Waltzes (Chopin)

Frédéric Chopin’s waltzes are pieces of moderate length for piano, all written between 1824 and 1849. They adhere to 3/4 waltz 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 36 piano waltzes, but only twenty 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 His desire was that any unpublished works should be burned, but his sister Ludwika and Julian Fontana proceeded anyway to publish Waltzes 9–13 (as Opp. 69 and 70).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 persons 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. 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:

1. Extant waltzes in private hands, unavailable to researchers
2. Waltzes believed destroyed or lost
3. 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 wrote before his death.

List of waltzes by or attributed to Chopin

See also

• List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin by genre
• List of compositions by Frédéric Chopin by opus number

Notes

1. Emilia Elsner kept an album of Chopin's manuscripts, which was destroyed during World War II.^[1]: 29
2. 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.^[2]: 132
3. This Waltz was published together with the Waltz in A-flat Major (see above, No 16).^[3]: 133

References

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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).