Mixed Rhythms in Chopin’s Ballades and Scherzos

In this article, I argue that using four different mixed rhythms is one of Chopin's solutions to what Rothstein (1988, 1989) calls the "Great Nineteenth-Century Rhythm Problem."In Chopin's works, sometimes a melodic group does not project a regular four-hyperbeat group, but rather shifts to a five-hyperbeat group while keeping a regular quadruple hypermeter.A fivehyperbeat mixed rhythm is suggested by Ng (2021), which is further expanded in this study.I suggest that these newly proposed phrase-rhythmic types play two crucial roles in Chopin's form: 1) articulating a formal cadence; and 2) giving rise to irregular melodic groups.The mixed rhythms help us to better understand how Chopin avoids highly symmetrical duple organization in his melodies.In order to demonstrate the interplay between mixed rhythms and familiar phraserhythmic groups, I propose a Charm Bracelet Space, which intersperses four mixed rhythms among the four-hyperbeat groups.