Chapter XXX (2)

With the people of the capital the real dances of the country
are disfigured not only by the influx of foreigners, but
especially also by the unfortunate employment of barrel-
organs....It is this instrument which crushes among the people
the practice of music, and takes the means of subsistence from
the village fiddler, who becomes more and more rare since
every tavern-keeper, in buying a barrel-organ, easily puts an
end to all competition. We see already more and more disappear
from our country sides these sweet songs and improvised
refrains which the rustic minstrels remembered and repeated,
and the truly national music gives way, alas! to the themes
borrowed from the operas most in vogue.

The mazurek, thus degenerated among the people, has been
adopted by the upper classes who, in preserving the national
allures, perfected it to the extent of rendering it, beyond
doubt, one of the most graceful dances in Europe. This dance
has much resemblance with the French quadrille, according to
what is analogous in the characters of the two nations; in
seeing these two dances one might say that a French woman
dances only to please, and that a Polish woman pleases by
abandoning herself to a kind of maiden gaiety--the graces
which she displays come rather from nature than from art. A
French female dancer recalls the ideal of Greek statues; a
Polish female dancer has something which recalls the
shepherdesses created by the imagination of the poets; if the
former charms us, the latter attaches us.

As modern dances lend themselves especially to the triumph of
the women, because the costume of the men is so little
favourable, it is noteworthy that the mazurek forms here an
exception; for a young man, and especially a young Pole,
remarkable by a certain amiable boldness, becomes soon the
soul and hero of this dance. A light and in some sort pastoral
dress for the women, and the Polish military costume so
advantageous for the men, add to the charm of the picture
which the mazurek presents to the eye of the painter. This
dance permits to the whole body the most lively and varied
movements, leaves the shoulders full liberty to bend with that
ABANDON which, accompanied by a joyous laisser-aller and a
certain movement of the foot striking the floor, is
exceedingly graceful.

One finds often a magic effect in the animated enthusiasm
which characterises the different movements of the head--now
proudly erect, now tenderly sunk on the bosom, now lightly
inclined towards the shoulder, and always depicting in large
traits the abundance of life and joy, shaded with simple,
graceful, and delicate sentiments. Seeing in the mazurek the
female dancer almost carried away in the arms and on the
shoulders of her cavalier, abandoning herself entirely to his
guidance, one thinks one sees two beings intoxicated with
happiness and flying towards the celestial regions. The female
dancer, lightly dressed, scarcely skimming the earth with her
dainty foot, holding on by the hand of her partner, in the
twinkling of an eye carried away by several others, and then,
like lightning, precipitating herself again into the arms of
the first, offers the image of the most happy and delightful
creature. The music of the mazurek is altogether national and
original; through its gaiety breathes usually something of
melancholy--one might say that it is destined to direct the
steps of lovers, whose passing sorrows are not without charm.

Chopin himself published forty-one mazurkas of his composition in eleven sets of four, five, or three numbers--Op. 6, Quatre Mazurkas, and Op. 7, Cinq Mazurkas, in December, 1832; Op. 17, Quatre Mazurkas, in May, 1834; Op. 24, Quatre Mazurkas, in November, 1835; Op. 30, Quatre Maazurkas, in December, 1837; Op. 33, Quatre Mazurkas, in October, 1838; Op. 41, Quatre Mazurkas, in December, 1840; Op. 50, Trois Mazurkas, in November, 1841; Op, 56, Trois Mazurkas, in August, 1844; Op. 59, Trois Mazurkas, in April, 1846; and Op. 63, Trois Mazurkas, in September, 1847. In tne posthumous works published by Fontana there are two more sets, each of four numbers, and respectively marked as Op. 67 and 68. Lastly, several other mazurkas composed by or attributed to Chopin have been published without any opus number. Two mazurkas, both in A minor, although very feeble compositions, are included in the editions by Klindworth and Mikuli. The Breitkopf and Hartel edition, which includes only one of these two mazurkas, comprises further a mazurka in G major and one in B flat major of 1825, one in D major of 1829-30, a remodelling of the same of 1832--these have already been discussed--and a somewhat more interesting one in C major of 1833. Of one of the two mazurkas in A minor, a poor thing and for the most part little Chopinesque, only the dedication (a son ami Rmile Gaillard) is known, but not the date of composition. The other (the one not included in Breitkopf and Hartel's, No. 50 of Mikuli's and Klindworth's edition) appeared first as No. 2 of Noire Temps, a publication by Schott's Sohne. On inquiry I learned that Notre Temps was the general title of a series of 12 pieces by Czerny, Chopin, Kalliwoda, Rosenhain, Thalberg, Kalkbrenner, Mendelssohn, Bertini, Wolff, Kontski, Osborne, and Herz, which appeared in 1842 or 1843 as a Christmas Album. [FOONOTE: I find, however, that Chopin's Mazurka was already separately announced as "Notre Temps, No. 2," in the Monatsberichte of February, 1842.] Whether a Mazurka elegante by Fr, Chopin, advertised in La France Musicale of April 6, 1845, as en vente au Bureau de musique, 29, Place de la Bourse, is identical with one of the above-enumerated mazurkas I have not been able to discover. In the Klindworth edition [FOOTNOTE: That is to say, in the original Russian, not in the English (Augener and Co.'s) edition; and there only by the desire of the publishers and against the better judgment of the editor.] is also to be found a very un-Chopinesque Mazurka in F sharp major, previously published by J. P. Gotthard, in Vienna, the authorship of which Mr. E. Pauer has shown to belong to Charles Mayer.

