Grande Valse A-flat Major Op. 42

The fact that Chopin's waltzes are no longer dance music, but refined concert pieces for performance in salon or concert hall, emerges nowhere as sharply as in the “Grande Valse” op. 42. The main theme banters with a delighful rhythmic shifting between the accompaniment in the typical 3/4 time and the melody, which, in its turn, is heard in duple time. Robert Schumann called this waltz a “salon piece of the most noble type”; one which, in spite of all its brilliance and virtuosity, can still be mastered by advanced amateurs.