Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 01/18/2012, uploaded on 02/11/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

No composer embodied the pride and pathos of the Polish soul as did Frédéric Chopin; for this reason many musicologists and historians regard him as the first real “national” composer.  Chopin’s nationalism permeates everything he wrote, not just the Mazurkas and Polonaises.  The term “Fantasy” in the hands of Chopin tends to be more in the tradition of the fantasies of Mozart and Schubert, rather than the popular operatic fantasies that were the rage amongst his contemporaries.  The term implies freedom from the rigors of more classical musical forms, and is often a large, one-movement canvas.  The Fantasy in F minor was completed and published in 1841.  Some ten years earlier, what remained of Poland had been taken over by the Russians, who had inflicted considerable terror, pain, and destruction on the Poles.  Chopin had left Poland at about that time, moving first to Vienna, then to Paris, where he spent most of the rest of his life.  Many performers regard this work as an “Ode to the Fallen,” in which Chopin is reminiscing about family and friends killed or missing as a result of the 1831 rebellion.  The piece begins with a soft, funereal, march-like section that is never repeated.  Slow arpeggios accelerate into a turbulent episode that introduces a theme that is both wistful and passionate, and the main idea of the whole piece.  A slow section in the middle, alluded to in the coda, offers meditative contrast.  The Fantasy ends with a proud and noble cadence in A-flat major.

Program notes by Clinton Adams

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.