Chopin's Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64 No. 2 comes from the last set of waltzes he published in his lifetime — written in 1846–47 and issued in November 1847, two years before he died. It is not a dance you can spin through from beginning to end: three different speeds take turns, spinning, then rushing, then suddenly slowing right down. 4:23, with the full piano score on screen, note by note.
Three waltzes in Op. 64, three names
Op. 64 came out as a set of three, and each of the three carries a different dedication: the first to Countess Delfina Potocka — the one later nicknamed the "Minute Waltz"; the second, this one, to Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild, Charlotte; the third to Countess Katarzyna Branicka. All three names come from the circle he taught in Paris.
The set was published in November 1847 and was the last group of waltzes to appear in his lifetime. By then his relationship with George Sand had ended and his health was failing steadily; he died in Paris in October 1849, aged thirty-nine.
He wrote more waltzes than the ones he published — several were gathered up and printed after his death. These three are the last he approved, corrected and saw into print himself.
The piece that opens the piano duel in Secret
In Jay Chou's film Secret (2007) the piano duel in the music room opens with this waltz — one student plays a few bars, another scoffs that it is too easy, and the two of them escalate from there.
It is a well-chosen opener: in three, with an easily recognised tune that most piano students have played, which is what makes the line land.
Someone keeps changing their mind inside this piece
The opening phrase sighs downward: one long note, then a slide down. Not a ballroom fanfare — more like someone standing at the edge of the floor, letting out a breath first.
Then the speed jumps and the right hand starts running note by note, and that is what actually sounds like spinning. After a while it slows again — the slowest stretch in the piece, in a different key, suddenly warm and wide. Every time that section comes round it sounds to me like someone stopping mid-dance because they have remembered something else.
Those three states then take turns: a sigh, a spin, a slowing, another spin. In four and a half minutes nothing stays put for more than about thirty seconds.
The ending is the fast music running straight to the finish, with nothing held back.
Three speeds, six turns
The score is explicit: the tempo instruction changes six times. Tempo giusto at the start (quarter = 110), Più mosso at bar 34 (180), Più lento at bar 66 (100), back to Più mosso at bar 99, Tempo I at bar 130 (110), and one last Più mosso from bar 163 to the end. All six carry a printed metronome number, and this recording follows them section by section.
The slowest section also changes key signature: from the four sharps of C-sharp minor to the five flats of D-flat major — on a piano those are the same black keys, spelled differently. He uses the switch to make the same handful of notes go from tight to loose.
In the fast sections the right hand runs in continuous eighth notes while the left keeps the waltz bass and two chords; in the slow section the right hand stretches out and the left-hand chords open up with it. One hundred and ninety-four bars, one thousand nine hundred and two notes (nineteen of them grace notes), and ten clef changes along the way — those are the places where the left hand goes up to take the tune.
The hard part is the instant the speed changes
The notes themselves are not the difficulty; the six joins are. Più mosso is not a gradual accelerando — you are at the new speed by the next bar. Tempo I is not a gradual easing back either.
In the fast sections the long runs of eighth notes have to stay even and not creep faster. That is what shows up first in a recording.
The left hand is a bass note plus two chords almost throughout, changing position once a bar. The bass sinks, the chords stay light; three equal weights turn it into a march.
The slow section moves to five flats and wants its fingering thought through afresh — the shapes from the earlier sections do not carry over.
We rate this 3 out of 5.
The other two in the same set
The first in the same set is the "Minute Waltz", Op. 64 No. 1 — named after George Sand's dog chasing its own tail; the third is the A-flat major, Op. 64 No. 3, the least played of the three.
For the same composer at much shorter length: the Prelude in A major, Op. 28 No. 7 — sixteen bars, under a minute.
For something later and darker: the Prelude in E minor, Op. 28 No. 4.
