Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,was a Polish composer and
virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote
primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has
maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading
musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on
a professional technique that was without equal in his
generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy
of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he
completed his musical education...(+)
Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,was a Polish composer and
virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, who wrote
primarily for the solo piano. He gained and has
maintained renown worldwide as one of the leading
musicians of his era, whose "poetic genius was based on
a professional technique that was without equal in his
generation." Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy
of Warsaw, and grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815
became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he
completed his musical education and composed many of
his works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of
20, less than a month before the outbreak of the
November 1830 Uprising.
The piano pieces of Chopin changed the way the piano
was played, not so much in the technical sense as with
Liszt, but in the expressiveness required of the
pianist. In shorter works, Chopin experimented with
textures and sonorities, creating an utterly distinct
piano style. Perhaps the most unusual and individual of
the shorter forms is the mazurka, which reflects the
merging of Chopin's cosmopolitan influences in Paris
with his growin consciousness of being Polish. While
retaining the flavor and rhythm of traditional Polish
dances, the mazurkas also reflect the sophisticated
melodic nuances and the coloristic harmonies found in
Chopin's other music. These brief, intimate evocations
of his homeland are perhaps some of Chopin's greatest
contributions to the piano repertoire.
The Trois Valses, Op.64 (published between 1846 and
1847) were the last set of such works to be published
during Frédéric Chopin's lifetime, and were among the
very last works sketched by his prodigious pen before
his disease rendered further work impossible. Each of
the three is among the shortest of his entries in the
waltz form (making them entirely unsuitable for
effective use in the ballroom--a use that, at this
stage in his life, would have been unthinkable to the
composer); they are, rather than actual dances,
dance-poems that reflect the weakened composer's
attitudes from three very different points of view. It
is as if Chopin's latter-day musical personality were
put through a prism, with the light of the resulting,
rather distinct persona cast upon three separate sheets
of music-paper. More subdued than No.1 (and strikingly
Slavic in tone, with undercurrents of mazurka-rhythm
mingling with the characteristic waltz figure) is the
Valse in C-sharp minor, Op.64, No.2 that follows.
Although the opening is marked Tempo giusto, one hardly
ever hears this work played without a heavy dose of
rubato. The "veiled melancholy", as Huneker called it,
of the primary melody is unrivalled among Chopin's
works. The sad protagonist is called to the dance floor
by a spinning passage in running eighth notes (which
returns two times throughout the piece, each time its
tiny antecedent-consequent phrase pair being stated
twice), while the piu lento, D-flat major middle
section offers some consolation.
The Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 64 No. 3, composed by
Frédéric Chopin, is the final waltz by Chopin that
was published in his lifetime. It was dedicated to
Countess Katarzyna Branicka. The waltz is in A-flat
major and features a central section in C major. This,
Chopin's final waltz, is a piece of delicately-poised,
Moderato- tempo beauty. It offers neither the whirling
glee of Op.64, No.1 nor the melancholy of Op.64, No.2,
but rather a musical item in which the more pure
expression of perfect structural and harmonic balance
is paramount. The central section (in C major) is a
dialogue between two melodic voices.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz_in_A-flat_major,_O
p._64,_No._3_(Chopin)).
Although composed for solo piano, I created this
Interpretation of the Waltz in Ab Major (Op. 64 No. 3)
for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
SHEET MUSIC