[FOOTNOTE: In an article, entitled Musical Plagiarism in the Monthly Musical Record of July 1, 1882 (where also the mazurka in question is reprinted), we read as follows:--"In 1877 Mr. E. Pauer, whilst preparing a comprehensive guide through the entire literature of the piano, looked through many thousand pieces for that instrument published by German firms, and came across a mazurka by Charles Mayer, published by Pietro Mechetti (afterwards C. A. Spinal, and entitled Souvenirs de la Pologne. A few weeks later a mazurka, a posthumous work of F. Chopin, published by J. Gotthard, came into his hands. At first, although the piece 'struck him as being an old acquaintance,' he could not fix the time when and the place where he had heard it; but at last the Mayer mazurka mentioned above returned to his remembrance, and on comparing the two, he found that they were one and the same piece. From the appearance of the title-page and the size of the notes, Mr. Pauer, who has had considerable experience in these matters, concluded that the Mayer copy must have been published between the years 1840 and 1845, and wrote to Mr. Gotthard pointing out the similarity of Chopin's posthumous work, and asking how he came into possession of the Chopin manuscript. Mr. Gotthard replied,'that he had bought the mazurka as Chopin's autograph from a Polish countess, who, being in sad distress, parted, though with the greatest sorrow, with the composition of her illustrious compatriot.' Mr. Pauer naturally concludes that Mr. Gotthard had been deceived, that the manuscript was not a genuine autograph, and 'that the honour of having composed the mazurka in question belongs to Charles Mayer.' Mr. Pauer further adds: 'It is not likely that C. Mayer, even if Chopin had made him a present of this mazurka, would have published it during Chopin's lifetime as a work of his own, or have sold or given it to the Polish countess. It is much more likely that Mayer's mazurka was copied in the style of Chopin's handwriting, and after Mayer's death in 1862 sold as Chopin's autograph to Mr. Gotthard.'"]

Surveying the mazurkas in their totality, we cannot but notice that there is a marked difference between those up to and those above Op. 41. In the later ones we look in vain for the beautes sauvages which charm us in the earlier ones--they strike us rather by their propriety of manner and scholarly elaboration; in short, they have more of reflective composition and less of spontaneous effusion about them. This, however, must not be taken too literally. There are exceptions, partial and total. The "native wood-notes wild" make themselves often heard, only they are almost as often stifled in the close air of the study. Strange to say, the last opus (63) of mazurkas published by Chopin has again something of the early freshness and poetry. Schumann spoke truly when he said that some poetical trait, something new, was to be found in every one of Chopin's mazurkas. They are indeed teeming with interesting matter. Looked at from the musician's point of view, how much do we not see that is novel and strange, and beautiful and fascinating withal? Sharp dissonances, chromatic passing notes, suspensions and anticipations, displacements of accent, progressions of perfect fifths (the horror of schoolmen), [FOOTNOTE: See especially the passage near the close of Op. 30, No. 4, where there are four bars of simultaneous consecutive fifths and sevenths.] sudden turns and unexpected digressions that are so unaccountable, so out of the line of logical sequence, that one's following the composer is beset with difficulties, marked rhythm picture to us the graceful motions of the dancers, and suggest the clashing of the spurs and the striking of heels against the ground. The second mazurka might be called "the request." All the arts of persuasion are tried, from the pathetic to the playful, and a vein of longing, not unmixed with sadness, runs through the whole, or rather forms the basis of it. The tender commencement of the second part is followed, as it were, by the several times repeated questions--Yes? No? (Bright sunshine? Dark clouds?) But there comes no answer, and the poor wretch has to begin anew. A helpless, questioning uncertainty and indecision characterise the third mazurka. For a while the composer gives way (at the beginning of the second part) to anger, and speaks in a defiant tone; but, as if perceiving the unprofitableness of it, returns soon to his first strain. Syncopations, suspensions, and chromatic passing notes form here the composer's chief stock in trade, displacement of everything in melody, harmony, and rhythm is the rule. Nobody did anything like this before Chopin, and, as far as I know, nobody has given to the world an equally minute and distinct representation of the same intimate emotional experiences. My last remarks hold good with the fourth mazurka, which is bleak and joyless till, with the entrance of A major, a fairer prospect opens. But those jarring tones that strike in wake the dreamer pitilessly. The commencement of the mazurka, as well as the close on the chord of the sixth, the chromatic glidings of the harmonies, the strange twirls and skips, give a weird character to this piece.

