Twelve Studies in Chopin: Maciej Goł Ab

Goł ab
˛
Maciej Goł ab
˛
Maciej Goł ab
˛
Twelve Studies in Chopin

The studies collected in this book fall into four chief thematic areas of research on

Fryderyk Chopin’s life, stylistic changes, creative output, and musical reception. The
first one is devoted to the origins of the composer’s artistic formation in the context of
his connections with the Main School of Music at the Royal University of Warsaw. The
second thematic area is tied to the problem of Chopin’s musical language and trans-
formation of his individual style. The third group of studies concentrates on issues in
Style, Aesthetics and Reception
Chopin’s musical aesthetics, while the fourth and final one is devoted to the questions
of composer’s reception in the 19th-century musical culture in light of the practice of
musical transcriptions at the time.
The Author
Maciej Goł ab
˛ is head of the Department of Musicology at the University of Wrocław. He
specializes in 19th and 20th century music history and theory, Chopin studies and meth-
odology of musicological research. He is editor of the series Eastern European Studies
in Musicology and author of the monograph Musical Work Analysis. An Epistemological
Debate (Frankfurt am Main 2008).
ISBN 978-3-631-65619-8 www.peterlang.com

Goł ab
˛
Maciej Goł ab
˛
Maciej Goł ab
˛

The studies collected in this book fall into four chief thematic areas of research on

Fryderyk Chopin’s life, stylistic changes, creative output, and musical reception. The
first one is devoted to the origins of the composer’s artistic formation in the context of
his connections with the Main School of Music at the Royal University of Warsaw. The
second thematic area is tied to the problem of Chopin’s musical language and trans-
formation of his individual style. The third group of studies concentrates on issues in
Chopin’s musical aesthetics, while the fourth and final one is devoted to the questions
of composer’s reception in the 19th-century musical culture in light of the practice of
musical transcriptions at the time.
The Author
Maciej Goł ab
˛ is head of the Department of Musicology at the University of Wrocław. He
specializes in 19th and 20th century music history and theory, Chopin studies and meth-
odology of musicological research. He is editor of the series Eastern European Studies
in Musicology and author of the monograph Musical Work Analysis. An Epistemological
Debate (Frankfurt am Main 2008).
www.peterlang.com
Maciej Gołąb

Translated by Wojciech Bońkowski,

John Comber and Maksymilian Kapelański
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche
Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in
the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic
data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
This publication was funded by the Faculty of Historical

and Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Wrocław.
Cover image:
©The Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Goląb, Maciej, 1952-
Twelve studies in Chopin : style, aesthetics, and reception / Maciej Goląb.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-3-631-65619-8
1. Chopin, Frédéric, 1810-1849--Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
ML410.C54G68 2014
786.2092--dc23
2014026777
ISBN 978-3-631-65619-8 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-653-04861-2 (E-Book)
DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-04861-2
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Frankfurt am Main 2014
All rights reserved.
Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH.
Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙
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All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any
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This publication has been peer reviewed.
www.peterlang.com
To My Sister Marysia
Contents
Preface��9
Part I. The Origins of Chopin’s

Artistic Formation.................................................................................11
1. Studies at the Main School of Music of the Royal
University of Warsaw (1826–1829)��13
2. Teaching of Music Theory by Józef Elsner
at the Main School of Music of the Royal
University of Warsaw��31
3. On the Fragments of Music from the Last Sheet
of the Trio in G Minor op. 8��41
Part II. Chopin’s Musical Language and

Individual Style......................................................................................53
4. Stylistic Change: from Stile brillante
to the Late ‘Synthetic Style’��55
5. Harmony and Tonality��67
6. On the Tristan Chord��81
Part III. Chopin’s Music Aesthetics...............................................................93

7. Contribution to Western European Romanticism��95
8. Imaginatio Crucis in the Last Song Melodia?�� 107
9. Polonaise: The Riddle of its Melodic Figure�� 115
Part IV. Transcriptions of Chopin’s Works............................................. 139

10. Nineteenth-century Transcriptions of Masterworks:
An Attempt at Typology�� 141
11. Nineteenth-century Transcriptions
of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26
no. 1 for Violin and Piano�� 155
7
12. On Jan Karłowicz’s Concept of the Revolution
in Musical Notation (with the Example of his ‘Philological’
Transcription of the Prelude in B Minor op. 28 no. 6) �� 177
Index of Chopin’s Works�� 193
Index of Names�� 197
8
Preface
The present book has a meaningful, conceptual title. It ties into Chopin’s set of
studies, which differ in their content and musical problems, yet are stylistically
coherent. Just as the piano studies group themselves internally into larger en-
tities, the book is a retrospective collection representative of my musicological
research. The studies collected in this book fall into the four chief thematic areas
of my research on Fryderyk Chopin’s life, creative output, and musical reception.
The first of these areas includes studies devoted to the sources of the com
poser’s artistic formation in the context of his connections with the Main School of
Music at the Royal University of Warsaw. Attempts at reconstructing both the
programme of the young artist’s compositional studies, and the course in music
theory given under the watchful eye of Józef Elsner, are supplemented by a heur
istic analysis of the rare Chopin sketches surviving from the Warsaw period on
the last autograph sheet of the Piano Trio op. 8. The second thematic area is tied
with the problem of Chopin’s musical language and transformation in his indi-
vidual style. Here, the first paper yields a synthetic ‘take’ of this transformation:
from the stile brillante, to the late synthetic style. The second paper constitutes an
overview of existing studies in Chopin’s harmony and tonality, while proposing
a systematisation of his compositional means in this area. The last paper lets us
concentrate on the so-called Tristan chord and its appearance in the composer’s
chromatic harmony.
The third group of studies in the present volume concentrates on issues in
Chopin’s musical aesthetics. A fundamental question posed in the first study is:
what did Chopin have to offer Europe after leaving the still provincial Warsaw?
Which elements of his ‘artistic accoutrements’ were to become universal traits,
and decisive in this composer’s coming into organic belonging to European
Romanticism? Two subsequent papers are thematically related and raise the
issue of the Baroque rhetorical figure imaginatio crucis, which appears in some
compositions (polonaises, songs) and whose genesis I attempt to discuss assum-
ing various points of view. The fourth and final group of studies is devoted to the
questions of Chopin’s reception in nineteenth-century musical culture in consid-
eration of the immensely popular musical transcriptions of the time. In the first
study, I undertake an attempt to systematise nineteenth-century transcriptions
9
of this composer’s works from the point of view of the original works’ degree of
transformation. The second study is a comparative analysis of three different
transcriptions of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 for violin and piano
(Lipiński, de Groot, Wilhelmj). Finally, the present book’s closing paper reminds
us of a little-known project in the creation of a new musical notational system
by Jan Karłowicz, resulting in a transcription of the Prelude in B Minor op. 28
no. 6, which in turn invited much discussion in the Warsaw musical press of the
nineteenth century’s final decade.
Studies included in the present book were written in the span of around
20 years. They were published in various languages: Polish, German, and Eng
lish. Their dispersed nature enticed me to collect them into a volume in which I
hope the reader will identify the ingredients of a defined methodology in respect
to this key Polish composer’s output. I also wish to express my gratitude to the
Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Wrocław for
its financial support of the publication, all my previous publishers for their per-
mission to retrospectively disseminate their material, and my long-time transla-
tors, Wojciech Bońkowski, John Comber, and Maksymilian Kapelański for their
conscientious English renderings of my work.
Maciej Gołąb
10
Part I
The Origins of Chopin’s Artistic
Formation
1
Studies at the Main School of Music of the
Royal University of Warsaw (1826–1829)
The fact that Chopin was a student of the Warsaw University remains relatively
unknown to historians of 19th-century Polish culture. This is partly caused by
the current state of research on the University’s history. Chopin’s name is absent
from Rafał Gerber’s biographical dictionary of Warsaw University students,1
the author having followed the incomplete Księga Zapisu Uczniów Królewskiego
Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego [Register Book of Students of the Royal University
of Warsaw] as his source. Chopin is never mentioned in Józef Bieliński’s funda-
mental monograph of the University, either, based on the now lost Archive of
Public Education,2 although that book provides valuable insights into the formal
status of the University’s music department. Chopin’s name is never mentioned
in the earlier works of Aleksander Kraushar or Szymon Askenazy,3 nor does it
appear in the later book of Maria Wawrykowa.4 Yet 19th-century music history,
although ignored by later “political” historiography, already pointed to that
nodal point in the biographies of both musicians as well as in the history of the
Warsaw University as a whole.
This chapter was published formerly in: Kultura artystyczna Uniwersytetu Warszaw
skiego [The Artistic Culture of the Warsaw University], ed. Jerzy Miziołek
(Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2003), 143–152. It gener
ated a few responses within the Warsaw University community, of which the most
important is Jerzy Miziołek and Hubert Kowalski, Chopin among Artists and Scholars
(Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2010).
1 Rafał Gerber, Studenci Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1808–1831 [Students of the Uni-

versity of Warsaw, 1808–1831] (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Ossolineum, 1977).
2 Józef Bieliński, Królewski Uniwersytet Warszawski (1816–1831) [The Royal Univer-
sity of Warsaw (1816–31)], 3 vols. (Warszawa: Gebethner i Wolf, 1907–1913).
3 Szymon Askenazy Uniwersytet Warszawski [The University of Warsaw] (Warszawa:
Gebethner i Wolf, 1905).
4 Maria Wawrykowa, “Uniwersytet Warszawski w latach 1816–1831 [The University
of Warsaw in the Years 1816–31],” in Dzieje Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1807–1915
[History of the Warsaw University, 1807–1915], ed. Stefan Kieniewicz (Warszawa:
Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1981).
13
What were the real reasons of overlooking the relations between Chopin,
Elsner and Warsaw University?
Primarily, this resulted from the sources. The documentation of the Main
School Music was lost in Polish revolutions and not even Erazm Nowakowski,
the first historian of higher education in the 19th century, had access to those
archives.5 The archive of Józef Elsner, professor of the Royal University of Warsaw
and head of the Conservatoire, was also lost, including the texts of his university
lectures as well as the grades given to his composition students, who included not
only the young Chopin but also a number of other eminent musicians. Moreover,
the period in question is poorly documented in Chopin’s letters. The uncertain
dating of some Chopin compositions from that time hinders any a precise re-
construction of his tuition with Elsner. The relations between Chopin and Elsner
and Warsaw University must therefore be reconstructed from partial sources; as
Tadeusz Frączyk remarks, “we do not know the full truth on [Chopin’s] conser-
vatoire studies or his years at the University.”6
Secondly, the reduced interest in this issue arises from the ancient and rather
complex administrative and institutional controversy between the direction
of the University and two governmental bodies: the Home Commission and
Public Education Commission. The controversy concerned the establishment
of a musical centre at the new University of Warsaw. The administrative sta-
tus of the Warsaw Conservatoire was ambiguous, resulting from competence
injunctions on a governmental level, as well as its very limited autonomy.
Consequently, the Conservatoire’s activities were boycotted by a large part
of the professors and administration. That majority did not see room within
the University for music theory tuition which the latter enjoyed e.g. at Vilnius
University, where lectures were held between 1803 and 1825 by Jan Holland.
Therefore, it is a musicologist’s task today to clarify the relations between the
Main School of Music and the Royal University of Warsaw, as well as Cho-
pin’s status as a student, and to attempt a reconstruction of his compositional
curriculum under Józef Elsner.7
5 Erazm Nowakowski, „Dawne szkoły muzyczne w Warszawie [Ancient Musical

Schools in Warsaw],“ Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne 8 (1891). It is a series
of articles that jointly constitute the year 1891 of that periodical.
6 Tadeusz Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina [Warsaw in Chopin’s Youth]
(Warszawa: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1961).
7 I have attempted a reconstruction of Elsner’s course in music theory at the Royal
University of Warsaw, see “The Lectures of Józef Elsner at the Main School of
14
The documented history of musical composition theory at the University of
Warsaw begins on 17th November 1818. On that day, Józef Elsner made the first
step towards establishing a chair that would make it possible “to lecture music
at the university”. He petitioned the authorities to “open a chair of music, which
should address thoroughbass, composition and theory of higher music, in the
aesthetic aspect.”8 He also postulated the establishment of a Conservatoire with
both vocal and instrumental classes. His endeavour must have enjoyed the sup-
port of a part of the intellectual and artistic milieu in Warsaw, but also met with
strong opposition, since the Institute of Music and Declamation (i.e., the Conser-
vatoire) was only formally inaugurated more than two years later, on 25th April
1821. Moreover, its formal status was very ambiguous, a fact that handicapped
this institution for years to come. It was subdivided into a secondary school of
drama, subordinated to the Home Commission, and a musical department for-
mally belonging to the Section of Fine Arts of the Department of Sciences and
Fine Arts, itself subject to the Public Education Commission. In that Section,
Elsner only obtained a nomination for “interim professor”. The Institute, there-
fore, was an incoherent institution and it is no wonder that it was attached to the
University “based on a voluntary agreement between the Home Commission
and the Education Commission, despite protests from the University itself ”, as
related by Bieliński.9
Three institutions to report to are never a good idea. The University protested
unanimously and as indicated by Frączyk, “among those who opposed joining
music with literature and painting, there were professors of the Department of
Science and Fine Arts.”10 Bieliński thus related the objections of Dean Feliks Bent-
kowski, who went as far as to threaten with his demission: “Which professor will
wish to give a lecture when teachers and pupils of the musical school make noise
over his head [?].”11 Imposed by the authorities on the young University, the new
musical section was if not ignored, then surely marginalised in the first years of
its operation. The statute of the Royal University of Warsaw, passed in 1821, did
not establish any such Section within the Department of Sciences and Fine Arts.
In the yearly reports of the Chancellor, Father Wojciech Anzelm Szweykowski,
there was never any mention of the Conservatoire. One exception h appened in
Music of the Royal University of Warsaw in the Times of Chopin’s Studies” in the
present book.
8 Nowakowski Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 21 (23 May 1891): 276.
9 Bieliński, Królewski Uniwersytet Warszawski (1816–1831), 1: 761.
10 Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 187.
15
1822, when he wrote: “last year, the Musical Conservatoire, in which the youth
happily started to develop their talents, was merged with this section [of Fine
Arts].”12 The number of students of the Conservatoire was not taken into account
within the University’s total, nor was that of Conservatoire lecturers.13
That situation would likely have continued until the University was dissolved,
had Elsner not petitioned the University Board in 1824 for music lectures to
take place in the University buildings “until [he] obtains the position of ordinary
professor”14 (before, lectures had taken place in the convent of Bernardine Sisters
on Krakowskie Przedmieście Avenue, now demolished). On 5th August 1824, the
University Board referred Elsner’s request to the Government Commission, to-
gether with the following statement, signed by Jerzy Samuel Bandtkie on behalf
of the Chancellor:
“[The Board] does not know precisely how much that Institute reflects the
intentions of the Government, not being informed of students’ enrolments, pro-
gressions, or performances, not having any rules laid out for supervision, and
not receiving any notifications regarding lecturers or students of that school. In
fact, a practical school of this kind should not, for different and equally valid rea-
sons, be joined with the University. Nonetheless, the theory of musical composi-
tion may be taught at the University to university students, and in appreciation
of Mr. Elsner’s long-time merits, the Board supports his request estimating that
it deserves the attention and approval of the Government Commission. Should
Mr. Elsner obtain the title of ordinary professor, the Board will put forward a
motion that he lecture the theory of musical composition at the University, be-
coming subject to all obligations binding a professor of the University.”15
The university authorities this time took a much more favourable stance than
back in 1821, a fact undoubtedly influenced by the artistic successes of Elsner
and his school. The Government Commission approved Elsner’s request and
as soon as the following week, on 12th August 1824 (impressive speed of proced
ures in the 19th century!), sent a nomination for Elsner to become a permanent
(ordinary) professor of composition, and Chancellor of the Conservatoire, to the
12 Quoted after Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 188.

13 Ibid., 188. The primary obstacle in affiliating the Conservatoire to the University
was the acoustic disadvantage of instrument players practicing. The University Board
wrote to the Government Commission on 15th March 1821: “[…] The establishment
of mechanical practicing of music […] would be indecent and against the good
order”. Quoted after Bieliński, Królewski Uniwersytet Warszawski (1816–1831), 1: 762.
15 Ibid., 1: 765.
16
University Board. On the same occasion, he was also provided with engagements
for seven teachers: Józef Bielawski (violinist), Henryk Lentz (organist), Józef
Jaworek (pianist), Mikołaj Winen (woodwind), Józef Szabliński (brass), Jakób
Bailly (horn), Józef Wagner (cellist), and Walenty Kratzer (singing). From this
time onwards, the Index Prælectionum of the Warsaw University included infor-
mation not only on the theoretical, but also the practical duties of the newly nom-
inated professor of musical composition: “Josephus Elsner Prof. P. Ord. explicabit
Theoriam compositionis musicæ alteraquoque hebdomadæ die Jovis, hora 12–1,
Compositionem vero musico-practicam tradet in Conservatorio musico diebus
Lunæ, Mercuri et Veneris hora 4–6.”16
Over the years, a compromise was reached: the practical curriculum con
tinued to be performed at the former monastery of Bernardine Sisters, (who, in
turn, were relocated to a new seat in Przasnysz), thus protecting the university
professors from the nuisance of “noise making”, while the lectures in “practical
composition” and “music theory in the aesthetic aspect,”17 which together
formed the so-called third department of the Conservatoire, were promoted
to the rank of university lectures. That progress must have satisfied Elsner who
always strived for compositional training to achieve academic status; nonethe-
less, the administrative position of the Conservatoire as such remained rather
vague. With this in mind, the Commission of Public Education sent a motion
to Elsner on 22nd July 1826 asking him to draw a project of the final detachment
of the Music Section from the Conservatoire, so that the former could satisfy
all the requirements of university education. Consequently, Elsner formulated
a statute containing 17 articles. That very moment can be considered the final
integration of the Main School of Music within the University of Warsaw.
In Article 1 of that Statute, we read: “The Music section of the Department of
Fine Arts, under the name Main School of Music, will remain under the super
vision of one of the members of the Education Commission”. Article 2: “The
Main School of Music will consist of: a) the Chancellor, who will be a professor
16 Index Prælectionum in Universitate Varsaviensi inde a 15 septembris MDCCCXXVI

usque ad 15 julii MDCCCXXVII habendarum, Varsaviæ [1826]. This also appears in
lecture lists in subsequent years.
17 Bieliński, Królewski Uniwersytet Warszawski (1816–1831), 3: 689. This was the only
contact of Chopin with the Conservatoire (i.e. with the intermediance of the Uni-
versity). Nowakowski remarks: “[…] Chopin cannot be considered an alumnum of
the conservatoire. Were it so, he would have studied piano playing there too, while
we know that he studied [the piano] in private with Żywny”. See Nowakowski, Echo
Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 35 (17 August 1891): 440.
17
of counterpoint and composition, b) a professor of organ playing and practical
thoroughbass, c) two teachers of string instruments, d) a teacher of woodwind,
e) a teacher of brass, f) two teachers of the clavichord, g) a teacher of advanced
singing”. Article 3 discusses the subject matter of studies: “Theory of music,
thoroughbass and composition, from the point of view of grammar, rhetorics,
and aesthetics, will be lectured as has been hitherto, in one of the university
rooms. The same subject matters in the practical aspect, as well as all instru-
mental teachings, will be given in an appropriate room of the Conservatoire”.
Article 4 clarifies the name of the subject matters and the duration of tuition: “All
teachings will be spread over a two-year course, excluding that of counterpoint
and composition, where graduation may only be obtained at the third year. The
last year of this course will be dedicated to practical classes only.”18
Following these gradual changes, on 13th February 1827 the Home Commis-
sion released Elsner from his former position of Chancellor of the Conservatoire
and consequently, he fully passed to the University as professor and Principal of
the Music Section (Main School of Music) within the Department of Fine Arts.
From then on, it was Elsner who enrolled new students on the Section, chaired
the yearly exams, and reported every six months to the Dean of the Department of
Sciences and Fine Arts on the functioning of his School, sending updated student
lists and exam protocols. A price to pay for that relative independence of the Main
School of Music both with regard to the content of its teaching and its organisa-
tional matters was that its graduates did not receive a royal diploma; the latter re-
mained an appanage of students of other sections. When in the fall of 1826, after
graduating from the Warsaw Lyceum (although without a “qualification patent”,
i.e. maturity exam), the young Chopin joined the Main School of Music, its uni-
versity status was unquestioned. In the academic year of 1826/27, Chopin was a
first-year student, followed by second-year in 1827/28 and third-year in 1828/29.
Why didn’t this over-performing student of the Warsaw Lyceum pass his
maturity exam? An unsuccessful and highly confusing reform of the examen
maturitatis in both regional schools and lycea implemented around that time
ruled that some university departments could accept new students with no ma-
turity exam (at that time, the last 6th grade lasted two years, and some university
studies could be undertaken after the first year). The fact of Chopin joining the
University is announced in one of his letters to his friend Jan Białobłocki: “You
must know, my dear friend, that I have given up the High School. It would be
18 Nowakowski, Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 29 (6 July 1891): 375.
18
Figure 1.1. Portrait of Chopin in his students years, lithography after a drawing by
P.R. Vigneron, title page of the German first edition of the Rondo in C Minor for piano
op. 1 (early 1834).
19
ridiculous to have to sit at a desk for six hours a day […] when I might learn other
things in the course of the year. With this in view I go to Elsner for lessons in
strict counterpoint six hours a week. I follow lectures by Brodziński, Bentkowski
and others in fact, anything to do with music. Bed-time is at nine o’clock. All
soirees and dances are ruled out” (2nd October 1826).19 Today, we cannot really
know which classes within which sections of the Departments of Sciences and
Fine Arts (Fine Sciences, Construction and Measurement, and Fine Arts) the
young composer attended. Thanks to Frączyk’s thorough research, we know that
the lectures of Brodziński and Bentkowski partly overlapped with Chopin’s mu-
sical classes, so his attendance at the former is questionable.20
Anyhow, Chopin followed the rhythm of the University already as a stu-
dent of the Warsaw Lyceum. Now, however, he became fully identified with his
new academy, as testified by his correspondence: “The Commission had my
Botanical Garden, that old alias behind the palate,21 beautifully refurbished.
Now there are no more carrots that one used to consume eagerly by the creek,
no more sandwiches, alcoves, lettuce, cabbages, bad smells etc.; now there are
flower-beds à la manière anglaise,”22 he reported to Białobłocki in Sokołów
on 15th May 1826. Apparently, that old botanical garden of the University was
Chopin’s favourite walking ground, given that as soon as a month later, he wrote
again to Białobłocki: “If you saw what changes there are in our Botanical Gar-
dens you wouldn’t believe your eyes. They have kid out such shrubberies, paths
and flower-beds that it is a joy to walk in it, especially as we have been given a
key”. And later in that same letter: “Ecce femina, non homo. The Headmaster
has a daughter. Would you believe it! Yesterday they said it was a boy, today
a girl; however, this latter information is correct” (between 15th and 22nd June
1826).23 Tadeusz Frączyk writes: “a special ambience was created, so important
for the university youth of that time: characterised by nationality, a cult of work
19 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, abridged from Fryderyk Chopin’s corres

pondence collected and annotated by Bronislaw Edward Sydow. Trans. and ed. with
additional material and a commentary by Arthur Hedley (London: Heinemann:
1962), 10. The letter is dated 2nd November, which is almost certainly a mistake.
20 Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 209-219.
21 This mention would indicate that the first botanical garden of the University was
located at the back of the Kazimierzowski Palace.
22 This letter not translated in Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, see
Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina, ed. Bronisław Edward Sydow, 2 vols. (Warszawa:
Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955), 1: 66.
23 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, 6.
20
and duty, quickly formed friendships and camaraderie, untamed by any social or
material obstacles.”24
According to the curriculum, compositional studies at the Main School of
Music spanned over three years (instead of four in other university disciplines).
We learn the names of Chopin’s classmates from lists of students of the Music
Section, published by Nowakowski. But we ignore much of Chopin’s course of
study. The high esteem in which he held the knowledge and skills learned at his
alma mater, however, is testified by a letter to his family in Warsaw, written in
the enthusiasm of his graduation and his first international success in Vienna:
“They all refuse to look on me as a pupil. Blahetka said that nothing surprised
him so much as to find that I had learnt all that in Warsaw. My answer was that
with Messrs. Żywny and Elsner the greatest ass would learn” (19th August 1829),25
and in another letter: “Although I am in fact nothing, […] for if I had not learnt
from Elsner, who understood how to teach and convince me, I would certainly
know less than I do today” (10th April 1830).26 We know Chopin was interested
in history and literature, and while a first-year student of the Fine Arts Section,
he attended compulsory classes in religion, listened to the flamboyant lectures
of Prof. Ludwig Osiński, and under the direction of Walenty Kratzer, frequented
the University Library and the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning. He also
socialised intensely with students of other faculties, a fact made easier by the fact
his quarters were located just next to the University.
Let us attempt a reconstruction of Chopin’s compositional curriculum with
Józef Elsner. The major events of the academic year 1826/27 were: in December,
an improvisation by Chopin on the choralion, a new instrument developed by
Brunner; in January, a Warsaw concert by Maria Szymanowska. In April, Cho-
pin’s sister Emilia died, aged 14, following which the Chopin family moved to the
Krasiński Palace, in front of the University. Apart from classes in strict counter-
point, as mentioned by Chopin to Białobłocki, this was his adaptation year, dedi
cated to Classical instrumental genres. Chopin did not plan to have his “salon”
piano compositions from this time published, judging them too immature (con-
sequently, having no opus numbers, they are referred to today as WN 14–19).27
Inaugurated at that time, the production of smaller instrumental genres such as
the mazurka, polonaise, waltz and nocturne, was apparently kept confidential
24 Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 222.

26 Ibid., 42.
27 The works of Chopin without opus number, see The National Edition of the Works of
Fryderyk Chopin, ed. Jan Ekier, Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne.
21
from Elsner, but would eventually allow Chopin to vastly improve his compos
itional style.28 Although those works fully belonged to the patriotic–sentimental
style, betraying influences of Ogiński and other Warsaw composers of the first
quarter of the 19th century, and later of the stile brillante, that promorphic stage
in shaping Chopin’s individual style established a generic base for his later out-
put, with emphasis on Romantic piano playing.
Although inventive, Chopin’s compositions from that time remained am-
ateur and must have been the subject matter of many a discussion with El-
sner, a fact often overlooked for a lack of extant sources. Chopin’s university
class in composition with Elsner likely followed an individual path,29 in which
case a three-year cursus of six hours a week may be considered fairly intensive.
We do not know, however, if Chopin submitted all his compositions to Elsner
or maybe just selected ones, since the cursus also included time-consuming
classes such as counterpoint and thoroughbass, which on one hand increased
Chopin’s compositional discipline, but on the other, had no direct influence on
his current musical interests. It is also difficult to state authoritatively which of
the works he composed at the time were student assignments bestowed upon
him by Elsner, and which were written independently of the latter out of com-
pulsion. However, given Elsner’s authority and the Classical character of his
own output, as well as a natural conservatism of musical education, we can
safely assume that Elsner inspired Chopin to take up larger traditional genres,
estimating that the instrumental miniature was educationally void, despite its
increasing popularity in the salons, an opinion he voiced in a later letter to
Chopin of 14th September 1834: “[…] Only an opera can show your talent in
a true light and win for it eternal life. «A piano-work», says Urban [a German
critic] «is to a vocal or other instrumental composition as an engraving is to a
painted picture».”30
I am inclined to think that, apart from compulsory exercises in counterpoint
and thoroughbass, which were part of the educational canon of that time, a part
28 See “Transformations of Chopin’s Style,” Polish Music Journal 3, no. 1 (2000),

Guest Editorial by Maciej Gołąb, http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/
issue/3.1.00/golab_3_1.html (retrieved 11 March 2013).
29 See Nowakowski, Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 35 (17 August 1891): 440.
30 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, 124. I analyse this matter in depth in Ma-
ciej Gołąb, “Chopin’s Offers for Europe” in the present book; originally published as
“Fryderyka Chopina propozycje dla Europy,” in Romantycy i Europa. Marzenia, doś
wiadczenia, propozycje [The Romantics and Europe. Dreams, Experiences, Offers],
ed. Marta Piwińska, (Warszawa: Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, 2006), 169–170.
22
of Chopin’s early output can be defined as strictly academic. I shall now discuss
these compositions from the period of Chopin’s studies at the Main School of
Music. According to the hypothesis laid above, Chopin in the years of his uni-
versity studies composed in two parallel directions: his prima prattica included
Classical musical genres, written under the illuminating guidance of Elsner,
while his pre-Romantic seconda prattica, which only partly continued the trad
ition of the Classical piano miniature, was carried on unofficially. It remains an
axiological paradox that those Classical genres are his artistically most valuable
output from that period. In other words, Chopin’s university compositions set
the benchmark for the aesthetic assessment of his work in the last Warsaw years.
This can be illustrated with the following table:
Table 1.1. Chopin’s university compositions in the last Warsaw years.31
Year of composition31 Prima prattica (at the Seconda prattica(off-University)

University)
Academic year 1826/27 Rondo à la Mazur for Mazurka in A Minor [op. 68 no. 2]
piano op. 5 (?) WN 14
Academic year 1827/28 Variations on “Là ci Polonaise in B flat Major [op. 71]
darem la mano” from WN 17
Mozart’s Don Giovanni for Rondo in C Major for 2 pianos
piano and orchestra op. 2 [op. 73] WN 15
Piano Sonata op. 4
Academic year 1828/29 Piano Trio op. 8 Polonaise for piano and cello from
Rondo à la Krakowiak op. 3
for piano and orchestra Souvenir de Paganini in A Major for
op. 14 piano WN 16
Fantasy on Polish Themes Mazur in G Major WN 17a
for piano and orchestra Waltz in E Major WN 18
op. 13 (?) Waltz in B Minor [op. 69 no. 2]
WN 19
31 I use the chronology of Chopin’s works from Jan Ekier, Wstęp do Wydania Naro
dowego Dzieł Fryderyka Chopina. 1. Zagadnienia edytorskie [Foreword to the
National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin. 1. Editorial issues] (Kraków:
Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1974: insert. In the first group, a certain dating
is offered for opp. 2, 4, 8 and 14; in the second, for op. 3 and WN 15, 17a and 18.
For a qualitative classification of the sources, see Józef M. Chomiński and Teresa
D. Turło, Katalog dzieł Fryderyka Chopina [Catalogue of the Works of Fryderyk
Chopin] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1990): insert.
23
The Rondo à la Mazur op. 5 can be considered one of Chopin’s earliest student
works written under the supervision of Elsner, although if indeed composed
in 1826,32 it could have been started and perhaps even achieved before Chopin
entered Elsner’s class in the fall. Aged 16, the composer displays a firm grasp
of the symmetrical form of the Classical rondo, with a dance-like, “swinging”
refrain, two couplets and a coda, while the middle couplet testifies to Chopin’s
somewhat limited mastery of development. Although the virtuoso stile brillante
figuration occasionally dominates over real musical content, a trait typical of
Chopin’s early compositions in general, in the context of contemporary Warsaw
composers’ works, and particularly those of Chopin’s fellow composition stu-
dents, the Rondo à la Mazur is an obvious achievement. Did the Rondo influence
Elsner’s assessment of Chopin during the exam he gave on 17th July 1827? We
will probably never learn. But both in the context of the grades Elsner gave to
Chopin in subsequent exams and the artistic value of his later university com-
positions, it seems likely. In his exam report Elsner wrote, still somewhat reluc-
tantly: “Chopin Fryderyk, first-year student, particular aptitude.”33
In the academic year 1827/28, Chopin heard and met Johann Nepomuk
Hummel, who came to Warsaw to give a series of concerts. Chopin’s works began
to arouse the interest of foreign publishers. He also suffered the first attack of
tuberculosis. Undoubtedly, it was an even more intense and fruitful year of com-
positional studies that the previous year. Not only did Chopin work on large
cyclic genres such as variations and sonata, but he also started a study of orches-
tral instrumentation. We know for certain that in that academic year, Chopin
composed the Variations on “Là ci darem la mano” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni
for piano and orchestra op. 2 and the Piano Sonata in C Minor op. 4. In those
two works, based on Classical musical genres, Chopin for the first time tackled
new formal and compositional issues. While he successfully mastered the
variation form, his interpretation of the Classical sonata form pattern was less
accomplished.
In the Variations op. 2, the young Chopin showed good mastery of cyclic
variation form and did successfully contrast the different sections of the work in
terms of piano writing, thereby avoiding the disjointed character that can still be
observed e.g. in the Variations in E Major on a German air WN 6, written before
32 Ekier, Wstęp do Wydania Narodowego Dzieł Fryderyka Chopina (insert) believes the
Rondo was composed before 1826, while Chomiński and Turło, Katalog dzieł Fry
deryka Chopina (insert) date this work to 1826 based on Chopin’s letters.
33 Nowakowski, Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 34, (10 August 1891):
428–429.
24
he entered the Main School of Music. If the co-existence of textural contrast
with organic formal development to deemed a pre-requisite for the artistic co-
herence of the Classical variation cycle, Chopin did achieve that balance for the
first time in his career in the Variations op. 2. Although the scope of the purely
technical and formal means used here does not go much beyond that of Clas-
sical composers, Chopin did introduce two new elements: firstly, an emphasis
on the virtuoso stile brillante (to be already observed in his earlier Rondos); the
first Variation does actually contain the performing indication brillant. And sec-
ondly, an emphasis on local musical tradition in the final, extensive Alla Polacca
(similarly to the Rondo à la Mazur op. 5): Chopin transforms the quadruple metre
of Mozart’s theme into the triple metric and rhythmic pattern of a vigorous
polonaise, pre-announcing his later brilliant renditions of that dance.
Chopin’s second important student work was written during his second year
of compositional studies at the Main School of Music and is dedicated to Elsner:
the Piano Sonata in C Minor op. 4. The work continues to generate controversy.
Initially, it was deemed an unsuccessful first attempt at sonata form, but ever
since Józef Michał Chomiński’s reappreciation of the work,34 the artistic value
of the work have been emphasised.35 It all depends on the valuation scale: in the
normative context of Classical sonata form, Chopin’s works betrays some blatant
“formal inadequacies”,36 yet in the context of Elsner’s own piano sonatas, it is
an obviously good composition. Without entering into the heart of the contro-
versy, we should notice that compared to Chopin’s later works in that genre, the
Sonata in C Minor does have its shortcomings, relative to both the structure of
the themes (monothematicism, isomorphy of expression), thematic and devel-
opmental work (chiefly consisting of sequential technique), and the simplicity of
its tonal plan or a lack of mastery of chromaticism.37 Both of Chopin’s important
34 Józef M. Chomiński, Sonaty Chopina [Chopin’s Sonatas] (Kraków: Polskie

Wydawn ictwo Muzyczne, 1960), 11–14. See also Maciej Gołąb, Józef Michał
Chomiński. Biografia i rekonstrukcja metodologii [Józef Michał Chomiński. Biog
raphy and Reconstruction of Methodology] (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu
Wrocławskiego, 2008), 127–129.
35 See Zofia Helman, “Norma i indywiduacja w sonatach Chopina [Norm and Individ-
uation in the Sonatas of Chopin],” in Przemiany stylu Chopina [Evolution of Cho-
pin’s Style], ed. Maciej Gołąb (Kraków: Musica Igaellonica, 1993), 49–55.
36 For example Rosen writes thus: “They evidently did not have very clear ideas about
sonatas art there in Warsaw”, Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms (New York–London:
W.W. Norton, 1988), 392.
37 Maciej Gołąb, Chopins Harmonik: Chromatik in ihrer Beziehung zur Tonalität, trans.
Beatrysa Hirszenberg (Köln: Bela Verlag, 1995): 104–108.
25
works from his second year of university studies did, however, represent a major
step forward in his compositional career. When Chopin submitted his exam to
Elsner on 22nd July 1828, the latter wrote in the report: “Chopin Fryderyk, particu
lar aptitude, second-year student, has gone to improve his health.”38
The academic year 1828/29 was directly preceded by Chopin’s trip to Berlin,
in company of family friend and university professor of zoology, Feliks Paweł
Jarocki, author of the work About Spinning Spiders. In Berlin, the two attended
a “symposium of natural scientists”; Chopin also admired Alexander von Hum-
boldt. “So far I have seen nothing but the Zoological Exhibition”, he complained
in a letter to his family (16th September 1828), “I should really prefer to spend
the morning at Schlesinger’s [music-shop] rather than crawl round the thirteen
rooms of the Zoological Exhibition, It is very fine, of course, but the aforemen-
tioned music-shop would be of more use to me.”39 Those letters to his family in
which he shared his impressions from Berlin are telling of his sense of observa-
tion, humour and intelligence. “Yesterday took place a fraternal dinner of those
scientists figures of fun in my eyes […]. Indeed when we were at table it seemed
to me that my neighbour was giving me strange looks. He was a Mr Lehmann, a
botany professor from Hamburg. I envied him his huge, strong fingers. I had to
use both hands to break my bread-roll; he, with one hand, squashed it into a flat
cake. The fellow had paws like a bear’s. He talked through me to Mr Jarocki and
got so worked up by the conversation that he forgot himself and fumbled about
in my plate, sweeping up the crumbs with his great fingers. (He is a genuine sci-
entist for he has also a huge nose and is clumsy.) I sat there on tenterhooks while
he was messing up my plate, after which I had to wipe it with my napkin.”40
The central axis of Chopin’s musical curriculum at the University, apart from
the Sonata in C Minor op. 4, is the Piano Trio op. 8. The composer worked on
that piece for several months, which took up the majority of his last year of stud-
ies. In the Piano Trio, Chopin used the four-movement genre model as stabilised
by Beethoven, which, Andrzej Chodkowski remarks, was a novel decision for
38 Elsner issued similar grades to several other students, without distinguishing Cho-
pin at that time. See Nowakowski, Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 34
(10 August 1891): 429.
39 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, 15–16.
40 We also learn the real motivation behind the trip: “I have already heard one ora
torio at the Sing-Akademie and also, with great satisfaction, Cortez, Cimarosa’s Se
cret Marriage and Onslow’s Colporteur. However, Handel’s oratorio St. Cecilia came
nearest to the ideal which I had formed of great music. […] Tomorrow Freischütz!…
That’s what I need. […]”. Ibid., 17–18.
26
those times: the Haydn/Mozart three-movement piano trio pattern was more
often the choice.41 Another outstanding characteristic of this eminent work (al-
though largely overshadowed by Chopin’s later output) is the complex instru-
mental writing: the rich texture of the piano part serves as accompaniment to
the “thematic” parts of violin and cello. At the same time, Chopin lets himself be
disciplined by the Classical tradition of the trio genre and contains his virtuoso
ambitions, in that the stile brillante technique does not overburden the piano
part, which remains timbrally balanced and rather dark in colour. Although the
developmental means applied by Chopin in the first movement remain some-
what limited compared to his later sonata cycles, the Piano Trio op. 8, as argued
by Chodkowski, is not only a fully mature composition but one of the leading
examples of the genre in the Romantic period.42
Two compositions for piano and orchestra were also composed in the period
of our interest: the Rondo à la Krakowiak op. 14 and the Fantasy on Polish Themes
op. 13, based notably on the popular song by Karpiński, Już miesiąc zaszedł.43
The second important task that kept Chopin busy during his last year of com-
position studies, apart from a fruitful course in chamber music, was a further
perfecting of his orchestral instrumentation skills, following his successful Vari-
ations op. 2. Whence this assumption? Chopin did already compose three earlier
Rondos (op. 1, 5 and WN 15), so the genre itself in formal terms would rather
not constitute an assignment in itself. The fantasy, on the other hand, if it indeed
formed the basis of Chopin’s last study year, it by its essence not a “verifiable”
musical genre that would offer a handy material for academic assessment. Yet
we have irrefutable evidence that Chopin did work on the instrumention of his
Opus 14 at that very time with Elsner: in the autograph score of that work, dated
1829 (catalogued by Kobylańska as no. 189), there is a short, three-bar fragment
of the horn part written by Elsner, as confirmed by Chopin himself who added in
manuscript: “Elsner’s hand.”44 This source shows that Elsner did not limit himself
to a superficial reading of Chopin’s finished compositions, but actively partici-
pated in their creation process.
41 Andrzej Chodkowski, “Kilka uwag o ‘Trio fortepianowym’ Fryderyka Chopina

[A Few Remarks on Chopin’s Piano Trio],” Rocznik Chopinowski 14 (1982), 18.
42 Ibid., 20.
43 It is uncertain whether the composer finished the latter in 1829, however.
44 See Krystyna Kobylańska, Rękopisy utworów Chopina. Katalog [The Manuscripts
of Chopin’s Works. Catalogue], 2 vols. (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne,
1977), 1: 99–100. By the way, Kobylańska’s qualification of this source as a “working
autograph” is questionable; it does seem to be a fair copy autograph.
27
Figure 1.2. Corrections introduced by Józef Elsner in the horn part on the fair copy autograph
of Chopin’s Rondo à la Krakowiak for piano and orchestra op. 14 (with manuscript addition
by Chopin: “Elsner’s hand”), see Kobylańska, Rękopisy utworów Chopina, no. 189.
Chopin’s composition studies under the tuition of Elsner were drawing to an end.
With this in mind, Mikołaj Chopin, the composer’s father and professor at the
Warsaw Lyceum, sent the Minister of Religion and Public Education, Stanisław
Grabowski, a request for a foreign scholarship for his son: “He has finished his
preliminary course of study, in witness whereof I may refer to the Director of the
Musical High School and University Professor, Mr Elsner. He now only needs to
visit foreign countries, viz. Germany, Italy and France in order to perfect himself
according to the best models” (13th April 1829).45 Chopin did not receive that
scholarship. Yet when he eventually graduated from the Main School of Music
on 20th July 1829, Elsner wrote in his final report that famous evaluation: “Third-
year […] Szopen Friderik, particular aptitude, musical genius [etc.].”46

46 Nowakowski writes, “There is an interesting gradual evolution of Elsner’s opinion
about Chopin. In 1827 and 1828 he spoke of «particular aptitude», which in 1829
became «musical genius». Chopin, therefore, was no prodigy, his talent developed
28
Figure 1.3. Report by Józef Elsner, handed on 19th November 1831 to the Dean of the
Department of Sciences and Fine Arts, confirming the completion by Chopin of composi
tional studies at the Royal University of Warsaw. Document lost, reproduced in L. Binental,
Chopin. Dokumenty i pamiątki (Warszawa: Łazarski, 1930, item 27).
The Main School of Music at the University continued to operate for less
than two years and, according to Elsner’s report, was eventually liquidated on
19th November 1831, i.e. later than any other university department.47 The first
stage of musical education at the Warsaw University was over.48
∗
It can be said without exaggeration that compositional studies at the Univer-
sity fully shaped Chopin’s artistic personality, and through overcoming certain
gradually, as it should, until it reached its zenith which in art, is genius. And we can
rely on Elsner’s opinion, who recognized the true worth of his pupil, who in turn,
never disappointed his teacher”. See Nowakowski, Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artysty
czne, no. 35, (17 August 1891): 440. A photocopy of Elsner’s last exam report (from the
Archives of Public Education) is preserved in Leopold Binental, Chopin. Dokumenty i
pamiątki [Chopin. Documents and Memorabilia] (Warszawa: Łazarski, 1930), item 27.
47 Ibid., 440.
48 Subsequent attempts at reviving that tradition were undertaken a hundred years later,
when through the efforts of Julian Pulikowski, a musicological seminar was established
at the Józef Piłsudski University. After World War II, on the initiative of Zofia Lissa, this
seminar was transformed into a Section of Musicology and started enrolling students.
29
difficulties under the tuition of Elsner, the young composer made huge progress
in perfecting his own musical skills. Moreover, the time of graduation from the
Main School of Music can now be seen as an axiological breakthrough in his
career. In Chopin studies, it has been generally accepted that roughly from the
time of the Piano Concerto in F Minor op. 21 (1829/30) and the first collection
of etudes (1829–32), i.e. compositions that saw the day just after Chopin finished
his studies, he became a fully mature artist, having transcended the promorphic
period of shaping his own style based on the Classical tradition. It was precisely
the university course with Józef Elsner that allowed Chopin to achieve compo-
sitional mastery, while his studies at the Main School of Music resulted in mul-
tidirectional interests first geared towards Classical genres (rondos, variations,
sonatas), then chamber music and orchestral instrumentation. That gave Chopin
a solid base on which he could later continue his artistic quests, although he
never again dedicated his attention to such a broad spectrum of compositional
and formal issues. Contrarily to those who argue Chopin “wouldn’t be himself ”
had he not established himself in Paris, it is in Warsaw that he received a thor-
ough education.
Chopin was in that time an artist seeking popularity, and willing to distin-
guish himself as a pianist. Therefore, a second important element of his student
works was the stile brillante so much in vogue in Europe, and he continued to
embrace it for some time in Paris (e.g. in the Variations brillantes op. 12 of 1833).
But Chopin not only assimilated the Classical tradition and made his presence
in the developing stile brillante, but he was also a “son of his land”, as evidenced
by the third important element of his university output: a relationship with the
Polish tradition, seen in stylised national dances (a genre popular with other
composers, too). The idiom of the polonaise and the mazurka became so deeply
embedded in his consciousness that he would continue to write in those genres
until the end of his life. In that way, Chopin’s artistic formation turned the full
circle: defined by European tradition and modernity as well as the local artistic
culture of Poland. Chopin’s student compositions written under the guidance of
Elsner at the Main School of Music of the Royal University of Warsaw became
permanent fixtures in the history of European Romanticism.
Translated by Wojciech Bońkowski
30
2
Teaching of Music Theory by Józef Elsner
at the Main School of Music of the Royal
University of Warsaw
“The history of music culture, writes Michał Bristiger, developed in different
ways in Poland and Western Europe. Polish musical thinking after the Deluge49
could hardly be termed mature. Yet what goes against a musical textbook might
prove interesting from the point of view of methodology: the history of music is
a synthetic construct that actually requires completing elements, shedding a new
light on that abstract pattern.”50 This opinion, although intended as a comment
on 18th-century Polish music theory, retains its validity for at least two centuries.
The political, social and cultural reasons for that state of affairs remain well
known, and there is no need to reiterate them here. There is also no particular
reason to analyse, in historiographical practice, the history of Polish music the-
ory independently from Western theory, with which it is inextricably bound. If
from the point of view of global music history, Polish theory remains a second-
ary thread, historians must face the issue of the assimilation in Poland of modern
music theory from the West.
Assimilation, however, need not be the only approach. The story of music
theory lectures at the Royal University of Warsaw during the studies of Fryderyk
Chopin, therefore, will offer a specific methodological insight not only into the
origin of the musical thinking that was professed at the University’s Main School
of Music, but also into an interesting intellectual thread of the young Chopin’s
musical education. There exists a solid foundation for claiming that it was the
This paper opened my studies on Chopin’s biography in the context of the history of
the Royal University of Warsaw, as one of the subchapters of my habilitation disser-
tation Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo
Muzyczne, 1991), 28–36; German edition: Chromatik in ihrer Beziehung zur Tona
lität, trans. Beatrysa Hirszenberg (Köln: Bela Verlag, 1995), 24–46.
49 The ‘Deluge’ (Potop) is a popular name for the Swedish invasion of Poland in
1655–1660.
50 Michał Bristiger, “Problemy muzyczne w traktatach Wojciecha Tylkowskiego”
[Musical Issues in the Treatises of Wojciech Tylkowski], in Studia musicologica ae
sthetica, theoretica, historia, ed. E. Dziębowska et al. (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo
Muzyczne, 1979), 69.
31
only moment in the life of the Polish composer where theoretical paradigms of
a past era clashed with his creative intuition that far transcended the canon of
harmony as it was then taught.
Music theory as taught at the Main School of Music, although hardly original
and often superficial compared to its models in France or Germany, acquires a
special significance as the intellectual background against which Chopin’s art
istic personality developed. The primary question that we shall ask is the fol-
lowing: which theoretical concepts contributed to Chopin’s education before his
departure for Paris? How was the phenomenon of chromaticism defined by the
leading exponents of the Warsaw musical milieu? Chromaticism remains the in-
dicator of the originality of music theories in the 18th and 19th century.
In the Kingdom of Poland, musical education was principally practised at the
Institute of Music and Declamation (Instytut Muzyki i Deklamacji, also known
as the Conservatoire), founded in 1817 as a subsidiary institution of the National
Theatre. Its first director was Józef Elsner. Despite various obstacles, he suc-
ceeded in integrating, in 1821, the Conservatoire to the Department of Sciences
and Fine Arts of the Royal University of Warsaw. As a consequence, in 1824
Elsner was awarded the patent of ordinary professor from the Committee of En-
lightenment.51 In 1826 the same Committee reformed the music department,
which was separated from the Conservatoire and as the Main School of Music,
became formally part of the University. Subsequent lectures in music theory and
composition took place at the University buildings.
The period of Fryderyk Chopin’s studies at the University (1826–1829) is
poorly documented,52 and his attendance at various lectures remains doubtful.53
His musical curriculum also remains unclear. Without entering into strictly his-
torical discussion as I have done in the previous essay, we may safely assume
51 Alina Nowak-Romanowicz, Józef Elsner (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne,

