Op. 10 No 1, Etude in C major

In accordance with the information on the title page –  "edited with additional fingering by his pupil, I. Fontana" – Chopin's fingering was significantly completed in EE2. As it is unclear whether the additions were already introduced in the first impression of EE, we reserve the [EE1] symbol for a possibly existing, yet undiscovered copy without additional fingering. On the other hand, preparation of a new impression in which the fingering would have been added without correcting numerous defects listed below seems to be highly unlikely. Due to this fact, on the basis of the current state of the preserved sources, we refer to EE2 as first English edition.

In EE2 the entire Opus 10 is divided into two books, six Etudes each. It generally reproduces the text of FE2 (see below), however, the attention is drawn to a significant number of mistakes and inaccuracies:

• omitting the ties sustaining bass notes in bars 27-28 and 65-66;
• omitting all accents and dynamic hairpins on the last page of the Etude (bars 69-78);
• omitting cresc. in bar 42,  in bar 48 and fermata in bar 79.

Numerous defects of EE2, as well as its general compliance with the base text (FE), also question the credibility of another information included on the title page – "New & revised edition". It suggests that at least one test of the text's accuracy was performed or maybe even introduction of changes improving readability. This contradiction may be, according to us, explained in the following way:

• The quoted information on the cover in fact concerns EE3, which actually includes both corrections of errors of EE2 and certain arbitrary additions.
• At the time of preparing the new corrected impression (EE3), the editor had still a few copies of EE2 to his disposal. Due to the fact that he did not want to forgo their sales, he introduced to them the most significant corrections by hand and offered them to his clients with a changed title page. Such corrections, probably written in quill pen and overriding almost all aforementioned engraver's oversights, are visible in the copy of EE2 being at display in mUltimate Chopin. The second known copy (from the collection of the British Library) also includes similar additions, although less numerous. 

If the above proves to be right, the presented copy would date back to the preparation stage of EE3, i.e. 1835-1836.

In three places EE2 surprisingly diverges from the text of FE2, however, it is compatible with the probably original versions of CLI (bars 5 and 53 and 29). One could see here examples of subsequent errors of the engraver (all changes strive for unifying the figurations) or even Fontana's intervention who could have introduced them, knowing the Etude already from the time before it had been published and not being aware of subsequent changes introduced by Chopin. According to us, these changes should be related to the issue of filiation. In other Etudes EE2 (in the 2nd book of EE3) is compatible with the text of FE1 and not FE2. As a matter of fact, in this Etude all differences between the impressions of FE concern the mistakes of FE1, in which the regular structure of figurations was distorted. Therefore, if we assume that the base text was subject to an initial review in EE2 consisting in tracing deviations from the figurations' scheme, it would explain both the above described differences with respect to FE and the apparent compliance with FE2.

The fingering added by Fontana includes both additions to Chopin's fingering (in 20 bars in total) and suggestions of an alternative fingering (in 13 bars in total), see the remark concerning bars 1-11. 

A few pencilled entries visible in the presented copy are of no source value.