Three Waltzes, Op.34

chopin piano works, recital IV

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Three Waltzes, Op.34

No.1 in A flat major

No.2 in A minor

No.3 in F major

By its nature, the waltz can achieve neither the grandeur associated with the polonaise nor the expressive intimacy associated with the nocturne. Two of the thee “Grandes Valses brillantes,” Op.34 - the A flat major written in 1835 and the A minor written perhaps three years later - come exceptionally close however. The first is a particularly remarkable creation, not least for its stature: it is the longest of all Chopin’s waltzes. The introduction, though not unlike that of the earlier “Valse brillante” in E flat major, Op.18, is four times as long and it is more closely integrated with the fabric of the piece. It reappears in a variant version at the beginning of the middle section, where it inspires an improvisatory enterprise which transcends the limitations of the four-by-four phrasing and the sixteen-bar paragraphs endemic to the waltz.

The Waltz in A minor, Op.34, No.2, though also headed “ Grande Valse brillante,” has a distinctly melancholy Slavonic temperament. In some ways, with its sombre first theme in the left hand and the abrupt changes from major to minor in the middle section, it has more in common with Chopin’s mazurkas than his waltzes. Certainly, the eloquent left hand on the last page would not be out of place in the most poetic of the mazurkas - or even in a nocturne. Paradoxically, it was the composer’s own favourite among the waltzes.

The Waltz in F major, Op.34, No.3, on the other hand, is so playful that it came to be known as the “Cat Waltz” - a description which applies particularly well to the kittenish figuration in the middle section and its witty return at the end.

Tarantelle in A flat major, Op.43

Although there are quotations from Rossini in a few of his early pieces - and although Italian opera of the period had a lasting influence on his melodic style - direct echoes of Rossini in Chopin’s mature music are rare. However, in the Tarentelle which, rather surprisingly, he wrote at Nohant in 1841 there are fleeting reminders of “La Danza.” He didn’t possess a copy of the Rossini song himself but when he sent the Tarentelle to Julian Fontana to have it copied he asked him to have a look at “La Danza” to see whether it was in 6/8 or 12/8. “As to my composition,” he said, “it does not matter which way it is written, but I should prefer it to be like Rossini’s.” While it is not, by common consent, among the most inspired of Chopin’s works, it is very much more sophisticated than most of its tarantella kind and it does contrive - partly by harmonic means but mainly through an acceleration towards the end - to simulate something of the recklessness traditionally associated with the Neapolitan dance.

Four Mazurkas, Op.41

No.1 in C sharp minor

No.2 in E minor

No.3 in B major

No.4 in A flat major

Chopin’s seventh set of mazurkas was completed during his first summer in George Sand’s country house at Nohant, not long after their return to France from Majorca in 1839. Sand’s assertion that, although Chopin always wanted to go to Nohant, he could never actually tolerate it seems to be borne out by the peculiarly obsessive quality of the main theme of Op.41, No.1. Introduced in modal C sharp minor by the right hand alone in the opening bars and presented four or five times in different harmonies, it does make way for more tuneful and more decorative material in C sharp major. But it is always there in the background, ready to resurface in its original form in the middle of the piece or, after a particularly determined escape effort, to assert itself in angry fortissimo octaves. As the coda suggests, there is no alternative but quiet acceptance of the situation.

The Mazurka in E minor was written a few months before the other three, when Chopin and Sand were still languishing unhappily in Majorca. Even so, it has much in common with the Mazurka in C sharp minor. If it is inspired by a more poetic, not so restive kind of melancholy - which is scarcely relieved by the plaintive middle section in B major - it displays similarly bleak modal features and reacts to the heavily assertive return of its opening theme in much the same way.

In that it cannot easily escape the strumming motif with which it begins No.3, in B major also has its obsession. It is much more cheerful about it, however, above all in its witty treatment of the mazurka’s character-istic shift of the rhythmic emphasis to the second beat of the bar.

Another indigenous mazurka characteristic is that it often has no proper ending, as Chopin observed in his own examples from time to time. He does it nowhere more effectively than in No.4 in A flat major, which is one of the most beautiful and, in its metrically disorientated D flat major episodes, one of the most subtle works of its kind. Far from presenting itself as the climax to the Op.41 set, its second half begins as though to repeat the first half, modulates as before to reintroduce the D flat major material, touches on a chord of A flat major and pauses…

Scherzo No.4 in E major, Op.54

Intolerable though life in George Sand’s manor house might have been - and as her children grew up Chopin’s situation there became all the more uncomfortable - it was at Nohant that, in the summer of 1842, he started work on a scherzo remarkable for the evidence it offers of a settled, happy and even playful state of mind. Certainly, in comparison with its three more or less demonic predecessors, all in minor keys, the Scherzo in E major is a serene and radiant inspiration. If, on the other hand, there is anything at all significant in the regular turn-over of eight-bar phrases and in the symmetrical reversal of the harmonic pattern of the earlier examples, it could be that Chopin had made the professional decision that it was time to write a different kind of scherzo.

