Joseph Haydn, Variations in F minor

A biographer of Joseph Haydn notes that the Esterházy musician was surprised that in the course of his life he had been loved by so many beautiful women. The biographer quotes these words of Haydn: "They could not have been captivated by my beauty". Indeed, Haydn was not as handsome as he would have liked, but in 1760, at the age of twenty-eight, he began his official love life by marrying Maria Anna Keller, the daughter of a hairdresser. The marriage was not a happy one and Haydn had to seek happiness elsewhere, this time informally. And it didn't go badly at all.

Maria Anna

At least four girls, some of them noble, others not so much, established with Haydn a sentimental relationship, more or less lasting. The one who takes the cake seems to have been the "European beauty" Maria Anna von Genzinger, the wife of Prince Esterházy's family doctor, a noblewoman on her mother's side, and a talented music lover. Apparently, she began the relationship by sending the maestro her piano reduction of an adagio taken from one of his symphonies. The maestro responded, extremely flattered, and thus a relationship began, mainly epistolary – although without reaching the heights of Tchaikovsky in the coming century – that would last for many years.

The beloved one, in Vienna

Maria Anna lived in Vienna. Haydn, quite far away, in the Esterhaza palace. So when his patron decided to visit the capital of the empire, the maestro was delighted to accompany him, since it was a chance to see his beloved and not only to correspond with her. But the relationship was platonic. The fact that each belonged to a different social stratum made any other rapprochement impossible.
To make matters worse, it was only Haydn who succumbed to infatuation, and not Maria Anna who always responded to his messages as the faithful, sincere, and deep friend she was.

Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)

A tribute to a friend

Sadly, Maria Anna died suddenly in 1793, at the age of 38, during a Haydn tour of London. This had a profound impact on the master, notwithstanding the asymmetry of the relationship.  The Variations in F minor, one of his most intimate and personal pieces, written at the height of his glory, is believed to have been published as a final tribute to Maria Anna, the wife of another.

Variations in F minor

Composed in 1793 and published in 1799, they belong to the type of variations with two themes, in which Haydn proved to be particularly skilled. The main theme has the character of a funeral march, which is followed by a trio in the major mode. At times, the harmonic language foreshadows certain aspects of the romantic style to come.

The rendition is by young Turkish artist, Can Cakmur.

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.