oppressed by a suffering
body. There are in the work throes of agony blended with the trumpet
notes of triumph. And what puzzled our fathers--the shifting lights and
shadows, the restless tonalities--are welcome, for at the beginning of
this new century the chromatic is king. The ending of this Polonaise is
triumphant, recalling in key and climaxing the A flat Ballade. Chopin
is still the captain of his soul--and Poland will be free! Are Celt and
Slav doomed to follow ever the phosphorescent lights of patriotism?
Liszt acknowledges the beauty and grandeur of this last Polonaise,
which unites the characteristics of superb and original manipulation of
the form, the martial and the melancholic.

Opus 71, three posthumous Polonaises, given to the world by Julius
Fontana, are in D minor, published in 1827, B flat major, 1828, and F
minor, 1829. They are interesting to Chopinists. The influence of
Weber, a past master in this form, is felt. Of the three the last in F
minor is the strongest, although if Chopin's age is taken into
consideration, the first, in D minor, is a feat for a lad of eighteen.
I agree with Niecks that the posthumous Polonaise, without opus number,
in G sharp minor, was composed later than 1822--the date given in the
Breitkopf & Hartel edition. 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reproduction of a hitherto unpublished Polonaise in A flat, written at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. It is preceded by an
introduction, and is dedicated to Joseph Merk, the 'cellist. Chopin
himself pronounced it a