Classical Music | Cello Music

Frédéric Chopin

Introduction and Polonaise Brillante  Play

Dmitri Atapine Cello
Adela Hyeyeon Park Piano

Recorded on 01/19/2011, uploaded on 06/16/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

With its showy figurations, right-hand ornaments, wide jumps, arpeggios, double trills, the polonaise was the perfect genre to adapt to such demands and no young composer would dare to shy away.  To the many bravura piano compositions of this kind, the Polonaise Brillante for cello and piano may be rightfully added, though it was a product of Chopin’s unrequited love for a pianist and daughter of Prince Antoni Radziwill, Wanda, the prince being a supporter and amateur cellist. Chopin writes in a letter to a friend: “I wrote an Alla Polacca with violoncello. There is nothing in it but glitter; a salon piece for ladies; you see, I wanted Princess Wanda to learn it.”  Despite the dismissive characterization of the music, Chopin returned to the work a year later, adding the Introduction and dedicating it to the legendary cellist Joseph Merk.  Emmanuel Feuermann’s arrangement, polished and published by Leonard Rose, comes really close to satisfyingly balancing the two instruments by transposing certain embellishments into the cello part without disrupting Chopin’s natural flow.   Dmitri Atapine

___________________________________________________________

Introduction and Polonaise Brillante      Frédéric Chopin

In 1828, at the young of age of eighteen, Frédéric Chopin, accompanied by a family friend, the zoologist Feliks Jarocki, for the first time ventured out into the world beyond his homeland of Poland. In Berlin, where Jarocki was to attend a scientific convetion, Chopin met both Felix Mendelssohn and Carl Friedrich Zelter, two of Germany’s leading musicians at the time. On the return trip back to Warsaw, Chopin was the guest of Prince Antoni Radziwill, a composer himself and amateur cellist. For the prince and his pianist daughter, Wanda, Chopin composed the Introduction and Polonaise brillante for piano and cello, one of the few works in the composer’s oeuvre not written specifically for the piano. Several years later in 1833 and after some revisions, Chopin published the work as his opus 3 and dedicated it to the renowned cellist Joseph Merk.

In true Chopin-esque fashion, the piano part is far from a mere accompaniment. Indeed, at times the pianist nearly steals the spotlight from the soloist with brilliant flourishes and passagework. Following a sweeping introduction in the piano, the cello enters in the second measure with a somewhat run-of-the-mill expressive melody of graceful turns and halftone appoggiaturas. The succeeding melody, which is further elaborated on throughout the course of the introduction, is more original with an intense lyricism about it. After closing on a half cadence, a cadenza prepares the arrival of the polonaise.

Two measures of introductory tonic and dominant harmonies in the piano begin the polonaise. Following this brief introduction, the cello announces the dance’s main theme which is immediately repeated by the piano. Though it is the cello that often carries the melody, the piano often engages in an ornamental accompaniment raising itself to a true partnership with the soloist. The middle portion of the polonaise is more complex, venturing into distant keys, yet the melodic quality is never lost. An extended coda, with both instruments engaged in brilliant flourishes brings the piece to a lively and exuberant close.        Joseph DuBose