Frédéric Chopin has been a central presence in Rem Urasin’s artistic life since childhood. At the age of thirteen, Urasin gave his first solo recital devoted entirely to Chopin. He later won the International Chopin Competition for Young Pianists in Moscow in 1992 and became a prizewinner of the XIII International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1995.
Rem Urasin is one of the very few pianists in the history of performance to have played Chopin’s entire surviving oeuvre in concert — from the first to the last note. His repertoire has encompassed the complete solo piano works, as well as Chopin’s chamber music, songs and works for piano and orchestra.

The most extensive realization of this lifelong engagement was Frédéric Chopin. Complete Works, a cycle of eleven concerts first presented in Kazan in 2009–2011 and later repeated in Moscow. Individual programmes and subscription series from the cycle were also presented in a number of other cities.

The project was built on a chronological principle. Each concert focused on a particular period of Chopin’s life and creative development, allowing the audience to follow the evolution of his musical language alongside the events of his biography.

Music was combined with a documentary narrative written by screenwriter Riorita Rubtsova. The texts for the narrator were based on Chopin’s letters, memoirs of his contemporaries, contemporary press and other historical sources. Their purpose went beyond providing biographical information: they were intended to recreate the cultural and psychological atmosphere of the period, immerse the audience in the world in which the music was created and, as far as possible, allow listeners to encounter Chopin’s works through the eyes of his contemporaries and first audiences.

As Urasin later described the principle of these concerts:
“The literary texts do not describe the music; they simply build a bridge between it and the events in the composer’s life.”

A further element of the Kazan cycle was a series of eleven specially prepared illustrated booklets, compiled by Rem Urasin for each concert. Alongside the programme, every booklet contained a chronicle of Chopin’s life and work covering the period represented in that particular concert, together with historical materials and illustrations. By the end of the cycle, the complete set formed a continuous illustrated chronicle of the composer’s life and creative journey.

Another major part of Urasin’s work with Chopin is his recording of the Complete Mazurkas, released by Brilliant Classics. The recording has reached a wide international audience, with the complete cycle receiving more than five million views on YouTube.

Performance, recording and the lifelong study of Chopin’s legacy have remained a continuous thread throughout Rem Urasin’s artistic career, making the composer’s music one of the defining areas of his work.

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN (1810–1849)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58
Rem Urasin, piano
Live performance · 2026

Great Romantics is a long-term cycle of historical concerts created by Rem Urasin and devoted to the music and artistic world of European Romanticism. Launched in the 2017/18 season, the project was conceived as an extensive series of more than twenty-five programmes exploring the music of Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other nineteenth-century composers.

Unlike the monographic Frédéric Chopin. Complete Works cycle, Great Romantics presents a panorama of an entire musical era. Several composer-focused strands unfold in parallel and return in successive concerts, while each individual strand follows the composer’s life and work largely in chronological order. Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn and Brahms appear within a shared historical and artistic world — through personal connections, mutual influences, aesthetic ideas and the testimony of their contemporaries.

An essential element of the project is its literary and documentary narration. A specially written text is created for each concert, based on letters, diaries, memoirs, contemporary press and other historical sources. Rather than explaining the music, the narration places it within the historical and psychological atmosphere in which it was created, bringing the audience closer to the world of the composers and to the way their music was perceived by its first listeners. Music and documentary narrative thus become two elements of a single concert dramaturgy.

Solo piano programmes form one of the principal strands of Great Romantics. The cycle also includes chamber and vocal music, works for piano four hands and a variety of ensemble combinations. Several programmes are conceived as Schubertiades, continuing the tradition of the historical Schubertiads — informal musical gatherings in Vienna at which Schubert’s songs, piano works and chamber music were performed. Within the project, vocal music is combined with chamber, solo and four-hand repertoire.

One of the Schubertiades is devoted to 1815, an extraordinarily productive year in Schubert’s song writing. This historical thread is continued by a vocal programme centred on Robert Schumann’s celebrated Liederjahr of 1840, when he composed around 150 songs. Together, these programmes create a distinct narrative within the larger cycle, tracing the Romantic Lied from Schubert to Schumann.

The chamber-music strand includes Schubert’s piano trios, the “Trout” Quintet and the Arpeggione Sonata, as well as chamber works by Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms and other composers. The vocal and ensemble programmes reveal another dimension of Rem Urasin’s work — as a chamber musician and collaborative pianist alongside his career as a soloist.
Great Romantics thus forms a many-layered musical history of the nineteenth century, told through music, documents and the voices of the era itself.

