Chopin was an arch-improviser. What he wrote down was the tip of his creative iceberg, and perhaps it was this ability that sparked such structurally ground-breaking works as the 24 Préludes, the four Ballades and the Polonaise- Fantaisie. Combine that originality with the purity of Mozart and the contrapuntal lines of Bach—Chopin’s two favourite composers; add a passion for bel canto Italian opera, especially the mellifluous coloraturas of Bellini; and a dash of virtuoso glitter from Chopin’s sometime friend, sometime rival, Franz Liszt; and even then we are only a little way towards understanding something of what he was all about.