CLI - Copy by Linowski
| Date: | 2 XI 1830 |
| Title: | Exercice 1. |
| Dedication: | None |
The copy of the original version of the Etude (together with the Etude in A minor, No. 2) was most probably performed by Józef Linowski, a friend of Chopin from the Main School of Music. CLI is dated "2 November 1830" and titled Exercice 1. A few mechanical mistakes concerning the pitch, which Chopin could not have committed (bar 26, the 13th semiquaver g
1, bar 66, the 12th semiquaver c1, bar 71, the 11th semiquaver b2; also in the Etude in A minor), exclude the given in a number of publications possibility that it is an autograph. Moreover, it includes other errors and defects, as the erroneous omission of 8 marks, determining bottom octaves (e.g. in bars 3, 23-24, 60), or lack of bar lines in bars 65-68.
CLI enables to reproduce significantly the original version of the Etude, written in probably the only autograph of the work, [AI]. It differs from the final version in the total lack of performance indications, numerous melodic and harmonic details (e.g. b3 instead of a3 at the end of bars 5 and 53, d2, d1 and d in bar 26, lack of harmonic changes in the middle of bars 60 and 64) and a more schematic part of the L.H. (e.g. octaves instead of single notes in bars 37 and 39, as well as sustained octaves in bars 65-66 and 69-70).
Almost all octaves in the L.H. are written in an abbreviated form, with the help of 8 marks, which undoubtedly speeded up and facilitated the notation of the Etude (writing ledger lines requires particular effort and attention). In a later version of FE a number of these abbreviations was changed to notes, which suggests that Chopin treated this type of abbreviation as a facilitation of the notation. The attention is also drawn by an atypical notation of the figurations in the R.H. with the use of the octave sign above the notes written on the lower stave in the bass clef, e.g. in bars 56, 68, 78.
| Original in: | The Fryderyk Chopin Museum, Warsaw |
| Shelf-mark: | M/190 |
