Was a waltz written by the composer Fryderyk Chopin found in a New York museum?

NEW YORK – The gloomy waltz was carefully composed on a sheet of music the size of an index card. The short, atmospheric number also had an intriguing name, written in italics at the top: “Chopin.”

A probably previously unknown musical work by the European master Fryderyk Chopin was found in the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan.

The song without title and signature can be viewed this month in a lavishly equipped institution that was once the private library of financier JP Morgan.

Robinson McClellan, the museum curator who discovered the manuscript, said it was the first new work related to a Romantic-era composer to be discovered in almost a century.

McClellan admits, however, that it may never be known whether this is Chopin’s original work or just a piece written by him.

The piece, in the key of A minor, is notable for its “very stormy, somber opening section,” which then segues into a melancholic melody more typical of Chopin, McClellan explained.

“This is his style. This is its essence,” he said during a recent visit to the museum. “I really feel like it’s him.”

McClellan said he came across the work in May while browsing the z collection the late Arthur Satzformer president of the New York School of Interior Design. Satz acquired it from A. Sherrill Whiton Jr., an avid autograph collector who was the school principal.

McClellan then worked with experts to verify its authenticity.

The paper was found to be consistent with what Chopin preferred for manuscripts, and the ink matched the type of ink typical in the early 19th century when Chopin lived, according to the museum. However, handwriting analysis showed that the name “Chopin” written at the top of the paper was written by someone else.

Born in Poland, Chopin was considered a musical genius from an early age. He lived in Warsaw and Vienna before settling in Paris, where he died in 1849 at the age of 39, probably of tuberculosis.

He was buried among a pantheon of artists in the famous Père Lachaise cemetery, but his heart, marinated in a jar of alcohol, is housed in a church in Warsaw, in as he wished on his deathbed for the organs to return to their homeland.

Artur Szklener, director of the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute in Warsaw, the capital of Poland where the composer grew up, agreed that the document was consistent with the type of ink and paper Chopin used in the first years of his stay in Paris.

Musically, the piece refers to the “brilliant style” that made Chopin a luminary of his time, but it also has features unusual for his compositions, Szklener said.

“First of all, it is not a complete work, but rather a musical gesture, a theme interwoven with quite simple piano moves, referring to the virtuoso style,” Szklener explained in long statement released after the document was revealed last month.

He and other experts believe the work may have been in progress. It could also be a copy of someone else’s work, or even co-written with someone else, perhaps a student for musical practice.

Jeffrey Kallberg, a music professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on Chopin’s music who helped authenticate the document, called the piece “a little gem” that Chopin probably intended as a gift for a friend or wealthy acquaintance.

“Many of the pieces he gave as gifts were short – sort of like ‘snacks’ to a full-length work,” Kallberg wrote in an email. “And we don’t know for sure whether he intended the work to see the light of day, because he often wrote the same waltz many times as a gift.”

David Ludwig, dean of the school of music at The Juilliard School, a performing arts conservatory in Manhattan, agreed that the piece had many characteristics of the composer’s style.

“It has a Chopin-like quality, something very lyrical, and there is also a bit of darkness in it,” said Ludwig, who was not involved in authenticating the document.

Ludwig noted, however, that if authentic, the tightly composed score would be one of Chopin’s shortest known works. The waltz, played on the piano, lasts less than a minute, as was intended in many of Chopin’s works.

“In terms of authenticity, in a sense it doesn’t matter because it stimulates our imagination,” Ludwig said. “Such a discovery highlights the fact that classical music is largely a living art form.”

Chopin’s discovery comes after City libraries in Leipzig, Germany, announced in September that he discovered a previously unknown piece in his collection, probably composed by the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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Associated Press video journalist John Minchillo in New York contributed to this story.

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Follow Philip Marcelo on twitter.com/philmarcelo.