Chopin: Waltz in a minor, Op. 34,2

Chopin applied himself the waltz genre throughout his life, and created a broad spectrum of musical possibilities from profoundly melancholic and atmospheric mood-pieces to showpieces of extraordinary virtuosity. Its title of Grande Valse brillante notwithstanding, this second waltz from opus 34 has a dreamy character within a calm Lento tempo, causing it to function to some extent as a slow movement between the two triumphant vivace movements that surround it in opus 34. While a complete autograph of this work no longer survives, several copies of the first edition issued by Schlesinger in 1838 have Chopin's proof corrections; we have of course taken these into account in our Urtext edition.