POLONAISE
There is a Youtube video analyzing, or rather explaining, why Chopin's Polonaise in A flat Major should be the anthem of the human race. The anthem of the human race. Really? That is quite a stretch of course. I didn't watch it, because I already knew the kind of bullshit I would find just by reading the title, and, more importantly, what I wouldn't find β all in the name of getting clicks.
Just the same, there is nothing I could say about the piece that someone else hasn't said before. But, being a Polonaise, has anybody actually danced to it?. I know, I know. It is Chopin, and in todayβs musical tradition we listen to Chopin rather than dance to him. For me, it is almost impossible not to move my body to the uplifting melody carry by the 1,2,3 rhythm. I don't need to analyze the rhythm while I'm listening to it. My body gets it before my brain has a chance to write a thesis about it.
We sit in a concert hall β just like all these people in the video that I am sharing β or at home with headphones on β just like I am doing while I write this lines β and admire the composition, the virtuosity, the structure, the octaves, the harmonic language, and whatever else musicologists have decided we should admire. But the polonaise is, after all, a dance β a Polish walking or processional dance in 3/4.
We can talk about its heroic character, its structure, its technical demands, its octaves, its Polish identity, its supposed military character β of which Chopin was never aware of β and Zeus knows what else. And yes, all of those things are interesting. But underneath all that, there is still a dance. A very large, very extravagant, ridiculously difficult dance. But a dance nonetheless.
That is far more interesting to me than calling it the anthem of the human race. After thousands of years of war, love, stupidity, genius, disco, heavy metal, and karaoke, are we really so close to have finally settled on a piano piece as the official soundtrack of humanity? I don't think so. And I don't know about you, but if the human race ever gets an anthem, I'd at least like to be able to dance to it.