After a couple of mood-setting bars, the Mazurka in A flat major, the second in the set, at once strikes the tone and rhythm of a kujawiak, with a melody that sways in a duple rhythm. We know this is not music for dancing, but for listening to, because of the moments when the melody halts on a series of repeats that grow gradually quieter, before making way for the melody of the first motif. We hear mazur rhythms in this mazurka, too. Obsessive repeats of a simple formula fill the whole of the middle section of the A flat major Mazurka. It seems as if the composer wanted the return of the melody of the opening motif, after the bars of that rhythmic and textural monotony, to sound like deliverance.Author: Mieczysław TomaszewskiA series of programmes entitled ‘Fryderyk Chopin's Complete Works’Polish Radio 2