95215
Chopin Complete
Mazurkas
Rem Urasin piano
FREDERIC CHOPIN (1810-1849) CD1 77’58 1. Mazurka in G KKIIa No.2 1’13 2. Mazurka in B flat KKIIa No.3 1’36 3. Mazurka in A minor Op.68 No.2 3’22 4. Mazurka in C Op.68 No.1 1’23 5. Mazurka in F Op.68 No.3 2’19 6. 7. 8. 9.
4 Mazurkas Op.6 No.1 in F sharp minor No.2 in C sharp minor No.3 in E No.4 in E flat minor
5 Mazurkas Op.7 10. No.1 in B flat 11. No.2 in A minor 12. No.3 in F minor 13. No.4 in A flat 14. No.5 in C
2’07 2’10 1’58 0’56
1’34 2’37 2’26 1’02 0’52
15. Mazurka in B flat KKIVb No.1 1’10 16. Mazurka in D KKIVb No.2 1’51 4 Mazurkas Op.17 17. No.1 in B flat 2
21. Mazurka in C KKIVb No.3 2’16 22. Mazurka in A flat KKIVb No.4 2’10
CD2 77’57 4 Mazurkas Op.33 1. No.1 in G sharp minor 1’56 2. No.2 in D 2’39 3. No.3 in C 1’49 4. No.4 in B minor 6’34
4 Mazurkas Op.24 23. No.1 in G minor 24. No.2 in C 25. No.3 in A flat 26. No.4 in B flat minor
3’24 2’37 2’22 5’54
5. 6. 7. 8.
27. Mazurka in C Op.67 No.3 28. Mazurka in G Op.67 No.1
1’53 1’16
9. Mazurka in A minor KKIIb No.4 ‘Notre temps’ 4’15
4 Mazurkas Op.30 29. No.1 in C minor 30. No.2 in B minor 31. No.3 in D flat 32. No.4 in C sharp minor
1’44 1’27 3’08 3’42
18. No.2 in E minor 19. No.3 in A flat 20. No.4 in A minor
33. Mazurka in A minor KKIIb No.5 (ded. Émile Gaillard)
2’21 3’55 5’24
3’27
4 Mazurkas Op.41 No.1 in C sharp minor No.2 in E minor No.3 in B No.4 in A flat
3’43 2’48 1’16 2’26
3 Mazurkas Op.50 10. No.1 in G 11. No.2 in A flat 12. No.3 in C sharp minor
2’26 3’12 5’47
3 Mazurkas Op.56 13. No.1 in B 14. No.2 in C 15. No.3 in C minor
4’41 1’40 6’43
3 Mazurkas Op.59 16. No.1 in A minor 17. No.2 in A flat 18. No.3 in F sharp minor
3’53 3’03 3’37
3 Mazurkas Op.63 19. No.1 in B 20. No.2 in F minor 21. No.3 in C sharp minor
2’33 2’00 2’25
22. Mazurka in A minor Op.67 No.4 2’35 23. Mazurka in G minor Op.67 No.2 1’46 24. Mazurka in F minor Op.68 No.4 3’58
Rem Urasin piano
2’02 3
Chopin’s Complete Mazurkas The first recorded reference to the mazurka is in the mid-18th century although its origins can be traced back several centuries earlier. Its popularity became firmly established during the Napoleonic Wars as an expression of the indomitable Polish spirit, exemplified in Dabrowski’s Mazurka of 1795, also known as “The Song of the Polish Legions in Italy” (which is now the Polish national anthem), and by the early 1800s, many hundreds of mazurkas had been published in Warsaw in systematized form, thus completing its migration from the village square and parade ground to the salon and the ballroom. However, unlike the polonaise – the other musical embodiment of Poland’s soul, the mazurka did not gain currency outside Poland until Chopin took it up and refashioned it on his own terms. The word mazurka itself probably derives from a linguistic misinterpretation of the Polish phrase tan´czyc´ mazurka – to dance the mazurek – a dance form local to the area of Mazowsze (Mazovia) near Warsaw. The mazurka embodies elements of three similar but distinct regional dance forms – the mazur, kujawiak and oberek, which share certain rhythmical and formal patterns but vary in speed – the mazur generally being faster than the kujawiak but slower than the oberek: each of these forms appears within Op.6/1 which opens with a kujawiak, becomes a mazur (at bar 16) and closes as an oberek (marked scherzando). The key characteristics of the traditional mazurka (which survive if in modified form in Chopin’s works) are: triple metre emphasized by the use of dotted rhythms and triplets; an accented second or third beat (which in the dance would have been emphasized by a foot stamp or heel tap); cross rhythms; modal harmonies (mainly Lydian and Phrygian): ornamentation (trills and mordents); a drone effect (usually expressed as open fifths) recalling the original accompaniment on the duda (bagpipe); and symmetrical but open-ended repetitions of discrete musical sections (common to most organized dance forms allowing the participants to perform set patterns of movement individually or in unison). Chopin would have been familiar with both the urbanized mazurkas produced for 4
domestic use, salon performance or social dances and more authentic “folk” materials encountered on holidays in the Polish countryside in his youth (although the extent to which these had become contaminated by urban influences is unknown). However unlike Liszt, who made a serious attempt to engage with indigenous Hungarian music (although his belief that the music of the gypsies embodied the true musical heritage of Hungary was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of it) Chopin was uninterested in musical ethnology (and was fairly dismissive of those who were). Although he did include “folk elements” in his mazurkas such as the drone of the duda e.g. in the opening bars of Op.6/3 and Op.7/1 and the central section of Op.68/3, he did not attempt, as did Liszt, to evoke the sound world of the original instruments. Nor did he quote any genuine “folk” material (other than perhaps in Op.68/2-3 which were never published in his lifetime) although the fieldwork of the disparaged ethnomusicologists reveals the extent to which authentic characteristics remain embedded within his versions. The nature of Chopin’s nationalism and its expression in his music is a complex topic (too complex for discussion here) but it would be fair to say that the mazurka provided him with an outlet for his sentiments as a Pole – “ a real blind Mazur” as he once referred to himself (using an obscure proverbial expression which is probably equivalent to “the real McCoy”) especially a Pole in exile. It is surely significant that he only began regular composition of mazurkas after he had left Poland with uncertain prospects of return, and the first two major publications from what was to be his permanent absence from home were the Op.6 and 7 sets, both written in Vienna, city of the waltz, where as he wrote to his family ”my piano knows only mazury”. Although the mazurkas contain more formal academic classicism – e.g. fugal and canonic elements - than his other works, they also require a rhythmic freedom in performance that transcends scrupulous observation of the printed notes and which Chopin himself attributed to the “national characteristics” of the form. This admission was made to Charles Hallé who had politely pointed out to the 5
