Chopin’s mazurkas are unique in that they occupied him throughout the course of his career as a composer. He wrote nearly sixty of them. The first was written when he was still a teenager, and the last was written in 1849, the year of his death. By the time he had completed the four mazurkas that comprise Op. 6 – the first set to be published during his lifetime – Chopin had already mastered the form; subsequent mazurkas merely confirmed his genius. Pianist Charles Rosen wrote, ‘Of all the short works of Chopin it is the mazurkas that capture the full range of his genius.’

Released to mark the centenary of the Georgian-born pianist Nikita Magaloff’s birth, these recordings were made over a period of seven months (May-November 1956) in Geneva’s Victoria Hall (a hallowed Decca recording venue). This is their first international CD release on Decca. Magaloff recorded the Mazurkas again for Philips several years later, but it is these early Decca recordings that are the most prized.