Understanding Form: The Mazurka

Link to book composition lessons:
calendly.com/musicauniversalis
A special thanks as always to musopen.org and imslp.org for offering free public domain sheet music and recordings online.

[@hartmutehuber]

There is a revival of the Mazurka in today's BalFolk events. The way to dance can range from a set of steps to very free and interpretative.

[@TrayyTurner]

I’ve made at least 23 mazurkas, and they really good with understanding how to compose, I suggest every person who sees this to make one because once understand how to make one it so easy

[@caterscarrots3407]

I’ve written one, as part of a Romantic Dance Suite. It’s the second dance structurally in the suite as I basically mirrored the Baroque Dance Suite structure with Romantic Era counterparts and the Mazurka seemed to be the closest Romantic Era dance I’ve heard of to the Baroque Courante. Thus the structure of my Romantic Dance Suite is as follows: 1. Polonaise 2. Mazurka 3. Waltz 4. Scherzo (I know it’s not really a dance in and of itself, but the Scherzo as we know it today derives from the Minuet, which is a dance. And it’s taking the place where a Minuet would be in a Baroque Dance Suite) 5. Polka Now, somebody suggested that I should add the French Galop dance as a sixth dance in the suite as that too was written in the Romantic Era and it’s often written in Rondo Form which could provide conclusion to a set of Ternary Form dances. However, I haven’t even heard of that dance and I don’t know anything about it besides that thing I was told about it being in Rondo form. I don’t know the meter, I don’t know the tempo, I don’t know the character, I don’t know of any rhythms commonly used for it. Nor do I know of any Galop written in the Classical Music repertoire. Now, I’m sure that a big reason why that last one is is because I don’t really know of any French Romantic Era composers, not true French anyway(I’m saying that as I do hear a French influenced style in some music by Liszt, who lived in France for a significant portion of his life), Debussy and Ravel is all I’ve heard of outside of Baroque and Renaissance in regards to French composers and that’s too far forward from the Romantic Era for my research on the Galop dance.

[@XavierY828]

@@caterscarrots3407 Offenbach uses the galop in his opera’s.

[@Legendoftherock]

​@caterscarrots3407 where can I hear some of your music?

[@KatarzynaMatylla]

Thanks for the video! "Mazurek" means (at least sounds like) "little Mazur" much more than "Mazurian dance". "-ek" is a common diminitive suffix. [source: I'm Polish.] Maybe it originated in a different way than adding the diminitive suffix, I'm not a historian. But it sure sounds this way. Fun fact: there is a type of cake called mazurek too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazurek_(cake)

[@MusicaUniversalis]

I just went with what my sources said the translation is. You however are most likely correct! German has a similar diminutive affix in the form of -chen. While you are probably correct about the literal meaning, it could be that diminutive affixes are added to the names of regions to denote that they are a dance of that region. Just a wild guess though, as I am no linguist.

[@T-J-S]

Mazurek Dabrowskiego

[@hannastaszak1684]

Mazurki Fryderyka Chopina to kwintesencja polskości ❤

[@Svit.S]

I love these videos on forms, thanks

[@MusicaUniversalis]

I enjoy making them!

[@ITavares]

We have mazurka in Cape Verde 🇨🇻

[@Sam-gx2ti]

Something extremely important about the mazurka that most don't know: There's a lingering on the first beat in many instances. The way Chopin played, it was sometimes so extreme that the first beat sounded like two beats. There's a recorded instance where Meyerbeer greatly angered Chopin by insisting he was playing in common time rather than triple time. Another time, a student clapped four beats in one measure as Chopin was playing. Chopin then told the student that it was the "national character of the piece" that produced the oddity. Both these incidents are in Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger's "Chopin: Pianist and Teacher." What's amazing, is that many people never even noticed this extreme lingering because it was so natural and organic to Chopin's playing that it remained subconscious for him and the hearers. It is't just Chopin either that does this. On youtube you can find recordings of Paderewski playing the famous A minor mazurka, and at one point, the lingering is so extreme that the first two notes of the measure despite being equal length as written on the page, that it sounds exactly like a dotted and then a short note! From what I've gathered, this only occurs during the melody, and even then only sometimes.

