Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 5 days ago
Wilm (1834-1911) was a german-baltic composer, pianist and conductor. He composed more than 250 works and the only known string nonett. He also composed a lot of works for piano.
Wilm (1834-1911) was a german-baltic composer, pianist and conductor. He composed more than 250 works and the only known string nonett. He also composed a lot of works for piano.










![Ricardo Castro | Valse sentimentale, Op. 30 No. 1
Valse sentimentale is the first of Ricardo Castro’s Deux pièces intimes, Op. 30, followed by a Barcarolle. Both pieces were dedicated to Alfonso Pruneda García, a Mexican physician who was also an accomplished pianist and who would later serve as rector of the National University of Mexico.
The dedication has a particularly personal background. Pruneda later recalled that one morning in May 1907 Castro unexpectedly appeared at his office, introduced himself and handed him the two pieces, apologizing for having taken the liberty of dedicating them to him, only about six months before his death. Pruneda wrote down the episode more than forty years later, describing the Deux pièces intimes as Castro’s most recent piano compositions at the time. (https://www.academia.edu/64916681/Ricardo_Castro_1864_1907_Documentaci%C3%B3n_y_an%C3%A1lisis_de_su_obra_musical) (page 660) Here is the excerpt by Pruneda if you are interested:
“One morning in May 1907, I was quietly working in the office of the Section for Secondary, Preparatory and Professional Education of the Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts […], when a neatly dressed gentleman approached my desk. He had a distinguished face, somewhat untidy hair, and a moustache with long tips combed outward, as was the fashion at the time. In a gentle voice and with the manners of someone accustomed to social interaction, he greeted me by asking: ‘Are you Dr. Pruneda?’
‘At your service,’ I replied, without having the slightest idea who the interesting gentleman shaking my hand might be.
‘Doctor,’ he said as he sat down on the modest bureaucratic sofa, ‘please forgive me for interrupting your work, and above all for having taken the liberty of dedicating these two pieces to you, which I now place in your hands.’
The man who gave me the unexpected pleasure of making his acquaintance was the renowned pianist and composer Ricardo Castro, who had just returned from Europe and who had done me the singular honour of placing my name on the title page of Two Intimate Pieces, his most recent piano compositions.”
Despite its waltz metre, Valse sentimentale feels less like a dance than an intimate recollection. Its clear ABA structure gives the piece much of its expressive shape: the outer sections are restrained and gently lyrical, while the middle section stands out through a deeper melancholy and a more searching, emotionally unsettled character. When the opening music returns Con molto sentimento, the contrast with the more melancholic middle section gives it renewed tenderness, before the piece gathers unexpected weight toward its firm conclusion.
Fitting with the title, he sentiment is not expressed through overt drama, but through restraint, hesitation and small changes of emotional temperature. Castro keeps the recognizable sway of the waltz in the background while allowing the music to behave more like a private lyrical statement.
About the composer
Ricardo Castro Herrera (1864–1907) was a Mexican pianist and composer and one of the prominent musical figures of late nineteenth-century Mexico. He entered the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City as a teenager and graduated in 1883, subsequently developing a career as both composer and concert pianist. In 1903 he received government support to continue his professional development in Europe, where he remained for several years; after returning to Mexico in 1906, he was appointed director of the National Conservatory. His output ranges from extensive piano music to chamber, orchestral and operatic works.
More music I have played
Ricardo Castro – Valse Intime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDbr5DyiQ2M
Ricardo Castro – Valse Mélancolique, Op. 36 No. 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuTFMwlo6O0 Ricardo Castro | Valse sentimentale, Op. 30 No. 1](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zhXmqvGY85o/mqdefault.jpg)