"Recording is as necessary to me as the air I breathe. One withdraws from the world for a brief while - an eternity -, examines a piece of music and is cross-examined by it in turn, then gives evidence before the microphones. It's as if I've played out my life through my recordings, each one representing a significant, if not seminal, stage in my development as an artist. Thirty years of recording. A discography built from stones of many different, and sometimes clashing, colours, but a discography with a broad and solid structure, a kind of self-portrait. If a good half of this set is taken from Alexandre Tharaud's published discography, the rest is made up by hitherto unreleased music. Some did not make it on to the album they were originally intended for, while others were recorded for fun at studio sessions over the years. "When you're recording," the pianist explains, "you're always looking for the perfect take, where everything flows perfectly. But the pressure of the microphone doesn't help... So sometimes, recording a piece unplanned allows you to rediscover that spontaneity".