"Chopin's mazurkas stand apart from the rest of the considerable production inspired by folk music which reaches into all forms of Romantic music; they cannot conveniently be classified with any of the other manifestations. They are not arrangements of popular folk tunes, ... He uses only fragments of melody, Polish formulas, typical national rhythms, and he combines them in his own way with great originality. From early on, Chopin's mazurkas are much more elaborate than the few modest pieces employing mazurka rhythms by Chopin's Polish predecessors, and they soon became the occasion for some of the most complex and pretentious of Chopin's forms."
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Educators from the United StatesJews from the United StatesPeople from New York CityPianists from the United StatesMusic critics
Original Language: English
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Ch. 7 : Chopin: From the Miniature Genre to the Sublime Style
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Charles Rosen
Charles Welles Rosen (May 5, 1927 – December 9, 2012) was an American pianist and writer on music.
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