What, no doubts about that pretty Chopin waltz?
NewsLast week, the New York Times had a sensational exclusive of a major discovery at the Pierpont Morgan Library. It was an unsuspected last waltz by Frederic Chopin and the joy was so spontaneous that a recording of the waltz had already been made by Lang Lang before the Times published its scoop.
The Morgan manuscript has the name ‘Chopin’ at the top of the page. The Times specifies that this inscription is in a different hand. The ownership provenance has gaps. There is room for doubt.
But all we can hear right now is silence – the silence of Chopin scholars who, daunted by the hoo-hah, have yet to authenticate the waltz in any detailed fashion. The leading Chopinists in Warsaw will be poring over every note. They will take their time before issuing any kind of endorsement, which will be cautious, at best.
In the meantime, we have a Lang Lang release on DG this week. No doubts here.
Enjoy.
Why is DG’s cartouche being deployed for a piddling waltz, authentic or not?
Besides, there is another A-Minor “Chopin” waltz, published as long ago as 1860.
The Morgan Library is a great place – I was a member for a while…I recommend a visit
In the past century, there have been a handful of significant discoveries: the C major Cello Concerto by Haydn and the Symphony in C by Bizet – both of them masterpieces that are now in the concert repertoire. There’s also the Symphony in E major by Hans Rott which, if authentic, predates Mahler’s first two symphones but shows uncanny likenesses to them. Then there’s Schumann’s Violin Concerto and (a personal favourite) Puccini’s Messa di Gloria, discovered in 1952.
Next to these, the hyped-up ersatz Chopin waltz lasting a few seconds, even if it were genuine, is much ado about nothing.
Lang Lang again showing what he really is – $$$.
Meanwhile Grzegorz Niemczuk posted an interesting Analysis on YT.
Waiting for Christophe Grabowski and or John Rink to comment. They put together the only thematic catalog of Chopin’s manuscripts and first editions. They’ve reviewed more Chopin manuscripts than anyone alive. I’d trust their judgement before most of the others.
Lang Lang ‘s ambition to become a world star has been known ever since be left IMG Artists who had started him on his road to success and moved to CAMI. CAMI promised world stardom although not aways in the musical sense. To that extent, they have earned their commissions!
My initial reaction on seeing Lang Lang’s “premiere” in the New York Times was – shouldn’t someone like, I don’t know, Krystian Zimerman be the one to pronounce an opinion on this? While several other pianists have jumped on the bandwagon and performed this online, I have yet to read a word from the leading Chopin pianist in the world. He is certainly a more thoughtful and considered musician than LL. My own reaction is that this is a trivial fragment of music, lacking any form and of minimal interest. And why the repeat? Very strange.
Best people for this are Chopin specialist musicologists who work with his manuscripts. Of course a pianist can have opinions and some are both. But the handwriting is the real tell.
Given that the analysis of ink and paper concur with materials used by Chopin, and that the penmanship of the score (not of Chopin’s name, added later) has apparently been authenticated, I’m willing to believe that this was jotted down by Chopin. His fastidious approach to composition, involving a great deal of editing and polishing, suggest that this was a passing idea that he chose not to pursue. It’s interesting that the article’s author got commentary from Stephen Hough, and a pity that it wasn’t Hough who recorded it first (although — who knows? — that might be because he didn’t think it a finished work).
The NYT article is far more nuanced than the above blogpost suggests.
And you are not. Time out.
DG used to have the slickest album art, but I guess they’ve fired their graphic designers. This is hideous. Solid green background and an ugly sweater.
Most of their album art from the last few years have been second-rate photographs of the artist who don’t seem quite sure what their facial expression should be.
By comparison, think of the black and white photos of Boulez from his 1990s and 2000s albums. That’s how you do it.
DG is no doubt catering here to the Lang Lang market and not to the discerning classical music market. Hence loud, bright and brash!
To my ears, this newly-discovered waltz could just as well have been composed by Hummel.
It does sound like Chopin. Perhaps someone tried to write a Chopinnesq waltz. Perhaps Chopin himself didn’t like it and left it unpublished. Perhaps someone found it, suspected its’ authorship and added the name. The options are endless.
