Waltzes (Chopin)

Frédéric Chopin's waltzes are pieces of moderate length for piano, all written between 1824 and 1849. They are all in waltz triple meter, specifically 3/4 (except Op. P1/13, which is in 3/8 time), but differ from earlier Viennese waltzes in not being intended for dancing. Some are accessible by pianists of modest capability, others require advanced technique.

Chopin may have written as many as 37 piano waltzes, but only nineteen (along with one inauthentic waltz) are numbered and only eight were published (in Opp. 18, 34, 42 and 64) before he died. His desire was that any unpublished works should be burned, but his sister Ludwika and Julian Fontana proceeded anyway to publish Waltzes 9–13 (as Opp. 69 and 70). Six waltzes composed 1826–1831 and present in Frédéric’s Paris home were at first preserved but then lost in an unintended 1863 fire in Ludwika's house. Another six were eventually published as Waltzes 14–19. These Chopin had given to related people without guarding the manuscripts. Waltz 18 was untitled; it is in 3/4 time and bears some characteristics of a waltz but is marked Sostenuto. Waltz 17 is not accepted as authentic by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute; to the other five in this group it has assigned WN numbers (29, 18, 28, 53 and 63). Waltz 20 is likewise inauthentic. Another authentic waltz in A minor was rediscovered in 2024 and has not yet been published or numbered.^[1]^[2] Separately, the last variation of Chopin’s (authentic) Variations on a German National Air (Der Schweizerbub), WN 6, is in the form of a waltz. Besides, there remain:

Extant waltzes in private hands, unavailable to researchers
Waltzes believed destroyed or lost
Waltzes of which documentary evidence exists but whose manuscripts are not known to exist

Famous are the Minute Waltz and the Waltz in C♯ Minor, both from Op. 64, the last set of waltzes Chopin published before his death.

List of waltzes by or attributed to Chopin

Series number	Key	Composed	Published	Opus Number	Brown	Kobylańska	Chominski	Dedication	Notes
1	E-flat major	1833	1834 (June)	Op. 18	B.62			Laura Horsford	Grande valse brillante; used in Les Sylphides
2	A-flat major	1835	1838	Op. 34/1	B.94			Josefine von Thun-Hohenstein	The three waltzes, Op. 34 were also published as Grandes valses brillantes, but this title is usually reserved for the Waltz in E-flat major, Op. 18
3	A minor	1831	1838	Op. 34/2	B.64			Baroness C. d'Ivry
4	F major	1838 or earlier	1838	Op. 34/3	B.118			Mlle. A. d'Eichthal
5	A-flat major	1840	1840	Op. 42	B.131				Grande valse; sometimes called the 2/4 waltz since the main melody sounds as if in 2/4 time against a 3/4 bass.
6	D-flat major	1846-1847	XI 1847	Op. 64/1	B.164/1			Countess Delfina Potocka	Valse du petit chien is the title Chopin gave this waltz, which is popularly known as Minute Waltz
7	C-sharp minor	1846-1847	XI 1847	Op. 64/2	B.164/2			Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild (= Charlotte de Rothschild)	Used in Les Sylphides and Secret
8	A-flat major	1846-1847	XI 1847	Op. 64/3	B.164/3			Countess Katarzyna Branicka (or Bronicka)
9	A-flat major	1835 (24 September)	1855	Op. posth. 69/1	B.95			Charlotte de Rothschild, Mme Peruzzi and Maria Wodzińska	L'adieu
10	B minor	1829	1852 (Krakow)	Op. posth. 69/2	B.35			Wilhelm Kolberg
11	G-flat major	1833	1855	Op. posth. 70/1	B.92				Used in Les Sylphides
12	F minor/A-flat major	1841 (June)	1852 (Krakow)	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	1830	1868	Op. Posth	B.56	KK IVa/15	P1/15		No autograph exists
15	E major	1829	1861 Lviv,Ukraine	-	B.44	KK IVa/12	P1/12		No autograph exists
16	A-flat major	1827	1902	-	B.21	KK IVa/13	P1/13	Emilia Elsner^{[note 1]}	^{[note 2]}
17	E-flat major	1827	1902		B 46	KK IVa/14	P1/14	Emilia Elsner	^{[note 3]}
18	E-flat major	1840	1955	-	B.133	KK IVb/10		Émile Gaillard	Headed "Sostenuto"; not always classified as a waltz.From 1938 present in the "Conservatoire Paris "
19	A minor	1847–49 ( ? )	1955, 1958	Op. Posth	B.150	KK IVb/11	P2/11	Charlotte de Rothschild or daughter	Unedited edition pub. Paris 1955; ed. Jack Werner 1958. From 1901 present in the "Bibliotheque du Conservatoire de Paris "
20	F-sharp minor	1838 (?)	1932	-		KK Ib/7	A1/7		Not by Chopin; first published in 1861, and in 1986 published under the name Valse mélancolique by Stanislaw Dybowski on the bi-weekly "Ruch Muzyczny", but in 2012 discovered by Luca Chierici to be a shortened version of a piece by Charles Mayer named Le Régret, op. 332.
-	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
-	A minor	1830-35		-					Manuscript discovered at The Morgan Library & Museum in 2024^[1]
-	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		Madame Erskine	According to a letter of Arthur Hedley (March 10 1960) manuscript in a private collection (London)
-	E-flat major	1829-30	-	-		KK Vb/7			Mentioned in letters from Breitkopf to Izabela Barcińska in 1878
-	?	?	-	-	-	KK Ve/10			Listed in auction catalogue, Paris, March 1906
-	?	?	-	-	-	KK Ve/11			Mentioned in letters from Breitkopf to Izabela Barcińska in 1878
-	?	?	-	-	-	KK Vf			Several waltzes; lost

