A Classical Music Discovery

An unknown waltz by Chopin has been found.

By Javier C. Hernández

I’m a reporter covering classical music, opera and dance.

As The Times’s classical music reporter, I don’t often get “news” from long-dead composers.

But I recently learned that an unknown waltz by the eminent composer Chopin, written nearly 200 years ago, had been discovered in the vault of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. It was unearthed in a collection of memorabilia, alongside postcards signed by Picasso and letters from Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

We published our exclusive story on the discovery today. And here’s a special treat: The superstar pianist Lang Lang recorded the waltz for The Times. You can watch his performance here.

The story of the long-lost waltz starts at the Morgan on a late-spring day, when the curator and composer Robinson McClellan came across an unusual musical manuscript. The piece was moody and melancholic, and a conspicuous name was written across the top: Chopin.

McClellan took a photo on his iPhone so he could play the piece back at home on his electric piano. He also sent a photo to Jeffrey Kallberg, a Chopin scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.

“My jaw dropped,” Kallberg told me. “I knew I had never seen this before.”

In September, the Morgan’s experts invited me to view the manuscript, which they had authenticated by analyzing the paper, ink and musical style. It was much smaller than I had imagined — a pockmarked scrap about the size of an index card. Chopin had famously tiny penmanship, and he packed a lot into this little piece.

As an amateur pianist, I grew up adoring Chopin’s music. His waltzes, nocturnes, ballades and mazurkas are a dreamy realm of nostalgia, longing, suffering and bliss. He is still one of music’s most beloved figures. (His heart, pickled in a jar of alcohol, is encased in a church in Warsaw.)

After viewing the manuscript, I spent weeks immersed in Chopin’s world. I studied his scores, letters and sketches, and listened to recordings of his waltzes, searching for clues about the unusual piece found at the Morgan. I tracked down the previous owners of the manuscript: a Connecticut family that was not aware of its importance. I delighted in working through the waltz in a practice room near Lincoln Center, wondering if anyone nearby had any idea what I was playing.

Newly discovered works are rare in classical music, especially for Chopin, who was less prolific than other composers. We knew that readers would want to hear the waltz, but we needed a pianist who could do it justice. I immediately thought of Lang Lang, one of the biggest stars in classical music, whom I first met in 2016 when I was a China correspondent for The Times in Beijing.

I messaged Lang on WeChat, asking if he’d be interested in being part of an “unusual story.”

“What kind of unusual story ☺️☺️,” he wrote back.

I told him about the newly discovered Chopin and sent him the score, which he played through before a rehearsal in San Francisco.

“Wow this is a great piece!” he said in a voice message. “I’m very surprised. It’s very Chopin. It must be Chopin. It sounds very much like Chopin, with a very dramatic darkness turning into a positive thing. It’s beautiful.”

While Lang was in New York earlier this month to open Carnegie Hall’s season, I met up with him at Steinway Hall in Manhattan to record the waltz. He adjusted his interpretation after each take, changing the tempo and refining the quiet opening notes. He joked that the piece sounded like the beginning of a Woody Allen movie.

Sitting near the piano, I asked him why people should care about this waltz, 175 years after Chopin’s death.

“This level of music making — it always touches us the deepest,” he said. “To have a new work by this level of great artist — we’re just so lucky. Just enjoy it.”

Take a moment to read our story and listen to Chopin’s waltz yourself.

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THE SUNDAY DEBATE

Should newspaper editorial boards make political endorsements?

Yes. Political endorsements are a part of newspapers’ civic role and help readers understand their own positions. “Our goal is to have a well-informed and engaged audience, not one that marches in lock step,” The Boston Globe’s editorial board writes.

No. Readers struggle to understand the difference between news and opinion, making it appear as if reporters are biased. “And does it matter? You know who you’re going to vote for, anyway,” Jim Beckerman writes for The Record.

FROM OPINION

Eminem’s endorsement of Harris focused on the idea that she will let you say and do what you want, a message tailored to the middle-aged white voters she needs, Jessica Grose argues.

When politics is hostile and the news feels grim, Boris Fishman turns to wine.

Here’s a column by Ross Douthat on fictional robots and A.I.

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BOOK OF THE WEEK

By Elisabeth Egan

“The Mighty Red,” by Louise Erdrich: Even if you’re unclear on the difference between sugar beets and beetroot, Louise Erdrich’s abundant novel leaves you with new respect for a salad bar’s pinch-hitter. “The Mighty Red” is rooted in the rich soil of the Red River Valley of North Dakota, where fragments of buffalo bone commingle with scallop shells, and a tangled legacy of ownership falls on the shoulders of two high school seniors. Gary Geist is the son of beet farmers whose marriage is more merger than meeting of minds; Kismet Poe is the daughter of strivers — an Ojibwe mother operating by the book and a theatrical father skirting the bounds of the law. The unlikely union of teenagers is way more than the sum of its parts and, in classic Erdrichian fashion, functions as both entertainment and microcosm of the world’s ills. Who else can harness hope in a dozen words? “His heart creaked open,” Erdrich writes. “A beam of light struck his left ventricle.” Read our review here.

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THE INTERVIEW

By Lulu Garcia-Navarro

This week’s subject for The Interview is Pennsylvania’s junior senator, John Fetterman. We spoke about his concerns over the intensity of support for Trump in his state, as well as his backing for Israel’s war in Gaza and his place in the Democratic Party.

You’ve said that Trump has a special connection with the people of Pennsylvania.

One hundred percent.

Why? What is it that you see that he appeals to in your state?

There’s a difference between not understanding, but also acknowledging that it exists. And anybody spends time driving around, and you can see the intensity. It’s astonishing. I was doing an event in Indiana County. Very, very red. And there was a superstore of Trump stuff, and it was a hundred feet long, and it was dozens of T-shirts and hats and bumper stickers and all kinds of, I mean, it’s like, Where does this all come from? It’s the kind of thing that has taken on its own life. And it’s like something very special exists there. And that doesn’t mean that I admire it. It’s just — it’s real. And now [Elon] Musk is joining him. I mean, to a lot of people, that’s Tony Stark. That’s the world’s richest guy. And he’s obviously, and undeniably, a brilliant guy, and he’s saying, Hey, that’s my guy for president. That’s going to really matter.

What do you think it does?

I was truly alarmed about that when he [Musk] started showing up. I mean, I’ve been there, not at that rally [in Pennsylvania], but when they were having the A.I. conference in Washington, he showed up at my building at Russell, and senators were like, [Fetterman’s voice gets very high] Ooh, ooh. They were like, I got to have two minutes, you know, please. So if senators are all like ooh! Then can you imagine what voters in Scranton or all across Pennsylvania — you know, in some sense, he’s a bigger star than Trump. Endorsements, they’re really not meaningful often, but this one is, I think. That has me concerned.

Read more of the interview here.

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MEAL PLAN

Emily Weinstein often can’t pass paneer — a firm, fresh Indian cheese — at the grocery store without adding it to her basket. In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, she recommends making mattar paneer, peas and paneer in spiced tomato gravy. Emily also suggests lemon-garlic linguine and sheet-pan chile crisp salmon and asparagus.

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was bullheaded.

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