1957), 172–176; Tadeusz Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina [The Warsaw of
Chopin’s Youth] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1961), 186–190; Maria
Wawrykowa, “Uniwersytet Warszawski w latach 1816-1831” [The Warsaw Univer-
sity in 1816–1831] in Dzieje Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1807–1915 [The History
of the Warsaw University 1807–1915], ed. Stefan Kieniewicz (Warszawa: Państwowe
Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1981), 134.
52 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, abridged from Fryderyk Chopin’s corres
pondence collected and annotated by Bronislaw Edward Sydow. Trans. and ed. with
additional material and a commentary by Arthur Hedley (London: Heinemann:
1962), 10.
53 As indicated e.g. by Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 208–211 who examined
the extant sources in detail.
32
that the young Chopin attended at least some of Józef Elsner’s lectures on music
theory, in the framework of a course on music history, aesthetics or the prosody
of the Polish language.
Moreover, we know that by the time he enrolled for the Main School of
Music, Chopin already knew Elsner, who formerly frequented the Chopin family
house and remained undoubtedly the most influential musical teacher for the
young composer.54 It was Elsner who suggested to Chopin, then aged 13, his first
theoretical book: Karol Antoni Simon’s harmony textbook titled Krótka nauka
poznania Reguł Harmonii… [Short Course on the Rules of Harmony],55 a bilin-
gual, Polish-German publication released in Poznań in 1810. The quality of that
book in the context of European thoroughbass textbooks of that time is medi-
ocre. The main section of the book (24 pages) focuses on the following issues:
Introduction
About general bass
I On scales
II On keys
III On intervals and their inversions
IV On intervallic motion
V On chords, especially the triad and derived chords56
VI On the seventh chord
VII On the diminished seventh chord
VIII On rules necessary to play the general bass.
As in the majority of music textbooks from the late 18th and early 19th century,
issues of harmony coexist with those of thoroughbass, being subordinated to
the latter, so that chromaticism only appears in the context of the diminished
seventh chord (paragraph 38), passing notes (par. 28), the note leading to the 8th
degree, which is still defined with a term derived from medieval music theory
(semitonium modi, par. 35, and “chromatic (mixed) scale)” which is only briefly
mentioned by the author, par. 15). The position of chromaticism in thoroughbass
54 Nowak-Romanowicz, Józef Elsner, 180. Also see a reconstruction the content and
methodology of Elsner’s lectures, 186–192.
55 Karol Antoni Simon, Krótka nauka poznania Reguł Harmonii czyli Jenerałbassu
[Short Course on the Rules of Harmony or Thoroughbass] (Poznań: Simon, 1810).
A copy signed by Chopin from the Warsaw Music Society Library was lost during
II World War.
56 I.e. the harmonic triad.
33
theory is strictly determined: the main principle is that every casually augmented
or diminished note that does not constitute a transient modulation, is considered
chromatic and possesses a strictly determined preceding and subsequent note.57
Compared to other treatises on thoroughbass from Austria, Germany or France,
Simon’s book comes across as very modest both in its scope and suggested solu-
tions. In a way, though, it fitted the needs of a young composer-to-be: that very
scope of material in the Short Course on the Rules of Harmony is indicative of
the theoretical competences that Chopin likely possessed when enrolling for the
Main School of Music in Warsaw.
The School’s curriculum included, importantly, two years of lectures on
music theory (an hour a week) that took place at the University buildings.
As mentioned by Elsner himself, these lectures included “music theory, thor-
oughbass and composition, from the point of view of grammar, rhetoric and
aesthetics.”58 In his Summary…, Elsner indicates three sources that we can use
today to reconstruct the content and level of these lectures. The primary source
is the Rozprawa o muzyce i harmonii [Dissertation on Music and Harmony],
“used for our lectures at the Royal University of Warsaw,”59 that however is
lost today. The derived work, Listy o muzyce i harmonii [Letters on Music and
Harmony, 1846–47], is only known from an excerpt published by Aleksander
Poliński.60
The only surviving complete (but unpublished) source that offers an insights
into Elsner’s lecturing method is a manuscript that the author himself thus de-
scribes: “A summary course of thoroughbass, written for Countess Łubieńska
whom I taught, offered to her in manuscript, for which a received a snuff-box à
la Napoleon.”61 The plan of this short work is as follows:
57 See Manfred Wagner, Die Harmonielehren der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Re-
gensburg: Bosse, 1974), 40.
58 Quoted after Nowak-Romanowicz, Józef Elsner, 180–181.
59 Józef Elsner, Sumariusz moich utworów muzycznych z objaśnieniami o czynnościach i
działaniach moich jako artysty muzycznego [Summary of my Musical Compositions,
with an Explanation of my Actions as a Musical Artist], ed. Alina Nowak-Romano-
wicz (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1957), item 9.
60 Aleksander Poliński, Chopin (Kyiv–Warszawa: Leon Idzikowski, 1914), 22–23;
quoted after Alina Nowak-Romanowicz, Józef Elsner, 325. The textbook in ques-
tion is Przykłady z harmonji [Examples of Harmony], partial autograph (autograph
notation from p. 21), 76 pp., dedication to Countess Łubieńska, dated 1807 after the
foreword. Warsaw Music Society Library, cat. no. 940.
61 Elsner, Sumariusz moich utworów muzycznych, item 8.
34
Einleitung
I Melodische Fortschreitung
II Harmonische Fortschreitung
1. Intervalle
2. Accorde
3. Cadenz
4. Modulation
III Abgemessene Bewegung
This work by Elsner could hardly be considered fully representative for the
level of his university lectures, be it for its brevity and intentional propaedeutic
character. On the other hand, this manuscript textbook was known to students
of the conservatoire, as indicated by the signatures of Józef Stefani, Piotr Wei
nert, and Wiktor Woyniewicz on page 21. It therefore cannot be excluded that the
textbook was also familiar to Chopin. In this book, Elsner distils the teaching of
harmony to three fundamental elements that also were part of the thoroughbass
treatises of that time: intervals, chords, and modulation. Both the ordering of
the content and the further readings suggested to students by Elsner substantiate
the opinion that Elsner’s simplified textbook was modelled on the comprehen-
sive treatises written by theorists from Austria and Germany: Johann Georg Al-
brechtsberger62 and Johann Philipp Kirnberger.63 Combined, these two treatises
address the two main disciplines of Baroque music theory: its prima prattica
(counterpoint) is the topic of Albrechtsberger’s textbook, while its seconda prat
tica (the rules of thoroughbass) can be found in that of Kirnberger. These two
books, indicates Alina Nowak-Romanowicz, Elsner’s biographer, were the basis
for his practical curriculum in harmony and counterpoint.64
Consequently, these two works testify faithfully to the quality of the musical
education that young Polish composers received at the Main School of Music in
the 1820s. Since Albrechtsberger’s work focuses primarily on matters of counter-
point, we shall focus here on the table of contents of Kirnberger’s treatise:
I Von der Tonleiter und der Temperatur dersselben65
II Von den Intervallen
62 Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Gründliche Anweisung zur Komposition (Leipzig:

Breitkopf, 1790).
63 Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik (Berlin—
Königsberg: Decker und Hartung, 1774–1779), 3 vols.
64 Nowak-Romanowicz, Józef Elsner, 187.
65 Kirnberger only discusses the diatonic scale.
35
III Von den Accorden
IV Anmerkungen über die Beschaffenheit und den Gebrauch der Accorde
und einger dazu gehörigen Intervalle
V Von der freien Behandlung der dissonirenden Accorde in der leichtern
Schreibart
VI Von den harmonischen Perioden und den Cadenzen
VII Von der Modulation
VIII Von der Modulation in entfernte Tonarten, und von plötzlichen

Ausweichungen
IX Von den harmonischen und unharmonischen Fortschreitungen in der
Melodie
X Von dem einfachen Contrapunkt in zwey und mehr Stimmen
XI Von dem verziertem oder bunteneinfachen Contrapunkt
In comparison with the above-discussed sources, Kirnberger’s textbook,
highly esteemed by Elsner who used it in his harmony classes, distinguishes
itself in being particularly thorough and in-depth for its time. It goes to Elsner’s
credit that he familiarised his students with that particular harmonic theory.
On the other hand, Kirnberger’s treatise was hardly a forward-looking work
already when published, let alone in the second decade of the 19th century (i.e.,
when modern harmonic theory was effectively being developed). Ernst Tittel
remarked that Kirnberger, like many other German theorists, based himself on
Rameau’s concepts of fundamental bass66 and while not developing them, he
discussed them in detail. In essence, Kirnberger’s system remains strictly dia-
tonic, and his approach to chromaticism essentially follows the traditional con-
cept of musica ﬁcta.
After Elsner, the leading lecturer on music theory, indirectly linked to the
Royal University of Warsaw, was Karol Kurpiński, who taught “the principles
of music at the piano” at the Institute of Music and Declamation between 1817
and 1821. However, he turned down an offer of professorship in harmony,
counterpoint and composition at the Conservatoire when the latter was in-
corporated into the University. After Kurpiński left, Elsner offered the lectures
in thoroughbass and harmony to Wacław Würfel who remained in charge
until 1824. Although we know that Chopin did not value Kurpiński as highly
as he did Elsner,67 it cannot be excluded that he was familiar with the former’s
66 Ernst Tittel, “Wiener Musiktheorie von Fux bis Schönberg”, in Beiträge zur Musik
theorie des 19. Jahrhunderts, ed. Martin Vogel (Regensburg: Bosse, 1966), 181.
36
textbook, Zasady Harmonii Tonów z dołączeniem Jenerałbasu praktycznego
[The Principles of Tonal Harmony, with an Appendix on Practical Thorough-
bass] (1821),68 be it only because it was widely available. The book, although it
addresses a broad range of topics, is rather thought out as a popular introduc-
tion to harmonic theory: “I did not write my work for students of our Conser-
vatoire, Kurpiński writes in the foreword, as in that milieu, there are greater
masters than myself ”. The book spans 24 pages and is organised as follows:
Introduction
I The three major components of music69
II The primary chords70
III The degrees
IV The names of chords
V The diatonic progression of intervals, i.e. the degrees
VI The diatonic progression of full chords in the major mode
VII The minor mode upward and downward, why it is used, with a progres-
sion of full chords in the minor mode shown on Fig. 90
VIII The leading tones71
IX Further remarks on moving from tone to tone, and on the leading tones
X Forbidden octaves and fifths, and false relations
XI Random leading and submediant tones. On modulations, transitions72 and
cadences
XII On transitory and prolonged tones in a chord progression and on tones
preceding the next chord
XIII Motions (motus)73
XIV Transitional points, i.e. the tonic, dominant, mediant etc.
XV Inversions of scales and types of melody
XVI Short mention of imitation
Appendix: Practical thoroughbass, how to figure chords and perform them
68 Karol Kurpiński, Zasady Harmonii Tonów z dołączeniem Jenerał-basu praktycznego

[The Principles of Tonal Harmony, with an Appendix on Practical Thoroughbass]
(Warszawa: Fr. Klukowski, 1821).
69 I.e. melody, harmony and motion.
70 I.e. chords in root position.
71 Leading tones: the “ruling” tone, i.e. the 7th degree (note sensible), and the “co-ruling”
tone, i.e. the 4th degree (sous-sensible).
72 According to modern nomenclature, transient modulation.
73 I.e., types of counterpoint motion (motus rectus, motus obliquus, motus contrarius).
37
As we can see, in Kurpiński’s interpretation, chromaticism does not extend
beyond the limits set by the music theory of that time. And although he ad-
dresses it in more detail than Elsner in his manuscript textbook for Countess
Łubieńska, he does so very briefly compared to the majority of contemporary
Western European textbooks of harmony. For example, he talks about the chro-
matic aspect of the leading tone, although predictably he limits himself to the
semitonium. Kurpiński also gives a definition of chromatic modulation (which he
calls “lateral”) and, following the theoretical paradigm of traditional thorough-
bass textbooks, discusses the uses of the “diminished seventh chord”. Finally, he
distinguishes five types of melody including “chromatic” and “anharmonic [sic]
chant”74.
Example 2.1. Melody including “chromatic and enharmonic chant” in Kurpiński’s Zasady
harmonii tonów, 42.
74 Ibid., 42-43.
38
Contrary to Elsner’s work, Kurpiński’s textbook does include examples of how

to harmonise a chromatic melody line or chromatically led bass voice, as well as
progressions of the diminished seventh chord.
Kurpiński’s textbook, however, has a different origin. In discussing thor-
oughbass, he refers to two theorists: Johann Christian Schicht75 and especially
Emmanuel Alois Förster,76 a fact already emphasised by Jan Prosnak.77 Yet apart
from his appendix on the practical study of thoroughbass, he based his entire
work on French music theory, as suggested by the nomenclature that includes
translations and directly quoted French terms, e.g. of the different scale degrees
(“tonic, lower mediant, mediant, lower dominant, dominant”: see Chapter 15).
Both the book’s order and the scope of notions that it uses point out to the trea-
tise of Antoine Reicha, excerpts of which Kurpiński had translated earlier in
1820–21 for Warsaw’s Tygodnik Muzyczny.78
Looking at some of the theoretical topics that Chopin might have encoun-
tered at the Main School of Music, we see clearly that his musical education was
shaped by Kurpiński and particularly Elsner. Their positions, in turn, inspired
by the three major musical centres in Europe that also contributed to the emer-
gence of modern music theory: Germany, France, and Austria. Nevertheless, the
75 Johann Gottfried Schicht, Grundregeln der Harmonie nach dem Verwechslungs-

System (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, undated [1812]).
76 Emanuel Aloys Förster, Anleitung zum Generall-Bass (Leipzig: Breitkopf und
Härtel, 1805).
77 Jan Prosnak, “Karol Kurpiński jako teoretyk” [Karol Kurpiński as Theorist], Kwartal
nik Muzyczny 25 (1949), 141.
78 Ibid., 153–154. See also Czesław Karol Zawiejski, Teoria harmonii Ks. Jana Jar
musiewicza (1781–1844) na tle ówczesnej epoki [The Harmonic Theory of Father Jan
Jarmusiewicz (1781–1844) in the Context of His Time] (Gdańsk: Akademia Mu
zyczna im. Stanisława Moniuszki, 1986), 91. The treatise in question is: Anton Reicha,
Cours de composition musicale, ou Traité complet et raisonné d’Harmonie pratique
(Paris: Gambaro, 1818).
39
theoretical traditions to which Chopin’s professors referred had little to do with
modern harmonic science which, freed from the rules of thoroughbass, began
its surge as early as the beginning of the 19th century and which was already lec-
tured e.g. at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris. On the other hand, Chopin’s
theoretical knowledge was still shaped, through the treatise of Kirnberger, by the
ancient accords fondamentaux of Jean-Philippe Rameau that remained the basis
of harmonic training in Warsaw through the 1820s.
The musical views of the young Chopin evolved against a conglomerate of
traditional music theory; we can assume that it had the same inspirational ef-
fect on him as Schubert’s studies in thoroughbass with Salieri79. Like Haydn and
Beethoven, Chopin was a purely empirical musician when it came to theoretical
discourse. He was, as Adam Zamoyski points out, “neither insecure nor educated
enough to start formulating theories about his own work.”80
The sources of a powerful expansion of harmony, a phenomenon that can
be observed as early as Chopin’s Rondo in C Minor op. 1 or his youth Sonata
in C Minor op. 4, dedicated to Elsner, lie therefore in his experience that went
beyond a formal musical curriculum. But one important reservation needs
to be made. As we know, the diminished seventh chord, which constitutes the
basic chromatic / enharmonic modulatory device in theoretical thoroughbass,
was also a crucial element of the chromatic textures in Chopin’s Warsaw years.
The composer’s penchant for this chord occasionally became a mannerism
(e.g., in the Nocturne in E Minor [op. 72] WN 23). Its origin, I believe, lies in
the assimilation by the young composer of stereotyped modulation techniques
during his university studies. In this context, we can see the diminished sev-
enth chord as the most conventional element in Chopin’s chromatic palette.
79 Chopin might not have been inspired by Elsner as a composer; Nowak-Romanowicz

points at the latter’s “narrow use of harmony” (Józef Elsner, 160) and argues that in
his music, chromaticism plays but a very modest role (ibid., 259).
80 Adam Zamoyski, Chopin. A Biography (London: Collins, 1979), 100.
40
3
On the Fragments of Music from the Last Sheet
of the Trio in G Minor op. 8
Item 80 in Krystyna Kobylańska’s fundamental catalogue of the manuscripts

of Chopin’s works, relating to the Trio in G Minor op. 8, describes an ‘auto-
graph sketch of fragments of the piano part’ of that work, to be found on the
thirty-second and last page of the “working autograph of the Trio […], which
also includes bar 225 and part of bar 226 of movt I of the Concerto in F Minor
op. 21.”81 These fragments are relatively little known (they have yet to attract
the attention of Chopin specialists) and are among the earliest sources of this
type in Chopin heuristics. They escaped the attention of Jeffrey Kallberg, who
has devoted a special study to Chopin’s fragments.82 A mere glance at the whole
of this manuscript source – one of the last works that Chopin wrote as a stu-
dent of Józef Elsner at the Main School of Music, in the Department of Arts and
Sciences of the Royal University of Warsaw – suffices for us to realise that the
sketches in question could not have been written while Chopin was compos-
ing the Trio, only afterwards. The logic of the creative process suggests that he
could not have foreseen the layout of his text on the manuscript paper in what
is one of his largest works, in four movements, in such a way as to predict where
its end would come and reserve the free space for sketching fragments of the
score he was producing. The supposed “fragments of the piano part” of the Trio
This chapter was published formerly in Chopin’s Work. His Inspirations and Creative
Process in the Light of the Sources, ed. Artur Szklener (Warszawa: Narodowy Instytut
Fryderyka Chopina, 2003), 143-156.
81 Krystyna Kobylańska, Rękopisy utworów Chopina. Katalog [Manuscripts of Chopin’s

Works. Catalogue] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1977): item no. 80.
82 Jeffrey Kallberg, “Chopin and the Fragment”, in Chopin’s Work. His Inspirations and
Creative Process in the Light of the Sources, ed. Artur Szklener (Warszawa: Narodowy
Instytut Fryderyka Chopina, 2002). With regard to the definition of the ‘fragment’,
on p. 127 we read the following: “Let me clarify how I use the term ‘fragment’ as it
applies to material found in Chopin’s sketches. In its most restrictive sense, I intend
the expression to refer to sketches and drafts that contain music that cannot be rea-
sonably identified with any piece that Chopin even provisionally finished”. That is
the definition we adopt in the present work.
41
are actually short musical thoughts of Chopin’s, notated after he had completed
the autograph score, in the autumn of 1829, the contents of which relate not to
opus 8 at all. And so the autograph to which Krystyna Kobylańska assigned the
number 80 does not actually exist.
The thesis of the present article is the assertion – which I will attempt to
prove, having established the genesis of the fragments under discussion – that
Chopin began sketching these fragments towards the end of 1829, and so from
the moment when the score of the G Minor Trio gained its definitive form,
and continued over the first three quarters of 1830, and so while he was still in
Warsaw. Although Chopin must have taken this manuscript abroad with him,
since he used it to prepare the autograph Stichvorlage for Jacques H. Aristide,83 in
respect to its contents, the whole of the source is linked to the Warsaw period. It
is a valuable source, one that appears to be the sole available manuscript enabling
us not only to gain some idea of the musical projects that were exercising Cho-
pin’s imagination immediately following his graduation from the Main School
of Music, but also – more importantly – to bring several arguments to bear con-
cerning the dating of particular works. The autograph has been in the hands of
many scholars, but – a single fragment aside – its musical contents have yet to be
identified. Therefore, the research goal identified above will be the main focus
of our attention.
The fragments placed on the thirty-second page of the autograph of the Trio
were written at different times, and – as already mentioned – they concern not
just Chopin’s opus 8, displaying more or less hypothetical connections with vari
ous musical projects. And so although they were all written prior to Chopin’s
departure from Warsaw, they do not attest work on a single specific composi-
tion. So Chopin made use of the empty page – valuable to him at that time – of
the Trio’s autograph to resolve “fleeting” compositional problems. Guided by the
sheer pragmatics of the composition of an empty page that was suitable for
sketching, and also the purely external, “working” criteria of key, we will divide
the contents of the autograph’s thirty-second page into four areas, corresponding
to the probable order in which they were composed.
For obvious reasons, we may assume that the first to be written was the first
area, containing musical material in the relative keys of F Minor and A flat Major
(the latter is specified verbally by the composer). Chopin then sought to shape
some musical material in the key of E Major, which he also specifies in words
(area 2). On the left of the page, at the bottom, we find the third area, with short
83 Kobylańska, Rękopisy, item no. 82.
42
Example 3.1. Chronology of the fragments.
figurations, also adhering to a key specified verbally by the composer: C Major.

Finally, the fourth area, bearing musical material in an indeterminate flat key,
was written in the remaining empty space, and so at the bottom on the right. The
integrity of these areas is confirmed by analysis of the handwriting.
Area 1. The first movement of the Piano Concerto in F Minor op. 21
The first area contains two different musical ideas, relating to the development
of the first movement of the Concerto in F Minor op. 21. As mentioned above,
scholars have focused previously on the left-hand fragment alone.
In describing this fragment of the Concerto, first sketched by Chopin, Kry
styna Kobylańska considers it to be “an autograph sketch of bar 225 and part of
43
Example 3.2. Reconstruction of fragment 1a.
bar 226 of movt I of the piano part.”84 In actual fact, this fragment of the auto-
graph does not relate to the piano part alone, but also – as Józef M. Chomiński
and Teresa D. Turło rightly noted – to the reduced accompaniment part situated
synchronically below it, which contains interpolations, characteristic of the har-
mony of that Concerto’s introduction, of double leading four-note chords of the
tonic.85 So this is a short fragment of the solo part together with the reduced
orchestra part (or the parts of a string quartet or quintet). It was probably the
lack of a common bar-line that caused Kobylańska to overlook the obvious syn-
chronisation of the fragment of the accompaniment situated below. Crucial to
our considerations is the fact that this is the only sketch in our source with a
secure attribution, since its musical contents correspond to the ultimate form of
this fragment in the official version of the work.
We face a more complex “source situation” in respect to the right-hand frag-
ment of this area of the source, which, as it turns out, was produced directly after
the left-hand fragment.
There is not the slightest doubt that this fragment belongs to the same work.
This assumption is confirmed not just by its proximity to the previously analysed
fragment of the first movement of the F Minor Concerto and the identical hand-
writing, but also by the relative keys (F Minor – A flat Major) and the consid-
erable outward textural similarity between the two fragments, especially of the
84 Ibid., item no. 255.

85 Józef Michał Chomiński and Teresa Dalila Turło, Katalog dzieł Fryderyka Chopina
[A Catalogue of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo
Muzyczne, 1990), 106.
44
Example 3.3. Reconstruction of fragment 1b.
reduced parts of the accompaniment. Analysis of the contents of this fragment

suggest unequivocally that we are dealing here with another fragment of the
development of the Concerto’s first movement, albeit one that is less integrally
written than the fragment discussed above (bars 234, 235 and the beginning
of 236). Compared to the previously analysed fragment, this one is written more
sketchily, since the solo part of the left hand displays a different form compared
to the original version and the accompaniment part has a texturally denser, bulk-
ier form. Thus we are dealing here with a lesser “degree of heuresis”; that is, the
degree to which the musical substance of the fragment tallies with the official
version.
Given the lack of a complete autograph of the orchestral score, we conclude
from the analysed fragments that Chopin himself wrote the solo part together
with the basic musical substance of its accompaniment (this is confirmed, above
all, by the semi-autograph Stichvorlage of the score for Schlesinger,86 in which the
reduced accompaniment part was written in Chopin’s hand), but – as is indicated
by the analysed fragments, and especially by the first of them – that during the
creative process he was thinking at the same time in terms of the overall sound
of the work’s “primary material”. In other words, he did not first write the piano
part before “filling in the gaps” intended for the accompaniment, but created the
work’s form integrally, “hearing” it in its sounding totality.87
86 Kobylańska, Katalog, item no. 258.

87 Heuristic questions of methodology with regard to manuscript materials are con-
sidered at greater length in my Musical Work Analysis. An Epistemological Debate,
trans. Wojciech Bońkowski (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2008), 47–52.
45
This thesis could only be corroborated by an analysis of other sketches of
Chopin’s Warsaw compositions for piano and orchestra, in particular the un-
available autograph of the working score of the Variations in B flat Major on “Là
ci darem la mano” op. 2, which also includes sketches of the Rondo à la krakowiak
op. 14.88 That is because we appear not to have at our disposal any other sources
that might enable us to verify our thesis. The certain dating of the Concerto in
F Minor to the turn of 1830 indirectly confirms our thesis that Chopin began
sketching the entries on the last page of the Trio towards the end of 1829.
Area 2. The Piano Concerto in E Minor op. 11? The Waltz in E Major WN 18?
The two fragments from the second area were written (and marked as such by
Chopin) in the key of E Major. Both the criterion of key and also the similarity
of the handwriting allow us to treat them as a source context of one and the
same composition. However, these fragments differ in metre (upper in C; lower
in 3/4), which obliges us to consider also the possibility of their genetic links
to two different musical projects. For the time being, let us concentrate on the
upper fragment, which presents a short accompaniment figure in the bass clef.
Not just the melodic-harmonic content, but also the combination of this short
figure with the underlying minim, might suggest distant associations with
the opening figure of the left-hand part of the Larghetto from the Concerto
in E Minor (bar 13 and analogous bars). If such a genesis of this fragment
can indeed be discussed, it would be that familiar figure in statu nascendi,
since Chopin ultimately altered its textural form (incidentally, this figure is
texturally akin to the beginning of the accompaniment of the second theme
of movement I of that work, so it too potentially comes into the reckoning).
Ultimately, however, I have no heuristic argument that might demonstrate the
88 Kobylańska, Katalog, items nos. 6 and 188.
46
genetic kinship of this figure with the E Minor Concerto – primarily because
it is too succinct.
The problem would remain unresolved forever, were it not for the heuristic
context created by the second fragment, in the same key, which sheds more light
on the genesis of the fragments under analysis.
From the syntactical point of view, this is a predecessor from a period that is
easier to attribute. It does not suggest any obvious associations with the first
movement of the E Minor Concerto, and so the genetic hypothesis formulated
above ultimately founders, since it resembles, in its rocking character, some
abandoned project for a waltz. But was it really abandoned? Knowledge from
beyond the sources, allied to comparative analysis, enables us to state, with a
considerable degree of probability, that both sketches in the key of E Major, and
especially the second of them, are traces of Chopin’s work on the Waltz in E
Major WN 18 (see bars 57–58 and the analogous bars 65–66). As with the sec-
ond of the fragments of the F Minor Concerto analysed here, we are dealing
with a distant, yet incontrovertible, variant of a particular place in the work.
It is very interesting to note that in this fragment the composer indicated the
harmonic ground in short form, without imparting to it its texturally final form,
and – overlooking the fact that in the final version this harmonic ground was
altered – the characteristic melodic phrases leave us in no doubt as to the genesis
of this fragment.
The dating of this work, unanimously given in the subject literature, would
confirm our ultimate attribution, since the Waltz in E Major WN 18 is widely
regarded as having been written in 1829 or 1830. We may assume that this
work was indeed composed around the turn of 1830, but no earlier than the
end of 1829.
Area 3. The Polonaise in C Major op. 3? An abandoned project for an Etude
in C Major?
The third area of fragments is formed by four loose semiquaver figures, con-
nected neither successively nor simultaneously, in the key of C Major.
47
Example 3.6. Reconstruction of fragment 3.
That key was specified verbally by the composer. The genetic attribution of
these figures is extremely difficult to establish, since they are too short to form
characteristic fragments of a musical idea; what is more, they are highly typical
figures in the instrumental music of the modern era. Since they do not con-
stitute a coherent whole (four separate groups), the overall musical Gestalt of
these figures gives scarcely any grounds for certainty regarding their genesis.
Was Chopin writing out fingering in selected figures of some study by Cramer
or Czerny? That hypothesis can be discarded, since fingering could have been
written on the score. Yet there are two feasible possibilities. This might have been
an attempt at writing out one of the accompaniment figures of the Polonaise in
C Major for cello and piano op. 3, which Chopin was composing at this time
(in 1829). We find such figures and others like them in bars 66–69 and 105–108
of that work. But the more attractive hypothesis is that these are traces of an
abandoned project for some study in the key of C Major. After all, we know that
Chopin was working on etudes from his opus 10 at precisely this time. Informa-
tion about unidentified etudes appears in correspondence from the end of 1829:
“I’ve done a large Exercice en forme’ (20 October 1829),”89 “I’ve written a couple
of exercises.”90
It is quite likely that these figurational fragments arose in connection with
projected “exercises” and that Chopin not only “did” or “wrote”, but was also
“doing” or “writing”, without completing, another etude in the key of C Major.
Area 4. The Nocturne in B flat Minor op. 9 no. 1? An abandoned project for
a nocturne in G flat Major?
Fragments 4a, 4b and 4c undoubtedly relate to Chopin’s work on one and the
same composition. Two of them (4a and 4b) are in the key of G flat Major, as
89 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin], ed.

Bronisław Edward Sydow, 2 vols. (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy,
1955), 1:111.
90 Ibid., 113.
48
results from the accidentals. Chopin was using that key at this time in the Po-
lonaise in G flat Major, though that can be eliminated from our considerations
on account of both the triple metre and also the characteristic rhythmic elements
of the musical texture. So already an initial glance at these fragments as a whole
allows us to determine that the sketched project could not have been a polonaise.
Thus our clues will concern not key, but texture. There is much to suggest that
these are remnants of compositional work on a nocturne.
Let us begin with the bottom fragment.
Its musical substance contains an accompaniment figure that is probably in 6/4

(the metre is not specified by the composer), and so the same metre that Chopin
ultimately adopted for the printed version of the work. In two bars, he places
four sextuplets (the first is repeated, as is indicated by the inscription “bis”) that
display a texturally slightly different form to what we are familiar with from the
final version of the accompaniment, containing harmonic-textural complexes
with diminished seventh chords – highly characteristic of Chopin’s harmonic
writing during this period. However, these particular complexes do not appear
in the original version. In my opinion, we may cautiously surmise that the young
Chopin was experimenting here with an harmonic version of the basic accompani
ment figure, but ultimately modified its form. This assumption is based on the
fact that fragments in the key of G flat Major appear in this nocturne in connec-
tion with the presence of the related key D flat Major, for which they represent
the subdominant area. If we cannot be entirely sure about the provenance of this
fragment, it is worth strengthening our argument with a reminder that during
the Warsaw period none of Chopin’s works was based on just such an accompani
ment figure.
The left-hand fragment brings two incomplete, “open” bars, the harmonic
substance of which again contains a diminished seventh chord, resolved with a
G flat Major triad.
49
This obviously belongs to the same heuristic context as the hypothetical sketches
for the Nocturne in B flat Minor, yet the overt stabilisation of the G flat Major
triad slightly weakens our earlier assertion as to the accidental character of this
key and suggests yet another possibility, namely that around the turn of 1830
Chopin was working on another nocturne, in the key of G flat Major – closely
related in its texture to the later Nocturne in B flat Minor – which he subsequently
rejected and from the beginnings of which the completed nocturne, familiar
from opus 9, was produced. The reverse order can rather be discounted. After
composing the B flat Minor Nocturne, it seems unlikely that Chopin would have
returned to an idea for just such an accompaniment figure that had earlier been
texturally exploited.
The fragment to the right of this area seems to me even more enigmatic
and striking. Its musical content brings chromatic sequences, the like of which
Chopin readily “tried out” in his sketches.
Example 3.9. Reconstruction of fragment 4c.
This tripartite chromatic sequence is possibly a very distant variant of bar 83

of the Nocturne in B flat Minor. It contains an identical number of two-note
chords, the same falling direction and a strongly dissonant harmonic content. In
this instance, the line that divides the figure and suggests a different metre (2/4)
might denote not a bar-line, but the division of the parts of the sequence. The
hypothesis regarding the provenance of this sequence is reinforced by the argu-
ment that the final version of bar 83 is also divided into three parts, presented in
different registers. And so – despite the different harmonic content – the overall
formal design of both the compared fragments is very similar. Be that as it may,
intuition suggests that – if this fragment of the sketch does indeed belong to the
50
Nocturne in B flat Minor and not to the suggested “source” nocturne in the key
of G flat Major – it is a trace of an abandoned version of the ending rather than
relating to any other place in that work. However, it is difficult to be entirely cer-
tain here, since such a short and – more importantly – harmonically unresolved
chromatic sequence might belong to either B flat Minor or G flat Major. In this
tangle of hypotheses, one thing seems certain: it belongs to the same source area
as the other two fragments.
If the sketches left by Chopin were indeed sources for the Nocturne in B flat
Minor, leading to it directly or merely indirectly, then one should conclude that
the composer began work on the whole opus while still in Warsaw. This question
is not without significance, since the relatively large discrepancies in the dating
of that cycle’s composition (from 1829 through to the year of publication, 1832)
would be partially resolved, in that we could cautiously assume, on the basis of
this source information, that Chopin began work on the opus 9 set around the
turn of 1830. That would make Bronisław Edward Sydow the nearest in his dating
of the whole cycle, as he gave the earliest date (1829) and was of the opinion that
the whole set of Nocturnes op. 9 was written while Chopin was still in Warsaw.91
All considerations of musical fragments ought to be preceded by their phil
ological analysis, since without it their interpretation is in many respects blinkered.
On the basis of the fragments left by Chopin, we can enrich the argument aimed
at dating a work and defining the relationship between the sketches and the fin-
ished work, and also – most crucially – attempt to forge an outline “theory of the
musical fragment”. The need for such a theory has been strongly emphasised for
some time. Andrea Lindmayer-Brandl pointed out not only that the category of
the fragment seems more appropriate than the current notions of the “sketch”
and the “draft”, but also that a new systematics of the musical fragment could and
should be based on further detailed heuristic categories (compositional fragment,
delivery fragment, cyclic fragment).92
A more thoroughgoing methodological consideration of this detailed heuris-
tic problem must be left for another time. Nevertheless, the discussion carried
out here has allowed us to realise that genetic research which aims to establish
whether fragments belong to a particular “source situation” and which relates to
91 Bronisław Edward Sydow, Bibliografia F. F. Chopina [A Chopin Bibliography]

(Warszawa: Warszawskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1949).
92 Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl, “On a Proper Theory of Fragments in Music”, in Inter
national Musicological Society. 17th International Congress. Programme & Abstracts
(Leuven: Alamire Foundation, 2002), 243.
51
the degree of heuresis, that is, the musical concretisation of the fragment viewed
in relation to the degree to which it resembles the official version, enables us to
establish the following systematics of fragments, adapted in the present article
to the specific character of the source material under analysis and with no pre-
tentions to universality:
1. The greatest degree of heuresis is possessed by reflective fragments, which un-
equivocally refer us to specific moments in a musical work. These contain,
more specifically, the whole of the musical substance (the note pitches, their
rhythmic shape, the metre), although with accidentals sometimes omitted (1a).
2. A high degree of heuresis is contained by variant fragments, which more or
less securely allow us to relate them to specific places in the work, although
the content of their musical sense diverges not only in terms of accidentals but
also with respect to the musical substance of the composer’s versions familiar
from other sources of the work that are integrally prepared, especially manu-
script Stichvorlagen (1b, 2b, 4c).
3. A low degree of heuresis characterises hypothetical fragments, which cannot be
related to any specific moment in an existing work, although textural-musical
premises, backed by non-source knowledge, allow us to declare, more or less
securely, that they are genetically linked to a specific musical work (2a, 4a, 4b).
4. The lowest degree of heuresis is displayed by original fragments of abandoned
compositional projects, which cannot in any way be related to any of the com-
poser’s known works (3, 4a–c).
Translated by John Comber
52
Part II
Chopin’s Musical Language and
Individual Style
4
Stylistic Change: from Stile brillante
to the Late ‘Synthetic Style’
The reason why the problem of stylistic change in Chopin’s music has not always
been accorded special attention lies in the nature of Chopin’s musical language,
whose evolution is not accompanied by spectacular turning points that result
from a shift in the employed means of compositional technique. The musical
language developed by the Viennese Classics, with its laws of tonality, syntactic
rules, musical forms and genres, served not only Chopin, but also all other com-
posers of the Romantic period. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth
century that there emerged in the music of some of these composers tendencies
which fixed the course for subsequent systematic transformations of musical
language at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century.
Changes in Chopin’s style are not marked by dramatic fissures, revealing instead
the qualities of a gradual maturing: first through the assimilation and extension
of the range of artistic means found in the musical tradition, and later through
the formation of new artistic values on this basis. Thus, the evolution of Chopin’s
style does not consist of “qualitative turning points”, but rather on “quantitative
shifts”.
Some genres in Chopin’s output can be regarded as a terrain in which emerged
specific harmonic, tonal, stylistic and formal innovations. These new qualities
do not always entail permanent changes in Chopin’s style, and are not fixed in
a stable association with other elements of the given genre, just as they do not
always cause its irreversible change. The evolution of those genres which Chopin
employed throughout his life consists of only the intensity with which a given
tendency is manifest. Thus, a clearly double-tracked development is discernible:
in some compositions the innovative elements present within the perimeter of a
genre may not be found at all (as in the Mazurkas of op. 63), while in others they
are quite pronounced (cf. the Mazurkas of op. 59).
Models of periodization
Periodizations of Chopin’s output advanced by researchers in the past usually
did not refer to strictly musical criteria. A progressive “breaking up” of the stages
of Chopin’s creativity was characteristic of such attempts at periodization, put
forward as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. What are the most
55
characteristic periodization models for changes of style in Chopin put forth in
studies devoted to his music? The view according to which Chopin’s style is un-
changeable assumed dominance in the inter-war period, and was inherited from
nineteenth-century writings on Chopin. At the time, the focus was on creating
a system of Chopin’s musical devices, both on the harmonic plane,93 and the
melodic plane.94 Theses about the invariability of his style expressed the general
view that changes of a quantitative character do not supply sufficiently motivated
premises for the periodization of output. A typical view on this issue was pre-
sented by Ludwik Bronarski: “Chopin’s evolution is clear and continuous, albeit
only in the general makeup of his œuvre – not in its particular stages.”95 Zdzisław
Jachimecki also proclaimed himself in favour of the uniformity of Chopin’s
style, and emphasised its full and early crystallisation, as well as its independ
ence of other Romantic personal styles.96 The same view, though tied in with
a value judgement, was advocated by Alfred Einstein. According to him, “after
opus 10 – the first collection of études – there is scarcely any unevenness, and at
the most only slight fluctuations in the maturity of Chopin’s work.”97 The value
Directly after my habilitation I received a grant, which was realized in the years
1991-1992. It was a continuation of my earlier studies on the problems in the trans-
formation of the tonal logos in Chopin (Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina
[Chromaticism and Tonality in Chopin’s Music], Kraków ²1991). Over a dozen Polish
musicologists participated in the project, and part of this work has been brought
forth in the publication titled Przemiany stylu Chopina. Studia pod redakcją Ma
cieja Gołąba [Stylistic Change in Chopin. Studies Edited by Maciej Gołąb] (Kraków:
Musica Iagellonica, 1993). Among the participants in the project, the following
continued the studies and published monographs, which formed the bases of their
habilitations: Danuta Jasińska (Styl brillant a muzyka Chopina [Stile Brillante and
the Music of Chopin] (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 1995), and Andrzej
Tuchowski (Integracja strukturalna w świetle przemian stylu Chopina [Structural In-
tegration in the Light of Chopin’s Stylistic Change] (Kraków: Musica Iagellonica,
1996). The following text is based on the English version published on the Internet
in 2008 (http://www.chopin.pl/ewolucja_stylu.en.html).
93 Ludwik Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina [Chopin’s Harmony] (Warszawa: To-

warzystwo Wydawnicze Muzyki Polskiej, 1935).
94 Bronisława Wójcik-Keuprulian, Melodyka Chopina [Chopin’s Melody] (Lwów: K.S.
Jakubowski, 1930).
95 Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina, 460.
96 Zdzisław Jachimecki, Fryderyk Chopin. Rys życia i twórczości [Fryderyk Chopin. An
Outline of his Life and Music] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1957), 37.
97 Alfred Einstein, Music in the Romantic Period, New York: W.W. Norton, 1947), 216.
56
of this oldest standpoint on the subject of the evolution of Chopin’s style does
not seem altogether time-worn. It retains some validity considering the stylistic
changes of late Romantic composers, especially those whose musical language
displayed signs of the major-minor system crisis and the disintegration of tra-
ditional musical syntax. Pitted against the output of composers such as Richard
Wagner, Alexander Scriabin or Gustav Mahler, Chopin’s style must inevitably be
perceived as more homogenous. On the other hand, one cannot but see essen-
tial differences between particular pieces within the perimeter of a chosen genre
(cf. Sonata in C Minor op. 4 [1827-28] and Sonata in B Minor op. 58 [1844], as
well as the Polonaise in C sharp Minor of op. 26 [1835] and Polonaise-fantasia
in A flat Major op. 61 [1846]). The comparison lets us conclude that transform
ational changes in Chopin’s musical language not only existed, but that they
also transformed in a decisive way the inherited genre models. It is undoubt-
edly those visible differences of “border cases” within the confines of particular
genres which caused that in post-WWII studies on Chopin – in spite of further
works continuing the synchronic (as opposed to diachronic) studies of genres98
– a decade-based division of the evolution of Chopin’s style began to emerge (the
twenties: “the genesis of style”, the thirties: “crystallisation of style” and the for-
ties: “stylistic synthesis”). The advocates of this new model of periodization were,
above others, Gerald Abraham,99 Julij A. Kremlev100 and Józef M. Chomiński.101
Symptomatically, the model did not emerge as the effect of holistic studies on
the evolution of Chopin’s style, but as a product of various criteria, which were
mostly biographic, pertaining to musical form, and axiological.
98 Seweryn Barbag, Studium o pieśniach Chopina [A Study of Chopin’s Songs] (Lwów:

Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1927); Janusz Miketta, Mazurki Chopina
[Chopin’s Mazurkas] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1949); Józef Michał
Chomiński, Preludia Chopina [Chopin’s Preludes] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo
Muzyczne, 1950); Józef Michał Chomiński, Sonaty Chopina [Chopin’s Sonatas]
(Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne 1960]; Hieronim Feicht, “Ronda F ryderyka
Chopina” [Chopin’s Rondos], Kwartalnik Muzyczny 6, no. 21/22 (1948): 35-59,
no. 23 (1949): 23-63 and no. 24 (1949): 7-54; Krystyna Wilkowska [-Chomińska],
“Impromptus Chopina” [Chopin’s Impromptus], Kwartalnik Muzyczny 7, no. 26/27
(1949): 102-182.
99 Gerald Abraham, Chopin’s Musical Style (London: Oxford University Press, 1960).
100 Julij Anatol’evič Kremlev, Friderik Šopen. Očerk žizni i tvorčestva [Fryderyk Chopin.
Outline of Life and Works] (Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe Muzykal’noe Izdatel’stvo,
1960).
101 Józef Michał Chomiński, “Z zagadnień ewolucji stylu Chopina” [On the Issues of
Chopin’s Stylistic Evolution], Muzyka 5, no. 3 (1960): 15-29.
57
Among the enumerated scholars, only Chomiński clearly formulated the criterion
of his decade-based division of Chopin’s stylistic evolution. He wrote: “the evolutional
line runs from an interest taken in classical forms in the first period, through an in-
tensified development of single-movement forms characteristic of Romantic music,
up to the return to cyclic forms and more extensive works, enriched by the experi-
ence of the second period.”102 This periodization model of Chopin’s style, strongly tied
in with Alfred Lorenz’s theory of the three-stage development of style, retains some
validity from today’s perspective. Categories such as “the beginning years”, “crystal
lisation” and “synthesis” apply – thanks to their universality – also to Chopin’s œuvre.
Almost parallel to the decade-based model of periodization, attempts at div
iding Chopin’s musical output into five phases were crystallising in the post-
WWII musicological literature. These were probably aimed at diversifying the
decade-based model (found to be too general), and were an attempt to connect
various periodization criteria.103 One example of such an approach is a five-
period periodization by Mieczysław Tomaszewski, who marks off the following
stages in the evolution of Chopin’s style: 1817-1829 (“Period of youth”), 1829-
1831 (“Romantic period”), 1832-1835 (“Period of virtuosity”), 1835/36-1845/46
(“Mature period”) and 1845/46-1849 (“Last period”).104
As with Antoine-Élisée Cherbuliez, a characteristic disparity of criteria
(which indicate a different aspect in each period) is found in Tomaszewski’s div
ision. The specifications of each period point to criteria that are, respectively:
biological, general-artistic, sociological and performance oriented, axiological
and ordinal. Later, Tomaszewski expanded his initial approach, implementing
a division of Chopin’s output into eight stages in a synthesis designed for an
encyclopedia of music: “Childhood attempts” (1817-1823), “Postclassical and
sentimental conventionalities” (1823-1826), “Warsaw virtuosity” (1826-1829),
“Romantic turning point” (1829-1831), “Paris virtuosity” (1832-1835), “Dy-
namic Romantic synthesis” (1835-1840), “Contemplative Romantic synthesis”
(1841-1846) and “Post-Romantic suggestions” (1846-1849).105
102 Ibid., 29.