I would compare this Chopin Waltz to Wagners Schmachtend (Elegy) WWV 93. A small piece with some recognizable elements of their compositional style, which was written as a gift. A small little momento. Nothing that deserves the fuss that it has created.
Like the wretched Für Elise, which has inexplicably become quite possibly the most famous piano work ever written. I say this as someone who adores Beethoven – I’ve no doubt that he himself would be dismayed by a (mindless) popularity utterly out of proportion to its quality.
And Rachmaninov regretted his C sharp minor prelude, but it paid bills. That said, composers if they stayed somewhere for a weekend, or longer at times would gift a short little piece to the hosts. A few years back, there was a music album sold at auction in New York that turned into a stupid situation when Christopher Hogwood got involved. Anyhow, there was a little, original waltz by Brahms which over a decade later he remembered and used it in his horn trio. That was more significant than this little waltz, as it was used in a work which is still well performed. They likely will find this was a little toss of waltz which he never used in anything else again and if he had thought enough of it, he would have printed it and earned an income from it. That said, there were posthumous waltzes printed after Chopin’s death, but they were fully formed, ready to be printed.
Rachmaninoff’s c#minor prelude famously paid no bills as he’d sold the rights to his publisher for a trifling sum. All the more reason to regret having to play it ad nauseum later in his concert career!
Actually, the NYT write-up went into some depth about Chopin’s habit of jotting down little shorties and handing them out as gifts.
Somewhat inconclusive. It could have been a fragment which Chopin might have revisited but did not. What I ponder about too, is that Schumann composed “Carnival” and wrote the word ‘Chopin’ on one of the character pieces. In just looking at the short waltz, and playing it away from the piano, I’m not 100% convinced. Either a sketch by him, or by someone else in the style of Chopin. Gershwin wrote a “Fragment” prelude in g minor in early 1925. He used that as the basis of the third movement of his “Concerto in F” later the same year. But we knew 100% that was his because he took the fragment and it evolved into the larger landscape. The one attributed to Chopin feels somewhat different undef the hands. But who knows. There are the unexplainables in the world…
I do wish the person who recorded it would have made the obvious decision to play it like a waltz. I would not have known from listening that it was in fact a waltz had I not looked at the score.
You’re suggesting that Lang Lang play in an appropriate style? That’s a big ask.
Even if it turns out to be genuine, I am not convinced that it’s a completed entire oeuvre, a conclusion the discover and the NYT are so eager to jump to, for obvious reasons, who wants to be known for discovering a fragment when they can claim discovery of an entire opus?
(BTW, that album cover, a shaggy sweater just isn’t vibing Chopin for me)
The director of the Chopin Institute in Warsaw has given his opinion on this new waltz by the Polish composer: https://english.elpais.com/culture/2024-10-30/the-questions-surrounding-the-chopin-waltz-unearthed-in-a-new-york-library.html
The question is: is this nonentity worth all the erudition in this thread?
It so happens that Chopin scholars have not been ‘silent’ on the newly discovered waltz: Jeffrey Kallberg (an international authority on Chopin’s manuscripts based at the Univ. of Pennsylvania) was engaged by the Morgan Library early on, and I in turn was consulted many months ago as well as more recently – though in my case without the opportunity to see the manuscript in the flesh. Both of us have stated our views publicly, as have others such as Artur Szklener (Director, NIFC, Warsaw).
I do think the expert analysis of paper, ink, notation and so forth is compelling, but of course that does not mean the actual music is necessarily by Chopin, nor can one deny the extremely unusual features of the music (including the fff just a few bars into the piece – which is an especially odd in a waltz).
Here are my comments as reported in the original NYT article: ‘”There are enough highly unusual elements that you have to say, Is this really Chopin’s music?” said John Rink, a music professor at the University of Cambridge who reviewed a photograph of the manuscript but was not involved in the Morgan’s research. Still, Rink said it was hard to dispute the analysis of the penmanship, paper and ink, calling it the “critical, decisive factor.” He said the manuscript might reflect “Chopin’s imagination in full flight, a sort of creative outburst before any ideas have been worked through.”‘ Jeffrey Kallberg is quoted even more extensively by the NYT. Artur Szklener’s commentary is referenced elsewhere in this chain.