The melodic progression, not always immediate, of an augmented fourth and major seventh occurs frequently, and that of an augmented second occasionally.  Skips of a third after or before one or more steps of a second are very common.  In connection with these skips of a third may be mentioned that one meets with melodies evidently based on a scale with a degree less than our major and minor scales, having in one place a step of a third instead of a second. [Footnote:  Connoisseurs of Scotch music, on becoming acquainted with Polish music, will be incited by many traits of the latter to undertake a comparative study of the two.] The opening and the closing note stand often to each other in the relation of a second, sometimes also of a seventh.  The numerous peculiarities to be met with in Polish folkmusic with regard to melodic progression are not likely to be reducible to one tonality or a simple system of tonalities.  Time and district of origin have much to do with the formal character of the melodies.  And besides political, social, and local influences direct musical ones—­the mediaeval church music, eastern secular music, &c.—­have to be taken into account.  Of most Polish melodies it may be said that they are as capricious as they are piquant.  Any attempt to harmonise them according to our tonal system must end in failure.  Many of them would, indeed, be spoiled by any kind of harmony, being essentially melodic, not outgrowths of harmony.

[Footnote:  To those who wish to study this subject may be recommended Oskar Kolberg’s Piesni Ludu Polskiego (Warsaw, 1857), the best collection of Polish folk-songs.  Charles Lipinski’s collection, Piesni Polskie i Ruskie Luttu Galicyjskiego, although much less interesting, is yet noteworthy.]

To treat, however, this subject adequately, one requires volumes, not pages; to speak on it authoritatively, one must have studied it more thoroughly than I have done.  The following melodies and snatches of melodies will to some extent illustrate what I have said, although they are chosen with a view rather to illustrate Chopin’s indebtedness to Polish folk-music than Polish folk-music itself:—­

[11 music score excerpts illustrated here]

Chopin, while piquantly and daringly varying the tonality prevailing in art-music, hardly ever departs from it altogether—­ he keeps at least in contact with it, however light that contact may be now and then in the mazurkas.

[Footnote:  One of the most decided exceptions is the Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2, of which only the A fiat major part adheres frankly to our tonality.  The portion beginning with the twenty-first bar and extending over that and the next fifteen bars displays, on the other hand, the purest Lydian, while the other portions, although less definite as regards tonality, keep in closer touch with the mediaeval church smode [sic:  mode] than with our major and minor.]