Chopin rediscovered

Kenneth Hamilton reports on arguments that surround the authenticity of a previously unknown work purportedly by Chopin, following the discovery of a manuscript in a New York library

Here’s a pub quiz classical conundrum: what do Chopin’s recently rediscovered Waltz in A minor, the flute quartets of the 19th-century Danish composer Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup (1803-91) and Liszt’s late piano piece Grübelei have in common? The answer (as you may have guessed) is that the authenticity of all three have been seriously questioned. Of Esrum-Hellerup’s status there can at least be no doubt. Despite the appearance of an entry on this great Dane in the first printing of the 1980 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, expertly penned by musicologist Robert Layton, he is an entirely fictitious character, conjured up by Layton himself as a humorous hoax. The nobly hyphenated surname is a combination of two Danish railway stations; Hellerup’s alleged enthusiasm for the works of Wagner and…

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International Piano (Digital) - 1 Issue, Spring 2025

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