Previously unknown Chopin waltz discovered in New York library

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

A previously unknown waltz by renowned Polish composer Frédéric Chopin has been found by chance at a library in New York. It is the first time in almost a century that a new work by Chopin, who died in 1849, has been discovered.

The short composition – which, at one minute long, is shorter than any other waltz by Chopin – was uncovered by Robinson McClellan, curator at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan, which was founded as a private library in 1906 by banker JP Morgan.

It is written on a small card (pictured above), measuring just 102 x 130mm (around 4 x 5 inches). Based on knowledge of other manuscripts by Chopin, that makes it likely that the card was meant as a gift to be included in an autograph album.

The card is unsigned, suggesting that Chopin decided not to gift it, but it does have his handwritten name on the top of it. The last time a new work by Chopin was discovered was in the 1930s.

“The beginning of the piece is most remarkable: several moody, dissonant measures culminate in a loud outburst, before a melancholy melody begins,” wrote the library when announcing its find. “None of his known waltzes start this way, making this one even more intriguing.”

The find has been a sensation in Chopin’s homeland of Poland, where Julita Przybylska-Nowak, vice-rector of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław, played the waltz for broadcaster TVN.

McClellan first came across the manuscript in 2019 when he began cataloguing the collection of Arthur Satz, the former president of the New York School of Interior Design, which had been given to the library.

Extensive research conducted in cooperation with Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin expert at the University of Pennsylvania, including analysis of the paper it was written on, has led to the conclusion that the piece is indeed by Chopin.

“This newly discovered waltz expands our understanding of Chopin as a composer and opens new questions for scholars to consider regarding when he wrote it and for whom it was intended,” said McClellan. “To hear this work for the first time will be an exciting moment for everyone in the world of classical piano.”

Chopin was born in the village of Żelazowa Wola in what is now central Poland in 1810 and grew up in Warsaw. His father, Nicolas Chopin, was a Frenchman from Lorraine who had emigrated to Poland. His mother, Justyna Krzyżanowska, was Polish.

Already a musical prodigy as a child, at the age of 20, Chopin left for Paris and subsequently never returned to Poland, which was under the partitioned rule of Russia, Austria and Prussia.

In France, he began using the French version of his given names, Frédéric François, rather than the Polish Fryderyk Franciszek.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Morgan Library & Museum

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.