No one could argue that the opening section, with its five or six thematic components capriciously shuffled and reshuffled, is anything but brilliantly entertaining. The late entry of a new theme in duple-time rhythms gently crossing the prevailing triple-time metre, is a particularly delightful event. But then there is the più lento middle section in C sharp minor which seems to suggest, in its confiding sort of way, that the emotional reality is not so cheerful. If that is true, perhaps it is confirmed on the return of the E major material by those new details in harmony and colouring which hint that there might now be just a touch of petulance mingled with the capriciousness. And is the coda angry or merely impetuous?

Impromptu No.3 in G flat major, Op.51

Chopin did not take the impromptu very seriously. In the Impromptu No.1 in A flat, Op.29, he evidently had no misgivings about repeating the formula he had discovered in the work we now know as the Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor, Op.66, and - after a departure in a different direction in the Impromptu No.2 in F sharp, Op.36 - he returned to the early pattern in the Impromptu No.3 in G flat major, Op.51. The triplet figuration of the outer sections of Op.51 is clearly based on that of Op.29, but it does discovers its own kind of chromatic frisson and the left-hand melodic line of the central sostenuto is developed with true improvisatory eloquence. Written at Nohant in 1842, in the same summer as the Fourth Ballade and the Fourth Scherzo, the Impromptu in G flat is clearly not as ambitious as either of those works but it is more than the “occasional piece” modestly dismissed by the composer himself.

Prelude in C sharp minor, Op.45

The solitary Prelude in C sharp minor was Chopin’s contribution to a Beethoven Album published in Vienna in 1841 in aid of the fund for the Beethoven monument in Bonn. Written during the composer’s first summer at Nohant, it is an essentially romantic inspiration, a nocturnal kind of improvisation modulating so freely and so spontaneously on every poetic impulse that it floats out of reach of the home key almost as soon as it is established. Basically ternary in form, it restores the C sharp minor harmonies at the appropriate point but only to slip away again, drifting this time into a strange little cadenza of parallel fourths and fifths and then, as if by chance, back into C sharp minor.

Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op.44

The Polonaise in F sharp minor is the ultimate expression of Chopin’s national identity. This is not so much because of its epic scale - it is the longest polonaise before the Polonaise-Fantasie, Op.61 - or its ominously rumbling introduction, or its grimly militant main theme, or even its shameless strutting on a relentlessly repeated rhythm towards the middle of the piece: it scores Polish points over every other work of its kind by incorporating a mazurka as its middle section. The contrast between the aggressively robust polonaise sections in F sharp minor and the poetic mazurka in A major, harmonised at first in intimate thirds and sixths, is at a dangerous extreme. The mazurka is, however, so skilfully integrated by its thematic relationships with the outer sections that it can be developed both freely and at length. As a mazurka alone it would be an outstanding achievement. As a polonaise and a mazurka combined it is an extraordinary and remarkably successful synthesis.

“It is a sort of Fantasy in the form of a Polonaise,” Chopin wrote to his publisher in Vienna as he was working on it at Nohant in 1842, “and I shall call it a Polonaise.” He would develop that idea in a different way and on a different level in his Op.61 three or four years later.

Allegro de concert in A major, Op.46

The work Chopin would have chosen to play first in an independent Poland was not the Polonaise in F sharp minor but the Allegro de concert. At least, that is what he told his Silesian friend Aleksander Hoffman when he sent him a copy of the Allegro de concert - “to the Silesian craftsman from the street musician” - and there is no reason to doubt his word. Equally, there is no obvious reason for understanding it.

Although the Allegro de concert was completed and published as a solo piece in 1841, Chopin referred to it in a letter to Fontana as a “my concerto” and it certainly has more in common with a concerto movement, with fairly clear distinctions between solo and tutti passages, than with any kind of expression of national pride. It is true that the first subject, introduced by the “soloist” after an “orchestral” introduction does have a Polish feel to it and that, among more conventional virtuoso passages, the work does boast some heroic gestures here and there. Even so, speculations that it is, at least in part, a reworking of discarded concerto material originating seven years earlier, when Chopin is though to have had two such projects in mind, are probably not far off the mark.

