GE2 - Second German edition


Publisher: Breitkopf & Härtel
Date: 1851-1852
Plate number: 5707
Title: Deux Polonaises pour le piano | Polonaise II
Dedication: son ami J. Dessauer

GE2 corrected numerous inaccuracies of GE1, as well as introduced a number of revisions, concerning above all cautionary accidentals (e.g., in bars 15 and 17), but also:

  • pedalling – indications in bars 3-4 were added;
  • slurring, e.g., the slur in bar 10 was shortened;
  • articulation – staccato dots were completed, e.g., in bar 25, they were removed in bars 7-8 and analog.;
  • dynamics – an accent in bar 57 was added,  in bar 60.

Moreover, the most often used by Chopin  was changed into the sporadically used by him  in all occurrences of this indication in the entire Op. 26 (cf. bars 11-12).

GE2 committed mistakes too, e.g., c1 instead of d1 at the beginning of the grupetto in bar 10.

Although GE2 was engraved from scratch, the visible in many places (e.g., in the case of the slur in bar 10) traces of corrections on the plates prove that the changes with respect to the version of GE1 were introduced on an already printed copy of the new typesetting. It suggests the existence of an earlier impression of GE2, being a more faithful repetition of GE1.

The visible in the presented copy quite numerous entries made in pencil are of no source value.

Original in: The Fryderyk Chopin Institute Library, Warsaw
Shelf-mark: 1656/n