As many may already know, Chopin never intended his songs to be published. It was through the efforts of the composer's friend, Julius Fontana, that most of them were published. This one, Czary ("Charms"), and the 1840 Dumka, were exceptions, and thus not included in the group Fontana brought out for publication. Chopin's other 17 songs were lumped together in the Op. 74 collection, but not numbered according to chronology. Czary was the sixth song Chopin composed and one of the last works he wrote before departing Poland for good in November, 1830.

Czary (also translated as "Witchcraft") is a setting of texts by the Polish poet B. Zaleski, about a young man who is obsessed with a young woman, seeing visions of her in his daily routine. Chopin's music is a mixture of lightness and anxiety, the piano devoted to conveying the former characteristic and the voice to the latter. The main theme is playful, full of bounce and color, but its many repetitions and subtly building agitation gradually tilt the mood away from the charming and toward the anxious, toward thoughts of marriage. Before the vocalist delivers each of the seven stanzas—always to the same melody—the piano plays a brief fanfare-like theme and also closes the song with this same attractive morsel. While the repetitions of Czary won't appeal to all tastes, they do not detract significantly from the song's ultimate charm.

© All Music Guide