[@MusicaUniversalis]

Interesting! I will have to research this! A true Vienna Waltz has a similar characteristic of lingering, but it does so on the second beat. It’s only a slight amount though, so if one wanted to be nerdy about it, it could be understood as a 13/16 time (4-5-4). Maybe there’s a way of finding a time signature that better describes the feeling of the Mazurka. Maybe 15/16 or something 🤔 (7-4-4)

[@Sam-gx2ti]

@@MusicaUniversalis This is one of the best recordings that exemplifies the lingering, as well as how it only happens in certain places: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4PYh6yKjpqmopY It's the most extreme at 1:54 where instead of two eighth notes, it's like a dotted eighth and a sixteenth. I'm not sure how one could explain it with a time signature, I think Chopin would kill us for trying!

[@TheLifeisgood72]

I was gonna reply to this and say I think it's on the 2nd beat, but I went back to the sheet music and all the times I prolong the 2nd beat theres actually a written accent on the 2nd beat... it happens so frequently in op 33 that I don't think you can really say there's a "mazurka rhythm". Its just that Chopin played with a lot of rubato and the mazurkas have a lot of it. The first, second, and third beats can be prolonged, and this rule can vary from measure to measure, there's even some measures with two accents. And I'm certain these are agogic accents and not just dynamic accents.

[@Sam-gx2ti]

@@TheLifeisgood72 There's definitely an emphasis on the second beat, but the way my teacher always taught me and the way I've always heard Paderewski do it, the stress is on the second beat, and the lingering is on the first, like how a Viennese Waltz has stress on the first beat and lingering on the second. Since an agogic accent is lingering on the accented beat, though, I don't think it can be called agogic. The fascinating thing is: in Chopin's A Minor Mazurka, he actually begins with a rest and two beats. In Paderewski's recording, he plays that second (but first occurring) beat with stress, so it's played: rest, ONE, two | three, ONE, two | three, ONE, rest. I think Chopin wrote that rhythmic offsetting to make the second beat emphasis sound like a first beat and throw the listener off until later in the piece. That crescendo in the B section is a really good demonstration of how the lingering on the first beat makes two eighth notes sound like a dotted eighth, and the second beat is stressed but not stretched out (probably not 'agogic') You're right to say it can vary, though. Even in that same piece, the beats vary from short and unstressed to long and unstressed, to short and stressed. I'm not Polish, so what you say might well be true; I can only try to make sense of what I see and hear Poles play lol

[@TheLifeisgood72]

@@Sam-gx2ti Well take a look at Op 33 No 2 (c major). If you put an emphasis on the first beat then the melody is fragmented, but if you don’t put any emphasis on any beat then it’s too metronomic and monotonous. The lingering is on the 2nd beat, where Chopin puts an accent. This also is why Meyerbeer mistook it for 4/4 because the rushed first beat leaves you expecting a faster tempo. You can figure out the right timings of notes with some degree of accuracy by playing a single note after another and feeling what timing feels right. It’s true that the default seems to be a lingering on the first beat as you said. But sometimes there are lingerings on the 2nd beat as well, or just complete tempo flexibility in certain lyrical sections.

[@Looking-for-More]

fantastic video! very useful in gaining some insight into the form

[@isaacburdiss]

This video was very helpful to me. I needed it for an assignment in my college class, but I also found it very interesting too. Very engaging.

[@scalenescott]

Thanks so much for this. Some lightbulbs went off when talking about the bagpipes. I've been working on Chopin's Op.67 No.2, and in the B-section these harmonic fifths in the left hand are all over the place -- bagpipes! Also, the bar totals for each sections are multiples of 8: 16, 16X2, 8, & 16. Much appreciated. I'll eat up anything I can find about Mazurkas!

