The discrepancy between the solo piano part and orchestral parts may indicate the lack of coordination of proofreading – after having made the decision, Chopin could have written it in one place only (in the solo or orchestral part), leaving the other unchanged. Such situations occur in the Concerto in F Minor, which is better documented as far as sources are concerned, cf. 3rd mov., bars 243-244 or 492. The traces visible in FE prove that the chord was actually changed in print; however, it does not seem that the proofreading concerned the discussed outermost notes of the chord – the proofread chord was probably e-g-b
-c
1-e1. The very fact of such a detailed proofreading proves the correctness of the version of FE – possible flats lowering e(1) to e(1) could not have been overlooked. Therefore, if Chopin had introduced here a change earlier, at the stage of manuscripts, he would have either changed e to e (in the part of cellos), yet abandoning that change while proofreading the solo part in FE, or he would have changed the original e to e and confirmed that version with the proofreading of FE.
In such a scenario, what meaning should we assign to the correction in FES? It would be a return to the previously abandoned version; however, it is difficult to talk about a definitive change, since in the remaining four pupil's copies, including two that bear visible traces of work with Chopin (FED and FEH), the composer did not mark it. Therefore, in the main text we stick to the version of the principal source, i.e. FE, proofread by Chopin.
Compare the passage in the sources »
category imprint: Differences between sources
issues: Annotations in teaching copies, Chopin's hesitations, Annotations in FES, Authentic corrections of FE
notation: Pitch
