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 ...

wrote six works for piano and orchestra, including two concertos. The ''Fantasy on Polish Airs'' in A major, Op. 13, was the second of his concertante works, written in 1828-30. The piece is also sometimes referred to as ''Fantasia on Polish Airs'', ''Grande fantaisie'' or ''Fantaisie brillante''. Chopin himself referred to it as his "Potpourri on Polish themes", and kept it in his repertoire for many years. The Fantasy followed the highly successful Variations on "Là ci darem la mano", Op. 2 of 1827. It was written while a student of

Józef Elsner Józef Antoni Franciszek Elsner (sometimes ''Józef Ksawery Elsner''; baptismal name, ''Joseph Anton Franz Elsner''; 1 June 176918 April 1854) was a composer, music teacher, and music theoretician, active mainly in Warsaw. He was one of the fir ...

at the Warsaw Conservatory.

Structure

The orchestration calls for flutes, oboes, clarinets (in A), bassoons, horns (in A), trumpets (in D), timpani (A and E), piano and strings. The work contains three main themes, two of which are traditional folk melodies.

Introduction

The piece starts with a 55-measure introduction marked ''Largo non troppo''. The introduction is in common time and concludes on a chord of the dominant seventh.

Już miesiąc zaszedł psy się uśpiły

The next section is based on "Już miesiąc zaszedł psy się uśpiły (The moon had set, the dogs were asleep)." This popular Polish

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...

was sung to words from

Franciszek Karpiński Franciszek Karpiński (4 October 1741 – 16 September 1825) was the leading sentimental Polish poet of the Age of Enlightenment. He is particularly remembered for his religious works later rendered as hymns and carols. He is also considered o ...

's idyll "Laura i Filon". Significantly, the song was a favorite of Chopin's mother. The section lasts from mm. 56 to 127. The meter is 6/8. The section begins in A major and ends on C# minor.

Theme de Charles Kurpinski

This section features a melody in the style of a

dumka Dumka ( Santali: ᱫᱩᱢᱠᱟᱹ), the headquarters of the Dumka district and Santhal Pargana region, is a city in the state of Jharkhand, India. It was made the headquarters of the Santhal Pargana region, which was carved out of the Bh ...

or possibly based on a Ukrainian duple-time round dance or kolomyjka, from an opera by Chopin's compatriot and friend

Karol Kurpiński Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński (March 6, 1785September 18, 1857) was a Polish composer, conductor and pedagogue. He was a representative of late classicism and a member of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning ( Polish: ''Towarzystwo Warszaws ...

. According to Halina Goldberg, the dumka is a quotation from Kurpinski's ''Elegy on the Death of

Tadeusz Kościuszko Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko ( be, Andréj Tadévuš Banavientúra Kasciúška, en, Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure Kosciuszko; 4 or 12 February 174615 October 1817) was a Polish military engineer, statesman, and military leader who ...

'', which commemorated the death of this Polish hero in 1817. The section lasts from mm. 128 to 245. The meter is 2/4. The section begins on F# minor and ends on a G# minor triad.

Kujawiak

The piece is rounded out with a lively

Kujawiak The Kujawiak is a Polish folk dance from the region of Kujawy in central Poland.Don Michael Randel. ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music''. Harvard University Press. 2003. p. 449. It is one of the five national dances of Poland, the others being the ...

, "Jedzie Jasio od Torunia (Johnny Goes from Torun)". The kujawiak lasts from mm. 246 to 350. The meter is the typical 3/4.

Coda

The coda lasts from mm. 351 to 403. It features a great amount of style brilliante passage work for the piano.

History

The ''Fantasy on Polish Airs'' was given its premiere on 17 March 1830, at the same concert in which the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor was first performed in public. It was played again on 11 October the same year, at the concert at which the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor was premiered. The piece was dedicated to

Johann Peter Pixis Johann Peter Pixis (10 February 178822 December 1874) was a German pianist and composer, born in Mannheim. He lived in Vienna from 1808 to 1824, then in Paris to 1840, during which time he was among the city's most prominent pianists and composer ...

and first published in 1834.IMSLP
Retrieved 1 July 2014 A typical performance of the ''Fantasy on Polish Airs'' lasts around 15 minutes. There have been numerous recordings and occasional performances, but the work remains relatively little known.

Sources

*Goldberg, Halina. 2008. ''Music in Chopin's Warsaw''. New York: Oxford University Press. *Strzyżewski, Mirosław. 2011. Much ado about Chopin: Discussion in the Warsaw Press from 1830 in ''Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology 9'' (pp. 19–29).

References

External links

Fantasy on Polish Airs
at All Music website. {{Authority control Concertante works by Frédéric Chopin 1828 compositions Compositions in A major Music with dedications Compositions using folk songs