A - Autograph
| Date: | (IX-X) 1835 |
| Title: | 4 Mazurkas || Nro 4 |
| Dedication: | Monsieur le Comte de Perthuis |
The autograph of the Mazurkas Op. 24 was almost certainly written later than the presentation autograph of the third of them (Mazurka in A flat major – AI), dated 22 Sept.1835, containing the still non-final version of the work. On the other hand, by mid-December that year the entire work was already printed, first in Leipzig and then in Paris. It seems, therefore, that A must have been ready not later than the beginning of November.
A served as the base text for Breitkopf & Härtel to prepare GE1. The manuscript contains typical foreign hand additions in crayon (inscriptions at the beginning of the work and other) and in pencil (numbers denoting the planned division of the musical text into pages and systems).
A was written hastily, yet with visible care for its legibility. The vast majority of corrections are in the form of erasures (e.g. removing the repeat sign at the beginning of bar 6 or accompaniment changes in bars 18-19); sometimes these are additions to the existing signs by changing their shape and sense (e.g. change of a1 into b double flat1 in bar 95). Deletions, so typical of Chopin, appear less frequently; for instance, pairs of bars between bars 19-20 and 89-90 were crossed out.
A number of features of the notation of A testify to its being written in haste: some graphic marks demonstrate clear reduction of their graphic form, almost bordering on sketching, e.g. 
in bar 91, 131-132, and very many lines written with a downward stroke of the pen (note stems, naturals, barlines) end with characteristic hooks, which sometimes gives rise to doubts, as for instance in bar 16.
In several places we see accidentals placed to serve a cautionary function, yet in places where their presence is not justified (e.g. bar 17 and 18).
| Original in: | Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw |
| Shelf-mark: | Mus. 216 |
