It is an artistic conception, and in "light winged
figuration" far more mature than the Chopin of op. 71. Really a
graceful and effective little composition of the florid order,
but like his early music without poetic depth. The Warsaw "Echo
Musicale," to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Chopin's
death, published a special number in October, 1899, with the
picture of a farmer named Krysiak, born in 1810, the year after
the composer. Thereat Finck remarked that it is not a case of
survival of the fittest! A fac-simile reproduction of a hitherto
unpublished Polonaise in A flat, written at the age of eleven, is
also included in this unique number. This tiny dance shows, it is
said, the "characteristic physiognomy" of the composer. In
reality this polacca is thin, a tentative groping after a form
that later was mastered so magnificently by the composer. Here is
the way it begins--the autograph is Chopin's:
[Musical score excerpt]
The Alla Polacca for piano and 'cello, op. 3, was composed in
1829, while Chopin was on a visit to Prince Radziwill.
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