103 Antoine-Élisée Cherbuliez, Fryderyk Chopin. Leben und Werk (Rüschlikon-Zürich:
Müller, 1948).
104 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Uwagi o ewolucji stylu Chopina” [Remarks on Chopin’s
Stylistic Evolution], in Studia musicologica aesthetica, theoretica, historica, ed. Elżbieta
Dziębowska (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1979), 409-415.
105 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, “Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek”, in Encyklopedia mu
zyczna PWM [PWM Encyclopedia of Music], 12 vols. ed. Elżbieta Dziębowska
(Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1985), 2: 172-177.
58
Chromaticism and tonality
Deliberations regarding changes in Chopin’s style are complicated not only by
the lack of characteristic, qualitative changes in his musical language. Obstacles
that impede the identification of transformational mechanisms are also posed
by the temporal variability of the composer’s choice of genres. The dominance
of certain genres in particular stages of Chopin’s development, pointed out by
Chomiński,106 indicates the lack of a uniform genre basis for analysis and in-
terpretation. Given the subtlety of the creative evolution in question, the study
of Chopin’s whole œuvre would leave doubts whether the discernible changes
result in fact from the evolution of expressive means, or from the introduction
of new genres. The question to which the research group working under my
direction at the University of Warsaw at the beginning of the eighties could not
find a satisfactory answer in writings on Chopin did not simply concern the
need of another periodization of Chopin’s output, but pertained to the charac-
ter of transformational changes taking place within those musical genres which
Chopin employed all his life.107 Only sonata forms, nocturnes, polonaises and
mazurkas belonged to such genres. In his more recent study, Andrzej Tuchowski
added ten more pieces to this group (scherzos, ballads, the Fantasia in F Minor
op. 49 and Barcarolle in F sharp Major op. 60), describing them as “Romantic
narrative and dramatic genres.”108 Inquiry into a personal stylistic norm on the
harmonic plane lead to the singling out of chromatic texture109 as a problem that
was not accorded special attention in studies on Chopin’s harmony, in spite of
the composer being recognised a special phenomenon of nineteeth-century har-
mony. The existence of harmonic textures was appreciated in Chopin’s harmony,
but its inherent “generative value” within the perspective of changes in personal
106 Chomiński, „Z zagadnień ewolucji stylu Chopina“.

107 Przemiany stylu Chopina [Transformations of Chopin’s Style], ed. Maciej Gołąb
(Kraków: Musica Iagelonica, 1993]. See also the special issue of the Polish Music
Journal 3, no. 1 (2000), http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/3.1.00/
contents.html
108 Andrzej Tuchowski, Integracja strukturalna a faktura i forma w nokturnach Chopina
[Relations Between Structural Integration and Texture and Form in Chopin’s Noc-
turnes], in Przemiany stylu Chopina, 86-111.
109 Maciej Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina [Chromaticism and Tonal-
ity in Chopin’s Music] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1991). German
translation: Chopins Harmonik. Chromatik in ihrer Beziehung zur Tonalität (Köln:
Bela, 1995).
59
style was not discovered.110 Chromatic textures, being one of the most personal
features of Chopin’s style, consist of a pitch continuum governed by the principle
of half-tone shifts of chord components that assumes various forms: from simple
scale passages in the melody through strict chord shifts and free sequences, to
the expanded forms of the latter, sometimes organising the pitch succession of
the entire form (Prelude in E Minor op. 28 no. 4).
Chromatic textures in Chopin’s work with opus numbers manifest essential
differences in the course of their development; however, they are variegated in
respect to tonality. The set of harmonic and tonal traits that is characteristic of
Chopin’s early chromatic textures is what I refer to as accidental chromaticism,
to indicate the fact that this chromaticism is entirely “controlled” by diatonicism
and does not disrupt tonal relationships in the composition. Accidental chro-
maticism is characterised by a still clear opposition of melodic and harmonic
textures. Thus, in both dimensions of the musical space, accidental chromaticism
is a category that is based on the opposition of diatonicism and chromaticism,
fundamental in the music of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
The basis on which Chopin’s first experiences with chromaticism in melody
were formed, was of course the chromatic scale. The first movement of Sonata
in C Minor op. 4 (1928) is an example of an early, interpolative approach to
chromaticism in melody. A similar type of chromaticism is present especially in
the etudes, in which Chopin used three brands of melodic and figuration-based
accidental chromaticism (unisons, thirds, sixths). Use of such means is found
in the following Etudes: A Minor op. 10 no. 2, B Minor op. 25 no. 10, A Minor
op. 25 no. 11, G sharp Minor op. 25 no. 6, A flat Major op. 10 no. 10, D flat
Major op. 25 no. 8. Early chromatic textures in melody do not have an essential
influence on tonal relationships; hence, in the case of such textures we can speak
of stable tonality, in which chromaticism is merely a tonal “colouring”. While
on the melodic plane Chopin’s chromaticism is subservient to diatonicism, on
the harmonic plane it constitutes an extension of the latter. Accidental chro-
maticism manifests itself in harmony through strict pitch-shifting of a chord,
and sequences (repetitions of a model of harmonic relations). The mixtures of
Chopin’s earlier works assume the form of successions of first-inversion triads,
110 Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina, 260-272; Siegfried Borris, “Bedeutung für den
Chromatismus des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in The Book of the First International Music
ological Congress Devoted to the Works of Frederick Chopin, ed. Zofia Lissa (Warszawa:
Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1963), 108.
60
dominant-seventh and diminished-seventh chords shifted along the chromatic
scale. In strict sequences, chromatically shifted relations prevail. These include:
dissonant seventh chord – triad, cadential models, and seventh chords on the
circle of fifths. Such compositional choices result in a characteristic suspension
(“extension”) of the tonal process, i.e. relations of a functional character. Ex
amples of accidental chromaticism are supplied by Chopin’s works from the sec-
ond half of the twenties and from the thirties (especially rondos, concertos and
variations), which employ conventional figures found in the resources of stile
brillant pianistic virtuosity.
I have assigned the term essential chromaticism to the set of harmonic and
tonal norms that is characteristic of Chopin’s late chromatic textures. This
new type of chromaticism, which is not mentioned in the theory of music of
Chopin’s time, is a rare phenomenon in the compositional techniques of the
representatives of musical Romanticism; one can identify it in the music of
Spohr, Schubert and Liszt, among others. Essential chromaticism is an inte-
grated texture, in which no qualitative opposition between melody and har-
mony exists. Melody becomes an element of tonal language on its own, while
on the harmonic plane the melodic tendency of the leading note assumes
prominence. Hence, in the case of “late Chopin” chromaticism, notions of a
melodic-tonal chromaticism or harmonic-tonal chromaticism cease to be vi
able, and harmonic and tonal structures must be regarded as being melodically
dependent. From a strictly harmonic point of view, the norms of essential chro-
maticism are not directly connected with diatonicism remaining “in control”,
but constitute an independent, autonomous area of phenomena. Examples of
essential chromaticism are supplied by Chopin’s music starting from the end
of the 1830s.
Among the formal musical categories connected with Chopin’s essential
chromaticism, on the melodic plane one must single out motives and subjects
of narrow diastematic range, the phenomenon of the intermingling of period
architecture with process-based form development, and the tendency to obscure
the segmentation of phrases. In harmony, the interpolative character of seventh
chords in the confines of “pillar” triad harmony becomes blurred, while at the
base of dominant seventh harmony there lie both dominants as “chromogenic”
functions (Prelude in E Minor op. 28 no. 4). The extension of the major-minor
system is thus accompanied by the intensification of alterations, visible espe-
cially in the “last” Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65. All of the men-
tioned processes, transforming the harmonic dimension both morphologically
and functionally, have led in “late” Chopin to what I have called labile tonality,
61
which is a new type of tonality characterised by the tendency to abolish perman
ent centers (Prelude in C sharp Minor op. 45).111
Syntax and form

In studies concerning changes in Chopin’s musical syntax, William Rothstein
became a pioneer in tackling the problem of phrase expansion, i.e. the procedure
of expanding the music with the use of interpolation, extended cadences and
other compositional means. Focusing on nocturnes and mazurkas, the author
presented the problem of the internal evolution of Chopin’s style between 1830
and 1846 as follows: “no other composer so frequently slurred against the phrase
structure of his music”.112 After a series of convincing analyses, Rothstein found
that in both of the mentioned genres a special process is to be found, stretch-
ing from the “tyranny of the four-measure phrase” to the “unending melody”.
“During the decade of the 1840s – writes Rothstein – both composers [i.e. Cho-
pin and Wagner] were moving towards an increasingly seamless style of melodic
writing, which in Wagner’s case has become known under the name of “unend-
ing melody””; the author also notices the constant “tendency to minimise the ar-
ticulation of divisions between phrases, and between subphrases.”113 The analysis
of this process is accompanied by references to the Polonaise-fantasia op. 61 and
– to a lesser extent – the Scherzo in E Major op. 54. However, a capital example
is furnished by an authentic, twenty-measure “poetic slur” of the Nocturne in G
Major op. 37 no. 1 (mm. 3-25), pointed out by the discussed author.
Another truly insightful work is Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba’s dissertation
on the subject of Chopin’s mazurkas.114 Though the author has refrained from an
attempt at periodization, and chose to focus more on the continuity of the trans-
formation of musical language than on particular transformational moments,
her analyses do not leave any doubt as to the unique dynamism of the genre in
question from the point of view of syntax and form. Careful study of the author’s
work allows for a certain generalisation to be made. Chopin’s mazurkas evolved
111 See the article in this volume devoted to the “Harmony and Tonality” in the music
of Chopin.
112 William Rothstein, “Phrase Rhythm in Chopin’s Nocturnes and Mazurkas”, in Cho
pin Studies, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 124.
113 Ibid., 128.
114 Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba, “Wersyfikacja, składnia i forma w mazurkach
Chopina” [Versification, Syntax and Form in Chopin’s Mazurkas], in Przemiany
stylu Chopina, ed. Maciej Gołąb (Kraków: Musica Iagelonica, 1993), 109-133.
62
from a classical, additively-shaped dance form (Mazurkas opp. 6, 7, 24), to one
that is emancipated from traditional limitations, and made up of open segments
(Mazurkas op. 17 no. 4, op. 24 no. 4, op. 30 no. 4, op. 41 no. 4, op. 50 no. 3 and
op. 56 no. 3). This syntactic and formal transformation results from the gradual
blurring of “antecedent-consequent” relationships, slurring “against the [gram-
matical] phrase” that stands in conflict with cadential punctuation and some-
times reorganises the form of the composition (beginning with the Mazurkas
of opp. 30 and 33), the detainment or impediment of the harmonic course, the
technique of breaking the phrase (Mazurka op. 30 no. 4, mm. 5-32), the ten-
dency to blur the strophic feature through grouping the stanzas into larger seg-
ments, and the masking of caesuras between stanzas (Mazurka op. 50 no. 3, mm.
33-45).115 Finally, it supports the existence of what Hugo Leichtentritt called “the
mark of symphonism”116 in Mazurkas from op. 41 no. 4 and op. 50 no. 3, pointing
out the “drama of development” taking place in the last stages of the pieces.
Studying stylistic changes in Chopin’s nocturnes, Andrzej Tuchowski drew
attention to elements that render the formal course of this genre more dynamic,
as well as the shortening of recapitulations or employment of their textural and
formal variants in forms of the ABA type.117 The process is begun by “faithful”
recapitulations in the Nocturnes of opp. 9 and 27, and completed by compos
itional devices characteristic of the fantasia or pianistic poem in the Nocturnes
of op. 62. Another trait explored in the late nocturnes is the intensification of
the expositional factor by creating sequences of musical thoughts bearing the
significance of sonata thematic groups (Tuchowski regards the Nocturne in E flat
Major op. 55 no. 2 to be the first piece in which this innovation is introduced).
Finally, the author draws attention to the progressive loss of ornamentation, tied
in with the turning away from the stile brillante tradition,118 and the increasing
tendency toward linearity and incorporation of polyphonic elements; Chopin’s
late nocturnes reveal the rise of a framework for late Romantic decorative tex-
ture, characterised by a variant number of voices and free transfer from real to
hidden polyphony.
115 Ibid., 132-133.

116 Hugo Leichtentritt, Analyse der Chopinschen Klavierwerke, 2 vols. (Berlin: Hesse,
1921), 1: 241.
117 Andrzej Tuchowski, Integracja strukturalna w świetle przemian stylu Chopina
[Structural Coherence in the Light of Transformational Changes of Chopin’s Style]
(Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 1996), 130-143.
118 Danuta Jasińska, Styl brillant a muzyka Chopina [Brillant Style and Chopin’s Music]
(Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 1995).
63
Similar remarks in reference to the polonaise are made by Tomasz Baranow
ski.119 The transformational mechanisms discernible in those genres which Cho-
pin made use throughout his life are characterised by similar traits. A progressive
and significant expansion of the formal continuum is clearly seen in these
genres. The contrast between formal structures, connected with the differenti
ation of the expressive function of particular parts and stages of the piece, is grad-
ually intensified. Chopin increasingly shifts the emphasis onto a process-based
shaping of form (forma formans), abandoning the classical approach to form as
a state (forma formata). The role of formal interpolations (introductions, epi-
sodes and extended bridges) also becomes more prominent. Changes in respect
to form are integrally connected with transformations in syntax. For example,
the classical phrase division and the accompanying strong contrast on the level
of basic syntactic categories is clearly observable in the youth polonaises, but
in the Polonaises op. 26 and op. 40 the regular division of phrases is decisively
blurred as result of the increasing significance of a process-based approach, with
the contrast on the level of basic syntactic categories gradually disappearing. In
Polonaises of opp. 44, 52 and 61 we encounter a further expansion of subjects,
an intensified merging of the process-based and periodic approaches, disintegra-
tion of clear syntactic divisions and a strong, thematic integration of the whole
lacking in earlier works.120
Conclusion
Is the nature of transformational changes of Chopin’s style, seen only in its
general outlines and rich in both “regressive” moments and “anticipative” phe-
nomena so complicated as to discourage us to attempt another marking out of
dividing lines in his oeuvre, after numerous, more or less successful periodiza-
tions of Chopin’s output? It seems that if one adopts the premises of the cultural
theory of emergence, one arrives at an alternative view of the problem of Cho-
pin’s stylistic evolution. We should not – as did Zofia Chechlińska – overestimate
the fact that the discussion of a new model of periodization has sometimes lead
to slightly different diachronic divisions, since they were made in reference to
119 Tomasz Baranowski, Przemiany muzycznych kategorii formalnych w fortepianowych

polonezach Chopina [Transformation in Categories of Musical Form in Chopin’s
Piano Polonaises], in Przemiany stylu Chopina, ed. Maciej Gołąb (Kraków: Musica
Iagelonica, 1993).
120 Ibid., 106.
64
different material to start with.121 The periodization proposed for the polonaises
by Baranowski122 differs from that suggested for the sonatas by Helman123 and for
the polonaises and mazurkas by Rothstein.124 These apparent controversies have
probably been magnified by Witkowska-Zaremba, who decided to refrain from
making such a decision,125 and called to witness Kallberg’s opinion, according to
which many traits of mature style are to be seen already in the earliest compos
itions and are perfected in the course of subsequent years.126 No matter which
criteria for the periodization of Chopin’s œuvre we trust, and to which Chopin
scholars we adhere to, one thing is certain: the issue will remain among those,
which identify a problem, yet never lead to its definitive resolution.
From the study conducted by the group under my direction and by myself, it
seems to follow that changes in Chopin’s style run in four principle stages:
1. Adaptational stage (to c. 1825), characterised by the composer’s reception of
the stylistic means present in the classical musical heritage.
2. Promorphic stage (from c. 1825 to the mid 1830s), connected – according to
Danuta Jasińska – with the composer’s participation in the European heritage
of instrumental music of the nineteenth century. This stage is characterised by
a “personalisation [of musical language] which overcomes schematic conven-
tionality, and thanks to which the spectacular gestures inherited from the bril
lante virtuosity penetrate the sense of structure, and as such, render changes
in personal style more dynamic.”127
3. Transformational stage (second half of the 1830s), marked by the chief trans-
formation of harmonic texture into free essential chromaticism, and where
the tendency to shake the tonal unity of works became manifest. Within the
perimeter of musical syntax, a revision of the principles of classical period
121 Zofia Chechlińska, Wariacje i technika wariacyjna w twórczości Chopina [Variations

and Variation Technique in Chopin’s Music] (Kraków: Musica Igellonica, 1995), 179.
122 Baranowski, Przemiany muzycznych kategorii formalnych w fortepianowych polone
zach Chopina, 106.
123 Zofia Helman, “Norma i indywiduacja w sonatach Chopina” [Norm and Individu-
ation in Chopin’s Sonatas], in Przemiany stylu Chopina, ed. Maciej Gołąb (Kraków:
Musica Iagellonica, 1993), 66.
124 Rothstein, “Phrase Rhythm in Chopin’s Nocturnes and Mazurkas”, 128.
125 Witkowska-Zaremba, “Wersyfikacja, składnia i forma w mazurkach Chopina”, 131.
126 Jeffrey Kallberg, “Ostatnia przemiana stylu Chopina” [Chopin’s Last Style], Rocznik
Chopinowski 18 (1986), 17.
127 Jasińska, Styl brillant a muzyka Chopina, 140.
65
structure in favour of free syntax was made, with the breaking and expanding
of the musical phrase in its drive toward an open type of phrase.
4. Neomorphic stage (1840s) of “late Chopin”, characterised by the intensifica-
tion of all the premises which became apparent in the transformational stage.
One must emphasise here the increasing significance of polyphony, the elim-
ination of melodic ornamentation, the growing independence of particular
voices, as well as the tendency to hybridise the form, the turn away from the
compositional means of stile brillante, and enhancement of expression.
Translated by Maksymilian Kapelański
66
5
Harmony and Tonality
The historical changes affecting musical scholarship have left their mark on
methods of interpreting harmony and tonality in Chopin. This subject is re-
garded as one of the most difficult in cognitive terms and at the same time
the most fundamental for research into that composer’s œuvre, both from an
historical perspective and with regard to music theory. Harmony and tonal-
ity in Chopin’s music is a relatively autonomous subject. Although positiv-
ist musicology isolated it from other “elements” of the musical work, today
its essence can be better understood thanks to the consideration not just of
melodic-tonal aspects of the musical work, but also its generic, stylistic and
aesthetic contexts.
Two monographs devoted specifically to Chopin’s harmony deal with dif-
ferent aspects of this extensive problem area. The first of them, which remains
current in many respects, is Ludwik Bronarski’s Harmonika Chopina.128 A mo-
mentous publication on a European scale in its day, this book treats its subject as
broadly as possible (from modal elements to “free chromaticism”), yet it focuses
mainly on describing in Chopin’s works the constitutive elements of the major-
minor system. In Bronarski, Chopin’s tonal logos is presented as a rich and
multi-faceted manifestation of that system. “The whole of Chopin’s harmony”,
writes Bronarski in summarising his work, “appears to stand under the motto
‘the right chord in the right place’. Each chord seems irreplaceable, just the right
one and just the right kind that is needed in a given relationship.”129 The other
monograph, Maciej Gołąb’s Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina, places
the emphasis on those questions which are linked above all with the elements
that expand the tonal logos; that is, with chromaticism and the labile tonality
connected with it.130 Gołąb regards Chopin’s chromaticism as a “generative”
128 Ludwik Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina [Chopin’s Harmony] (Warsaw, 1935).

129 Ibid., 452.
130 Maciej Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina [Chromaticism and Tonal-
ity in Chopin’s Music] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1991). Cf. Gołąb,
Chopins Harmonik. Chromatik in ihrer Beziehung zur Tonalität, trans. Beatrysa
Hirszenberg (Köln: Bela, 1995).
67
value that helps destabilise the system of harmonic tonality, and he also shows
those features of that chromaticism which would prove decisive during the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century for further changes in harmonic tonality. Also
among the more important studies of Chopin’s harmony and tonality is Zofia
Lissa’s extensive treatise Harmonika Chopina z perspektywy techniki dźwiękowej
XX wieku, in which the author concentrates not on tonal-harmonic properties,
as is the case with previous studies, but on the sonoristic qualities of that com-
poser’s harmony.131
Although every historical tonal system is subject to characteristic changes and
reveals new qualities over a longer period of time, in essence it retains stabilising
guarantees of continuation, thanks to the existence of tonal qualities that are
deeply rooted in the musical tradition. In every manifestation of the system of
harmonic tonality that occurs in musical works (the system itself, of course, is
a theoretical abstraction), we find the following: (1) elements that determine its
connection with an older tonal tradition (retrospective); (2) elements that form
the system at present (constitutive); (3) elements that go beyond the established
scheme of systemic norms and show the further perspectives for its evolution
(prospective). And the tonal logos in the work of Chopin also constitutes – as
with several other eminent representatives of European romanticism (Beetho-
ven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt) – suitable material for observing different phe-
nomena of the tonal logos, of various historical provenance. Alongside relics of
the tonal tradition of early music, we observe that which constitutes the quintes-
sence of the tonal space of the Hochklassik period, as well as that which shatters
the existing order, turning towards the future.
Retrospective elements of the system of harmonic tonality

In Chopin’s harmony, its retrospective aspects are not constantly present, but
manifest themselves in the contexts of particular works. They are not an end in
themselves, and they certainly do not appear as a regressive element of compos
ition technique. They manifest themselves as procedures deliberately restored by
the composer in connection with specific demands of a generic (folk tradition),
colouristic (texture and sonority) or aesthetic (archaisation) nature. Bronarski
wrote of these features of Chopin’s tonal logos as “remarkable scales and keys.”132
131 Zofia Lissa, “Harmonika Chopina z perspektywy techniki dźwiękowej XX wieku”

[Chopin’s Harmony from the Perspective of Twentieth-century Composition Tech-
nique], Annales Chopin, 4 (1959), 7-38.
132 Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina, 53ff.
68
Not typical of the tonal system during the Romantic era, Chopin’s retrospective
harmonic peculiarities can best be seen in his mazurkas, songs and nocturnes.
They arise out of the melodic-tonal structures, which they colour in a charac-
teristic way, but ultimately they also pervade the tonal-harmonic dimension of
a work, which cannot be grasped without the melodic dimension that serves
as its “counterweight”. As Bronarski wrote, “as in Polish folk melodies, of the
old keys it is the Lydian that is most prominent in Chopin,”133 occurring either
as a spontaneous raising of the IV degree in diatonic phrases or as a chromatic
passing note between the fifth and fourth degrees of the scale. The most salient
use of the Lydian fourth appears in the mazurkas and the songs. In the former,
“Lydianisms” are characteristic in the melodic layer (for example, in op. 6 no. 2,
bars 19–20; op. 17 no. 3, second section; op. 17 no. 4, bars 37 and 39 and analo
gous; op. 56 no. 2, main theme). In the harmonic layer, the occurrence of the
Lydian fourth as a chord member is linked to a quasi-drone, tonic foundation to
the accompaniment, as in the early mazurkas, op. 68 nos. 2 and 3 (WN 14 and
25), where the use of both harmonic and melodic Lydianisms is most distinct.
In the songs, Lydianisms appear in Wiosna [The Spring], Poseł [The Messenger],
Hulanka [Drinking song] and Piosnka litewska [Lithuanian song].
Another retrospective tonal singularity in Chopin is not so much the inte-
grally used key as much as short Phrygian phrases. These do not appear over a
longer segment, but usually “just fleetingly, lending their peculiar colouring to
short passages.”134 The most representative “Phrygianism” is considered to be the
opening of the Mazurka in C sharp Minor op. 41 no. 1, in the principal theme
of which the note d sounds continually instead of d sharp. Bronarski notes that
it is the key of C sharp Minor in particular that underpins such passages, and he
gives three examples: the Nocturne in C sharp Minor op. 27 no. 1 (main theme),
the Etude in C sharp Minor op. 10 no. 4 (bar 46) and the Prelude in C sharp
Minor op. 45 (beginning). Aeolian phrases appear in the tonal space navigated
by Chopin less frequently than Phrygianisms. Perhaps the most distinctive ex-
ample is the second thematic segment, in the key of E Minor, of the Mazurka in
G Major op. 50 no. 1 (in bars 18–23, we observe the building of a theme on the
foundation of material from an Aeolian scale, without the “scale-specific” note
of D sharp). Other Chopin tonal singularities, albeit rarer still, are also based on
an Aeolian scale: the principal theme of the Mazurka in C Major op. 24 no. 2,
the Prelude in F sharp Minor op. 28 no. 8 (bars 23–24) and the ornamental run
133 Ibid., 53.

134 Ibid., 58.
69
in the closing section of the Lento con gran espressione [Nocturne in C sharp
Minor], WN 37 (bar 59–61). Besides Lydian, Phrygian and Aeolian phrases,
archetypes of the church modes do not play a particularly crucial role in Chopin.
Of course, despite their historical provenance, they do not constitute regressive
tonal elements, but enrich the system, helping to overcome the complex of pure
diatonicism, and especially heightening the effect of “folkism” (Lydianisms) or
giving vent, as Bronarski writes, “to a desire to create a special effect” (Phry-
gianisms and Aeolianisms).135
The other context of the functioning of harmony as retrospective values, as
broadly understood, is linked to the middle sections of certain works; that is, to
quasi-chorale sections. As Bronarski rightly asserts, this is not the evocation of
the style of church music, but simply the expression of “religious communion
and meditation.”136 So for Chopin chorale texture is not an opportunity to sum-
mon up the tonal realities that historically accompanied it. In the Nocturne in G
Minor op. 15 no. 3, the Nocturne in C Minor op. 48 no. 1, the Scherzo in C sharp
Minor op. 39 and the second subject of the fourth movement of the Sonata in
C Minor op. 4, the tonally retrospective passages, although refraining from the
literal invocation of church modes, evoke the convention of chorale harmonising
that was characteristic of the music of Palestrina’s day. In Chopin, it is often a
chance to present sonorities that are by no means traditional, such as a consistent
instability of key (as in the chorale section of the Nocturne in G Minor op. 15
no. 3, where the composer succeeded in obtaining a consistent lability of the keys
of D Minor and F Major – a phenomenon that is one of the most characteristic
features of his harmony).
Elements stabilising the system of harmonic tonality

From the point of view of the history of harmony, the historical moment at
which Chopin composed represented a mature phase in the development of
harmonic tonality (major-minor). This system manifests itself in the com
poser’s œuvre in all its plenitude, both in the character of tonal connections and
also in the construction of chords. In Chopin’s aesthetic, harmony and tonality
constitute an historically important part of the European system of harmonic
tonality for at least two reasons: (1) in Chopin, its norms are a multi-faceted
manifestation, by no means commonplace in nineteenth-century music, of all
the important systemic norms; (2) Chopin brings to that system a number of
135 Ibid., 64.

136 Ibid., 66.
70
innovations and individual norms, which expand the system in the directions in
which subsequent generations of European composers will proceed. That which
is systemic (paradigmatic) in the harmony and tonality of this composer’s works
is linked to his observance of the four fundamental principles of harmonic
tonality: (1) the major and minor scale constitutes the basis of the sound mater
ial, with the supremacy of the diatonic complex over the chromatic and enhar-
monic complexes respected; (2) tonal centralisation manifests itself through the
keys and the “gravitation” of chords towards the tonic; (3) the strictly defined
chord design is linked to the division of chords into consonant and dissonant
and the predominance of triads (consonant chords) over chords of four notes
or more (dissonant chords); (4) there exists a functional relationship between
chords, based on an hierarchic differentiation of chords into principal (I, IV and
V degrees) and secondary (II, III and VI degrees).137 These four basic principles
regulating the structure of the system of harmonic tonality are present in nearly
all Chopin’s works; those which venture beyond this system are exceptions.
Although there is a balance in Chopin’s compositions between the major and
minor modes, in the choice of specific keys we see characteristic preferences.
In some genres, it is the major mode that has the upper hand (waltzes); in others,
the minor (sonatas). There is no such balance with regard to the choice of
key. As Bronarski calculated, around fifty-two per cent of works are in flat keys,
thirty-five per cent in sharp keys and the rest in the neutral keys of C Major
and A Minor.138 The key of A flat Major is clearly favoured by Chopin; the most
rarely used are G sharp Minor, E flat Minor and D Minor. Key choice breaks
down differently across the various genres. In the nocturnes, it is the key of
B Major that holds greater significance; in the mazurkas – besides A flat Major
– C Major and A Minor; in the polonaises, A flat Major; in the etudes, A flat
Major, F Minor and A Minor. This leads one to conclude that the choice of both
mode and key in Chopin was to a significant extent generically determined. In
addition, we see within particular opuses thinking in macrotonal terms. In the
Preludes op. 28, it is the circle of fifths that determines the order of the works
(first sharp keys, from C Major to F sharp Major; then flat keys, from E flat Minor
to D Minor). Evidence that Chopin had intended to arrange other works within a
cycle in a similar way can be found in both books of etudes opp. 10 and 25 (such
is suggested by the pairing of some etudes and their total number, twenty-four),
137 Gołąb, „Tonalność“ [Tonality], in Encyklopedia muzyki [Encyclopaedia of Music], ed.

Andrzej Chodkowski (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1995), 904.
138 Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina, 8–12.
71
and in the Nocturnes opp. 27 and 37, Chopin links works in parallel keys with
a change of mode (C sharp Minor and D flat Major; G Minor and G Major). We
also observe the coupling of parallel or relative keys with a switch of mode within
opuses in the Waltzes op. 64 and in mazurkas from opp. 6, 7, 30 and 56.
Key relationships within works were also analysed by Bronarski,139 who drew
attention to Chopin’s clear preference for mediant (thirds) relationships in his
choice of key for sections or movements of those more elaborate works which
are not isomorphic instrumental miniatures (B sections in “song form”, trios in
polonaises, later movements in cyclic works, second subjects in sonata allegros,
episodes in rondos, etc.). The dominant principle of thirds relationships, which
became so significance during the Romantic era, takes on various detailed forms
in Chopin’s music. Clearly the most frequently encountered are normal relative
relations. Somewhat more rarely observed are keys with altered lower mediants.
These we see, for example, in the Scherzo in B flat Minor op. 31 (D flat Major
– A Major), Impromptu in F sharp Major op. 36 (F sharp Major – D Major),
Polonaise in A flat Major op. 53 (A flat Major – E Major), Nocturne in D flat
Major op. 27 no. 2 (D flat Major – A Major), and also in many mazurkas. Much
rarer are keys with altered upper mediants, as we find in the Polonaise-Fantasy
op. 61 (A flat Major – B Major) and Barcarolle op. 60 (F sharp Major – A Major).
Interestingly, subdominant and dominant keys, constituting the closest degree of
“kinship”, occur relatively seldom in this context in Chopin’s works (most often
in early works from the Warsaw years; for instance, in the episodes of rondos).
In sonata allegros, the second subjects are most often located in the rela
tive key, and in the reprise in the parallel key (the Sonatas in B flat Minor
and B Minor, the Cello Sonata), but the composer does not treat this principle
dogmatically (in the C Minor Sonata, both piano concertos, the Piano Trio in
G Minor op. 8 and the Allegro de concert op. 46, he alters these relations in
various ways). The fact that Chopin did not constrain himself here with Classical
generic rules inclined many Chopin scholars to write of “incorrect reprises”
(Hugo Leichtentritt, Ludwik Bronarski, Charles Rosen). With time, however,
these atypical tonal plans began to be seen as expressive of Chopin’s generic
innovation. Another crucial feature is the phenomenon of “modulating into”
(Hineinmodulieren) the main key of a work – a phenomenon described by
Leichtentritt, characteristic of Chopin and resulting from his improvisatory
practice, which we find, for example, in the Mazurka in B Major op. 56 no. 1,
139 Ibid., 12–21.
72
Bolero op. 15 and Ballade in F Minor op. 52.140 In Bronarski’s opinion, these
examples testify the “suppleness or elasticity of [Chopin’s] sense of tonality.”141
The harmonic-tonal hallmarks of Chopin’s works do not constitute a fixed
structural principle to the same extent throughout that composer’s oeuvre. In re-
lating this question to changes in Chopin’s style, we can state that up to c.1837 the
principle of the dominance of systemic elements in harmony and tonality con-
stitutes an incontrovertible rule. One clear indicator of this state of affairs is the
chromaticism. Up to 1837, this displays the characteristics of “accidental chro-
maticism”; that is, chromaticism which is fully controlled by the diatonic complex
(chromatic notes as variants of diatonic notes), of which it is the extension.142 At
that time, there still existed a relative distinction between the melodic-tonal and
harmonic-tonal discourses – a distinction that began to be blurred from 1837
onwards. In the melody of Chopin’s works up to 1837, chromatic notes appear
as interpolations between diatonic notes. Melodic alterations are correlated with
a morphologically and functionally relatively simple harmonic-chordal founda
tion. In the figurational constructs of the melody, accidental chromaticism mani
fests itself in the form of one-part figuration (Etude in A Minor op. 10 no. 2)
or in octaves (Etude in B Minor op. 25 no. 10), progressions of thirds (Etude in
G sharp Minor op. 25 no. 6) and progressions of sixths (Etude in A flat Major
op. 10 no. 10 and Etude in D flat Major op. 25 no. 8). Here too the chromatic
melodic-figurational passages appear upon a morphologically and functionally
simple harmonic-chordal foundation, which does not yet suspend the tonality,
but renders it entirely stable.
The kinds of chromatic texture that dominate during the period 1825–1837
are primarily mixtures (replications of a single chord) and sequences (replica-
tions of a pattern of harmonic relations or dominant chains). Their action is
linked to a kind of suspended tonality, in accordance with a well-known law in
the theory of harmony, whereby an accumulation of homogeneous harmonic
phenomena causes a break in connections of a functional character. With regard
to mixtures, they constitute rows of sixth chords (Variations in B flat Major op. 2,
Variation I and Alla Polacca), dominant seventh chords (Mazurka in C sharp
Minor op. 30 no. 4, bars 129–132) and diminished seventh chords on material
of the chromatic scale (Concerto in E Minor op. 11, movt I, bars 322–328). In
the case of sequences, one can observe the occurrence of four-note chords as
140 Hugo Leichtentritt, Analyse der Chopinschen Klavierwerke (Berlin, 1921), 1: 253.
142 Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność, 99ff.
73
interpolations between triads (Variations in B flat Major op. 12, bars 167–170),
transpositions of cadence patterns on material of the chromatic scale, chains of
chords on the plan of the circle of fifths or segments thereof (Sonata in C Minor
op. 4, movt. I, bars 98–101). From 1838, it is not just new harmonic phenomena
not previously witnessed in Chopin’s compositions that come to the fore; a new
kind of tonality also takes shape. These phenomena undermined the paradig-
matic sense of the historically developed principles, confirmed through the pro-
cess of reception, of the major-minor system.
Elements expanding the system of harmonic tonality

From 1838 onwards, systemic regulators of harmonic tonality continue to
apply in Chopin’s composition technique, but their constitutive significance
weakens distinctly. From the point of view of chord design, the turning-point
in his harmony that occurred towards the end of the 1830s involved a move
“from four-note accidental chromaticism (controlled by triadic harmony)
towards four-note essential chromaticism, in which the functionally regulatory
features of triadic harmony disappear.”143 A new category takes shape in the
harmonic texture of Chopin’s works: “free chromaticism, [being] the principal
element of that fluidity, suppleness and tractability that we have already iden-
tified on more than one occasion as being one of the most crucial features of
Chopin’s harmony. Among the most characteristic, and at the same time most
elaborate, harmonic progressions in Chopin, we should count those in which
chords pass into one another through successive shifts in particular voices.”144
The formation of chromatic textures, from 1838 onwards, caused the relative
distinction between melodic and harmonic tonal discourses to become blurred.
This integration is linked to the mutual influence of those dimensions of mu-
sical composition, and also to the strengthening of the role of melodic factors
in determining tonal structures. We can observe this new type of chromaticism
most clearly in the whole of the Prelude in E Minor op. 28 no. 4 and in the outer
sections of the Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65.
The emancipation of this kind of essential chromaticism bears consequences
in the area of musical syntax. In Chopin’s output from the 1840s, we witness a
distinct decline in the significance of the opposition between periodicity and de-
velopment in the shaping of musical syntax. These two ways of shaping begin to
penetrate one another, and a tendency for blurring the segmentation of phrases
143 Ibid., 136.

74
Example 5.1. Chopin, Prelude in E Minor op. 28 no. 4: “free chromaticism”. See Bronarski,
Harmonika Chopina, 261.
clearly gains in importance. Such a new syntactic context helps to eliminate fixed
chromatic interpolations in melody, since melodic notes become a constitutive
element of the sound space, affecting the tonality of a work and the harmonic
form of chords (Prelude in E Minor op. 28 no. 4). At times, as in the Mazurka in
E Minor op. 41 no. 2 and the Prelude in E Major op. 28 no. 9, one can observe
registrally diffuse, hidden chromatic textures. In some cases, the linearism helps
to bring about the total erosion of harmonic functionality (the finale of the B flat
Minor Sonata, the Prelude in E flat Minor).
Example 5.2. Chopin, Prelude in E Major op. 28 no. 9: hidden chromatic textures. See
Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina, 240.
75
Another feature of Chopin’s essential chromaticism is a gradual departure
from strict mixtures (the faithful replication of a chord on material of the chro-
matic scale) in the direction of composed-out mixtures (the free replication of a
single chord pattern). One example of the latter is the Scherzo in C sharp Minor
op. 39, the beginning of which shows a succession of sixth chords with a labile
mode (D/d – C sharp/d flat – C/c – b/B – B flat/b flat – a). As for their tonal qual-
ities, we observe the complete autonomisation of the elements of the chordal se-
quence, linked to the disappearance of the categories of “chordal interpolations”,
sustained by triadic harmony, that were present in Chopin’s earlier music. We
witness the forming of a functionally non-hierarchic, motivically composed-out
chromonant harmony145 with a weakly defined or labile mode.
The third manifestation of essential chromaticism in Chopin’s works consists
of composed-out sequences as free replications of a pattern of harmonic rela-
tions or as hidden dominant chains. Their formal and tonal profile is altered.
Whereas they had previously been employed rather mechanically, during the
last decade in his oeuvre, Chopin gives them a more vivid form, seeking to com-
pose them out. In tonal terms, we observe the disappearance of four-note in-
terpolations between triads “upholding the tonal paradigm”. Also departing is
the strong functional hierarchising of a (dominant) four-note chord. From the
morphological perspective, we observe the complete blurring – hitherto absent
– of the distinction between diatonic and chromatic notes; the clear expansion
of the tonal system is accompanied by a progressive sharpening of chords (single
and multiple alterations). The key works for understanding this kind of Chopin
harmony are again the Prelude in E Minor and the Mazurka in F Minor op. 68
no. 4 (WN 65).
In Chopin’s late work, a new kind of tonality emerges, one that is defined
as directional146 or labile tonality. The emancipation of essential chromaticism,
“connected with the disappearance of the triadic formation and the lack of an
unequivocal system of functional references, caused locally ‘suspended’ tonality
145 The term “chromonant” was introduced into harmony theory by Siegfried Karg-
Elert (polaristische Harmonielehre), for whom chromonants designated the seventh
and final category of fifths relations. It may be assumed, therefore, that they are
triads resulting from the shifting of the fundamental chord by a chromatic semitone
(in C Major: the triads C flat Major and C sharp Major). See Gołąb, Chromatyka i
tonalność, 147.
146 William Kinderman, “Directional Tonality in Chopin”, in Chopin Studies, ed. Jim
Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 59ff.
76
Example 5.3. Chopin, Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65: melodic determinants of
tonal structures. See Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina, 46.
to turn into a new type of labile tonality.”147 A tendency towards an “atonal”

treatment of works had already been present here and there. The Bolero op. 19
(1833) begins in the key of C Major, its principal theme is based on the key of
A Minor, and the work ends in A Major. The Scherzo op. 31 (1837) begins in B
flat Minor and ends in D flat Major. This phenomenon gains strength after 1837.
For example, the Ballade op. 38 begins in F Major and ends in A Minor. In the
Prelude in A Minor op. 28 no. 2, the principal theme is not reached until the end
of the work. In Chopin, this type of tonality resulted from his improvisational
practice. One of the hypotheses on this subject claims that “it was only in the last
phase of the creative process that [Chopin] sought that common tonal ground
for parts of the form that had been ‘improvised out’ on various tonal planes”,
yet at times “that stigma of tonal diffusion found its way into the elaborated,
final version of a work, making it impossible to establish the principal key, be it
in the light of music theory contemporary to Chopin or in the light of sources
for those works.”148 The phenomenon of tonal ambivalence is also supported by
the phenomenon of harmonic ambivalence, so characteristic of Chopin’s music.
147 Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność, 137.

