The reason of the discrepancy between a3, featured at the beginning of the bar in JC and PE, and b3 in EF poses a serious challenge. The authenticity of a3 is unquestionable – it must have been included in both [AI] and [A]. The b3 note in EF is, however, neither Fontana's mechanical error nor the engraver's one, as it is provided with a 
; if there had been such an unnoticed error, the text would have remained with no additions. In turn, Fontana's revision seems to be unlikely, as he used to smoothen the texts he edited, replacing Chopin's versions with more conventional ones, which does not occur in this situation (cf., e.g., the Mazurka in C major, WN 46, bar 3, the Lithuanian Song, WN 38, bars 10 and analog., the Impromptu in C
minor, WN 46, bars 24 and 102). Hence we are left with a possible misreading of [AI] by Fontana or of Fontana's base text by the engraver of FEF. We should also mention a possible change in [AI] introduced after JC had already been made, which would allow to consider the version of EF as authentic; however, according to us, the possibility is highly unlikely.
In the main text we give the version of JC and PE which was undoubtedly written by Chopin and which is most probably the only authentic one.
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category imprint: Differences between sources
notation: Pitch