Notes

^ Emilia Elsner kept an album of Chopin's manuscripts, which was destroyed during World War II.^[3]^: 29
^ First published in 1902, from a manuscript in the possession of the family of Jósef Elsner, by F. Hoesick in Warsaw and Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig.^[4]^: 132
^ This Waltz was published together with the Waltz in A-flat Major (see above, No 16).^[5]^: 133

References

^ ^a ^b Hernández, Javier C. (2024-10-27). "Hear a Chopin Waltz Unearthed After Nearly 200 Years". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-10-27.
^ Guy, Jack (2024-10-29). "Lost Chopin music unearthed nearly 200 years after composer's death". CNN. Retrieved 2024-10-29.
^ Orga, Ateş (2015). Fryderyck Franciszek Chopin. London, New York, Sydney: Omnibus Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-78038-444-3. [Tomasz] Nidecki married Elsner's daughter Emilia (by his second marriage). Chopin contributed seventeen pieces to her autograph album, destroyed in World War II.
^ Paderewski, Ignacy J., ed. (1949). Fryderyk Chopin Complete Works IX Waltzes. Warsaw: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute. This Waltz was published for the first time in 1902, from a manuscript in the possession of the family of Jósef Elsner, by F. Hoesick in Warsaw and Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig (as a supplement to the collected edition of Chopin's works, Klav. Bibl. No. 23 183 II). The Warsaw Musical Society has in its collections an autograph manuscript of Chopin dedicated to Madame Le Brun (Chopin, His Life and Work, Warsaw 1904, p. 533).
^ Paderewski, Ignacy J., ed. (1949). Fryderyk Chopin Complete Works IX Waltzes. Warsaw: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute. This Waltz was published together with the Waltz in A-flat Major (see above, No. 16).

[4] Emilia Elsner kept an album of Chopin's manuscripts, which was destroyed during World War II.^[3]^: 29

[6] First published in 1902, from a manuscript in the possession of the family of Jósef Elsner, by F. Hoesick in Warsaw and Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig.^[4]^: 132

[8] This Waltz was published together with the Waltz in A-flat Major (see above, No 16).^[5]^: 133

[:0-1] Hernández, Javier C. (2024-10-27). "Hear a Chopin Waltz Unearthed After Nearly 200 Years". The New York Times. Retrieved 2024-10-27.

[2] Guy, Jack (2024-10-29). "Lost Chopin music unearthed nearly 200 years after composer's death". CNN. Retrieved 2024-10-29.

[EEAlbumAO2015-3] Orga, Ateş (2015). Fryderyck Franciszek Chopin. London, New York, Sydney: Omnibus Press. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-78038-444-3. [Tomasz] Nidecki married Elsner's daughter Emilia (by his second marriage). Chopin contributed seventeen pieces to her autograph album, destroyed in World War II.

[Pad1949AflatMaj-5] Paderewski, Ignacy J., ed. (1949). Fryderyk Chopin Complete Works IX Waltzes. Warsaw: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute. This Waltz was published for the first time in 1902, from a manuscript in the possession of the family of Jósef Elsner, by F. Hoesick in Warsaw and Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig (as a supplement to the collected edition of Chopin's works, Klav. Bibl. No. 23 183 II). The Warsaw Musical Society has in its collections an autograph manuscript of Chopin dedicated to Madame Le Brun (Chopin, His Life and Work, Warsaw 1904, p. 533).

[Pad1949EflatMaj-7] Paderewski, Ignacy J., ed. (1949). Fryderyk Chopin Complete Works IX Waltzes. Warsaw: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute. This Waltz was published together with the Waltz in A-flat Major (see above, No. 16).

[1]

[2]

[note 1]

[note 2]

[note 3]

[3]

[4]

[5]

List of waltzes by or attributed to Chopin

See also

Notes

References