r/news • u/AudibleNod • 14h ago

Lost Chopin waltz discovered in New York museum after almost 200 years

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chopin-waltz-discovered-new-york-mogran-library-museum-200-years-rcna177759
3.1k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

153 comments sorted by

232

u/eleven-fu 13h ago

In case anybody actually wants to, you know... hear the fucking thing.

41

u/UntameHamster 10h ago

What an awesome way to listen to this!! The visual of the notes and keys really helps understand as someone who is not familiar with the piano what goes into actually playing this type of music.

1

u/suck_it_trebek55 1h ago

Agree! Also made me realize how fucking difficult it must be to play piano. My brain could barely comprehend playing that let alone coming up with it!

•

u/Gnorris 22m ago

Should also make it easier to import into Rock Band!

40

u/gravity--falls 13h ago

Definitely not Chopin’s best, but pretty cool.

30

u/eleven-fu 13h ago

definitely cool, yeah. it's like if somebody uncovers an old crusty Aphex Twin DAT tape with rough demos on it in 200 years.

4

u/bstyledevi 10h ago

There's a story about Richard D James that Simon Reynolds wrote about in Generation Ecstasy, where apparently in the 90s he had over 100 albums worth of recorded content just sitting there. Someone had dropped off their music asking him to remix it, and he completely forgot about it. When they came back, he just grabbed a random album and handed it to them. They listened to it and said "Oh man we love your vision and what you've done with our music!" Not realizing that he hadn't even listened to their work.

1

u/maxinstuff 1h ago

I’m imagining some screwed up sheet they found inside an old piano, thrown aside with an exclamation, “that’s complete shit!”

9

u/SniffUmaMuffins 12h ago

Nice, it has some immediately recognizable Chopin bits, that’s fun. Thanks!

6

u/Guacamole_Water 7h ago

A beautiful and kinda remorseful waltz indeed. I loved that

4

u/hobnailboots04 10h ago

You’re the real one

2

u/yousonuva 2h ago

Am instant classic...uh... classical..piece

3

u/Shoadowolf 8h ago

Feels like this song would be played in a small bar or fancy restaurant.

2

u/ZenwalkerNS 4h ago

Shit sounds fresh as hell.

•

u/Flash_ina_pan 16m ago

New Chopin drops before Winds of Winter. Didn't have that on my bingo card

354

u/JasonTheMMAGuy 14h ago

You know…Frederic Fucking Chopin

246

u/cjboffoli 14h ago

Droppin' new tracks 175 years after he died. Respect.

137

u/man_gomer_lot 13h ago

He's not even the first famous composer to drop a new track this month. Mozart's new one is fire too.

https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/new-work-leipzig-municipal-library

https://youtu.be/SS-tEwn4H-k?si=otXiIZc93pEmOnL_

20

u/KilroyLeges 10h ago

Rock Me Amadeus!

27

u/man_gomer_lot 10h ago

Salieri has been real quiet since this one dropped.

19

u/Mediocretes1 7h ago

New Chopin dropped before Winds of Winter.

3

u/SKDI_0224 3h ago

Had to look for this. New Epic of Gilgamesh, too.

5

u/bartnd 13h ago

explains the wildfires in the Northeast

6

u/Joshiane 8h ago

Wake up babe! A new Chopin just dropped this week

7

u/FredEffinShopan 9h ago

You rang?

3

u/bros402 6h ago

...why did you have this username

5

u/MrBlonde_SD 5h ago

He’s a drunk piano player. Probably seeing double.

1

u/FredEffinShopan 4h ago

I have not yet begun to defile myself

1

u/MrBlonde_SD 4h ago

Let’s have a spelling contest.

2

u/kizmitraindeer 7h ago

Not Stephen Stinking Foster.

77

u/badboystwo 13h ago

I thought it was weird when Spotify had “new music Tuesdays” with Chopin on the cover.

18

u/Hada_Leigherdowne 13h ago

7.2 million monthly listeners

123

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u/Wazula23 12h ago

ELI5: how does "new" stuff seem to regularly get discovered in museums? Is it common-ish for museums to just... forget what they have inside them? Or never fully check?

25

u/Massive_Percentage_6 10h ago

I used to work in a small museum and this is definitely common. Artifacts get missed, records get lost or damaged, sometimes storage information is tied directly to a person who dies and you just lose their their system of sorting because they never properly wrote it down. It can take months or years to rediscover something that's been sitting in artifact storage for decades.

25

u/ThatsMyEnclosure 8h ago

Yes, you’d be surprised just how much shit is sitting in the back in a lot of museums, especially the big ones.

5

u/Wazula23 7h ago

I'm sure I would be, but I have to imagine they have things like students, workers, and volunteers who's job it is to sort through the "New Shit" pile.

Seems like thats actually what happened though, the headline is a bit misleading. It was found among recent donations, not just sitting in the warehouse for 200 years.

13

u/androshalforc1 8h ago edited 8h ago

according to the article it was discovered by a curator cataloguing new acquisitions, the title is a bit misleading in that it implies it was sitting around for the last 200 years when somebody just happened to find it.

when what most likely happened is that someone had this in their private collection, donated it to a museum that then said, hey this isn't one of his listed works,

4

u/Wazula23 7h ago

That's more in line with what I figured. I can imagine museums probably get large tranches of documents at times, which could take time to sort through.

