The Polonaise-fantaisie in

A-flat major A-flat major (or the key of A-flat) is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has four flats. The A-flat major scale is: : Its relative minor is F minor. Its parallel minor, A-flat minor, ...

, Op. 61, is a composition for

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

. It was dedicated to Mme A. Veyret, written and published in 1846. This work was slow to gain favour with musicians, due to its

harmonic A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', the ...

complexity and intricate

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: *Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data ...

Arthur Hedley Arthur Hedley (12 November 19058 November 1969) was a British musicologist, scholar and biographer of Polish- French composer Frédéric Chopin. Arthur Hedley was educated at Durham and at the Sorbonne, and he devoted much of his life to the stud ...

was one of the first critics to speak positively of the work, writing in 1947 that it "works on the hearer's imagination with a power of suggestion equaled only by the F minor Fantasy or the fourth Ballade", although

Arthur Rubinstein Arthur Rubinstein ( pl, Artur Rubinstein; 28 January 188720 December 1982) was a Polish Americans, Polish-American pianist.

Leff Pouishnoff Lev Nikolaevich Pouishnoff (Russian: Лев Николаевич Пышнов, ''Lev Nikolayevich Pyshnov'') (28 May 1959) was a Russian-born pianist and composer, who made his home in the United Kingdom and whose career was largely in the West, ...

, Claudio Arrau and Vladimir Horowitz had been including it in their programs some decades earlier. It is intimately indebted to the

polonaise The polonaise (, ; pl, polonez ) is a dance of Polish origin, one of the five Polish national dances in time. Its name is French for "Polish" adjective feminine/"Polish woman"/"girl". The original Polish name of the dance is Chodzony, meani ...

for its

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

, much of its

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recu ...

, and some of its melodic character, but the

fantaisie A fantasia (; also English: ''fantasy'', ''fancy'', ''fantazy'', ''phantasy'', german: Fantasie, ''Phantasie'', french: fantaisie) is a musical composition with roots in improvisation. The fantasia, like the impromptu, seldom follows the textbook ...

is the operative formal paradigm, and Chopin is said to have referred initially to the piece only as a Fantasy. Parallels with the Fantaisie in F minor include the work's overall tonality, A-flat, the key of its slower middle section,

B major B major (or the key of B) is a major scale based on B. The pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A are all part of the B major scale. Its key signature has five sharps. Its relative minor is G-sharp minor, its parallel minor is B minor, and its ...

, and the motive of the descending fourth.

Jeffrey Kallberg Jeffrey Kallberg (born 17 October 1954) is an American musicologist, who specializes 19th and 20th-century classical music, as well as topics in critical theory and gender studies related to music. He has written numerous articles and studies ...

has suggested that the Polonaise-Fantaisie represents a change in Chopin's style from 'late' to 'last'. It is suggested that the formal ambiguities of the piece (particularly the unconventional and musically misleading transitions into and out of the lyrical inner section) are the most significant defining qualities of this 'last style', which only includes this and one other piece—the F minor Mazurka (Op. 68, No. 4), Chopin's last composition. The piece plays a central role in Sandor Marai's novel ''

Embers ''Embers'' is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957. First broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, the play won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack ...

''.

References

External links

* Polonaises by Frédéric Chopin 1846 compositions Chopin Compositions in A-flat major Polonaises {{classical-composition-stub