FES - Stirling copy
| Publisher: | Maurice Schlesinger |
| Date: | (1843-1848) |
| Plate number: | M.S.1409 |
| Title: | Concerto |
| Dedication: | Monsieur F. Kalkbrenner |
A pupil's copy from a collection belonging to Chopin's pupil, Jane Wilhelmina Stirling. It contains numerous annotations, above all fingering (ca. 200 digits), but also:
- corrections of undoubtedly or probably misprinted notes in bar 45, 73, 108, 112;
- change of f
2 to e2 in bar 113; - additions of overlooked accidentals in bar 39, 42, 44, 79, 91, 103;
- reminding sharps and double sharps, added almost certainly by the pupil, in bars 74-75, 89, 91-92, 98.
The most interesting note is undoubtedly the variant passage written in the margin next to bar 59, yet probably referring to bar 61.
Only some of the annotations were written by Chopin. The other were performed by the owner of the collection who wrote down Chopin's verbal indications or copied – 'enhanced' – in ink the master's entries performed in pencil. The copying did not cover all the composer's additions; moreover, Miss Stirling did not manage to avoid a few mistakes (in bar 91, 108, 116). The general aim of that procedure is obvious – it was supposed to preserve the valuable message in a more durable manner; however, it is difficult to say what the criteria for selecting the digits that were preserved in such a way were. Perhaps Miss Stirling enhanced those that were poorly visible but at the same time clear enough to read them without major problems.
The fingerings given in mUltimate Chopin are based on the presented photocopies of FES, compared with the fingering given in the Oxford University Press edition, developed on the basis of that copy by its long-time owner, Edouard Ganche. As it seems, within nearly one hundred years that passed since the development of that edition (1928-1932), some of the entries turned almost completely imperceptible.
| Original in: | Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris |
| Shelf-mark: | Rés. Vma.241 (II.11) |