Chopin, "Military" Polonaise in A major

The first work composed by Frédérik Chopin was a polonaise. He was seven years old. Then would come six more "youthful" ones, until 1829, shortly before leaving Warsaw. By that time, the city was occupied by the Russians but was not yet suffering the harsh repression of 1830-31, the result of the frustrated Polish uprising of November 1830. However, in these early works, the Polish musician does not attach any patriotic value to his polonaises, for he composes them according to tradition: Chopin writes polonaises simply because the dance is fashionable.

The origins
Of course, the dance originated in Poland, but by Chopin's time, it had become a conventional dance known throughout Europe for two centuries. Already in the early baroque period, numerous composers had written "Polish dances" or, as the French liked to call them, "polonaises". But by the 19th century it had lost its character of danceable dance to become an instrumental piece with its own characteristics: ternary metre, neither too slow nor too fast, and with a unique rhythmic pattern that Chopin surely knew how to model according to the atmosphere.

Chopin (1810 - 1849)

Chopin in exile
Chopin was an exile, a Polish exile, and with this in mind he developed his existence in Paris. His also exiled compatriots, nobles in their majority, would celebrate the magnificence of his mature polonaises, seeing in them a symbol of Polish nationalism. Some of them evoke drums, fanfare, and parade of troops, as is the case of the so-called "Military" Polonaise. But Chopin, in the end, only pretended to be a musician. Chopin's pain in the face of the invaded motherland is permeated with longing for his homeland, which is why he will ask for his heart to be taken back to Warsaw on the day of his death.

Military Polonaise Opus 40 N° 1
It was dedicated to his friend and countryman Julian Fontana and was completed in 1838, shortly before Chopin began a nine-year relationship with the writer George Sand. Along with the polonaise in C minor from the same period, both were published as Opus 40 in 1840.
In the group of mature polonaises, it is one of the most "traditional", in the sense that Chopin preserved in it untouched the melodic and rhythmic aspects of the old dance, although he chose an abrupt and surprising ending, in which all spectacularity is absent.

The rendition is by the Israeli pianist Tzvi Erez.