Amazon.com description: Product Description: This new Master Musician interweaves biographical and musical commentary to produce a well-rounded portrait of Chopin the man and the musician. Avoiding complex technical language, Jim Samson addresses such questions as pedagogy, musical influences, and pianistic idiom. He examines the composer's mature musical style, considers his unique approach to the genres of nineteenth-century piano music, and investigates the nature of his compositional process as revealed through manuscripts and early printed scores. In ceading the book we begin to understand why this frail and fastidious musician from Warsaw, whose music is so immensely refined and innovatory, has captured the imagination of generations of music lovers the world over.