Main text
Main text
GC - Gutmann'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 - Another copy 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. 34

No accidentals in sources (literal reading—C-c)

Contextual interpretation suggested by the editors (C-c)

Lack of the naturals raising C-c to C-c is almost certainly Chopin's mistake, despite the fact that this kind of oversights of signs introducing alterations are not frequent (yet they are to be found in, e.g., the Etude in F minor, No. 2, bar 56). It could have seemed that the C-c octave did not require naturals due to the following reasons:

  • on a number of occasions, Chopin was not sure whether the last or the following it key signature is valid or not, particularly when their number was significant (cf., e.g., the Etude in G minor, No. 6, t. 7-8).
  • the chromatic progressions are characteristic for the melodic structure of a number of fragments of the Etude, e.g., in bars 1-3, 10, 23-24 (in the latter they are also in the harmonic structure). The last such fragment are bars 32-36;
  • the harmonic progression at the transition between bars 34-35 was probably supposed to refer to the progression in bars 32-33, where there is C-c. Therefore, the psychological mechanism of overlooking the naturals could have been similar to the one that was responsible for omissions of the signs of the current key – here is the signs of the current harmonic context that would have been omitted.

Compare the passage in the sources »

category imprint: Interpretations within context; Differences between sources

issues: Errors in FE, Errors in EE, Errors in GE, Last key signature sign, Errors of GC

notation: Pitch

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