The Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49 is one of the pinnacles of Chopin's creative art.

Generally
regarded as a masterpiece, it has received a number of brilliant pianistic interpretations
(e.g. Claudio Arrau, Myra Hess, Solomon, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Murray Perahia).
It is a work that has fascinated successive generations of listeners, commentators and
musicologists. Yet its form and artistic message are difficult to "decipher" unequivocally.
The F minor Fantasy is an expansively constructed work belonging to the sphere of such
epic-dramatic genres in the Chopin oeuvre as the ballades and the scherzos. Yet it occupies
a distinctive, exceptional place among them. Discounting the rather trivial fantasies of the
potpourri type written to operatic or other themes, such as were fashionable in Chopin's
day, we immediately perceive his F minor Fantasy as a work referring to the most splendid
and most ambitious traditions of the piano fantasies of Mozart and the Wanderer-
Fantasie of Schubert. From Chopin's letters, we also know that he employed the name
"fantasy" to describe works that broke with the canon of unambiguously defined genres
(e.g. the Polonaise-fantasy in A flat major, Op. 61). The term "fantasy" unquestionably
implies some sort of freedom from artistic rules and a peculiar, Romantic expression.
The Fantasy in F minor was completed and published in 1841. Through its narrative it
insistently draws the listener into an expansive musical tale. But can we answer the question
as to what this tale is about? In the interpretations of many commentators we find the
conviction that Chopin's work might be an echo of improvisations on national themes (as is
indicated by some of the Fantasy's melodic strands). So the F minor Fantasy would contain
a distinctive patriotic message, leading from the elegiac tone at the beginning of the work
to the triumphant accents in its closing climax.
In the construction of this fascinating composition, we find elements of various forms (e.g.
sonata form combined with the principle of cyclical form), yet defining the form of the F
minor Fantasy is no easy task, even though the work does display a rigorous logic of
construction. We find here moments that are very precisely formed (particular themes) and
others of a looser character, akin to improvisation (especially the figural passages). In
general terms, the flow of the work may be presented as follows: an introduction with two
"march" themes, a sort of exposition of the rich thematic material, a middle section (lyrical,
at a slow tempo, in the key of B major), a sort of reprise and a coda (a reminiscence of the
middle section). Of course, there are other possible interpretations of this work, which
represents a real challenge for performers.

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Frederick Niecks, not infrequently a rather critical monographer of Chopin, called the
Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49 a ‘masterpiece’ and spoke of its ‘force of passion’. Gerald
Abraham ranked it, alongside the Polonaise-Fantasy, the E major Scherzo and the third and
fourth Ballades, as ‘the crown of Chopin’s work’. Assessments of this work teem with
superlatives: ‘one of the highest expressions of the composer’s genius’ (Ashton Johnson),
‘one of the most magnificent works in the piano literature’ (Ludwik Bronarski), a work that
should be played ‘only by really great pianists’ (John F. Porte).
Without doubt, the F minor Fantasy is characterised by a vigour and gesture worthy of the
loftiest affairs; it also displays a concentration and contemplation suited to the deepest
affairs. Theodor W. Adorno had the intuition to grasp the matter from an unexpectedly
pertinent angle. He said (quite obsessively, as it happens): ‘A listener must stop up his ears
not to hear Chopin’s F Minor Fantasy as a kind of tragically decorative song of triumph to
the effect that Poland was not lost forever, that some day […] she would rise again.’[i]
We can indeed speak of intuition in Adorno’s case, since when he wrote those words, in
1962, it was not yet known that the Fantasy was composed on motives from one of the
most popular Polish insurrectionary songs, namely ‘Litwinka’ by Karol Kurpiński. ‘Litwinka’
was sung by the whole of Poland and the whole of the Great Emigration – the community
of exiles who fled Poland in the wake of the November Uprising. It was included in
songbooks: for example, in Pieśni Rewolucji Polskiej z 29 listopada roku 1830 [Songs of the
Polish revolution of 29 November 1830], published in Paris in 1832 by Wojciech Sowiński,
and in an analogous collection published in Leipzig the following year by Feliks Biliński.
Richard Wagner included a couple of phrases from this song in his overture Polonia.
Chopin did not employ quotation in the F minor Fantasy, be it literal, as he had previously
in the Fantasy on Polish Airs, or approximate, as with the carol ‘Lulajże Jezuniu’ in
the Scherzo in B minor and with the song ‘Tam na błoniu błyszczy kwiecie’ in the
‘Palman’ Mazurka in E minor. ‘Litwinka’ is merely alluded to in the F minor Fantasy. It is
present in that work, but in a discreet way. One must listen closely to discern it.
In the first Warsaw review of this work, written in 1843 in the Biblioteka Warszawska, Józef
Sikorski, the future editor of Ruch Muzyczny, wrote: ‘Phrases characteristic of our music can
be found already in the march that opens the Fantasy’, and further that ‘each of the work’s
themes is more or less marked by our national character’.
The method of composing with allusions was suggested by Karol Kurpiński. In his 1821
work O ekspresji muzycznej i naśladowaniu [On musical expression and imitation], he
encourages composers of wordless works to use fragments of songs, which, as he wrote,
‘have a certain significance, as souvenirs etched into everyone’s memory’; hence ‘they may
serve for various allusions’. He described the sense of his method in express terms: ‘For
example, the tone of that march sets Polish troops before your eyes’.
From the time of his youth, Chopin gained experience in employing such allusions by
improvising on national themes. The chronicler Eustachy Marylski recalls the young Chopin
improvising on Niemcewicz’s Śpiewy historyczne [Historical songs] in the boarding school
run by his father. Over a decade later, in Paris, he did the same in the presence of
Niemcewicz himself. This is mentioned by Ferenc Liszt, in his famous book about Chopin,
but others also wrote of Chopin’s improvisations during gatherings of the exile community
in Paris: Bohdan Zaleski, Eustachy Januszkiewicz and Count Józef Krasiński. The Kronika
Emigracji Polskiej published an account of one soirée, hosted by Prince Czartoryski, at which
Chopin ‘improvised delightful fantasies from Polish melodies’.