The origin of the polonaise (Taniec Polski, Polish dance), like that of the, no doubt, older mazurka, is lost in the dim past. For much credit can hardly be given to the popular belief that it developed out of the measured procession, to the sound of music, of the nobles and their ladies, which is said to have first taken place in 1574, the year after his election to the Polish throne, when Henry of Anjou received the grandees of his realm. The ancient polonaises were without words, and thus they were still in the time of King Sobieski (1674-96). Under the subsequent kings of the house of Saxony, however, they were often adapted to words or words were adapted to them. Celebrated polonaises of political significance are: the Polonaise of the 3rd of May, adapted to words relative to the promulgation of the famous constitution of the 3rd of May, 1791; the Kosciuszko Polonaise, with words adapted to already existing music, dedicated to the great patriot and general when, in 1792, the nation rose in defence of the constitution; the Oginski Polonaise, also called the Swan's song and the Partition of Poland, a composition without words, of the year 1793 (at the time of the second partition), by Prince Michael Cleophas Oginski. Among the Polish composers of the second half of the last century and the beginning of the present whose polonaises enjoyed in their day, and partly enjoy still, a high reputation, are especially notable Kozlowski, Kamienski, Elsner, Deszczynski, Bracicki, Wanski, Prince Oginski, Kurpinski, and Dobrzynski. Outside Poland the polonaise, both as an instrumental and vocal composition, both as an independent piece and part of larger works, had during the same period quite an extraordinary popularity. Whether we examine the productions of the classics or those of the inferior virtuosic and drawing-room composers, [FOOTNOTE: I should have added "operatic composers."] everywhere we find specimens of the polonaise. Pre-eminence among the most successful foreign cultivators of this Polish dance has, however, been accorded to Spohr and Weber. I said just now "this dance," but, strictly speaking, the polonaise, which has been called a marche dansante, is not so much a dance as a figured walk, or procession, full of gravity and a certain courtly etiquette. As to the music of the polonaise, it is in 3/4 time, and of a moderate movement (rather slow than quick). The flowing and more or less florid melody has rhythmically a tendency to lean on the second crotchet and even on the second quaver of the bar (see illustration No. 1, a and b), and generally concludes each of its parts with one of certain stereotyped formulas of a similar rhythmical cast (see illustration No. 2, a, b, c, and d). The usual accompaniment consists of a bass note at the beginning of the bar followed, except at the cadences, by five quavers, of which the first may be divided into semiquavers. Chopin, however, emancipated himself more and more from these conventionalities in his later poetic polonaises.

[Two music score excerpts here, labeled No. 1 and No. 2]

The polonaise [writes Brodzinski] is the only dance which
suits mature age, and is not unbecoming to persons of elevated
rank; it is the dance of kings, heroes, and even old men; it
alone suits the martial dress. It does not breathe any
passion, but seems to be only a triumphal march, an expression
of chivalrous and polite manners. A solemn gravity presides
always at the polonaise, which, perhaps, alone recalls neither
the fire of primitive manners nor the gallantry of more
civilised but more enervated ages. Besides these principal
characteristics, the polonaise bears a singularly national and
historical impress; for its laws recall an aristocratic
republic with a disposition to anarchy, flowing less from the
character of the people than from its particular legislation.
In the olden times the polonaise was a kind of solemn
ceremony. The king, holding by the hand the most distinguished
personage of the assembly, marched at the head of a numerous
train of couples composed of men alone: this dance, made more
effective by the splendour of the chivalrous costumes, was
only, strictly speaking, a triumphal march.

If a lady was the object of the festival, it was her privilege
to open the march, holding by the hand another lady. All the
others followed until the queen of the ball, having offered
her hand to one of the men standing round the room, induced
the other ladies to follow her example.

The ordinary polonaise is opened by the most distinguished
person of the gathering, whose privilege it is to conduct the
whole file of the dancers or to break it up. This is called in
Polish rey wodzic, figuratively, to be the leader, in some
sort the king (from the Latin rex). To dance at the head was
also called to be the marshal, on account of the privileges of
a marshal at the Diets. The whole of this form is connected
with the memories and customs of raising the militia
(pospolite), or rather of the gathering of the national
assemblies in Poland. Hence, notwithstanding the deference
paid to the leaders, who have the privilege of conducting at
will the chain of dancers, it is allowable, by a singular
practice made into a law, to dethrone a leader every time any
bold person calls out odbiianego, which means retaken by force
or reconquered; he who pronounces this word is supposed to
wish to reconquer the hand of the first lady and the direction
of the dance; it is a kind of act of liberum veto, to which
everyone is obliged to give way. The leader then abandons the
hand of his lady to the new pretender; every cavalier dances
with the lady of the following couple, and it is only the
cavalier of the last couple who finds himself definitively
ousted if he has not the boldness to insist likewise upon his
privilege of equality by demanding odbiianego, and placing
himself at the head.

