Musical Offerings ⦁ 2026 ⦁ Volume 17 ⦁ Number 1 29 from at least 1831, when many Poles fled to Paris after Warsaw fell to Russia.58 This would make Chopin seem appealing as a foreign, exotic composer. In fact, Parisians enjoyed hearing any mazurkas or polonaises because of their exotic nature.59 Franz Liszt wrote a biography about Chopin after his death, and in it he wrote a chapter on the mazurka. When he does this, Liszt associates Chopin’s music with the people of “semiOriental lands,” as he describes it. 60 Even though this is only one perspective on Chopin’s music, it does give a glimpse into how some perceived Chopin’s music as exotic. Although some place Chopin’s Polish works into nationalism or exoticism, the best way to understand Chopin’s Polish music is to see it as nostalgic nationalism. Since the nation of Poland did not truly exist, he could not be writing nationalistic music in a strict sense. Halina Goldberg argues that Chopin did not write his slow mazurkas as “an imagined imitation of a regional dance,” but instead they reflect his nostalgia of being in exile, away from his homeland.61 This reflects an overall trend in his music, where he wrote in his own style, loosely based on Polish music. Barbara Milewski argues that the “essential folkness” of Chopin’s mazurkas is a “fictional, mythopoetic folk, animated by stock rustic musical tropes and placed against the backdrop of a national genre as it was reconceived by Chopin.”62 Her assessment argues that Chopin did not truly represent Polish folk music in his mazurkas but composed in his own way, using folk styles common with his contemporaries.63 While it is true that there is no evidence for direct folk tunes in his mazurkas and that he did create his own unique style,64 this does not mean his mazurkas were not truly Polish. He wrote music to express his Polish heritage and nostalgia for a country that technically did not exist on its own, and he utilized Polish musical idioms to do this. His version of nostalgic nationalism was quieter than many of his fellow Poles wished, and his music encompassed a broader space than just his Polish roots, but this reflected who he was. This was his way of interacting with his heritage while creating art that would stand alone. 58 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 247. 59 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 247. 60 Klein, “Chopin Dreams,” 247. 61 Goldberg, “Nationalizing the Kujawiak, 243. 62 Milewski, “The Search for Folk Sources,” 21. 63 Milewski, “The Search for Folk Sources,” 21. 64 Milewski, “The Search for Folk Sources,” 21.
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