Two kinds of experience converge in the F minor Fantasy: the experience of the composer
and the experience of the improviser. In listening to this work, one easily distinguishes the
parts inspired by improvisation from the ‘purely’ compositional parts.
It was not without reason that Chopin called his new work a fantasy. This was indeed a
fantasy, though not a conventionalised fantasy quoting popular operatic melodies or
national airs and then developing (or paraphrasing) them through variation. The Fantasy in
F minor referred to a genre developed during the eighteenth century, cultivated
by Mozart and later by Schubert. The binding rules here were individual form (admittedly
departing from existing templates, but not devoid of form), elegiac or nostalgic expression
and, importantly, a certain esotericism, and so the concealing or veiling of one’s inspirations
and one’s message. The fantasy relied on the listener’s intelligence.
Musicological interpreters not au fait with these generic principles could not get to grips
with the form of the F minor Fantasy. Niecks found in it ‘enthralling weirdness’ and
‘fantastic waywardness’. Leichtentritt read its form as ‘indistinct’, suffering from a ‘lack of
logic and continuity’ in its design. For some, it was nothing more than a ‘series of
bewildering images’, presented ‘in great elation’, ‘hying past the listener’s imagination at
frenetic speed’. For others, it was the transformed, or even deformed, form of a so-called
sonata allegro or a rondo, or a hybrid of those forms. Yet all the while it was simply a fantasy,
and so a genre in which the form – by no means accidental – unfolded in a specific, albeit
unique, unconventional, way. It may be summarised as follows: the Fantasy opens with two
marches, which set the tone for the whole work, and closes with a kind of conclusion. The
body of the work is filled with narration that unfolds over three phases. The first phase, the
exposition, presents the themes, which are five in number. The themes are divided by
improvisation, the third flurry of which leads into a culmination. The second phase is
suddenly and unexpectedly interrupted, giving way to music that seems to come from
another world.

The marches. The first is in the key of F minor – the principal key of the work. In Chopin’s
times, F minor was often treated as a mournful key. The second march is in F major. It is
this march that brings a clear allusion to ‘Litwinka’, the message of which was borne by the
text associated with its melody: ‘Wionął wiatr błogi na Lechitów ziemię’ [The air blew sweet
across the Polish land].
After the marches, Chopin first unfurls music resembling notated improvisation (bars 43–
46), which is followed immediately by the explosion – agitato – of music from the first phase
of narration. The opening theme, adhering to the dark key of F minor, emerges from the
bottom of the keyboard (bars 68–73). The second, complementary, theme breaks out in
two-note chords at the top of the keyboard, in the bright key of A flat major (bars 77–80).
The third theme may be called a counter-theme; it sounds in the key of the dominant, C
minor, with quite alarming octaves (bars 93–98). Only with the fourth theme do we reach
towards the climax, which comes in another relative key (E flat major). It resounds with the
utmost force (fortissimo), in a heroic gesture (bars 109–112). This sequence of themes ends
with the fifth: this is another march, but of the military, rather than funeral, variety. Its
even-paced bass allusively evokes another insurrectionary song: ‘Bracia, do bitwy nadszedł
czas’ (more specifically, it evokes the second part of that song) (bars 127–135). The second
phase in the narrative, cast into the low tonal register, is suddenly broken off. Preceded by
improvisation that flies off into a luminous sphere of sonority, a chorale appears, in the
most distant key from F minor: B major. This does indeed sound like a voice ‘from another
world’. This music has been called a ‘hymn’, a ‘prayer’, a ‘song of ardent faith’ and an
‘epiphanic’ moment (bars 199–206). The narrative of the third phase again presents a
sequence of five themes. It emerges from the dark B flat minor, leading towards the bright,
victorious A flat major.
The Fantasy ends with a moment of reflection, a reminiscence of the chorale, but the final
chords sound in a triumphant fortissimo. The F minor Fantasy was published in Paris barely
two months after its composition. In the UK and Germany, it was issued slightly later, at the
beginning of 1842. Polish music-lovers could read a review of this work in March of that
year, in the Poznań Tygodnik literacki.