CHOPIN, Frédéric (1810-1849). Autograph music manuscript of two short works for piano, an ‘All[egre]tto’ of 24 bars, in contrasting A major and A minor sections, and a ‘Mazur[ka]' of 14 bars in D minor, signed (‘Ch’) twice at the end of each piece, n.p., n.d., meticulously notated in 38 bars on five systems of two staves on one page, 228 x 287mm, annotated in a 19th-century hand 'copié par Chopin', mounted on card with cut signatures of Arthur Rubinstein (1931) and Vladimir Horowitz (1978), in a portfolio, red morocco. Literature: Krystyna Kobylanska. Frédéric Chopin: Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis (1979), VII b (Transkriptionen von Volksweisen), nos 7 and 8; J.M. Chominski & T.D. Turlo. Katalog dziel Fryderyka Chopina (1990), p.240 (Sketches, fragments, exercises), 'Folk melodies meticulously recorded on a single sheet'. Provenance: Sacha Guitry collection – his sale, Drouot, Paris, 21 November 1974 – private collection.

TWO SHORT PIANO WORKS INSPIRED BY POLISH FOLK MUSIC. Kobylanska considers that whilst both works are signed by Chopin, they are too unsophisticated to be his own compositions, and are perhaps transcriptions of Polish folk tunes (‘Beide Stucke sind zwar mit Ch signiert, in ihrer ganzen Art jedoch zu primitive, als daß man sie für eigene Kompositionen Chopins halten könnte. Wir ordnen sie in dieses Kapitel ein, da es sich vielleicht um Übertragungen von polnischen Volksweisen handeln mag‘). If so, it is fascinating not only to see Chopin in the posture of an ethnomusicologist some 60 or more years before the pioneering research of Bartók and Kodály, but also that the resulting works, notated with his characteristic exquisite neatness, should be granted the imprimatur of his discreet, repeated signature.

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