(Hail Chopin) Mazurka

[alessandro]

Dear forumeers,
I hope everyone is doing fine.   I just saw a nice documentary film about Chopin, for you probably know what reason was programmed March 1.   Just before asking a question I would like to translate freely a sentence from the Dutch writer Gerard Reve which made me smile cause it says in one go a terrible truth that applies to me.   The sentence goes approximately as follows "Like most things in life, one has the choice of doing or not doing something.   I have to admit to myself that one of these two possibilities applied a lot to me."   Very sorry for the bad English, I don't know if the thought is somewhat clear, but I must indeed admit that I really want to have more discipline in life but I'm now almost 40 and I don't have the full feeling that I'm doing the best I can.   I do neither consider myself as an excessively talented person nor does it make me sad,  it's just that I get more easily overwhelmed by this feeling of "lack" and self-disappointment.   Now to get closer to the question, I enjoyed the documentary cause it talked a lot about the mazurka's and it delved a little into the sonata number 2.   Oh my, what a dark piece that is ! It was not the first time that I heard the sonata number 2 but it never stroke me as much as it just did, for its blackness - what a beauty, words fail.
I would like to start learning a mazurka, and I was wondering which is your favourite mazurka and why; "which one and why".   It really doesn't have to be the most easy one (maybe it is just the most difficult one that is the most interesting, I don't know), but I really want to be gripped by it right away.   An answer could be "Get yourself a CD or listen to some mazurka's on the internet and make your own choice", that's right, but I feel this forum more effective for background-information, for your feelings.  It sharpens my appetite.  Personnaly I'm nowadays a lot in blacks and whites, a little sarcasm and shades, but please just describe what you like and what I could like in this or that mazurka.
Very kindly.