EE1
Main text
½A - Semi-autograph
A - Autograph of the piano part
Morch - Manuscript of the orchestra part
GE - German edition
GE1 - First German edition
GE1a - Retouched impression of GE1
GE2 - Second German edition
FE - French edition
FE1 - First French edition
FE2 - Corrected impression of FE1
FED - Dubois copy
FEJ - Jędrzejewicz copy
FES - Stirling copy
EE - English edition
EE1 - First English edition
EE2 - Revised impression of EE1
EE3 - Corrected impression of EE2
compare
  b. 283

c1 in A & GE2

No c1 in GE1 (→FEEE)

The traces visible in GE1 at the beginning of the 2nd half of the bar allow to say that four notes were originally printed there, c1-a1-c2-g2. The presence of g2 may be surprising, yet it is certainly a result of an inaccurate interpretation of A, which has a small inkblot in the place of this note. As a result of the undoubtedly Chopin proofreading, two extreme notes of the erroneous chord were removed. However, we do not consider this version to be an expression of the composer's final intention due to two reasons:

  • Chopin did not proofread the text of A, which was fine, but the false c1-a1-c2-gchord, which could have changed both his hearing of this place and piano intuition due to a vision of a wide and higher position of the chord. Concentrated on correcting the sound in the place of the mistake and not having thoroughly checked the context, the composer could have imagined a shape of the bottom voice from bar 286, similar in terms of harmony;
  • as far as the sound of the accompaniment is concerned, in the whole theme there are practically no differences between the exposition (bars 125-142) and recapitulation (bars 273-290) – changes are present only in bars 275, 277 and 290, out of which only the second is not justified by a clear change in the melody or a different continuation. Therefore, it seems that Chopin was not looking here for minor changes in the layout of the accompanying voices. This type of change, in which dfrom the 1st half of the bar is left without its direct, natural resolution to c1, seems to be highly unlikely as a consciously introduced improvement.

Taking into account the above arguments and also a possibility of an accidental removal of the correct c1 note as a result of a misunderstanding at the time of implementing the proofreading, in the main text we give the version of A. The proofread version of GE1 may be considered an equal variant.

Compare the passage in the sources »

category imprint: Interpretations within context; Differences between sources; Corrections & alterations

issues: Errors in GE, Authentic corrections of GE

notation: Pitch

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Original in: Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, Bergamo