FES
Main text
A - Autograph
FC - Fontana's copy
FE - French edition
FE1 - First French edition
FE2 - Corrected impression of FE1
FED - Dubois copy
FEJ - Jędrzejewicz Copy
FES - Stirling copy
FESch - Scherbatoff copy
GE - German edition
GE1 - First German edition
GE2 - Revised impression of GE1
GE3 - Corrected impression of GE2
EE - English edition
EE1 - First English edition
EE1a - Corrected impression of EE1
EE2 - Revised impression of EE1a
compare
  b. 57

Fingering written into FES

No teaching fingering

In the main text we give the fingering digit entered most probably by Chopin into FES. One can have doubts whether the entry indicates that the note should be performed with the left or the right hand.
Arguments for the left hand:

  • no unequivocal marking indicating that the note should be taken over by the right hand, e.g. a stem pointing upwards, like in b. 47;
  • indicating the 1st finger – if it were the right hand, one could use any finger, e.g. 3rd, which seems to be most natural here.

Arguments for the right hand:

  • the very fact of indicating the 1st finger – the use of the 1st L.H. finger naturally results from the notation and the shape of the melody and would not require an additional marking;
  • the digit having been placed over the note, which Chopin would use to mark R.H. fingers in unobvious situations concerning the division of the text between hands, e.g. in the Etude in E Minor, Op. 10 No. 6, b. 7, 15 and analog., or in the Ballade in F Minor, Op. 52, b. 91-92 (however, Chopin did not always observe that rule – see, e.g. b. 49, in which the L.H. fingering is written over the notes in FES).

Compare the passage in the sources »

category imprint: Interpretations within context; Differences between sources

issues: Annotations in teaching copies, Annotations in FES

notation: Fingering

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