Mazurka - Outside Poland

Outside Poland

In Russia, many composers wrote mazurkas for solo piano: Scriabin (25), Balakirev (7), Tchaikovsky (6). Borodin wrote two in his Petite Suite for piano; Mikhail Glinka also wrote two, although one is a simplified version of Chopin's Mazurka No. 13.

Tchaikovsky also included mazurkas in his scores for Swan Lake, Eugene Onegin, and Sleeping Beauty. Léo Delibes composed one which appears several times in the first act of his ballet Coppélia.

The mazurka is an important dance in many Russian novels. In addition to its mention in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as well as in a protracted episode in War and Peace, the dance is prominently featured in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. Arkady reserves the mazurka for Madame Odintsov with whom he is falling in love.

Czech composers Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, and Bohuslav Martinů all wrote mazurkas to at least some extent. For Smetana and Martinů, these are single pieces (respectively, a Mazurka-Cappricio for piano and a Mazurka-Nocturne for a mixed string/wind quartet), whereas Dvořák composed a set of six mazurkas for piano.

In France, Impressionistic composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel both wrote mazurkas; Debussy's is a stand-alone piece, and Ravel's is part of a suite of an early work, La Parade. The mazurka appears frequently in French traditional folk music.

In the French Antilles, the mazurka has become an important style of dance and music. A creolized version of the mazurka is mazouk, which was introduced to the French Caribbean during the 19th century.

In Swedish folk music, the quaver or eight-note polska has a similar rhythm to the mazurka, and the two dances have a common origin.

The dance was common as a popular dance in Europe and the United States in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. It survives in some old time fiddle tunes, and also in early Cajun music, though it has largely fallen out of Cajun music now. In the Southern United States it was sometimes known as a mazuka.

In Cape Verde the mazurka is also revered as an important cultural phenomenon played with a violin and accompanied by guitars. It also takes a dance form found in the north of the archipelago, mainly in São Nicolau, Santo Antão, and Brava.

In Portugal the mazurka became one of the most popular traditional European dances through the first years of the annual Andanças, a traditional dances festival held nearby São Pedro do Sul.

In Cuba, composer Ernesto Lecuona wrote a piece titled Mazurka en Glisado for the piano, one of various commissions throughout his life.

In Nicaragua, Carlos Mejía Godoy y los de Palacaguina and Los Soñadores de Saraguasca made a compilation of mazurkas from popular folk music, which are performed with a violin de talalate, an indigenous instrument from Nicaragua.

In Curaçao the mazurka was popular as dance music in the nineteenth century, as well as in the first half of the twentieth century. Several Curaçao-born composers such as Jan Gerard Palm, Joseph Sickman Corsen, Jacobo Palm, Rudolph Palm and Wim Statius Muller have written mazurkas.

In Brazil, the composer Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote a mazurka for classical guitar in a similar musical style to Polish mazurkas.

In Mexico, composers Ricardo Castro and Manuel M Ponce wrote mazurkas for the piano in a Chopin fashion, eventually mixing elements of Mexican folk dances.

In Australia, Julian Cochran composed a collection of five mazurkas for solo piano and orchestra.

In the Philippines, the mazurka is a popular form of traditional dance. The Mazurka Boholana is one well-known Filipino mazurka.

In popular folk dancing in France, in recent years (after roughly 2005), the mazurka has evolved into a dance at a more gentle pace (without the traditional 'hop' step on the 3rd beat), allowing for more intimate dancing and giving it the status of a seduction dance. This style of mazurka has also been imported into "balfolk" dancing in Belgium and the Netherlands, hence the name "Belgian Mazurka" or "Flemish Mazurka".