The Morning: A classical music discovery

Plus, Michelle Obama, Sudan and abandoned churches.

View in browser|nytimes.com October 27, 2024 Good morning. Today, my colleague Javier Hernández writes about a rare discovery in the classical music world. We're also covering Michelle Obama, Sudan and abandoned churches. —David Leonhardt Chopin General Photographic Agency/Getty Images A hidden gem 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. THE LATEST NEWS Harris Campaign In Kalamazoo, Mich. Emily Elconin for The New York Times At a Michigan rally, Michelle Obama made an appeal anchored in abortion rights and aimed at male voters. "If we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother," she said, "will become collateral damage to your rage." Residents in towns like Aliquippa, Pa., have more faith in football than in politics. Can Tim Walz combine the two? As vice president, Kamala Harris has targeted race and gender gaps. She isn't talking about that part of her record as she tries to appeal to moderate voters. 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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. THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE Photograph by Dina Litovsky for The New York Times Click the cover image above to read this week's magazine. THE MORNING RECOMMENDS … Search the web with images from your phone. Make picking up your dog's poop less unpleasant. Personalize a gift. MEAL PLAN Linda Pugliese for The New York Times 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. Can you put eight historical events — including the Whiskey Rebellion, the creation of the Space Needle and the discoveries of Marie Curie — in chronological order? Take this week's Flashback quiz. And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands. Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. Editor: David Leonhardt Deputy Editor: Adam B. 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