Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise in E flat major, Op.22

Chopin started writing his Grande Polonaise, his last work for piano and orchestra, at about the same time he was finishing his E minor Piano Concerto in Warsaw in 1830 and completed it in Vienna a few months later. It was not performed, however, until 1835 when he was invited to join the influential conductor Antoine Habaneck in one of his concerts at the Paris Conservatoire. For that occasion he wrote an introductory piece, the Andante spianato, which has been the almost inseparable companion of the Grande Polonaise ever since. But it is not the ideal companion. That is partly because it is in a quite different style but mainly because by the time he wrote it Chopin had lost interest in the orchestra – he had tried and failed to write a third piano concerto and a concerto for two pianos – with the result that it is scored for piano alone, without orchestra. If it seems anomalous to perform the Grande Polonaise without the Andante spianato, as on this occasion, it is certainly no more so than performing the Andante spianato without the Grande Polonaise as the composer himself often did.

As well as being the last of Chopin’s works for piano and orchestra, the Grande Polonaise is also the last of his polonaises in the so-called “style brilliant.” After the Warsaw uprising the polonaise took on a new, patriotic meaning for him and when he returned to the form in 1835 he treated it more as a heroic poem than as a vehicle for a show of pianistic brilliance. Even so, while it clearly dates from the pre-heroic period in the development of the Chopin polonaise, it is not unaristocratic in its handsomely swaggering demeanour, not without poetic inspiration as it touches on the minor in the more lyrical middle section, and certainly not without stamina as it races through its breathtakingly virtuoso coda. Given the composer’s liking for bassoon and horn colour, it is not without orchestral interest either.

Gerald Larner © 2011

Depending on how you read it, a letter written by Chopin in Warsaw in September 1830 seems to suggest that the Grande Polonaise in E flat was always meant to have an introductory companion piece. However, although he completed the Polonaise in Vienna in 1831, the Andante spianato had to wait until 1835 when the composer-pianist needed something new for his long delayed first appearance in François Habaneck’s celebrated Concerts du Conservatoire. Finding nothing incongruous in an extended solo-piano introduction to a piece for piano and orchestra and obviously untroubled by the stylistic disparity between the two, the Paris audience greeted the Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise with even more enthusiasm, apparently, than the Beethoven items which occupied most of the rest of the programme. The work was published in 1836 with a dedication to the same Baronne d’Este for whom Chopin had recently written the Impromptu in C sharp minor.

Nowadays the Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise is heard far more often in solo recitals than in orchestral concerts. If Chopin himself did not make a solo version of the Polonaise it was probably because he knew that the strictly minimal orchestral part could be very easily reduced and integrated into the piano part without doing violence to either of them. And if he was concerned about the difference in style between companion pieces with four or five years between them at a crucial period in his development, he did nothing to disguise it.

The G major Andante spianato has much less in common with the glittery piano-and-orchestra works he had written in Warsaw and Vienna than with the Nocturnes and, in the second main section, the more reflective Mazurkas of the early Paris period. It is, on the other hand, left open-ended to make way for the (originally orchestral) fanfare which introduces the Grande Polonaise in E flat major. Although it clearly dates from the pre-heroic period in the development of the Chopin polonaise, it is not unaristocratic in character in spite of its self-regarding swagger, not without poetic inspiration as it touches on the minor in the more lyrical middle section, and certainly not without stamina as it races through its breathtakingly virtuoso coda.   

There’s nothing in the piano-and-orchestra repertoire like the Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise. The second part was completed as long as four years before the first which, though written specifically to introduce the Grande Polonaise at an orchestral concert in the Paris Conservatoire, is a five-minute piano solo with absolutely nothing for the orchestra to do.

The anomaly seems all the greater for the fact that during those four years Chopin’s development significantly changed direction. The Grande Polonaise was started in Warsaw 1830, as a virtuoso successor to the two piano concertos, and was finished in Vienna a few months before he settled in Paris towards the end of 1831. After that, however, his creative personality changed to such an extent that he could no longer think in orchestral terms. Projected works like a concerto for two pianos and a third solo concerto were never realised and the Andante spianato et Grande Polonaise proved to be Chopin’s last score with an orchestral part. Nowadays it is far more often performed in solo piano recitals – which can be done with minimal adjustment to the polonaise – than in orchestral concerts. That’s a pity because, although the introductory pieces would no doubt have had something for the orchestra to do if he had written it in 1830 or 1831 as he originally intended, it was his mature decision to publish it as it will be performed in on this occasion.

Clearly, the stylistic divergence between the two pieces didn’t worry the composer. He would have known perfectly well that the intimately introspective G major Andante spianato has little in common with the glittery piano-and-orchestra works he had written in Warsaw and Vienna: it is nearer in fact, to the nocturnes and, in the second main section, the more reflective mazurkas of the early Paris period. His solution to the problem was to leave the Andante spianato open-ended to make way for the brass fanfare and orchestral crescendo that lead into the Grande Polonaise in E flat major. Although this main section clearly dates from the pre-heroic period in the development of the Chopin polonaise, it is not unaristocratic in its handsomely swaggering demeanour, not without poetic inspiration as it touches on the minor in the more lyrical middle section, and certainly not without stamina as it races through its breathtakingly virtuoso coda. Given the composer’s liking for bassoon and horn colour, it is not entirely without orchestral interest either.

Another apparent anomaly associated with the work is that Chopin frequently played the Andante spianato (spianato, incidentally, means “smooth”) as a separate piece even though, in the form we know, it lacks a closing section.