Polonaises
Fryderyk Chopin’s polonaises are tightly linked to the national strand in his music. The most celebrated among them are difficult to understand without an awareness of Chopin's patriotic feelings and the tragic situation of Poland during his lifetime. He composed them from his childhood to his late years; altogether, he left eighteen works in the genre: sixteen piano polonaises, one for piano and orchestra and one for piano and cello [see Chamber music]. Their style changed over time, and their rank and importance grew gradually, evolving from conventional salon miniatures to expansive dance poems.
Yet all the Chopin polonaises, regardless of when they were written, are connected by the supreme idea of the polonaise-the most important Polish national dance. The polonaise developed in Poland long before Chopin's time, and since the Baroque era it had been a fashionable society dance at many European courts. The most eminent composers not infrequently wrote polonaises, including Bach, Telemann, Beethoven and Weber. In Poland, the polonaise (‘Polish dance’), also known under other names, including ‘chodzony’, ‘chmielowy’ and ‘świeczkowy’, was danced by the Polish gentry, townsfolk and populace. The polonaise in Polish music was given an artistic form by Michał Kleofas Ogiński (1765–1833), composer of the famous polonaise ‘Pożegnanie Ojczyzny’ [Farewell to the homeland]. The young Chopin was also familiar with the polonaises of Maria Szymanowska, Józef Elsner and Karol Kurpiński, and imitated many of these homespun models as a child.
The basic features of an authentic polonaise are 3/4 time, a moderate tempo, a distinguished character and typical rhythmic formulas. From Ogiński’s times onwards, the usual form of the artistic polonaise was a tripartite A B (trio) A. Chopin's earliest polonaises - in B flat major and in G minor - are the work of a seven-year-old boy, and in spite of their conventionality they are really quite charming, revealing the talent of this Polish wunderkind. In successive polonaises from his childhood and youth in Warsaw we note a gradual enrichment of pianistic and compositional means (the childhood Polonaise in A flat major from 1821, the polonaises in G sharp minor and B flat minor). Increasingly bold virtuosity appears in further youthful Warsaw polonaises from the years 1826–1828: in D minor, F minor and B flat major. These are already longer pieces, pianistically highly effective (in the ‘brilliant’ style). These works, which were no more than testimony to the young composer's development, were not included by Chopin in the ‘official’ strand of his oeuvre.
Chopin wrote his most splendid polonaises subsequent to his departure from Poland. They are seven in number:
2 Polonaises, Op. 26, in C sharp minor and E flat minor (completed 1835, published 1836)
2 Polonaises, Op. 40, in A major and C minor (1838–1839, published 1840)
Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op. 44 (composed and published 1841)
Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53 (1842–1843, published 1843)
Polonaise-fantasy in A flat major, Op. 61 (composed and published 1846)
There is also the Andante spianato and Grande Polonaise brillante, Op. 22 [see Works for piano and orchestra]
With the Polonaises, Op. 26 Chopin opened a new chapter in the history of the genre: henceforth he would abandon conventional stylisations and head in the direction of the ‘epic-dramatic poem’ (Zieliński). Each of these seven mature works has its own distinctive shape, pianistic style and expression. The Polonaise in E flat minor from Op. 26 is already marked by strong dramatic elements. Relatively the most traditional are the two works from Op. 40: the A major displays features of the heroic polonaise, whilst the C minor is elegiac, even tragic in expression (both types refer to Ogiński). The last three polonaises are grand dance poems, far removed from the earlier conventions of genre and form. The F sharp minor Polonaise, Op. 44 is close in its epic-dramatic gesture to the idea of the free Romantic fantasy ‘on a polonaise theme’, and it is unusual in the appearance of a mazurka in its middle section, as a contrasting lyrical passage. The Polonaise in A flat major, Op. 53 brings back the grand pianistic panache and heroic tone; the stormy octaves in the middle section have evoked to the minds of commentators the image of attacking hussars. Chopin's final work in this genre, the late Polonaise-fantasy in A flat major, possesses the most complex form, the unravelling of which represents a true challenge to pianists and listeners alike.
Artur Bielecki (NIFC)
Polonaise in F sharp minor Op. 44
Maturing at Nohant in the summer of 1841 alongside the Prelude in C sharp minor, Op. 45 was a composition of an utterly different character: imposing in its dimensions and expressed more in contours than colours, but above all in sharp, distinct, resolute rhythms: the Polonaise in F sharp minor. By the end of August, Chopin was informing the Viennese publisher Mechetti: ‘I have a manuscript for your disposal. It is a kind of fantasy in polonaise form. But I call it a Polonaise’.
The Polonaise was written in a tense atmosphere. ‘The weather here has been exceedingly lovely for several days’, wrote Chopin to Fontana while bent over the manuscript, ‘but as for my music, it is ugly’. Mrs Sand complained to Marie de Rozières: ‘Two days ago, he said not a word to anyone the whole day. Has someone angered him? Did I say something to worry him?’ In a letter to Doctor Gaubert, her account was more colourful: ‘Chopin’s up to his usual tricks, fuming at his piano. When his mount fails to respond to his intentions, he deals it great blows with his fist, such that the poor piano simply groans. […] he considers himself idle because he’s not crushed by work’.
So the Polonaise in F sharp minor would seem to have been born in a climate of passion and labour. It is the first of the three grand polonaises in which Chopin abandoned the old formula derived directly from dance practice. The time had come for polonaises subjected to free fantasy, for heroic dance poems.
A couple of places are particularly striking. Firstly, the very opening, introduction, exordium, the birth of the theme, the emergence from the keyboard’s lower climes, is closer to the idea of a scherzo than a polonaise. The principal theme brings the anticipated essence of polonaise character: loftiness, dignity, a heroic tone and the vigour of a gesture directed towards the bright, sharp uplands of the keyboard. But in the very next bars, an unexpected lyrical accent appears for a moment – as a counter-theme. The complementary theme (in B flat minor) continues the octaves’ upward momentum, carrying all before it. And then comes another moment of surprise: Chopin has a single motif sound several dozen times, with the utmost passion and force. Perhaps these are the sounds – coming from the other side of the door to Chopin’s drawing-room – that put George Sand in mind of those blows delivered to the piano?
The greatest surprise is afforded the listener by the section that stands in place of the old trio. Here, there is no question that we are listening not to a polonaise, but to a mazurka. It rings out in the bright and clear key of A major, as a nostalgic recollection of old times and faraway places. The complement to the mazurka’s main theme is even more strongly imbued with lyricism. The polonaise returns, of course, with its heroic rhythms and octave flights. At the end, it subsides, before surprising us with the protest of its final note. Among the first reactions to this work, we find the voice of Ferenc Liszt. It is the voice of a listener who is at once both startled and confused, a listener benumbed by those bars preceding the mazurka ‘trio’ that cause him a ‘dismal shudder’, astonished at the power of the polonaise and the idyllic mood of the mazurka, which seems to ‘spread forth the scents of marjoram and mint’, yet brings a bitter contrast and an ironical accent.
In this respect, Liszt was surely right to observe that the energetic rhythms of Chopin’s polonaises ‘thrill and galvanise the torpor of our indifference’.
Author: Mieczysław Tomaszewski (NIFC)
