27 / 80
27
PASCAL AMOYEL
Could the Polonaise op.44 be an equation? In 1841 Chopin achieved the improbable
yet acknowledged marriage of the polonaise and the mazurka. This syncretism
of rhythms and intentions ends up creating a manifesto: an epic poem whose
violence erupts in vast, raging runs that seem to whip up the entire keyboard.
Nevertheless, stupefying as this energy is, it is in the trio in A major that Chopin’s
genius reaches one of its quintessences: here the harmony literally floats as if in a
dream that the return of the haughty formulas cannot totally efface.
The op.53 that succeeded it a year later is a kind of masterpiece. Its discourse as if
hurled at the listener, its harmonic audacity, its alternation of two anacruses in the
opening pages, the violence of its staccato writing, its infernal left hand deploying
a cavalcade of ostinato chords dominated by a bugle theme – all of this creates
a staggering landscape of military carnage. The music becomes painting; it is a
Delacroix.