Two Polonaises, Op.26 — Frédéric Chopin | The Gerald Larner Programme Note Archive

chopin piano works, recital II

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

Two Polonaises, Op.26

No.1 in C sharp minor

No.2 in E flat minor

The earliest surviving Chopin composition is a little Polonaise in G minor, which was published in Warsaw when he was no more than seven years old. Before he left Poland in 1830 he wrote at least eight more polonaises for piano and one, the Polonaise brillante, Op.3, for cello and piano. None of these, however, and not even the Grande Polonaise in E flat major for piano and orchestra written in Vienna in 1830 can compare in style and character with the proud series of six polonaises he produced in Paris between 1835 and 1842, let alone the Polonaise-Fantasie of 1846. The difference between the last of the Warsaw polonaises and the first of those he wrote in Paris is a matter not so much of maturity, although that is obviously a significant consideration, as of attitude.

By 1834, when Chopin started on the first of the two Polonaises, Op.26, he had been exiled from Poland for four years. Nostalgic for a country to which he felt he could not safely return and fervently resentful of the cruel setback to its aspirations with the suppression of the Warsaw uprising in 1831, he discovered in the strutting rhythms of his national dance a heroic potential which had never been developed before. In his childhood he had treated the polonaise, like his contemporaries in Warsaw, as a comparativliy tame salon piece; in his teens, aware of what German composers like Weber and Hummel were doing to it, he had exploited it for its virtuoso potential: as he somewhat unkindly said of his Polonaise brillante, “It is nothing but glitter, for the drawing room, for the ladies.” Now, however, it was beginning to adopt a defiant, even aggressive attitude and an ambitious expansion of the traditional ternary construction.

With the C sharp minor Polonaise, Op.26, No.1, the transformation is not quite complete. It is allied neither to the salon nor to empty virtuosity nor yet to the heroism of the E flat minor, Op.26, No.2. Half-formed in style, it is apparently also half-formed in shape. It has two authentically stirring bars of introduction, a first section with the characteristic rhythm prominent in the left hand under an urgent but not inelegant melody in the right, and then a long and lyrical second section in D flat major. Chopin’s intentions are not entirely clear but the pieces seems to end here in D flat, with no instruction that the first section should be repeated. The autograph actually suggests the opposite.

The construction of the Polonaise in E flat minor, on the other hand, is so well developed that, with a well defined secondary theme in D flat major as well as a trio section in B major, it approaches something like rondo form. It has a dangerously rumbling rather than merely dramatic introduction and a main theme which, launched on a rapid upward scale marked con forza, has something almost angry about it. The contained energy of the sotto voce trio section effectively offsets the spectacular dynamic profile of the main theme.

Five Mazurkas, Op.7

No.1 in B flat minor

No.2 in A minor

No.3 in F minor

No.4 in A flat major

No.5 in C major

The authentic Chopin mazurka was developed long before the authentic Chopin polonaise. Although the four Mazurkas, Op.6, and the five Mazurkas, Op.7 - most of which were written in Vienna towards the end of 1830 - were the first works of their kind that the composer himself chose to publish, he had written several characteristic examples before he left Warsaw. Those published posthumously as Op.68, the first three of which date from between 1827 and 1830, offer proof enough of that. The difference is that, while there clearly was a patriotic element in Chopin’s life-long relationship with mazurka, his works in that form are not public statements like the polonaises. They are private expressions of his fascination, as a Polish musician, with the rhythmic, harmonic and structural peculiarities of a dance still quite close to its peasant origins.

There is no better example of Chopin’s delight in the mazurka than Op.7, No.1, where he exaggerates the characteristic rhythmic emphasis on the second beat of the bar in a variety of ways but most wittily of all by a teasing drop of a seventh in the melodic line and a consequent clash with the harmonies in the left hand - a dissonance suggested, no doubt, by the sharpened fourth note of the scale frequently found in the folk mazurka. The harmonic effect of the modal melodic line brought into contact with the open fifths in the brief middle section is positively exotic.

Op.7, No.2 - an early version of which, with a bagpipe introduction, was written in Warsaw in 1829 - is in a comparatively straightforward A minor and, until the A major middle section, is far less consistent in displacing the triple-time metrical accent. In the F minor, Op.7, No.3, Chopin lets his imagination run free - from a peculiarly grumbling introduction to a characteristic mazurka melody with second-beat emphases and with tireless repetitions of a two-bar phrase, to an artful variant on it, to a new theme in D flat major, to an eloquently expressive development in the left hand and, by way of an extraordinary modulation, to a reprise of the introduction and the first theme in F minor.

The A flat major Mazurka is a revision of one written, according to some authorities, as long as six years earlier. Its comparatively quick tempo leaves the two hands without the time to agree on all matters of phrasing and rhythm. The last in the set is an intriguing example of another primitive mazurka characteristic, which is that it has no real ending and could, in theory, go on repeating itself for ever.

