The Application Of Mazurka Rhythm In Chopin's Music

Mazurka - a word derived from "mazur", is a typical Polish folk dance music, it was originally from Poland's Mazovta region. Mazurka has its own typical rhythm, mainly adopted elements from Mazurka dance, and it is the soul of this type music. The rhythm is consisted of three types - Mazur, Kujaviak, and Oberek.Frederic Francois Chopin was the greatest Polish musician in 19th century, he had never ceased composing Mazurka in his life. His Mazurka rarely copy the melody directly from folk music - he was very creative in harmony and tonality, but he was so obsessed the rhythm of Mazurka that he hardly change any of it in his music.Frederic understood so well that a Mazurka without its typical rhythm would no longer be a folk music; therefore his Mazurka were always full of Polish's national characteristics. Frederic once proudly said:" my piano is only familiar to Mazurka".This article chose the rhythm of Mazurka as the subject of study is because of the unique and skillful application of it by Chopin-it was not only manifested in his《Mazurka》, but also in other genres of his music, too, such as《Rondo》,《Polonaise》,《Waltz》,etc.This article is focused on the application of the Mazurka rhythm in all genres of music by Chopin, it compares and contrasts different genres to discover the similarity and differences in the application of a rhythm, and in the meantime to summarize the rhythmic characteristics of the Chopin's music in different periods of his life.