I — Franz Schubert | 1817–1824
Sonata D 537 · Waltzes & Ländler D 145 · Ungarische Melodie D 817 · Sonata D 664 · Wanderer Fantasy D 760

II — Frédéric Chopin | 1830–1834
Nocturnes Op. 9 · Mazurkas Op. 6, 7, 17, 24 · Etudes Op. 10 · Scherzo Op. 20 · Introduction and Rondo Op. 16 · Ballade Op. 23

III — Robert Schumann | 1829–1834
Abegg Variations Op. 1 · Papillons Op. 2 · Intermezzi Op. 4 · Toccata Op. 7 · Symphonic Etudes Op. 13

IV — Franz Liszt
Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 · Song Transcriptions after Schubert, Schumann and Chopin · Mephisto Waltz No. 1 · Spanish Rhapsody

V — Felix Mendelssohn / Franz Schubert
Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words · Introduction and Rondo capriccioso Op. 14
Schubert: Sonata D 784 · Waltzes

VI — Robert Schumann | 1834–1836
Sonata No. 2 Op. 22 · Carnaval Op. 9 · Fantasie Op. 17

VII — Frédéric Chopin | 1835–1837
Nocturnes Op. 27, 32 · Mazurkas Op. 30, 33 · Etudes Op. 25 · Waltzes Op. 34 · Scherzo Op. 31

VIII — Franz Schubert | 1824–1825
Moments musicaux D 780 · Sonata D 850

IX — Robert Schumann | 1837–1838
Kinderszenen Op. 15 · Davidsbündlertänze Op. 6 · Fantasiestücke Op. 12 · Novelletten Op. 21 Nos. 7–8

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810–1856)
Piano Works from 1829–1835
The Great Romantics · Concert II
Rem Urasin, piano · Alexey Barabanov, narrator
Saydashev State Great Concert Hall, Kazan · 22 February 2018

Rem Urasin’s connection with Tatar music began in childhood. Growing up in Kazan — a city where Tatar and Russian cultures have coexisted for centuries — he encountered this music from an early age at home, in concert halls, and throughout his musical education. It is part of the musical culture in which he was raised and has remained a constant presence throughout his artistic life.

This connection was also personal. As a child, Urasin met composers Nazib Zhiganov and Rustem Yakhin; later he maintained close professional contact with Rashid Kalimullin and kept in touch with the families of Zhiganov and Yakhin, as well as with descendants of Alexander Klyucharyov. His contact with Rustem Yakhin was particularly important: the composer repeatedly expressed his high regard for Urasin’s performances of his music.

Music by composers of Tatarstan has long been part of Urasin’s concert repertoire and has appeared in his performances in Russia and abroad. One of his most substantial projects in this field was a solo programme performed several times during the 2005/06 season, conceived as a panorama of the history of Tatar piano music — from its formative period and twentieth-century classics to contemporary composers.

A major part of this work is connected with the music of Rustem Yakhin. Alongside performing and recording Yakhin’s original piano works, Urasin created Six Melodies by Rustem Yakhin, a cycle of concert transcriptions of six of the composer’s songs. His arrangements also include Morning Song by Alexander Klyucharyov and other works based on Tatar music. These transcriptions are frequently performed by other pianists and have become part of the wider concert repertoire.

Rem Urasin collaborated with Rashid Kalimullin for many years. In 2007, he gave the first performance of Kalimullin’s Piano Concerto and has continued to include the composer’s music in his programmes.

Another major contribution is Urasin’s Fantasy-Suite on Themes from Farid Yarullin’s ballet Shurale — an extended virtuoso work that brings the music of the celebrated Tatar ballet into an independent concert-piano form. Alongside works by Yakhin, Yarullin and Kalimullin, Urasin’s repertoire has for many years included music by Zhiganov and other composers of Tatarstan.
Through his work as both performer and arranger, Rem Urasin has made a significant contribution to the expansion and development of the virtuoso concert piano repertoire connected with the Tatar musical tradition. His work in this field encompasses performance, recording, the study of repertoire, and the creation of new concert transcriptions and arrangements, continuing a lifelong engagement with the musical culture in which he grew up.

RUSTEM YAKHIN (1921–1993)
Piano Concerto — III movement (excerpt)
Rem Urasin, piano · Symphony Orchestra of the Kazan Conservatory
Artem Abashev, conductor
Saydashev State Great Concert Hall, Kazan · 2015