Chopin - Mazurkas (Rubinstein)
17„Chopin’s Mazurkas form one of the greatest collections of piano literature – some say the greatest. Soulful, witty, and often dramatic, they can be experienced in a multiplicity of ways: as a diary of Chopin’s life; as his laboratory for compositional ideas, as a testimony to Polish culture and his elegant improvisation.” (1)
Mazurkas are based on traditional Polish folk dances: Mazur, Kujawiak and Oberek. However, while Chopin used them as his model, he was able to transform his mazurkas into an entirely new genre. Chopin started composing mazurkas in 1825 (age of 15), and continued composing them until 1849, the year of his death. The number of mazurkas composed in each year varies, but he was steadily writing them throughout this time period.
„Perhaps a bit surprisingly for those not too familiar with them, Chopin’s Mazurkas show him at the absolute height of his genius, and in all moods: baleful, anxious, sarcastic, lyrical, triumphant, forgiving, anguished, placid. They’re some of his most harmonically, rhythmically, and texturally advanced music, and have a pretty justified reputation as being very difficult to perform effectively despite the fact that on a purely technical level they’re not that challenging. Interpretively however, the Mazurkas are a puzzling blend of innocence and incredible musical sophistication, and it’s very hard to convey their often-heady, sometimes-Delphic, always-rapt musicality. [You can find in Mazurkas] tonal ambiguity (17.4 […]), rhythmic displacement (6.3), striking harmonies (7.1’s middle section, 17.4 again, 41.1, the Renaissance-like Notre Temps and the modal middle of 68.3), works ending on the bare dominant or the wrong key (7.5, 24.4, 30.2), very daring modulations (33.4, 41.2+3, 68.4 […]), works which expand into almost Ballade-like proportions (56.3, 59.1), and, especially in the later works, an increasing amount of counterpoint (50.3, 63.3, […]).” (2)
„More than for other composers, history plays an enormous part in understanding Chopin's music. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Polish were a people without a sovereign state to call their own. They were under the thumb of an oppressive Russia, and their territory was being reduced by a series of political moves that went against the Polish. Their resistance gave rise to an armed revolt against the Russians, which initially peaked between 1797-1802. This event gave rise to Poland's national anthem, a mazurka written by Józef Wybicki in honor of Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's bravery. A series of conflicts ensued in the decades following. The violence peaked again in the Uprising of November 1830, which escalated into war with Russia but quickly ended in defeat for the Polish a year later. Chopin was on a concert tour in Western Europe at the time the fighting broke out, and was unable to return to Poland following this conflict. Poland was reorganized as a Russian territory and heavily repressed as a former aggressor for decades following. Chopin's patriotism and homesickness for his homeland shaped the emotional framework for his life's work from thereafter. He was not really content being an émigré, taking part in the Polish experience only by proxy. Chopin was recognized in his time for his Polish patriotism. Remarkably, Robert Schumann wrote the same year of Chopin's exile to Paris, in 1831, "If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin's works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin's works are cannons buried in flowers." This was the earliest recorded recognition of the importance that Chopin's work had in the form of protest music; in his charming, deceptively simple mazurkas, he embodies a message of defiance, of solidarity with the men and women who were resisting on his behalf and fighting for a unified, free Poland.” (3)
Performed by: Artur Rubinstein
(1) - Joanna MacGregor, https://soundcircus.com/chopin-the-complete-mazurkas/
(2) - Ashish Xiangyi Kumar, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2q7OXP-mPxHzJerA9tXe7Q
(3) - Jeffrey Jones, from their YouTube comment
Thumbnail - Chopin's portrait ©Rue des Archives/Varma/Forum