148 Ibid., 73.
77
The latter is illustrated by the Mazurka op. 30 no. 2 (1837), the systemic signs
of which suggest the key of B Minor, whilst as its harmony actually unfolds we
observe a functional interchangeability between the keys of B Minor and F sharp
Minor. This is the first sign in Chopin’s works of a phenomenon indicating that
systemic chromatic signs are ceasing to play a coordinating role in tonal central
isation. The chromatic signs in the key signature, which suggest the principal key,
become alienated, remaining without any deeper (structural) connection with
the actual harmonic process.
Entirely new in the harmony of the first half of the nineteenth century is the
process of continuous modulation or tonal unfixity, a prime example of which is
the Prelude in C sharp Minor op. 45, which draws both sharp and flat keys into
the orbit of tonal changes. Linked to this work is the sole remark to be found in
Chopin’s correspondence on the subject of harmony and tonality. The composer
writes about this work, with distinct satisfaction, that it is “well modulated”.149
The incessant modulatory deviations proceed on material of the following keys:
c sharp – b – A – f sharp – D – E – e – B flat – G flat –E flat – A flat – F – B. The
principal key is now merely an insignificant nod to musical convention, as in no
way does it gain statistically clear dominance over other keys. In Chopin’s last
works, we find a multitude of tonal centres: as many as eleven in the Scherzo in E
Major op. 54 (E – A flat – E – E flat – E – F – E – A flat – E – E flat – E), where the
main key is still clearly emphasised. We find an increasingly great differentiation
of keys and an increasingly weak articulation of the principal key, for example,
in the Polonaise-Fantasy op. 61 (A flat – E – A flat – B flat – D/b – B – F – B – A
flat). These phenomena incline one to conclude that around the turn of the 40s
the following tendencies were waxing in Chopin’s work: (1) towards an “atonal”
treatment of works, caused by a lack of unity between the opening and closing
keys of works; (2) towards a greater frequency of enharmonic changes, caused
by a strengthening of modulatory processes (especially in larger works); (3) to-
wards the alienation of systemic signs and their functions being taken over by
accidentals, as a result of the destabilisation of the tonal foundation (especially
in smaller works).150
The question of the historical significance of the harmonic-tonal features of
Chopin’s works has been addressed in particular by Polish Chopin scholars. Since
the publication of Ernst Kurth’s fundamental study Die romantische Harmonik
149 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin],

2 vols. ed. Bronisław Edward Sydow (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy,
1955), 2: 38.
150 Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność, 77.
78
und ihre Krise in Wagners ‘Tristan’ (1920),151 commentators have pointed out
that Ernst rather plays down Chopin’s significance in the history of Romantic
harmony. Bronarski observed on more than one occasion that Chopin ought
to be seen as Wagner’s predecessor in that domain. More recent studies have
shown that the central category of Wagner’s modern harmony that is the so-
called “Tristan chord” is present also in some works by Chopin, in particular
the Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65, in which we find not just the
chord itself, but the whole “Tristan phrase” in its integral form.152 Meanwhile,
Zofia Lissa’s earlier research revealed that “alongside the dominant […] func-
tional centralisation, there occasionally appear in [Chopin’s] works embryonic
symptoms of non-functional, sonoristic integration, of various kinds, anticipat-
ing that which we find in works by twentieth-century composers who forgo the
principles of tonality.”153
The perspectives for further research into Chopin’s harmony and tonality will
be shown, one may assume, by fusions of various normative methods, combin-
ing spectromorphological interpretations of phonographic recordings with ana
lysis of structural-pitch features of harmonic notation, supported by advanced
analytical computer programs. We have already witnessed the first signs of a
new analytical approach to this traditional cognitive problem in Chopin studies.
151 Ernst Kurth, Die romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners ‘Tristan’ (Bern:
Haupt, 1920).
152 Gołąb, “O akordzie tristanowskim u Chopina”, Rocznik Chopinowski 19 (1987),
189-198; translated in the present anthology as “On the Tristan Chord”.
153 Zofia Lissa, „Harmonika Chopina z perspektywy techniki dźwiękowej XX wieku“,
7–8. Attention has been drawn to the colouristic (sonoristic) aspects of Chopin’s
harmony also by Józef Michał Chomiński, in “Harmonika i faktura fortepianowa
Chopina” [Chopin’s Piano Harmony and Texture], Muzyka 4 (1959) no. 4, 3-25, and
Daniela di Benedetto, “La funzione timbrica dell’harmonia nelle compositioni di
Chopin”, Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana 18 (1984) no. 2, 391-417.
79
6
On the Tristan Chord
The presentation of analytical details always has special aims to fulfil. Linked pri-
marily to the establishing of authorship, it is also employed in other areas, whether
the analysed details are prominent expression-bearing elements or merely sec-
ondary features but of special significance. Among studies representative of the
tradition of such an approach to this problem in connection with the music of
Chopin are the numerous analyses made by Ludwik Bronarski,154 focussing on
such details as the opening chord of the B flat Minor Sonata op. 35, the so-called
Tristan chord, as well as the sextuplet, turn and basso ostinato technique in that
composer’s oeuvre. And it is to this tradition that I mean to refer here.
Another strand of the literary tradition in Chopin studies that should be men-
tioned in relation to this problem consists of works in which “Tristanisms in
Chopin” have constituted one of the elements of an historiographical approach
on the part of authors – an approach that situates Chopin’s work within the most
popular developmental strand in the history of nineteenth-century music – the
strand that was historically the most active (not to say “progressive”). Thus we
This study on the Tristan chord in Chopin, published in 1987, was the author’s first
work in the area of Chopin studies. It directed his attention to issues connected with
tonal logos and was a determining factor in his choice of research subject for his
Habilitationsschrift (Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina [Chromaticism and
tonality in the music of Chopin], Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne1991). It
was first printed in Rocznik Chopinowski, 19 (1987), 189–198.
154 Ludwik Bronarski, “Pierwszy akord ‘Sonaty b-moll’ Chopina” [The Opening Chord of
Chopin’s B flat Minor Sonata], Kwartalnik Muzyczny 2, (1929) no. 8, 313-320; “Akord
chopinowski” [The Chopin Chord], Kwartalnik Muzyczny 3, (1931), no. 12–13,
369-380; “Kilka uwag o basso ostinato w ogóle, a u Chopina w szczególności” [A Few
Remarks on basso ostinato in General, and in Chopin in Particular], Kwartalnik
Muzyczny 4, (1932) no. 16, 705-715; “Sekstola w muzyce Chopina” [The Sextuplet in the
Music of Chopin], Kwartalnik Muzyczny 7, (1949), no. 26–27, 95-101; “Kilka uwag o
obiegniku w utworach Chopina” [A few Remarks on the Turn in Chopin’s Works], in
Księga pamiątkowa ku czci prof. Adolfa Chybińskiego [Festschrift for Professor Adolf
Chybiński] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1950), 233-241.
81
find references to Tristan in Chopin studies over different generations,155 though
seldom have they taken the form of more extensive genetic or comparative stud-
ies. And if, on the other hand, we remind ourselves how that drama was de-
scribed by Claude Debussy (“the entrancing spirit of Chopin inspires the swirl
and passion of the music”156), Stephan Lazarov157 (similarities between themes
of Chopin and Wagner) and Karol Musioł (Wagner’s attitude to Chopin158), it is
easy to conclude that several widespread convictions as to the ties between the
two composers have become fixed in the literary tradition of Chopin studies.
To avoid being accused of exclusively patriotic motivation for such considerations,
I would like to emphasise that at issue here is not the question of the genesis of the
Tristan chord in Chopin’s works, which might point to a supposed debt owed by Wag-
ner to Chopin. One should rather concur with Ernst Kurth,159 who states that Chopin
had no direct influence either on the concept of the music drama or on Wagner’s
composition technique in general (we will return to this problem in the second part of
this study). If we focus our attentions on the Tristan chord, it is primarily on account
of the various contexts of that notion, which (thanks mainly to Kurth) is charged with
dual significance. As we know, Kurth regards the chord itself as a symbol of the whole
drama and of its musical style; a symbol in which crucial structural-harmonic and
musical-dramatic sequences are concentrated, above all intensive alteration.160
Finally, the notion of the Tristan chord is one of the most widespread se-
mantic attributes in music historiography, symbolising the final stage in the
155 See remarks on this subject especially in the works of Hugo Leichtentritt, Analyse
der Chopinschen Klavierwerke, 2 vols. (Berlin: M. Hesse, 1921), 1: 133-136; Ludwik
Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina [Chopin’s Harmony] (Warsaw: Towarzystwo Wy-
dawnicze Muzyki Polskiej, 1935), 143, including on the Tristanian motif of destiny
in Chopin’s Nocturne in F Minor op. 55 no. 1. On the same motif in the Prelude in
C sharp Minor op. 45, see Ernst Kurth, Die romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in
Wagners ‘Tristan’ (Bern: Haupt, 1920), 465–466.
156 Claude Debussy, Monsieur Croche, translator not named (London: Noel Douglas,
1927), 50.
157 Stephan Lazarov, “Chopin – Wagner – Mahler” [Chopin, Wagner and Mahler],
trans. Renata Sobańska, Rocznik Chopinowski, 7 (1969).
158 Karol Musioł, “Wagner über Chopin”, in his Wagner und Polen (Bayreuth: Fehr,
1980), 42–44.
159 Kurth, Die romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners ‘Tristan’, 256. It is diffi-
cult, however, to agree with the numerous other passages Kurth devotes to Chopin, in
which Chopin’s significance is reduced to the enriching of pianistic colouring (das kla
vieristische Kolorit) and his role in shaping Romantic harmony is minimalised (p. 399).
160 Ibid., 42.
82
development of functional tonality and affirming Wagner as a musician of the
future. Thus our focus on the Tristan chord in Chopin is determined by both
the historical significance of that chord and also the literary tradition that has
arisen around the drama, although the arbitrary nature of that choice lies in the
fact that the Tristan chord – which admittedly occurs rarely in Chopin – is not,
as we know, the sole representative of chordal writing laden with alterations. If,
however, Ludwik Bronarski161 and Jaroslav Volek162 have already arrived at a cer-
tain systematisation of altered chords in their research, here, taking that chord
as our example, we signal a few problems linked to the development of altered
chords and also to the issue of the broader musical context of its presentation in
Chopin and analogies between the chord in question and related chords in the
earlier and more recent history of harmonic tonality.
Now for a few remarks on the functional meaning of this chord. Kurth treats
the whole Tristan phrase as a dominant inserted into a dominant, justifying the
existing f instead of f sharp by the phenomenon of the heightening of melodic
tension.163 However, in order to avoid needless descriptive interpretations of this
chord, Hermann Erpf assumed that we were dealing here rather with a sequence
of an upper dominant with a “disaltered” root resolving to a normal form of domin
ant seventh.164 We adopt this functional interpretation – regardless of whether it is
161 Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina, chapters XIII and XVII.

162 Jaroslav Volek, “Die Bedeutung Chopins für die Entwicklung der alterierten Ak-
korde in der Musik des XIX. Jahrhunderts”, in The Book of the First International
Musicological Congress Devoted to the Works of Frederick Chopin, ed. Zofia Lissa
(Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1960), 259-268.
163 Kurth, Die romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners ‘Tristan’, 44. At a con-
ference on “Chopin and romanticism” (Warsaw 1986), Professor Frits Noske drew
my attention to that part of the subject literature which refuses to ascribe a func-
tional significance to the Tristan chord at all. In the opinion of Rudolph Réti (The
Thematic Process in Music, New York: Macmillan, 1951, 337), and also of Frits R.
Noske (“Melodic Determinants in Tonal Structures”, Muzikološki zbornik 17 (1981)
no. 1, 115–117), an explanation of the significance of this chord cannot be based on
notions of harmonic theory. In his work, Noske writes: “The notes of the Tristan
chord should therefore not be taken as a chord in a tonal, that is, a functional sense,
but merely as simultaneously sounding components of melodic lines” (ibid., 117).
He also includes there an extensive list of works devoted to the Tristan chord, among
which one should single out Martin Vogel’s Der Tristan-Akkord und die Krise der
modernen Harmonielehre (Düsseldorf: Verlag der Gesellschaft zur Förderung der
systematischen Musikwisenschaft, 1962).
164 Hermann Erpf, Studien zur Harmonie- und Klangtechnik der neueren Musik (Wies-
baden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1969).
83
more or less suited to Wagner’s conception – as being in keeping with the method-
ological premises adopted in this work. So we are interesting in seeking in Chopin
not just intervallically identical Tristan chords, but above all a functional context of
such chords which is analogous to that of the opening bars of Tristan. Let us take a
look at a short passage from the “Palman” Mazurka in E Minor op. 41 no. 2.
Example 6.1. Chopin, Mazurka in E Minor op. 41 no. 2, mm. 37–38.
In terms of both note pitch and interval structure, the morphology of the chord
in bar 37 is identical to the first Tristan chord: its appearance evokes specific
Wagnerian associations. However, the chord that follows it means that – in com-
parison with the opening bars of Tristan – a different functional context is set
for this chord: the function of a subdominant with a sixth, straightforward and
commonplace both in Chopin and in all the music of the Classical and Romantic
eras, is determined by the dominant seventh that follows it.165 Yet we encounter
the most spectacular appearance of a chord with an identical morphology to the
Tristan chord but the function of subdominant with sixth in bar 124 of the G
Minor Ballade op. 23.
Example 6.2. Chopin, Ballade in G Minor op. 23, m. 124.
165 On other functional meanings of this chord in relation to different keys, see Kurth,
Die romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners ‘Tristan’, 69–70.
84
The broken chord in the left-hand part contains exactly the same notes which
Wagner exposes in the opening chord of the overture to Tristan and Isolde. The
present analysis, however, will deal with only those Chopin chords in which
there exists – as a sine qua non – a harmony consistent with a proper context for
the Wagner chord in both morphological and functional terms. Examples 6.3.-8.
contain instances of the Tristan chord in Chopin, ordered chronologically.
Example 6.3. Chopin, Sonata in C Minor op. 4, m. 8.
Example 6.4. Chopin, Study in B Minor op. 25 no. 10, mm. 55–57.
Example 6.5. Chopin, Prelude in G Minor op. 28 no. 22, mm. 21–22.
Example 6.6. Chopin, Prelude in A Minor op. 28 no. 2, mm. 11–12.
85
Example 6.7. Chopin, Prelude in E Minor op. 28 no. 4, m. 15.
Example 6.8. Chopin, Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65, mm. 13–14.
In relation to the first movement of the C Minor Sonata op. 4, Zdzisław Ja-
chimecki drew attention to the circles of chromatic motives that “anticipate the
motives of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde”.166 Stepwise motion constitutes the basic
material of the thematic-motivic layer here, ensuring it, as Mersmann would
say, of substantial unity, whilst one of the motives of the introduction evokes
the same syntactic-rhetorical model that underlies the four-note love motif in
Tristan. The three-note prefatory motif, without harmonic foundation, together
with the rising chromatic chord that follows it, which is based on a sequence of
two chords (tension – resolution), may suggest such a rather external analogy,
since the similarity – especially that of the harmonic layer – must be relativised:
unlike in Wagner, the tension here is introduced by the subdominant resolved
to the tonic. This work is marked by a characteristic gulf between the powerful
chromatic element in the thematic-motivic layer and the intense tonal gravita-
tion manifest in the frequent tonic resolutions.167
In the sequence from the middle part of the B Minor Etude op. 25 no. 10, the
harmonic Tristan phrases are not manifest in the form of harmonic functions re
inforced by textural means and fully stabilised; they appear in passing. This example
166 Zdzisław Jachimecki, Chopin. Rys życia i twórczości [Chopin. An Outline of His Life
and Work] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1957), 238.
167 See Józef Michał Chomiński, Sonaty Chopina [The Sonatas of Chopin] (Kraków:
Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1960), 30.
86
shows that the Tristan chord arises here from melodic sources: the straightfor-
ward harmonic sequence of lower to upper dominant in each component of the
sequence is enriched with a two-part melodic figure, the second chord of which is
the effect of the alteration of the third and the fifth of the lower dominant.
Example 6.5. shows the use of the Tristan chord as a means of modulation in
bars 21 and 29 of the Prelude in G Minor from op. 28. This is a lower-dominant
variant of the Tristan chord (in the overture to Tristan, it appears in bars 10–11),
and it modulates from a locally tonicalising fragment in A flat Major to the princi-
pal key, reinforced in bar 22. The schema of this process presents itself as follows168:
Mm. 20 21 22
A flat Major:+ T D+o D < G Minor: D1+ o
T
1>
In the Prelude in A Minor op. 28 no. 2 (the next example), where the chromati-
cism does not allow any tonal centre to become stabilised for long and the main
key does not appear until the end of the work, the Tristan chord occurs in bar
13, following a brief phase in D Major from bar 9, as a consequence of the upper
dominant in that key, and at the same time as an upper dominant with a dis-
altered root in G Minor/Major. Reducing the (most interesting) minor-second
instabilities in the chords, the schema of modifications and the closest context of
the Tristan chord in this work may be presented as follows:
Mm. 9 10 11 12 13
Minor 1<> +
D Major:+ T D+ G : D D1
Major
There is only one difference in the intervallic form of the chord from Wagner’s
later version: the bottom two members swap places. Crucially, however, the
Tristan chord does not constitute in this work a transitional form in a diatonically
strengthened context; on the contrary, as in Wagner, it is the effect of the “fluid
tonality” and the destabilised sense of a tonal centre. In the Prelude in E Minor
op. 28 no. 4 [Example 6.7.], the chord of interest to us here appears in the second
part of the work, undoubtedly as the result of that section’s characteristic “acceler
ation” and intensification of the harmonic element. The whole Tristanian harmonic
phrase, in a slightly modified intervallic form, is based here on the same absolute
note pitches as in Wagner’s first Tristan chord, and – as in the overture to Tristan
and Isolde – a disaltered upper dominant resolves to a simpler form of dominant
168 Functional analysis in this chapter based on the descriptive theory of tonal harmony by
Hermann Erpf. See Erpf, Studien zur Harmonie- und Klangtechnik der neneren Musik.
87
seventh, whilst the labile and only locally active key of A Minor is not consolidated
by a cadence, but – to use Hugo Riemann’s term – it undergoes elision. Thus in
relation to the principal key, the schema of harmonic connections looks as follows:
Mm. 15 16
E Minor:  D1> D1< D1+  Do 
<
+
 
Chopin resolves the disaltered root of the upper dominant here not directly to
the form of the dominant seventh, but indirectly – via the gradual resolution of
dissonances in successive chords. We find the whole melodic-harmonic Tristan
phrase, albeit in a slightly veiled form, in one of Chopin’s last compositions,
namely the Mazurka in F Minor WN 65 [Example 6.8.], published posthumously
(on the basis of sketches) by Fontana. Bars 13 and 14, which are the final link in
both the chromatic process and the related modulating passage heading to the
key of A Major, contain the Tristan phrase in the following context:
Mm. 13 14 15
<
A Major: D1> D1+ D15> D1++ T
The phrase is split here into two, which doubtless explains why its form es-
caped the attention of those Chopin scholars who have focused on analysing the
harmonic substance of that work, although the similarity is striking: not only
identical absolute note pitches, but also their characteristic ordering. Although
contemporary reconstructions of Chopin’s sketch in relation to this fragment
differ in several details from Fontana’s edition169 and the revisions correspond
better to the content of the autograph (and consequently to the composer’s in-
tentions), when considering issues from the boundaries of music reception and
comparative analysis it is Fontana’s version, as published by Schlesinger,170 that
169 Jan Ekier, Chopin. ‘Mazurek ƒ-moll’ (ostatni) [Chopin. The Mazurka in F Minor
(Last)] Kraków, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1965); Wojciech Nowik, „Próba
rekonstrukcji ‘Mazurka ƒ-moll’ op. 68 nr 4 Fryderyka Chopina“ [An Attempted
Reconstruction of Fryderyk Chopin’s Mazurka in F Minor op. 68 no. 4], Rocznik
Chopinowski, 8 (1969), 44-85; Ronald Smith, F. Chopin, Mazurka in F Minor (New
York: C. Hansen, 1975); Miłosz Magin, F. Chopin, Mazurka en Fa Mineur. La dernière
œuvre de Chopin (Paris: Editions Concertino, 1983).
170 Œuvres Posthumes pour le piano de Fréd. Chopin par Jules Fontana (Berlin:
Schlesinger, 1855). It is worth noting here that in 1955 Ludwik Bronarski published
a critical analysis of this fragment of Fontana’s edition, writing: “In bar 13 the flat
should perhaps come before the e1 of the first chord in the bass, as we have in the
autograph. It should be noted that in bars 2–5 and 10–12 a half-step switch occurs in
88
must be taken into account first of all, as the version which functioned in the
music of the nineteenth century.
The examples analysed here reveal that in the group of chronologically ar-
ranged examples of Chopin’s use of the Tristan chord there is a certain tendency
for development, linked above all with the context of the chord under discussion.
Two extreme examples, taken from the composer’s early and late work, frag-
mentarily showing the harmonic model of tension and resolution in a splitting
chromatic trail, incline us to conclude that the elements of the harmony in the C
Minor Sonata are merely an accessory to the constitutively active diatonic frame-
work, whereas in the F Minor Mazurka that model is realised in the context of
labile tonality, in which chromaticism is no longer an accessory to the harmony,
but now discharges functions that are texturally essential. Between these two
types of example there are various intermediate stages: in the B Minor Etude, the
Tristan chord sounds transitional, freed from voice-leading and harmonically
unstable; in the G Minor Prelude, it gains a distinct chordal form, but the agogic
context and the modulating role of the chord do not lead to its strengthening.
It is with the A Minor and E Minor Preludes that we find the context of an or-
ganic chromatic trail, in which the Tristan chord appears as an integral part of
the harmonic continuum. The above examples not only show the Tristan chord
in Chopin as representing more advanced formations of chords with multiple
alterations, always manifesting itself in the context of a strongly chromaticised
passage, but they also confirm the evolution of Chopin’s chromatic writing.171
Considerations on the subject of the Tristan chord in Chopin already implicitly
contain the problem of reception, as well. Examples 9–14 show, in chronological
order, entire melodic-harmonic Tristan phrases, from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata
in E flat Major to Berg’s Lyric Suite.172
the bass chords in just one voice”, Szkice Chopinowskie [Chopin Sketches] (Kraków:
Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1961), 330. It should also be mentioned that Ernst
Zimmermann’s urtext edition of Chopin (Henle-Verlag) retains the orthography of
this fragment given in Fontana’s edition.
171 The evolution in question was presented by the author in Chromatyka i tonalność
w muzyce Chopina [Chromaticism and Tonality in the Music of Chopin] (Kraków:
Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1991).
172 Example 6.9. comes from Kurth, Die romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wag
ners ‘Tristan’, 73; Example 6.10. was given by Edgar Istel in his Die Blütezeit der musi
kalischen Romantik in Deutschland (Leipzig: Teubner, 1968), 145; Example 6.12. is
contained in Zdzisław Jachimecki’s monograph Wagner (Kraków: Polskie Wyda
wnictwo Muzyczne, 1973), 238.
89
Example 6.9. Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata in E flat Major op. 31 no. 3, 1. movement,
mm. 35-36.
Example 6.10. Louis Spohr, Der Alchymist, m. 14.
Example 6.11. Chopin, Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65, mm. 13–14.
Example 6.12. Ferenc Liszt, Song Ich möchte hingehn, m. 126.
Example 6.13. Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, mm. 1–3.
90
Example 6.14. Alban Berg, Lyrische Suite, 6. movement, mm. 26-27.
This phrase, which in the examples took the form of an invariant, in each
individual case has a different meaning within the shifting broader formal
context of works: in Beethoven, it is only a moment strongly fixed in diatonic
surroundings; in Chopin, an organic element of an entire chromatically-
suffused section; in Wagner, a whole work; and in Berg, it is merely a tonal
enclave, appearing in the character of a quotation, in a foreign, twelve-note
context.
The perspective of an evolutionary approach that was proposed by Zofia
Lissa in relation to Scriabin’s Prometheus chord173 is very tempting here, as it
concerns works published and functioning in the mainstream repertoire. After
all, it is highly likely that Spohr was familiar with the piano sonatas of Bee-
thoven. Chopin not only knew, but played the works of Spohr (on 26 August
1829, he attended a performance of Goethe’s Faust in Dresden, with excerpts
from Spohr’s Faust performed in the entr’actes). He could also have heard
works by Spohr during his youth in Warsaw. Liszt, as we know, was a consum-
mate expert on the whole Chopin œuvre, whilst Wagner, before setting about
composing Tristan, wrote to Hans von Bülow about the influence exerted over
harmony in his works by the compositions of Liszt.174 So are we dealing here
with the exclusively directionally-conditioned circulation of a certain rare and
original item of musical material – one that is not as universal as other har-
monic phrases? The prospect of searching for various indirect connections
also opens up: was Wagner familiar with Chopin’s most chromatically per-
meated works, or perhaps Liszt (as Jachimecki and Musioł claim) served as
173 Zofia Lissa, “Do genezy akordu prometejskiego A. N. Skriabina” [On the Origins
of Scriabin’s Prometheus Chord], in her Studia nad twórczością Fryderyka Chopina
[Studies on the Work of Fryderyk Chopin] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Mu
zyczne, 1970), 332ff.
174 See Jachimecki, Wagner, 238.
91
a bridge between the two composers? Or perhaps Wagner simply took that
chord from Beethoven?
Regardless of how striking such problems would be, for us they are not suf-
ficiently attractive to declare ourselves from this point of view in favour of one
thesis or another. An authoritative solution to the question of the reception of a
particular musical phrase or motif is possible only to the extent allowed by the
sources, which represent merely a selective documentation of the creative pro-
cess, in which the sphere of inspiration is always the most intimate domain in
the shaping of a musical work. Every stage in the tendency outlined here, even
reduced in such an arbitrary way to the essentially peripheral circulation of the
analysed detail, is to some degree conditioned by what came before, and so by
that set of procedures built up by composers of the Classical and Romantic eras.
Yet an account of the historical determinants of the Tristan chord in Chopin
cannot presume the existence of a law of internal causality to the development
of harmonic-tonal means – a law that characterised earlier, evolutionally-orien-
tated methods of musical historiography. It cannot do so primarily because that
law too categorically and unilaterally resolves issues relating to the reception of
specific musical structures whose paths of dissemination are not infrequently
conditioned by various mechanisms of adaptation that are often complex and
hard to disentangle.
If, however, we were to seek an idea that explained the circulation of the ana
lysed detail, then it is the idea of the intersubjective accumulation of musical
means and their adaptation in the composer’s individual creative act, within the
sphere of a narrowly defined historical tradition. For the phenomenon of the
Tristan chord in Chopin, that tradition is formed by the development of chro-
maticism within the broader current of changes to the functional system – a
development that from the very beginning potentially contained the whole
Tristan phrase, as one of the many (though not the most typical) variants of
the model of a splitting chromatic trail. In this sense, that phrase was “updated”
many times over within an area of virtually present elements rather than wit-
tingly passed “from hand to hand” via the tradition discussed above.
92
Part III
Chopin’s Music Aesthetics
7
Contribution to Western European
Romanticism
On the 25th March 1836, François-Joseph Fétis asked Fryderyk Chopin, then
aged 26, to fill in questionnaire for his Biographie universelle des musiciens, which
this eminent musicographer published in Paris between 1833 and 1844.175 It was
a valid confirmation that within a few years of his arrival to Paris, the Polish
composer’s position in the cultural capital of the world was firmly established.
After 1831, Chopin’s works were disseminated by the leading publishing houses
in Paris, Berlin and London, while a thoughtful social and professional strategy
ensured that he remained one of the central figures of the musical life in Paris.
Heine wrote emphatically about Chopin:
“[…] Yes, we must attribute genius to Chopin in the full sense of the word:
he is not merely a virtuoso, he is also a poet, he can bring to our intuition the
poetry that lives in his soul, he is a tone-poet, and nothing equals the pleasure he
creates for us when he sits at the piano and improvises. Then he is neither Pole,
nor Frenchman, nor German – then he betrays a much higher origin and we
recognise that he hails from the land of Mozart, Raffael, Goethe […]”.176
What are, then, Chopin’s offers for Europe? It is a thorny issue. We, music
ologists, struggle to examine Chopin’s proposal in any other context than that
of European music. His work lies at the epicentre of the history of European
The paper Fryderyka Chopina propozycje dla Europy [Chopin’s Offers for Europe]
was first published in: Romantycy i Europa. Marzenia, doświadczenia, propozycje
[The Romantics and Europe. Dreams, Experiences, Offers], ed. Marta Piwińska
(Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu Badań Literackich PAN, 2006). I am grateful
to Marta Piwińska, Dorota Siwicka, Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz and Aleksander
Nawarecki for the discussion that followed.
175 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [The Letters of Fryderyk Chopin], ed. Bronisław
E. Sydow, 2 vols. (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955), 1: 276-277.
This Polish edition is quoted when a given letter is not included in the English trans-
lation of Chopin’s letter: Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, ed. Arthur
Hedley (New York: Da Capo Press, 1979).
176 Quoted after: The Works of Heinrich Heine, 12 vols., trans. Charles Godfrey Leland
et all (New York: Dutton, 1906), 4: 278–279.
95
music in the 19th century, just as that of Schumann, Mendelssohn, or Brahms.
The question is about those characteristics of Chopin’s musical aesthetics that
contributed to the resonance of his work in the historical process of its reception.
There are no different offers from Chopin to Poland and Europe, such is the uni-
versal nature of musical language. Moreover Chopin, as indicated by Kazimierz
Wierzyński, was only true to himself, and took no positions as an artist; he did
not, for example, support the Polish émigré agenda, even though he felt part
of that group.177 On artistic grounds, he firmly distanced himself from any extra
musical ideology. Consequently, any talking about Chopin’s “emigration mis-
sion” after 1831 is an overinterpretation. Nonetheless, the horizon of specifically
Polish, artistic and historiosophic expectations towards Chopin in the milieu of
both Warsaw intellectuals and the Great Emigration, is more than obvious. At
this juncture, that special tension was born between Chopin’s absolute music and
his role as a “prophet of the piano” in the service of the Polish ideological agenda.
Rejection of the Classical heritage

We are eager to term Chopin a “classic” in the wide meaning of the term. Yet
leaving Warsaw, Chopin rejected the heritage of musical Classicism he had ab-
sorbed through the tuition of Józef Elsner during the three years of his compos
ition studies at the Main School of Music of the Royal University of Warsaw.
That influence manifested itself in Chopin’s use of Classical genres for piano and
orchestra: in the Variations on Mozart’s “Là ci darem la mano” for piano and
orchestra op. 2, Rondo à la Krakowiak op. 14, Fantasy on Polish Airs in A Major
for piano and orchestra op. 13 and the two piano concertos, as well as the Piano
Sonata in C Minor op. 4 and the Piano Trio in G Minor op. 8. These works, the
largest in dimension of all Chopin’s output, were composed in Warsaw; later,
Chopin never returned to large genres for piano and orchestra or to chamber
music (with the single exception of the Cello Sonata in G Minor op. 65). He
opened his Paris period of composition with small instrumental genres that
during his Warsaw period, constituted a sort of seconda prattica and which El-
sner, Chopin’s highest music authority, frowned upon. For the young composer,
this gesture of rejection was suggestively symbolic. By detaching himself from
the generic heritage of Classical music, Chopin not only failed to bring to Eur
ope what the Warsaw musical milieu expected of him, but he went further in
177 See Maria Janion, Maria Żmigrodzka, Fryderyk Chopin wśród bohaterów egzy
stencji polskiego romantyzmu [Fryderyk Chopin Amongst the Protagonists of Polish
Romanticism], “Rocznik Chopinowski” 19 (1987), 48.
96
embracing the stile brillante178 so fashionable in the 1830s. The Rondo in E flat
Major op. 16, Waltz in G flat Major [op. 70 no. 1] WN 35, Boléro op. 19, Fan
taisie-Impromptu in C sharp Minor [op. 66] WN 46 and several variations cycles
are examples of Chopin works composed in this style; incidentally, they belong
to the weaker productions of his output. Yet these works were necessary to gather
the attention of the Parisian public (which Chopin didn’t hold in high esteem,
by the way). It was, therefore, a case of sheer artistic strategy and not of artistic
freedom. The composer’s letters make it clear: “It is merely a series of brilliant ef-
fects, a salon-piece for the ladies”, he wrote about his Introduction and Polonaise
in C Major op. 3.179 Chopin’s first offers for the music capital of the world marked
the bottom artistic threshold for his later, mature works.
In the early 1830s, the tension between the horizon of expectations the Pol-
ish community nourished in Chopin and his subjective creativity was already
fully evident. We do not know what Chopin answered Elsner when the latter re-
minded him of a quotation from the German music theorist and teacher, Chris-
tian Urban, in autumn 1834: “Ein Thonstück auf dem Clavier […] verhält sich
gegen ein solches für Gesang, oder andere Instrumente wie ein Kupferstich zu dem
Gemälde” [A piano piece is to a vocal or other instrumental composition as an
engraving is to a painted picture]. “This view is correct as ever, Elsner continues,
although certain piano works, especially your own when performed by yourself,
may be regarded as illuminated engravings”.180
Although Elsner softened his criticism by acknowledging the value of Cho-
pin’s piano music, it must have been clear for the latter that the above quotation
was meant as a consolation. As late as 1840, when Chopin’s European fame was
well consolidated, Elsner planned a meeting with his former student in Paris
178 The category of stile brillante is a historical one, relative both to the style of compos
ition and musical performance. Riemann defined the stile brillante as a “distinctive
stylistic genre […], the result of increasing virtuosity in piano literature”. He con
tinues: “Brillante is based on effect: a quick passage, an impetuous forte, a pianissimo
soft as a whisper. In performing passages or entire works in brillante style, one uses
all available effects: a sharp mezzo legato instead of a legato, a light or sharp staccato
or a mixture of different articulation instead of a staccato; a quick stretto for in-
creasing the impressiveness of quick passages, a stretched, singing melody in lighter
excerpts, etc.”. See Hugo Riemann, Vergleichende Klavierschule. Theoretischer Theil
(Leipzig: Rahter, 1912), 39. Quoted after Danuta Jasińska, Styl brillant a muzyka
Chopina [The Stile Brillante and the Music of Chopin] (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Nau-
kowe UAM, 1995), 19.
97
and wrote: “I will share some thoughts with you on music in general, and on the
oratorio and the opera in specific”.181 Chopin’s sister Ludwika referred a Warsaw
gossip in autumn 1842 that is extremely telling of the hopes of the local mu-
sical milieu: “[…] They are talking that you will doubtlessly write something
soon with Adam [Mickiewicz, Poland’s leading poet of the time]”.182 Such talk
consistently irritated Chopin, who wrote to Fontana in the summer of 1839:
“Woyciechowski wrote to me that I should compose an oratorio. […] I answered
asking why he is establishing a sugar factory and not a monastery for Camal-
dolese or Dominican nuns”.183
Chopin as a composer has a dual nature. That dualism was present in all as-
pects of his life and works. While still in Warsaw, he worked on different genres
with Elsner at the Main School of Music, and composed others works from his
own imperative. In Paris, he destined some works for publication while exclud-
ing others and ordering that they be destroyed after his death. On one hand, he
composed elite music, occasionally on the limit of understanding for his contem-
poraries (Prelude in A Minor, the finale of the Sonata in B flat Minor), yet on the
other, his first Parisian years were marked by the instrumental formulas of the
stile brillante. Even in his late style, when he refused to satisfy the common taste,
such as in the Sonata in B Minor and the Cello Sonata, he would still compose
strikingly simple if not downright sentimental works such as the Nocturne in
C Minor WN 62 or the Waltz in A Minor WN 63. That dualism, finally, is visible
in Chopin’s creative process as such. Written before his death and left unfinished,
the Mazurka in F Minor [op. 68, no. 4] WN 65 is both saturated with refined
chromatics and shockingly simple themes.
Here is the key to the great resonance that his works enjoyed already during his
lifetime. His works contained meanings that were comprehensible to all but also
elusive and exclusive ones. The entire issue of the complex reception of Chopin’s
music in 19th-century Europe stems from that very dualism, which was largely a
consequence of that tension, originating from the composer’s early Paris years,
between the Classical genre tradition and the new musical forms of Romanticism.
Chopin’s rejection, at the threshold of the 1830s, of the musical tradition of
Enlightenment, had two major consequences and stimulated two major offers
for Europe: an original musical style, and a deeper understanding of national
music than that of Maria Szymanowska, Karol Kurpiński, or Józef Elsner.
181 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina, 2: 6.

182 Ibid., 2: 72.
183 Ibid., 1: 354–355.
98
Original musical style
The importance of Chopin’s heritage for Europe was demonstrated as soon as the
second half of the 19th century through the reception of his music, not so much
in the social sense (although he has always been the most published, performed
and recorded composer in music history) but in the artistic one. In the late 19th
century, editors of his complete works included musicians such as Johannes
Brahms and Claude Debussy: their diversity confirms the universal character of
Chopin’s aesthetic code. Yet the key features of Chopin’s musical language only
developed in the late 1830s.
In the field of harmony and tonality, Chopin was undoubtedly the greatest in-
novator of the second Romantic generation. The use of the ‘Tristan chord’ several
decades before Wagner, Chopin’s free (essential) chromaticism, the extension of
the tonal system’s boundaries: these elements prepared the ground for the later
experiments of Liszt and Wagner. Moreover, Chopin used a hitherto unknown
kind of fluid tonality, later described by Arnold Schoenberg in his Harmonielehre
of 1911 as a “schwebende und aufgehobene Tonalität”.184 In their compositional
technique, some Chopin works broke all the rules of Classical tonality: the Prel
ude in A Minor does so in its emancipation of dissonance, that E Minor in its
expansion of free chromaticism, while the Prelude in C sharp Minor op. 45 in
destabilising its tonal centre.185
These new developments in the field of musical chronotope generated some
sharp controversies among Chopin’s contemporaries. The Polish poet Juliusz
Słowacki, who eventually denied Chopin’s music any sense of the sublime, had a
markedly ambiguous attitude towards Chopin. Although in 1832 he wrote in a
letter to his mother about an evening at Straszewicz’s: “[…] The party bored us to
death from ten till two in the morning. However, before it was over Chopin got
tipsy and improvised quite marvellous things on the piano”,186 but 13 years later
he wrote again to his mother in Krzemieniec (the letter was eventually not sent)
about Chopin’s “nerve-wrenching music [which irritates] all the nerves with its
184 Arnold Schönberg, Harmonielehre (Wien: Universal Edition, 1922), 459-460.

185 See Maciej Gołąb, Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce Chopina [Chromaticism and
Tonality in Chopin’s Music] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1991); Ger-
man trans. Beatrysa Hirszenberg Chopins Harmonik. Chromatik in ihrer Beziehung
zur Tonalität (Köln: Bela, 1995). In this work, a complex of tonal and harmonic char-
acteristics of Chopin’s compositional technique was defined as a historical “genera-
tive quality”.
99
semitones and dissonances. […] Have you ever seen anyone becoming better,
prettier, more gracious or heroic after listening to Chopin’s music?”187
Interestingly, the elements criticised by Słowacki were seen by the leading
musicians of that generation as the essence of Chopin’s personal style. Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy wrote to Fanny Hensel: “It was so pleasant for me to
be once more with a thorough musician, and not with those half virtuosos and
half classics, who would gladly combine les honneurs de la vertu et les plaisirs du
vice, but with one who has his perfect and well-defined phase […]”.188 It is easy to
believe that Słowacki was blind to the heroic traits of Chopin’s music but not that
he failed to notice the individual character of his musical aesthetics.
Chopin’s new stylistic offer also consisted in his original musical syntax and,
in consequence, his style of musical narrative. These elements were fully dis-
closed only in the second half of the 20th century, in the era of the new urtext
editions where Chopin’s final versions, unmitigated by editorial interventions,
were finally made available to the public. William Rothstein showed how the
Nocturne in F sharp Minor op. 48 no. 2 introduced a new, expanded musical
phrase spanning no fewer than 23 bars.189 In the field of musical syntax and
phrasing, this was such a great novelty, totally breaking with the Classical trad
ition, that even deep into the 20th century many editors “sliced up” this phrase in
good faith to adapt to the principles of symmetrical musical form. Chopin’s new
“open phrase” was a sharp reaction to the Classical “four-bar phrase tyranny”,
and contributed, together with Wagner’s later “endless melody”, to the develop-
ment of a new style of musical narrative in the times of Mahler and Karłowicz,
with their “telescoped” themes and the technique of a continuous shattering of
motives. Here again, Chopin’s musical syntax, as much as it broke with Clas
sical norms,190 did not shock e.g. Schumann, who wrote thus to Heinrich Dorn:
187 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina, 2: 126–127. Adam Mickiewicz also referred to

Chopin’s music as “tickling the nerves”; see Janion, Żmigrodzka, Fryderyk Chopin
wśród bohaterów, 35.
188 Quoted after Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, from 1833 to 1847, ed. Paul
Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Carl Mendelssohn Bartholdy (London: Longman, Green,
Longman, Roberts & Green, 1863), 89.
189 William Rothstein, Phrase rhythm in Chopin’s Nocturnes and Mazurkas, in Chopin
Studies, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 134–135.
190 Elżbieta Witkowska-Zaremba’s innovative article Wersyfikacja, składnia i forma
w mazurkach Chopina [Versification, Syntax and Form in Chopin’s Mazurkas], in
Przemiany stylu Chopina [Changes of Chopin’s Style], ed. Maciej Gołąb (Kraków:
Musica Iagellonica, 1993), 109–133, contains a “definition of the musical narrative
100
“[Chopin] played a whole number of new studies, Nocturnes and Mazurkas –
everything incomparably. […] Try to conceive such perfection, a mastery which
seems unconscious of itself ”.191
Chopin’s offer in the field of musical composition, finally, was his often em-
phasised sensitivity to the timbral aspect of musical composition (sound colour):
the so-called purely sonoristic function of harmony,192 or the sensual aspect of
sound, which he often discussed with Delacroix in Nohant. In the late 1840s,
Delacroix worked on his theory of complementary colours and simultaneous
contrast; Paul Signac saw this work by Delacroix as a direct antecedence of the
Impressionists.193 Delacroix wrote to George Sand: “I have endless conversations
with Chopin […] who is a man of rare distinction. He is the truest artist I have
ever met, one of the few whom one can admire and value”.194 While those discus-
sions never pushed Chopin to take an interest in syncretic art (as developed later
by Alexander Scriabin), Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger demonstrated that “Chopin
was in full agreement with Delacroix’s opinion on painting technique”.195 Nu-
merous musicological studies have considered Chopin as a predecessor, in some
idiosyncrasies of his piano writing, of Debussy and musical Impressionism; some
later works such as the Berceuse op. 57 and the Prelude in C sharp Minor op. 45
seem to initiate the esoteric quest for that elusive “blue note” which a London
reviewer, after Chopin’s concert on 8th July 1848, so poignantly described as “a
mysterious soothing, like moonlight”.196
The last level of Chopin’s innovation during his Paris period is related to
the highly normative genres he inherited from the Classical era. These innov
ations go back to Chopin’s university studies. His early formal experiments were
often seen by some researchers as deficiencies in his academic education. “They
in analogy to a verbal text, and an examination of musical phenomena in terms of

grammatical and rhetorical categories”.
192 Zofia Lissa, “Harmonika Chopina z perspektywy techniki dźwiękowej XX wieku”
[Chopin’s Harmony from the Point of View of 20th-century Sound Technique], in
Studia nad twórczością Fryderyka Chopina [Studies on the Work of Fryderyk Cho-
pin] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1970), 445-487; Daniela di Bene
detto, “La funzione timbrica dell’armonia nelle composizioni di Chopin”, Nuova
Rivista Musicale Italiana 18 (1984) no. 2, 391-417.
193 Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, “Chopin and ‘la note bleue’: An interpretation of the Prel
ude Op. 45”, Music and Letters 78 (1997) no. 2.
195 Ibid., 124.
196 Ibid., 123.
101
evidently did not have clear ideas about sonatas out there in Warsaw”, Charles
Rosen writes in his monograph of the sonata genre.197 Even Ludwik Bronarski,
one of the leading experts of Chopin’s music, wrote of the “incorrect recapitula-
tions” in his sonatas.198 In reality, in Chopin’s creative process, particularly in the
1840s, the generic identity of a work was always subordinated to narrative and
expression. Consequently, Chopin was one of the few composers of his gener-
ation to submit the Classical genres to thorough modifications – ones that are
widely discussed in the scholarly literature. This process is particularly visible
in those genres that Chopin used throughout his life: sonatas, nocturnes, pol
onaises, mazurkas, ballades and scherzos. It was a move from a relative formal
simplicity and genre identity to freely composed generic hybrids that contrib-
uted to the twilight, in the subsequent Romantic generations, of the faith in the
regulative power of Classical musical forms.
Deeper understanding of national musical art

The stereotype of Chopin “having elevated folklore to humanity” is one of the
most deeply rooted in Chopin studies. Several generations of scholars up to the
times of Socialist realism have reiterated the theory of direct folk inspirations
in Chopin’s music, completely ignoring the fact that instrumental Polish dances
belonged to musical “high art” since the Renaissance, and were composed not
only by Polish composers. The cult of “pure” folk music in its unadulterated form
emerged as late as the times of Bartók. Chopin had a typically aristocratic atti-
tude towards folk music, and it would be futile to search his letters for traces of
direct inspirations. For Chopin, folk and artistic music were two distinct worlds.
“I couldn’t be bothered to dress for dinner so I spent the evening at home, play-
ing and singing to myself songs of the Vistula”, he wrote to his family before
Easter 1847.199 And that was one thing.
Composing stylised Polish dances was an entirely different issue, however, on
which Chopin has a very clear position. When he received some patriotic songs
by Stefani to give his opinion, he wrote in the same letter, somewhat patronis-
ingly: “If you ever meet Stefani up there, say my thanks, as well as to Kolberg for
his hard labour [i.e., the Songs of the Polish People published by Oskar Kolberg
197 Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms (New York–London: W.W. Norton, 1988), 392.
198 Ludwik Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina [The Harmony of Chopin] (Warszawa: To-
warzystwo Wydawnicze Muzyki Polskiej, 1935), 17-18.
102
with added piano accompaniment, Poznań 1842 – Author’s note]”.200 Apparently,
19th-century music folklorism (authentic folk melodies with added accompani-
ment) was synonymous, for Chopin, with the world of musical “labour”. Already
in Chopin’s earliest Polish dances, the music is qualitatively different: they are
stylised dances, not direct quotations from actual folklore. The stylised Polish
dance genre in Chopin’s output from the 1830s and especially the 1840 reaches
such refined sublimation that it detaches itself almost entirely from its folk in-
spirations. Chopin’s late mazurkas and polonaises for piano are no more simple
stylised dances but piano poems of epic élan (Mazurkas opp. 56, 59 and 63,
Polonaise-Fantaisie op. 61).
Chopin letters betray a violent abjection towards the public discussion sur-
rounding his role as a representative of “national music”. One letter (usually ig-
nored by biographers) makes Chopin’s attitude towards musical folklore very
clear. On 8th August 1839, Chopin wrote to Fontana, thanking him for handing
over a letter from Poland with the following content:
“My dear friend, Thank you for that letter addressed to Mr Chopine. It is
headed: Wiatrowo near Wengrowiec! and ends: “For your Honour, as being
a great master of musik and komposition, I, Alexander Moszczyński, mayor
of Brześć…” In the middle he writes: “As a music-lover now in his eightieth
year I beg to send you two Mazurkas, a hundred years old, which I have just
remembered, as themes for your elucubrations.” You can imagine what re-
spectable Mazurkas they are – tum tiddy tum-tum, tum-tum, TUM-TUM.
[…] Some honest old, old-Polish olderman (one of the few left who …. off
the bridge)”.201
That ungracious irony sprang from the fact that Chopin did not, as is often
though, “elevate the folklore to humanity”, but practised a genre of high art that
was equally familiar in 19th-century Petersburg, Warsaw, Berlin and Paris.
The issue is of course relevant, but runs deeper into the domain of “national
spirit”, which, as we know, was already a matter of debate in the times of Johann
Gottfried Herder and Hippolyte Taine. Unlike elements of musical language
that can be easily grasped by comparative analysis, Chopin’s musical poet-
ics and their national ingredient are much more difficult to analyse. Deeper
elements of the Polish ethnicity in Chopin’s music include the so-called Polish
cadence, based on the melody of the Polish language, which is present both in

