In their bolder moments, Chopin and Schubert are thoroughly
masculine.
It seems strange at first sight that the mazurkas, these exquisite
love poems, should be so much less popular than the waltzes, for they
are quite as melodious and much easier--although here, as elsewhere,
Chopin often introduces a few very difficult bars in an otherwise easy
composition, as if to keep away bunglers. Perhaps the cause of their
comparative neglect is, that they are so thoroughly Polish in spirit;
unless they are played with an exotic _rubato_, their fragrance
vanishes. There is more local color in the mazurkas than in any of
his other works. The Mazurs are musically a highly gifted nation, and
Chopin was impressed early in life with the quaint originality of
their melodies. No doubt some of his mazurkas are merely artistic
settings of these old love songs, but they are the settings of an
inspired jeweller. If we can judge by the number of pieces of each
class that he wrote, the mazurka was Chopin's favorite form. Even on
his death-bed he wrote one. It was his last effort, and he was too
weak to try it over on the piano.
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