Op. 10 No 7, Etude in C major

Fair score dedicated for base text for the first French edition. At the moment of its creation, it probably constituted a part of a joint autograph, including six last Etudes. The letters exchanged between the editors of the Etudes, Schlesinger in Paris and Kistner in Leipzig, indicate that the proofs of FE1 were ready to be sent to Leipzig on 27 March 1833. Therefore, Chopin had to prepare a handwritten Stichvorlage relatively earlier. On the other hand, despite visible corrections, A is not a wokring manuscript and was most probably written with an edition in mind, and that was not even planned in May 1832, as it stems from the letter of a would-be first editor of Chopin's works, Aristid Farrenc, to Kistner from 4 May 1832. Moreover, Chopin wrote down the Etude in E major, No. 3 in a working form, differing significantly from the final one, still at the end of August. It is highly unlikely that the fair score of the Etude in C major and the remaining five (No. 8-12) were already finished at that time, hence the possible time framework for the creation of A.

In A there are visible numerous engraver marks determining division into pages and systems of FE1.

A includes a relatively significant number of corrections, in which the removed elements are generally carefully erased, e.g., in bars 1, 3, 13, 17-18, 57. In turn, deletions appear only in the heading of the Etude – change of the number from 6 to 7 and tempo indication from Presto to Vivace. It could have stemmed from an atypical arrangement of the text on the pages – the notes are written on all staves, without gaps (it is the only one written in this way among the preserved Stichvorlage autographs of the Etudes, Op. 10). In spite of a generally carefully preparation of the manuscript, certain details remained unfinished, which were then changed by Chopin in a proofreading of FE, e.g., the 3rd f¹-g¹ semiquaver in bar 3, repetition of c in bars 3 and 36, a  in the middle of bar 16.

Chopin provided the Etude with numerous and detailed performance indications. However, their notation is not always precise, which can be seen on the example of slurs (see bars 4, 5, 8, 50-51, as well as bars 1, 9, 10) or pedalling (see bars 16-23).

A lacks a number of accidentals, which is not always obvious. In bar 4 there is no  returning e¹, while in bar 12 there is neither the  returning e², nor the  which reintroduces e². However, the majority of this kind of errors does not raise any doubts, e.g., lack of a  in bars 11, 15 and 48,  in bar 13,  in bar 40 or  and  in bar 51.