The mazurka (in Polish, mazurek) is a stylized Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo that has a heavy accent on the third or second beat.
The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow kujawiak, and the fast oberek. The mazurek is always found to have either a triplet, trill, dotted eighth note (quaver) pair, or an ordinary eighth note pair before two quarter notes (crotchets). In the 19th centu...
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The mazurka (in Polish, mazurek) is a stylized Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo that has a heavy accent on the third or second beat.
The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow kujawiak, and the fast oberek. The mazurek is always found to have either a triplet, trill, dotted eighth note (quaver) pair, or an ordinary eighth note pair before two quarter notes (crotchets). In the 19th century, the dance became popular in ballrooms in the rest of Europe. The Polish national anthem has a mazurek rhythm but is too slow to be considered a mazurek.
In Polish, this musical form is called "mazurek"—a word derived from "mazur," which up to the nineteenth century denoted an inhabitant of Poland's Mazovia region, and which also became the root for "Masuria." In Polish, "mazurka" is actually the genitive and accusative cases of "mazurek."
Several classical composers have written mazurkas, with the best known being the 58 composed by...
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