[@caterscarrots3407]

Great video as usual. I myself was unsure of form when I went to write the Mazurka of my Romantic Dance Suite but after listening to all of Chopin's Mazurkas, I basically had 3 categories based on form, those being the Rondos, the Ternary Form, and the Binary Form. The Rondos included a lot of Chopin's Mazurkas including the most famous of them all, the Mazurka in Bb Op. 7 no. 1. This is the structure I ended up using for my own Mazurka, with an added Double in Bb minor, which is basically restatements of minor key variants of the A theme with cadenza flourishes between each restatement, so I guess you could say I hybridized Ternary Form(the Mazurka I, Double, Mazurka I large structure) with the Rondo(the structure of Mazurka I itself) Speaking of Ternary Form, a lot of the Mazurkas that weren't Rondos fell into this category and some felt more like Scherzos in a way such as Op. 24 no. 2(not as much of the characteristic rhythm of the Mazurka, but with distant modulations and other things I tend to see in a Scherzo). The rest fell into the Binary Form category including Op. 7 no. 5 that just ends with a bunch of G octaves, so it really sounds like it ends in the dominant and not the tonic. As for the Romantic Dance Suite as a whole, well, I basically looked at characteristics of the dances in the Baroque Dance Suite and tried to match them as closely as possible to a Romantic Era counterpart. That lead me to these pairings: Allemande - Polonaise -> Both are complex in their own ways and both use a lot of sixteenth notes Courante - Mazurka -> Both are generally faster dances with rhythmic interest Sarabande - Waltz -> Both are slower than the rest, although the Waltz does not have to be slow Minuet - Scherzo -> Similar on the surface with differences in the details + one evolved from the other Gigue - Polka -> Both fast and in duple meter with lots of dotted rhythms

[@MusicaUniversalis]

I truly enjoy your enthusiasm for form!

[@DirkdeZwijger]

this is the first video i've come across that actually explains what the mazurkas are. I've looked it up about a year ago and couldn't find it. Glad to have looked it up again :)

[@thewanderingbodhran6228]

I play Irish and Scottish traditional music, and a mazurka comes up occasionally and since we also play waltzes I have been trying to hear the difference! I've been working on a tune on fiddle that apparently can be played as a mazurka and I wanted to understand it better so I can make the choice as to whether whether I play it more as a mazurka or more as a waltz.. thank you for a great explanation!

[@CruxCalix]

What tune?

[@NicoIlViolinista]

Good to see you again.

[@tarunsmusings4789]

Love your videos from India... Please upload more videos... Can you please put videos on Beethoven piano sonatas

[@MusicaUniversalis]

I recommend András Schiff’s lectures on all of Beethoven’s Sonatas. You can find them all on KZbin.

[@butt-chin8501]

Great video as always

[@orangecloudsonanindigoblue9786]

Great video! I would like to watch the Tarantella analysis :⁠^⁠)

[@DanielLeoSimpson]

Thank you!

[@Marklar3]

I really like the point of levity and lightness in the mazurka. When I first heard of Mazurkas I though of the dynamic accent, but as I played through the Chopin mazurkas, I felt like putting a dynamic accent on the 2nd or 3rd beat was overkill and just made the music sound too heavy and awkward. In a way, the accent is written into the length of the notes, and doesn't need any more "accent".

[@MusicaUniversalis]

Yes! It’s really important to understand at least somewhat superficially that many of these “forms” come from dances. I find Mazurkas often interpreted too accented, aggressive and strict. The dance on the other hand can be quite light and dignified. Accents in Chopin’s music aren’t quite the same as accents in Beethoven’s music. I’d describe it as more weighted than dynamically louder.

[@PinacoladaMatthew]

For more popular example, try this: The Godfather Family Wedding Mazurka (Alla Siciliana)

[@curtpiazza1688]

Great lesson....thanx so much!

[@emilgilels]

Excellent and informative video. Many thanks!

