Brezairola, a soothing lullaby from mother to child as she waits for the night. We begin and end with two sides of love; first a shepherd (N'aï Pas Iéu de Mio) who searches for love and is rewarded, and a shepherdess (La Delaïssádo) who waited for her love but is left alone forever with only the company of the evening star.

It would be an injustice to explore Chopin, the great piano composer, without including one of his quintessential piano works – Scherzo No.2 – a dramatic and virtuosic romance. Hulanka, a common experience for every musician is a good drinking song! Precz moich oczu, with words by the great polish bard Adama Mickiewicza, tells the tale of a lover spurned: ‘you may tell me not to see you…and I will not look, you may tell me not to love you…and I will stop - but though you may demand that I forget…I never will!’

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