Grande Mazurka, Op. 21

The mazurka started life in the17C as a Polish dance of rustic regional origins and is said to have borrowed its distinctive accent on the weak beat of a measure from the Polish language itself. When Raff composed the Grande Mazurka, the form endured almost exclusively as a salon item and in this piece Raff perpetuated the practice laid down by composers such as Chopin for setting the mazurka in t...