Waltz in E minor (posthumous)
Waltz Piano solo ~2 min
In brief

This E minor waltz sits between light dance and restrained melancholy, marked by small suspensions that make it feel like a ball lingering on rather than an outright festive movement. Pay particular attention to Phrasing (3.9/5) and Tempo rubato (3.9/5): the phrasing requires linking melodic lines across bar-lines by balancing right- and left-hand voicing and precise finger releases to shape long arcs; the rubato calls for a very controlled wrist/forearm gesture to stretch a few values subtly without breaking the rhythmic drive or obscuring the accompaniment. As a posthumous piece of uncertain dating, it belongs to Chopin's salon waltzes within the piano repertoire rather than to a documented public commission. I do not give a reference interpretation here, being cautious about assigning specific recordings to this particular posthumous work.

MusicCoach difficulty
40/100
Elementary
Likely range : 36–44/100
Confidence : 62% · fair confidence
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
On the syllabus: Grade 5 ABRSM

Official level, taken from the exam syllabus.

Other syllabi : Trinity_London Grade 4

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

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Difficulty sources
ABRSM (syllabus)
Grade 5
44/100 normalised
Combined exam syllabi
Grade 4
36/100 normalised
Relative difficulty
8%
Among Frédéric Chopin
34%
Era
33%
Genre
Estimated skills
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
2
Technique
Legato
1
Interpretation
Dynamics
1
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

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