Chopin, Polonaise "Heroique"

 
Despite being a Polish folk dance, "polonaises" were not written by the first time by Fréderic Chopin. Before him, Bach, Telemann, Mozart and Schubert did write pieces "with a polonaise rhythm ". And after him, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, along with Chopin, Liszt and Schumann would write polonaises, as well. But of all "classical polonaises", those by Chopin are the most famous, perhaps because Frédéric, in addition to being Polish, acquired great skill in its composition throughout his life, given that his first work, written when he was seven years old was, precisely, a Polonaise.

The Polonaise in A flat major opus 53, called "Heroique" – in no way by Chopin but by some of his editors – was written in 1836 and published in 1843. The date of its composition can be taken for granted since an autograph score has been preserved from September 12, 1836, a copy that Frédéric offered to a young Clara Wieck on her way through Leipzig, On that copy, he stamped in his own handwriting, the words: "from his admirer", as a birthday present, because Clara was turning seventeen the next day.

A gentle touch

According to legend, on one occasion when he was playing the piece in front of some friends Chopin paused impetuously on the difficult octaves scaling of the left hand (3:24), fascinated by the evocation of the armies advancing towards Poland, in pursuit of their liberation. But the anecdote is doubtful since those who once heard him assure that Frédéric highly dosed the two "crescendos" in octaves, starting from a mezzo-forte to a forte without too much bravery, due to both his fidelity to his aesthetics and his physical weakness.

Vladimir Horowitz
The rendition is by one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, the Russian maestro Vladimir Horowitz, born in Kyiv in 1903 and died in New York in 1989. His first public performance outside the nascent Soviet Union was in Berlin in 1925. Then he played in Paris, London, and New York. From the last city, he would not move. He stayed in the West until 1986, when he returned to the – this time – the failing Soviet Union to give a recital at the Moscow Conservatory, before a packed auditorium.

The video is apparently recorded in one of the concert halls of the Musikverein, in Vienna. It follows the recital in Moscow, and the Russian maestro would be at least 84 years old.