AI
Main text
As - Autograph sketch
AI - Autograph I
AII - Autograph Caraman
AIII - Autograph Rothschild
A - Autograph
FE - French edition
FE1 - First French edition
FE2 - Second French Edition
FED - Dubois copy
FES - Stirling copy
GE - German edition
GE1op - First German edition of Op. 64
GE1Db - First German edition of Waltz No 1
GE2op - Second German edition of Op. 64
GE2Db - Second German edition of Waltz No 1
GE3 - Corrected impression of GE2op
GE3Db - Third German edition of Waltz No 1
GE4Db - Revised impression of GE3Db
EE - English edition
EEC - Earliest English edition
EEW1 - First English edition
EEW2 - Revised impression of WaW1
compare
  b. 13-14

Minim & quavers in As

Quavers in AI & A (→FEGE,EE)

Triplet & quavers in AII & AIII

The earlier autographs prove Chopin's ongoing quest concerning the smartest and most suggestive formula for the idea of a thread unfolding from a spinning ball. The idea – according to the testimony of Wilhelm von Lenz* – was suggested to the pupils by Chopin himself, using the words "it should be unfolding as [a thread] from a ball". Only in the final version, the melody, both in bars 5-7 and 13-15, has a homogeneous, smoothly "unfolding" form, without less or more evident sustentions (as it is in As and AI) or references to the initial phase of creation of an ostinato, spinning figure (as it is in AII and AIII).


* W. von Lenz, Uebersichtliche Beurtheilung der Pianoforte-Kompositionen von Chopin [...], "Neue Berliner Musikzeitung" 18 IX 1872.

Compare the passage in the sources »

category imprint: Differences between sources; Corrections & alterations

issues: Chopin's hesitations, Main-line changes

notation: Pitch

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