F. Chopin Polonaise Op. 26 no. 2 in E flat minor

F. ,Chopin , Polonaise Op. 26 no. 2 in E flat minor Performed by Xuan He. This is one of Chopin s most tragic compositions, created after the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising. His music, saturated with gloomy anxiety and explosions of drama, reflected the experiences of the leading figures of the Polish emigration about the fate of their homeland. A special psychologization of the content determined the choice of the tonality, the most gloomy of the minors. An alert, restless character is established immediately, from the first sounds of the opening theme, which sounds in a low register. It is a dialogue, interrupted by frequent pauses, of short unison intonations (chromatic singing of the reference tone) and a secretly menacing chordal pulsation in an ostinato polonaise rhythm. The gloomy tonal coloring is combined with the tremendous dynamism of all the themes of the polonaise. Their hidden, quiet beginning and rapid progress to climaxes are characteristic. In the first introductory theme o