Valse Opus 64 n°2

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 C sharp minor, Opus 64 No. 2” is a masterpiece of sensitivity and elegance. For the pianist, it offers complete work on Chopin’s “rubato” and the handling of contrasts of tempo. The pedagogical challenge lies in the alternation between the opening theme, steeped in restrained melancholy, and the più mosso section, which demands great fluidity and a pearly touch in the right hand. The central section in D flat major, for its part, calls for a singing, well-timbred sonority to bring out all the nobility of the melody.

Composed in 1847, just one year before the composer’s death, this waltz is dedicated to Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild. Unlike the brilliant waltzes intended for the ballroom, this one is a “waltz of the soul”, a poetic confidence in which Chopin expresses a deep nostalgia. It is built on three distinct themes that intertwine to form one of the most overwhelming musical portraits of Polish Romanticism, confirming Chopin’s genius for transforming a dance form into a lyric poem.