Three Mazurkas

in C major, Op.56, No.2

in C minor, Op.56, No.3

in C sharp minor, Op.50, No.3

from 24/10/76

Whatever evidence there is of Clementi’s influence on Chopin, there is little point in looking for it in the mazurkas. He was writing mazurkas at the age of ten and continued to write them - well over fifty in all - until shortly before his death. Inspired by the dance music of the Polish peasant, they grow directly from Chopin’s roots and are the most personal of his compositions. Some are quite close to the folk original, like Op.56, No.2 - with the primitive open fifths repeated in the bass in imitation of the bagpipe drone, the siimple rise and fall of the oberek fiddle tune and, of course, the characteristic shift of the rhythmic emphasis away from the first beat of the bar. Others are more sophisticated, like the C minor Mazurka from the same set - an extraordinary and apparently spontaneous improvication in a remarkably free interpretation of ternary form, heightened with experimental harmonies and disturbing modulations. The C sharp minor Mazurka from the Op.50 set, written a couple of year earlier in 1841, is somewhere between those two extremes - outer section which poignantly combine the opening parlando lament with brave gestures in dance rhythm, contrasted with a simple oberek middle section in B major.