In a heartwarming twist of fate, a new waltz thought to be composed by Frédéric Chopin has been found at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. This charming piece of music, dated between 1830 and 1835, was discovered on a card bearing Chopin’s name.
Curator Robinson McClellan, who made the discovery, had doubts at first. He turned to a Chopin expert from the University of Pennsylvania to help verify the manuscript. Though it wasn’t signed, the handwriting, including Chopin’s unique bass clef and doodles, seemed unmistakably his.
“What we’re most certain about is it is written in the hand of Chopin, paper that he wrote on himself in his own hand,” McClellan told the BBC.
The renowned Chinese pianist Lang Lang recorded the new waltz for The New York Times and told the newspaper, “This is not the most complicated music by Chopin, but it is one of the most authentic Chopin styles that you can imagine.”
Frédéric Chopin, primarily known for his piano solos, was born in 1810 near Warsaw to a French father and a Polish mother. Experts believe he wrote around 28 waltzes before his untimely death at the age of 39 in France in 1849. Only eight of these waltzes were published during his lifetime, with nine more published posthumously. The discovery of this waltz enriches our understanding of Chopin’s body of work and highlights the continued importance of historical archives in preserving cultural treasures.
Experience Chopin’s lost waltz as if for the first time—watch the performance now