Twenty-four Preludes, Op.28

No.1 in C major

No.2 in A minor

No.3 in G major

No.4 in E minor

No.5 in D major

No.6 in B minor

No.7 in A major

No.8 in F sharp minor

No.9 in E major

No.10 in C sharp minor

No.11 in B major

No.12 in G sharp minor

No.13 in F sharp major

No.14 in E flat minor

No.15 in D flat major

No.16 in B flat minor

No.17 in A flat major

No.18 in F minor

No.19 in E flat major

No.20 in C minor

No.21 in B flat major

No.22 in G minor

No.23 in F major

No.24 in D minor

Although Chopin cannot have expected his twenty-four Preludes to be played complete and in numerical order in one session, they are so arranged that they could be. The organization of J.S. Bach’s Das wohltemperirte Clavier, though it was an inspiration to Chopin in most other respects, is quite different in this one. Bach’s preludes and fugues are presented in pairs, major and minor, rising up the chromatic scale, which is not conducive to consecutive listening. Chopin’s Preludes are also presented as pairs, major and relative minor in this case, but rising in a cycle of fifths, which is a much more natural progression.

The other essential difference between Bach’s and Chopin’s Preludes is that, whereas the former are melodic inventions arising from the harmonic and fingering implications of the key in which they are written, the latter are for the most part reflections of a particular state of mind. But it is only a difference of emphasis: Chopin’s Preludes are also rooted in their tonality, technically no less than emotionally, and like Bach’s (though unlike Debussy’s) they have few external references. It is true that they have associations with Majorca and the deserted monastery of Valdemosa where Chopin was staying with George Sand and her children when he completed the series in 1839. But the fact is that most of them were written in Paris and that only Nos.1, 2, 4, 10 and 21 were actually written on the island. While the increasingly unhappy situation there must have had some influence on his work, it is more significant that he had with him as his constant companion Bach’s Wohltemperirte Clavier, to which he owed a life-long devotion.

The Bach connection is made from the beginning in No.1 in C major, which is an agitated, syncopated reshaping of the even arpeggio figuration of the Prelude in C major in Bach’s Book I. Prelude No.2 in A minor might just, on the other hand, have something to do with Majorca and its Moorish folk culture: it is difficult to explain otherwise the exotically dissonant harmonies which, until the long-delayed resolution, have nothing to do either with Bach or with Paris in the 1830s. No.3 in G major, though it sounds like nothing but Chopin, emulates Bach in setting a melody, outlined in the running semiquavers in the left hand, against a rhythmically altered and augmented variant in the right hand. No.4 in E minor is its melancholy obverse, as painfully persistent in its left-hand accompaniment as the other is cheerfully flexible.

There is more Bach in No.5 in D major, which resembles its Book I counterpart in drawing a melodic line (off the beat in Chopin’s case) through the flow of semiquavers. The ostinato persistence of No.4 in E minor is echoed in No.6 in B minor, but in the right hand this time over a characteristically eloquent cello impersonation in the left. No.7 in A major, the earliest of the twenty-four Preludes, is a charming little stray from the mazurkas - introduced here only to be swept away by the rhythmically turbulent No.8 in F sharp minor with its melodic line for the right thumb squeezed between the hurriedly articulated figuration round it. Similarly , the solemn march of No.9 in E major is brushed aside by the skittish though not entirely unserious No.10 in C sharp minor.

A kind of three-part invention, No.11 in B major is disarmingly spontaneous in comparison with the determined, unrelenting quest of the Presto No.12 in G sharp minor. No.13 in F sharp major - which is not only as beautiful but also as nocturnal as any of the nocturnes - is a welcome and, in its ternary structure, comparatively extended point of repose. It is succeeded, like the slow movement of the Sonata in B flat minor, by a disorientating flight of skeletal octaves, this one in E flat minor.

No.15 in D flat major is sometimes known as the “Raindrop Prelude” by association with an inclement episode at Valdemosa mentioned by George Sand. If it is true that the Prelude was written before the composer left for Majorca it does not seem a likely candidate for such distinction (nor, for the same reason, does Liszt’s alternative suggestion, No.8 in F sharp minor). It is tempting, however, to speculate whether the extended middle section in C sharp minor - with its obsessive G sharps, its organum harmonies and its snatches of plainsong - might have something to do with the reputedly haunted monastery and whether it might have been added there. Not that the impulsive No.16 in B flat minor, a breathless study in velocity, leaves much time for speculation.

A similar contrast informs the next pairing - No.17, a lightly floating impromptu A flat major, and No.18, a dramatic scena in F minor. The prevailing tempo relationship is reversed in Nos.19 and 20 - a Vivace study in the legato phrasing in E flat major followed by a Largo funeral march in C minor - and restored in Nos.21 and 22, a miniature ballade in B flat major and a demonic little scherzo in G minor. No.23 in F major is at once a tribute to Bach’s Book I Prelude in the same key and a study in sensitivity for a left hand which in the last, heroic Prelude in D minor must sustain the same urgent rhythmic pattern in unquestioning support of the passionately expressive right hand. The key of D minor does not, of course, complete a cycle beginning in C major but the ending, hammered into the bottom end of the keyboard, could scarcely be more conclusive.

