Chopin’s brilliant Polonaise

Music Appreciation
Written By Edward Wolfe

The piece was written by Polish composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) in 1842. It is one of Chopin’s most famous pieces, the main melody of which has been widely quoted.

The polonaise was a dignified ceremonial dance that from the 17th to 19th century often opened court balls and other royal functions. Likely once a warrior’s triumphal dance, it was adopted by the Polish nobility as a formal march in 3/4 time as early as 1573 for the coronation of Henry of Anjou as king of Poland.

In its aristocratic form the dancers, in couples according to their social positions, promenaded around the ballroom with gliding steps accented by bending the knees slightly on every third step. Polonaise music is in 3/4 time. The dance was used as a musical form by such prominent composers as Beethoven, Handel, Mussorgsky, and Chopin (Britannica).

Performed here by Rafat Lewandowski, piano (Futurex FCD 727 2)

Subscribe to receive an email notice when I post a new blog article.

Please leave a comment on the original post.

Edward Wolfe

Edward Wolfe has been a fan of Christian apologetics since his teenage years, when he began seriously to question the truth of the Bible and the reality of Jesus. About twenty years ago, he started noticing that Christian evidences roughly fell into five categories, the five featured on this website.
Although much of his professional life has been in Christian circles (12 years on the faculties of Pacific Christian College, now a part of Hope International University, and Manhattan Christian College and also 12 years at First Christian Church of Tempe), much of his professional life has been in public institutions (4 years at the University of Colorado and 19 years at Tempe Preparatory Academy).
His formal academic preparation has been in the field of music. His bachelor degree was in Church Music with a minor in Bible where he studied with Roger Koerner, Sue Magnusson, Russel Squire, and John Rowe; his master’s was in Choral Conducting where he studied with Howard Swan, Gordon Paine, and Roger Ardrey; and his doctorate was in Piano Performance, Pedagogy, and Literature, where he also studied group dynamics, humanistic psychology, and Gestalt theory with Guy Duckworth.
He and his wife Louise have four grown children and six grandchildren.

https://WolfeMusicEd.com
Next

Meant for Evil