Chopin: Polonaise

Author

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849: Polish)
  • considered the national composer of Poland
  • educated at the Conservatory of Warsaw
  • moved to Paris at age 21, where he spent most of the rest of his life
  • died at age 39 of tuberculosis
  • Wikipedia Article

About the Piece

(much of thedescription comes from elements that were brought out by Forney and Machlis, The Enjoyment of Music, and the accompanying DVD)

  • Genre is polonaise (polish military dance)
  • ternary dance form (A-B-A') with internal repeats:
    A (a-a b-a b-a)-B(c-c'-c-c' d-c-c' d-c-c')-A (a-b-a)
  • completely in major keys
  • "stuttery" rhythm that would be difficult to dance to
  • lots of repetition
  • lots of staccato
  • wide spacing between chords in different hands
  • 3/4 meter, though it is hard to pick out because of the jumpiness of the rhythm
  • triplets pervasive throughout

Purpose

  • military dance
  • entertainment
  • dance in general

Reflections

This piece doesn't do much for me. I generally like the solo piano pieces, but there is just too much repetition in this one. It really is meant to be background music to a dance, so listening to it as forground noise is a little boring. Also, it doesn't feel like a very "smooth" piece. The starting and stopping of the rhythm is interesting and unique at first, but then it just gets annoying.