In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep.
Her wagon spokes made of long spider's legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers:
Her traces, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;
Her collars, of the smallest spider web;
Her whip, of cricket's bone, the lash of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
Made by the joiner sqirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
Professor Frederick Niecks (1845-1924) once considered the standard authority on Chopin's life and works thought the sylph-like description of Queen Mab's coach by Shakespeare an image well suited to the fioriture, colorature and other trickeries of Chopin's Berceuse in Db Op. 57.
If words can be used to describe music where no analysis can offer any idea of its elegance and power, then these capricious lines penned by Shakespeare in 1595 come close to finding their musical counterpart in the ice-blue gossamer threads of Chopin's music. Both display an astonishing prolificity of linguistic revelation.
The Berceuse is sustained throughout by a tonic and dominant pedal and an ostinato figure, just one measurein length, which changes little throughout. Then, in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomi, the tune appears, itself no longer than 4 bars, athwart men's noses as they sleep. Through these measures are woven miracles. the melody is joined by what Neicks termed a "self-willed second part" with each repetition a variation - traces of the moonshine's wat'ry beams - so skilfully wrought that one is almost unaware that the underlying motif and harmonies remain virtually unchanged.
At bar 35, a new melodic phrase appears, unperceivable as the wings of grasshoppers.
At the penultimate variation, and for the first time, Chopin flattens the 7th degree of the scale, suggesting a modulation. This however does not happen, and the harmony returns to the tonic.
An illusion.An inspiration born time out o' mind by one of music's finest coachmakers.
PHILLIP WILCHER
(Article originally published by Music Teacher Magazine)
