In bars 105-113, there is a fingering written in pencil in FES, generally quite blurry (erased?, changed?), which poses significant problems in recognising the digits and sometimes even in stating whether they were written in a given place at all. In the places where the digits are distinct enough to state it, one can recognise Chopin's hand, which, however, cannot be generalised to the remaining ones. Moreover, some of the digits were then re-entered by Miss Stirling in ink (e.g. in bar 105 and 107); in bar 108, the digit written in ink contradicts the addition performed in pencil, which is most probably a mistake of Miss Stirling). In the main text, we give the digits we were able to decipher on the basis of the available sources – see the characterization of FES – to a satisfactory degree of probability.
One can consider the fingering of FEH, which implies a different hand position in a few places, to be a possibly authentic alternative. In bar 105 and 107, it seems to be less Chopinesque than the slide of the 1st finger in FES, willingly used by Chopin. However, the entries in this copy feature a characteristic that is often encountered in Chopin's pieces – more precise indications upon the second appearance of a given figure. It is typical of numerous teaching comments – it is only a repeated clumsy performance of a similar place that prompts the teacher to intervene. According to us, compared with FES, the fingerings in FEH seem to be dedicated to a person with a bigger and more pianistically dexterous hand.
In numerous places, Fontana's fingering in EE is compliant with FES and FED, in some cases – with FEH. Certain details were resolved yet in another way, e.g. one of the variant fingerings in bar 105.
Compare the passage in the sources »
category imprint: Differences between sources
issues: Annotations in teaching copies, EE revisions, Differences in fingering, Annotations in FES, Annotations in FEH
notation: Fingering