Every dance, the waltz included, is based upon and adapted to some
particular dance movement. All its effects, whether of melody, harmony,
rhythm, or embellishment, are carefully calculated by the composer to
meet the requirements of this special movement, to conform to and
express its general character and be governed by its usual rate of
speed. Each of these dance movements embodies in itself some peculiar
quality or characteristic, such as stately grace in the minuet, martial
pomp in the polonaise, impetuous vivacity in the galop, which the music
must indicate and supplement. The Chopin waltzes are no exception to
this rule. They are distinctly and preëminently waltzes; and though of
course not for actual dance purposes, they are intended as idealized
tone-pictures of the waltz, and of ball-room scenes and experiences.
The one in question, Op. 42 in A flat, is planned upon a broader scale,
contains more variety, and taxes more thoroughly the resources of the
accomplished pianist than any other work of Chopin in this vein. Its
tender, floating melodies, bright, delicate passage work, and swinging,
swaying rhythms are replete with all that eloquent, gliding grace, that
arch coquetry, that passionate warmth of mood, which we so invariably
associate with the festive scenes,
“Where youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.”
Lights sparkle, delicate draperies are afloat, like perfumed clouds,
upon the languid air, bright eyes scintillate with mirth or soften with
emotion, and
“All goes merry as a marriage bell.”
And yet throughout all there runs a half-hidden undertone that tells of
deeper, sterner thought and far intenser feeling; that tells of dark
forebodings, of distant alarms, of sudden trumpet calls; so that the
work in its entirety cannot but seem to us the counterpart in music of
that familiar, almost hackneyed, but immortal word-picture of Byron,
describing the great ball on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, to whose
thunderous music the fate of nations was reversed, like the steps of the
dancers in a ball-room, and France changed monarchs as a lady shifts her
partners.
The somber trio strain, about the middle of the composition, suggests to
us “Brunswick’s fated chieftain,” who sat apart and watched the dancers
and listened to the revelry with “Death’s prophetic ear.” Later, where
the rhythmic pulsation of the waltz is abruptly and violently
interrupted in the midst of its flowing cadences, by a strong emphasized
G natural F, repeated twice by both hands in unison, we are forcibly
reminded of the line—
“But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”
After a moment of consternation and suspense, the waltz movement
proceeds, appearing almost flippant by contrast, and seeming to say,
like the verse which follows,
“On with the dance, let joy be unconfined!”
Lastly, the breathless, impetuous finale indicates the “hurrying to and
fro,” the “mounting in hot haste,” and “marshalling in arms,” with which
the dance broke up at midnight, as cavaliers rushed from the ball-room
to the battlefield. Both Chopin, the greatest musician of Poland, and
Mickiewicz, her greatest poet, were powerfully impressed by the
personality and poetry of Lord Byron, and there is no doubt that our
composer had the stanzas of the contemporaneous English writer in mind
in the creation of this work.
The first duty of the performer in rendering this composition should be
to suggest irresistibly to the listeners both the mood and movement of
the waltz, and to force them to feel, as far as may be, the elastic
swing of the rhythm and the warm, voluptuous mood of the music. The tone
quality employed should constantly change to suit the contrasting colors
of the different strains; now warmly lyric, now sparkling and vibrant,
at times deeply somber, and again strikingly dramatic and declamatory.
As to tempo, I would caution the player against an extreme rate of
speed. Remember that the usual waltz step is, approximately at least,
our guide in choosing the proper movement. I am aware that many
pianists, of the greatest skill and reputation, are guilty of the
cardinal error of playing one of these beautiful poetic little
compositions of Chopin’s at _prestissimo_ tempo, so as to display their
phenomenal finger dexterity at the expense of all musical and artistic
truth; so fast, indeed, that even if the notes were all struck with
accuracy, which is by no means always the case, its graceful rhythmic
swing and all its melodic and harmonic effects are utterly lost, leaving
nothing but an incoherent, formless, purposeless whirlwind of tone, as
dry and unlovely as the eddies of dust in a September gale, suggesting
neither the mood nor movement of a waltz.