103
numerous Chopin’s works and in Polish national songs.202 We know that Elsner
addressed the issue of expressive paroxytonesis as early as 1818 in his work Roz
prawa o metryczności i rytmiczności języka polskiego [On Metre and Rhythm
in the Polish Language] where he formulated the “penultima law”. He wrote,
“The form of a language is the premise of the penultima law, and cannot by any
means be altered, as it is through this premise that the Polish tongue belongs
to Slavic languages”.203 Interestingly, many examples of the so-called Polish ca-
dence can be found not only in Chopin’s vocal output (composed to poems by
Polish authors) but also in his instrumental one. In Chopin’s works, Krzysztof
Bilica maintains, some influences of the Polish language (understood as a sys-
tem of emphasis) can be found, “namely direct influences of the language in the
songs, indirect influences in works based on songs or including reminiscences
of them, and only partly, an echo of these influences in the composer’s instru-
mental output”.204
The use of an old rhetorical-musical figure called imaginatio crucis recently
observed by researchers in Chopin’s last works is another example of a deeper
element of national music. This figure consists of a four-note image of the lying
cross, figuratively represented by signs of musical notation. This traditional fig-
ure, used intentionally by Bach and obviously perceptible aurally to his contem-
poraries, underwent a transformation in Chopin’s Polonaise in F sharp Minor
op. 44.205 If we agree that traditional musical topics may function in undisclosed
ways, and if we presume that the soteriological ‘cross motive’ may also appear in
instrumental musical as an aesthetically significant element (figure of the cross
at the beginning or end of the piece), then its presence in the fatally ill Chopin’s
last song acquires a special significance. This masterly song, Melodia [Melody],
was composed to a short excerpt of Zygmunt Krasiński poem Ostatni [The Last
One] of 1847. The text used by Chopin is a seven-verse motto from Krasiński’s
202 Krzysztof Bilica, “Melos polski u Chopina” [The Polish Melos in Chopin’s Work], 42
Muzyka 42 (1997) no. 4, 7-35.
203 Józef Elsner, Rozprawa o metryczności i rytmiczności języka polskiego, szczególnie o
wierszach polskich we względzie muzycznym […] [On the Metre and Rhythm in the
Polish Language, Particularly on Polish Poetry in the Musical Aspect] (Warszawa:
S. Dąbrowski, 1818), n. pag.
204 Ibid., 34. Undoubtedly, this issue should be researched in cooperation by musicologists
and philologists, allowing such an interdisciplinary programme to yield interesting results.
205 Tomasz Jasiński, “Imaginatio crucis in the Baroque Music”, Musica Iagellonica 1
(1995), 51–73.
104
poem, speaking of the experience of a conspirator, Polish patriot, imprisoned in
casemates in deep Russia for his political activity.206
Imaginatio crucis appears continuously in this masterly work’s pivotal mo-
ments: not only in the initial and final accompaniment figure, but most signifi-
cantly in bar “44”: it is hard to resist a symbolic association with this number,207
just as for the opus number of the Polonaise in F sharp Minor. Is the crude ap-
pearance of the musical image of the cross in bar “forty-four” a conscious “en-
coding” of cross symbolism? There is no unambiguous answer, although the
messianic aura of Krasiński’s The Last One would encourage such reading. The
ideas of Polish messianism, encoded (“conspired”) in this song, were drawn from
Mickiewicz’s Dziady [The Forefathers’ Eve] and Krasiński’s Ostatni, two works
well familiar to Chopin; they were particularly vivid in the circles of the Polish
‘Great Emigration’ of the 1840s, when both Ostatni and Chopin’s Melody, so
imbued with the presage of death, were composed.
The messianic hint in the semantic and symbolic aspect of Melody is in part
deductive, but it is substantiated by contextual evidence. The paths of many Pol-
ish émigrés crossed in Chopin’s house. Chopin himself wrote to Adolf Cichowski
around 1844: “Please, do pop in at my place before the isle”,208 and later to the same
addressee: “My Dear, if you may, before Hôtel Lambert do come to me, I’d like to tell
you something but cannot move”.209 In a letter to Stefan Witwicki of 23rd March 1845,
Chopin comments on Mickiewicz’s lectures at the Collège de France having been
discontinued. He also distances himself from Towiański, when writing about Mic
kiewicz losing his allegiances: “What is deplorable is that two of them ([Seweryn]
Pilichowski seems to be one) have signed a document before a public notary in which
they acknowledge themselves to be the mere chattels of Towiański, his slaves in fact.
Observe that they don’t pledge their children as well, only themselves and for life.
Can you conceive of greater madness? Mickiewicz is no longer on his former terms
with Towiański: the latter maintains that they have gone beyond all limits. In short,
there is discord they will surely come to a bad end, and it won’t be long either”.210
206 See the text of Melody and analysis of the song in the next chapter of this volume.
207 “Forty and four” is a famously prophetic number in leading Polish Romantic poet
Adam Mickiewicz’s drama Dziady [Forefathers’ Eve] III, Scene 5. The number,
which scholars have variously but never conclusively interpreted, denotes a mysteri-
ous forthcoming saviour of Poland and humanity. A reference to “44” is clear to any
Polish reader and listener. (Note of the translator).
209 Ibid., 2: 123.
105
In summary, there were two large sets of significant “Paris innovation” by
Chopin, the Polish-European composer. Firstly, an original musical style with its
‘generative qualities’ that remained relevant as a cultural heritage up and until the
times of musical Modernism. Secondly, the multi-layered premises of “national
style”, based not only on outmoded gestures of national dance, but also deeper
musical-grammatical, symbolic and semantic meanings. No Polish musician of
the second half of the 19th century nor of the later modernism proved able to
carry on that heritage. Therefore, I beg to differ with Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s
statement that “Chopin organically belongs to the history of Polish music”,211 in
that both before and after Chopin, Polish music was strongly dependent on the
musical culture of Germany. At the end of the 1830s, Chopin’s original style of
composition broke that chain of one-directional dependence.
211 Mieczysław Tomaszewski, Chopin. Człowiek, dzieło, rezonans [Chopin. The Man, his
Work, its Resonance] (Poznań: Podsiedlik, Raniowski i Spółka, 1998), 801.
106
8
Imaginatio Crucis in the Last Song Melodia?
It was probably Bernard Jacobson who first pointed out the existence of mu-
sical symbolism in Chopin’s works. In his analysis of The Ring song he wrote:
“Musical symbolism is always a subjective matter, but it is hard not to detect it
in the morbid involution of this song’s melody, which inevitably suggests the
circularity of a ring”.212 If we agree with Jacobson that the melody of The Ring
– as write Krystyna Tarnawska-Kaczorowska in her valuable monograph of the
genre – “insistently twists, turns and rings”,213 we may not exclude that Chopin
‘encoded’ determined extramusical content through sound symbolism not only
in this song, but in the entire genre. The existence of perceptibly obvious, al-
most banal musical correlates of categories of ‘locality’ or ‘Polishness’, evoking
national folklore in such songs as Drinking Song, The Messenger, Lithuanian Song
or Leaves are Falling would confirm the premise that the literary text sometimes
inspired the composer, who was usually so reluctant to reveal his own emotions,
to step outside the circle of Romantic absolute music, with all its consequences.
Let us now focus on the old music-rhetorical figure called imaginatio crucis.
This figure, as we know, consists of a four-note imagination of the lying cross,
clearly prefigured by symbols of musical notation. Can the interpretation of this
figure – undoubtedly characterised by semantic heteronomy – in the works of
Bach and Chopin enter the area of external work interpretation? For reasons
obvious to any music historian, the analytical interpretation of this figure in
an organ chorale by J. S. Bach constitutes an internal interpretation, in that not
only Baroque aesthetics, but also the process of musical communication in Bar
oque times focused on the expression of affects through the use of determined
This chapter was published formerly in my book Spór o granice poznania dzieła
muzycznego [Musical Work Analysis. An Epistemological Debate] (Wrocław: Wy-
dawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2003), 213-222.
212 Bernard Jacobson, “The Songs”, in The Chopin Companion. Profiles of the Man and
the Musician, ed. Allan Walker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1973), 201.
213 Krystyna Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, “Pieśni Fryderyka Chopina” [The Songs of Fry-
deryk Chopin], Rocznik Chopinowski 19 (1987), 275.
107
rhetorical figures, pervasively acting on the listener.214 Despite the fact that imagi
natio crucis would only be apparent in the notational form of the work, the
sound shape of this simple figure would also be fairly unambiguous in auditive
perception (see Example 8.1.). But can we speak of this figure in the case of some
works by Chopin? At the end of his book, Jasiński prospects such an interpret
ation, showing the first four notes of the Polonaise in F sharp Minor op. 44 as an
incarnation – in the author’s view – of this old figure.215
Example 8.1. Chopin, imaginatio crucis in Polonaise in F sharpMinor op. 44, mm. 1–2.
Let us discuss the pros and cons of this interpretation. Firstly, if we accept that
some traditional topics function in modern musical culture in undisclosed ways,
and if for obvious reasons we presume that the soteriological ‘cross motive’ may
appear as an aesthetically significant sound figure also in instrumental music,
unsupported by the semantics of an accompanying text, and then only at the
beginning or end of the piece (or in other particularly important moments of
the musical form, i.e. as an gesture exceptional not only by the movement of its
intervals but also its position in the work), then we can assume that an imagina-
tio crucis in Chopin’s works, if it is to be emblematic, needs also to be locational,
just as the position of the cross sign in a prayer. It needs also to be a – to quote
Maria Poprzęcka – purely spatial, ‘painting-like’ motive, showing its object hic
et nunc in a descriptive, not narrative way.216 Hence the assumption that all such
figures need to be arbitrarily identified wherever they stem from other (i.e., in-
significant from our point of view) moments of the work, on which basis we as-
sign them any semantic-aesthetic meaning. A short look at any page of Chopin’s
(1995), 51-73.
215 Ibid.,73.
216 Maria Poprzęcka, Czas wyobrażony. O sposobach opowiadania w polskim malarstwie
XIX wieku [The Time Imagined: Forms of Narration in the XIXth century Polish
Painting] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego), 75.
108
etudes or nocturnes will suffice to show that this figure is a ubiquitous unit of
musical syntax.
Secondly, we would need to apriorically exclude from our reflection those
‘representations of the cross’ in Chopin works that act both emblematically and
locally (i.e. also from the beginnings and endings of works) which either through
their musical pregnancy or musical-expressive meaning of the work do not sat-
isfy the condition of perceptive graspability of the sound figure in discussion
(i.e. when this gesture can only be evident in reading the musical notation). The
cross gesture may not play its role in molto vivace tempo (as at the beginning of
the second movement of the Sonata in B Minor op. 58) nor can it ask its rhet
orical question marks in presto con fuoco (beginning of Scherzo in C sharp Minor
op. 39), nor can it be directly based on an extremely dissonant diabolus in musica
(beginning of Prelude in F Minor op. 28 no. 18), nor, finally, can it swing in the
rhythm of a drawing-room waltz (beginning of Waltz in A flat Major op. 42).
Due to their musical sense, the interpretation of these musical figures from our
perspective may only lead to plain interpretative abuse. It needs also be said that
these four examples are all the incidental occurrences of this pitch figure in the
works of Chopin (excluding the genres that I will discuss now).
When we look at Chopin’s scores in search of the motive identified by Jasiński,
we may reach the conclusion that there might be a generic genre criterion for the
composer in the use of the cross figure. It appears often in mazurkas, polonaises,
songs, and also in the Fantasy on Polish themes op. 13 and the Rondo à la krako
wiak op. 14. In this case, therefore, the generic criterion would be Chopin’s inten-
tion to refer to Polish musical tradition. The imaginatio crucis opens and closes
two very similar beginnings of early mazurkas: in A flat Major WN 45 and in C
Major [op. 67 no. 3] WN 48,217 and similarly the beginnings and ends – again
very similar between them – of two late mazurkas: in A Minor op. 59 no. 1 and
in C sharp Minor op. 63 no. 3. Although already Chopin’s childhood Polonaise in
G Minor opens with a cross figure,218 in this case its purely harmonic sense does
not allow for a cross interpretation. But in the polonaises in E flat Minor op. 26,
no. 2 and in F sharp Minor op. 44 the motivic figure representing a cross opens
and closes both works, and it is also present at the beginnings of the Fantasy on
Polish themes op. 13 and the Rondo à la krakowiak op. 14.
The issue would remain a more or less striking hypothesis had Chopin not
composed songs, and with them, had he not created an interpretative temptation
217 Ibid., no. 3.

218 Ibid., no. 161.
109
of looking at the sound contexts in which the word cross is involved. It appears
twice in the texts of Chopin’s songs: firstly in Poseł [The Messenger] to words by
Stefan Witwicki, composed in 1830 while Chopin was still in Warsaw, where on
the word cross the imaginatio crucis figure is already present, if veiled (Example
8.2.). The verses of Witwicki’s poem are:
Poszła za żołnierza, tę rzuciła chatkę,
koło tego krzyża pożegnała matkę.
[She married a soldier, abandoned her hut,

next to this cross she bid farewell to her mother].
Example 8.2. Chopin, imagionatio crucis in Poseł [The Messenger], mm. 69–70.
The other song in which the word cross appears was composed to a short excerpt
of Zygmunt Krasiński poem Ostatni [The Last One] from 1847, undoubtedly
Chopin’s most genial song – Melodia [The Melody]. The text used by Chopin is
a seven-verse motto of Krasiński’s poem, speaking of the experience of a Polish
patriot, imprisoned in a casemate in deep Russia for his conspirational activities.
Z gór, gdzie dźwigali strasznych krzyżów brzemię

Widzieli z dala obiecaną ziemię –
Widzieli światło niebieskich promieni,
Ku którym, w dole, ciągnęło ich plemię.
A sami do tych nie wejdą przestrzeni,
Do godów życia nigdy nie zasiędą
I może nawet – zapomnieni będą!
[From mountains, where they carried the terrible burden of crosses,

They saw from a distance the promised land
They saw the light of blue rays,
To which, in the valley, their tribe was aiming.
And they would not reach this space,
Would never sit to life’s merriness!
And perhaps even – will be forgotten!]
110
Several spheres of inspiration can be identified for this unique Chopin song:
the patriotic tradition of Polish messianism and the existential condition of the
composer himself in his last years. Chopin, as other romantics who died young,
dies because he started to feel “somehow dead for this world; he feels that life
is like being dead while still living” – writes Maria Piotrowska.219 This tragic
trait of Chopin’s last song was much more evident in the nineteenth century,
during the first stage of reception of Chopin’s works. Ten years after his death,
the eminent musician and music critic Józef Sikorski wrote thus about Melodia:
“In this song, Chopin sang to mankind about disappointed hopes, including his
own ones, and in the song’s mood we hear a heavy anxiety and despair. Together
with the poet, he mounted the chariot of pain and rose above the level of low-
sounding restrained despair; he sang the tomb hymn of martyrs of idea and
heart – or maybe both”.220
In this masterly composition, the heavily ill Chopin’s last song, the imaginatio
crucis – not on the word crosses itself but in other significant moments of musical
form, as in the case of his instrumental works – appears incessantly: not only in
the initial and final accompaniment figure, but also six times in different textures
in the solo part, in bars 10, 25/26, 29/30, 33/34, 35 and – the only time in the
same original shape as in the initial figure – in bar 44 (Example 8.3.). It is hard
to resist a symbolic association with this number, just as for the opus number of
the Polonaise in F sharp Minor. Is the crude appearance of the musical represen-
tation of the cross in bar number ‘forty-four’ a pure coincidence? Do we have to
do here with a conscious ‘coding’ of cross symbolism? There can be no unambigu
ous answers to these crucial questions.
Example 8.3. Chopin, imaginatio crucis in Melodia [Melody], m. 44.
219 Maria Piotrowska, 2000. “Late Chopin”, Polish Music Journal 3 (2000), no. 1, http://
www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/3.1.00/piotrowska.html
220 Józef Sikorski, “Fryderyka Chopina zbiór śpiewów polskich z towarzyszeniem forte-
pianu ułożony z rękopismów oryginalnych i wydany przez J. Fontanę”, Ruch Muzycz-
ny 3 (1859), no. 40, 355. Quoted after Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, “Pieśni Fryderyka
Chopina”, 271.
111
The messianic message of Krasiński’s poem Ostatni would support such an in-
terpretation, at least in this significant section, which although it was not used
in the text of Chopin’s song, must have strongly acted on the imagination of the
ill and lonely composer:
A my, Polacy – my dobrze wiedzieli,
Że tą postacią powtórną Mesjasza,
Nikt inny, jeno święta Polska nasza.
[And we, the Poles – we knew well,
That behind this second form of Messiah
There stands nobody else but our saint Poland.]
The sound imaginatio crucis would therefore be an emblem of the ‘martyrs

of idea’, and its location in crudo in bar ‘forty-four’ an expression of Chopin’s
messianic feelings, which were widespread in the milieu of Polish émigrés in
Paris. An indirect evidence of the implied meaning in this song is the allusion
(quasi-quotation, as Maria Piotrowska calls it)221 in the piano introduction of
Melodia to the instrumental introduction to the prisoner’s choir in the finale
of Act 1 of Beethoven’s Fidelio.
The second issue is the rather mysterious musical style of this Chopin song.
The genre issues of Romantic through-composed song are so obvious that they
need not be discussed here, particularly since they have little importance to our
discussion. In her essay on Chopin’s late output, Maria Piotrowska wrote ambigu
ously of the musical language of this song as “lacking any melodic charm”.222
Although she did not present an explicit aesthetic assessment of the work, Pio
trowska surely did not mean any ‘normal’ weakness of the song’s melodic line,
but rather its parsimonious expression, corresponding with what she called,
after Richard Hamann, “the impressionism of the late style”.223 If I am correct in
understanding Piotrowska’s intentions, this term refers to the particular shape
of the musical texture of Melodia – both restrained and allusive, sensitive and
as if sketchy, dramatic but avoiding the energetic formal climaxes typical of Ro-
mantic song.
In the song’s last section (from bar 25), reinforced by the dramatic character of
the last three verses (“But they alone could not enter this realm”), Chopin seems
to refer more decisively, although perhaps subconsciously, to the Baroque recita-
tive style (recitativo secco) when on the background of a very sparing, ‘skeletal’
221 Maria Piotrowska, “Late Chopin”.

222 Ibid.
223 Ibid.
112
accompaniment he sets a dramatic recitative that in its narrative tone recalls the
texture of the recitatives in Bach’s passions, with the characteristic harmonic in
ganno reinforcing the dramatic narrative (bars 32, 37, 39). Here again, such an
interpretation would be reinforced by the fact that the G-F#-A-G motive in bar
‘forty-four’ is nearly identical to the B-A-C-H musical anagram motive (which is
also an representation of the cross). In referring indirectly to the recitativo secco
idiom from Bach’s passions in this very song, Chopin perfectly inscribes this gen
eric passion idiom (of the Passion of Christ) in the literary idea of messianism
as developed in Krasiński’s text.
In my proposed interpretation, hidden Baroque affinities and perhaps sub-
conscious projections of Bach’s passion narratives are obviously not a mu
sical goal in themselves, but a coded (‘conspired’) expression – masked by the
idiom of through-composed Romantic song – of the ideological message of
this song: Polish messianism. These ideas, probably awakened by readings of
Part 3 of Mickiewicz’s Dziady [The Forefathers’ Eve] and Krasiński’s Ostatni
(1847), must have been close to Chopin as they were a particularly vivid in-
tellectual current in the milieu of Polish émigrés in Paris in the 1840s, when
Krasiński’s poem and the Melodia song were created. The socio-historical ar-
gument would also support the messianic (soteriological) interpretation of
this song.
In the case in discussion, the interpretation of imaginatio crucis belongs not
only to external interpretation, but may be based on both socio-historical and
ideological-religious arguments. From the point of view of the former, there is
no obvious source evidence that would sanction the presence of this figure in
Chopin’s output as a relevant means of musical expression. The authority of ex-
ternal interpretation is determined by correct reference to the work’s historical
context, although unconfirmed references of this sort will never be decisive in
this regard. We cannot exclude extreme theories saying that even in the Baroque
context of affect expression, Bach himself might have used this rhetorical-musical
figure subconsciously, using a gesture that was strongly inscribed in the music
aesthetics of his time. Similarly, when Chopin played the Fugue in C sharp Minor
from the Book 1 of The Well-tempered Clavier, which he did often, he might
have referred quite consciously to its initial figure in his Polonaise in F sharp
Minor, although that is unlikely. The frequent use of psychological perspective
can lead to erroneous speculation.
On the other hand, do the occurrences of imaginatio crucis observed in Cho-
pin’s works authorise an eschatological interpretation? The followers of this the-
ory quote thought-provoking excerpts from Chopin’s letters. But the doubts that
Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht expressed with regard to Goldschmidt’s analysis of
113
imaginatio amicitiae in Beethoven224 remain equally valid in our case. A ‘lack
of scientific link’ between analysis and external interpretation leads to the con-
clusion that the disclosing of ‘content settled in music’ belongs to a different
methodological sphere than the discovery of ‘musical meanings’ and requires,
as has been said before, a clear methodological declaration. There is, therefore,
a strategic demarcation line between internal and external interpretation: a bor-
derline between the cognition of those musical qualities that analysis can grasp
in the abstract language of music theory, and the content that – to use the lan-
guage of hermeneutics – can be authoritatively understood as the author wanted
it (genau-so-gut-Verstehen), because only in this case can we speak of correct and
not erroneous interpretation of content.
The important issue is not only that there is no ‘scientific link’ between the
grasping of musical meaning and the interpretation of extramusical content.
Today, after the publications of Constantin Floros,225 this lack is less of a problem,
because we assume that from within the wide area of aesthetic interpretation
of the musical work, only that ‘exegetic fragment’ can be integrated with work
analysis that can authoritatively be called a disclosure of intended content of the
work. The more interpretation can be anchored in the biographical and source
context of the work in question, the greater the level of its authority. Content
that cannot satisfy this condition transcends the cognitive order of work analysis
and interpretation, falling outside the art of interpretation, and leads, depend-
ing on the musicologist’s humanities orientation, to free exegesis or reflective
hermeneutics.
224 Harry Goldschmidt, “Zur Methodologie der musikalischen Analyse”, Beiträge für
Musikforschung (1961), no. 4. Quoted after Hans-Heinrich Eggebrecht, “Uwagi o
metodzie analizy muzycznej”, Res facta 7 (1973), 47.
225 Constantin Floros, Brahms und Bruckner. Studien zur musikalischen Exegetik (Wies-
baden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1980).
114
9
Polonaise: The Riddle of its Melodic Figure
In this chapter I wish to go back to traditional methods of musical work ana

lysis and symbolic interpretation, which were later negated by positivist science.
The approach I shall embrace today has so much methodological precedence
that there is no need to recall it comprehensively. Suffice it to mention Arnold
Schering’s ‘deciphering’ of a musical work’s content, or the exegesis of nineteenth-
century symphonies as performed by Constantin Floros. Yet in contrast to
the music of Beethoven or Mahler that was analysed by the above-mentioned
scholars, the output of Fryderyk Chopin has rarely been the subject of symbolic
interpretation throughout its critical history. Whatever efforts were undertaken
in that direction are worthy of mention, therefore, because of their focus on some
forgotten aspects vital to our understanding of the national message of Chopin’s
sound aesthetics.
Throughout the twentieth century, the works of Chopin have been subjected
to so many different analyses by such a wide number of scholars in a multitude
of analytical and interpretative essays that the real challenge now resides in de-
fining a new, hitherto unknown object of further research. It is my aim today to
define precisely such a sound object. In the musical language of the composer’s
Polonaises, there exists a figure that constitutes one of the most striking riddles
that I have encountered in my scholarly career. As we know, Chopin was a master
of perfecting minute musical details. He delighted in this kind of finishing work
on a daily basis – both as a composer and teacher – much more than he did in
drawing large formal structures. For this reason, research on Chopin’s musical
details has attracted a number of various authors, although more often from the
point of view of purely musical morphology that the works’ symbolic content.226
The article Fryderyk Chopin’s Polonaise. The Riddle of its Melodic Figure was first
published in Journal of Music and Theory 15 (2010), 11-40.
226 Ludwik Bronarski was the first to advocate the concept of the ‘Chopin chord’, and
despite the objections that were raised immediately after he communicated his
discovery, the ‘Chopin chord’ has permanently entered the analytical discourse.
See Ludwik Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina [Chopin’s Harmony] (Warszawa:
115
The other tradition of looking at musical detail is related to the phenomenolo
gical heritage of Mersmann’s Substanzgemeinschaft, encouraging the search for
‘generative qualities’ in the structures of Chopin’s works. These qualities are seen
as motivic generators of thematic processes and serve as an integrating element
of musical form.227 Here we enter an area that has since many decades (although
not that frequently) hosted some interesting if peripheral approaches to Chopin’s
work from the point of view of analytical details, with the effort of transcending
the latter’s morphological limitations. These approaches have in common an as-
sumption (often unconscious and implicit, as it is in essence a paradox) that “the
details show more.”228 Such interpretations were once related to musical psycho-
analysis, and more recently to gender music studies.229
Towarzystwo Wydawnicze Muzyki Polskiej, 1935), 107–121. The ‘Tristan chord’ has
also been observed in Chopin’s works; see chapter 6 in this book.
227 This tradition of looking at musical details was initiated by Józef M. Chomiński in
his monographic work on Chopin’s Preludes. Chomiński indicated that most prel
udes in Chopin’s cycle are governed by a distinctive trichord (pendulum motif): see
Józef M. Chomiński, Preludia (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1950),
300–310. A similar approach is adopted in: Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, “Twenty-four
Preludes op. 28: genre, structure, significance”, in Chopin Studies, ed. Jim Samson
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 167–193. Another book on hid-
den tectonic and kinetic qualities in the genres Chopin used throughout his creative
life is: Andrzej Tuchowski, Integracja strukturalna w świetle przemian stylu Chopina
[Structural Coherence in the Light of Transformational Changes of Chopin’s Style]
(Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 1996).
228 In the field of arts sciences, this paradox is not an isolated one. The Italian art histor
ian Giovanni Morelli argued that in uncontrolled (unconscious) details, the artist
“is himself to a greater degree” than in consciously controlled thematic discourses,
large narratives or main genre, constructive and formal parameters. “Morelli cher-
ishes the authentic fragment as a trace of the ‘lost original’. Consciously or not, his
analyses somewhat embarrassingly suggest to the reader that a great masterpiece
must be at the same time solid and fragile. […] We must also remember that Morelli
was born in 1816 and that his cult of the fragment as the artist’s true signature is a
well-known Romantic heresy”. Edgar Wind, “Critique of Connoisseurship”, in Art
and Anarchy (London: Faber, 1963), 32–51.
229 According to music psychologists, composers can widely differ in this aspect. Some
(allegedly the more ‘masculine’ ones) focus on form while others (more ‘feminine’)
seek comfort in detail. This is of course a much-simplified summary of the discus-
sion that went on in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1947, where Margaret Tilly
cited the example of Chopin as a composer in whose work the anima as the fem-
inine element dominated. According to this psychological interpretation, Chopin
was of feminine nature, which has been, as we all know, a variously convincing but
116
Some symbols and archetypes are more relevant to some Chopin genres than to
others, and one obvious area of analytical interest in that regard is the polonaise.
No other genre referred so directly to the history of Polish culture and offered a
more compelling vision of Poland’s past; a country, let us remember, that did not
formally exist on the map of Europe at the time of Chopin. This very genre, whose
origins in European music go back to the second half of the sixteenth century, be-
came for Polish composers a sort of depository of national memory: in the nine-
teenth century the polonaise (and so implicitly ‘Polish’) dance evoked images of
the nation’s twisted destiny, while in its choreotechnical parameters it referred to
the deeply rooted Polish ‘choreokinesis’230 and metaphorically depicted the Poles’
specific gestures and rhythms. Eminent Polish poet Cyprian Kamil Norwid wrote
about the polonaise: “It is the creation not of one single element, but a complete
national evocation, spanning from the religious rhythm to the emulation of an-
cient choirs and triumphs […]. As a serious dance the polonaise has the same
value and occupied the same position with the Poles as the epic poetry did with
the ancient Greeks.”231 The polonaise also features prominently in the twelfth book
of Poland’s national epic poem, Pan Tadeusz [Sir Thaddeus] by Adam Mickiewicz:
For the polonaise now – so the Chamberlain leaves
His seat, tossing back lightly his kontusz’s sleeves,
And, twirling his moustache, he to Zosia advanced;
With a fine bow, invites her to lead off the dance.
In the Chamberlain’s train soon a chain of pairs gathers,
The sign’s given for dancing – he leads all the others.232
consistently recurrent theme in the Chopin literature since its beginnings. See Marga-
ret Tilly, “The Psychoanalytical Approach to the Masculine and Feminine Principles in
Music”, American Journal in Psychiatry 103 (1947). This aspect has been addressed by
Jeffrey Kallberg, Chopin at the Boundaries. Sex, History and Musical Genre (Harvard:
Harvard University Press, 1996), and lately by Wojciech Bońkowski, Dziewiętnasto
wieczne edycje dzieł Fryderyka Chopina jako aspekt historii recepcji [Nineteenth-
century Editions of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin as an Aspect of Reception History]
(Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2009), 222–240.
230 When holding a seminar on Chopin’s music at the Institute of Musicology of the Jo-
hannes Gutenberg Universität in Mainz in 2001, I was surprised to notice that none
of my students could repeat the polonaise step that seems fairly simple to Poles.
231 Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Pisma wszystkie [Complete Works], 8 vols., ed. Juliusz W.
Gomulicki (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1971), 6: 387; note on the
polonaise in his Tańce polskie [Polish Dances].
232 Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz: or the Last Foray in Lithuania: a Tale of the Gentry
During 1811–1812, Book 12, trans. Marcel Weyland (Blackheath 2004), 762–767.
117
The polonaise is, finally, where the oldest characteristics of Polish music tradition
are perpetrated. As observed by Karol Hławiczka, that most ancient Polish char-
acteristic in music is the ionicus minor rhythmic archetype: the Ionian rhythm
(two quavers followed by two crotchets) that also lies at the base of the mazur,
kujawiak and oberek dances.233 The polonaise, therefore, is not only one of the
key genres in the output of Chopin, characterised by specific choreotechnic pa-
rameters, but also the area of the most intense manifestation of Polish musical
and national tradition. It is evident that musical symbolism used in polonaises
cannot be casual. The symbolising processes in the polonaise are operated on a
larger scale than in the mazurkas, which refer to the folk (plebeian) tradition.
As a court dance, the polonaise was undoubtedly an emanation of Polish aristo-
cratic tradition.
We know from the latest research of Krzysztof Bilica that Chopin “adopted the
typical cadential closure of Polish national chant in his own output […]. Though
they are all different, Chopin’s closures all resonate with Polish character and
pulsate according to the rhythm of Polishness.”234 In my current chapter, I shall
look not at closures but at the striking way in which Chopin initiated his musical
narratives in a genre that he used throughout his life: the polonaise. In all of Cho-
pin’s published polonaises the music opens with a characteristic tetrachord. This
four-note melodic figure possesses a distinctive feature: two crossing imaginary
lines connecting the first and fourth note and the second and third note create a
crux dissimulata: a “symbolic sign known to most cultures since the most ancient
233 Karol Hławiczka, “Ze studiów nad stylem polskim w muzyce” [Studies on the Polish
Musical Style], Muzyka 5 (1960) no. 4, 43-69. The key dissertation on this topic
is Zofia Lissa, “Problemy polskiego stylu narodowego w twórczości Chopina” [Is-
sues of the Polish National Style in the Works of Chopin], in Studia nad twórczością
Fryderyka Chopina [Studies on the Work of Fryderyk Chopin] (Kraków: Polskie
Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1969), 1-103. See also numerous writings by Anna Cze-
kanowska who followed Zofia Lissa in emphasising the national style in Polish mu-
sic: e.g. Studien zum Nationalstil der polnischen Musik (Regensburg: Bosse, 1990);
“Do dyskusji o stylu narodowym” [A Voice in the Discussion on the National Style],
Muzyka 35 (1990) no. 1, 3-17; and Dziedzictwo europejskie a polska kultura muzyczna
w dobie przemian. Studia pod redakcją Anny Czekanowskiej [European Heritage
and the Polish Musical Culture in a Time of Change. Studies edited by Anna Cze-
kanowska] (Kraków: Musica Iagelonica, 1995).
234 Krzysztof Bilica, “Melos polski u Chopina” [The Polish Melos in Chopin], in: Wokół
Chopina i Polski [Around Chopin and Poland] (Wołomin: Wydawnictwo Polskie,
2005), 146. Bilica calls this cadential type ‘Polish’.
118
times.”235 In this graphic representation, it becomes a crux decussata, well-known
in Christian iconography; originating with the Roman numeral X – decem (ten)
and the Greek letter X (chi),236 it is also known as the St. Andrew’s cross (saltire).
“Its symbolic content is of ancient origins and very extensive, as well as its apo
tropaic meaning”237; as such, it is a reflection of spiritual reality (“what is percep-
tible to the senses is the reflection of what is intelligible to the mind”; “what is
below is like what is above, what is above is like what is below”; “what is within
is also without”).238
However, the ambiguity of the cross as a symbol results from its universality.
“It is clear that all basic notions, whether they are ideas or signs, have come
about without the prompting of any cultural influence.”239 On the other hand,
crosses, figures and chapels constitute “one of the most characteristics elements
of the man-shaped landscape of the Polish countryside”,240 and the ubiquity of
the imaginatio crucis in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European music is
related to the Baroque theory of rhetorical figures in music. Here is a reproduc-
tion of a lesser-known entry in the autograph book of Christoph Bremer, written
by Elias Hieronymus Heen from Prague, the main organist and Kapellmeister
of the Wrocław (Breslau) cathedral: a four-voice composition in which the au-
thor used the words of Ignatius of Loyola Amor meus Crucifixus est (My Love is
crucified).241
Let us go back to Chopin. In his polonaises, the above-mentioned tetra-
chordal figure is sometimes used more explicitly (Polonaises op. 26, Polonaise
in F sharp Minor op. 44, in A flat Major op. 53), and sometimes more hidden
(Polonaises op. 40, Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat Major op. 61). We can deduce
that the figure’s appearance in the opening of all polonaises representing the
235 Władysław Kopaliński, Słownik mitów i tradycji kultury [A Dictionary of Myths and
Cultural Traditions] (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1987), 553.
236 Stanisław Kobielus, Krzyż Chrystusa. Od znaku i figury do symbolu i metafory
[Christ’s Cross. From Sign to Symbol and Metaphor] (Warszawa: Pax, 2000), 146–8.
237 Ibid., 148.
238 Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage (New York: Routledge &
Kegan, 1971), xvi.
239 Ibid., 70.
240 Ewa Fryś-Pietraszkowa, Anna Kunczyńska-Iracka, and Marian Pokropek, Sztuka
ludowa w Polsce [Folk Art in Poland] (Warszawa: Arkady, 1991), 178.
241 Entry in the Stammbuch (autograph book) of Christoph Bremer, teacher at the
Wrocław (Breslau) St. Elisabeth Gymnasium and cantor at the St. Christopher
church (Wrocław University Library, Ms. Akc. 1949/1057 AB. saec. XVII; chart.;
ff. 398). I am indebted to Dr. Tomasz Jeż for drawing my attention to this source.
119
Example 9.1. Elias Hieronymus Heen, Amor meus Crucifixus est, 17. Century.
mature stage of the genre’s evolution in Chopin’s creation has a distinctly sym-
bolic function, since according to rules governing the world of archetypes and
symbols, “everything is serial; series are related one to another as to position,
and the components of each series are related as to meaning.”242 This serial
characteristic “is a basic phenomenon which is as true of the physical world
(in its range of colours, of sounds, of textures, of landscapes, etc.) as of the
spiritual world (in its virtues, vices, humours, feelings, etc.).243 The sound fig-
ure of interest to us here also performs a natural structural and formal func-
tion, but only inasmuch as it is located as an opening motive. It should not be
analysed in separation from the structure of the introduction or a polonaise’s
main theme, because it is integrated with those entities. To attribute a consti-
tutive characteristic to this figure from the purely musical point of view would
be to abstract it from its context. Yet this figure only appears in the open-
ings of Chopin’s polonaises. By virtue of serialism, it does not appear in other
published genre cycles by the composer: the preludes, nocturnes, mazurkas,
sonatas, rondos, impromptus or songs. Regardless of my eventual answer as
242 Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, xxxvi.

243 Ibid.
120
to ‘why’ this specific initial figure is consistently used in this specific genre
by Chopin, the striking nature of the very phenomenon calls for attention:
analytically straightforward (though no earlier study of the polonaises ob-
served the existence of these tetrachords), it is interpretatively a complex and
ambiguous matter.
Chopin’s graceful childhood polonaises – in B flat Major WN 1 and G
Minor WN 2 (both composed in 1817) – offer a first insight into the regular
use of the cross figure throughout the three decades of Chopin’s engagement
with the genre, spanning from 1817 to 1846, when he wrote his last – and epic,
not dance-like – Polonaise-Fantaisie op. 61. While in the Polonaise in G Minor
the cross-like tetrachord (G–F sharp–A–G) is presented straightforwardly, in
the Polonaise in B flat Major it is hidden in the arpeggiated octave figurations
in small note values (B flat–D–G–B flat). In the latter case, our mysterious
tetrachord does not simply appear in the work (i.e. in direct sound relation-
ships), but is manifested through something (a distinctive musical texture).
From the point of view of epistemology, we can define the former use as a
substance composed of several simple substances, i.e. pitches and intervals,
while the latter use as a latency,244 which we do not perceive directly as an ob-
ject of cognition but which is hidden in a series of semiquaver repetitions. Of
course, it is not a kind of latency that would require complicated interpretation
negotiation: it simply results from a textural reduction of the simple figure to
a pitch model.
Example 9.2. Chopin, Polonaise in G Minor WN 2, mm. 1–2.
244 I discuss the notion of latency more comprehensively in my book Musical Work
Analysis. An Epistemological Debate, trans. Wojciech Bońkowski (Frankfurt am
Main: Lang, 2008), 88–99.
121
Example 9.3. Chopin, Polonaise in B flat Major WN 1, mm. 1–2.
After the childhood polonaises, the cross figure is treated in a more elaborated
way for the first time in the Polonaise in G sharp Minor WN 5. Its way of pres
enting the initial tetrachord pre-announces the regular use made of this figure
in Chopin’s later, mature polonaises. Without recurring to more detailed analysis
I will simply mention that the imaginatio crucis also appears in Chopin’s other
youth polonaises: in D Minor op. 71 no. 1 (bars 1–2), B flat Major op. 71 no. 2
(bars 1–2), as well as the Introduction to the Polonaise brillante for piano and
cello op. 3 (bar 1).
Example 9.4. Chopin, Polonaise in G sharp Minor WN 5, mm. 1–2.
Example 9.5. Chopin, Polonaise in D Minor op. 71 no. 1, mm. 1–2.
122
Chopin’s childhood and youth polonaises in themselves are no evidence for the
rhetorical origin of the cross figure. At this early age, before he undertook any
deeper musical education, Chopin was certainly unfamiliar with the notion of
the imaginatio crucis. Perhaps he acted under the influence of a subconscious
impulse, quoting one of the figures found in Polish instrumental polonaises from
the eighteenth century (see e.g. the Polonaise in E flat Major of Józef Elsner, ca.
1805).
Chopin published his first set of two polonaises – in C sharp Minor and E flat
Minor – as his opus 26; both works were composed in the early summer of 1835.
In these ‘official’ works (e.g. intended for publication by the author himself) the
25-year-old Chopin chose to present the mysterious tetrachord in a direct, sub-
stantial way. In the Polonaise in C sharp Minor the motive (C sharp–E–B–E)
is created by distinctive, sharply accented quaver groups forming a brief intro-
duction to the work’s main theme. Five groups of notes – identically textured
– make up four tetrachords with various intervallic structures between adjacent
note pairs:
Example 9.6. Chopin, Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1, mm 1–2.
In the second work of this set, the Polonaise in E flat Minor, the B flat–C flat–
A–B flat appears in the somewhat lengthier introduction, in a low-register uni-
son, based on the tonic and repeated three times with changes (bars 1–8).245 The
way of presentation, therefore, is similar in both polonaises, and the formal func-
tion of the cross motive is nearly identical: an announcement or introduction to
the main theme.
245 A similar figure – but more anchored tonally – is to be found in the opening of two
other Chopin works composed some time later: the Scherzo in C sharp Minor op. 39
(1839) and the Scherzo in E Major op. 54 (1842–3).
123
Example 9.7. Chopin, Polonaise in E flat Minor op. 26 no. 2, mm. 1–2.
In terms not of sound but expression, the initial motive of the first polonaise
draws a distinctive figure, while that of the second work can be seen as an op-
posed expressive ‘counter-figure’ (Gegenfigur). This technique was used again
by Chopin to consolidate the two contrasting polonaises of opus 40. The figure
used in the Polonaise in C sharp Minor brings an obvious reminiscence of the
Old Polish ‘cross’ sword stroke, also called ‘windmill’. As we read in Book 12 of
Pan Tadeusz:
But then General Kniaziewicz, the tallest man there,

Showed that no arm with his arm in strength could compare;
He the sword, like an epée, grasped lightly and raised,
Over heads of the guests like a lightning-flash blazed,
Showed the old Polish tricks of the science of fence:
The ‘cross-stroke’, the ‘slash’, ‘parry’, the ‘windmill’ defence,
The ‘sly thrust’ […].246
Kazimierz Władysław Wójcicki, a Warsaw historian from the nineteenth cen-

tury, expert of Sarmatian (Old Polish) customs and a commentator on Chopin’s
early career before his departure for Paris, wrote about the ‘windmill stroke’ in
his 1843 book:
“In sword mastery, the Hussars were second to none […]; when two comrades
made a Windmill [author’s emphasis], they stood back to back, striking blow to
all sides, allowing them to defend and retreat through a crowd of enemies. Many
times they have given proof of that at various drinking sessions, and although
there was no shortage of firearms, the only sparks came from blades, as Poles
always thought it cowardice to defeat an enemy by treason or ruse. Against a
246 Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz, Book 12, 314–318.
124
blade, they would use a blade, and so there was more sword slashing and injury
than murder.”247
A unique etymological derivation can be found in the Writings (1862) of
Adam Mickiewicz himself. He indicates the origin of the Polish word żgać (mod-
ern dźgać: to thrust) in żegnać się (to cross oneself). In this interpretation of the
‘cross-stroke’, Mickiewicz builds a religious context of the Old Polish fencing art:
“This word did not originally refer to the sign of the cross. Żegnać was equiva
lent to ‘cast away’ and meant the same as żgać: to shoo with a stroke of the
hand suggesting a sword stroke. With the adoption of the Christian faith, the
same cross sign of consecration served also as a shooing gesture against enemies.
Hence the expression ‘cross-stroke’ and ‘strike a cross-blow’.”248
Henryk Rzewuski in his novel Zaporożec [The Zaporozhian, 1854] also linked
the ‘cross-stroke’ with archaic religious origins, though less directly than Mic
kiewicz.249 One of the novel’s protagonists, a Kossack Yesaul, asked his master
before a death duel in which he was a second:
“– But do you know how to use the blade? Because among Poles, each noble-
man is a swordmaster, and even their children play with riding crops. You will
see that he will beat the hell out of you.
– Just make him appear before me. He can assault me with his cross-blow, and
his windmill, and I will fight my way. Who did wrong to an innocent, will not
have God on his side.”250
The ‘cross-stroke’ so typical of the Polish fencing art was gradually superseded
by new techniques and as mentioned by Zygmunt Gloger in 1901, “today the
247 Obrazy starodawne napisał Kaź[imierz] Wł[adysław] Wójcicki z drzeworytami Win

centego Smokowskiego [Ancient Images. Written by Kazimierz Władysław Wójcicki
with Lithographies by Wincenty Smokowski] (Warszawa: Sennewald, 1843), 55.
248 Pisma Adama Mickiewicza. Nowe wydanie zupełne [The Writings of Adam
Mickiewicz. New Complete Edition], 6 vols., (Leipzig: F.F. Brockhaus, 1862), 5: 71.
249 At the beginning of the twentieth century, the combination of fencing and religious
meanings of the ‘cross-stroke’ slowly eroded. Zygmunt Gloger wrote: “The cross-
stroke in fencing with curved blades did not take its name […] from the swordsmen
making the sign of the cross before combat, on the ground or in the air, but because
strokes and defenses combines in the shape of the cross. Poles reached such mastery
in using the curved blade that no other nation could equal them”. Zygmunt Gloger,
Encyklopedia staropolska [Old Polish Encyclopedia], 4 vols. (Warszawa: Laskauer,
1902), 3: 108.
250 [Henryk Rzewuski], Zaporożec. Powieść przez Autora Listopada [The Zaporozhian.
A Novel by the Author of “November”], 4 vols. (Warszawa: Unger, 1854), 2: 28.
125
tradition of the cross-stroke, which used to be well-known by Polish officers
under the Duchy of Warsaw, has become lost.”251
Chopin’s next pair of polonaises was composed between 1838 (Polonaise in
A Major) and 1839 (in C Minor). Compared to the previous set, the composer
changed his presentation strategy of the initial motive. While the intervallic
structure of the tetrachord remains similar, it is now hidden in the piano writing.
In the Polonaise No. 1 in A Major the ascending tetrachord links the first and
last group of quavers (bars 1–2) and is based on the tonic chord material (A–E–C
sharp–A). In the Polonaise No. 2 in C Minor, on the other hand, the similarly
shaped ascending figure (C–G–E flat–D), also based on the tonic chord, is dis-
tributed among the entire register. Its melodic and tonal morphology is almost
identical to the Polonaise in A Major, although from the expressive point of view,
as mentioned above, it is in fact a ‘counter-figure’.
Example 9.8. Chopin, Polonaise in A Major op. 40 no. 1, mm. 1–2.
251 Gloger, Encyklopedia staropolska, 108. Another nineteenth-century historian, Le

onard Chodźko, author of a biography of General Kazimierz Pułaski, thus explained
the reasons of this fall in popularity: “Sulmirski, a tough fencer and old crook, started
mumbling that we don’t need all those German tricks and frills when we have our
cross-stroke and the good Old Polish thrust and kill [all author’s emphases], upon
which hearing Pułaski rebuked: The cross-stroke, my honourable friend, was good
in the old days, but now that our foes fence better than us, we need to learn their
secrets to match them in battle”. In: Żywot Kazimierza na Pułaziu Pułaskiego, Sta
rosty Zezulenieckiego, Marszałka Konfederacyi Łomżyńskiej, Regimentarza Mało-Pol
skiego, Jenerała w Wojsku Amerykańskim (1748 †1779) […] skreślił Leonard Chodźko
[Life of Kazimierz Pułaski, Starost of Zezulin, Marshal of the Łomża Confederation,
Lesser Poland Commander, General in the American Army (1748–79) […] written
by Leonard Chodźko] (Lwów: Mrówki, 1869), 149.
126
Example 9.9. Chopin, Polonaise in C Minor op. 40 no. 2, mm. 1–4.
While in the Polonaises op. 26, the cross figure constituted the main motive of a more
or less brief introduction, in the Polonaises op. 40 it becomes part of the main theme
material. Throughout both cycles, the tetrachordal figure is presented in a consistent
way and its perceptibility in the actual musical texture of the works is also similar.
The imaginatio crucis in both polonaises from op. 40 is reminiscent of a
figure that appears in the first bars of Karol Kurpiński’s song Warszawianka
[La Varsovienne] from 1831, which gained overnight popularity in nineteenth-
century Warsaw and was likely just as popular among Polish émigrés in Paris.
Written in the heat of the 1830 November Uprising in Warsaw, the French text
by Casimir François Delavigne was translated into Polish by Karol Stankiewicz
and almost immediately printed, becoming the Polish Marseillaise of the time.
The words of the refrain in the two languages are the following:
Hej, kto Polak, na bagnety!
Żyj, swobodo, Polsko, żyj!
Takim hasłem cnej podniety
Trąbo nasza wrogom grzmij!
Trąbo nasza wrogom grzmij!
[Polonais, à la baïonnette!
C’est le cri par nous adopté;
Qu’en roulant le tambour répète:
À la baïonnette!
Vive la liberté!]
The first performance of the song took place at the National Theatre on 5th April
1831 – Warsaw at that time was freed from Russian occupation. While unobvious
and despite their different metres (Warszawianka is a march), there is a subtle af-
finity between the themes of Chopin’s two polonaises and the main theme of this
leading patriotic song. The shaping of the imaginatio crucis figure after the tonic
chord, its hymn-like intonation, and its expression – solemn and patriotic in the Pol
lonaise No. 1 and elegiac-dramatic in the No. 2 (a ‘counter-figure’ similar to that used
127
in the preceding cycle) suggest that Chopin referred the entire opus 40 to the most
popular Polish patriotic song of the time. As far as the Polonaise No. 1 is concerned,
this affinity would be conjectural if the head motive of Polonaise in C Minor’s main
theme referred only to the cross motive only in pitch, in abstraction to other musical
characteristics. But the same rhythmic f igure of the Warszawianka is also used:
Example 9.10. Karol Kurpiński, Śpiew pod tytułem Warszawianka [A Song titled La
Varsovienne] (Warsaw 1831), mm. 1–4.
It is a well-known fact that Chopin was sensitive to Polish song. On Christmas

