New Piano Piece by Chopin Discovered – Free Piano Score

A previously unknown manuscript by Frédéric Chopin has been discovered at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum. The handwritten score is titled “Valse” and consists of 24 bars of music in the key of A minor and is considered a major discovery in the world of classical piano music. A free score is now published by Piano Street.

The index card-sized manuscript was found last spring by conservator Dr. Robinson McClellan during a routine inspection of a collection of cultural memorabilia (“Arthur Satz Collection”), also including letters from Brahms and Tchaikovsky as well as postcards signed by Picasso.

“I wondered: What’s going on here? What could this be?” McClellan explained, adding that he did not recognise the music as any of the known waltzes by Chopin. Being unsure of the work’s authenticity, he took a photo of the score and played it on his piano at home.

He sent a photograph to Jeffrey Kallberg, a leading Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, and after consulting external experts as well as the Morgan’s paper conservators, who have been analyzing the manuscript’s paper and ink as well as the handwriting and musical style, The Morgan Library concluded that the work is indeed authentic, and hence, this is a significant discovery in the world of classical piano music.

“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.”

“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,” he said.

The discovery of an unknown work by Chopin has not happened since the late 1930s.

“This is certainly one of the more interesting discoveries of recent years. Original Chopin manuscripts are extremely rare, and the mere suggestion that we may be dealing with previously unknown music by the Polish composer electrifies pianists and musicologists,” said Dr Artur Szklener, Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.

Recorded by Lang Lang

Here you can listen to Lang Lang’s interpretation of the piece, recently recorded for the New York Times:

Lang Lang said to New York Time that the intro evoked, for him, an image of harsh winters in the Polish countryside. “This is not the most complicated music by Chopin,” he said, “but it is one of the most authentic Chopin styles that you can imagine.”

An unconventional Chopin piece or the beginning of his 5th Ballade?

While being distinctively shorter than all of Chopin’s other waltzes, it is believed by The Morgan Library that the piece is “complete”, showing the kind of “tightness” expected from a finished work by the composer.

The piece has a rather dramatic eight bar introduction, featuring some extreme dynamic markings (fff), followed by a short and simple 8+8 bars theme, and no typical ending or coda balancing the introduction.
The manuscript is not signed by Chopin but the page has the title “Chopin” at the top. Why? Is it perhaps a gift to a friend, a guest book entry, a musical joke or travesty, a transcription of something he heard another pianist play, or Chopin’s entry in some kind of compositional game with other composers? Is this an introduction intended to be continued by someone else, either composed or improvised? Add another ten pages and we have Chopin’s 5th Ballade!

The manuscript is only slightly larger than an index card (102 x 130 mm, about 4 x 5 inches). Based on other similarly-sized manuscripts by Chopin, researchers assume that it was meant as a gift for inclusion in someone’s autograph album. “More than half of the waltzes that we know today remained unpublished during his life because he had given them as gifts,” Kallberg said.

Play it now from our new score!

For anyone who wants to try to play the piece, we prepared a free Piano Street Edition for you to download and print:
Chopin Waltz in A minor – N.Y 2024 (Piano Street Edition)

When working on the score which is based on the photos of the manuscript, we noticed some odd notations:
– The triple F dynamic in bar 7 is unusual for Chopin and “Sempre f” in bar 8 is not followed by any other dynamic instruction. While the theme is intimate and melancholic in its character, if following the dynamics litterally, the whole theme should be played “forte”, or even “fff”?
– In the “E7” dominant chord in bar 7-8 (G#dim/A) the first beat of bar 8 could have been notated as F natural (minor 9th) instead of E#.
– The first beats of bar 10 and 15 are notated as 16th notes instead of 8th note triplets.

Your opinion?

What do you think about this “new” Chopin piece? And does is qualify as a complete composition by Chopin or a is it a draft that was intended to be continued?
Should it be included in our sheet music library’s list of complete composition by Chopin?
Please post your comments below!

Further reading:
Comment by Dr Artur Szklener, Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute