The peasants declare that to this day, on quiet moonlit nights, one may still see the white form of the Switez maid wandering, as if in search, among the shadows of the forest-mantled shores or gliding over the surface of the lake; while mingling with the whisper of the wind among the trees and the murmurs of the waves upon the strand, one still hears the echo of her words: “Forsaken, forsworn. So perish the faithless.”
Such is the story of the Switez maid, as told by Mickiewicz in inimitable Polish verse, and translated into the symbolic language of music by the Polish tone-poet, Chopin, in the A flat ballade.
The first warmly emotional theme of the composition, with its tender, persuasive cadences, its ever-growing passionateness, symbolizes the ardent and impulsive hero of the legend; while the bright, piquant second theme admirably portrays the arch, coquettish heroine, with her airy witcheries and playful grace. It cannot be mistaken, for it compels attention as it enters, after a moment of suspense, in radical contrast to what precedes, with the dainty rhythmic effect, so difficult to render for most players. Its introduction later in a different key, with different accompaniment and embellishments, represents the disguise with which the maid attempts to cloak her identity, but the same melody is distinctly traceable through all changes. The superb climax near the close of the work forcibly depicts at once the swift approach and resistless sweep of the tempest upon the lake and the intensity of the emotional situation at the moment of the final catastrophe. Here, too, is heard again the first melody, the hero theme, in a brief return, as he makes his last, vain appeal, and we even catch the vanishing ripple of the maiden’s mocking laughter.
The details of the story are not so literally worked out in the music, or followed with so much realistic fidelity, as would have been the case with Liszt or Wagner, or with some other more recent writers. Chopin’s art is always rather suggestive than descriptive, dealing directly with the moods evoked by a given situation or event, rather than with the physical aspect of the events themselves; with the awe and terror produced by the tempest, for instance, rather than with the audible or visible phenomena of the tempest. In this particular case he deals mainly with the general emotional and mental elements which underlie the legend and the characteristics of the two personages who figure in it, instead of treating its successive incidents in detail, or in definite chronological order. The work is therefore sketched on broad, fundamental lines, and leaves the setting and filling in in large measure to the imagination of the hearer. This must always be the ideal method in an art so ethereal and, in one sense, so vague as that of music. Still, the connection between the music of this ballade and the actual scenes and development of the legend is distinct enough to be easily traced by those familiar with the story, and players or listeners will find, as always, that the purely musical interest of this and all the Chopin ballades is materially deepened and increased by the background of relevant facts—by an acquaintance with the material on which they are based and which gave to the composer the impulse for their creation.
Chopin: Polonaise, A Flat Major, Op. 53
Interesting from a historic as well as a musical standpoint is the origin of the polonaise. In the year 1573, when the Polish throne became vacant on the extinction of the royal dynasty of Jagiello, a national assembly of electors was convened at the then capital, Cracow, to decide upon a new sovereign. The candidates for the throne were all of royal blood—Ernest of Austria, Henry of Anjou of the house of Valois, brother to the ruling king of France, a Swedish prince, and Ivan the Terrible of Russia. But the real struggle lay between the Austrian and French princes. The choice fell at last on Henry of Anjou, later himself king of France as Henry III.
In the following autumn he ascended the Polish throne, and among the many gorgeous ceremonials attending his coronation, was one quite natural and proper under the circumstances—a formal presentation to the new monarch, of the leading dignitaries and personages of his realm. It took place in the vast and magnificent throne hall of the royal castle at Cracow. The nobles and officials, each with his lady on his arm, defiled before the throne where the monarch was seated, in a stately procession, and as they passed before the king were presented by the master of ceremonies. This formal march was accompanied by suitable music, written expressly for the occasion and performed by the royal band. Whether this embryonic polonaise is still in existence, no one knows; probably not; but two distinct ideas were, or should have been, before the composer’s mind in penning the harmonies for this solemn ceremonial.
First, of course, to write music eminently suited to the occasion, to embody, and, if possible, enhance all the pomp and splendor of the magnificent, august assembly; second, to portray through the music, so far as might be, something of the national characteristics of this Polish race which the Frenchman came as a stranger to rule over. The music in its own way was to serve as a species of introduction.
Little by little, from this crude but characteristic beginning was developed through the centuries the peculiar national dance, or, more strictly speaking, march of the Poles; and the music performed during its progress came to have among dance forms the same title. It partook of the various stages of evolution to which all music was subject at different epochs, and within the last hundred years has been modified to keep pace with the general development of musical resources. But however it may vary in minor details of form and treatment, every polonaise which is true to itself must express the original ideas upon which the form was primarily based—on the one hand a splendid ceremonial, on the other Polish national life.