The manuscript of Fryderyk Chopin’s Ballade in F minor, Op. 52 has enriched the collections of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. Frederic Chopin’s musical manuscripts are among the most valuable and sought-after by collectors objects in the world. The opportunity to purchase them is extremely rare. Objects of this class appear on the collector’s market once every 10-15 years. 

Chopin’s manuscripts, a treasure of world cultural heritage, are rare objects highly coveted by collectors worldwide. They appear on the market approximately once a decade and are usually sold through auction houses. 

The Ballade in F Minor, Op. 52 is considered one of Chopin’s most important and polished works. The piece has been widely regarded as the pinnacle of the ballad genre and as Chopin’s most artistically ambitious and refined composition. 

Only two incomplete autographs of this Ballade have survived to the present day: one kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford and another one from the private collection of the heirs of Rudolf F. Kallir in New York, an autograph of a fragment of the work in the original 6/4 meter, which was purchased by the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute in late 2024. 

After Chopin’s death on October 17, 1849, in Paris, the composer’s sister, Ludwika Jędrzejewiczowa, was in charge of organizing documents left by her brother. She gave the autograph of the Ballade to Frederic’s friend, pianist and composer Joseph Dessauer, as evidenced by an annotation made by Ludwika’s hand in the upper right-hand corner of the first page: “p[our] M[.] Desauer.” In 1933, the autograph was purchased in an antique shop in Lucerne by Rudolf F. Kallir (1895-1987), a collector of artworks, musical autographs and correspondence of famous composers, writers and scientists. In 1940, Kallir left Europe to settle permanently in New York. 

The purchase of the manuscript was made possible by financial support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.