Dancing Through Time: Chopin’s Lost Waltz Rediscovered

Chopin, daguerreotype by Bisson, circa 1849. Public Domain

“He made a single instrument speak the language of infinity.”

The novelist and baroness Amantine Aurore Dudevant wrote these words about the pianist Frédéric Chopin in her autobiography “Story of My Life.” Better known by her pen name, George Sand, she made insightful and prescient observations about her former lover, who had died several years before her book was published. “He was often able to condense in ten lines that a child could play poems of immense elevation, dreams of unequalled emotion.”

A newly unearthed waltz by the Polish master shows how his “sublime’ and “profoundly feelingful” work is still capable of generating shockwaves through the music community. It is the first new piece attributed to Chopin in almost 100 years, and many recordings have been made in the short time since this knowledge was made public.

The recently found waltz by Chopin. The Morgan Library & Museum

But did Chopin really write it?

A Rare Discovery

Robinson McClellan, a curator at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York, was organizing documents in a vault earlier this year. Then he stumbled upon an obscure piece of music. Known only as Item No. 147, the small four-by-five-inch piece of paper bore a name at the top: “Chopin.”

“This can’t be what I think it is,” McClellan told NPR, reflecting on his discovery.

There are a few reasons to doubt the manuscript’s authenticity. While Chopin’s name is on it, it is a later addition. The composer himself did not dedicate the piece, as he often did when he gifted his compositions to friends. There are also a few errors in notation, which could be chalked up to haste, youthful inexperience, or a different copyist with a writing style like his own. The distinctive way Chopin wrote a bass clef, for example, is similar to that of his friend and musical executor Julian Fontana.

McClellan contacted an expert Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. Kallberg authenticated not only the handwriting as Chopin’s, but also the type of ink he used. The music itself “was astonishing,” he told NPR.

How Many Waltzes Does This Make?

"Waltz in the City, 1882-83, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Public Domain

Chopin is known to have written other waltzes that have been lost or destroyed, possibly twice as many scores as are now in existence. Between 17 and 19 extant waltzes are attributed to him, a number that varies slightly due to differences in the criteria used to authenticate his works.

Nineteen is accepted as standard, though, so the Waltz in A minor brings the number to 20. Confusingly, Waltz No. 19 is also in A minor, so when this new one is catalogued, it will probably be popularly known by its opus number.

Even more confusingly, it might not be known as Waltz No. 20. There is already a Waltz No. 20 in F-sharp minor attributed to Chopin, which is now considered inauthentic (a scholar recently discovered that this was just a shortened version of another piece written by Chopin’s Prussian contemporary Charles Mayer).

Brief but Unique

Whatever name and number will eventually be assigned, this new Waltz in A Minor demonstrates several unique characteristics.

First, it is the shortest of his waltzes. It’s 24 measures, but it’s repeated in its entirety once and takes about a minute to play. While a statement issued from the Morgan Library and Museum stated that it is a “complete piece” demonstrating “tightness,” not everyone is convinced.

Artur Szklener, the director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Poland, thinks that the waltz’s only section indicates it might have been unfinished—a musical idea that the composer intended to develop but then abandoned.

The waltz has a “chaotic opening,“ said Kallberg, “with a kind of storminess” that is not typical of Chopin’s other waltzes. While the melody and arrangement of the main theme is definitely ”Chopinesque,“ the dissonant chords in the beginning build in crescendo to a triple forte or ”fortissimo,” which is a dynamic not found in his other waltzes. This has led Kallberg and other scholars to speculate that the Waltz in A Minor was an experimental piece that Chopin wrote in the early 1830s, when he was in his 20s.

Chopin the Social Media Star

"Chopin Playing the Piano in Prince Radziwill's Salon," 1887, by Henryk Siemiradski. Public Domain

“He was not known to the masses, nor is he yet,” Sand wrote in her autobiography, speaking of Chopin’s reputation in the 19th century. “There will have to be progress in the appreciation of art for his works to become popular.”

Sand was convinced that the day would eventually come “when the whole world will know” of Chopin’s “vast” genius. And it has.

This brief new piece has received a huge response from the musical community since news of its discovery first appeared in the final week of October. It is a mark of living in a digital age, where news travels instantly, that a slew of performances have already been recorded. From professional musicians to YouTubers like Lord Vinheteiro, everyone is eager to release their version on social media.

Many of these videos have accrued tens of thousands of views in a matter of just a few days. It is a phenomenon that the solitary Chopin, with his preference for giving rare performances in intimate settings, could scarcely have imagined.

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