AW - Presentation Autograph
| Date: | IX 1836 |
| Title: | Etude |
| Dedication: | None |
Currently lost, known from the reproduction in the book by Leopold Binental Chopin (Warsaw 1930), AW was in the album of Maria Wodzińska, including also the autographs of the Etude in A
major, No. 1 and of the song The Ring. It presents the Etude in the almost final version, with numerous performance indications, including several fingering numerals. It suggests that while writing AW Chopin already had at his disposal a working autograph [AI], which he would subsequently use to prepare also the Stichvorlage autograph [A].
The text of the Etude in AW shows a number of petty differences with respect to the later [A] (whose text can be reconstructed to some extent, comparing CDP, GC and FE and EE):
- a quaver upbeat;
- notation of the first 36 bars with the use of repetition sign, ordering repetition of bars 1-17 after bar 19;
- less cautious notation of accidentals, e.g., in bars 7, 12;
- broken slur in bars 7 and 26;
- ending – the last three c2 written as small notes in bar 68, as a result of which the piece is formally one bar shorter in this manuscript.
There are even more differences when compared with the printed version, completed by Chopin in [A] and in the remaining Stichvorlage manuscripts:
- only three pedalling indications – bar 7 (and 26), 11 (and 30) and 18-19;
- different interpretation concept of bars 36-50, devoid of major dynamic differences, yet with agogic differences – see bars 43-45 and 48-50.
AW does not include as many deletions as in AI of the Etude in A major, No. 1, one also cannot see any corrections and additions made with pencil (due to the loss of the original, it cannot be entirely excluded). In spite of this, several different types of deletions, as well as the draft (rubric?) of the final rhythm of the ending gives this autograph a partially working character. The notation is very hasty, which is indicated by numerous "hooks" and a significant number of graphically simplified naturals (written as one zigzag line, resembling the handwritten 4 number) – cf., e.g., the last line on the 2nd page (bars 53-57), where 10 out of 11 signs have such a form.
