The Maiden's Wish

by Lee Evans

Fredédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish composer who is best known for his piano compositions. Indeed, outside of his works for solo piano and piano with orchestra, he wrote very little at all.

An interesting exception is a collection of 19 works for voice and piano which he composed over the course of his career. Only two of these were published during his lifetime.

Following his death, his friend Julian Fontana collected 17 of these songs and published them in 1857 as a group with the catalogue number Op. 74. In the early 19th century, two further songs by Chopin were published.

Życzenie (The Maiden's Wish) is the earliest of these works, composed c. 1829 by the 19 year-old Chopin and published eight years later. It is based on a Polish text by Stefan Witwicki and is written in a style reminiscent of a mazurka.

In this arrangement for solo piano, Lee Evans has faithfully combined Chopin's vocal and piano parts of this beautiful song, thus adding an intermediate level piano solo to the repertoire.

Pages: 2