FC - Fontana's copy
Copy of the lost autograph, made by Fontana. It served as the basis for the first German edition.
FE - French edition
GE - German edition
Principles behind the main text of
the Mazurka in C minor, Op. 30 No. 1
As our basis we take FC as a source that bears visible traces of Chopin's detailed corrections and was prepared more carefully than other authentic sources. We take into account those elements of FE whose authenticity raises no reservations and which complement the text of FC or convey important, probably later variants. We include annotations in FED and FES.
Determining whether we are dealing with a correction in FE, a correction in [A], or an oversight by the copyist is sometimes difficult, especially in the case of the first two possibilities, which are most often indistinguishable without access to [A]. Therefore, we treat them jointly and, for simplicity, refer to them together as FE corrections. All these situations point to FE as the source transmitting the latest, and in the case of copyist's mistakes, the only authentic version, so that difficulties in determining the details of filiation do not excessively complicate the editing of the main text.