Kleczynski: "This Polonaise is such a glorious apotheosis of the past, that it led the master as is well known, into hallucinations, and caused him to fly from the solitary tower of the Castle of Nohant, where he fancied he heard the footsteps of ancestors in their rattling armour and saw their figures gliding towards him in majestic procession."
Published in 1843, and dedicated to Auguste Leo, it is commonly referred to as the "Heroic", and has about it a morale at once soldierly and supreme.
It begins with an arresting introduction of ascending chromatic chords until the main theme in thirds appears atop the strident bravura of a low-bounding bass. Here, through such wide spacings, Chopin has exploited the broader sonorities of the piano and opened up before our very ears an immense concourse of imagery and sound.
The middle section, an ostinato figure of cavalric octaves, is said to express the lambaste of horses hooves and has become a real tour de force for our galloping virtuosi.
Adolph Gutmann, one of Chopin's pupils ,once said of his master's own performance of this polonaise that "in it, Chopin could not thunder forth in the way we are accustomed to hear it. As for the famous octave passages which occur in it, he began them pianissimo and continued them without much increase in loudness. And then, Chopin never thumped."
Passages not easily perceived as having any close affinity with the preeminate idea follow, creeping their way through the now distant and war-torn rhythms, before Chopin, by an almost fickle slide of hand, returns to the main triumphal theme, as of from Troy.
PHILLIP WILCHER
September 2002
(Article published by Music Teacher Magazine)
