Chapter 30

BARCAROLLE IN

F-SHARP MAJOR,

OP. 60.

This composition, in many ways the most wonderful single piece
we have from Chopin, is the quintessence of his genius. It seems,
in fact, to contain everything: appealing melodies, wealth of
harmony, bold dissonances (note in particular the 6th and 7th
measures of the Coda), brilliant embellishments; and withal, it
is written in a pianistic style which, for richness and warmth of
color, is quite unsurpassed. It is also most sincerely conceived,
intensifying the suggestiveness of the descriptive title. Would
that objective program music were always so true to life and
to the real nature of music! It is in free three-part form, the
first part of a calm nature in which we are rocked on gently
undulating waves; a more rhythmic second part where, as Kullak
says, the bass seems to suggest the monotonous steadiness of
oar-strokes; an interlude, marked “dolce sfogato,” introduced by
some delightful modulations, as if in a quiet nook the poet were
dreaming of the beauties of love and nature; an impassioned
return to the chief subject, together with a partial presentation
of the middle portion; and finally a long and brilliant coda. The
composition is unique in romantic literature for its power to
arouse the imagination, or, as Schumann so well says, “to set
people romancing for themselves.”