A - Autograph
| Date: | 1829 |
| Title: | Sonate |
| Dedication: | Monsieur Joseph Elsner |
Autograph fair copy, a basis for GE1. Generally carefully developed, with a significant number of performance markings; however, it is not free from errors, oversights and other inaccuracies (particularly in terms of accidentals and slurs). For more information see the description of A in mov. I of the Sonata.
Among the characteristic features of A, one could mention:
- not-yet-fully-developed manner of writing long accents, differing in their size and shape and sometimes placed a f t e r an accented note – cf. bar 11 or 29;
- liberal approach to accidentals, which often seem to be valid in all octaves (e.g. in bar 10 or 38);
- liberal approach to slurs, the range or presence of which are often determined not by the articulation or structure of a given phrase or motif, but by the graphic situation – Chopin would simply omit places in which writing a slur would be difficult or impossible, cf., e.g. bar 20 and probably 33-34.
The most serious A mistakes are overlooked alteration cancellations in bar 17, 31, 40. In the last two cases, the need or way of complementing the text are not entirely obvious. Other kinds of omitted accidentals are noteworthy too, pointing to the composer's major distraction – see bar 26 and 27.
A includes foreign hand annotations – numerous engraving marks, in pencil and red crayon, while in other movements also accidentals in pencil (mov. IV, bars 12-14).
One could also assume that some additions in ink, indistinguishable from the main notation to the naked eye, do not come from Chopin, e.g. the cross over the stave in mov. IV, bar 180.
| Original in: | Pierpont Morgan Library, Nowy Jork |
| Shelf-mark: | C549.S698 |
