HN1322
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 delightful rhythmic shifting between the accompaniment in the typical ¾ 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.