Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53, “Heroic”

• Chopin composed this polonaise during the summer of 1842, while he was staying in his frequent retreat, the country manor house Nohant. He spent the summer with George Sand. Eugene Delacroix also visited for part of the season.¹
• Chopin dedicated this polonaise to a friend named Auguste Léo, a German banker.²
• This polonaise’s nickname, “Héroïque,” comes from George Sand.³
  • Sand was an author of political essays, a supporter of the movement leading up to France’s Revolution of 1848. She particularly spoke out for women’s rights in the midst of this dialogue. To Sand, the Polonaise Op. 53 piece expressed how she felt about the revolutionary movement.

“The inspiration! The force! The vigour! There is no doubt that such a spirit must be present in the French Revolution. From now on this polonaise should be a symbol, a heroic symbol.”

From a letter from George Sand to Frédéric Chopin, shortly after hearing the Polonaise Op. 53.⁴

1. Kornel Michałowski and Jim Samson, “Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed February 19, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051099.
2. Ashton Johnson, An Handbook to Chopin’s Works (New York: Doubleday, 1905), 159.
3. Peter Russell, Delphi Masterworks of Frédéric Chopin (UK: Delphi, 2018), ebook.
4. Quoted in Ibid.