Tuesday 6 October 2009
Wednesday 25 September 2024
Tune of the Day: Mazurka Op. 7, No. 1
by Frédéric Chopin, arranged for two flutes
The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter with, characteristically, the first beat of the measure subdivided into a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note. It is usually played at a lively tempo, with a heavy accent on the third or second beat.
Chopin's genius enabled him to devise numerous variants of this basic pattern without ever obliterating it completely. He composed 58 Mazurkas, and many of his other works of different genres are either inspired by the Mazurka or have parts of Mazurkas within them. It was he alone who put the Mazurka on the public stage and refined it into the highest art of music.