Day in 1830 the 20-year-old composer wrote from Vienna to his friend Jan Ma-
tuszyński in Warsaw: “If I could, I would touch all tones suggested to me by this
blind, furious feeling, in order to guess those songs whose shattered echoes still
resound on the banks of the Danube, where the army of John [III Sobieski] sang
them.”252 And at the end of his life, before Easter 1847, he wrote to his family in
Warsaw: “I did not want to dress for dinner, so I spent the evening at home, hum-
ming over tunes from the Wisła.”253 Those “tunes from the Vistula” mentioned
by Chopin were, supposedly, not folk melodies from Mazovia towards which he
kept an artistic distance, but national Polish chants which, as an everyday con
solation, accompanied Chopin throughout his life.
Chopin’s next work in the genre was the Polonaise in F sharp Minor op. 44,
composed soon after the opus 40, in 1841. With this polonaise, Chopin initi-
ated a process of generic hybridisation, leading to his later polonaises becoming
elaborated, epic narratives. The imaginatio crucis figure in the main motive of
this work was first observed by Tomasz Jasiński, whose study has inspired me to
address the mystery of the cross’s presence in Chopin’s polonaises – which, as it
turns out, is not an incidental one.254 I will return to Jasiński’s crucial hypothesis
252 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [The Letters of Fryderyk Chopin], 2 vols., ed. Bro-
nisław Edward Sydow (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1955), 1: 326.
253 Chopin’s Letters, collected by Henryk Opieński, trans. with a preface and editorial
notes by Ethel Lilian Voynich (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1931), 327.
(1995) no. 1, 51–73; Polska barokowa retoryka muzyczna [Polish Baroque Music
Rhetoric] (Lublin: Polihymnia, 2009), 112–116.
128
in a while. Taking a closer look at the initial tetrachord of the Polonaise in F
sharp Minor, its melodic and tonal shape are not determined by the tonic, as
in the Polonaises op. 40, but by the dominant. Moreover, the motive is not only
perceivable in the notational score but is given in the most direct way to auditive
perception: presented in unison with no harmonic context, similarly to the Pol
onaise in E flat Minor from op. 26, but without even the support of the tonic as
an additional (fifth, and so not belonging to the tetrachord) note, and later devel-
oped into a harmonically anchoring E flat–G flat–B flat triad. The main motive
of this Polonaise in F sharp Minor (D–C sharp–F sharp–E sharp) becomes, as
we know, the starting point of a dynamic crescendo from piano to fortissimo that
raises the tension before the exposition of the polonaise’s main theme and fills
out the eight bars of the introduction:
Example 9.11. Chopin, Polonaise in F sharp Minor op. 44, mm. 1–2.
It can be deduced that if Chopin used the cross figure in the openings of his pol
onaises from the earliest years of his composing career, he must have learned this
rhetoric figure from the music of his predecessors. This trope leads to two relevant
genres: the polonaises and masses of Józef Elsner, Chopin’s teacher. This trope
was first followed by Jasiński, with the obvious premise to analyse whether Elsner
used the cross figure consciously (e.g. on the words crux, crucifixus etc.). Jasiński
looked at two Latin masses by Elsner: Missa in F (more specifically the Credo)255
and Missa in C Major op. 22 (also the Credo),256 observing that the imaginatio
255 Józef Elsner, Missa F a Canto, Alto, Tenore, Basso, Due Violini, Viole, Bassi (Vio-
loncello et Basso), Due Clarinetti, Due Corni con Organo, ed. Hubert Prochota, in
Muzyka Jasnogórska. Musica Claromontana, vol. 3, ed. Remigiusz Pośpiech, Kraków
2005, pp. 80–81.
256 Manuscript of the score (composer’s autograph), held at the Archiwum Księży Mi
sjonarzy [Lazarites Archives] in Cracow, orig. cat. no. 551, current cat. no. 1033. See
Tomasz Jasiński, “‘Podniesienie krzyża’ w exordium Poloneza fis-moll op. 44 Fry-
deryka Chopina” [“The Raising of the Cross” in the Exordium of Fryderyk Chopin’s
129
crucis figure is employed precisely on the above-mentioned words.257 Following
on Jasiński’s trail, I shall add one more example from Elsner’s leading work: the:
Solemnis Coronationis Missa in C Major op. 51, where again in the Credo (Et in
carnatus est) on the word Crucifixus, the imaginatio crucis figure is used:258
Example 9.12. Józef Elsner, Solemnis Coronationis Missa in C Major op. 51, ca. 1829, Et
incarnatus est (Adagio), mm. 97–99.
From several dozen rhetorical figures used by Baroque Polish composers,

Jasiński quotes the imaginatio crucis describing it thus:
“[It is] a four-note melodic formula in which the imaginary lines linking the
first and fourth as well as the second and third note result in a cross-like shape.
This figure is used for illustrating and symbolically interpreting words that refer
to Christ’s Crucifixion.”259
Polonaise in F sharp Minor op. 44], Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska,

Sectio L: Artes, vol. 7 (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej,
2009), 51-76.
257 Jasiński justly remarks, “There can be no further doubt as that Elsner was well famil-
iar with the ancient sound interpretation related to the imaginatio crucis and used it
in his compositions. The identification of the ‘imagination of the cross’ in the music
of Chopin’s teacher is of great importance to our study. If Elsner inherited this ‘cross
figure’ from ancient tradition in its narrowest semantic function, it is very plausible
that he shared it – directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously – with his
congenial student. This hypothesis is by no mean subjective or unsubstantiated”.
Jasiński, ibid., 55-56.
258 Józef Elsner, Solemnis Coronationis Missa in C Major op. 51 for 4 solo voices, mixed
choir and orchestra (ca. 1829), ed. Maria Zduniak (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo
Muzyczne, 1995).
259 Jasiński, Polska barokowa retoryka muzyczna, 308.
130
Was this figure well-known? Was it perceived not only in score-reading (ad
oculos), but also auditively (ad aures) in those times? Jasiński writes:
“Emblematic sound representations of the cross were characteristic only for
some composers and apparently were not a universal phenomenon. So it is with
even more interest that we notice their occurrence in Polish music. In the work
of several authors, examples of imaginatio crucis are so obvious and at the same
time sufficiently frequent [my emphasis – M.G.] to substantiate the theory the
expressive character of this very figure was fully understood.”260
I wish to emphasise the adjective ‘sufficiently frequent’ in Jasiński’s argument.
The quantitative argument is a major incentive for research. Jasiński observes
examples of the use of imaginatio crucis in the works of Zieleński, Pękiel, Lilius,
Charśnicki and Szarzyński. And so? – might a skeptical reader ask. What’s the re-
lation to Chopin and his almost purely instrumental output that lacks the words
crux, crucifixus, crux fidelis etc., making the use of the cross figure semantically
unverifiable? Moreover, the composer’s correspondence presents no mentions of
the intended use of ancient rhetorical figures or evidence of any deeper interest
in Baroque musical aesthetics altogether. But the lack of relevant quotes from a
composer’s correspondence can be no excuse for failing to investigating the issue of
musical symbolism. What anciently was a straightforward evocation on the word
cross and continued to be apprehended by nineteenth-century listeners now be-
came a freer musical reminiscence, continuing its secret life outside the original
semantic context.
If Jasiński’s hypothesis of the existence of an original (rhetorical) semantic
context to the use of imaginatio crucis in the Polonaise in F sharp Minor seems
overly speculative, it is also supported by biographical evidence. The early ver-
sion of the Boże, coś Polskę [God Save Poland] hymn, written in 1818 with the
music of Jan Nepomucen Kaszewski (transcribed by Wincenty Gorączkiewicz)
and which immediately became highly popular, must have been familiar to Cho-
pin. Placed at the beginning of this hymn, the imaginatio crucis on the word God
might have struck the young Chopin. Krzysztof Bilica writes:
“Chopin must have known the melody of Kaszewski. In his high school years,
he played the organ during the mass at the Visitationists church on Krakowskie
Przedmieście Avenue in Warsaw, and so was well familiar with the chants rep-
ertoire of Warsaw churches. In any case, his Largo in E flat Major was based on
Kaszewski’s melody: this fact has been confirmed a long time ago.”261
260 Ibid., 112.

261 Bilica, Melos polski u Chopina, 33.
131
Example 9.13. Jan Nepomucen Kaszewski, Pieśń narodowa za pomyślność Króla
[National Song for the Good Fortune of the King] (Kraków 1818), mm. 1–5.
Yet the most interesting hypothesis links the Polonaise in F sharp Minor with
Polish messianism, as I have investigated on another occasion.262 This work de-
velops some messianic elements to the greatest degree: already its opus number
– 44 – brings to mind Mickiewicz’s Dziady [The Forefathers’ Eve], the leading
work of Polish messianism, where the number plays a vital symbolic function.263
Six years later the same elements were redeveloped by Chopin in his song Mel
ody, written to the poem Ostatni [The Last One] by Zygmunt Krasiński (1847).
This last song by the fatally ill Chopin tells the story of a Polish conspirator,
imprisoned in a casemate somewhere in deep Russia; here the imaginatio crucis
becomes the central musical figure, encompassing not only the piano accom
paniment but also presented directly in bar 44:
Example 9.14. Chopin, Melodia (1847) to words by Zygmunt Krasiński, mm. 1–10.
In former Chopin studies, this issue was discarded straight away. Zofia Lissa wrote:
“While Mickiewicz sought refuge in messianism, Chopin had no need to do
so: he could remain unchanged in his music. […] Apart from a single quote from
262 Gołąb, Musical Work Analysis, 168–74.

263 ‘Forty and four’ is a famously prophetic number in leading Polish Romantic poet
Adam Mickiewicz’s drama Dziady [Forefathers’ Eve] III, 5:59ff. The number, which
scholars have variously but never conclusively interpreted, denotes a mysterious
forthcoming saviour of Poland and humanity. A reference to 44 is clear to any Polish
reader and listener. (Note of the translator).
132
a Polish Christmas carol, pure fideism had no place in Chopin’s psychology. And
even that carol in the Scherzo in B Minor serves as a reminiscence of his fam-
ily home and country, similarly to folk motives and rhythms in the mazurkas.
Therefore, Chopin’s output is exclusively characteristic of the progressive current
in Polish Romanticism, and bears no relation to its regressive phase.”264
Lissa’s rationale betrays the ideological burden of Socialist historiography.
Contrarily to her claims, we find numerous evidence in Chopin’s letters of his
vivid interest in the intellectual life of the Polish émigré milieu in Paris, even
though he distanced himself sharply from it: “Of the Poles here I see Kunasik,
Morawski, Niemoj[ewski], Lelewel and Plichta; there are also a huge lot of
idiots.”265 Chopin’s apartment was the meeting point of many émigrés. He wrote
to Adolf Cichowski around 1844: “Please come see me this morning before the
island,”266 and again to the same: “My Life, if you can, come see me before the Hô-
tel Lambert, I wish to tell you something and cannot move.”267 In a letter of 23rd
March 1845 to Stefan Witwicki, Chopin commented on Mickiewicz being sup-
pressed his lectures at the Collège de France; similarly, he wrote to Julian Fontana:
“Have they gone quite mad?! I’m not afraid about Mick[iewicz] and Sob[ański];
they’re solid heads, they can stand exile, they won’t lose either their senses or
their energy.”268 In the light of these statements and Chopin’s unambiguously crit-
ical attitude towards the messianic milieu, the hypothesis of a possible messianic
agenda of the Polonaise in F sharp Minor becomes highly controversial.
In any case, Chopin’s following work in the genre, the Polonaise in A flat Major
op. 53, composed in 1842–3, again makes use (whether conscious or not, I leave
unanswered for the moment) of the cross figure. Here the E flat–G–F–E flat mo-
tive appears as a consequence of the chromatic progression of the sixth chord in
bar 2 and ends on the first beat of the following bar.269 The introduction to this
264 Lissa, Problemy polskiego stylu narodowego, 43.

265 Chopin’s Letters, 158.
267 Ibid., 123.
268 To Julian Fontana on 11th September 1841. Chopin’s Letters, 239.
269 The opening of the Polonaise in A flat Major shows an interesting affinity to the much
earlier Polonaise in D Minor op. 71 no. 1. Not only is the cross motive presented simi-
larly in both works, but also the piano writing that precedes it is almost identical: first
a single note (D in op. 71 and E flat in op. 53) followed by an ascending series (diatonic
in op. 71, chromatic in op. 53) and ending with the cross figure (on a tonic-dominant
basis in both works. Based on this evidence, the Polonaise in D Minor can be seen as
the prototype for that in A flat Major: both are generated by the same initial gesture.
133
Polonaise is extended to sixteen bars, and the motive is profiled not only me-
lodically but also harmonically, with an almost cadential structure (tonic–dom-
inant–tonic270). Like in the Polonaise in E flat Minor from op. 26, it is repeated
four times, each time with a change to its harmonic structure. There can be no
question, therefore, that the cross figure is presented here as a complex sub-
stance, embedded in a rich harmonic, tonal and syntactic context (an elaborated
irregular progression consisting of the original pattern and three sections). After
the Polonaise in F sharp Minor, in which Chopin presented his typical polonaise
opening figure so straightforwardly, here the same figure appears just as expli
citly but is also involved in a richer compositional context:
Example 9.15. Chopin, Polonaise in A flat Major op. 53, mm. 1–2.
This tendency reaches its climax with the Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat Major
op. 61, composed in 1846. The greatest example of the genre on all accounts,
it evokes a succession of images not restricted to dance. Its first two bars (as in
the preceding two polonaises) open with an A flat–E flat–G flat–D flat figure.
Yet this motive here is not a complex substance as it was in opuses 44 and 53;
instead, it is a typical latency subjected to a distinctive fragmentation through a
series of ascending notes that are metre-free and suspended by a fermata.
Harmonically determined by the chromatic shift of triads A flat Minor – C flat
Major / G flat Major – B double flat Major, this figure shows how the initial
tetrachord can function outside the tonal system (as we know, chromatic pro
gressions interrupt the series of tonal relationships271). Yet is it, as in the Polonaises
270 The fourth chord is in fact not a pure dominant chord but a ninth chord with no
root, i.e. a diminished seventh chord.
271 Although here, the harmonic base is bipartite and regular.
134
op. 40, a formally non-constitutive latency? What is important here is that the in-
troduction section, gradually expanding throughout the history of the polonaise
genre to no less than 22 bars in the Polonaise-Fantaisie, becomes a formal sec-
tion on its own, only loosely related to its former model of a relatively simple
out-composed sequence (as it still was in the Polonaise in A flat Major).
Examples 9.16. and 9.16a. Chopin, Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat Major op. 61,

mm. 1–2.
Without entering into a detailed analysis of this striking introduction,272 in which

our cross figure is repeated several times in various guises, I wish to focus on a
272 It is unclear whether this section ends at bar 22 or 23; analytically both segmentations
are plausible.
135
totally new element: the renewed appearance of the imaginatio crucis in the pol
onaise’s main theme (from bars 24–31). This presentation echoes the Polonaise
in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 but does not involve the main motive exclusively;
instead, it penetrates the entire structure of the theme, though less mechanically
than in that earlier polonaise. From the point of view of the genre’s evolution in
Chopin’s output, the Polonaise-Fantaisie is in many ways a synthesis. Not only
because it represents the most advanced stage of hybridisation of generic char-
acteristics, but also (and perhaps primarily) because it assumes an epic narrative
character.
Summarising the results of my analysis, it can be argued that both the shapes
of the cross motive and the purely musical contexts that accompany our tetra-
chord are subject to the same rules of generic evolution that have been observed
in generic analytical studies of the polonaises.273 Without referring to these studies
in detail, we can limit ourselves to stating that the process of generic hybrid
isation of the polonaise form (and other forms as well) that Chopin gradually
operated in the 1830s engendered some significant morphological and con-
textual changes in how the ‘cross’ tetrachord appears in later polonaises. The
most important aspect is the close relationship between the total span of the
figure and the minor or major mode in which it is written. In major keys,
the cross figure always spans more than a fourth, and vice versa, when the work
is in the minor mode the figure’s ambitus is always limited by a fourth. This
morphology cannot be casual and is always determined by a combination of
two characteristics. The only analytical conclusion can be that the imaginatio
crucis in Chopin’s polonaises is likely a conscious vehicle of various types of
musical symbolism:
Table 9.1. Chopin’s polonaises: the various types of musical symbolism.
Type 1 Polonaises:
1) Tetrachord span is larger than in B flat Major WN 1
a fourth in A Major op. 40 no. 1
2) Major mode in A flat Major op. 53
in A flat Major op. 61
273 Tomasz Baranowski, Przemiany muzycznych kategorii formalnych w polonezach

Chopina [Evolution of Formal Musical Categories in Chopin’s Polonaises], in
Przemiany stylu Chopina [Evolution of Chopin’s Style], ed. Maciej Gołąb (Kraków:
Musica Iagelonica, 1993), 91–107; Tuchowski, Integracja strukturalna w świetle
przemian stylu Chopina, 114–130.
136
Type 2 Polonaises:
1) Tetrachord span is no larger in G Minor WN 2
than a fourth G sharp Minor WN 5
2) Minor mode D Minor op. 71 no. 1
C sharp Minor op. 26, no. 1
E flat Minor op. 26 no. 2
C Minor op. 40 no. 2
F sharp Minor op. 44
Moving now towards an anlaysis of the symbolic meanings of the imaginatio

crucis would taste of methodological eclecticism. As Mircea Eliade wrote, “an
object transmuted into a symbol – as a result of its being possessed by the
symbolic function – tends to unite with the All. […] This union is not the
same as a confusion, for the symbol does not restrict movement or circulation
from one level to another, and integrates all these levels and planes (of reality),
but without fusing them – that is, without destroying them.”274 Chopin could
have subconsciously created this figure as a stereotyped accompaniment to
the word cross. In the nineteenth century, this tradition was still vivid and was
lost with that epoch and its musical system.275 Elements and tropes that are
present in musical practice and were consciously used in a former epoch may
subsequently be transmitted as a discourse that loses its semantic associations
but continues through the inert repetition of widely practiced sound formulas
(figures). As we remember, Jung saw unconsciousness as “the matrix of the hu-
man mind and its inventions,”276 one that includes all the dynamic forms that
generate symbols. The symbol is considered an ‘expressive condensation’ that
essentially reflects the inner world (intensively qualitative) as opposed to the
outer world (extensively quantitative). A beautiful expression of this notion
came from Goethe who claimed that “in the symbol, the particular represents
the general, not as a dream, not as a shadow, but as living and momentary rev-
elation of the inscrutable.”277 Returning once more to Chopin, let us repeat: the
sign of the cross appearing at the beginning of his polonaises is no accident.
274 Mircea Eliade, Traité d’histoire des religions [Patterns in Comparative Religion] (New
York 1958). Quoted after Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, xxxi.
275 Cirlot writes: “in the nineteenth century, mythology and symbolism were much dis-
cussed, particularly in connection with the problem of interpretation”. Ibid., xliv.
276 Quoted after: Ibid., xxiv.
277 Quoted after: Ibid., xxx.
137
Part IV
Transcriptions of Chopin’s Works
10
Nineteenth-century Transcriptions of
Masterworks: An Attempt at Typology
When J. M. Chomiński and T. D. Turło published their Katalog dzieł Fryderyka

Chopina [Catalogue of Works by Fryderyk Chopin],278 the most extensive list of
transcriptions of compositions by Chopin to-date which it contained enabled
the assessment of this phenomenon’s extent in the history of the last two hun-
dred years. Several years later, my doctoral students and I took up the toil of an
analytical survey that was designed to point the way for systematic studies in
this neglected complex of issues. It turned out that out of 230 original works by
Chopin, as many as 201 had been transcribed,279 and that some compositions
(such as the Funeral March from the Sonata in B flat Minor op. 35) were the
object of several hundred different settings! It also became clear that no specific
period of Chopin’s output was preferred: the early Warsaw compositions as well
as those from the 1830s and 1840s were transcribed equally often.280 However,
there did exist a historically variable preference in choosing specific compos
itions as subjects of transcriptions: some were more popular in the nineteenth
century (for example, the Funeral March of op. 35, Nocturne in E-flat Major
op. 9 no. 2, and the Waltz in E flat Major op. 18), with others taking over in the
This chapter was published formerly in Polish: “Dziewiętnastowieczne transkryp-

cje muzycznych arcydzieł. Próba typologii na przykładzie utworów Fryderyka
Chopina”, Muzyka 45 (2000), no. 1, 23-45. The following Text is based on the English
version published in Chopin 1849/1999. Aspekte der Rezeptions- und Interpretations
geschichte, ed. Andreas Ballstaed (Schliengen: Schmitt, 2003), 88-106.
278 Józef M. Chomiński, and Teresa D. Turło, Katalog dzieł Fryderyka Chopina [Catalogue
of Works by Fryderyk Chopin] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne –
Towarzystwo im. Fryderyka Chopina, 1990).
279 Barbara Literska, “Dziewiętnastowieczne transkrypcje utworów Chopina. Próba
systematyki” [Nineteenth-century Transcriptions of Works by Chopin. An Attempt
at Systematization]. Muzyka 42(1997), no. 4, 38.
280 Ewa Czernek, “Kilka uwag na temat ilościowych aspektów transkrypcji utworów
Chopina” [Several Remarks on the Quantitative Aspect of Transcriptions of Works
by Chopin], Muzyka 42 (1997), no. 4, 53.
141
twentieth century (such as the Etude in E Major op. 10 no. 3, Polonaise in A
Major op. 40 no. 1 or the Waltz in C sharp Minor op. 64 no. 2).281
The number of countries in which such settings were published increased
together with the gradual growth in published transcriptions. While in the 1840s
and ‘70s transcriptions appeared only in France, Germany and England (usually
in the same publishing houses that had printed Chopin’s original works), the
number of countries publishing the replicas grew in the 1880s and began to in-
clude those from outside of Europe. The 1880s and ‘90s marked the high point
of the quantitative increase in transcriptions, which was followed by a steady
decline down to culturally insignificant numbers in the 1930s.282 The latter pro-
cess is obviously connected with the mass dissemination of radio and the phono-
graph, and the consequent marginalisation of home music-making.
Who were the authors of these transcriptions? Those who first showed the
way for the development of this genre were composers and virtuosos – Chopin’s
friends (A. Franchomme, K. Lipiński, F. Liszt, P. Viardot-Garcia), whose un-
dertakings gained the approval of the composer himself. Thus, the transcrip-
tions of this group of musicians possess a unique historical value. The next
distinct group of transcribers is made up of outstanding performing virtuosos
(A. Wilhelmj, F. Kreisler, L. Godowski, A. Michałowski); another one includes
musician-craftsmen who worked in large publishing houses and specialised in
publishing entire series of transcriptions (L. and F. Grützmacher, F. Hermann,
A. Horn, E. Prill, F. L. Schubert, A. Schulz and many others); finally, we have
the composers of subsequent generations (M. Balakirev, J. Brahms, A. Glazunov,
Z. Noskowski, C. Saint-Saëns, M. Reger,283 J. R. Françaix). The genre of transcrip-
tion drew representatives from all musical professions, with adaptations being
made for almost all ‘official’ (orchestral) instruments as well as several other
instruments (accordion, guitar, mandolin, balalaika, domra, ukulele). Collec-
tions of Chopin transcriptions in some publishing houses extended well beyond
the confines of occasional editions (Breitkopf & Härtel, Peters, Littolf, Schott,
Gebethner i Wolf, Arct, and others).
A factual account of the history of Chopin reception, seen through the ap-
pearance of the particular transcriptions, still awaits its scholar. Before such an
account is achieved however, a more important matter seems to be the settling
of basic theoretical and aesthetic issues connected with the transcription as an
281 Ibid., 53, Table.

282 Ibid., 57.
283 Cf. Zofia Lissa, “Inspiracje chopinowskie w twórczości Regera” [Chopin Influences
in the Music of Reger], Rocznik Chopinowski 7 (1965-68), 67-99.
142
object of research and study. Thus, we will not be concerned here with a quan-
titative, mechanical typology of transcriptions that has to do with instrumental
scoring or the choice of particular original compositions, since such data already
perspires in the catalogue drawn up by Chomiński and Turło.284 Instead, we will
be interested in creating a typology of transcriptions with regard to their inner
stylistic qualities. In connection with the above, two preliminary methodolo
gical premises need to be made: firstly – the definition of the particular types
of transcription will be associated with the hierarchy of ontological aspects of a
musical work ([1.] substance; [2.] texture; [3.] syntax; [4.] form and [5.] expres-
sion); secondly – the value judgements applied to the particular types of replicas
will be informed by the assumption that the further the qualities of a particular
type of transcription place it from the Chopin original, the more its artistic value
becomes ‘eroded’. The measure of the artistic value of replicas is their ability to
evoke the expression of the original masterwork.
Table 10.1. Definitions of transcription types.
Type of Basic subtypes Definition

transcription
1. Substantial 1.1. Transcription with Strict rewriting of the entire
transcription transmission of textural levels substance of the work for a new
SUBSTANCE 1.2. Transcription with instrumental medium; alteration of
multiplication of textural levels texture in the process of re-scoring
2. Structural 2.1. Transcription that expands Preservation of the substance of
transcription the texture the work in the tonal, syntactic and
TEXTURE 2.2. Transcription that alters the formal extent; qualitative change
layout of textural levels in texture
3. Syntactic 3.1. Transcription that reduces the Preservation of the main categories
transcription syntax of syntax; modification of its
SYNTAX 3.2. Transcription that expands subordinate elements
the syntax
4. Recontextual 4.1. Reductive transcription Separation of a portion of the form
transcription 4.2. Corrupt transcription or combining such portions (or
FORM whole works) with other works
(or their fragments)
5. Utilitarian 5.1. Technical/didactic Banalising of the content of the
transcription transcription work for strictly pragmatic aims
EXPRESSION 5.2. Simplified transcription
284 Chomiński and Turło, Katalog dzieł Fryderyka Chopina.
143
The most commonly found type of nineteenth-century transcription is the [1.]
substantial transcription285. This is a translation of the work in which almost the
entire musical substance is kept intact. Changes are made only to the scoring of the
composition, which is adapted to new determinants of timbre and sonority, and
new expressional needs. This type of transcription is thus a strictly understood
‘rewriting’ (transcriptio) for official orchestral instruments. The melody, harmony,
rhythm and meter of the original are strictly observed. The agogics, dynamics and
articulation remain unchanged to an extent that is allowed by the technical pos-
sibilities of the new instrumental setting. Alongside the alterations in scoring, the
original key of the piece is sometimes changed (to avoid keys that are awkward for
instrumentalists or to take into account the limitations of register in instruments).
Changes of this kind do not, however, modify the musical substance.
In the most frequently encountered substantial transcriptions of Chopin’s
works, the melodic level of the original composition is transferred to the added
solo instrument, with the corresponding material being removed from the
piano part. This simple device is exemplified by a portion of the Nocturne in
F Major op. 15 no. 1 in a transcription by Leopold Grützmacher from the first
half of the 1880s.
Example 10.1. Chopin – L. Grützmacher, Nocturne op. 15 no. 1, Vc+Pfte, H. Litolff, Braun
schweig (Hofmeister 1880-1885).
Another vision of this Nocturne was realised in the same period by Friedrich
Hermann, who retained the entire original piano part as accompaniment and
chose to double the less important inner voice, thus considerably weakening the
significance of the thematic level of the work. While the hierarchy of the outer,
285 The term has been coined by Barbara Literska, “Dziewiętnastowieczne transkrypcje
utworów Chopina. Próba systematyki”, 37 et seqq. However, her article involves a
different systematization of Chopin’s transcriptions than ours.
144
sonority-oriented components of the form underwent a basic redefinition, we
consider the original substance of the work not to have been modified.286
Example 10.2. Chopin – F. Hermann, Nocturne op. 15 no. 1, Vn+Pfte, C. F. Peters, Leipzig
(Hofmeister 1880-1885).
The mentioned examples bring to mind two possible subtypes of the substan-
tial transcription: in Grützmacher’s transcription we are dealing with a faithful
transferring of the textural levels of a work for a new ensemble ([10.1.] transcrip-
tion with a transmission of textural levels), while in Hermann’s transcription –
with a doubling of one of the levels ([10.2.] transcription with a multiplication
of textural levels).287
From the axiological point of view outlined at the beginning of our discussion,
substantial transcriptions need to be accorded the highest artistic value. Substan-
tial transcriptions retain all the most essential characteristics of the original, and
no autonomous artistic values of such transcriptions come to the fore at the ex-
pense of the Chopin original. They are a manifestation of a basic reverence of the
transcribing musician, restraining his own compositional invention in the face
of a masterwork. Karol Lipiński employed such restraint – to an extent against
his own, rich compositional experience – in his transcriptions of the Nocturnes
op. 9 and Polonaises op. 26.288 Today, they constitute the earliest substantial tran-
scriptions, published still during Chopin’s life. An aesthetic-historical reflection
286 The historical dating of the transcription editions is adopted after Chomiński and
Turło, Katalog dzieł Fryderyka Chopina.
287 Concerning the problem of textural levels, cf.: Ewa Czernek, “Transkrypcje
chopinowskie Karola Lipińskiego” [Chopin Transcriptions by Karol Lipiński],
Muzyka 42 (1997), no. 4, 77-87.
288 Maciej Gołąb, “Dziewiętnastowieczne transkrypcje Poloneza cis-moll op. 26 nr 1
Fryderyka Chopina” [Nineteenth-century Transcriptions of the Polonaise in C sharp
Minor, op. 26 no. 1 by Fryderyk Chopin], Muzyka 42 (1997), no. 4, 59-74. See the
next chapter of this book.
145
must identify in this type of transcription a respect for the universalistic claims
of the masterwork, and from the psychological point of view – an ability of the
transcribing musician to eschew personal creative expression. In this sense, sub-
stantial transcriptions do not bear traces of any heteronomous cultural com-
petencies that could be considered historically or aesthetically at odds with the
empathically achieved ‘source situation’ of the masterwork.
A less common transcription in the musical culture of the nineteenth century
is the [2.] structural transcription. This type finds its patrons in the late Romantic
transcriptions by Liszt, Busoni and Reger. A structural transcription is such a
translation of the work in which potential relations between chosen elements
of the original musical texture are brought out with the use of musical homol-
ogy (structural analogy). In this type of transcriptions, the tonal, syntactic and
formal outline of the work is not altered, but essential changes in relation to the
original are made in texture. Thus, a notable change in register, playing in oct
aves instead of unisons, an expansion of harmony through numerous doublings
of its components, and even a change in the layout of textural layers may be
effected. However, the typological requirement remains that the authentic mate
riae primae, which subordinates even major changes in texture, be left intact. At
this point one might pose a question pertaining to the delimitation of the types:
isn’t the device of multiplying levels in the substantial transcription exactly a
structuring of texture? The answer is that in fact, it is – but only in the sense of a
quantitative change, while in the case of a structural transcription we are dealing
with clearly qualitative textural changes.
The structural type of Chopin transcriptions was initiated by Liszt himself
through those transcriptions of Chopin’s songs, in which – with visible difficulty –
he restrains his compositional invention and does not fall into the convention of
Example 10.3. Chopin – L. Godowski, Waltz in F Minor [op. 70 no. 2] WN 55, concert
arrangement, Pfte, Carl Fischer, New York 1923-1927.
146
paraphrase typical of the discussed genre (cf. esp. the song Frühling – [Spring] –
Wiosna, op. 74). Out of two model examples of structural transcriptions we shall
begin with a very typical ‘concert’ transcription of the Waltz in F Minor [op. 70
no. 2] WN 55, drawn up by Leopold Godowski.
The transcriptional device we are dealing with here is a simple expansion of
texture, achieved primarily through numerous doublings of chordal compo-
nents. Of more interest is a portion of a very early transcription of the Etude
in A Minor op. 10 no. 2 drawn up by Carl Bial, where the author transfers the
chromatic, figuration discourse from the part of the left hand to that of the right
hand while retaining ‘all the notes’.
Example 10.4. Chopin – C. Bial, Etude op. 10 no. 2, Pfte, Fr. Kistner, Leipzig (Hofmeister
1868-1873)
Here too, the structural transcription seems to call for two subtypes: [2.1.] tran-
scriptions that expand the texture and [2.2.] transcriptions that alter the layout
of textural levels.
Turning to the axiological aspect to which we have given a regulative function,
one can contend that the structural transcription is a translation with a ‘surplus’
of artistic meaning. Such an assessment is made by considering the use of tran-
scriptional means that are compositionally more advanced, testifying not only to
translational abilities of a purely technical nature, but also their authors’ specific
cultural competencies, which push the structural transcription away from the
genetic (source-based) musical qualities inherent in the substantial transcrip-
tion. In fact, the aesthetic discrimination between substantial and structural
transcriptions may have its roots in the categories of ethos and pathos that are
embedded in various manifestations of Western culture. Substantial, ‘Classicis-
ing’ transcriptions are characterised by indirectness and restraint in using newly
introduced means. Psychologically speaking, structural transcriptions which
‘Romanticise’ the substantial type of approach to transcription introduce the cat-
egory of self-expression relating to the author of the replica. They are not only an
147
empathetic source experience, but also seem to indicate, though still to a limited
extent, the author of the replica as a composer and/or concert virtuoso.
In contrast to both of the previous types, the range of alterations in the still less
often found [3.] syntactic transcription encompasses chosen elements of musical
syntax, though not to an extent that would violate the formal identity of the work.
In other words, while the formally subordinate elements of musical syntax can in
such a replica be removed or modified (transformed) to a greater or lesser extent,
their basic thematic substance and the order of appearance of particular musical
ideas must be retained in whole and presented in keeping with the formal order
of the work. However, the range of employed syntactic alterations is something
more than an ordinary musical arrangement (transcriptio), as it is already the
beginning of the work’s formal transformation (transformatio). The number of
repetitions frequently found in Chopin’s music is sometimes reduced, the original
introductions are removed, abbreviated, or new ones may be composed and
cadences of virtuosic character or other interpolations of musical formal cate
gories inserted as long as they possess a formally subordinate meaning.
One example of this type, drawn from among the early transcriptions published
during Chopin’s life, is the Mazurka in F sharp Minor op. 6 no. 1, arranged for
cello and piano by Robert Emil Bockmühl. This early replica features an extended
introduction beginning in the key of A Major. The introduction is quite banal and
lacking in content-oriented integration with the rest of the composition, which
NB is transcribed in the convention of what we have called a ‘substantial’ replica.
Example 10.5. Chopin – R. E. Bockmühl, Mazurka de Fr. Chopin transcrit pour le Violoncelle
avec Accompagnement de Piano [op. 6 no. 1], Vc+Pfte, Fr. Kistner, Leipsic (Hofmeister 1844).
148
After a presentation of the entire Mazurka in F sharp Minor op. 6 no. 1 and an
arbitrarily introduced repetition of its last section (mm. 41-72), there follows a
coda that begins with the first period of the Mazurka in A flat Major op. 7 no. 4
(transposed to the key of A Major) and a succession of banal dominant-tonic
formulas. The appropriate conclusion here is that the syntax of the original work
is adhered to in full, yet is at the same time extended by Bockmühl’s introduction
and a coda that presents a passage from another mazurka.289
A very interesting example is provided by another historical transcription – that
of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 for violin and piano, drawn up by an
outstanding nineteenth-century German violinist, August Wilhelmj. I have ana
lysed this transcription in detail elsewhere.290 Wilhelmj achieves a specific expansion
of Chopin’s syntax, obscuring even the original da capo form through the extended
use of variational and developmental technique and a rounding off of the replica
with a self-composed, goal-oriented, par excellence virtuosic cadence. It becomes
evident here that a syntactic transcription, though usually retaining the authentic
form of the work in a comparatively integral shape, can in isolated cases transform
a static form (forma formata) into a process-based form (forma formans).
Example 10.6. Chopin – A. Wilhelmj, Polonaise (original in C sharp Minor) op. 26 no. 1,
Vn+Pfte, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig (Hofmeister 1868-1873).
289 I have intentionally chosen this example to show an extreme case of syntactic tran-
scription. The codal function of the beginning portion of the Mazurka in A flat
Major op. 7 no. 4 speaks against considering the last portion of this replica as a
transcription of a new composition.
290 Gołąb, “Dziewiętnastowieczne transkrypcje Poloneza cis-moll op. 26 nr 1 Fryderyka
Chopina”, 62-70.
149
We have discussed various instances of syntactic interpolations. In the ana-
lysed replicas, [3.1.] reductive transcriptions (emphasizing the leading role of
solo instruments and bringing the accompaniment part down to more modest
dimensions) appear more frequently than [3.2.] transcriptions that expand the
original musical syntax.
The appearance of syntactic transcriptions in the history of Chopin reception
signalises the emergence of a new axiological aspect. The type of replica intro-
duced here helps trace the characteristic process of the ‘erosion’ of artistic values
connected with Chopin’s work, this process being determined by social-artistic
modes of adapting a masterwork to various channels of social communication
that have been precisely identified by the European musical culture of the nine-
teenth century. The adoption of such an approach by the authors of replicas is
manifest in transcriptions that reduce the syntax and simplify the narrative of
the composition. On the other hand, the singling out of replicas that enrich the
syntax of the original makes it possible to open the perspective onto the rich
range of issues pertaining to the process of stylistic diffusion, i.e. the existence –
especially in the form of such ‘enriched’ transcriptions – of ‘signs of the times’ in
which they were brought into being and the cultural milieu from which they is-
sued. Thus, the ideas of a ‘late Romantic vision of Chopin’ or a ‘German vision of
Chopin’ become an important category of style that could bring the understand-
ing of this genre onto a more advanced level of methodological interpretation.
We shall define the next type of transcription found in the musical culture of
the nineteenth century, the [4.] recontextual transcription, as one in which the
authentic, source-sanctioned formal coherence is destroyed. While the syntactic
transcription reduced or expanded some of the less constitutive syntactic cate-
gories, it nevertheless retained the framework of the architectural construction
of form along with its basic thematic substance. The singling out of the above
type is intended to group together replicas that redefine the formal context of the
work, with the notion of form referring to the general architectural aspects and
content-oriented integrity of the basic formal categories (i.e. the thematic level
of the work). The two basic instances of recontextual transcriptions discussed
below need to be distinguished as precisely as it is possible from a category they
may at times approach – the paraphrase, which is characterised by a higher level
of through-composition of the original material, with an equally significant par-
ticipation of formally constitutive interpolations of extraneous material.
The first group of the copious recontextual replicas includes [4.1.] reductive
replicas, which are limited to presenting only a portion of Chopin’s work. This
refers not only to cyclic, but also large one-movement forms (note the numer-
ous transcriptions of the Andantino from the Ballade in F Major op. 38!) – for
150
example, the popular, separately published transcriptions of slow concerto and
sonata movements for string and wind instruments. Replicas of nocturnes for
voice and piano, in which the virtuosic, figuration-based middle sections were
left out, were also commonly found. Of course, reductive devices of this kind
were determined by the technical limitations of the introduced instruments.
From among the vocal replicas, where Chopin’s authentic text seems to be edited
with the maximum carefree approach, I have chosen the Berceuse in D flat Major
op. 57 in a transcription by an unknown author (published in Warsaw at the end
of the 1860s), in which only a presentation of the theme, reiterated four times, is
drawn from this variational composition.
Example 10.7. Chopin – author of transcription unknown, text by M. Jules Ruelle,

translation by J. Chęciński, Berceuse / Nad kołyską / [At the Cradle] [op. 57], voice+Pfte,
Gebethner i Wolf, Warsaw 1867.
A more interesting subgroup of this type of replicas is the [4.2.] corrupt tran-
scription, which opens the perspective onto numerous potpourris à la Chopin
(such as Les Sylphides by Michel Fokine). This kind of replica is clearly seen in
vocal music, which often combined various works or their portions. An example
of a historical transcription of this kind is provided by the vocal setting of two
Chopin Mazurkas drawn from op. 7 (no. 3 and 2) by Paulina Viardot. The author
of the setting unifies both works in a common key, and constructs an ABA’ form
in which the outermost sections present the thematic material of the Mazurka in
F Minor, while the middle section contains a portion of the Mazurka in A Minor
151
(from m. 34). A virtuoso vocalistion rounds off the B section, and is followed
by a shortened recapitulation section. Chopin accepted such practices, treating
them as a natural, commonly approved practice of popularisation in ‘Sturm und
Drang’ period of musical creativity.291
Example 10.8. Chopin – Paulina Viardot, text by P. Maszyński, Biedne serce / Faible
Coeur / Mazourke de F. Chopin / op. 7 no. 3 [and op. 7 no. 2], voice+Pfte, Gebethner i
Wolf, Warsaw, 1897.
Within the communicational practices of nineteenth-century musical culture

that are of interest to us, and especially in the process of the ‘erosion’ of artistic
values, the recontextual transcriptions seem to go still further in subjecting Cho-
pin’s authentic text to deterioration than do syntactic transcriptions. The erosion
pertains not only to chosen musical content of the composition, but above all to
the fundamental identity of the genre, provided by its formal structure. Poetic
texts, performance pretexts and functional contexts often seem to be a justi-
fied genesis of replicas that arbitrarily break up the aesthetic paradigm of unity
and coherence of a work of art, the notion of which was rather weakly established
in the artistic practices of Genie-Zeit. Replicas of this kind seem to approach the
later parodistic techniques of Neoclassical formal shaping, with its quasi-collage,
montage procedures. In ‘remakes’ of this sort, the musical work becomes a pre-
text for a musical shaping that is heterogeneous in relation to the original formal
model. At times, a recontextual replica is found to border with artistic banality.
291 A sort of synthesis of one Mazurka opus can be found in a setting by F. Bordese en
titled Swaty / Beau rossignol / Mazurka de Fr. Chopin / Op. 17 No. 1 [and op. 17, no. 4],
two voices+Pfte, Gebethner i Wolf, Warsaw 1899.
152
In the culture of the nineteenth century, one of the most common types of
replica is the [5.] utilitarian transcription. This type flourished primarily in
special editorial series and ‘treasuries of melodies’ (for example, Młody Muzyk
[The Young Musician], published by M. Arct in Warsaw, Leichte Klassiker-Schule
published by Schott in Mainz, and others). This is a translation of the work in
which the most strongly utilitarian or functional aspects, absent from the ear-
lier types, are brought to the fore. In particular, it involves didactic goals in the
narrow sense of this term, i.e. the perfecting of instrumental technique (the pur-
pose of numerous Technische Studien). When speaking about the functionality
of pragmatic transcriptions I also have in mind the popularisation of music – but
specifically the one that is aimed at amateur milieus of receivers (Trivialmusik).
Finally, the functionality of this type of transcription is often brought down to
a social ritual that reaches beyond the sphere of a strictly musical, and cultural
communication (national ceremonies, dances, funerals, etc.).292
In the first subtype [5.1.] of the technical/didactic transcription, we will take
a look at one of the most extreme examples: the Etüde in G flat Major op. 10
no. 5 by Chopin in a transcription for flute solo (!) by an outstanding nineteenth-
century flutist, Ferdinand Büchner.
Example 10.9. Chopin – F. Büchner, Etüde [Ges-Dur] op. 10 no. 5, Fl. solo, J. H. Zimmer
mann, Leipzig (Hofmeister 1892-1897).
In illustrating the second subtype of pragmatic replicas, the [5.2.] simplified tran-
scriptions, one cannot leave out Chopin’s most frequently transcribed compos
ition, which has inscribed itself to an incredible extent in the entire artistic culture
of the nineteenth century – the Marche Funèbre from the Sonata in B flat Minor
op. 35. The author of this comparatively early replica is Wilhelm Goldner.
292 Only in those cases, however, where an actual simplification of musical content
occurs. Many ambitious orchestral versions of the Funeral March, for example, do
not belong to this subgroup.
153
Example 10.10. Chopin – W. Goldner, Marsz żałobny F. Chopina [Funeral March by F.
Chopin], Pfte, G. Sennewald, Warsaw 1901.
Arriving at this last type of transcription in a gradually devaluating sequence of

