urn does not mend matters. A dark page! In A
minor the fourth is called by Szulc the Little Jew. Szulc, who wrote
anecdotes of Chopin and collected them with the title of "Fryderyk
Szopen," told the story to Kleczynski. It is this:

Chopin did not care for programme music, though more than one
of his compositions, full of expression and character, may be
included under that name. Who does not know the A minor
Mazurka of op. 17, dedicated to Lena Freppa? Itwas already
known in our country as the "Little Jew" before the departure
of our artist abroad. It is one of the works of Chopin which
are characterized by distinct humor. A Jew in slippers and a
long robe comes out of his inn, and seeing an unfortunate
peasant, his customer, intoxicated, tumbling about the road
and uttering complaints, exclaims from his threshold, "What is
this?" Then, as if by way of contrast to this scene, the gay
wedding party of a rich burgess comes along on its way from
church, with shouts of various kinds, accompanied in a lively
manner by violins and bagpipes. The train passes by, the tipsy
peasant renews his complaints--the complaints of a man who had
tried to drown his misery in the glass. The Jew returns
indoors, shaking his head and again asking, "What was this?"

The story strikes one as being both childish and commonplace. The
Mazurka is rather doleful and there is a little triplet of
interrogation standing sentinel at the fourth bar. It is also the last
phrase. But what of that? I, too, can build you a programme as lofty or
lowly as you please, but it will not be Chopin's. Niecks, for example,
finds this very dance bleak and joyless, of intimate emotional
experience, and with "jarring tones that strike in and pitilessly wake
the dreamer." So there is no predicating the content of music except in
a general way; the mood key may be struck, but in Chopin's case this is
by no means infallible. If I write with confidence it is that begot of
desperation, for I know full well that my version of the story will not
be yours. The A minor Mazurka for me is full of hectic despair,
whatever that may mean, and its serpentining chromatics and apparently
suspended close--on the chord of the sixth--gives an impression of
morbid irresolution modulating into a sort of desperate gayety. Its
tonality accounts for the moods evoked, being indeterminate and
restless.

Opus 24 begins with the G minor Mazurka, a favorite beca