Rhythmic notation of the 1st beat of bar 43, 45, 47-50, 54, 56 and 58-59 is generally careful and logical in A – in the majority of these triplets, the 2nd quaver is provided with an additional crotchet stem for it to be tied to the minim on the 2nd beat of the bar. There are two exceptions, that is bar 45, in which the A
note on the 2nd quaver is, in addition to a stem, provided with an augmentation dot 
, and bar 56, in which G is also provided with an augmentation dot, while its stem (pointing upwards) reaches the quaver beam 
. None of the editions reproduced this version of notation accurately:
- in all editions, the crotchet stems were reproduced correctly only in bar 43 and 54; in the remaining bars they were considered too short quaver stems of the top voice and led to the quaver beam, as Chopin wrote it in bar 56;
- in FE (→EE) there are more augmentation dots to the 2nd quaver than in A – in bar 45, 48, 50 and 56.
According to us, the above situation found in the sources – inconsistencies in the A notation and differences between A and the editions – can be explained with the help of the following scenario:
- Initially, in sketches or draft autographs of the Fantasy, Chopin marked the extension of the 2nd quaver with a dot. It corresponded with the way he wrote notes lasting 2 triplet quavers, that is as dotted quavers (complemented with a semiquaver), as in a typical
figure. However, there are no semiquavers in this section at all, as a result of which a reference to this convention is not clear for the reader, while the notation seems to be unnecessarily complicated and rhythmically incomplete. - Therefore, Chopin assumed that it would be better to prolong the discussed quavers to crotchets, and this is the version of notation he used in A, except bar 45, in which he also wrote, inadvertently, the augmentation dot from the initial version, and bar 56, in which the initial version of notation was repeated in its entirety. As described above, this notation was distorted in GE by leading the top stems of the discussed notes to the quaver beams. This procedure reduced their rhythmic value to a quaver and made the performers guess the interpretation of the meaning of the ties combining them with the following minims.
- In FE (or perhaps already in [FC]) the crotchet stems falling under the quaver beam were also led to this beam. In order to correct this rhythmically inaccurate notation, while avoiding the potentially cumbersome deletion or erasure of fragments of stems, Chopin decided to return to the initial version of notation and add augmentation dots extending the discussed quavers. Probably due to some inaccuracies in the marking of these corrections or in their implementation, dots were eventually added – excluding the ones repeated after A – only in 2 out of 6 places.
Regardless of how the above reconstruction corresponds to the actual course of events, we consider the version of notation used in A in the majority of the discussed bars to be the best both in terms of rhythmic precision and clarity and the logic of voice leading. Therefore, in the main text we adopt it to all these bars (see bars 47-59 and 56).
Compare the passage in the sources »
category imprint: Differences between sources
issues: Inaccuracies in GE, Inaccuracies in FE
notation: Rhythm
