The orchestral part seems wholly superfluous, for the scoring is not particularly effective, and there is a rumor that Chopin cannot be held responsible for it.  Xaver Scharwenka made a new instrumentation that is discreet and extremely well sounding.  With excellent tact he has managed the added accompaniment to the introduction, giving some thematic work of the slightest texture to the strings, and in the pretty coda to the wood-wind.  A delicately managed allusion is made by the horns to the second theme of the nocturne in G. There are even five faint taps of the triangle, and the idyllic atmosphere is never disturbed.  Scharwenka first played this arrangement at a Seidl memorial concert, in Chickering Hall, New York, April, 1898.  Yet I cannot truthfully say the Polonaise sounds so characteristic as when played solo.

The C sharp minor Polonaise, op. 26, has had the misfortune of being sentimentalized to death.  What can be more “appassionata” than the opening with its “grand rhythmical swing”?  It is usually played by timid persons in a sugar-sweet fashion, although fff stares them in the face.  The first three lines are hugely heroic, but the indignation soon melts away, leaving an apathetic humor; after the theme returns and is repeated we get a genuine love motif tender enough in all faith wherewith to woo a princess.  On this the Polonaise closes, an odd ending for such a fiery opening.

In no such mood does No. 2 begin.  In E flat minor it is variously known as the Siberian, the Revolt Polonaise.  It breathes defiance and rancor from the start.  What suppressed and threatening rumblings are there!  Volcanic mutterings these: 

[Musical score excerpt]

It is a sinister page, and all the more so because of the injunction to open with pianissimo.  One wishes that the shrill, high G flat had been written in full chords as the theme suffers from a want of massiveness.  Then follows a subsidiary, but the principal subject returns relentlessly.  The episode in B major gives pause for breathing.  It has a hint of Meyerbeer.  But again with smothered explosions the Polonaise proper appears, and all ends in gloom and the impotent clanking of chains.  It is an awe-provoking work, this terrible Polonaise in E flat minor, op. 26; it was published July, 1836, and is dedicated to M. J. Dessauer.

Not so the celebrated A major Polonaise, op. 40, Le Militaire.  To Rubinstein this seemed a picture of Poland’s greatness, as its companion in C minor is of Poland’s downfall.  Although Karasowski and Kleczynski give to the A flat major Polonaise the honor of suggesting a well-known story, it is really the A major that provoked it—­so the Polish portrait painter Kwiatowski informed Niecks.  The story runs, that after composing it, Chopin in the dreary watches of the night was surprised—­terrified is a better word—­by the opening of his door and the entrance of a long train of Polish nobles and ladies, richly robed, who moved slowly by him.