nineteenth-century replicas, one can argue that in spite of their differences, the
types discussed earlier had as their common foundation specific, strictly artistic
functions. In pragmatic transcriptions, already belonging to the sphere of Tri
vialmusik, such goals become entirely secondary, giving in to debilitated forms
of expressing musical meaning. The functionality of utilitarian transcriptions is
one that falls outside the perimeter of an empathetically understood sphere of
artistic values and definitions of a work of art. Only pragmatic replicas can, from
the adopted axiological and theoretical perspective, be deemed as falling outside
the sphere of nineteenth-century ‘high’ culture. Naturally, the social, educational
and disseminative qualities of this type of replicas as viewed against the period
of the institutionalisation of the musical salon constitute a separate issue. This,
however, is a problem not so much of a theoretically and aesthetically oriented
musical historiography, but of one that adopts a psychosocial perspective.
The order of the kinds of replicas presented in the above typology is not
identical with their chronological appearance in the history of the reception of
Chopin’s compositional output. All discussed types of transcriptions are present
as early as the 1840s, which initiate the process of ‘dissemination through tran-
scription’ in the musical culture of the nineteenth century. The purely systematic
order of the presented typology was to lead only to a definition of ‘ideal types’,
which in reality do not form a closed and finite set. On the contrary, one needs
to emphasise that for the most part, the actual transcriptions do not represent
discrete references to the five kinds of replicas to which we have devoted our
attention. In a decisive majority of cases, we are dealing with ‘diffusive types’ that
bring together the traits of two or more ‘ideal types’ in one work. Such mech-
anisms of stylistic diffusion, which form the most vital tissue of the process of
musical reception in culture, constitute a fascinating research problem.
Translated by Maksymilian Kapelański
154
11
Nineteenth-century Transcriptions
of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26
no. 1 for Violin and Piano
The assertion of an inextricable link between Chopinian texture and the piano
has grown so banal that we generally fail to note the contradiction between
our convictions of the piano-specific nature of Chopin’s musical discourse and
the incredible number of his works in transcriptions for various instruments
and ensembles, which would appear to suggest quite the opposite. Could it be
that the mechanisms of musical reception, rather than the immanent features
of musical discourse, are the supreme determinant of the degree of autonomy of
musical texture?
The issues connected with instrumental transcriptions of Chopin’s works, of
which just a small part consists of transcriptions for violin and piano, reveal one
more fallow field of Chopin studies, traditionally focused on their fundamen-
tal remit, namely the scholarly interpretation of Chopin’s life and work. So we
will treat our considerations of nineteenth-century transcriptions for violin and
piano of Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26, no. 1 not just as a contribu-
tion to research into this area, but also as an opportunity to attempt to construct
a methodological model of description, analysis and interpretation for research
into the phenomenon of transcription.
This was the author’s first work focussing on the phenomenon of the transcription
of Chopin’s works, initiating a series of projects on the subject, of varying scope. The
first of those was a special edition of Muzyka, entitled ‘Translatio – transcriptio –
transfiguratio’, in which the author undertook the first attempt in the subject litera
ture at examining transcriptions from an historical and theoretical point of view
(Muzyka 42 (1997), no. 4). This subject was ultimately treated to an extensive doc-
toral monograph: Barbara Literska, Dziewiętnastowieczne transkrypcje utworów
Fryderyka Chopina. Aspekty historyczne, teoretyczne i estetyczne [Nineteenth-
century Transcriptions of Works by Fryderyk Chopin. Historical, Theoretical and
Aesthetic Aspects] (Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 2004). The present article has
also been published in German, as “Transkriptionen aus dem 19. Jahrhundert für
Violine und Klavier der Polonaise cis-Moll Op. 26 Nr. 1 von Chopin”, in Festschrift
Christoph-Hellmut Mahling zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Axel Beer, Kristina Pfarr and
Wolfgang Ruf (Tutzing: H. Schneider, 1997), 421–434.
155
Sources and methodology
The subject of our survey of sources and the consequent analysis of their musical
contents, as well as their interpretation within the historical context, will be six
nineteenth-century sources of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 in the
original piano version and in transcriptions for violin and piano. As our primary
sources, we will adopt the first editions of Chopin’s work, composed in 1835: Mau-
rice Schlesinger’s French edition from July 1836,293 Breitkopf & Härtel’s German
edition, also from July 1836,294 and Wessel’s English edition, from May 1836.295
Their choice is justified by the fact that they could have formed the basis for
the work’s transcriptions for violin and piano analysed here.296 The fundamental
293 ‘DEUX / POLONAISES / Pour le Piano / dédiées à son ami / J. Dessauer / PAR /
F. CHOPIN / Op. 26: Pr. 7f 50c / Propriété des Editeurs / Paris, chez MAURICE
SCHLESINGER, Rue Richelieu, No. 97 / Leipsig chez Breitkopf et Härtel. Londres,
chez Wessel et Comp. / M.S.1929’.
294 ‘DEUX / POLONAISES / Pour Le Piano / composées et dédiées / à son Ami /
J. DESSAUER / par F. CHOPIN. / Op. 26. / Pr. 20 Gr. / Propriété des Editeurs / Leipsic,
chez Breitkopf & Härtel. / Paris, chez Maurice Schlesinger. Londres, chez Wessel & Co
/ St. Petersbourg, chez Bernard & Holtz. Varsovie, chez G. Sonnewald. / 5707’.
295 ‘L’AMATEUR PIANISTE, No. 83. / Deux POLONOISES favorites, / pour le / Piano
Forte / Dédiées à son ami / J. Dessauer, / par / FRED. CHOPIN. / de Varsovie /
Copyright of the Publishers. / OP. 26. Ent. Sta. Hall. Price 4 / Paris, M. Schlesinger.
Leipzig. Breitkopf & Härtel. / LONDON, / WESSEL & Co. / Importers of Foreign
Music, & Publishers of the / Works of CHOPIN, KUHLAU, CZERNY, HUM-
MEL, WEBER, & c. & c. / No. 6, Fifth Street, Soho Square, W & Co. No. 1647’. See
description and dating of primary sources in Józef M. Chomiński and Teresa D.
Turło, Katalog twórczości Fryderyka Chopina [A Catalogue of the Works of Frederick
Chopin] (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1990), 165–167.
296 One of the problems related to sources is establishing which primary sources (the
first editions of Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1) formed the basis
for the fundamental sources (the transcriptions by Lipiński, de Groot and Wilhelmj).
Unfortunately, it is difficult to form an unequivocal opinion on this question, since
during the transcription process some secondary features of the primary sources
become altered, such as key, articulation, dynamics and phrasing. Though they may
be secondary from the point of view of music analysis (melody, harmony, rhythm
and metre), they are of crucial significance when assessing the differences between
sources. Some passages in the fundamental sources appear to indicate that a pre-
vious transcription was also a crucial source for the author of the transcription in
hand. Compare, for example, bars 51 and 54 of the transcriptions by Lipiński and
Wilhelmj: in bar 51, the semiquaver grouping is expanded in relation to all the first
editions; in bar 54, the first note of the group is held over, whereas analysis of all the
156
sources, meanwhile, will be first editions of transcriptions of the work for violin
and piano. The first source, in chronological terms, is a transcription made by
Karol Lipiński, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1841.297 The second transcrip-
tion, by the little-known French (Dutch?) musician Jules de Groot, was pub-
lished by Ainé Benoît of Paris in 1857.298 The third, by the German violinist and
composer August Wilhelmj, was published, like the Lipiński, by Breitkopf &
Härtel, in 1874.299 Besides these, we will also take into account two other
nineteenth-century transcriptions of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor for violin
and piano, from the 1880s.300
By its very nature, a musical transcription affords its author little opportun
ity to participate in changes to the musical discourse of the epoch. It would
first editions shows that it should sound. Therefore, Wilhelmj must have taken both
versions of the turns directly from Lipiński, since none of the first editions of the
Polonaise available to Lipiński in 1841 contains such variants. We note this fact as a
matter of course: both versions of the Polonaise were published by one and the same
firm. Evidence that Wilhelmj knew and played Lipiński’s works is provided by his
‘reworking’ for solo violin, published in 1884, of the Allegro from the latter’s Violin
Concerto op. 21.
297 ‘DEUX POLONOISES / composées / par Fréd: Chopin / Op. 26. / arrangées / pour
Piano et Violon / par / CHARLES LIPINSKI. / Pr. 1 Thlr. / Propriété des Editeurs.
/ Leipzig, chez Breitkopf & Härtel. / 6522’. Dating based on Otto E. Deutsch,
Musikverlagsnummern. Eine Auswahl von 40 datierten Listen 1710–1900 (Berlin:
Merseburger, 1961), 9.
298 ‘No. 8 / (Deuxièmè Collection.) / Transcription concertante / POUR / PIANO ET
VIOLON / DE LA / POLONAISE / OP: 26 / DE / F. CHOPIN / PAR J. DE GROOT.
/ Prix: 5f. / La méme pour Piano et Violoncelle: 5f. / PARIS, BENOIT AINE, EDI-
TEUR / 31 Rue Meslay’. Dating based on A. Devriès and F. Lesure, Dictionnaire des
éditeurs de musique français, in De 1820 à 1914 (Geneva: Minkoff, 1988), 50.
299 ‘FR. CHOPIN / POLONAISE / (ORIGINAL CIS MOLL) / OP. 26 NR. 1 / TRAN-
SCRIPTION IN D MOLL / FÜR VIOLINE UND PIANOFORTE / VON / AUGUST
WILHELMJ / Eigentum der Verleger für alle Länder / BREITKOPF & HÄRTEL /
LEIPZIG / E. B. 3627 / Printed in Germany’. Dating based on Friedrich Hofmeister,
C. F. Whistling’s Handbuch der musikalischen Literatur oder allgemeines systematisch-
geordnetes Verzeichniss der in Deutschland in den angrenzenden Ländern gedruckten
Musikalien auch musikalischen Schriften un Abbildungen mit Anzeige der Verläger
und Preise (Leipzig, 1868–1873 and 1880–1885) and The Catalogue of Printed Music
in the British Library to 1980, xii (London: Saur, 1882), 46.
300 These transcriptions were written by Eduard Reményi and August Schulz [Schultz].
The former was published by Heugel of Paris in 1878, the latter by H. Litolff of
Brunswick in the first half of the 1880s. See Chomiński and Turło, Katalog twórczości
Fryderyka Chopina, 374.
157
seem justifiable, therefore, to treat the body of sources as a number of uncon-
nected transcriptions which can only be the object of systematic-comparative
analysis. Should we ignore the circumstances resulting from the time lapses
that separate these three transcriptions, stretched out over a continuum of
thirty-three years? It is our intention here to answer that question in the nega
tive. In respect to the lengthy duration of the paradigmatic stylistic qualities
of the Classical-Romantic epoch, it is a rather short distance. Yet the fact that
these transcriptions are situated between the year 1841 and 1874 inevitably
makes the historian of nineteenth-century music wonder whether the changes
in style of the epoch are not reflected in this area, ostensibly rather resistant to
stylistic influences. However, the premise adopted here manifests a hypothet-
ically-expressed (for the time being) conviction that the body of sources for
research into the ‘violin reception’ of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor represents
a logical, ‘ontogenetic’ sequence of transcriptions; a sequence that corresponds
to the ‘philogenesis’ of changes in the European Romantic style as broadly
understood.
This premise is informed primarily by circumstances related to our under-
standing of the historical context. Lipiński’s transcription, chronologically the
first, although coming barely five years after the publication of all the work’s first
editions (in 1841), was written at a time when Chopin’s oeuvre had already at-
tained consummate maturity and manifested virtual evidence of the last change
in the style of the epoch, turned towards the future, in the direction of Wag-
nerian chromaticism on one hand and Brahmsian Romantic classicism on the
other. Wilhelmj’s transcription, from 1874, chronologically the last, was writ-
ten at a time when the prophecies of ‘late’ Chopin had already been fulfilled.301
The first cracks had begun to appear on the façade of the Classical-Romantic
musical architecture that some of his compositions had undermined. Wagner
had already composed his Tristan, other representatives of the New German
School (Ferenc Liszt, Peter Cornelius) were elaborating on the aesthetic canons
of the output of the generation of Schumann and Mendelssohn, whilst César
Franck and Johannes Brahms were paving the way for nineteenth-century
neoclassicism.
Yet we treat these three transcriptions not just as a purely analytical problem,
but also – in abstracto – as the starting point for considerations of the reception
of texts of the culture of European musical romanticism from the point of view of
301 See Maciej Gołąb (ed.), Przemiany stylu Chopina [Transformational Changes in
Chopin’s Style] (Kraków: Musica Iagellonica, 1993), 199.
158
local stylistic qualities. Can we justifiably expect a ‘translation’ of Chopin prod
uced by musicians who were formed within more or less the same European
historical tradition (romanticism) to be inflected by those local stylistic qualities
characteristic of Polish, French and German music that differentiate the Euro-
pean patrimony of romanticism? Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26
no. 1 will serve us as a kind of base text, onto which will be superimposed – as
again we hypothetically venture – the signatures of the cultural competences of
the authors of the transcriptions. Thus the question in concreto will be whether
the original text, the essential features of which are generally identified with the
Polish musical tradition (‘polonaise’), does not bring, via transcription, extrinsic
stylistic features that colour the sense of the original text with elements of spatial
stylistic categories.
Problems of comparative musical analysis

The opening four bars of the Polonaise in C sharp Minor in the transcriptions by
Lipiński, de Groot and Wilhemj leave us in no doubt that we will be dealing with
various ways of understanding the translation of Chopin into the language of an
instrumental duet. To facilitate performance, both de Groot and Wilhelmj trans-
posed the text of the work to the key of D Minor. Only Lipiński – not reckoning
with the pragmatics of reading the text – left the work in the original key. As we
know, the four-bar preface to the C sharp Minor Polonaise, which constitutes an
introduction to the work’s principal theme, is of a typically harmonic-rhythmic
character.
Example 11.1. Chopin, Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 in the transcription
by Karol Lipiński (hereafter marked as Lipiński), mm. 1-4.
159
by Jules de Groot (hereafter marked as Groot), mm. 1-4.
by August Wilhelmj (hereafter marked as Wilhelmj), mm. 1-4.
From the very first bars, Lipiński’s version dazzles us with its virtuosity and the
mass of technical problems, consisting in the accumulation of two- and three-
note chords in characteristic ‘jagged’ rhythms and a broad compass. Given below
it is an ‘ossia’ with a somewhat simpler version introduced by Lipiński. In this
fragment of the violin part, Lipiński not only remains faithful to Chopin’s har-
monic substance. When listening to this brief introduction, one gains the im-
pression that the violin texture is torn apart, that its natural melodic functions
are surmounted and that Lipiński has reached the limits of its capacities.
In de Groot’s arrangement, that fragment is interpreted in a completely differ-
ent way. In the first two bars, de Groot faithfully transfers to the violin part the
upper layer of ‘jagged’ motives; in the next two bars, however, we find the exact
inversion of the motif, obtained by changing the direction to the movement of
the octave’s intervals; this helps to partially neutralise the energetic character of
this phrase, which in Chopin is stretched between a falling and a rising octave.
While Lipiński brings out the harmonic-rhythmic character of the opening two-
note motives and the falling-rising character of the phrase from bars 3–4, de
160
Groot brings into relief the pitch motion of the opening motives, rather than
their harmonic character, and, by imparting contradictory motion to the con-
tour of the phrase from bars 3–4, eliminates the specific pattern of tensions that
for Chopin served as a powerful accumulation of energy, which is only gradually
released with the first notes of the theme. In Wilhelmj’s version, the violin is
silent here.
Figure 11.1. Fig. 11.3. Titelpage of the Chopin’s Polonaises op. 26 in the transcription
by Karol Lipiński (Breitkopf & Härtel)
161
The far-reaching divergence of the three transcriptions is manifest already in the
way that the theme of the first section of the polonaise is presented. In bars 1–24,
this theme appears twice, together with a short introduction (12+12). In Li
piński’s version, the two appearances of the polonaise’s main theme – in keeping
with Chopin’s intentions – are not differentiated: Lipiński forgoes the possibility
of modification offered by the dialogue of the two instruments.302 For de Groot,
the repetition of the polonaise’s main theme was an opportunity to present the
practice of dialogue that characterises that version. While the first iteration of
the theme retains – as in Lipiński’s version – the melodic form characteristic
of the Chopin and the same position in the register, his repeat is taken up by a
piano part based on a reduced sound, of lesser volume, although preserving the
harmonic substance of the accompaniment.
In this section of the work, the violin part exposes the ‘rhythmic-motivic’
counterpoint of the middle layer of the original version’s texture; that is, a coun-
terpoint whose pitch motion does not violate the primary ‘syntax-forming’
significance of the main theme in the piano part, and which ‘entwines’ it with
short rhythmic figures characteristic of the polonaise or with motives that locally
counterpoint fragments of the theme. These ‘rhythmic-motivic’ structures, as
already mentioned, are derived from the work’s piano part, which is correspond-
ingly shorn of those structures. Thus the contrapuntal material of the violin part
neither constitutes autonomous meanings in the melodic-thematic sense nor intro
duces new diastematic material. However, by giving this material to the violin
part, de Groot alters the work’s texture in a fundamental way, since the elements
that ‘fill out’ the texture come to the fore in the part of the solo instrument and
thereby perceptually dominate.
Wilhelmj takes another different path here, representing a middle way
between the versions of Lipiński and de Groot. His version is close to the Lipiński
in its repetition of the polonaise’s main theme in the violin part as well, although
302 The caution and care with which Lipiński transfers Chopin’s musical substance to
the instrumental duet is typified by a comparison of the two moments – identical in
Chopin – when the head motif of the polonaise’s main theme is introduced, in bars
5 and 17. In bar 5, Lipiński weakens the theme’s energy by reducing the harmonic
weight of the chords: he expels the root in the dominant and suppresses the doublings
of the members of the dominant inserted into the subdominant on the last beat, be-
fore presenting the same harmonic substance in bar 17 in a form that is identical to
Chopin’s original version. In this way, the repeat of the theme’s head motif gains a
greater volume of sound. This is an example of Lipiński’s most extensive modification
of Chopin’s text.
162
the theme’s first appearance occurs in a register an octave lower than in the ori
ginal version. Only its repeat in bars 17–24 brings the theme back to the ‘proper’
register of Chopin’s version.
Example 11.4. Lipiński, mm. 5–8.
Example 11.5. Groot, mm. 17–20.
Example 11.6. Wilhelmj, mm. 5–8.
163
Fig. 11.3. Title page of the Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 in the
transcription by Jules de Groot (Ainé Benoît)
164
The scope of the text’s diversification by means of dialogue is shown also by
a comparison across all three versions of part of the second phase in the first
section of the work (bars 34–49), comprising two periods (4+4). In Lipiński’s
transcription, all the melodic-thematic elements of the upper register are given
to the violin part, with the melody’s position in the register the same as in the
original. A different solution is employed by de Groot, who gives the thematic
element in the antecedents of the two periods to the violin and in the consequents
to the piano, thereby generating a powerful effect of dialogue. Wilhelmj –
as in the opening phase of the work’s first section – follows Lipiński in maintain-
ing the work’s diastematics in the violin part, yet the return to the second part of
the theme in bars 42–49 (cf. bars 21–24 of his transcription) is marked by playing
in octaves.
A comparison of the eight-bar lead-in to the second phase of the polonaise’s
first section highlights the gradual heightening of the differences between the
transcriptions.
Example 11.7. Lipiński, mm. 25-28.
Example 11.8. Groot, mm. 25-28.
165
Example 11.9. Wilhelmj, mm. 25-28.
Lipiński – in keeping with the principle of faithfulness to the original which

he declared at the very beginning of the work – transfers to the violin part the
rhythmically irregular groupings based on diminished seventh chords, although
relinquishing Chopin’s manner of notation (cf. Breitkopf & Härtel first edition)
and rhythmising them precisely (thereby altering Chopin’s intention), which
in the case of the first grouping gives the effect of a quaver extended by half
its value and six hemidemisemiquavers. Jules de Groot leaves these groupings
with the piano. In his version, the violin executes a stable counterpoint, based on
rhythmically longish notes, again singled out from the work’s ‘middle’ textural
layer. This procedure has already been defined as a thematically dissociative
‘rhythmic-motivic’ counterpoint.
We find an entirely different solution to this harmonic-figurational lead-in to
the second theme of Chopin’s C sharp Minor Polonaise in the transcription by
Wilhelmj. From bar 25 onwards, Wilhelmj ceases to reconcile Lipiński’s puristic
and at the same time virtuosic version with the technically simplified, dialoguing
version by de Groot and embarks on what he sees as an ambitious original cre-
ation, which he will pursue henceforth to the end of the work. In contrast to the
section introducing the first theme, where he retained the features of Chopin’s
substance, here he preserves only its rhythmic-harmonic content within the
same metric space, altering to a considerable extent the arrangement of such
elements of the texture as the number and position of chord members, added
notes emphasising the rhythm (demisemiquaver triplets), tremolos in the piano’s
lowest register, changes to the dynamics and articulation, and even varying the
harmonic substance (bars 32–33). Particularly noteworthy here is the violin part,
in which the virtuosic element, hitherto concealed by Wilhelmj, manifests itself
with the utmost force (an accumulation of two-, three- and four-note chords
in precisely rhythmised figurational sequences on the material of a diminished
seventh chord).
166
The trio of the C sharp Minor Polonaise op. 26 no. 1 in the transcriptions
under discussion reinforces the approaches to the work’s ‘translation’ that we
observed in the outermost sections. The first part of the trio in Lipiński’s tran-
scription (reprised in bars 82–97) does not bring any new issues above and
beyond those discussed earlier. The whole of the work’s melodic discourse,
only slightly modified in two places, is entrusted to the solo instrument. With
de Groot, as well, the idea of an instrumental dialogue between the solo and
accompanying parts is consistently applied: in bars 56–57, the melodic dis-
course is taken up by the piano, before being returned to the violin. Also in
Wilhelmj’s approach, this section of the trio displays the same ways of diver-
sifying the solo part’s diastematics as we observed earlier in his transcription.
Wilhelmj begins this section in a register an octave higher, before switching
to the register of the original version from bar 54. But in bars 56–57, in which
de Groot gave the initiative to the piano, Wilhelmj brings in playing in octaves
and sixths, as if synthesising the registers penetrated separately in the preced-
ing bars. And playing in octaves and sixths returns in the last two bars of this
section of the trio.
The middle section of the trio in the versions by Lipiński and de Groot brings
no surprises, its features confirming the coherence of their conceptions.
Example 11.10. Lipiński, mm. 66-69.
Example 11.11. Groot, mm. 66-69.
167
Example 11.12. Wilhelmj, mm. 66-69.
Fig. 11.3. Title page of the Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 in the
transcription by August Wilhelmj (Breitkopf & Härtel)
168
Lipiński, faithful to Chopin, leaves the restless, narratively capricious melodic
line in the lowest register of the piano part, entrusting the violin with the rhyth-
mically stable notes of the piano part’s top layer, only in bars 76–77 reinforced
with octaves so as to prepare for the culmination that looms in the next bar.
This section should be deemed the low point of de Groot’s transcription. The
opening two bars (bars 66–67) shift the beginning of Chopin’s thematic idea
from the lowest textural layer to the violin part, but thereafter – up to the end
of the middle phase of the trio – de Groot leaves the melodic discourse with the
piano in its original form. He fritters away the integrity of the musical idea of
this phase by depriving it of the head motives, which do not serve – as before –
the idea of the dialoguing of the two instruments. Here, it seems, de Groot fails
to grasp the musical sense on the macrosyntactic level. What is more, a shadow
is cast over the aesthetic value of this phase by a musically unjustified four-
bar ostinato of thirds in quaver motion introduced into the solo part, which
comes across more as a ‘filling-in of empty places’ than the expression of de
Groot’s care to preserve the balance of all the elements of the layered texture
of Chopin’s work.
This middle phase of the trio in Wilhelmj’s rendering brings new problems,
which the previous parts of his transcription have not prepared us for. Above
all, he does not commit the same error as de Groot; introducing the principle of
dialogue into the first four bars of this phase, he divides the musical discourse,
logically and proportionately, respecting the principles of Classical musical
syntax, into its characteristic rhetorical correlates of ‘questions’ and ‘answers’.
The part of the solo instrument is dominated by playing in octaves, whilst the
material of bars 78–81, which form the culmination of this phase, is distributed
by Wilhelmj in a similar way to Lipiński, although he imparts a greater volume
of sound to this passage by having the violin play in octaves and employing a
bulkier accompaniment, replete with tremolos. In Wilhelmj’s version, however,
the reprise of the trio’s first phase by no means leads to an inevitable da capo
realisation with the first section of the polonaise faithfully reiterated.303 Wilhelmj
introduces here a seconda volta, presenting an original ending to the work, with-
out a return to Chopin’s first section.
303 As we know, this work is chronologically the last Chopin polonaise in which the
return to the opening section is marked with the instruction da capo; in his subse-
quent works in the genre (op. 26 no. 2, opp. 40, 44, 53), Chopin introduces changes
in the reprise sections.
169
The ending composed by Wilhelmj instead of the reprise section, numbering
forty-one bars,304 is based entirely on new musical material and constitutes a sort
of virtuosic, etude-like cadenza crowning the work. Although this cadenza ad-
heres to the textural convention of the preceding sections of this transcription, it
clearly loses the character of a polonaise. After an eight-bar bridge, still referring
to the ‘Spielfiguren’ of the last bars of Chopin’s trio, Wilhelmj composes a 33-bar
cadenza which in the violin part is consistently distinguished by motoric semi-
quaver figuration, initially of a scalar character, then (bars 29–40) with the use of
two-note chords and intervallic leaps.
Example 11.13. Wilhelmj, mm. 9–16.
In the piano part, which is merely a vehicle for the presentation of the soloist’s
virtuosic skills, rather than the balance between large-scale passages that char-
acterises Chopin’s texture, we find an accompaniment that is flattened to the
dimension of pure homophony, abounding in tremolos, progressions and se-
quences of inversions of a single chord; an accompaniment that constitutes a
store of the most conventional musical figures, serving to focus attention on the
solo part.
304 The numbering of the bars of the seconda volta, added by Wilhelmj, is independent
here of Chopin’s text.
170
Interpretation within the context of music history
The starting point for an appraisal of the compared transcriptions of Fryderyk
Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 in terms of music history must
be the assertion that the appearance of such arrangements of works by the com-
poser of the Fantasy on Polish Themes op.13 during the nineteenth century was
an effect of the aesthetic suggestiveness of his art, and also an expression of the
need within the European musical environment for arrangements of Chopin’s
works that went beyond the realm of piano music. Let us acknowledge that the
appearance of ‘translations’ for violin and piano among the countless numbers
of transcriptions for other sets of instruments is, from the point of view of the
social history of nineteenth-century music, linked to the continual expansion,
throughout the nineteenth century, of the universe of Chopin’s music.305
To the question as to why three such different transcriptions as those ana
lysed here appeared over the course of thirty-three years within a single cul-
tural space, one may reply that it was due to a change in tastes, and Lipiński’s
transcription certainly no longer satisfied the demands of listeners whose mu-
sical imagination was shaped by the works of ‘late’ Liszt and Wagner. Not with-
out significance for our argument is the fact that the most extreme of these
arrangements (Lipiński, Wilhelmj) were issued by the same publisher, and so
there was no question here of any commercial considerations linked to the sale
of the transcribers’ property rights.
305 Instructive in this context is the quantitative inventory of performances of Chopin’s

works in Wrocław during the period 1830–1914 carried out by Maria Zduniak,
which enumerates 1389 performances of original Chopin compositions and 63 per-
formances of other composers’ arrangements of his works. This gives us some idea
of the scale of the reception of ‘foreign’ arrangements and allows us to conclude, on
the basis of musical life in Wrocław, that performances of transcriptions of Chopin’s
works during the nineteenth century represented around five per cent of all perform
ances of that composer’s works. The second conclusion that arises from a perusal
of Zduniak’s valuable study is that during the specified period no transcriptions
of Chopin’s works by Lipiński or de Groot were performed, whereas in the period
1872–1911 there were as many as fourteen performances of Chopin compositions
arranged by Wilhelmj, primarily connected with that violinist’s concert work. Thus
there is no doubt that in the case of transcriptions of Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp
Minor op. 26 no. 1 it is Wilhelmj’s arrangement that must have been the most popu
lar in the repertoire of nineteenth-century violinists. See Maria Zduniak, Muzyka i
muzycy polscy w dziewiętnastowiecznym Wrocławiu [Polish Music and Musicians in
Nineteenth-century Wrocław] (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1984), 129 and 264–267.
171
We may inquire, therefore, about the value of these transcriptions, clearly
indicating whether we are assessing them in terms of the tastes of the epoch
to which they belong or from our present-day perspective, informed by his-
toricism, as the musicologist’s intellectual formation, and by the canons of the
urtext, which determine the scholar’s approach to a musical work that is a legacy
of the past. It turns out that an attempt at evaluation, formulated in terms of pene
trative insight into the work in its original, fundamental form, is not so crucial
nowadays, given that every transcription appearing over the course of history
represents both silent criticism of the previous one and affirmation of the new
values of the ‘translation’, which refer to musical qualities not implicitly con-
tained in the Chopin.
For de Groot, Lipiński was probably too steeped in the Chopin legacy and
consequently, beyond transferring the polonaise’s melody to the piano part, he
brought few new musical qualities to his vision. Jules de Groot would certainly
have won Wilhelmj’s acceptance for his idea of instrumental dialogue, though he
would probably still have been deemed too primitive in the technical-virtuosic
sense, as well as too timid in the forming of an ambitious creative vision for a
translation that would develop certain aesthetic ideas heteronymous in respect
to the original work. So they do not represent important source evidence of each
successive transcriber’s familiarity with the achievements of his predecessor or
predecessors, since, as already mentioned, each of the analysed links in the chain
of the adaptation for violin and piano of Chopin’s piano Polonaise in C sharp
Minor implicitly contains a silent critique of those achievements.
Yet an assessment of the interpreted sequence of transcriptions of the Pol
onaise in C sharp Minor from our present-day historical perspective seems to
take on a different form. For us, Lipiński remains the only one of the composers
of the analysed arrangements to have come up with a masterly solution to the
contradiction between the ambition of creating a virtuosic violin version and the
piety with which he transferred Chopin’s original version to a new set of instru-
ments. Today, the fact that his ‘translation’ presents the most modest range of
modifications to the original text is not perceived as an obstacle to an evaluation
of his transcription. On the contrary, it seems like a virtue, revealing Chopin’s
idea as clear as a bell. Lipiński’s transcription may be defined as idealistic: he
seeks and finds Chopin’s truth and transmits it with a virtuosic panache that is
always reined in by Chopin’s authentic musical discourse.
A lofty assessment of de Groot’s transcription is hindered primarily by his
mistakes in the particularisation of the musical syntax and certain ‘additions’
that reveal his rather modest musical qualifications. Also symptomatic is the
change of key: although this was neither a rare nor a reprehensible procedure
172
in the nineteenth century, today the change of colouring seems to violate both
Chopin’s intentions and also the musical idiom of this work.306 Yet if we were to
overlook those shortcomings, there would be grounds for describing de Groot’s
transcription as pragmatic: he seeks not Chopin’s truth, as does Lipiński, but
rather the possibility of creating a transcription that is accessible to a violinist
boasting mediocre technique, as well as a plane of musical dialogue between the
two musicians. Whilst Lipiński’s transcription is above all Chopin’s Polonaise in
C sharp Minor; de Groot’s ‘translation’ is an instrumental duet.
Wilhelmj does not share his predecessors’ approach to the original version.
Although he cannot be accused of purely technical musical errors, it is clear
that his transcription is overburdened with virtuosic devices, with too little
concern shown for Chopin’s original text. In its texture, we observe that typically
German ‘Grübelei’, manifest in the unjustified doubling of chord members and
un-Chopin tremolos in the low register of the piano part. Finally, this arrange-
ment loses the transparency and proportionality of Chopin’s texture, introduc-
ing new elements into that texture and re-evaluating its original form according
to ‘new German’ aesthetic criteria that are at odds with the original. The last
phase of this arrangement even violates the polonaise’s architecture, suppressing
its reprise in favour of a rhetorically empty virtuosic cadenza that explodes the
work’s framework, noisily proclaiming the triumph of the transcriber’s expres-
sion over the clear substance of Chopin’s work.
Lipiński’s transcription is not only an expression of his admiration for
Chopin.307 It also attests an understanding of the Polish composer’s genre on
the part of a musician belonging to the same patrimony; an understanding
that is manifest in the total identification of Lipiński’s own expression with the
306 It should be mentioned here, however, that Chopin himself was not indifferent to
the question of the choice of key. Most telling in this respect is the fact that the third
Mazurka of the opus 59 set was originally written in the key of G Minor and only
later, for reasons unknown, transposed by Chopin to the key of F sharp Minor and as
such added to the unpublished opus. On this subject, see Gastone Belotti’s extensive
study “Nowy mazurek Chopina” [A new Mazurka by Chopin], trans. Jerzy Popiel,
Rocznik Chopinowski, 17 (1985), 23–62.
307 See letter from Lipiński to Chopin in Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Corre-
spondence of Fryderyk Chopin], ed. Bronisław E. Sydow (Warsaw: Państwowy In-
stytut Wydawniczy, 1955), 2:105. On Lipiński’s relationship with Chopin, see also
Franciszek German’s article “Karol Lipiński i Fryderyk Chopin” [Karol Lipiński and
Fryderyk Chopin], in Karol Lipiński. Życie, działalność, epoka [Karol Lipiński. His
Life, Work and Epoch] (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Akademii Muzycznej im. Karola
Lipińskiego, 1990), 68–77.
173
expression of the original. In this sense, Lipiński’s arrangement is essentially
‘Polish’ or ‘national’. This identification might also be interpreted as a sign of
both musicians’ belonging to the same historical epoch, marked by the first
changes brought about by the period of Sturm und Drang.
The arrangements by de Groot and Wilhelmj, in turn, were marked by those
archetypal qualities of ‘form-state’ and ‘form-process’, which help us to under-
stand the fundamental differences between French and German music. With
de Groot, we are unquestionably dealing with a constant flux in the patterns of
dialogue within the musical time-space. Here, the filling of the acoustic space is
a result of permanent diversification, a continual returning, as if ‘in a circle’, to
the idea of a musical correspondence between the two instrumental parts. As far
as is possible, one senses here a tendency towards ‘the musical incarnation of the
outside world in its multiformity’ – a tendency that is close to Chopin and proper
to French music.308 Wilhelmj’s version, meanwhile, throws over Chopin’s formal
order with stunning force, imposing upon that order its own sense of the musical
chronotope, embodied in the rejection of the work’s reprise and the crowning of
the work with a cadenza, symbolising the triumph of forma formans over forma
formata. While Lipiński’s transcription – as we have already said – is primarily
Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor, and de Groot’s arrangement is an instru-
mental duet, in Wilhelmj’s version the transcriber’s own expression dominates
over Chopin’s truth.309
The open sequence of violin transcriptions of Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp
Minor is a model example of the structure of the relations described by George
Kubler as occurring in culture between prime objects and replications.310 The
polonaise replications analysed here are remarkably consistent with the devel-
opmental tendencies in nineteenth-century music. The Polonaise by Chopin-
Lipiński constitutes a promorphic solution that is characteristic of an early
stylistic phase, technically simple and expressively clear, confirming the musical
308 Maria Piotrowska, Neoklasycyzm w muzyce XX wieku [Neoclassicism in Twentieth-

century Music] (Warszawa: Akademia Teologii Katolickiej, 1982), 79.
309 Wilhelmj’s transcription displays a clear gradation in the process of the compos-
ing-out of Chopin’s form. In the first phase of the polonaise’s opening section (bars
1–24), the extent of Wilhelmj’s interference is still rather modest and wholly com-
parable with the analogous scope of the changes made by de Groot. In the middle
phase of the first section (bars 25–49) and in the trio (bars 50–97), the changes ex-
tend to the musical texture, clearly expanding the range of alterations in de Groot’s
transcription, leading to the replacement of the reprise with new musical material.
310 George Kubler, The Shape of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 35–48.
174
tenets underlying the output of composers of European romanticism of the
twenties and thirties. The Polonaise by Chopin-Wilhelmj, in turn, is a neomor-
phic solution, typical of a late stylistic phase, technically and expressively more
complex, referring to the aesthetic of the German music of the fifties and sixties,
in particular to the New German School. If, however, the nineteenth-century
violin replications of Fryderyk Chopin’s Polonaise in C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1
analysed here have been preserved solely in the form of musical prints and do
not function in culture as acoustic documents recorded onto electroacoustic
media, that is because – as Kubler writes – ‘merely useful things disappear more
completely than meaningful and pleasurable things. The latter seem to obey a
more lenient rule of discard.’311
311 Ibid., 73.
175
12
On Jan Karłowicz’s Concept of the Revolution
in Musical Notation (with the Example of his
‘Philological’ Transcription of the Prelude
in B Minor op. 28 no. 6)
‘…the notation used hitherto, that is, the way in which musical notes are written, does not
suit their principal purpose’
In 1892, when the emotions and discussions surrounding Volapük – the artificial
syncretic language devised a dozen years or so previously by the German priest
Johann Martin Schleyer – had yet to abate, the attention of the city’s most dis-
tinguished musical authorities was attracted by a critique of traditional musical
notation, and a project for its reform, presented by the well-known historian,
linguist, folklore scholar and musicologist Jan Karłowicz (1836–1903), a true
Renaissance man, who penned such a variety of works as Poradnik dla zbierają
cych rzeczy ludowe [Handbook for Collectors of Folklore] (1871), Rys żywota i
twórczości Stanisława Moniuszki [An Outline of the Life and Work of Stanisław
Moniuszko] (1884–85), Wyprawa Kijowska Bolesława Wielkiego [Boleslaus the
Great’s Kiev Campaign] (1872), Słownik gwar polskich [Dictionary of Polish Dia-
lects] (1900–1911), Poradnik dla osób wybierających książki dla dzieci i młodzieży
[Guide for Persons Choosing Books for Children and Young Adults] (1881) and O
człowieku pierwotnym [Of Primitive Man] (1903), and a translator of philosoph-
ical works (including Herbert Spencer) and works on music theory (e.g. Ernst
Friedrich Richter’s Lehrbuch der Harmonie (1871) and Johann Christian Lobe’s
Lehrbuch der musikalischen Composition (1872)). Jan Karłowicz was also – a fact
that, in musical circles at least, eclipsed his own star for many years – the father
of Mieczysław Karłowicz, the most outstanding Polish composer of the turn of
the twentieth century, who at the time of the events in question was sixteen years
old and taking his first steps towards a career as a professional musician. So
Jan Karłowicz belonged to the intellectual-artistic elite of Warsaw (we should
also mention that he studied cello at the Brussels Conservatory and even tried
his hand at composition312), and his contributions to the city’s musical culture
included setting up sections within the Warsaw Music Society devoted to the
This chapter was first published in Polish (“O Jana Karłowicza próbach reform
notacji tradycyjnej, ‘filologicznej’ transkrypcji Preludium h-moll Chopina i kilku
177
work of Moniuszko (1891) and Chopin (1899), which provided an institutional
basis for future research into those two composer’s oeuvres.313
In 1892, the Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, which was Warsaw’s
leading cultural weekly at that time, published a cycle of five articles by Jan
Karłowicz entitled Projekt nowego pisma muzycznego (issues 442–446).314 Both
wokół tych faktów polemikach”) in Complexus effectum musicologiae. Studia Miro

slao Perz septuagenario dedicata, ed. Tomasz Jeż (Waszawa: Rabid, 2003), 413-424.
312 His extant works include the song O, nie wierz! [O, don’t Believe] for voice and piano
to words by Leopold Méyet (printed in the Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne
15 (1898), no. 757) about which Feliks Starczewski wrote: “Music written with his
son Mieczysław, who enriched the accompaniment here and there with imitation.
This is a work full of poetry, wistful melancholy and longing, and adhering to a
noble style”. Feliks Starczewski, Działalność muzyczna Jana Karłowicza, jej charak
terystyka i ocena [A Profile and Assessment of the Musical Work of Jan Karłowicz]
(Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolf, 1907), 20. This opinion is worth quoting on account
of the possibility that his ‘noble style’, ‘wistful melancholy’ and ‘longing’ may have
exerted a decisive influence on his son’s musical personality.
313 It is astonishing that such an eminent figure has not been afforded a personal entry
in PWM’s music encyclopaedia, since he is unquestionably deserving of an extensive
monograph. Here, let us provide a few basic biographical facts. Jan Karłowicz was
born in Subartonys [Pol. Subortowicze], near Merkinė [Pol. Merecz], in Lithuania,
on 28 May 1936, and he studied in Moscow (1853–57), Paris, Heidelberg and then
Berlin, where in 1866 he gained his doctorate for the study De Boleslai magni bello
kioviensi. In the years 1859–60, he studied cello and composition at the Brussels
Conservatory (with Adrien-François Servais and François-Joseph Fétis). During
the second phase of his studies abroad (1882–87), he furthered his knowledge at
the universities of Heidelberg (again), Dresden and Prague. Although an eminent
scholar and a member of many learned societies (including the Cracow Academy
of Learning, from 1887), ‘he did not hold’, as his biographer Adam Antoni Kryński
writes, ‘any power or office; he was a private man’. See Adam Antoni Kryński, Jan
Karłowicz (1836-1903). Zarys życia i prac [Jan Karłowicz (1836–1903). An Outline
of His Life and Work] (Warsaw: M. Arct, 1903), 25. Jan Karłowicz died in Warsaw on
14 June 1903. See also the collective work Życie i prace Jana Karłowicza (1836-1903)
[The Life and Work of Jan Karłowicz (1836–1903)] (Warsaw: Wisła, 1904), 379. In
this last work, a valuable source for biographies of Karłowicz is the lengthy article
by Erazm Majewski (“Zarys życia” [An Outline Biography], 1–30), but there is also a
‘funeral oration’, recollections and a general profile of his historical, linguistic, folk-
loric and musicographic works.
314 Jan Karłowicz, “Projekt nowego pisma muzycznego” [Project for a New Musical
Notation], Echo Muzyczne Teatralne i Artystyczne 9 (1892), issue no. 442, 135–137;
178
the project itself and the polemics that accompanied it were without doubt the
musical-intellectual ‘event of the year’ and electrified the conservative musical
environment of Warsaw. Yet the project had not appeared overnight. Already in
1876 and 1878, Karłowicz had published, through the firm of Joseph Unger, two
unique luxury editions of this work, not intended for sale: the first in English,315
the second in French316. Both were aimed at popularising the project beyond
Poland, and, judging by the publicity that surrounded them, both the author
and the publisher invested considerable hopes in them during the 1870s. With
regard to efforts at popularising the new convention of musical notation inter-
nationally, we know for certain that Karłowicz, as one of his biographers, Adam
Antoni Kryński, writes, ‘presented his work on a new musical notation […] in
person at an exhibition held in 1876 in Philadelphia, where it won the recogni-
tion of specialists’.317
In the present essay, I shall rely on the last version of this music theory trea-
tise (published in the Echo) because it is not just the most voluminous and most
solidly grounded version (though it contains fewer music examples than the
Unger editions and they are not as meticulously produced), but also because, at
certain crucial points, it constitutes the further development of the original ver-
sion of the project (this applies primarily to the methods for regulating musical
time). Finally, it is the version which – in contrast to both the previous versions –
caused quite a stir at home.318
There are many reasons why Jan Karłowicz’s project is worthy of attention
today. It may be interpreted from various points of view: not just in accordance
with the author’s intentions, that is, as a discourse on the reform of traditional
musical notation (such discourse has been ever present in the development of
modern musical notation), but also – as seems particularly interesting to Chopin
no. 443, 150–151; no. 444, 162; no. 445, 173–175, and no. 446, 183–184. I am grateful
to Agnieszka Leszczyńska for drawing my attention to the foreign-language editions
of this project and to Piotr Maculewicz for his help in selecting music examples.
315 Project of a new way of writing musical notes by John Karłowicz (Warsaw: J. Unger,
1876), 12 + sheet music insert.
316 Projet d’une nouvelle notation musicale par Jean Karłowicz (Warsaw: J. Unger, 1878),
12 + sheet music insert.
317 Kryński, Jan Karłowicz (1836-1903). Zarys życia i prac, 10.
318 The version published in the EMTA formed the basis for the fourth and last version
of the treatise, printed somewhat less meticulously by the Cracow firm of Anczyc &
S-ka. See Entwurf einer neuen Notenschrift von Dr. Johann Karłowicz aus Warschau
(Kraków: Anczyc & S-ka, 1892), 7.
179
Figure 12.1. Title page of the French edition of Karłowicz’s work (1878).
scholars – as a contribution to a problem not previously examined in the history

of the reception of Chopin’s works – the problem of the existence of his works in
the ‘new apparel’ of Karłowicz’s experimental notation. This area of research into
180
Chopin reception, although previously not dealt with in isolation and certainly
not the most important area, is quite characteristic and may form the basis for
aspectual research into the functioning of Chopin’s music in the musical culture
of past centuries. So having taken up both those main perspectives, let us at-
tempt to treat Karłowicz’s project of showing Chopin’s Prelude in B Minor op. 28
no. 6 in a new notational form not just within the context of the former’s attempt
to reform traditional notation, but also against the background of the polemics
that accompanied that event – polemics that are symptomatic of the intellectual
capacities of the music environment of Warsaw at that time.
“It seems to me”, wrote Jan Karłowicz in the preface to his project, “that the
notation used hitherto, that is, the way in which musical notes are written, does
not suit its principal purpose, which is based on the quick and easy reading and
performing of a musical text”.319 The author gives six reasons why such a reform
was worth undertaking: (1) the inconvenience of reading in different clefs, those
“clef-related labours of the pianist and the cellist”, the former of whom “must
read notes written in two clefs simultaneously”; (2) the surfeit of tautological
(enharmonic) chromatic signs, 295 of which “the pianist must know and quickly
find on the instrument […], and the cellist 400. If we compare the quantity of
those musical characters with the quantity of letters in the alphabet, then we
notice that the piano’s alphabet surpasses the 26-letter alphabet of written speech
more than 12 times, and the cello’s alphabet is more than 16 times as great as the
written alphabet”; (3) difficulties with the perception of signs within the stave
system, “The stave system forces the musician to strain his eyes, as every musi-
cian finds out after two or three hours of reading”; (4) the lack of distinctness
to the signs of musical script, which “in our age of short-sightedness and vision
abuse in general […] becomes nothing short of torture for musicians, causing
suffering to the eyes, the gradual shortening of sight and often blindness”; (5) the
lack of clarity to the principles governing the division of the rhythmic values of
notes, “when a composer places in a single bar many notes of different value, it
becomes impossible to immediately disentangle the division of the measure”, and
ultimately (6) this is linked also to the dependence of the notation of rhythmic
values on the tempo, resulting in “the complete futility of variety in the expres-
sion of the [rhythmic] values of notes”.320
At this point, it is worth noting that among the reasons Karłowicz invokes
to justify the need for a reform of musical notation, only the first two points
319 Karłowicz, “Projekt nowego pisma muzycznego”, 135.