Four Mazurkas, Op.33

No.1 in G sharp minor

No.2 in D major

No.3 in C major

No.4 in B minor

Unlike the Op.41 Mazurkas, the last one of which so subtly evades its finale responsibilities, the immediately preceding set - published two years earlier in 1838 - set was clearly intended as a coherent group. The fourth and last of the Op.33 Mazurkas is not only one of the longest of its kind but is also conclusive in its context. It is related by its tonality to Op.33, No.1, which in its middle section expresses the serene - and, as it turns out, vain - hope of escaping into B major from the prevailing G sharp minor melancholy.

Op.33, No.2, cheerfully and repeatedly insists that D major might be a more likely escape route although, as its abruptly modulating middle section so surprisingly indicates, it is by no means restricted to that key area itself. The closest in the Op.33 set to its folk roots, the Mazurka in D major ends on a delightfully exotic rising scale.

The modulations towards A flat in the middle section of Op.33, No.3, are even more boldly executed, in the first place no doubt to offset the simplicity of the C major outer sections but perhaps also to offer an enharmonic reminder of the G sharp minor situation of the first piece in the set. The conclusion is, however, that although No.4 in B minor itself lingers exquisitely in B major and even rejoices in it before the end, B minor is ultimately inescapable.

Three Waltzes, Op.64

No.1 in D flat major

No.2 in C sharp minor

No.3 in A flat major

However regrettable the “Minute Waltz” nickname attached to Op.64, No.1, it is surely preferable to “Valse du petit chien” which is sometimes applied in France in the belief that Chopin was inspired by the sight of a little dog chasing its tale. Whatever the truth of that notion, “Minute Waltz” is appropriate at least in that the Waltz in D flat major is a very short piece and one that is not inclined to drag its feet.

The other two waltzes in the Op.64 set are not much longer. Written and published in 1847, they represent a kind of purification of the form with a clearly defined ternary structure and an evident thematic economy. The charmingly poignant C sharp minor Waltz - a not too distant relation of the mazurkas in the same key - has only three main themes, the expressive syncopations in the più lento D flat major middle section offering a valuable relief from the metrical regularity on either side. As for the A flat major, the last of Chopin’s published waltzes, it is the most subtle construction of all. The first section is economically based on one theme and several variants in eight-bar periods, the last of which presents a right-hand anticipation of the left-hand theme of the comparatively thoughtful C major middle section.

Two Nocturnes, Op.48

No.1 in C minor

No.2 in F sharp minor

Unlike most of Chopin’s nocturnes, which float their melodic lines on their flowing left-hand arpeggios, Op.48, No.1, in C minor is remark-able for its gravity. The melody in the right hand is characteristic enough both in its decorative details and its wider curves. The heavy left-hand chords, however, hold it down in uncharacteristic dejection. It seems that the C major march, which follows sotto voce and at a slower tempo, might offer a way out of the situation. But by the end of this middle section, which is engulfed in chromatic scales in fortissimo double octaves, there are no illusions. The opening theme is scored in a quite different way on its return and the initially solemn left-hand chords are now replaced by a more animated triplet texture - though still, in spite of the quiet ending, with no release from the tragedy hanging over the piece.

The F sharp minor Nocturne, which was also written at Nohant in the summer of 1841, is nearer to the John Field prototype. The right-hand melody does indeed float on left-hand arpeggios and with a characteristically poetic kind of melancholy. There is, however, a dramatic intervention in D flat major which, through its heavy chords and its expressive recitative, has the long-term effect of converting the foregoing minor material to a radiant and perfectly timed F sharp major ending.

Scherzo No.1 in B minor, Op.20

Although a macabre element was not unknown in the scherzo when Chopin adopted the form in 1835, the character of the First in B minor was still so unconventional that Schumann was moved by it to make his classic remark that if this is a joke he would like to know what serious music sounds like. When it first came onto the market in this country, the publisher thought it expedient to ignore Chopin’s title and call it “The Infernal Banquet.” In conventional ternary form, it ends in a mood as “bold and stormy” (in Schumann’s words) as it began. The intervention of the Polish Christmas song, “Sleep, Baby Jesus,” as the basis of a serenely lyrical middle section in the relative major, has no influence on the emotional outcome.

Gerald Larner©