Over the part of the R.H. (in some editions under), apart from the top, several-bar-long slur, the sources include one or two additional slurs of varied range. In A, highlighting three chords with a slur, creating a brief but unexpected modulation, has, as it seems, a deep structural meaning – it emphasises (together with poco ritenuto) the moment in which the course of the recapitulation, initiated by the return of the first theme, breaks, in order to come back after a moment in the atmosphere of the second theme, filled with serene lyricism. This heralds elimination of the first theme in recapitulations of Chopin Sonatas, Op. 35, 58 and 65.
In turn, it is difficult to indicate a convincing justification for the slur added in GE1 in the 1st half of bar 271. Next to the missing traces of visible corrections of the slurs in GE1, which makes a possible Chopin proofreading highly unlikely, it makes us consider the version of A to be the only one intended by Chopin, as a result of which we give it in the main text.
The above considerations do not exclude a possibility that the first of the discussed slurs was added by Chopin in GE1. If we take into account a possibility of an inaccurate reproduction of a Chopin proof entry, we can consider all versions of the editions, although created without Chopin's participation, to be potentially compliant with his intention (actually, they are equal from the practical point of view, in particular in relation to embracing the whole phrase in bars 268-272 with a slur).
category imprint: Differences between sources
issues: EE revisions, Inaccuracies in GE, Inaccuracies in FE, GE revisions, Authentic corrections of GE
notation: Slurs
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