Frédéric Chopin ‒ Bolero, Op.19

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849), Bolero, Op.19 (1833)

Performed by Idil Biret

It is shot through with bravura, pianistic sparkle, the refulgence of bright – at times even gaudy – sonorities. The edition was dedicated to one of his pupils, Lady Emilie de Flahault.

This work was written in Paris, during the first half of the thirties, and published in the autumn of 1834. The Bolero takes the form of a concert dance with introduction and trio, although the sections are not very clearly distinguished. The dominant voice here belongs to the theme, the reiterations of which (in a largely unaltered form) seem also to evoke the character of a concert rondo. The middle part of the work is occupied by a series of incongruous themes, appearing in a specific configuration of keys: A major, A flat major, A major, B flat minor. The risoluto theme enters the fray with élan. A nocturne-like dolce slips by inconspicuously. The passage into the reprise of the dance’s main theme is très Chopin.