ExclusiveChopin: Mazurkas, Op. 6: No. 2 In C-Sharp Minor

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Frederic Chopin: Mazurkas, Op. 6: No. 2 In C-Sharp Minor. This beautiful piece was presented by germanrecords. It is a royalty free music from Pond5.com.

The second of the Opus 6 Mazurkas is in the key of C sharp minor, and its popularity outstrips that of the first. Here, too, Chopin juxtaposes, and then harmonises, different worlds. It is a purely rustic atmosphere that prevails, based from the lead-in on a contrarily accentuated fifths drone in the bass.

The principal theme, returning a couple of times, although in slightly altered form, has the rhythm of a mazur, though a lyrical, almost melancholy, character. Only in the cadence does it show its power and vigour. Hot on its heels comes an unquestionable mazur: swaggering and surly, but of the peasant, rather than gentrified, variety, as the Lydian key of the melody betokens. In the trio, we have a contrast of key and character: the melody of a kujawiak comes to the fore – this time joyous and almost primitive, the kind that one might find in Kolberg.

Like several other mazurkas, this piece has been the object of over-interpretation. Not pianistic, but poetical interpretation. Kornel Ujejski, a poet highly regarded during the second half of the century, author of the hymn ‘Z dymem pożarów’ [With the smoke of the fires] and the once famous ‘Maraton’ [Marathon], attempted, without any great success, to read into the C sharp minor Mazurka a thread of literary anecdote. In this admittedly less than cheerful work, he heard tragedy. In his versified interpretation of the Mazurka, entitled ‘Noc straszna’ [Terrible night] and beginning with the words ‘Tam na dworze zawierucha / w karczmie gra muzyka’ [There outside the wind blows hard / Inside the tavern, music], he would have us believe that Chopin’s music tells us the story of a girl who kills her fickle lover while he dances with another.

In recent times, the C sharp minor Mazurka experienced another adventure. It was handed a symbolic function as part of a contemporary orchestral work. In Kazimierz Przybylski’s A Varsovie, presented at the Warsaw Autumn during the period of martial law in Poland, the music of Chopin’s Mazurka represented values that were particularly precious, albeit rather helpless. It stood up against the dissonances and fortissimi of the orchestra. But it was the Mazurka which ‘emerged intact’. Source: chopin.nifc.pl

This river with a small fog rainbow was filmed by Christian Schlegel in Gasterental, Switzerland. The video has been edited by Wenjing Ma.




#classicalmusic, #Music, #古典音樂, #klassischemusik, #GJWexclusive, #Switzerland, #Schweiz, #Natur, #Nature, #KlassischeMusikundNatur, #ClassicalMusicAndNature, #古典音樂小站,