Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op. 44

On 23 August 1841 Chopin wrote to the Viennese publisher Mechetti: “I currently have a manuscript available for you. It is a kind of fantasia in the form of a polonaise that I would call Polonaise.” Chopin's uncertainty about the title is only too understandable. The work begins as a proud polonaise. Then a passage bursts in during which an octave a is relentlessly played more than thirty times. This almost modern sounding passage leads into a mazurka that seems to come from a different, enraptured world. Henle is now publishing this “kind of fantasia,” previously only available in their edition of all the polonaises (HN 217), in a revised single edition.