[@MusicaUniversalis]

Many thanks, I actually had to do some deeper research for this video. Ultimately I had to rely mostly on sources from the 19th century to find any satisfactory information.

[@mikolajochocki2810]

Thank you for this

[@tymanung6382]

In Caribbean, S America, etc. there are folk/ Vintage ballroom versions in.Martinique and Gouadeloupe with French or local Creole lyrics, in Puerto Rico there are versions in Spanish.In Mexico. there are regional dance varieties,.also.small.amount in Argentina There may be more Mazurca in Philippines and other island ex colonies? Also modern France. Most places outside of Poland, in terms of dance. use simple waltz steps to replace real, more complex original Polish steps Exceptions who do.Polish steps include 1 region in Mexico (sorry, forgot name of region, but there is a youtube video). Other exceptions include historical dancers in W and. E ewEurope,.N & S America. Of course. Polish descendants outside of Poland, in other Euro countries and N (& S?).America continue to.perform Mazurek.and other.Polish folk dances. in authentic ways. i .

[@MusicaUniversalis]

Very interesting! I’m always astounded at how many old world dance forms still live on in Latin America.

[@tymanung6382]

Also still done ad folklore histori ballroom danced in Cape Verde. Curacao, Mexico. Martinique, Brasil.in.past, Philippines Puerto Rico. Argentina ( a little), etc.

[@urbansocrates]

Although thanks to Chopin, the piano dominates "concert" mazurkas, Tarrega and Sagreras, among others, composed them for guitar, and guitarists are very grateful, as not all piano compositions (like Chopin's, for instance) necessarily work so well on guitar.

[@ciaracheeks2556]

Hi! I'm writing a paper on Chopin and the influence of traditional Mazurkas on his compositions and how they differ, could you recommend any sources?:)

[@ViCouz]

Kujawiak kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6Omi2t-d7KbnJI, Oberek kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4LUlGt_jLJsZtk, Mazur kzbin.info/www/bejne/nICtn3t3YttsqZo

[@MatthewJayasekera]

Great work as always..........but how about the fugue?

[@MusicaUniversalis]

The fugue is difficult to sum up in 10 minutes. I’d probably need to make it a multi-part series. Same goes for the Sonata Form.

[@MatthewJayasekera]

@@MusicaUniversalis top notch content either way. I was wondering how you scroll your scores? Do you do it yourself or does a third party do it?

[@7d09choychiyuen8]

Thanks my grade 7 exam song is a mazurka

[@commongrounddance8951]

Wonderful video. I wouldn't be in too much of a rush to lament the disappearance of the mazurka on the European dance floor. In the Balfolk movement, the mazurka far surpasses in popularity la valse, polka and perhaps event Scottish. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHucnYicptOZibc

[@michaelleguen]

👀

[@loonyfugue3821]

Cześć

[@Ash1nerTV]

I was viewer 5,555

[@cliffpinchon2832]

Do you have versions of these videos without the background music?

[@MusicaUniversalis]

No, stop asking

[@cliffpinchon2832]

@@MusicaUniversalis Unsubbed!

[@MusicaUniversalis]

Bye bye 👋🏻

[@cintraz]

Chad

[@Marklar3]

@@MusicaUniversalis That guy is being silly, but I could hypothetically understand if someone who speaks English as a second language might have trouble understanding you because you speak in a very low pitched voice. I also have a low voice and some of my ESL friends have said it make it harder to understand me. Having music on top probably makes it more difficult. I recommend checking out Dan Worral's "Beginner's Guide to Compression (part 1)" on the fabfilter channel. He has a really neat trick of sidechaining compression of the BGM to his voice-over to make his speech easier to understand. Maybe boosting the mid range EQ could help too? edit: although on second thought, you put your BGM very low in volume manually when you talk...I'd actually encourage you to turn it up along with Dan Worral's sidechaining trick so we can both hear the music better while keeping the voiceover audible.