A Polish-inspired dance form written by a minor German romantic, capturing the rhythmic instability of the mazurka. It demands a sophisticated feel for the displaced accents characteristic of the genre.
The primary difficulty is the stylized placement of accents and the internal pulse required for the mazurka rhythm.
Comparable difficulty and character — good candidates for what to learn next.
Alla Mazurka (Op.17) is rated Henle level 5 of 9 — late intermediate repertoire, roughly ABRSM grades 6–7. In the RCM system it corresponds to about level 6.
You should be comfortable at Henle level 5 — meaning you can already play level 4–5 pieces cleanly. Learning it one level early is possible as a stretch piece, but more than that usually leads to months of frustration.
A typical performance of Alla Mazurka (Op.17) lasts about 4 minutes.
Alla Mazurka (Op.17) is available as free public-domain sheet music on IMSLP — the score is linked directly from this page.
Pieces at a comparable difficulty and character include 16 Waltzes by Johannes Brahms, Waltz No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich, Waltz in C-sharp minor, No. 2 by Frédéric Chopin — see the full similar-pieces list on this page.