Deep in the vault of the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan on a late spring day, curator Robinson McClellan was sorting through a collection of cultural memorabilia. There were postcards signed by Picasso, a vintage photograph of a French actress and letters from Brahms and Tchaikovsky.
When McClellan came across Item No. 147, he froze: It was a pockmarked musical scrap the size of an index card with tiny notation. The piece was marked “Valse,” or waltz in French. And a conspicuous name was written in cursive across the top: Chopin.
“I thought, ‘What’s going on here? What could this be?’” McClellan said. “I didn’t recognize the music.”
McClellan, who is also a composer, snapped a photo of the manuscript and played it at home on a digital piano. Could it really be Chopin? He had his doubts: The work was unusually volcanic, opening with quiet, dissonant notes that erupt into crashing chords. He sent a photograph to Jeffrey Kallberg, a leading Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.
“My jaw dropped,” Kallberg said. “I knew I had never seen this before.”
After testing the manuscript’s paper and ink, analyzing its handwriting and musical style, and consulting outside experts, the Morgan has come to a momentous conclusion: The work is likely an unknown waltz by Frédéric Chopin, the great fantasist of the Romantic era, the first such discovery in more than half a century.
The finding may prompt debate in the classical music field, where reports of unearthed masterpieces are sometimes greeted skeptically, and where there is a history of fakes and forgeries. But there have also been significant discoveries in recent years: A library in Leipzig, Germany, announced in September that it had found a copy of a 12-minute Mozart string trio.
Newly discovered works by Chopin, who died in 1849 at 39, probably of tuberculosis, are rare. While he is one of music’s most beloved figures — his heart, pickled in a jar of alcohol, is encased in a church in Warsaw — he was less prolific than other composers, writing about 250 pieces, almost entirely for solo piano.
The manuscript at the Morgan, which it says is from between 1830 and 1835, when Chopin was in his early 20s, has several peculiarities. Though believed to be complete, the work is shorter than Chopin’s other waltzes — only 48 measures long with a repeat, or about 80 seconds. The piece, in the key of A minor, has unusual dynamic markings, including a triple forte, signifying maximum volume, near the start.
But the Morgan says it is confident the waltz is authentic, pointing to several Chopin hallmarks.
The paper and ink are consistent with what Chopin used at the time, the museum says. The penmanship matches the composer’s, down to the unusual rendering of the bass clef symbol. Another Chopin manuscript in the Morgan’s holdings shows a similar bass clef symbol. The manuscript is also embellished with a doodle by Chopin, who liked to draw.
“We have total confidence in our conclusion,” McClellan said. “Now it’s time to put it out there for the world to take a look and form its own opinions.”
Star pianist Lang Lang, who recently recorded the waltz for The New York Times at Steinway Hall in Manhattan, said the work felt like Chopin to him. The jarring opening, he said, evokes the harsh winters of the Polish countryside.
“This is not the most complicated music by Chopin,” he added, “but it is one of the most authentic Chopin styles that you can imagine.” —NYT
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