The recordings of Prokofiev's Sonatas No. 9, 8 and 4 are derived from radio broadcasts in Germany (1964), Switzerland (1971) and Turkey (1973) and that of the Toccata from a Soviet Union radio broadcast of Biret's first Moscow recital during her sixteen concert tour of the USSR in 1960 at the age of nineteen. The recording of Piano Sonata No. 2, the second recording of Sonata No. 7, both made direct-to-disc in 1977 at the RCA Studio in New York, and the Swiss, German, Turkish and Soviet radio recordings are all unedited single takes.

Idil Biret wanted to record the many waltz transcriptions of Godowsky and others. Chief among these was the transcription of the Johann Strauss' waltz Kiinstlerleben by Godowsky which she had performed at many concerts in the l 970s and the Blue Danube Waltz. However, there was another project scheduled before that; four Haydn Sonatas, some of the most beautiful among the many he composed. When Idil suddenly fell ill in 2021 both projects were abandoned. Then, miraculously a stupendous recording of her performance of Kiinstlerleben in New York in December 1975 surfaced on the internet which led to reembarking on the project in a somewhat different way. The result is this CD, a compilation of Biret's past performances of Waltzes and Dances from many composers including Bartok, Berlioz, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt, Ravel, Stravinsky and, of course, Leopold Godowsky - his piano transcription of the Strauss waltz Kiinstlerleben "Metamorphosis on Themes from Artist's Life"

Idil Biret who arrived in Paris at the age of seven and a half, unable to read music but playing Mozart's C major concerto as she will never play better. It was played by a great artist who happened to be a little girl who could not read music. One played her a piece of music once or twice and she knew it all. (Nadia Boulanger, Paris 1973)

The Schwetzingen Festival concerts were dedicated to Chopin in 1999 on the 150th anniversary of his death. Four pianists were invited to the event. Three of them-Lilya Zilberstein, Anatole Ugorski, and Andrei Gavrilov-were 'stars' of Deutsche Grammophon. The fourth was Idil Biret, who had not attained 'star' status as it was only available to those with contracts with the so-called "major" record labels. But she had been the first pianist ever to record the complete works of Chopin for solo piano and with piano and orchestra for Naxos, received a Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin in Warsaw in 1995 for this, and was to be decorated with one of the highest orders of Poland by President Kaczynsky in 2007. Idil Biret did something no other pianist could do. Dr. Peter Stieber wrote: "Your own Chopin evening was then the breath-taking testimony of a great artist. We all could experience together how in your hands the wonderful music of Chopin begun truly to blossom."

Chopin's four Ballades are among the greatest of his works, as is the Fantasia in F minor also included on this disk. The Ballades were composed between 1835 and 1843 and are generally believed to be based upon works by the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. This is music in the style of the medieval troubador, with singing lyrical sections alternating with music of wild passions, big chords, chromatic passages, and virtuosic runs. The first and fourth ballades, in G minor and F minor, tend to be more stormy and passionate while the second and third, in F major and A flat major are more reflective and lyrical. Biret gives a beautiful rendition of this music with beautiful, free rhythm, attention to dynamics and phrasing, and a full use of the resources of the piano. She captures magnificently the wild, virtuosic concluding passages in the first and fourth ballades.

