listening to Chopin is to be drawn into sensation before thought—feeling before analysis. It is not mere music, but an experience, something tender and immediate. I must confess a personal reverence for Chopin: his notes seem not written but exhaled.

And though his pieces are for the piano, I often imagine them swelling into orchestral color, envisioning each passage as if it were played by a full ensemble—woodwinds sighing, strings weeping, brass echoing bold intent. This helps me to grasp the palette of the composer’s mind, to decode his emotional architecture.

But beneath even that, what captures me are the hidden symmetries—the secret alignments, the way phrases fall into place as if by some natural law of beauty. Take the mazurka, for instance: a dance, yes, but unlike the refined waltz. It stumbles and sways like a drunken waltz—or better yet, a waltz half-asleep in a dream. It is, at heart, a Polish folk dance, which Chopin has steeped in melancholy and longing. Not every mazurka sighs with sorrow, but this one surely does—a kind of aching passion that folds in on itself.

It begins by asking—twice, in fact. A question posed, then again, but more fervently. A rise in tension, a swelling of desire. Then, as if exhausted by its own plea, it exhales—four times, softening, dissolving, relaxing into something quieter, gentler. Like rain receding into mist.

The second time through, it tries again to speak, but the answer has changed. The theme returns, but rest eludes it. It knocks at doors, unsettled, rebellious, seeking a way out of its own cadence. And though it calms eventually, something remains unresolved—like a sigh caught halfway.

What haunts me is the symmetry: two, then four. The elegance of pairs, the rise and fall, almost like a breath—inhale, exhale. The chromatic drift, so smooth it hardly feels like motion at all. It’s tempting to speak in technical terms, but intuition tells a fuller truth.

For me, it's not merely notes. It's thought, emotion—uttered through rhythm and rest. A question repeated, a descent into stillness, and then the cycle resumes. This is what makes it beautiful: symmetry, motion, and the quiet persistence of yearning.

                                                                                                                                                              Mehrdad  7/26