Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Trying again to identify this piece!

It must be the way ya play 'em!

Don't get me wrong, Wp59 - I am happy for you that you finally found the piece that made you love the piano, and happy for me that I could learn something new. However, you should take the authorship with a grain of salt. In Wikipedia the piece is listed among "inauthentic and dubious works". But, of course, I am not a musicologist.

More interesting information here. For translation, I recommend DeepL.

OK understand about authorship. I guess I'm not too worried about if it really was Beethoven, just pleased that I had remembered correctly that it was attributed to him in the book that I had.

Now I understand it was a waltz (as opposed to just a piece in 3/4 time), I understand the staccato nature of the playing in the youtube clip posted above (and in the score).
But I actually prefer the sound of this piece played in a slower, softer, more romantic style.
I found another recording here, which is a bit closer but still not quite to my liking!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTHSq5IA20M&ab_channel=NicolaAshcroft

Wp
Now that you have the score, I hope you will share your complete interpretation. BTW, the ABF has an online quarterly recital

Actually, I questioned the authenticity of the Valse myself, especially since another selection in the volume, the Adieu in F major (which I've enjoyed playing for over 60 years) also has questionable authorship. But in the great scheme of things the authorship doesn't matter.

Is it really Adieu in F major when it actually changes to A flat major about halfway through?

(Genuine question since I don't really understand how these things are named in the first place.)

I've seen this piece called "Adieu," "Adieu to the Piano" and "Farewell to the Piano." I just added the F major part myself. HOWEVER, to answer your question, since the piece begins and ends in F major, it's in F major - no matter where it may stray in the middle. (The middle section is actually F minor, not A flat major.) Hope this helps.

So pleased at the positive result, congratulations to Carey and Ian J!

I have been doing a little research. This appears to be No. 4 from "Six piano waltzes" numbered "Anh. 14". These are works from the Appendix (Anhang in German) of Kinsky's catalog that were attributed to Beethoven at the time the catalog was compiled, but might not have been written by him. Specifically, No. 4 is entitled "Hoffnungswalzer - Risoluto".

There is a recording of the complete six waltzes of Anh 4 here.

IMSLP notes re Anh 14 that "This work is no longer believed to have been composed by Beethoven"; it lists the pieces in Anh 14 (evidently in a different order) thus:

1. Sehnsuchtwalzer, Valse, le désir. Moderato espressivo (A♭ major)
2. Schmerzenwalzer. Appassionato (F minor)
3. Hoffnungswalzer. Risoluto (E♭ major)
4. Geisterwalzer (A major)
5. Walzer. Con delicatezza (F major)
6. Walzer. Risoluto (D♭ major)

A web site called "The Unheard Beethoven" gives the following information:

"Six Waltzes, Anhang 14.
These six waltzes are almost certainly not by Beethoven. The first waltz, "Sehnsuchtwalzer" in A-flat (which is a conflation of 'Trauerwalzer' by Franz Schubert and 'Favoritwalzer' by Fr. H. Himmel) was published under Beethoven's name by the Schott firm in Mainz in 1826. It and the other five waltzes were published as a set by Schott in 1828, the year after Beethoven's death, together with the Funeral March from the Piano Sonata op. 26, as a "Souvenir a Beethoven." The identity of the composer or composers of the last five waltzes is unknown.".

Fascinating, and all entirely new to me. This piece has become a positive earworm for me now!

And there's the sound of an opportunity knocking for me to learn something here.

How do you know that it's F minor and not A flat major since they have the same key signature and you identified the first part as a major key? What changed, other than the number of flats in the key signature?

Oh, that’s much more like it, LOL! Very lively and forceful! 😍

I found that youtube recording too, but posted the one I posted because I liked the pianist's interpretation better. Thanks for sharing the additional information. It is fascinating.

I don't know what Edwin Ashdown were up to in the 70s but no.1 in this Anh 14 sequence was published (slightly changed) in the Schubert matching volume to the Beethoven one I had as a Schubert waltz!
Edit: Just read the note about it being a result of joining a Schubert waltz with something else. I'm glad to see there is a more authentic source for this as I played it at a school concert in about 1977 and would hate to think I was duping the audience about it being a Schubert waltz!

Frank - the easy answer is...

Play an F major triad - F - A - C

then play an F minor triad - F - A flat - C

The difference in key has to do with the middle note. In a major key the middle note of the triad is up a third from the root. In a minor key the middle note of the triad is a half step lower.

The writing in the middle section of the piece is still centered around the key of F - but changes from major to minor.- employing the notes of a F minor scale

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_minor

Perhaps others can explain this better than me.

Yes I will - will probably be not too much different from the MP3 I posted. I'm amazed that I retained it as accurately as I did over 45 years!

I'm still not a great pianist though. I have found that the years of playing by ear develops a very different skill. You can develop your own fluidity and improvise with the only rule being to follow the sequence of chords to the right rhythm.
It's great for developing what chords go together and being able to jump keys without thinking.
But - you never have to play a sequence of notes that is technically difficult if you don't want to. It's a real discipline to have to play notes exactly as written.

Now that I am learning music again I am finding
- I can't sight read - actually I never could. I have to learn both hands into memory, throw the music away then start practising...
- My finger speed and jump accuracy is poor
- Although I can play more difficult pieces in part, (and it is to play those pieces that I am taking lessons again), I find that the level of pieces that I can play reliably (without random mistakes) is very low (about Grade 5 (UK) standard)

I don't think I'll ever master the 3rd movement of the Moonlight Sonata (and may never try) but I'd like to be able to play a selection of favourites in time.

One plug - simply because I'm absolutely captivated by it - is the transcription for piano solo done by Giuseppe Di Leo of Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto, 2nd movement. I've only looked at the first couple of pages so far but for me it brings the whole orchestra into my room.

Just finally, I had a 1890's Bluthner upright that my grandmother bought for me when I was nine but took the plunge - JUST before Covid - of buying a new piano last year. I must have played a hundred up and down the country and the clear winner - without any question - was a Kawai SK2 which now puts a huge smile on my face every day.