Pianist Janne Mertanen is known as a Chopin specialist but also plays a variety of other music, much of it Scandinavian. Mertanen scored a major breakthrough as a performer with a win at the International Chopin Competition in Darmstadt, Germany, and since then, he has been identified especially with Chopin's music. Mertanen made his recording debut in 1994 with the album Chopin Recital. He recorded an album of piano works by composer Joonas Kokkonen in 2001. Mertanen recorded frequently until the late 2010s, releasing albums of contemporary Finnish music as well as Chopin and other Romantic repertory. In 2023, he released the album Chopin.