So, I know enough about most common Romantic Era dances to feel comfortable composing them, even the Polka that I’ve never tried to compose and the Polonaise that I only ever composed once, but the Mazurka, it’s one that I have wanted to compose and it’s one of which I find almost nothing about besides the accent pattern being
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
instead of being
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
like most other dances in 3/4 time. Is there anything else I need to know is typical for a Mazurka before I compose one? Like, is there a typical rhythm or other characteristics? I think my unfamiliarity with the Mazurka not only has to do with the lack of information, but also with the fact that I have only really ever heard and played 1 Mazurka, this one:
As for why I am asking this question, well, on the one hand, there’s the curiosity that I have had about the Mazurka. And on the other hand, I have thought of taking the Baroque Dance Suite structure of different dances with different characteristics and a single key tying them together and applying them to the dances of the Romantic era, giving me something like this:
As you can see, there are some connections between my Romantic Dance Suite structure and that of the Baroque Dance Suite. The Polonaise and Allemande, Mazurka and Courante, Waltz and Sarabande, Scherzo and Minuet/Gavotte, and Polka and Gigue all have at least one similarity, those being:
Polonaise and Allemande: Rhythmic complexity, Polonaise might start with an upbeat, a lot of sixteenth notes
Mazurka and Courante: Fast, triple meter
Waltz and Sarabande: Triple meter, Waltz is the slowest of the Romantic era dances in my suite structure like the Sarabande is for the Baroque Dance Suite, although unlike the Baroque Sarabande, the Waltz isn’t always slow and is sometimes quite fast
Scherzo and Minuet/Gavotte: The Scherzo basically evolved from the Minuet, which shares a lot of similarities with the Gavotte(so much so, that I often think of the Gavotte as a "Minuet in 4") so, this is the closest tie that there is between the Romantic and Baroque
Polka and Gigue: Duple meter, often 2/4 time for the Polka and 6/8 time for the Gigue, Fast, lots of dotted rhythms
So, besides the accented beat being beat 2 of the 3/4 bar instead of beat 1, is there anything else characteristic of a Mazurka that I should know about if I want to compose one?