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Writing a piece to be played by children is among the most perilous compositional exercises. By limiting the technical difficulties in order to make the pieces accessible to young apprentice pianists, composers often deprive themselves of an essential element of their language: virtuosity. Whether it appertains to a superficial device intended to show off a soloist's "athletic" qualities or whether it is a rhetorical element strongly linked to pure musical inventiveness, it is indispensable for most composers for the piano, particularly since Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. The three composers present on this recording fully exploited virtuosity in their piano concertos, which are among their most popular works. However, when renouncing the lightning-fast scales, rapid octaves, repeated notes and register jumps so ubiquitous in their other pieces, Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) and Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) never give the impression of impoverishing their language. All three of them focus on the essential, like a great chef who prepares an exceptional victual with extreme simplicity, eschewing spices or other additives that might risk spoiling the singularity of the primary material. These three collections of pieces for children are in no way pieces aimed at "sub-adults". While the musical material is not complicated, its harmony, rhythm and melody are complex.