Three Nocturnes, Op.9

No.1 in B flat minor

No.2 in E flat major

No.3 in B major

When the three Nocturnes, Op.9, were first published in this country - by Messrs Wessel of Regent Street in 1833 - they were presented under the spurious title of Murmures de la Seine. “Wessel is an imbecile,” said Chopin. “If he is losing money on my compositions it is because of the imbecility of the titles he insists on giving them.” Perhaps so. But the fact is that Wessel was trying to sell music of formidable harmonic sophistication to a public which at this time knew scarcely more of what to expect from a piano nocturne than they did of Frédéric Chopin.

The first section of the Nocturne in B flat minor would not have put off those few who enjoyed the nocturnes of John Field and who had the dexterity to fit the complex decorative figurations into the regular 6/4 metre. But what would they have made of the middle section, where the key changes to D flat major and, slipping immediately into D flat minor with one disconcertingly simple move in the melodic line in the right-hand octaves, goes on from there into a whole series of unsettling modulations? It would obviously have been easier to sell such things as murmurings of a river than as purely musical poetry.

As far as Op.9, No.2 was concerned, Wessel’s title presumably made no difference either way: in its melodic elegance, its harmonic charm, its apparent ease and its actual brevity, the Nocturne in E flat major was always destined to be a favourite. It was, on the other hand, slightly imbecilic to put No.3 in B major under the same heading: abandoning the regularly flowing left-hand rhythms and the nostalgic melodic lines of the other two for a peculiarly wistful and capricious kind of scherzo, it incorporates a passionate agitato middle section with a dramatically rumbling rather than gently murmuring left hand.

Three Mazurkas, Op.63

No.1 in B major

No.2 in F minor

No.3 in C sharp minor

The three Mazurkas Op.63 were the last set to be published in Chopin’s lifetime (the Op.67 and 68 sets, both made up of works from different periods, were published in Berlin in 1855). Written in 1846, shortly after the completion of the Polonaise-Fantaisie and the Barcarolle, they are not yet as weary as the two examples from 1849 (the G minor Op.67, No.2, and the F minor, Op. 68, No.4). The Mazurka in B major, Op.63, No.1, its main theme running in cheerful thirds, is positively energetic in its return to the folk roots so obscured by the sophisticated procedures of the preceding set. There is an expression of pain, however, in the appogiaturas associated with the main theme of the Mazurka in F minor and, though based on the relative major, the chromatic harmonies of the middle section do little to relieve the situation. The Mazurka in C sharp minor, which has something of the exquisitely nostalgic atmosphere of the nocturnes, includes a modal middle section entirely characteristic of its kind and ends with a beautifully contrived canon at the octave.

Sonata No.2 in B flat minor, Op.35

Grave - doppio movimento

Scherzo

Marche funèbre: lento

Presto

When Chopin wrote his First Piano Sonata in C minor, Op.4, he was scarcely a beginner: he had already written polonaises, mazurkas, waltzes and several sets of variations, including the Variations on Là ci darem la mano which were so famously to move Schumann to proclaim the young composer a genius. Eleven years later, on the other hand, when he came to write his Second Piano Sonata in B flat minor he had completed the two Piano Concertos, the Studies Op.10 and Op.25, the Preludes Op.28, three of the four Scherzos and two of the four Ballades. He was now a composer at the height of his powers.

The main theme of the opening movement of the Sonata in B flat minor seems, it is true, to share something of the obsessive quality of the equivalent theme in the Sonata in C minor. But, at its hard-pressed tempo and in its breathless articulation, the later inspiration is emotionally so much more meaningful. By now, moreover, Chopin has the confidence to introduce a second subject which is not only clearly defined but also, in its D flat major tonality and its sostenuto treatment, such a complete contrast to the first that it could endanger the coherence of the movement. Structural considerations are not ignored - the thematically pregnant first four bars (marked Grave) are proof of that - but the poetic impulse is fully liberated. The recall of the second subject in B flat major at the beginning of the recapitulation, securing an ending in which the anxieties of the first subject are all but quelled, is a beautiful illusion.

Like the Menuetto in the C minor Sonata, the Scherzo of the Sonata in B flat minor is presented as the second of the four movements. But that is all the two pieces have in common: this later Scherzo in E flat minor is clearly related to the dramatic version of the form Chopin had in the meantime so successfully developed in the Scherzos in B minor, B flat minor and C sharp minor. As in the first movement, there is a contrastingly tranquil section in the relative major but the ending, which recalls the lyrical material in the relative major again rather than in the tonic major, is uneasy. So now the way is prepared for the Marche funèbre in B flat minor which Chopin had written two years earlier - to mark, it is said, the anniversary of the Warsaw uprising - and which he evidently considered strong enough to have a whole sonata built round it. In this case even the contrasting material in the D flat major middle section is sorrowful.

After that there is no escape. The unbroken flight of unharmonised sotto voce triplets in the Presto finale is surely not intended to represent “wind blowing over the grave,” as legend has it: Chopin himself described it as nothing more than “a short finale of about three pages…the left hand chattering unisono with the right hand.” But as soon as the descending seventh of the Grave opening of the first movement is incorporated in the Presto opening of the last - in the very first bar in fact - the fate of the sonata, like its structural unity, is sealed.