320 Ibid.
181
concern issues of merit. The other four are related to difficulties with the per-
ception of the notational elements of the musical system, and so they are of a
psychological character and relative.
‘…whether we are successful: we wish merely to fulfil the obligation that our conviction
dictates’
Let us state right away: Jan Karłowicz’s attempt at reform is – paradoxically –

revolutionary… in a conservative way. He introduces a letter-number system of
signs, the like of which gave rise – as we know – to the historical procession
of ways of petrifying fleeting musical ideas. Yet Karłowicz consistently removes
all the conventional norms of the notation system used hitherto, and so his mu-
sical notation does not represent one of the many, mostly anonymous, attempts
at modifying just some elements of the traditional system, which ultimately were
a crucial impulse for genuine changes to modern musical notation, but it was an
original, spectacular demolition of the very foundations of that notation, albeit
without any chance of playing some sort of transmissional role. More than a
decade after the publication of the foreign-language prototypes of his project,
Karłowicz must have been perfectly aware of this, since he wrote: “it is of less
importance whether we are successful: we wish merely to fulfil the obligation
that our conviction dictates”.321 Before attempting to define the sources of Karło-
wicz’s project for a ‘new musical notation’ and to identity its specific character-
istics, let us remind ourselves of his key decisions relating to the substance of
this now completely forgotten reform. They refer to the removal of (1) musical
clefs, (2) chromatic signs, (3) the stave system and (4) norms of metric-rhythmic
notation. Karłowicz’s Illustration 2 shows his sign equivalents for elements of
traditional musical notation.
The top part of table 1 (I) shows the new way of denoting note pitches. The
twelve notes of the chromatic scale are given fixed letter-number designations:
c = V322; c sharp, d flat = D, d = 2, d sharp, e flat = R, e = 3, f = 4, f sharp, g flat = F,
g = 5, g sharp, a flat = A, a = 6, a sharp, b flat = H, b = 7. Underneath these equiva-
lents of note pitches, Karłowicz places “octave marks”, which enable the musician
to locate the notes in a particular register. As can be seen, the principle is simple:
V, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 correspond to the seven diatonic notes, and D, R, F, A and H
to the chromatic-enharmonic notes (the ‘black keys’). The middle part of table 1
(II), by way of example, shows the possibilities for denoting chord structures on
321 Ibid.
322 In the original versions of Karłowicz’s text (the English and the French), the first
degree (c) was marked as ‘I’, not ‘V’.
182
Figure 12.2. Sign equivalents for traditional notational elements (Karłowicz, “Projekt
nowego pisma muzycznego”, 151).
183
the basis of the new letter-number system: from two-note to four-note chords.
The bottom part of this table (III) presents perhaps the most controversial part
of the concept: the method for representing temporal (metric-rhythmic) rela-
tions. As Karłowicz writes, “We base the designation of the duration of notes
not on their absolute value, but on their relative value within the bar; that is, on
their mutual relative ratio in one bar”.323 Thus the rhythmic values result from
the perception of typographic proportions (distances) between markings of note
pitches. In justifying this idea for the notation of rhythmic proportions, Karło-
wicz writes: “In an ordinary printed book, our eye has become so used to certain
regular distances between letters, words and lines that we sense the smallest dif-
ferences, much less than a millimetre. If, for example, the characters comprising
a certain word are misplaced by just the width of a blade of grass, we notice it
at once: we are struck when one letter is misplaced in relation to another, even
by less than a quarter of a millimetre. Well, in the musical notation that we are
proposing here, we wish to exploit this property and the training of our sight
and base upon it the whole aspect of the expression of the value, or duration,
of notes”.324 As regards the designation of metre, at the beginning of a work “we
place a number laid on its side (to distinguish it from note signs), expressing the
number of particles that make up one bar”.325
At this point – and this point alone – we have to abandon the Polish source
and point out that with regard to the regulation of musical time, the original
tenets from the earlier brochures looked different. In them, Karłowicz did not
rely on the simple typographic-perceptual principle familiar from the Polish ver-
sion, but he differentiated the rhythmic values of notes by introducing a whole
range of additional symbols for the values of note duration.
Let us now turn to the second of the aspects signalled above; that is, to shed-
ding light on that true rarity in the history of the reception of Chopin’s works
that is the representation of one of the composer’s works in a notational conven-
tion which in terms of reception is completely inert. Jan Karłowicz’s project –
as the author himself, we will recall, predicted would happen, doubtless in
view of the meagre response to its first two editions – proved to be a dead-end.
323 Karłowicz, “Projekt nowego pisma muzycznego”, 162. In both the original versions
of the text, the representation of rhythm is completed by additional markings. See
no. 3 in the sheet music supplements of the English and French editions. Apart from
the discrepancies noted here (see also no. 8), the Polish edition corresponds closely
to the original versions in respect to signs.
324 Ibid., 162.
325 Ibid.
184
Figure 12.3. Original symbols for the values of note duration (Karłowicz, Project of a New
Way of Writing Musical Notes, sheet music insert).
However, the history of the reception of a musical work as the history of its edi-
tions comprises not just the main arteries of its social reception, so to speak,
destined towards the continuous aesthetic ‘updating’ of a work through qualita-
tively varied ways of popularising it, within specific realities that change over the
course of history. It also includes roadless tracts that disappear from the scholar’s
horizon, along which no socially sanctioned ‘milestones’ are formed in the his-
torical process. Today, it is just such ‘under the radar’ data of social reception,
removed on principle from the methodological tenets of modernist humanities,
that would appear to merit attention as elements that help us perceive the chaos
within that process, thereby better revealing the truth about its historical reality.
Today, the problem of chaos in the history of culture seems at least as interesting
as the moments that subjectively constitute its order.
To return to the principal strand of our considerations, Karłowicz did not
content himself with a purely theoretical outline of his new notation (he also
postulated, by consequence, the creation of a new notational school), but – to
the Chopin scholar’s particular glee – he ‘re-dressed’ Chopin’s B Minor Prelude
in the new notational garb. First let us take a look at the earlier, typographically
more elegant, version of this ‘translation’, comparing it with the symbols of the
original markings of the regulation of time, as contained in Illustration 3.
185
Figure 12.4. First version of the transcription of the musical notation of Chopin’s Prelude
in B Minor op. 28 no. 6 (Karłowicz, Project of a new way of writing musical notes, sheet
music inserts).
186
As already mentioned, the second version of this translation rejects the original
symbols marking the regulation of time, with the result that the notation only
ostensibly becomes simpler (more on this below). Karłowicz made no further
comment on this notation, writing that “the reader will deduce other, more de-
tailed, indications [from those commented upon after Illustration 2 – M.G.] for
himself when looking through […] Chopin’s prelude written in the manner set
forth above”.326 Now let us attempt a generalised definition of certain properties
of that notation from the point of view of musical palaeography.
Even a mere glance at the two transcriptions of Chopin’s B Minor Prelude
suffices for us to note – although they reject nearly all the elements of the trad
itional notation developed over the modern history of musical culture – that they
preserve many features of the notation of early music, constituting an eclectic
letter-number notation of notes, present at the beginning of the history of mu-
sical notation. With the letters, the author refers to the letter musical notation
familiar to the ancient Greeks, and with the numbers he directs attention to-
wards, for example, German lute tablatures of the sixteenth century or basso
continuo practice of the seventeenth century. These aspects are sufficiently well
known that we may pass over them here. It does seem crucial, however, to point
out that – with regard to number notation – Karłowicz referred in his last text
on the project to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who in his Dissertation sur la musique
moderne (1743) not only postulated, but even presented, a similar number-based
system of musical notation.327 There is no doubt that Jan Karłowicz’s treatises
inscribe themselves first and foremost in the current of the Polish reception of
the French thinker’s musical ideas.
‘…no one man, be he the most gifted man of all, can refute or refashion what has been
achieved over the centuries through slow, meticulous work’
How were the questions of the provenance of Karłowicz’s reforms interpreted by

his polemicists in AD 1892? Well, they attest a considerable orientation in the
achievements of the European musicography of those times. The reform’s oldest
references to the history of notation were pointed out by the Warsaw composer
and journalist Władysław Miller the younger (1863–1929), though he did not
specify his bibliographic sources. In his critique, he adopted the principle – as he
wrote expressis verbis – of ‘nothing new under the sun’. That is to say, he pointed
out that the system “proposed by the author of this project is by no means dis-
tinguished by the freshness of its concept: it has been used in all its details by the

327 Ibid., 135.
187
Figure 12.5. Second version of the transcription of the musical notation of Chopin’s Prelude
in B Minor op. 28 no. 6 (Karłowicz,“Projekt nowego pisma muzycznego”, 174).
188
Chinese for more or less 4000 years, and so from the reign of the emperor Shun
(2300 before the bir[th] of Chr[ist]), famed for his knowledge and wisdom”. Not
only did the above system, as Miller demonstrates, contain letter equivalents for
note pitches, but also “the value of notes were recognised […] solely from the
distances: notes written at greater distances are held longer, whereas notes closer
to each other are played more quickly”.328 So it was Miller who established the
oldest historical context for Jan Karłowicz’s proposition.
Karłowicz’s reference to certain strands from the history of musical notation
did not escape the attention of the composer, musicographer and music journal-
ist Jan Kleczyński, without doubt the most enlightened participant in the dispute
surrounding the new musical notation. He considered that “were a letter no-
tation, or a purely sign notation without lines and other accessories, sufficient
for the reading of musical ideas, it would unfailingly have endured; why, it was
familiar to the Greeks!” Kleczyński’s argument then takes up a strongly Euro-
centric line of reasoning, characteristic of those times. He writes: “meanwhile,
the most conspicuous proof of its impracticality is the detail that it endured
solely… in China!”329 Yet it is in Kleczyński’s response that we have a brief but
competent survey of the history of musical notation. Displaying his consider-
able knowledge, invoking Dom Joseph Pothier’s work on Gregorian plainchant330
and Emil Naumann’s illustrated history of music, highly popular at that time
and translated into many languages,331 Kleczyński wrote: “from the first dozen
signs or so, ascribed to St Ephraim”, through “the beginnings of the line system
[…] (Hucbald, tenth century)”, the history of notation has shown how “the dot
(punktum), through emboldening, turned into a note, initially square, then later
round; the virga (comma) formed the crotchet; the Podatus, Clivis, Torculus and
Porrectus gradually formed the present-day groupings and beams”.332
But let us leave aside the aspects of notational history, implicit in Jan Karło-
wicz’s project and explicated by his polemicists, and briefly remind ourselves
of the accusations regarding the substance of his new notation to which Karło-
wicz was subjected by such eminent polemicists as – besides Miller – Zygmunt
328 W.[ładysław] Miller jr., “Polemika w przedmiocie nowej notacyi” [Polemic on

the Subject of New Notation], Echo Muzyczne Teatralne i Artystyczne 9 (1892)
no. 448, 207.
329 Kleczyński, „O zmianie notacyi muzycznej“ [On a Change to Musical Notation],
Echo Muzyczne Teatralne i Artystyczne 9 (1892) no. 454, 283.
330 Dom Joseph Pothier, Les melodies grégoriennes (Tournai: Desclée, Lefebvre et Cie, 1880).
331 Emil Naumann, Illustrierte Musikgeschichte (n.p., 1880–1885).
332 Kleczyński, „O zmianie notacyi muzycznej“, 283.
189
Noskowski,333 Jan Kleczyński and Michał Marian Biernacki (1855–1936).334 All
four appear to share the opinion articulated by Kleczyński that “no one man, be
he the most gifted man of all, can refute or refashion what has been achieved over
the centuries through slow, meticulous work. There are but few products of the
human mind that provide such interesting study and present such a clear, logical
and necessary development”.335 The first accusation – not actually uttered by the
polemicists, as it is anticipated, in a special supplement, by Karłowicz himself –
concerns the new notation’s blurring of the sense of tonality. The author counters
that “musical notation has no need or obligation to perpetuate that sense: sec-
ondly, the notation developed thus far does very little to sustain it”.336 The second
accusation refers to the imprecise designation of rhythmic values (Noskowski).
As Kleczyński writes, a composer, “in his haste, would not be able to measure out
the distances between notes […], such measuring is a dreadful Achilles heel in
Mr Karłowicz’s system […]. Whatever would Mr Karłowicz do with the division
of two notes into 3, three into 4 or other complicated values occurring in several
parts simultaneously?”337 The polemicists’ third accusation is that the reformed
notation does not convey the character of musical texture (polyphony – homoph-
ony, ascensus – descensus). “To say nothing of polyphony”, exclaims Kleczyński,
“of chords, of a score! What a tangle of riddles and hieroglyphs that would be,
the like of which perhaps Champollion might resolve, but which for most would
have the significance of the Seven Seals”.338 At this point, this outstanding music
writer gives vent to the then generalised conviction of the artistic immaturity of
early music: “No, it is rather an impoverishment, a return to the awkwardness
of primitive ages; it is like retreating a thousand years”.339 The fourth accusation
refers to the difficulties arising during the creative process and the act of percep-
tion: “for the beholder, the deciphering of such pictorial rebuses is a laborious
333 Zygmunt Noskowski, „Uproszczenie dzisiejszego systemu nutowego. Nowa metoda

J.A. Bryzgałowa“ [A simplification of the present system of notation. The new
method of J. A. Brizgalov], Echo Muzyczne Teatralne i Artystyczne 9 (1892) no. 452,
257–258.
334 M.[ichał] M.[arian] B.[iernacki], “Nowe pismo nutowe” [A New Musical Notation],
Echo Muzyczne Teatralne i Arstystyczne, 15 (1898), no. 754, 121–122.
335 Kleczyński, “O zmianie notacyi muzycznej”, 283.
338 Ibid.
339 Ibid.
190
process, which allows the mind not a moment’s repose”340 wrote Kleczyński, and
he was echoed by Noskowski and Biernacki. The latter wrote that such proced
ures “should be numbered among confusing, rather than felicitous, ideas”.341 The
fifth accusation relates to the particularism of new notational systems, which
threaten the universality of the old system.342 And finally, the sixth accusation,
of an aesthetic nature, concerns the “twelve rather unaesthetic signs”343 or – as
Noskowski concluded – “for me it is quite simply… hideous!”344
Not only is Jan Karłowicz’s forgotten project for reform not a new project for
musical notation – as would appear to be indicated by the range of changes he
proclaims – but it restores some normative topoi from the history of musical no-
tation which were revived with the modernist watershed, triggering meaningful
discussion about its historical and theoretical character. The ‘project for a new
musical notation’ proposed by Jan Karłowicz on the pages of what was, after all,
merely a cultural weekly in Warsaw – a provincial city in Europe at that time –
should be interpreted also within the context of Karłowicz’s own lofty linguis-
tic qualifications, discernible in the character of his discourse, and particularly
within the context of the European discourses of that time which also concerned
a musical Volapük, crossing several thresholds of common sense.345 Those dis-
cussions, doubtless to a greater extent than one might suspect today, inspired
new debate over the linguistic character of music. This concerned especially mu-
sical notation, in relation to which the need for reform – this time in contrast
to Volapük – prompted the reformers to seek particular, rather than universal,
solutions. And, last but not least, for the historian of the reception of Chopin’s
340 Ibid.
341 Biernacki’s article does not refer directly to Karłowicz’s project; he gives an account
of another, classically tablature-style concept of notational reform, the so-called
Leuternnotenschrift, on the basis of which the Vienna and Leipzig publisher Otto
Maas “published over 150 works for piano, harmonium and zither, including both
classical and newer repertoire in his edition (Edition de Heinrich)”. See Biernacki,
„Nowe pismo nutowe“, 122.
342 Noskowski, „Uproszczenie dzisiejszego systemu nutowego“, 258.
344 Noskowski, „Uproszczenie dzisiejszego systemu nutowego“, 258.
345 As the Echo reports, the Belgian officer Charles Lemere elaborated a universal musical
‘volapück’, involving the compiling, from combinations of scale degrees, a universal
dictionary; for example, ‘fa – la = good, la – fa = bad, do – mi – sol = God, sol –
mi – do = devil, and so on’. See Crlb, “Volapück muzyczny (system Ch. Lemera)”
[A Musical Volapük (the System of C. Lemer)], Echo Muzyczne Teatralne i Arty
styczne 15 (1898) no. 750, 77.
191
works in nineteenth-century musical culture, the B Minor Prelude appears for
perhaps the first time in a new, unfamiliar context relating to the meaning of the
notion ‘transcription’: not as a change to texture resulting from the transferral of
a work to new instrumental forces, but as a transcription in the purely philologi-
cal sense – the ‘rewriting’ (transcriptio) of a text into another text, whilst entirely
respecting its compositional meanings, senses and content.
192
Index of Chopin’s Works
SOLO PIANO L
Largo in E flat Major [op. posth.]
A WN 61 131
Allegro de concert op. 46 72 Lento con gran espressione WN 37 70
B M
Ballades 102 Mazurkas 21, 30, 56, 57, 59, 62, 63,
–– G Minor op. 23 84 65, 69, 71, 72, 100, 102, 103, 109,
–– F Major op. 38 77, 150 118, 120, 133
–– F Minor op. 52 73 –– F sharp Minor op. 6 no. 1 148-149
Barcarolle in F sharp Major –– C sharp Minor op. 6 no. 2 69
op. 60 59, 72 –– A Minor op. 7 no. 2 152
Berceuse in D flat Major op. 57 101, 151 –– F Minor op. 7 no. 3 152
Bolero C Major op. 19 73, 77, 97 –– A flat Major op. 7 no. 4 148-149
–– A flat Major op. 17 no. 3 69
E –– A Minor op. 17 no. 4 63, 69, 152
Etudes 30, 48, 56, 60, 71, 108 –– B flat Major op. 17 no. 1 152
–– A Minor op. 10 no. 2 60, 73, 147 –– C Major op. 24 no. 2 69
–– E Major op. 10 no. 3 142 –– B flat Minor op. 24 no. 4 63
–– C sharp Minor op. 10 no. 4 69 –– B Minor op. 30 no. 2 78
–– G flat Major op. 10 no. 5 153 –– C sharp Minor op. 30 no. 4 63, 73
–– A flat Major op. 10 no. 10 60, 73 –– C sharp Minor op. 41 no. 1 69
–– G sharp Minor op. 25 no. 6 60, 73 –– E Minor op. 41 no. 2 75, 84
–– D flat Major op. 25 no. 8 60, 73 –– A flat Major op. 41 no. 4 63
–– B Minor op. 25 no. 10 60, 73, 85, 86 –– G Major op. 50 no. 1 69
–– A Minor op. 25 no. 11 60 –– C sharp Minor op. 50 no. 3 62, 63
–– B Major op. 56 no. 1 72
F –– C Major op. 56 no. 2 69
Fantasia in F Minor op. 49 59 –– C Minor op. 56 no. 3 63
–– A Minor op. 59 no. 1 109
I –– F sharp Minor op. 59 no. 3 173
Impromptus 57, 120 –– C sharp Minor op. 63 no. 3 109
–– F sharp Major op. 36 72 –– A Minor [op. 68 no. 2] WN 14 23, 69
Impromptu-Fantaisie C sharp Minor –– G Major WN 17a 23
[op. 66] WN 46 97 –– F Major [op. 68 no. 3] WN 25 69
193
–– A flat Major WN 45 109 –– G sharp Minor WN 5 121-122, 136
–– C Major [op. 67 no. 3] WN 48 109 –– D Minor [op. 71 no. 1] WN 11 122,
–– F Minor [op. 68 no. 4] WN 65 61, 134, 136
74, 76-79, 85-86, 88, 90, 98 –– B flat Major [op. 71 no. 2] WN 17
21, 23
N Preludes op. 28 57, 71, 89, 116, 120
Nocturnes 51, 59, 62-63, 65, 69, 71-72, –– A Minor op. 28 no. 2 77, 85, 87,
100-102, 109, 120, 145, 151 98, 99
–– B flat Minor op. 9 no. 1 48-51 –– E Minor op. 28 no. 4 60, 61, 74-76,
–– E flat Major op. 9 no. 2 141 86, 87
–– F Major op. 15 no. 1 144-145 –– B Minor op. 28 no. 6 8, 10, 177,
–– G Minor op. 15 no. 3 70 181, 186-188
–– C sharp Minor op. 27 no. 1 69 –– F sharp Minor op. 28 no. 8 69
–– D flat Major op. 27 no. 2 72 –– E Major op. 28 no. 9 75
–– G Major op. 37 no. 1 62 –– E flat Minor op. 28 no. 14 75
–– C Minor op. 48 no. 1 70 –– F Minor op. 28 no. 18 109
–– F sharp Minor op. 48 no. 2 100 –– G Minor op. 28 no. 22 85, 87
–– F Minor op. 55 no. 1 82 Prelude in C sharp Minor op. 45 62,
–– E flat Major op. 55 no. 2 63 69, 78, 82, 99, 101
–– E Minor [op. 72] WN 23 40
–– C Minor WN 62 98 R
Rondos 25, 27, 30, 57, 61, 72, 120
P –– C Minor op. 1 19, 27, 40
Polonaises 7, 9, 21, 30, 49, 59, 64, 65, –– F Major à la Mazur for piano op. 5
72, 102, 103, 109, 115-137, 145 23-25
–– C sharp Minor op. 26 no. 1 7, 10, –– E flat Major op. 16 97
57, 123, 124, 135, 136, 145, 149,
155-175 S
–– E flat Minor op. 26 no. 2 109, 123, Scherzos 59, 102
124, 129, 133-134, 136, 169 –– B flat Minor op. 31 72, 77
–– A Major op. 40 no. 1 126, 127, 136, –– C sharp Minor op. 39 70, 76, 109, 123
142 –– E Major op. 54 62, 78, 123
–– C Minor op. 40 no. 2 126-128, 136 Sonatas 25, 30, 57, 65, 71, 72, 86,
–– F sharp Minor op. 44 104, 105, 108, 102, 120
109, 111, 113, 119, 128-134, 136 –– C Minor op. 4 23-26, 40, 57, 60, 70,
–– A flat Major op. 53 72, 119, 133, 74, 85, 86, 96
134, 136 –– B Minor op. 58 57, 98, 109, 141,
Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat Major 153-154
op. 61 57, 62, 72, 78, 103, 119, 121, –– B Minor op. 58 (Funeral March)
134-136 141, 153, 154
–– B flat Major WN 1 121-122, 136 Souvenir de Paganini for piano
–– G Minor WN 2 121-122, 136 WN 16 23
194
V CHAMBER MUSIC
Variations 23, 24, 30, 61, 65, 97
–– E Major on a German Air WN 6 24 Piano Trio in G Minor op. 8 7, 9, 23,
–– B flat Major op. 12 30, 74 26, 27, 41, 72, 96
Polonaise in C Major for piano and
W cello op. 3 23, 47, 48, 97, 122
Waltzes 71, 72 Rondo in C Major for 2 pianos
–– E flat Major op. 18 141 [op. 73] WN 15 23, 27
–– A flat Major op. 42 109 Sonate in G Minor for piano and cello
–– C sharp Minor op. 64 no. 2 142 op. 65 72, 96, 98
–– E Major WN 18 23, 46, 47
–– B Minor [op. 69 no. 2] WN 19 23 SONGS
–– G flat Major [op. 70 no. 1]
WN 35 97 Hulanka [Drinking song] WN 32 69
–– F Minor [op. 70 no. 2] WN 55 Melodia [Melody] WN 61 7, 104,
146, 147 107-114, 132
–– A Minor WN 63 98 Piosnka litewska [Lithuanian song]
WN 38 69, 107
PIANO WITH ORCHESTRA Pierścień [The ring] WN 50 107
Poseł [The messenger] WN 30 69,
Concerto in E Minor op. 11 46, 73 107, 110
Concerto in F Minor op. 21 30, 41, Wiosna [The spring] WN 52 69, 147
43-46, 157 Leci liście z drzewa [Leaves are falling]
Fantasy on Polish Themes op. 13 23, WN 49 107
27, 96, 109, 171
Rondo à la Krakowiak op. 14 23, 27,
28, 46, 96, 109
Variations on “Là ci darem la mano”
from Mozart’s Don Giovanni op. 2
23-25, 27, 46, 73, 96
195
Index of Names
A
Abraham, Gerald 57 Brahms, Johannes 96, 99, 114, 142,
Albrechtsberger, Johann Georg 35 158
Aristide, Jacques H. 42 Bremer, Christoph 119
Askenazy Szymon 13 Bristiger, Michał 31
Brodziński, Kazimierz 20
B Bronarski, Ludwik 56, 60, 67-75, 79,
Bach, Johann Sebastian 104, 81-83, 88, 102, 115
107, 113 –– Harmonika Chopina 56, 60, 67, 68,
–– Das Wohltemperierte Klavier 113 71, 73-75, 79, 82, 83, 101, 102
Bailly, Jakób 17 Brunner, August Fidelis 21
Balakirev, Mily 142 Busoni, Ferruccio 146
Ballstaed, Andreas 141 Büchner, Ferdinand 153
Bandtkie, Jerzy Samuel 16 Bülow, Hans von 91
Baranowski, Tomasz 64, 65, 136 Brizgalov, J.A. 190
Barbag, Seweryn 57
Bartók, Bela 102 C
Beethoven, Ludwig van 26, 40, 68, Champollion, Jean-François 190
89-92, 112, 113, 115 Charśnicki, K. 131
–– Fidelio 112 Chechlińska, Zofia 64, 65
–– Piano Sonata in E flat Major Cherbuliez, Antoine-Élisée 58
op. 31 no. 3 89, 90 Chodkowski, Andrzej 26, 27, 71
Beer, Axel 155 Chodźko, Leonard 126
Belotti, Gastone 173 Chomiński, Józef Michał 23-25, 44,
Benedetto, Daniela di 79, 101 57-59, 79, 86, 116, 141, 143, 145,
Bentkowski, Feliks 15, 20 156, 157
Berg, Alban 91 Chopin [-Jędrzejewiczowa],
–– Lyrische Suite 91 Ludwika 98
Bial, Carl 147 Chopin, Mikołaj 28
Białobłocki, Jan 18, 20, 21 Chybiński, Adolf 81
Bielawski, Józef 17 Cichowski, Adolf 105, 133
Bieliński, Józef 13, 15-17 Cimarosa, Domenico 26
Biernacki, Michał Marian 189, 191 Cirlot, Juan Eduardo 119, 120, 137
Bilica, Krzysztof 104, 118, 131 Comber, John 10, 52, 79, 92, 175, 192
Binental, Leopold 29 Cornelius, Peter 158
Blahetka, Leopoldina 21 Cramer, Johann Baptist 48
Bońkowski, Wojciech 10, 30, 40, 45, Czekanowska [-Kuklińska], Anna 118
106, 114, 117, 121, 137 Czernek, Ewa 141, 145
Borris, Siegfried 60 Czerny, Carl 48, 156
197
D Fryś-Pietraszkowa, Ewa 119
Debussy, Claude 82, 99, 101 Förster, Emmanuel Alois 39
Delacroix, Eugène 101 Fux, Johann Joseph 36
Dessauer, Josef 156
Deutsch, Otto Erich 157 G
Devriès, Anik 157 Gerber, Rafał 13
Dorn, Heinrich 100 Glazunov, Alexander 142
Dziębowska, Elżbieta 31, 58 Gloger, Zygmunt 125, 126
Godowski, Leopold 142, 146, 147
E Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 91, 95, 137
Eggebrecht, Hans-Heinrich 113, 114 –– Faust 91
Eigeldinger, Jean-Jacques 101, 116 Goldner, Wilhelm 153, 154
Einstein, Alfred 56 Goldschmidt, Harry 113, 114
Ekier, Jan 21, 23, 24, 88 Gołąb, Maciej 10, 22, 25, 56, 59, 62,
Eliade, Mircea 137 64, 65, 67, 71, 73, 76-79, 99, 100,
Elsner, Józef 7, 9, 14-18, 20-41, 96-98, 132, 136, 145, 149, 158
104, 123, 129-130 –– Chromatyka i tonalność w muzyce
–– Listy o muzyce i harmonii 34 Chopina 31, 56, 59, 67, 73, 76-78,
–– Missa in C Major op. 22 129 81, 89, 99
–– Missa in C Major op. 51 130 Grabowski, Stanisław 28
–– Missa in F 129 Groot, Jules de 10, 155-174
–– Polonaise in E flat Major for Piano Grützmacher, Friedrich 142
(ca. 1805) 123 Grützmacher, Leopold 142, 144, 145
–– Rozprawa o muzyce i harmonii 34 Gutenberg, Johannes 117
–– Rozprawa o metryczności i
rytmiczności języka polskiego 104 H
–– Sumariusz moich utworów Hamann, Richard 112
muzycznych 34 Haendel, Georg Friedrich 26
Erpf, Hermann 83, 87 Haydn, Joseph 27, 40
Hedley, Arthur 20, 32, 95
F Heen, Elias Hieronymus 119, 120
Feicht, Hieronim 57 –– Amor meus Crucifixus est 120
Fétis, François-Joseph 95, 178 Heine, Heinrich 95
–– Biographie universelle des Helman, Zofia 25, 65
musiciens 95 Hensel, Fanny 100
Floros, Constantin 114, 115 Herder, Johann Gottfried 103
Fokine, Michel 151 Hermann, Friedrich 142, 144, 145
Fontana, Julian 88, 89, 98, 103, 133 Hirszenberg, Beatrysa 25, 31, 67, 99
Franchomme, August 142 Hławiczka, Karol 118
Franck, César 158 Hofmeister, Friedrich 144, 145,
Françaix, Jean René 142 147-149, 153, 157
Frączyk, Tadeusz 14-16, 20, 21, 32 Holland, Jan 14
198
Horn, August 142 Kinderman, William 76
Hucbald 189 Kirnberger, Johann Philipp 35, 36, 40
Humboldt, Alexander von 26 Kleczyński, Jan 189-191
Hummel, Johann Nepomuk 24, 156 Kobielus, Stanisław 119
Kobylańska, Krystyna 27, 28, 41-46
J Kolberg, Oskar 102
Jachimecki, Zdzisław 56, 86, 89, 91 Kopaliński, Władysław 119
Jacobson, Bernard 107 Kowalski, Hubert 13
Janion, Maria 96, 100 Krasiński, Zygmunt 104, 105, 110,
Jarmusiewicz, Jan 39 112, 113, 132
Jarocki, Feliks Paweł 26 –– Ostatni [The Last One] 104, 105,
Jasińska, Danuta 56, 63, 65, 97 110, 112, 113, 132
Jasiński, Tomasz 104, 108, 109, 128-131 Kratzer, Walenty 17, 21
Jaworek, Józef 17 Kraushar, Aleksander 13
Jeż, Tomasz 119, 178 Kreisler, Fritz 142
Jung, Carl Gustav 137 Kremlev, Julij A. 57
Kryński, Adam Antoni 178, 179
K Kubler, George 174, 175
Kallberg, Jeffrey 41, 65, 117 Kuhlau, Friedrich 156
Kapelański, Maksymilian 10, 66, 154 Kunasik 133
Karg-Elert, Siegfried 76 Kunczyńska-Iracka, Anna 119
Karłowicz, Jan 8, 10, 177-192 Kurpiński, Karol 36-39, 98, 127, 128
–– O człowieku pierwotnym 177 –– Warszawianka [La Varsovienne]
–– Poradnik dla osób wybierających 127, 128
książki dla dzieci i młodzieży 177 –– Zasady harmonii tonów 37-39
–– Poradnik dla zbierających rzeczy Kurth, Ernst 78, 79, 82-84, 89
ludowe 177 –– Die romatische Harmonik und
–– Projekt nowego pisma muzycznego ihre Krise 78, 79, 82-84, 89
100, 177-192
–– Rys żywota i twórczości Stanisława L
Moniuszki 177 Lazarov, Stephan 82
–– Słownik gwar polskich 177 Lehman, Johann Georg Christian 26
–– Wyprawa Kijowska Bolesława Wiel Leichtentritt, Hugo 63, 72, 73, 82
kiego 177 Leland, Charles Godfrey 95
Karłowicz, Mieczysław 100, 177 Lelewel, Joachim 133
Karpiński, Franciszek 27 Lemere, Charles 191
–– Już miesiąc zaszedł 27 [The Moon Lentz, Henryk 17
has Set] Lesure, François 157
Kaszewski, Jan Nepomucen 131, 132 Leszczyńska, Agnieszka 179
–– Boże, coś Polskę [God Save Poland] Lilius, Franciszek 131
132 Lindmayer-Brandl, Andrea 51
Kieniewicz, Stefan 13, 32 Lipiński, Karol 10, 142, 145, 155-174
199
Lissa, Zofia 29, 60, 68, 79, 83, 91, 101, Morawski, F. 133
118, 132, 133, 142 Morelli, Giovanni 116
–– Harmonika Chopina z Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 23-25,
perspektywy techniki dźwiękowej 27, 95, 96
XX wieku 68, 79, 101 Musioł, Karol 82, 91
Liszt, Ferenc 61, 68, 90, 91, 99, 142,
146, 158, 171 N
–– Ich möchte hingehn 90 Nawarecki, Aleksander 95
Literska, Barbara 141, 144, 155 Naumann, Emil 189
Lobe, Johann Christian 177 Niemojewski, Bonawentura 133
–– Lehrbuch der musikalischen Norwid, Cyprian Kamil 117
Composition 177 Noske, Frits 83
Lorenz, Alfred 58 Noskowski, Zygmunt 142, 190, 191
Loyola, Ignatius of 119 Nowak-Romanowicz, Alina
32-35, 40
Ł Nowakowski, Erazm 14, 15, 17, 18,
Łubieńska, Paulina 34, 38 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29
Nowik, Wojciech 88
M
Magin, Miłosz 88 O
Majewski, Erazm 178 Ogiński, Michał Kleofas 22
Matuszyński, Jan 128 Onslow, Andre George Louis 26
Mahler, Gustav 57, 82, 100, 115 Osiński, Ludwik 21
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Carl 100 Opieński, Henryk 128
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix 96,
100, 158 P
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Paul 100 Perz, Mirosław 178
Mersmann, Hans 86, 116 Pękiel, Bartłomiej 131
Méyet, Leopold 178 Pfarr, Kristina 155
Michałowski, Aleksander 142 Pilichowski, Seweryn 105
Mickiewicz, Adam 98, 100, 105, 113, Piłsudski, Józef 29
117, 124, 125, 132, 133 Piotrowska, Maria 111, 112, 174
–– Dziady [The Forefathers’ Eve] 105, Piwińska, Marta 22, 95
113, 132 Plichta, Andrzej 133
–– Pan Tadeusz [Sir Thaddeus] Pokropek, Marian 119
117, 124 Poliński, Aleksander 34
–– Writings 125 Popiel, Jerzy 173
Miketta, Janusz 57 Poprzęcka, Maria 108
Miller, Władysław 187, 189 Pośpiech, Remigiusz 129
Miziołek, Jerzy 13 Pothier, Dom Joseph 189
Moniuszko, Stanisław 177, 178 Prill, Emill 142
Moszczyński, Alexander 103 Prochota, Hubert 129
200
Prosnak, Jan 39 –– Krótka nauka poznania Reguł
Pulikowski, Julian 29 Harmonii 33
Pułaski, Kazimierz 126 Siwicka, Dorota 95
Skłodowska-Curie, Maria 130
R Słowacki, Juliusz 99, 100
Raffael, Santi 95 Smith, Ronald 88
Rameau, Jean-Philippe 36, 40 Smokowski, Wincenty 125
Reger, Max 142, 146 Sobańska, Renata 82
Reicha, Anton 39 Sobański, Izydor 133
Reményi, Eduard 157 Sobieski, Jan III (King of
Réti, Rudolf 83 Poland) 128
Richter, Ernst Friedrich 177 Spohr, Louis 61, 90, 91
–– Lehrbuch der Harmonie 177 –– Der Alchymist 90
Riemann, Hugo 88, 97 Starczewski, Feliks 178
Rosen, Charles 25, 72, 102 Stefani, Józef 35, 102
Rothstein, William 62, 65, 100 Straszewicz, Józef 99
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 187 Sydow, Bronisław Edward 20, 32, 48,
–– Dissertation sur la musique 51, 78, 95, 128, 173
moderne 187 Szabliński, Józef 17
Ruf, Wolfgang 155 Szarzyński, Stanisław
Rymkiewicz, Jarosław Marek 95 Sylwester 131
Rzewuski, Henryk 125 Szklener, Artur 41
Szweykowski, Wojciech Anzelm 15
S Szymanowska, Maria 21, 98
Saint-Saëns, Camille 142
Samson, Jim 62, 76, 100, 116 T
Schering, Arnold 115 Taine, Hippolyte 103
Schicht, Johann Christian 39 Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, Krystyna
Schlesinger, Maurice 26, 45, 107, 111
88, 156 Tilly, Margaret 116, 117
Schleyer, Johann Martin 177 Tittel, Ernst 36
Schönberg, Arnold 36, 99 Tomaszewski, Mieczysław 58, 106
Schubert, Ferdinand Louis 142 Towiański, Andrzej 105
Schubert, Franz 40, 61, 68 Tuchowski, Andrzej 56, 59, 63, 116,
Schulz (Schultz), August 142, 157 136
Schumann, Robert 68, 96, 100, 158 Turło, Teresa Dalila 23, 24, 44, 141,
Scriabin, Alexander 57, 91, 101 143, 145, 156, 157
–– Prometheus 91 Tylkowski, Wojciech 31
Servais, Adrien-François 178
Signac, Paul 101 U
Sikorski, Józef 111 Unger, Joseph 125, 179
Simon, Karol Antoni 33, 34 Urban, Christian 22, 97
201
V Witkowska-Zaremba, Elżbieta 62,
Viardot-Garcia, Pauline 142, 151, 152 65, 100
Vigneron, Pierre-Roche 19 Witwicki, Stefan 105,
Vogel, Martin 36, 83 110, 133
Volek, Jaroslav 83 Woyciechowski, Tytus 98
Voynich, Ethel Lilian 128 Woyniewicz, Wiktor 35
Wójcicki, Kazimierz
W Władysław 124, 125
Wagner, Józef 17 Wójcik-Keuprulian,
Wagner, Manfred 34 Bronisława 56
Wagner, Richard 57, 62, 79, 82-92, 99, Würfel, Wacław 36
100, 158, 171
–– Tristan und Isolde 79, 82-91, 158 Z
Wawrykowa, Maria 13, 32 Zamoyski, Adam 40
Weber, Carl Maria 156 Zawiejski, Czesław Karol 39
Weinert, Piotr 35 Zduniak, Maria 130, 171
Weyland, Marcel 117 Zieleński, Mikołaj 131
Whistling, Carl Friedrich 157 Zimmermann, Ernst 89
Wierzyński, Kazimierz 96
Wilhelmj, August 10, 142, 155-174 Ż
Wilkowska [-Chomińska] Krystyna 57 Żmigrodzka, Maria 96, 100
Wind, Edgar 116 Żywny, Wojciech 17, 21
Winen, Mikołaj 17
202

Twelve Studies in Chopin: Maciej Goł Ab

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Twelve Studies in Chopin

Twelve Studies in Chopin

ISBN 978-3-631-65619-8 www.peterlang.com

Twelve Studies in Chopin

Twelve Studies in Chopin

Twelve Studies in Chopin

Translated by Wojciech Bońkowski,

This publication was funded by the Faculty of Historical

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-3-631-65619-8 (Print)

Part I. The Origins of Chopin’s

Part II. Chopin’s Musical Language and

Part III. Chopin’s Music Aesthetics...............................................................93

Part IV. Transcriptions of Chopin’s Works............................................. 139

Index of Chopin’s Works�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 193

1 Rafał Gerber, Studenci Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1808–1831 [Students of the Uni-

5 Erazm Nowakowski, „Dawne szkoły muzyczne w Warszawie [Ancient Musical

12 Quoted after Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 188.

16 Index Prælectionum in Universitate Varsaviensi inde a 15 septembris MDCCCXXVI

18 Nowakowski, Echo Muzyczne, Teatralne i Artystyczne, no. 29 (6 July 1891): 375.

19 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, abridged from Fryderyk Chopin’s corres­

24 Frączyk, Warszawa młodości Chopina, 222.

28 See “Transformations of Chopin’s Style,” Polish Music Journal 3, no. 1 (2000),

Table 1.1. Chopin’s university compositions in the last Warsaw years.31

Year of composition31 Prima prattica (at the Seconda prattica(off-University)

34 Józef M. Chomiński, Sonaty Chopina [Chopin’s Sonatas] (Kraków: Polskie

41 Andrzej Chodkowski, “Kilka uwag o ‘Trio fortepianowym’ Fryderyka Chopina

45 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, 21.

Translated by Wojciech Bońkowski

51 Alina Nowak-Romanowicz, Józef Elsner (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne,

62 Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Gründliche Anweisung zur Komposition (Leipzig:

68 Karol Kurpiński, Zasady Harmonii Tonów z dołączeniem Jenerał-basu praktycznego

Contrary to Elsner’s work, Kurpiński’s textbook does include examples of how

75 Johann Gottfried Schicht, Grundregeln der Harmonie nach dem Verwechslungs-­

Translated by Wojciech Bońkowski

79 Chopin might not have been inspired by Elsner as a composer; Nowak-Romanowicz

Item 80 in Krystyna Kobylańska’s fundamental catalogue of the manuscripts

81 Krystyna Kobylańska, Rękopisy utworów Chopina. Katalog [Manuscripts of Chopin’s

83 Kobylańska, Rękopisy, item no. 82.

figurations, also adhering to a key specified verbally by the composer: C Major.

84 Ibid., item no. 255.

reduced parts of the accompaniment. Analysis of the contents of this fragment

86 Kobylańska, Katalog, item no. 258.

Example 3.4. Reconstruction of fragment 2a.

88 Kobylańska, Katalog, items nos. 6 and 188.

Example 3.5. Reconstruction of fragment 2b.

89 Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin], ed.

Example 3.7. Reconstruction of fragment 4a.

Its musical substance contains an accompaniment figure that is probably in 6/4

Example 3.9. Reconstruction of fragment 4c.

This tripartite chromatic sequence is possibly a very distant variant of bar 83

91 Bronisław Edward Sydow, Bibliografia F. F. Chopina [A Chopin Bibliography]

Translated by John Comber

93 Ludwik Bronarski, Harmonika Chopina [Chopin’s Harmony] (Warszawa: To-

98 Seweryn Barbag, Studium o pieśniach Chopina [A Study of Chopin’s Songs] (Lwów:

102 Ibid., 29.

106 Chomiński, „Z zagadnień ewolucji stylu Chopina“.

Syntax and form

115 Ibid., 132-133.

119 Tomasz Baranowski, Przemiany muzycznych kategorii formalnych w fortepianowych

121 Zofia Chechlińska, Wariacje i technika wariacyjna w twórczości Chopina [Variations

Translated by Maksymilian Kapelański

Part I. The Origins of Chopin’s

Part II. Chopin’s Musical Language and

Index of Chopin’s Works�� 193

19 Selected Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, abridged from Fryderyk Chopin’s corres

75 Johann Gottfried Schicht, Grundregeln der Harmonie nach dem Verwechslungs-

In this chapter I wish to go back to traditional methods of musical work ana

247 Obrazy starodawne napisał Kaź[imierz] Wł[adysław] Wójcicki z drzeworytami Win

251 Gloger, Encyklopedia staropolska, 108. Another nineteenth-century historian, Le

Polonaise in F sharp Minor op. 44], Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska,