Speaking of a clever release strategy: a waltz by the romantic Polish composer Frédéric Chopin has just dropped, some 200 years after his death.
The manuscript, which measures approximately 4 x 5 inches, was first discovered in 2019 by music composer and Morgan Library and museum curator Robinson McClellan while searching the then newly acquired Arthur Satz Collection. The piece is probably a lost Chopin waltz, the institution of New York announced last month. A spokesperson for Morgan said this Hyperallergic that she believes the work was composed between 1830 and 1835.
After the work was first discovered, the museum said, experts worked with University of Pennsylvania Chopin specialist Jeffrey Kallberg to determine that the ink and paper used to compose the song were consistent with the pianist’s other works.
The waltz, hidden in the Satz collection, was labeled “Chopin”; however, the work itself was not signed by the musician. According to de Morgan, Chopin typically signed his manuscripts when he intended to give them as gifts, indicating that this particular work was not composed for such purposes or that Chopin had changed his mind about it.
The waltz consists of 24 notated bars to be played once on the piano and lasting less than a minute, while most of his other works last about a minute, according to the museum. De Morgan believes the work is complete.
Kallberg said 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, according to Morgan in his statement, is indeed not characteristic of the Polish composer’s oeuvre, and begins with a ‘loud outburst’ that culminates in a ‘melancholic melody’.
Chopin was born outside Warsaw in 1810 and became a musical prodigy. Many of his notable works were created during his romance with the French writer Aurore Dudevant (known as George Sand), which began after Morgan’s recently verified work was said to have been composed. Chopin does said having performed in public only 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 when he wrote the waltz and for whom it was intended,” McClellan said in a statement. “Hearing this work for the first time will be an exciting moment for everyone in the world of classical piano.”
