The slurring of the main part of this theme (bars 112-143 and 264-295) poses an editorial challenge. In a number of places, slurs of FE seem to be inaccurate; however, it is not always clear what should be changed in order to correctly convey the composer's intention. The following are questionable:
- overlapping slurs – bars 112, 117, 123, 127, 141, 267, 269, 287, 290. In order to correct them, one could combine the slurs or shorten one of them (e.g. bar 112, 123).
- slurs separating the grace note from the main note – bar 122, 125 and 281;
- short fragments devoid of slurs – bars 127-128, 132-133, 139, 264, 284-285 and 291.
We consider each case individually, analysing the motivic structure, particularly in terms of rhythm, and comparing analogous and similar places. We do not encounter grace notes separated with a slur in Chopin's autographs, hence we suggest modified slurs in all those places in the main text. In turn, overlapping slurs do occur, although rarely, hence we leave a number of them unchanged. We adopt a similar approach in the case of the places devoid of slurs – we suggest modified slurring only in some cases.
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notation: Slurs
