AI
Main text
AI - Earlier autograph
A - Autograph
CDP - Copy for Delfina Potocka
FE - French edition
FE1 - First French edition
FE2 - Corrected reprint of FE1
FED - Dubois copy
FEJ - Jędrzejewicz copy
FES - Stirling copy
GE - German edition
GE1 - First German edition
GE1a - Corrected reprint of GE1
GE1b - Flawed impression of GE1
GE2 - Second German edition
GE3 - Revised impression of GE2
EE - English edition
EE1 - First English edition
EE2 - Corrected reprint of EE1
EE3 - Revised impression of EE2
compare
  b. 21

Bass in AI, A (→CDP,GE1 & GE3) & EE

Bass E in FE & GE1a (→GE2)

The changes, performed gradually in this bar, show well the type of improvements Chopin would introduce in this Etude at different stages of working on it:

  • harmonic changes – replacing the constant bass note, present in AI, A (→CDP,GE1a) and EE with E-F-G in FE and GE1a (→GE2; in GE3 arbitrarily changed to G-F-G); see also the next note. Similar changes are to be found in, e.g., bar 718 and 25;
  • change of frequency of appearance of particular chord components and their doubling – hesitation between a1 and f1 on the 3rd beat of the bar, renouncing both f and one g in the 2nd half of this bar; this type of modifications of the arrangement of harmonic figurations appear, e.g., in bars 7-8, 16, 17, 29, 32-34 and 37;
  • changes of the number of notes in particular figures – in the 2nd half of the bar two sextuplets of AI were changed in A first into two quintuplets and then into a four- and five-note groups (the latter is present in all the remaining sources); a similar rhythmic smoothing is to be found in bars 1629 and 34.

The change of the fifth in the bass into third, enabling to avoid parallel octaves, is also to be found in the Etude in A minor, Op. 25 No. 4, bar 60.

Compare the passage in the sources »

category imprint: Differences between sources; Corrections & alterations

issues: Authentic corrections of FE, Authentic corrections of GE

notation: Pitch

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