Chopin: Waltz, A Flat, Op. 42
Every dance, the waltz included, is based upon and adapted to some particular dance movement. All its effects, whether of melody, harmony, rhythm, or embellishment, are carefully calculated by the composer to meet the requirements of this special movement, to conform to and express its general character and be governed by its usual rate of speed. Each of these dance movements embodies in itself some peculiar quality or characteristic, such as stately grace in the minuet, martial pomp in the polonaise, impetuous vivacity in the galop, which the music must indicate and supplement. The Chopin waltzes are no exception to this rule. They are distinctly and preëminently waltzes; and though of course not for actual dance purposes, they are intended as idealized tone-pictures of the waltz, and of ball-room scenes and experiences.
The one in question, Op. 42 in A flat, is planned upon a broader scale, contains more variety, and taxes more thoroughly the resources of the accomplished pianist than any other work of Chopin in this vein. Its tender, floating melodies, bright, delicate passage work, and swinging, swaying rhythms are replete with all that eloquent, gliding grace, that arch coquetry, that passionate warmth of mood, which we so invariably associate with the festive scenes,
“Where youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.”
Lights sparkle, delicate draperies are afloat, like perfumed clouds, upon the languid air, bright eyes scintillate with mirth or soften with emotion, and
“All goes merry as a marriage bell.”
And yet throughout all there runs a half-hidden undertone that tells of deeper, sterner thought and far intenser feeling; that tells of dark forebodings, of distant alarms, of sudden trumpet calls; so that the work in its entirety cannot but seem to us the counterpart in music of that familiar, almost hackneyed, but immortal word-picture of Byron, describing the great ball on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, to whose thunderous music the fate of nations was reversed, like the steps of the dancers in a ball-room, and France changed monarchs as a lady shifts her partners.
The somber trio strain, about the middle of the composition, suggests to us “Brunswick’s fated chieftain,” who sat apart and watched the dancers and listened to the revelry with “Death’s prophetic ear.” Later, where the rhythmic pulsation of the waltz is abruptly and violently interrupted in the midst of its flowing cadences, by a strong emphasized G natural F, repeated twice by both hands in unison, we are forcibly reminded of the line—
“But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”
After a moment of consternation and suspense, the waltz movement proceeds, appearing almost flippant by contrast, and seeming to say, like the verse which follows,
“On with the dance, let joy be unconfined!”
Lastly, the breathless, impetuous finale indicates the “hurrying to and fro,” the “mounting in hot haste,” and “marshalling in arms,” with which the dance broke up at midnight, as cavaliers rushed from the ball-room to the battlefield. Both Chopin, the greatest musician of Poland, and Mickiewicz, her greatest poet, were powerfully impressed by the personality and poetry of Lord Byron, and there is no doubt that our composer had the stanzas of the contemporaneous English writer in mind in the creation of this work.
The first duty of the performer in rendering this composition should be to suggest irresistibly to the listeners both the mood and movement of the waltz, and to force them to feel, as far as may be, the elastic swing of the rhythm and the warm, voluptuous mood of the music. The tone quality employed should constantly change to suit the contrasting colors of the different strains; now warmly lyric, now sparkling and vibrant, at times deeply somber, and again strikingly dramatic and declamatory.
As to tempo, I would caution the player against an extreme rate of speed. Remember that the usual waltz step is, approximately at least, our guide in choosing the proper movement. I am aware that many pianists, of the greatest skill and reputation, are guilty of the cardinal error of playing one of these beautiful poetic little compositions of Chopin’s at prestissimo tempo, so as to display their phenomenal finger dexterity at the expense of all musical and artistic truth; so fast, indeed, that even if the notes were all struck with accuracy, which is by no means always the case, its graceful rhythmic swing and all its melodic and harmonic effects are utterly lost, leaving nothing but an incoherent, formless, purposeless whirlwind of tone, as dry and unlovely as the eddies of dust in a September gale, suggesting neither the mood nor movement of a waltz.