22 Mowery ⦁ Chopin Polish Sympathies to Elsner regarding the idea, saying that he must “postpone for some time the higher artistic vistas that you so wisely set forth in your letter to me” and that he would “create a new world for myself.”15 It appears that Chopin simply wanted to go in a different direction musically. Chopin chose to compose short Polish dances, called mazurkas, as the primary expression of support for his people. He started writing mazurkas as a teenager in the 1820’s and kept writing them throughout his whole life. It is uncertain how many he wrote; perhaps up to seventy, but there is disagreement.16 Fifty-eight have been published; forty-five were published while he was alive, and the rest were published posthumously. He focused on writing more mazurkas after the November Uprising in 1830, 17 which may demonstrate his desire to sympathize with his people even as he was not with them. Chopin’s mazurkas were not strict reproductions of folk dances, but he used the dances as inspiration for his own unique creations. He did not use original mazurka tunes for his mazurkas, but he “preferred to create new tunes from whole cloth, rather than reworking established folk tunes.”18 He also did not bother with keeping a strict form that someone could actually dance to, so he would adjust the length of the sections of his mazurkas to fit his own musical ideas.19 He sometimes wrote “in modes that included slight variations to the major and minor keys that make up the bulk of Western music,” which gave the pieces a more Polish musical style.20 The mazurka is a broader term for a group of Polish dances, which include the mazur, the kujawiak and the oberek. All of these are in triple meter with strong accents. The mazurka is a diverse dance, “able to convey many disparate moods from elation to melancholy,”21 and so it was a perfect vehicle for Chopin’s musical expression. The mazurka is known for its unique use of accents on parts of the beat that may seem unexpected. In fact, it can be described as full of “jerky movements and without smooth rhythmical melodic aspects.”22 15 Szulc, Chopin in Paris, 62. 16 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 74. 17 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 74. 18 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 19 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 20 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 75. 21 Gengaro, Experiencing Chopin, 73. 22 Bakst, “Polish National Influences,” 57.
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