Four Mazurkas, Op.17

Four Mazurkas, Op.17

No.1 in B flat major

No.2 in E minor

No.3 in A flat major

No.4 in A minor

Bel canto and Polish folk song are a perilous mixture. In the Op.17 set of Mazurkas, however - which was dedicated in 1834 to Mme Lina Freppa, a singing teacher much respected in Paris and friend of Chopin and Bellini - Chopin clearly felt he could risk it just this once, reserving it as a kind of tribute to the dedicatee until the end of the group.

The decorative style of the briskly self-assertive first piece in the set is not operatic but pure mazurka, economically designed to emphasize the shift of the rhythmic stress away from the first beat in the bar. The harmonic style is pure mazurka too: nowhere else, uncommonly bold though he was in this respect, would Chopin have risked such wayward harmonies as those with which the right hand so cheerfully teases the glum left-hand ostinato in the E flat major middle section.

Although the slow Mazurka in E minor opens in a distinctly serious mood, it displays from an early stage a tendency to run into more playful major-key areas and into correspondingly more ornate figuration - except, that is, in the middle section where Chopin once again amuses himself at the expense of drone harmonies. There is a similar witty use of chromatic harmony in Op.17, No.3, where the opening theme is consistently associated with a dissonance which, though it immediately resolves onto the tonic, causes a frisson every time it is heard. It too has a decorative element but, like that of its predecessor in E minor, it is more instrumental than vocal.

The stylistic anomaly is in No.4 in A minor, which is so inclined to give Bellini-like voice to its melancholy in delicately detailed elaborations of the melodic line that it sounds at times more like a nocturne. Much the longest of the four and conscientious enough to recall material from No.2 in E minor in the middle section, the Mazurka in A minor was clearly intended as a finale for the whole group.

No.1 in B flat major

No.2 in E minor

No.3 in A flat major

No.4 in A minor

Chopin’s dedications are not usually of much signficance when it comes to understanding the music they so flatteringly recommend to some Parisian Comtesse, Baronne, or Princesse. With the Four Mazurkas, Op.17, however, the situation is a little different. Completed in 1833. they were published in the following year with a dedication to Mme. Lina Freppa, who was a singing teacher much respected in Paris and a friend of both Chopin and Bellini. It is true that we do not know whether they were written with Mme Freppa specifically in mind or whether she was selected as a suitable dedicatee once they were finished. But, either way, it is interesting that the one set of mazurkas which indulges in bel-canto melodic decoration - of a kind found more often, of course, in the nocturnes - should have been consigned to an Italian vocal specialist and a friend of Bellini.

The decorative style of the briskly self-assertive first piece in the set is not operatic but pure mazurka, economically designed to emphasise the shift of the rhythmic stress away from the first beat in the bar. The harmonic style is pure mazurka too: nowhere else, uncommonly bold though he was in this respect, would Chopin have risked such wayward harmonies as those with which the right hand so cheerfully teases the glum left-hand ostinato in the E flat major middle section. Although the slow Mazurka in E minor opens in a distinctly serious mood, it displays from an early stage a tendency to run into more playful major-key areas and into correspondingly more ornate figuration - except, that is, in the middle section where Chopin once again amuses himself at the expense of the drone harmonies, this time by means of chromatic extensions of the open fifths in the left hand.

There is a similar witty use of chromatic harmony in Op.17, No.3, where the opening theme is consistently associated with a dissonance which, though it immediately resolves onto the tonic, causes a little shock every time it is heard. It too has a decorative element but, like that of its predecessor in E minor, it is more instrumental than vocal. The stylistic anomaly is in No.4 in A minor, which is so inclined to give voice to its melancholy in delicately detailed elaborations of the melodic line that it sounds at times more like a nocturne than the mazurka-like Nocturne in G minor heard earlier in today’s programme. Much the longest of the four and conscientious enough to recall material from No.2 in E minor in the middle section, the the Mazurka in A minor was clearly intended as a finale for the whole group. This would be the structural pattern of Chopin’s sets of mazurkas from now on.