Part 9: End of the editorial Notes — notes 172-206 (pp. 214-234)

Part 9 of chopin-pianist-and-teacher-as-seen-by-his-pupils (pp. 214-234).

This range contains no appendix material at all. It is the final stretch of Eigeldinger’s editorial Notes: the continuation of note 172 through note 206, plus one unnumbered footnote (on Mme Mauté and Debussy) that closes the apparatus. See ## Open questions for the boundary correction.

Question this unit answers

When Chopin’s teaching survives only as marks on paper — accent signs, fingerings, cuts, added dynamics, written-in ornaments — how do you read those marks correctly, and how much authority does each carry? These notes are Eigeldinger’s working demonstration of source criticism: he repeatedly sets the printed first editions against the annotated scores of individual pupils (Stirling, Dubois, Jędrzejewicz, Zaleska-Rosengardt, Scherbatoff, Rubio), against Mikuli’s edition, against modern critical editions, and against early recordings by Koczalski, Michałowski and Pugno, and shows which readings are Chopin’s intention and which are later noise.

Key terms

• Agogic accent vs dynamic accent — two distinct things Chopin notated distinctly: > (short) for a louder dynamic, the long accent sign for an expressive stress that lengthens the note; sf/fz for dynamic force.
• Agogic rubato — accented notes lengthened at the expense of neighbours, so the bar’s time is redistributed rather than lost.
• Compensatory system — a dot shortening one value while an accent lengthens another within the same figure, keeping the total intact.
• Portando — Chopin’s notated carrying/lengthening indication, distinguished from the legato slur and from the détaché dot; the “dagger” sign marks a dry staccato.
• Ornamental variant — an alternative embellished reading of a passage, transmitted through pupils’ scores rather than the printed text.
• Tempo rubato (Baroque sense) — the flexible declamatory delivery that bel canto ornamentation entails, as opposed to a metrical distortion.
• Pianistic declamation — Eigeldinger’s name for what the Nocturnes were meant to teach; he calls it the keystone of Chopin’s teaching.
• Annotated pupil scores — Stirling, Dubois, Jędrzejewicz, Zaleska-Rosengardt, Scherbatoff, Könneritz, Rubio: printed copies bearing Chopin’s own (or later) hand.
• Concordance — the same marking appearing independently in several unrelated pupils’ scores; Eigeldinger’s main criterion for promoting a reading from “variant” to “the composer’s will”.
• OFE / OGE / CW / K — original French edition, original German edition, the Polish Complete Works, Kobylańska’s catalogue: the reference apparatus against which every claim is checked.
• Ossia — an alternative easier reading; Chopin supplied one in the Dubois score of a Nocturne for small hands.
• Jeu sentimentalisé — Chopin’s own pejorative for the sentimentalised playing his most popular pieces attracted.

Propositions

1. Chopin’s two accent signs are semantically different and must not be conflated: reinforcing a dynamic accent with an agogic lengthening (or vice versa) misreads the text, however common the practice.
2. Chopin’s editing is at its most minutely detailed in the Mazurkas — agogic punctuation, dynamics and articulation are specified there with a precision he applies nowhere else.
3. The rhythmic ambiguity of the Mazurkas is deliberate and notated, not a performer’s licence: the accented second beat plus lengthening of the first produces, on purpose, a floating impression of duple time.
4. The scarcity of written-out ornaments in the Mazurkas (only five survive) reflects taste and genre economy, not a limit on ornamentation as a practice; the Nocturnes could carry luxuriant embellishment, the Mazurkas could not.
5. Ornamental variants are ad libitum, not fixed text — proved by the fact that near-identical versions of the same passage appear in independent pairs of sources while other versions differ freely.
6. A marking’s authority rises with concordance across unrelated owners’ scores: a cut or an added dynamic appearing in four different pupils’ copies must reflect Chopin’s will even when no edition prints it.
7. Modern critical editions systematically under-report the pupils’ scores: Eigeldinger repeatedly notes that Henle follows only the first editions, that Mikuli reports none of a given set of corrections, and that Kobylańska’s catalogue missed items outright.
8. Chopin refused to separate technical agility from cultivation of touch — his refusal to let a technically adequate pupil play a piece he loved shows the two as a single competence, each invalid without the other.
9. Teaching in this tradition is transmission by ear and lineage, not by text: Mickiewicz could tell that Fontana, Chopin’s own copyist, had never absorbed Chopin’s playing, while Czartoryska had.
10. Chopin varied his own interpretations from occasion to occasion, so any attempt to fix a single authentic tempo or reading from a single witness rests on unstable ground.
11. Chopin withheld certain works from publication precisely because he foresaw how they would be played; the private waltzes were gifts to a circle of initiates, protected from public sentimentalisation.

Arguments

On accents (note 172, pp. 214-215). The argument runs from notation to performance. Chopin sometimes marks both sf and > on the same note or beat — an act that would be redundant if the two signs meant the same thing. Eigeldinger lists bar numbers in the Mazurkas op. 6 where this doubling occurs, then adduces Jan Ekier’s Wiener Urtext prefaces for the short/long accent distinction, then adds an independent proof: the long accent appears over seven consecutive notes in op. 6/2 bars 29-30, and when that same melodic line returns at bars 69-70 it is marked portando — a lengthening indication. Two independent lines therefore converge on the long accent meaning duration, not volume. He closes with a compensatory-system reading of op. 24/1 bars 17-32, where dots shorten and accents lengthen inside the same figure.