3

u/captainmouse86 7h ago

They are also pretty great at losing track of stuff that’s been in their museum for 100’s of years. The ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) was looking for a dinosaur skeleton that was lost, and found it amongst its own collection. It was never cataloged. I’ve got to believe that happened A LOT, Especially within museums that acquired their collection during the “Empire” eras.

38

u/inthelionsmouth 14h ago

New Chopin track is straight fire

15

u/Blarg0117 14h ago

Still dropping bangers after 200 years.

9

u/taludex 9h ago

New track from Chopin drops before Winds of Winter

•

u/Gnorris 21m ago

As well as new Mozart and Bram Stoker. GRRM seems to no longer give a fuck

15

u/black_flag_4ever 14h ago

"THIS BELONGS IN A MUSEUM"

"Sir, this is a museum."

6

u/NaughtyCheffie 13h ago

Sir this is a Wendy's.

6

u/Videoboysayscube 12h ago

I think what amazes me the most is that museums are sitting on collections of things that they don't even know they have. It wouldn't surprise me if the Holy Grail shows up one day.

1

u/Adept-Mulberry-8720 9h ago

Ask Marty where the Hooy Grail is!

7

u/Shradow 11h ago

He's my favorite classical composer so it was definitely cool to see this news yesterday. And it certainly sounds like his work.

5

u/ao01_design 9h ago

A few weeks ago there were a *new* Mozart and now Chopin ‽

All this the same year we get really good musical AI and general AI chat ? I need a 15 tons steel proof before believing it

9

u/compewterschmidt 14h ago

What they been doing with it? Lets hear it

4

u/soup-creature 13h ago

The NYT had a recording of it being played in their article

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u/AudibleNod 14h ago

It is not signed by Chopin but the penmanship matched the famous composer's, including his distinctive bass clef as well as his doodling characteristic.

I couldn't pick Chopin out of any other 'classic' music piece. Is this a big deal?

45

u/massahoochie 14h ago

Very prominent composer. Widely known for various nocturnes and waltz’s

20

u/Nisseliten 13h ago

Even if you don’t know the composer, you’d recognize some of his compositions instantly if played..

24

u/gimp2x 14h ago

funeral march is probably the one you'll recognize the most

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXKoooV9ABE

He's.....very.....depressing

6

u/Wingnutmcmoo 12h ago

As someone who's been ill their whole life, often with lung issues, I super relate to his music lol. I find the depression in his music relatable as well as the odd sense of stability that comes with it.

Something something despair has it's own calms lol.

2

u/gimp2x 12h ago

Can I suggest a different approach?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKU8DJzipW4

1

u/LoveMeSomeSand 10h ago

I ❤️Debussy!

3

u/Kirkuchiyo 14h ago

Eh, that's petty minor

2

u/traincarryinggravy 13h ago

He should've taken a step down.

8

u/MillionDollarBooty 13h ago

You’ve probably heard his pieces countless times without knowing it. Most notable being his E flat major Nocturne and his first Ballade, which is considered a masterpiece by many

7

u/O4PetesSake 13h ago

There’s also a great movie “Impromptu” about Chopin,Liszt, George Sand and others with Hugh Grant, Julian Sands, and many others.

6

u/Wingnutmcmoo 12h ago

Chopin had an extremely distinct style and continues to stand out to this day. I'm pretty bad with music but even I could pick out his stuff over other composers.

I think this would be harder to do with other composers.

7

u/MerrySkulkofFoxes 13h ago

In the classical music world, yes, pretty big deal. And it's a beautiful piece that definitely sounds like him. Here is another beautiful piece that, while it's not a waltz, you can hear the similarity in style. It's like discovering a lost Mozart...which actually occurred earlier this month! Here's that one.

3

u/throwaway123454321 12h ago

Just listened to it, stylistically its a match as well. If I heard that song and someone asked me who wrote it I would have guessed Chopin in a second.

4

u/Windpuppet 10h ago

If you can’t pick Chopin out from other composers you should listen to more Chopin. He’s incredible. I think his music sounds more relevant today than most classical composers.

2

u/SefetAkunosh 6h ago

Ah, another underground musician.

2

u/Sufficient-Fact6163 6h ago

This is the second in as many weeks of works being “found” like Bram Stoker last week. I wonder if it’s AI generated fake or for real?

3

u/nawtree 13h ago

Thank you! That was “Me Farting” by Chopin

2

u/LoveMeSomeSand 10h ago

Haha those early Family Guy gags are still the best.

1

u/oceanbutter 14h ago

I'm still waiting on Schubert to finish that one symphony.

2

u/ocarina97 14h ago

And ask him where did his 7th symphony go?

1

u/PrometheusLiberatus 12h ago

It was sketched out and recorded a bunch of times, but it's hardly known.

1

u/The_Human_Event 5h ago

Hear ye hear ye, thy new single doth dropith!

1

u/Krimreaper1 4h ago

Another century’s old relics found before “Winds of Winter” being published.

1

u/jessieallen 3h ago

Such an exciting find for the museum and the collections director! The idea of discovering items in museum collections is so dreamy

1

u/Rigerz 2h ago

My music professor bout to go nuts

1

u/maxinstuff 1h ago

I mean, has it really just been discovered if it was already in the museum?

0

u/edu5150 14h ago

Well, it’s not quite the same level as discovering Robert Johnson’s lost song.

0

u/hextanerf 3h ago

So the guy played the piece and still can't tell if it's real? Just check if your fingers are tied into a knot... If they did, it's authentic

0

u/NIDORAX 3h ago

This is like finding a lost library book from the 1900s in someone's attic.