Waltz in A minor (Chopin, rediscovered 2024)

[3] The manuscript, measuring 130 by 102 millimetres (5.1 in × 4.0 in), was discovered by museum staff in 2019, during the cataloguing of a bequest by Arthur Satz, who had purchased it from the wife of amateur pianist and former director of the New York School of Interior Design Augustus Sherrill Whiton Jr.[2][3] Written in brown iron gall ink on machine-made wove paper that is somewhat yellower and thicker than that of later sheet music, both are consistent with those used by Chopin.

[1][4] More particularly, the paper may be contrasted with that of Chopin's Warsaw scores, with their "greenish tint", corresponding instead to that of his early years in Paris.

[4] Musicologist Jeffrey Kallberg assisted with the authentication on musical grounds, as opposed to the score having been merely copied out by Chopin.

[1] Artur Szklener, Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, has noted "features of the brilliant style" consistent with Chopin's activity in the first half of the 1830s, and suggested that the manuscript's neatness argues against it having been co-written with a student during a lesson, while highlighting the absence of dedication and signature, as might be expected of a gift of a manuscript of this type.

[6] Warner Classics also released a commercial recording as a digital album with several of Chopin's mazurkas, performed by Piotr Anderszewski, on 5 November 2024.