b. 30

 

 

 

The upper arm of the hairpin mark in bars 29-30 is visibly shorter in A than the lower one. The line thickness and shape indicate that the upper arm was drawn with a slower hand movement than the lower one, which most probably means that the Chopin drew the upper part of the mark first and that it was drawn more carefully (by the way, he drew most dynamic hairpins that way). This allows us to consider the lower, longer, arm as imprecisely notated and treat the length of the shorter upper arm as the reliable indication of the length of the entire mark. In GE(→FEEE) the mark is even shorter, which must be considered the engraver's fault. 

category imprint: Graphic ambiguousness; Differences between sources

issues: Inaccuracies in GE, Scope of dynamic hairpins

notation: Articulation, Accents, Hairpins

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