Ludwig van Beethoven

This is among the last three dance compositions for piano that Beethoven wrote. The Waltz in D major, WoO 85, and the Ecossaise in E flat major, WoO 86, are the other two pieces constituting this trio of works from 1824 and 1825. All three are short, and are indicative of the composer's growing tendency in his later years toward the composition of brief, brilliantly concise works. Beethoven's canons, for instance, known for their extreme brevity, came mostly after 1813, with nearly half appearing in the 1820s.

This E flat major waltz is only 22 measures long, lasting about one and a half minutes. Yet, within that short span, Beethoven presents an attractive theme, unusual if not particularly innovative harmonies, and some sonic sleight of hand. The latter feature comes in the trio section of the waltz, when Beethoven indicates a diminuendo about halfway through, creating the aural illusion that the key change which came at measure 9 has not occurred at all.

Much of the writing in the latter part of this work is noteworthy: here Beethoven has the two hands playing five octaves apart, creating a colorful passage whose mixture of bass and treble notes may recall some of the scherzos in the final string quartets. Yet, it is music that in many ways foreshadows fashions in the early twentieth century. The theme is elegant and cheerful, but busy, too, and in the trio the music sounds somewhat parodistic, especially when the hands are playing at their widest separation. All in all, this must be counted among the composer's more important short piano pieces from his last period. This work was first published in Vienna in 1824.