I am writing an essay on this piece but i found difficulties on figuring out about the compositional background of this piece. i was wonder if what had influenced Chopin to compose this piece, as what i found was so undetailed.
can anyone has any ideas onit?
There's almost no background of this composition. James Huneker's research was just limited as follows. Hope this helps.
The A flat Polonaise, op. 53, was published December, 1843, andis said by Karasowski to have been composed in 1840, afterChopin's return from Majorca. It is dedicated to A. Leo. This isthe one Karasowski calls the story of Chopin's vision of theantique dead in an isolated tower of Madame Sand's chateau at Nohant. We have seen this legend disproved by one who knows. ThisPolonaise is not as feverish and as exalted as the previous one.It is, as Kleczynski writes, "the type of a war song." Named theHeroique, one hears in it Ehlert's "ring of damascene blade andsilver spur." There is imaginative splendor in this thrillingwork, with its thunder of horses' hoofs and fierce challengings.What fire, what sword thrusts and smoke and clash of mortal conflict! Here is no psychical presentation, but an objectivepicture of battle, of concrete contours, and with a cleaving brilliancy that excites the blood to boiling pitch. That Chopinever played it as intended is incredible; none but the heroes of the keyboard may grasp its dense chordal masses, its fiery projectiles of tone. But there is something disturbing, even ghostly, in the strange intermezzo that separates the trio from the polonaise. Both mist and starlight are in it. Yet the work isplayed too fast, and has been nicknamed the "Drum" Polonaise, losing in majesty and force because of the vanity of virtuosi.The octaves in E major are spun out as if speed were the soleidea of this episode. Follow Kleczynski's advice and do not sacrifice the Polonaise to the octaves. Karl Tausig, so Joseffyand de Lenz assert, played this Polonaise in an unapproachable manner. Powerful battle tableau as it is, it may still be presented so as not to shock one's sense of the euphonious, ofthe limitations of the instrument. This work becomes vapid and unheroic when transferred to the orchestra.
