Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

’s Waltz

Waltz

The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

es are pieces of moderate length adhering to the traditional 3/4 waltz time, but are remarkably different from the earlier Viennese waltz

Viennese Waltz

Viennese Waltz is the genre of a ballroom dance. At least three different meanings are recognized. In the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in ballroom dancing, danced to the music of Viennese Waltz.What is now called...

es in that they were not designed for dancing but for concert performance. Some of them are accessible by pianists of moderate capabilities, but the more difficult of them require an advanced technique. Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

's Invitation to the Dance

Invitation to the Dance (Weber)

Invitation to the Dance , Op. 65, J. 260, is a piano piece in rondo form written by Carl Maria von Weber in 1819. It is also well known in the 1841 orchestration by Hector Berlioz...

was an early model for Chopin's waltzes.

Chopin started writing waltzes in 1824, when he was fourteen, and continued until the year of his death, 1849.

Probably the most famous is the so-called Minute Waltz

Minute Waltz

The Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64, No. 1, popularly known as the Minute Waltz, and also Valse du petit chien, is a waltz for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin. It is dedicated to the Countess Delfina Potocka.-History:...

in D flat major of 1847, part of the last set of waltzes Chopin published (Op. 64).

Background

There are thirty-six separate compositions that are of interest to students of the Chopin waltzes.

Chopin published eight waltzes in his lifetime. A further five were published with posthumous opus numbers in the decade following his death, and since then a further seven have been published, without opus numbers. Of these, two are considered spurious or doubtful. This brings the total to eighteen canonic waltzes, although it is not usual to number these past the first fourteen.

The eighteen waltzes include a piece that was untitled; it is in 3/4 time with the tempo indication Sostenuto, and it has some of the characteristics of a waltz, so it is often (but not universally) catalogued with the waltzes.

In addition, there remain:

• 2 extant waltzes in private hands and unavailable to researchers
• 6 waltzes believed destroyed
• 3 waltzes believed lost
• 5 waltzes of which documentary evidence exists but the MSS are not known to be extant.

