Talk about a crafty release strategy — a waltz by the Romantic Polish composer Frédéric Chopin just dropped, about 200 years after his death.
Measuring four by five inches (~10.2 x 13 cm), the manuscript was first discovered in 2019 by music composer and Morgan Library and Museum curator Robinson McClellan while sifting through the then-newly acquired Arthur Satz Collection. The piece is likely a lost Chopin waltz, the New York institution announced last month. A spokesperson for the Morgan told Hyperallergic that it believes the work was composed between 1830 and 1835.
After the work was first discovered, the museum said, its experts worked with the help of the University of Pennsylvania’s Chopin specialist Jeffrey Kallberg to determine that the ink and paper used to compose the song were consistent with the pianist’s other works.
Tucked in the Satz Collection, the waltz was labeled “Chopin”; however, the work itself was not signed by the musician. According to the Morgan, Chopin typically signed his manuscripts if he intended to gift them, indicating that this particular work was not composed for such purposes or that Chopin changed his mind about it.
The waltz is made up of 24 notated measures to be played once on the piano, lasting less than a minute, while most of his other works reach about a minute, according to the museum. The Morgan believes the work to be complete.
Kallberg told NPR that the newly found waltz is an abandoned composition from Chopin’s early career, noting that the work begins with an unusual “storminess.”
The beginning of the song, the Morgan said in its statement, is indeed uncharacteristic of the Polish composer’s oeuvre, beginning in a “loud outburst” leading into a “melancholic melody.”
Born in 1810 outside Warsaw, Chopin became a child musical prodigy. Many of his notable works arose during his romance with French writer Aurore Dudevant (known as George Sand), which began after the Morgan’s recently authenticated work would have been composed. Chopin is said to have only performed publicly 30 times in 30 years. He succumbed to tuberculosis in 1849.
“This newly discovered waltz expands our understanding of Chopin as a composer and opens new questions for scholars to consider regarding when he wrote it and for whom it was intended,” McClellan said in a statement. “To hear this work for the first time will be an exciting moment for everyone in the world of classical piano.”
