Chopin’s Polish Songs, Transcribed for Piano by Liszt

Six of these songs, transcribed for piano, with all Liszt’s wonted skill, render this charming vein of Chopin’s work available to the pianist. I cite two as illustrations:

These Polish songs by Chopin are, comparatively speaking, unknown, even among musicians, overshadowed and hidden as they have always been by the number and magnitude of his pianoforte works, like wood-violets lost in the depths of a forest. Yet, though small and unpretentious as the violets, they are among his most genial and poetic creations. Seventeen of them have been published, as genuine bits of vocal melody as ever were penned or sung; and there are many more which have never been printed, scarcely even written out in full; hasty pastime sketches, the fair daughters of a momentary inspiration, wedded to stray verses of Polish poetry which caught Chopin’s fancy, from the pen of Mickiewicz and other national bards.