EE1
Main text
FC - Fontana's Copy
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. 5

Fingering in FC (→GE) & EE

Fingering in FE

Fingering written into FED, contextual interpretation

Suggested complement to FED fingering

While preparing the Etude for print, Chopin gave in these bars fingering for the chromatic third minor progression. The scheme – with minor variations, adapting it to the local shape of figurations (in bars 18 and 51) – was indicated by the composer in each place where such chromatic progressions appear.

The digits, written in FED over the half-bar fragment of the chromatic scale, present a generally different fingering from the printed version. Therefore, most probably it was not about replacing the printed fingering only in the place of entry, yet about generalising the given scheme for the entire progression in bars 5-6 (and probably also for all analogous situations). Due to this fact, we consider the option with added fingering only as the correct interpretation. In addition, somehow following Chopin addition introduced in FE, we give its developed version, including also the continuation of the scale.

It is hard to state what was the intention of the added fingering. Perhaps Chopin wanted his pupil to learn the Etude using this fingering, but it is also possible that it was an alternative proposal, intended as an additional exercise, developing dexterity of performing thirds progressions. The argument for this hypothesis would be the fact of leaving the printed indications non-deleted.

Compare the passage in the sources »

category imprint: Differences between sources

issues: Annotations in teaching copies, Annotations in FED, Differences in fingering, Authentic corrections of FE

notation: Fingering

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Original in: National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh