The key-note [of Polish songs] [says the editor and translator into German of an interesting collection of Folk-songs of the Poles][footnote:  Volkslieder der Polen.  Gesammelt und ubersetzt von W. P. (Leipzig,1833).] is melancholy—­even in playful and naive songs something may be heard which reminds one of the pain of past sorrows; a plaintive sigh, a death- groan, which seems to accuse the Creator, curses His existence, and, as Tieck thinks, cries to heaven out of the dust of annihilation: 

“What sin have I committed?”

These are the after-throes of whole races; these are the pains of whole centuries, which in these melodies entwine themselves in an infinite sigh.  One is tempted to call them sentimental, because they seem to reflect sometimes on their own feeling; but, on the other hand, they are not so, for the impulse to an annihilating outpouring of feeling expresses itself too powerfully for these musical poems to be products of conscious creativeness.  One feels when one hears these songs that the implacable wheel of fate has only too often rolled over the terrene happiness of this people, and life has turned to them only its dark side.  Therefore, the dark side is so conspicuous; therefore, much pain and poetry—­unhappiness and greatness.

The remarks on Polish folk-music lead us naturally to the question of Chopin’s indebtedness to it, which, while in one respect it cannot be too highly rated, is yet in another respect generally overrated.  The opinion that every peculiarity which distinguishes his music from that of other masters is to be put to the account of his nationality, and may be traced in Polish folk-music, is erroneous.  But, on the other hand, it is emphatically true that this same folk-music was to him a potent inspirer and trainer.  Generally speaking, however, Chopin has more of the spirit than of the form of Polish folk-music.  The only two classes of his compositions where we find also something of the form are his mazurkas and polonaises; and, what is noteworthy, more in the former, the dance of the people, than in the latter, the dance of the aristocracy.  In Chopin’s mazurkas we meet not only with many of the most characteristic rhythms, but also with many equally characteristic melodic and harmonic traits of this chief of all the Polish dances.

Polish national music conforms in part to the tonality prevailing in modern art-music, that is, to our major and minor modes; in part, however, it reminds one of other tonalities—­for instance, of that of the mediaeval church modes, and of that or those prevalent in the music of the Hungarians, Wallachians, and other peoples of that quarter.

[Footnote:  The strictly diatonic church modes (not to be confounded with the ancient Greek modes bearing the same names) differ from each other by the position of the two semitones:  the Ionian is like our C major; the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian. &c., are like the series of natural notes starting respectively from d, c, f, g, a, &c.  The characteristic interval of the Hungarian scale is the augmented second (a, b, c, d#, e, f, g#, a).]