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Frédéric Chopin

The mazurka originated in the Polish province of Mazovia, near Warsaw. In the seventeenth century, the dance began to spread beyond the boundaries of Poland. Stylized mazurkas, such as Chopin's, combine aspects of this and several other dances, but some characteristics are consistently present: an accented third beat (occasionally the second) in a 3/4 measure; the use of both the natural and raised versions of some scale degrees, particularly the fourth; and a drone bass. During the 1830s and 1840s "art" music mazurkas were very popular in drawing rooms throughout Europe.

Some of the melodies of the mazurkas are unusual in comparison to the melodies of European "art" music. Many of these are related to folk mazurkas in their "modular" melodies consisting of tiny rhythmic and melodic units. Also, some use cross rhythms, chromatic scales, and modes typically not found in Western music. Often, we find remote keys used as colorful excursions from the tonic.

Most of Chopin's Mazurkas are in strict ternary form, some of them actually sporting a da capo to indicate the return to the first section. Chopin's later Mazurkas are more stylized than the earlier ones and are in many cases the testing ground for some of his most experimental ideas. Unlike other Romantic-era manifestations of "folk" music, Chopin's Mazurkas contain no actual folk tunes. He uses typical rhythms associated with Polish music, fragments of Polish melodies and Polish rhythmic and cadential formulas and combines them in an original way. Chopin's mazurkas are far more advanced than those by his contemporaries. Chopin borrowed sounds he found outside traditional European "art" music and used them to create music within that tradition. Some consider Chopin's mazurkas to be the most original of his works.

Completed on November 28, 1838, the Mazurka in E minor, Op. 41, No. 2, was first published in Paris in 1840, separately from Op. 41, Nos. 1, 3 and 4. These latter three, composed in 1839-40, were published as a set in Leipzig in 1840. Instead of the expansion on the "traditional" mazurka structure we find in the previous two sets (Opp. 30 and 33), compression characterizes those of Op. 41, especially the second, in E minor. This, however, does not mean the pieces are any less innovative.

Chopin opens his E minor Mazurka with an E major chord that includes a seventh. As our ears might expect, this chord resolves to A minor, making us think, naturally, that this is the key of the piece. The first eight-measure phrase stops on E minor, but there is no cadence. Such tonally ambiguous openings appear in many of Chopin's mazurkas. After another statement of this phrase, without a contrasting theme, the central section begins, spending most of its time on B major (the dominant), perhaps making up for the lack of this harmony in the first section.

Although the first section is not rounded as in most mazurkas, the central, trio section is, and features droning open fifths in the bass throughout. The recurring repeated note in the trio theme creates a transition to the reprise of the main theme, which ends just as it does in the beginning, nebulously, without any real confirmation of E minor.