The issue of staccato marking of bass notes in bars 61-91 poses a serious editorial problem. In A Chopin clearly wrote dots in twelve out of 31 bars, one sign is doubtful (bar 68), and one results from the abbreviated notation (bar 70).
In the first section (bars 61-76) dots appear more frequently – they are missing only at the beginning (bars 61-62) and at the end (bars 75-76) of that section, and they definitely appear in 8 out of 12 bars; also, the two uncertain cases are contained in that fragment. This seems to be a good reason to treat the two instances of missing dots in bars 67 and 72 as the composer's oversight, especially that in one of those two places a dot was later added (bar 72) in the proofing of FE, probably on Chopin's request. We leave without signs the two-bar units beginning and ending that section (bars 61-62 and 75-76).
In the second section (bars 77-91), which - with minor changes - is basically a repetition of the first section, the situation is different. Dots can be found in as few as four out of 15 bars (bars 77, 84-85 and 91). Such massive inaccuracy of notation still seems possible, and this is the viewpoint adopted by GE2 (→GE3),where all the missing dots were added. However, it is also possible that on the second occasion Chopin considered the staccato for the basses as obvious and not requiring any marking, and he only used dots for extra emphasis in some places. For that reason, we do not supplement dots in the main text in that fragment.
Compare the passage in the sources »
category imprint: Differences between sources
issues: GE revisions
notation: Articulation, Accents, Hairpins
