Was a Chopin waltz found in a New York museum?

NEW YORK (AP) — The melancholic waltz was scrawled carefully on a sheet of music about the size of an index card. The short work also had an interesting name, written in italics, at the top: “Chopin.”

A previously unknown piece of music by European master Frederic Chopin appears to have been discovered at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.

The piece, untitled and unsigned, is on view this month at the opulent institution, which was previously the private library of financier JP Morgan.

Robinson McClellan, the curator of the museum that discovered the manuscript, said that this is the first new work related to the writer from the romantic period that has been found in almost a century.

However, McClellan admits that it may never be known whether it is an original work by Chopin or simply a work he rewrote in his own handwriting.

The piece, in the key of A minor, is notable for its “very stormy and somber opening section” before moving into a melancholic melody more characteristic of Chopin, McClellan explained.

“This is his style. “This is what it means,” he said during a recent visit to the museum. “It really feels like it. “

McClellan said he discovered the work in May while going through the collection of the late Arthur Satz, who was president of the New York School of Interior Design. Satz had acquired it from A. Sherrill Whiton Jr., an avid autograph collector who had been the school’s principal.

McClellan later worked with experts to confirm his accuracy.

The paper was found to be consistent with what Chopin usually used for manuscripts, and the ink corresponded to a type typical of the early 19th century, Chopin’s lifetime. according to the museum. But an analysis of the handwriting determined that the name “Chopin,” mentioned at the top of the page, was written by someone else.

Chopin was born in Poland, and was considered a musical genius from an early age. He lived in Warsaw and Vienna before settling in Paris, where he died in 1849 at the age of 39, apparently of tuberculosis.

He is buried among various artists in the city’s famous Père Lachaise cemetery, but his heart, preserved in an alcohol flask, in a church in Warsaw, fulfills its wish for the organ to return to its homeland.

Artur Szklener, director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, the Polish capital where the poet grew up, agreed that the document is consistent with the types of ink and paper used by Chopin in his early years. in Paris.

Musically, the piece reflects the “brilliant style” that made Chopin a luminary of his time, but it also has unusual qualities that set it apart from other compositions, Szklener said.

“First of all, it is not a complete work, but a specific musical movement, a theme decorated with very simple piano tricks that refer to a virtuoso style,” explained Szklener in a long statement published after to the document published last month.

Szklener and other experts believe the piece could have been a work in progress. It could also be a copy of someone else’s work, or even co-written by someone else, perhaps a student for a musical exercise.

Jeffrey Kallberg, a professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania and a Chopin expert who helped authenticate the document, said the piece was a “little gem” that Chopin apparently intended to give to a friend. or a rich acquaintance.

“Many of the pieces he gave were short gifts, like ‘appetizers’ for more detailed work,” Kallberg said in an email. “And we don’t know for sure if he intended the piece to see the light of day because he often wrote the same waltz more than once as a gift. “

David Ludwig, dean of music at the Juilliard School, a performing arts conservatory in Manhattan, agreed that the piece has many of the hallmarks of the poet’s style.

“There is a Chopin character of something very lyrical and there is also a bit of darkness,” said Ludwig, who was not involved in authenticating the document.

But Ludwig noted that, if true, the carefully crafted score would be one of Chopin’s shortest pieces. The waltz lasts less than a minute when played on the piano, as was intended with many of Chopin’s works.

“As for how accurate it is, in some ways it doesn’t matter because it fuels our imagination,” Ludwig says. “A discovery like this shows that classical music is indeed a living art.”

The Chopin publication comes after the City Libraries of Leipzig, Germany, announced in September that they had discovered a previously unknown piece in their collections that may have been composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Young Mozart.

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Associated Press video correspondent John Minchillo in New York contributed to this report.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generational artificial intelligence engine.