composer that his use of rubato gave the impression he was playing a mazurka in 4/4 time rather than 3/4 as marked (although when Meyerbeer had made a similar observation on this phenomenon in less polite terms, Chopin hotly denied anything of the kind and the two composers almost came to blows). Although he praised a mazurka written in 1825 by his sister Ludwika as a “splendid” example of its type, “springy, charming and in a word danceable” he was to insist that his own were “not for dancing”: rather, as his sister stated in reporting to him the “profanity” of an orchestrated version being played all evening at a society ball, they were for “listening”. By such sentiments Chopin intended to differentiate his mazurkas, not only from the utilitarian works for popular consumption, but also the more cultivated productions of composers such as Maria Szymanowska whose set of twenty-four mazurkas had appeared in 1825, and which although sophisticated remained rooted in the established tradition. Chopin took what was a stylized accompaniment for the dance and, as he did to virtually every form he touched, “elevated it into a small art form”, in Schumann’s words, in which “… almost every one contains some poetic trait, something new in form and expression.” Elements essential to a dance form – regularity and predictability – were over time altered to reduce structural stability: the sections became uneven in length, reprises were shortened (and subtly modified) resolving into codas, often containing new material, which foreclosed repetition (the early C major mazurka (CD1 track 5) is one of the few that is truly open-ended, marked dal segno senza fine, and could theoretically continue until the player’s stamina ran out). Aside from an example of uncertain authenticity dated to 1820, Chopin is known to have produced mazurkas on a regular basis from 1825 (when he sketched the pieces which were to become Op.7/4 and 17/4) to the end of his life. They are played here more or less in order of their composition or publication beginning with the G and B Flat works of 1826 and ending with the posthumously published Op.68/4 supposedly his final composition left unfinished at his death (of which more 6
below). This allows appreciation of their development from the fresh simplicity of the earlier examples to the more complex harmonies and chromaticism of the later ones (although one should not confuse simplicity with facility – as Liszt said of the A major section of Op.7/2 “only an ass could think that was easy”). Most were published in collections of three, four or five pieces (with opus numbers) and since their printed arrangement was Chopin’s own this suggests that he wished them to be played in that order . There are however a few discrepancies in the printed editions that allow the possibility of a slight reordering - for example over whether the short C major mazurka is the final piece in Op.6 or Op.7 and whether in Op.44 the E minor mazurka should be the first in the sequence and the C minor last (conforming to his tendency at that time to conclude the set with the longest piece). However since, according to his usual performance practice, Chopin never played more than a few in succession usually selected from several sets, his intentions as to whether the mazurkas should be performed in extended sequences as published is unknown. A few appeared individually as contributions to collections – the two A minor works (CD1 track 33 and CD2 track 9) appearing in the Album des pianistes polonais and the magazine Notre Temps (as one of Six morceaux de salon) respectively. Many however remained unpublished during his lifetime: some because they were personal to their dedicatees - the B flat mazurka (CD1 track 15) for Alexandra Wolowska and the A flat (CD1 track 22) for the daughter of Maria Szymanowska (neither of which appeared in print until the 20th century); others because Chopin wished them to remain so and ordered their destruction after his death. This instruction was disregarded by his family and his executor Julian Fontana, who compiled two sets of previously unpublished mazurkas which appeared in 1855 as Op.67 and Op.68. Op.67 is made up of two late works from 1849, the year of Chopin’s death (Nos. 2 and 4) together with two from 1835 (Nos. 1 and 3). Op.68 combines three very early works from 1827-9 (Nos. 1-3) with an obviously unrelated one which Fontana claimed was Chopin’s “final inspiration” written more or less on his deathbed. 7
There are however questions both over whether the published work either accurately or completely embodies the contents of the chaotic and fragmentary manuscript discovered among his papers and also over its date – there are good arguments for it to have been written the previous year or even earlier (and in any case there is considerable doubt as to whether Chopin was capable of composition of any kind in his final months). However, whatever the validity of its actual status, the spectral melancholy of the F minor mazurka makes it an entirely appropriate candidate to represent Chopin’s” last thoughts”. © David Moncur
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Recording: 29–30 November, 18 & 20–22 December 2014, Russian State TV & Radio Company Kultura, Studio 1, Moscow, Russia Producer: Pavel Lavrenenkov Engineers: Vladimir Samoilov & Igor Obruchnikov Editors: Pavel Lavrenenkov & Natalya Ruzhandkaya Piano technician: Artem Deev Cover image: Auguste Renoir, Picking Flowers, 1875 Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection p 2015 & © 2016 Brilliant Classics
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