Chopin - Waltz in A minor

Not published until 1955, this little Chopin Waltz in A minor was very much worth waiting over 100 years for…

Frederic Chopin, king of romantic piano music, left us an awful lot of material to be thankful for. Nocturnes, etudes, concertos and more jostle for attention on the music stand but, in 1955, another favourite emerged.

But what was so different about this particular Waltz in A Minor? Well, it was thought to have been written sometime in the 1840s, but no-one had actually published it until 1955, when the Rothschild family (Chopin could possibly have written it as a gift to one of them) donated it to the Paris Conservatoire.

Since then, it's had a remarkably strong life on the concert platform and on record. It's a deceptively simple and innocent-sounding little work, but allow yourself to get lost in it and it will reward you with its dark charms.