The Countess d'Agoult asked Chopin, "by what substantive he called that which he enclosed in his compositions like unknown ashes in superb urns of most exquisitely chiseled alabaster?"  He replied: “there her heart had not defied her in the gloom which she felt stealing upon her, for whatever might have been the transitory pleasures, he had never been free from a feeling which might also be said to form the very soil of his heart, and for which he could find no appropriate expression except in his own language, no other possessing a term equivalent to the Polish word ŻAL, As if his ears thirsted for the sound of this word which expressed the whole range of emotions produced by intense regrets through all the shades of feeling from hatred to repentance, he repeated it again and again. ŻAL.

 
This quotation from Benita Eisler’s book “Chopin’s Funeral” explains the best, why I have chosen this particular polish word  for the title of my newest CD. If you would like to know more about the concept behind the recording of Chopin and Schubert  together, please feel welcome to read the text from the booklet, which I have posted in the “Essays'” section.