The octaves in E major are spun out as if speed were the sole
idea of this episode. Follow Kleczynski's advice and do not
sacrifice the Polonaise to the octaves. Karl Tausig, so Joseffy
and de Lenz assert, played this Polonaise in an unapproachable
manner. Powerful battle tableau as it is, it may still be
presented so as not to shock one's sense of the euphonious, of
the limitations of the instrument. This work becomes vapid and
unheroic when transferred to the orchestra.
The Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat, op. 61, given to the world
September, 1846, is dedicated to Madame A. Veyret. One of three
great Polonaises, it is just beginning to be understood, having
been derided as amorphous, febrile, of little musical moment,
even Liszt declaring that "such pictures possess but little real
value to art. ... Deplorable visions which the artist should
admit with extreme circumspection within the graceful circle of
his charmed realm." This was written in the old-fashioned days,
when art was aristocratic and excluded the "baser" and more
painful emotions.
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