Polonaises, Op. 40

The Polonaises, Op. 40 belong to that later group. They comprise two works: a Polonaise in A major and a Polonaise in C minor. These two works comprise the second opus of piano polonaises to be published by Chopin, and they form a powrful contrastwith one another, representing two varietes of the heroic polonaise: the triumphant and the tragic. They also mark a further stage in the evolution of the polonaise: on the hand, in the direction of monumentalisation; on the other, towards a gradualweakening of its dance features, so that the dance in transformed into a kind of dance fantasy.