But as a privilege of this nature too often employed would
throw the whole ball into complete anarchy, two means are
established to obviate this abuse--namely, the leader makes
use of his right to terminate the polonaise, in imitation of a
king or marshal dissolving a Diet, or else, according to the
predominating wish, all the cavaliers leave the ladies alone
in the middle, who then choose new partners and continue the
dance, excluding the disturbers and discontented, which
recalls the confederations employed for the purpose of making
the will of the majority prevail.

The polonaise breathes and paints the whole national
character; the music of this dance, while admitting much art,
combines something martial with a sweetness marked by the
simplicity of manners of an agricultural people. Foreigners
have distorted this character of the polonaises; the natives
themselves preserve it less in our day in consequence of the
frequent employment of motives drawn from modern operas. As to
the dance itself, the polonaise has become in our day a kind
of promenade which has little charm for the young, and is but
a scene of etiquette for those of a riper age. Our fathers
danced it with a marvellous ability and a gravity full of
nobleness; the dancer, making gliding steps with energy, but
without skips, and caressing his moustache, varied his
movements by the position of his sabre, of his cap, and of
his tucked-up coat-sleeves, distinctive signs of a free man
and warlike citizen. Whoever has seen a Pole of the old school
dance the polonaise in the national costume will confess
without hesitation that this dance is the triumph of a well-
made man, with a noble and proud tournure, and with an air at
once manly and gay.

After this Brodzinski goes on to describe the way in which the polonaise used to be danced. But instead of his description I shall quote a not less true and more picturesque one from the last canto of Mickiewicz's "Pan Tadeusz":--

It is time to dance the polonaise. The President comes
forward; he lightly throws back the fausses manches of his
overcoat, caresses his moustache, presents his hand to Sophia:
and, by a respectful salute, invites her for the first couple.
Behind them range themselves the other dancers, two and two;
the signal is given, the dance is begun, the President directs
it.

His red boots move over the green sward, his belt sends forth
flashes of light; he proceeds slowly, as if at random: but in
every one of his steps, in every one of his movements, one can
read the feelings and the thoughts of the dancer. He stops as
if to question his partner; he leans towards her, wishes to
speak to her in an undertone. The lady turns away, does not
listen, blushes. He takes off his cap, and salutes her
respectfully. The lady is not disinclined to look at him, but
persists in being silent. He slackens his pace, seeks to read
in her eyes, and smiles. Happy in her mute answer, he walks
more quickly, looking proudly at his rivals; now he draws his
cap with the heron-feathers forward, now he pushes it back. At
last he puts it on one side and turns up his moustaches. He
withdraws; all envy him, all follow his footsteps. He would
like to disappear with his lady. Sometimes he stops, raises
politely his hand, and begs the dancers to pass by him.
Sometimes he tries to slip dexterously away, changing the
direction. He would like to deceive his companions; but the
troublesome individuals follow him with a nimble step, entwine
him with more and more tightened loops. He becomes angry; lays
his right hand on his sword as if he wished to say: "Woe to
the jealous!" He turns, pride on his countenance, a challenge
in his air, and marches straight on the company, who give way
at his approach, open to him a passage, and soon, by a rapid
evolution, are off again in pursuit of him.

On all sides one hears the exclamation: "Ah! this is perhaps
the last. Look, young people, perhaps this is the last who
will know how to conduct thus the polonaise!"

Among those of Chopin's compositions which he himself published are, exclusive of the "Introduction et Polonaise brillante" for piano and violoncello, Op. 3, eight polonaises--namely: "Grande Polonaise brillante" (in E flat major), "precedee d'un Andante spianato" (in G major), "pour le piano avec orchestre," Op. 22; "Deux Polonaises" (in C sharp minor and E flat minor), Op. 26; "Deux Polonaises" (in A major and C minor), Op. 40; "Polonaise" (F sharp minor), Op. 44; "Polonaise" (in A flat major), Op. 53; [FOOTNOTE: This polonaise is called the "eighth" on the title- page, which, of course, it is only by including the "Polonaise," Op. 3, for piano and violoncello.] and "Polonaise-Fantaisie" (in A flat major), Op. 61. The three early polonaises posthumously- published by Fontana as Op. 71 have already been discussed in