WN 37, Lento con gran espressione

First edition, prepared by Marceli Antoni Szulc, in Trzy Mazury 
i Adagio [Three Mazurs and an Adagio]. EL was based on [CK'], a lost copy of CK made by Oskar Kolberg with further arbitrary changes and additions – see description of this copy. However, it seems highly unlikely that all the differences between CK and EL could be ascribed to Kolberg. There is no reason why Kolberg, upon sending Szulc a manuscript prepared on the basis of his own copy of [A2], would have, e.g. omitted the vast majority of the slurs and a significant number of other performance indications. It is also impossible that he is the author of the changes introduced most probably in print, e.g. in b. 48, since the publication was prepared without his participation*.

In addition to the aforementioned changes, the most significant ones include:

•  instead of  in b. 1,
• separation of the tenor voice in b. 11,
• change of rhythm by adding an a¹ quaver at the end of b. 16,
• change of melody and accompaniment in b. 26,
• addition of another voice in b. 35-36 and 39-40,
• change of the last L.H. quaver from f to g in b. 56.

The dedication in the form provided in EL must be a confabulation – upon sending the piece to Ludwika in 1830, Chopin would have never called the Concerto in F Minor the 'second concerto', since it was created first and, at least until the publication of the Concerto in E Minor, Op. 11, in 1833 this is the only way it could have been described. It became the second most probably only just ca. 1835, when, more or less two years after the Concerto in E Minor had been published, a decision was taken to publish the Concerto in F Minor too.

^* It results from the correspondence between Oskar Kolberg and Marceli Antoni Szulc, letters from 15 Dec. 1874, 22 Jan. 1875 and 25 Jan. 1875. After sending the copy of the Lento in Dec. 1874, Kolberg did not receive a response from Szulc for over a month; eventually, he learnt (letter from 25 January) that it had already been sent to print.