The mazurkas and
polonaises are danced to-day in Poland, why not the valses?
Chopin's genius reveals itself in these dance forms, and their
presentation should be not solely a psychic one. Kullak, stern
old pedagogue, divides these dances into two groups, the first
dedicated to "Terpsichore," the second a frame for moods. Chopin
admitted that he was unable to play valses in the Viennese
fashion, yet he has contrived to rival Strauss in his own genre.
Some of these valses are trivial, artificial, most of them are
bred of candlelight and the swish of silken attire, and a few are
poetically morbid and stray across the border into the rhythms of
the mazurka. All of them have been edited to death, reduced to
the commonplace by vulgar methods of performance, but are
altogether sprightly, delightful specimens of the composer's
careless, vagrant and happy moods.
Kullak utters words of warning to the "unquiet" sex regarding the
habitual neglect of the bass. It should mean something in valse
tempo, but it usually does not. Nor need it be brutally banged;
the fundamental tone must be cared for, the subsidiary harmonies
lightly indicated.
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