Op. 44, Polonaise in F♯ minor

First German edition, based on a lost autograph [A], what follows from Chopin's letter to Fontana, mostly dedicated to the editorial matters of Opp. 44 and 45*. The consistency of the text in bars 35-77 and 268-310 proves that this fragment of the reprise of the Polonaise was not written out in [A], but, in accordance with Chopin's well-known custom, marked as a repetition of the above-mentioned bars of the first part.

GE1 was most likely not corrected by Chopin, however, it bears traces of perfunctory revision, e.g.:

• sharps added before the last R.H. octave in b. 41 and 67,
• naturals lowering g⁽¹⁾ to g⁽¹⁾ in b. 95-96.

Unifying revision may also be indicated by consistent notation of some analogous places, e.g. accidentals in the L.H. trill endings in b. 20 and analog.

Some errors were not corrected, e.g.:

• erroneous R.H. rhythm in b. 33,
• missing pedalling in b. 72-73,
• missing sharps raising d¹⁽²⁾ to d¹⁽²⁾ in b. 107-108,
• c⁽²⁾ instead of c⁽²⁾ in b. 122,
• misrendered ties to b in b. 199-200,
• missing L.H. slurs in b. 325-326.

In the article** devoted to the editorial issues of the Polonaise, Franco Luigi Viero postulates a much wider scope of revisions to GE1, which would include, among others, addition of pedaling – inauthentic then – to the outer sections of the Polonaise. Two main arguments are used to support this thesis:

1. Chopin, who stayed in Nohant from mid-June to early November 1841, did not send [A] of the Polonaise from there to Fontana, but brought it personally on 25 September, when he came to Paris for 3 days (until 28 September)***.
2. Even if Fontana had managed to copy the Polonaise during Chopin's stay in Paris, the composer still would not have had time to add the pedalling to [A]****.

The first statement seems logical – when in a letter of 18 September Chopin asked Fontana: "prepare yourself to copy that Polonaise", he cer­tainly could have meant bringing [A] in person a week later. This does not mean, however, that this was indeed the case, as correspon­dence with Fontana was very lively in that period, and letters and parcels could even be sent daily – e.g. extant are letters from 6, 7, 9 and 11 October, and on 18 Oct, sending Fontana the autograph of the Allegro de Concert, Chopin writes, i.a.: "Tomorrow you will receive the Nocturnes" [Op. 48]. So, if time did matter to Chopin, he could send the Polonaise even two days after that "get ready".

The second of the above statements is largely based on guesswork. Viero analyzes Chopin's stay in Paris at the end of September 1841 and, from a few modest references in correspondence, draws a sufficiently detailed de­scrip­tion of the composer's activities in Paris to conclude that he would have had no "time to sit down at the piano and add pedalling in the man­u­script of the Polonaise". This wording suggests where the error lies in the presented argument – at this stage of composing the Polonaise, Chopin certainly did not have to sit down at the piano to try pedalling. The schematic, harmonic markings we see in the outer sections of the work could simply be entered without much thought, which could take no more than an hour***** and would certainly fit even in the tight schedule proposed by Viero for the stay in question.

Taking into account the above observations, we believe that there are no sufficient grounds to undermine the authenticity of the pedalling or other more detailed performance indications of GE1.

^* Letter from 6 October 1841: "I'm sending you the Prelude [op. 45 ...]. You'll similarly trim the manuscript in my hand of the Polonaise, [...] include my letter to Mechetti [...] and give it to Leo by hand and ask him to send itby post because Mechetti's waiting for it."
** F. L. Viero For a Correct Recensio of Chopin's Polonaise Op. 44, accessed 29-05-2023.
*** Viero, op. cit., p. 7-8.
**** Viero, op. cit., p. 11-13.
***** The time it takes to write this pedalling can be easily estimated. There are 126   pairs in bars 1-126. We add 3, which in GE1 are not present in bar 72, but are in bar 305, which means that they must have already been entered the first time. We also add 6 pairs in bars 314-326 and we get a total of 135 pairs of markings to be entered. Just writing them down takes – at the rate of 12 pairs per minute (which can be tested experimentally) – about 12 minutes. Multiplying this by three to allow time for corrections and reflection on some places, we get 36 minutes, which makes the proposed one hour a realistic estimate.