| From the time of the mazurka's introduction into Western art music in the early nineteenth century, critics and ordinary listeners alike have perceived it as a uniquely Polish genre rooted in an authentic folk music tradition. The conventional notion of the mazurka, moreover, is associated almost exclusively with Fryderyk Chopin (1810--1849), who cultivated the genre most successfully and in whose music listeners have sought---and found---a compelling evocation of all that is most musically "Polish." Yet the concept of folk music beginnings for the mazurka is a myth, albeit a tenacious one. My investigations reveal that what limited direct knowledge of the peasant culture of the countryside Chopin and his musical compatriots had played only a partial role in their national art. A firmer basis for interpreting Chopin's mazurkas is to be found in the urban musical culture of early nineteenth-century Warsaw. Analysis suggests that the composer deliberately constructed a national "tradition" using musical features that were conventionally associated with the "rustic," "exotic" and "national" to evoke a timeless, nostalgic character. The end result is a musical depiction of an imagined Poland handed down in the learned culture of classical music that has, in fact, a highly questionable relationship to a so-called authentic folk-music practice.; The mazurka, once created as an art music genre, traveled a fascinating historical trajectory as composers grappled in their own ways with issues of folk culture, authenticity, and Polish national identity. Karol Szymanowski (1882--1937) attempted to fuse the musical language of Chopin's mazurkas with modernist compositional techniques and Polish highlander music to create a national style for the twentieth century. For Aleksander Tansman (1897--1986), who like Chopin emigrated to Paris, the mazurka was a consciously selected marker of his Polishness---a choice which proved controversial in Poland ultimately because the composer was of Jewish descent. Relying on Polish and French sources little known in the United States, my dissertation reflects on questions of musical nationalism and musical genre, revealing that only those composers who were outsiders to their received traditions were able to make original contributions to the mazurka and to Polish music. |
