3 Mazurkas

in A minor “à Emile Gaillard” (1841)

in A flat major “Szymanowska” (1834)

in C sharp minor Op.50 No.3 (1841–42)

If Chopin had chosen to distinguish one mazurka from all the others by calling it “Mazurka-Fantaisie,” as he was to to award the title of “Polonaise-Fantaisie” to his Op.61 in A flat, it would be either the C sharp minor Op.50 No.3 or the C minor Op.56 No.3. He surely cannot, on the other hand, have attached much value to the Mazurka in A minor which he dedicated to Emile Gaillard, the banker father of one of his pupils, since he seems to have had nothing to do with its publication. It was sold, presumably by its dedicatee, to a minor Parisian publisher, J.-L. Chabal, who promptly issued it with an opus number already allocated to another work. Even so, it is a distinctive little piece, beginning with a wistful melody in the left hand and a regretful reply in the right. After a more lyrical middle section in A major with a new melody in octaves in the right hand, the dialogue is resumed, the left hand finally accepting the situation under a prolonged trill in the right.

The Mazurka in A flat was probably written for Celina Szymanowska who came to Paris in 1834 to marry Adam Mickiewicz, the poet and friend of Chopin. Certainly, the manuscript, which came to light in an album which had belonged to the pianist Maria Szymanowska, Celina’s mother, is headed “Paris 1834.” First published in 1930 with a facsimile of the MS – which shows little detail in terms of dynamics and which is less than clear on how the repeat of the first half should be executed – it is a slender but witty piece with an ending where it is least expected.

The Mazurka in C sharp minor, Op.50 No.3 ranks alongside the Mazurka in C minor Op.56 No.3 as one of the two longest and most developed works of their kind. In fact, although they include obvious mazurka elements and even whole mazurka episodes, they are more fantasies or rhapsodies than dances. Apart from its melodic abundance, the most striking peculiarity of Op.50, No.3 – unusual in the mazurkas but increasingly in evidence in Chopin’s other music in at this time – is its contrapuntal interest. This is immediately clear from the canonic treatment of the plaintive little theme introduced by the right hand alone in the opening bars. Chopin makes several attempts to sustain an authentic mazurka – which he does most successfully in a smoothly flowing oberek in B major – but the plaintive theme and its attendant voices return from time to time to impede its progress. They play a particularly persistent part in the closing section which is much expanded and more than a little complicated by the harmonic implications of its uncompromising contrapuntal development.