Among forms that Chopin made his own was the Nocturne, at one time synonymous with the Serenade, but with the Irish pianist John Field and Chopin, his successor, a lyrical piano piece offering, nominally at least, a poetic vision of the night. Field wrote eighteen piano pieces with this title between the years 1814 and 1835 and these introduced a new form of piano music that was developed not only in the Nocturne but in other separate movements for piano throughout the century. Two nocturnes were published in 1840 by Eugéne-Thèodore Troupenas, who briefly replaced Schlesinger, whom Chopin now accused of sharp practice in disposing of one of his German copyrights, giving vent, in private correspondence, to his rooted anti-semiotic suspicions. The G minor Nocturne, Opus 37, No. 1, encloses a tranquil chordal E flat major section, and is followed by a G major Nocturne, with a lilting secondary episode. By 1841 disagreement with Schlesinger had been put aside and he published a set of two nocturnes, the first in C minor and the second in F sharp minor, dedicated to Chopin's pupil Laure Duperré. Opus 48, No.1, moves forward to a central C major section of gentler character, increasing in excitement as the opening material returns. The F sharp minor Nocturne that completes the set moves into a relatively sombre D flat major section of some harmonic complexity. Two more nocturnes were published by Schlesinger in 1844, dedicated to Jane Stirling, a middle-aged Scottish pupil of Chopin whose nuptial ambitions outweighed her musical talent. It was through her that Chopin travelled in 1848 to London and to Scotland and to an endless round of tedious social visits that lasted seven months, until he could escape back to Paris again, his health now much worse. In 1844, however, Chopin was still involved with George Sand, although their relationship had it's difficulties as her two children, Maurice and Solange, grew up and used him in their own rivalries and jealousies. The F minor Nocturne, Opus 55, No. 1, allows the opening material to re-appear in more elaborate form in conclusion. It is followed by a second, the Nocturne in E flat, marked by it's use of a second melodic voice, accompanying the first. Chopin wrote his last two nocturnes in 1846 and they were published in the same year by Brandus, who had bought Maurice Schlesinger's business and was later to acquire Troupenas. They were dedicated to another of the composer's piano pupils, Mlle. de Kînneritz. Opus 62, No.1, in B major, is introduced by two chords, the first suggesting another tonality. There is an A flat major central section and an elaborated return of the material of the opening section. The final work, the Nocturne in E major, has a secondary episode with a more energetic accompanying figure. The two nocturnes were written in the autumn of 1846 at Nohant, which Chopin only left in November to return alone to Paris, giving rise to rumors about a quarrel with George Sand, with whom he quarreled definitively the following year, after her daughter's marriage.

The set of ten Hungarian dances opens with the famous G minor dance, followed by a D minor dance, with a central D major episode, and a third in D minor, with a lively D major middle section. The fourth dance, in F sharp minor, is of a more expressive cast, leading to a more passionate companion in the same key. The sixth of the set, in D flat major, frames a slower C sharp minor section in livelier outer sections, leading to the rhythmic seventh dance and an eighth in A minor in the rhythm of the first. A dance in E minor is succeeded by the final rapid E major that rounds of the work. The sixteen Waltzes that form Opus 39 were written in Vienna in 1864 and published two years later with a dedication to the critic Eduard Hanslick, who welcomed such an unexpected gift from a serious, North German composer, who might have been supposed incapable of such Viennese abandon. If the great symphonies of Brahms continue the tradition of Schubert, they may be imagined as a tribute to the city where the compose was now to make his home. The original version seems to be that for piano duet, a form that had an immediate popular commercial attraction and would have provided Hanslick with music to share with young ladies of his acquaintance, with whom he was accustomed to play duets. The Waltzes are in a simpler and shorter form than the slightly more complex Hungarian Dances. Idil Biret born in Ankara, Idil Biret began piano lessons at the age of three. She displayed an outstanding gift for music and graduated from the Paris Conservatoire with three first prizes when she was fifteen. She studied piano with Alfred Cortot and Wilhelm Kempff, and composition with Nadia Boulanger. Since the age of sixteen Idil Biret has performed in concerts around the world, playing with major orchestras under the direction of conductors such as Monteux, Boult, Kempe, Sargent, de Burgos, Pritchard, Groves and Mackerras. She has participated in the festivals of Montreal, Persepolis, Royan, La Rochelle, Athens, Berlin, Gstaad and Istanbul. She was also invited to perform at the 85th birthday celebration of Wilhelm Backhaus and at the 90th birthday celebration of Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret received the Lily Boulanger Memorial Fund Award (1954/1964), the Harriet Cohen/Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal (1959) and the Polish Artistic Merit Award (1974) and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite in 1976.

Apart from Idil Biret's "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" performance of Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf on 22 November 1963, another memorable performance of the 3rd Concerto was at the Istanbul Festival in July 1983 with the Leningrad Orchestra conducted by Alexander Dimitreev. After her performance the orchestra's conductor Alexander Dimitriev visited Idil Biret at her home and said the following: "We were quite intrigued when we learnt that you wanted to perform Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto with our orchestra as women rarely play this work. I now want to thank you for your wonderful performance yesterday. There is no woman today in the Soviet Union who can play this work the masterly way you did. The number of men who can do so are limited in number to the fingers of hand."