Valse BI 150

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

The “Waltz in A minor, B. 150” (also listed as Op. posth. P2 No. 11) is one of Frédéric Chopin’s most accessible and best-loved pieces. From a pedagogical point of view, it is an excellent introduction to the Polish composer’s style: it allows work on the independence of the left hand (bass and chords) while developing ornamentation and melancholy phrasing in the right hand. Work on the trills and grace notes is essential here to acquire the finesse of touch specific to Romanticism.

Composed around 1847-1848, this waltz was only published in 1860, after the composer’s death. It stands out for its elegance tinged with sadness and its circular main theme that never seems to want to stop. Despite its brevity and relative technical simplicity, it contains the whole of Chopin’s emotional universe, offering the pianist a privileged opportunity to work on expression and “rubato” with great economy of means.