List of waltzes by or attributed to Chopin

Series number	Key	Composed	Published	Opus Number	Brown	Kobylańska	Chominski	Dedication	Notes
1	E flat major	1831-32	1834 (June)	Op. 18	B.62			Laura Horsford	Grande valse brillante; used in Les Sylphides Les Sylphides Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc. Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with music by Frédéric Chopin orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the title Chopiniana, Op. 46...
2	A flat major	1835	1838	Op. 34/1	B.94			Josefine von Thun-Hohenstein	These three waltzes Waltzes, Op. 34 (Chopin) The three Op. 34 Waltzes were composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1834-1838 and published in 1838.These three waltzes were published as Grandes valses brillantes, but this title is usually reserved for the Waltz in E flat major, Op. 18....  were published as Grandes valses brillantes, but this title is usually reserved for the Waltz in E flat major, Op. 18
3	A minor	1834	1838	Op. 34/2	B.64			Baroness G. d'Ivry
4	F major	1838	1838	Op. 34/3	B.118			Mlle. A. d'Eichtal
5	A flat major Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 42 (Chopin) Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 42, is a lively waltz composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1840.-Background:Though none of Chopin's works were actually intended to be danced to, this waltz does appear to be appropriate for use in the ballroom...	1840	1840	Op. 42	B.131				Grande valse
6	D flat major Minute Waltz The Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64, No. 1, popularly known as the Minute Waltz, and also Valse du petit chien, is a waltz for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin. It is dedicated to the Countess Delfina Potocka.-History:...	1847	1847	Op. 64/1	B.164/1			Countess Delfina Potocka Delfina Potocka Delfina Potocka, née Komar , a Polish countess, was a friend and muse to noted Polish expatriate artists Frédéric Chopin and Zygmunt Krasiński.-Life:...	Minute Waltz Minute Waltz The Waltz in D flat major, Op. 64, No. 1, popularly known as the Minute Waltz, and also Valse du petit chien, is a waltz for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin. It is dedicated to the Countess Delfina Potocka.-History:...
7	C sharp minor	1847	1847	Op. 64/2	B.164/2			Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild (= Charlotte de Rothschild)	Used in Les Sylphides Les Sylphides Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc. Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with music by Frédéric Chopin orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the title Chopiniana, Op. 46...  and Secret Secret (2007 film) Secret , is a 2007 Taiwanese romance film. It is the directorial debut feature film of Taiwanese musician Jay Chou, who also stars as the male lead and co-wrote the movie.The Secret Original Soundtrack was released by JVR Music on 13 August 2007....
8	A flat major	1847	1847	Op. 64/3	B.164/3			Countess Katarzyna Branicka (or Bronicka)
9	A flat major	1835 (24 September)	1852	Op. posth. 69/1	B.95			Charlotte de Rothschild, Mme Peruzzi and Maria Wodzińska	L'adieu
10	B minor	1829	1852	Op. posth. 69/2	B.35			Wilhelm Kolberg
11	G flat major	1832	1855	Op. posth. 70/1	B.92				Used in Les Sylphides Les Sylphides Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc. Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with music by Frédéric Chopin orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the title Chopiniana, Op. 46...
12	F minor/A flat major	1841 (June)	1855	Op. posth. 70/2	B.138			Marie de Krudner, Mme. Oury, Élise Gavard & Countess Esterházy
13	D flat major	1829 (3 October)	1855	Op. posth. 70/3	B.40
14	E minor Waltz in E minor (Chopin) The Waltz in E minor is a waltz for solo piano by Frédéric Chopin. It was composed circa 1830 and published in 1868.It was the first of Chopin's posthumously published waltzes not to be given a posthumous opus number. It appears in Brown's catalogue as B.56, in Kobylańska's catalogue as KK IVa/15,...	1829 (? 1830-35)	1868	-	B.56	KK IVa/15	P1/15
15	E major	1829-30	1871-72	-	B.44	KK IVa/12	P1/12
16	A flat major	1827-30	1902	-	B.21	KK IVa/13	P1/13	Emily Elsner
17	E flat major	1827-30	1902	-	B.46	KK IVa/14	P1/14	Emily Elsner	Spurious
20	F sharp minor	1838 (?)	1932	-		KK Ib/7	A1/7		Valse mélancolique; spurious
18	E flat major	1840	1955	-	B.133	KK IVb/10		Émile Gaillard	Headed "Sostenuto"; not always classified as a waltz
19	A minor Waltz in A minor (Chopin) Waltz in A minor, B. 150, KK IVb/11, P. 2/11, is a waltz for solo piano composed by Frédéric Chopin. The waltz was written sometime between 1843 and 1848, but was not published until 1955, over 100 years later.-Analysis:...	1847-49	1955, 1958	-	B.150	KK IVb/11	P2/11		Unedited edition pub. Paris 1955; ed. Jack Werner 1958
-	C major	1824 (?)	-	-		KK Vb/8			Lost
-	A minor	1824	-	-	-	KK Vf		Countess Lubienska	Lost
-	C major	1826	-	-		KK Vb/3			MS destroyed; copy of first line made by Chopin's sister Ludwika is extant
-	A flat major	1827	-	-		KK Vb/4			MS destroyed; copy of first line made by Chopin's sister Ludwika is extant
-	D minor	1828	-	-		KK Vb/6			La Partenza; MS destroyed; copy of first line made by Chopin's sister Ludwika is extant
-	A minor	1829	-	-					Discovered 1937; was in possession of H. Hinterberger of Vienna, but now believed destroyed
-	A minor	1829 (?)	-	-	-	-			Sketches for a brief prelude and main theme
-	A flat major	1829-30 (by 21 December 1830)	-	-		KK Vb/5			Mentioned in a letter from Chopin to his family, 21 December 1830; MS destroyed; copy of first line made by Chopin's sister Ludwika is extant
-	E flat major	1829-30	-	-		KK Vb/7			MS destroyed; copy of first line made by Chopin's sister Ludwika is extant
-	C major	1831	-	-					MS destroyed; copy of first line made by Chopin's sister Ludwika is extant
-	?	1845 (by)	-	-	-	KK Ve/12			Mentioned in diary of L. Niedźwiecki
-	B major	1848 (12 October)	-	-	B.166	KK Va/3		Mrs Erskine	MS in private hands and unavailable
-	B flat major	1849	-	-					Discovered 1952; in possession of Arthur Hedley Arthur Hedley Arthur Hedley , English musicologist and scholar, biographer of Frédéric Chopin.Arthur Hedley was educated at Durham and at the Sorbonne, and he devoted much of his life to the study of the composer Frédéric Chopin and his music. 1947 saw the publication of Hedley's biography of Chopin, as part of...
-	?	?	-	-		KK Vb/7			Mentioned in letters from Breitkopf to Izabela Barcińska in 1878
-	?	?	-	-	-	KK Ve/10			Listed in auction catalogue, Paris, March 1906
-	?	?	-	-	-	KK Vf			Several waltzes; lost