Lesson 3 · List C · Romantic
The waltz that was written first but published last — a glittering, brilliant farewell from a 20-year-old about to leave home forever.
Frédéric Chopin is sometimes called "the poet of the piano". Unlike Bach or Haydn, he wrote almost nothing except piano music — no big symphonies, almost no songs. He made the piano sing, weep and sparkle in a way nobody had before.
1810 born near Warsaw (Polish mother, French father) → studies in Warsaw with Józef Elsner → November 1830 leaves Poland at age 20, never to return → settles in Paris from 1831 → relationship with the writer George Sand → dies of tuberculosis in 1849, aged 39.
① He wrote almost entirely for piano — mazurkas (~59), nocturnes (21), études (27), preludes (24), waltzes (~19), ballades, scherzos, sonatas.
② His teacher's report on him said just: "exceptional talent, musical genius."
③ He worshipped Bach — and practised the Well-Tempered Clavier all his life (a lovely link to your Lesson 1!).
Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz. Influences: the opera composer Bellini (for his singing melodies) and John Field (the nocturne).
If you remember only one sentence about this waltz, make it this one:
"This waltz is numbered last and was written first."
Chopin didn't want his unpublished music printed — he reportedly asked for his manuscripts to be destroyed. After he died, his friend Julian Fontana published a pile of them anyway (that's why so much Chopin says "Op. posth."). Fontana grouped 23 pieces as Opp. 66–73 (1855) — including five waltzes — but this waltz was not among them. It turned up separately and was first printed in 1868. So it got no opus number at all — the first posthumous Chopin waltz to be numbered that way.
The single most important scholarly fact: Chopin's handwritten copy no longer exists, and no authentic copies are known. Every modern edition is built from the 1868 first print — an "edition of an edition". That's why different urtext editions of this waltz disagree on little details. Knowing this shows you understand what an urtext is actually for.
Because Chopin gave no opus number, scholars each made their own list: B. 56 (Maurice Brown), KK IVa/15 (Kobylańska), WN 29 (Polish National Edition), P. 1/15 (Chomiński). Naming any one is fine — as long as you know why they exist.
In 1830 Chopin was twenty, famous in Warsaw, and about to leave for Vienna. He never came back.
Surprise — no. It's in E minor, but it's brilliant and extrovert, not gloomy. The Chopin Institute itself calls it the virtuosic one among the early Warsaw waltzes. Compare it with his Op. 34 No. 2 in A minor, which is slow and sorrowful — the two side by side prove that for Chopin, "minor" is a colour, not a mood.
A waltz in 3/4 with the classic oom-pah-pah left hand — but built like a mini concert piece, not a ballroom dance.
No. Chopin's waltzes are stylised concert pieces — music to listen to, not to dance to. The editors at Henle put it perfectly: Chopin "revolutionised the étude but he ennobled the waltz… one cannot and should not dance to them." Chopin himself was sarcastic about real dance music — from Vienna he wrote that "here waltzes are called works!" And Schumann called Chopin's waltzes "aristocratic from the first note to the last."
Eight bars of arpeggiated E minor chords (not block chords!), quiet at first, swelling to a dramatic forte. Eight bars of barely-moving harmony is a "curtain-raiser" — the tension that makes the waltz feel like an arrival.
The middle section (C) is in E major — the parallel major, not the relative major (G). A Romantic minor-key dance "should" go to G; going to E major instead keeps the same tonic note but transforms the colour — that's the sudden radiance. Inside it, a temporary move to G♯ minor (the mediant minor).
Driving arpeggios and full chords, closing in E minor. The piece is built to arrive there: each return of the refrain has a more forceful accompaniment than the last, so the texture thickens across the whole waltz.
Rubato means "robbed time" — but Chopin meant something very specific, and most people get it wrong.
Chopin's own pupil, Carl Mikuli, wrote that in Chopin's rubato "one hand — the accompanying hand — always played in strict tempo, while the other, singing… freed the truth of the musical expression from all rhythmic bonds." Another pupil, George Mathias, added the key point: the time is repaid, not accumulated — you borrow and give back. So: steady oom-pah-pah left hand, flexible right hand. (Avoid the unverified slogan "the left hand is the conductor" — quote Mikuli instead.)
Use the pedal to hold the bass note of each oom-pah-pah group, not to wash the texture. The chromatic coda needs clean, frequent changes so the descending line stays clear.
Chopin preferred Pleyel pianos — light, singing, transparent, with fast precise dampers. On a modern grand, literal pedal marks blur the bass and the coda, so use lighter voicing and shallower pedalling. (He used Érard when he felt off-form — "ready-made tone"!)
Set the metronome to your waltz tempo and keep the left hand exactly on the click while the right hand hesitates slightly and then catches up. If your left hand ever rushes or slows with the right, you've lost Chopin's rubato. Remember: this is an early Warsaw waltz, still close to strict Viennese rhythm — not the elastic rubato of his late mazurkas.
"This waltz is numbered last but was written first — composed around 1830 in Warsaw, before any waltz Chopin published, but not printed until 1868, which is why older editions call it No. 14. The middle section is in E major, the parallel major rather than the expected relative major, G — that's what produces the sudden radiance, since the tonic note stays while the colour transforms. And the climax is the coda: each return of the refrain thickens the texture, so the whole piece builds towards that final dash. In performance I keep the left hand's oom-pah-pah strictly in tempo and let the right hand breathe around it — Chopin's own rubato, as Mikuli described it."
Why does this waltz have no opus number?
Chopin didn't authorise publication (he wanted his manuscripts destroyed). It wasn't in Fontana's posthumous set (Opp. 66–73), surfaced separately, and was first printed in 1868 — so it never got an opus number.
What key is the middle section in, and why is that interesting?
E major — the parallel (tonic) major, not the relative major G. Keeping the same tonic note while the colour changes is what creates the sudden radiance.
Describe Chopin's rubato as his pupil Mikuli documented it.
The left (accompanying) hand plays in strict tempo while the right (singing) hand moves freely around it, borrowing time and repaying it — the time is repaid, not accumulated.