In 1960 the world of music celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Frederic Chopin, undeniably the most poetic if not the greatest composer of music for the piano. Chopin was born in Poland, of a French father and Polish mother. He spent his manhood in Paris and met his untimely death there in 1849, leaving his spirit in an eternal bondage with France. But posterity has accepted, without much argument, these opening words of a necrology, published shortly after Chopin’s death, in which the Polish poet Kamil C. Norwid described his departed compatriot as “a Pole at heart, in talent a citizen of the world.” The artist of this special anniversary recital is also a Pole, Adam Harasiewicz, winner of the Chopin International Competition of 1955, a Chopin specialist and one of the outstanding virtuosi to have emerged during the post-war years. He is heard in a program – recorded at an actual concert – that represents the musical forms which ...