On the scarcity of Mazurka ornaments (note 173, pp. 215-216). Eigeldinger raises an objection against his own source (Koczalski’s claim), then declines to resolve it statistically. The genre argument does the work: the Mazurkas’ restricted frame and Chopin’s purity of taste ruled out Nocturne-style luxuriance. He then offers three non-exclusive explanations for the absence of written ornaments — improvisatory character would be corrupted, Chopin kept them to himself, or he trusted gifted pupils to reproduce them by ear — and refuses to choose between them.

On the fifteen variants of the Nocturne op. 9/2 (note 184, pp. 219-221). Method first: he traces the Peters cadenza back through Scholtz’s preface to Mlle de Könneritz’s Chopin-corrected scores, so the variant acquires a provenance rather than just a printing. Then the count: fifteen known variants for this one Nocturne. Then the inference from pairing — five passages each appear in near-identical form in two independent sources — which he reads as evidence of ad libitum status rather than of a fixed authentic text. Then two compatible motives for the unusual richness: distancing the piece from Field’s influence, and arming it against the salon players whose enthusiasm had begun to irritate him.

On dating the Nocturne op. 15/3 (note 187, pp. 222-223). A model of refusing an attractive conclusion. The Hamlet anecdote cannot be confirmed from sources because no autograph preserves the first page. Chopin did see Hamlet in Warsaw in 1830, but the sketch’s physical evidence — sharing a double sheet with a sketch for the Etude op. 10/9, inscribed Paris — dates the piece to 1832 or early 1833, so the Warsaw performance is excluded. Eigeldinger then builds a circumstantial alternative (Berlioz, Harriet Smithson as Ophelia, Paris performances of January 1833) and stops: “There is no confirming evidence, but the chronological coincidence is remarkable.” He extends the same restraint to the music itself, offering a Hamlet-like reading of the fragmented opening soliloquy while explicitly disclaiming any programme, “a procedure Chopin had no time for”.

On the tempo of the Polonaises (note 194, pp. 228-229). Pozniak’s claim (count in quavers) is uncorroborated by any other source, so Eigeldinger weighs it by lineage instead: Pozniak inherited it via Czartoryska and Mikuli in Lwów, which lends it weight without proving it. He then substitutes something checkable — a tally of tempo headings across the eight Polonaises published with opus numbers in Chopin’s lifetime (two maestoso, two allegro maestoso, op. 26/1 allegro appassionato, op. 40/1 allegro con brio, op. 22 allegro molto for decorative reasons) — and concludes only what the tally supports: a tempo suited to their majestic character.

On the four-bar trill in the Waltz op. 64/1 (note 202, pp. 231-232). The Dubois score’s pencilled 4 mesures and tr admit two readings: the bars are worth a trill, or they are preceded by four bars of trill. Eigeldinger prefers the second on structural grounds — Chopin’s habitual four-plus-four construction in the Waltzes, plus the four-bar trill already present at bars 70-77 of the same piece and the eight-bar introductory trill of op. 42. He then registers the counter-evidence honestly: the indication appears in none of the four complete autographs, nor Mikuli, nor Pugno. Michałowski, a Mikuli pupil, does play the trill on record.

Evidence

• Notation, checkable in the scores. Doubled sf + > in Mazurkas op. 6/1 (bars 42-54 even), op. 6/2 bar 40, op. 6/4 (bars 4, 8, 16, 20, 24). Long accent over seven notes, op. 6/2 bars 29-30, answered by portando at bars 69-70. Alternating agogic accents producing duple metre: op. 6/3 bars 2-4, op. 68/3 bars 35-6, op. 24/1 bars 17-32. The staccato “dagger” survives in the autograph of op. 63/1 (F-Pn).
• Annotated pupil scores. A cut from bar 87 to bar 110 present in the Stirling, Dubois, Jędrzejewicz and Zaleska-Rosengardt scores — four unrelated owners, no edition reporting it except CW partially. Dynamics in a Nocturne (note 189): added pp at bar 26 in all three of Stirling, Dubois and Jędrzejewicz, printed diminuendo at bar 45 deleted in all three and replaced by cresc in two, fff/ff at bar 46, pp at bar 50 — all in Chopin’s own hand, all ignored by Henle. In op. 26/2’s last bar the printed ppp becomes fff (Stirling) and ff (Jędrzejewicz).
• Ornament realisation instructions. The Dubois score specifies that trills in a Nocturne begin on the lower auxiliary, and that appoggiaturas sound simultaneously with the bass; it also has les 2 mains written twice in two different hands over bass octaves, and an ossia simplification at bar 70 for small hands.
• Chopin’s teaching marks. Lenz reports the pencil cross: when satisfied with a pupil’s performance Chopin marked a cross under the spot. Eigeldinger uses this to correct the Henle Kritischer Bericht, which had misread such a cross in the Dubois score as a cut of the final bar’s first two beats.
• Corrections in Chopin’s own pencil. Mme Rubio’s manuscript copy of bars 9-12 of op. 26/2, annotated corrigé ♮ par le crayon de Chopin même dans mon cahier — an object Kobylańska’s catalogue does not list.
• Early recordings as evidence. Koczalski performing Mikuli’s eight variants for op. 9/2; Pugno’s own 1905 Welte-Mignon roll of op. 15/2 used against Pugno’s editorial 4/8 proposal; Michałowski’s three recordings of op. 64/1 with the introductory trill, the last verging on café-concert.
• Contemporary witness to Chopin’s playing. Meyerbeer’s diary, 21 October 1839: Chopin played new Mazurkas and “that sublime [himmlisch] piece with the A♭s”. Moscheles present at the same evening; Chopin wrote out the coda in Moscheles’s album. Heller’s report that the A minor Waltz was Chopin’s own favourite. Lenartowicz’s account of Mickiewicz preferring Czartoryska to Fontana.
• Folk and liturgical sources. The middle section of op. 20 quotes the Polish Christmas carol Lulajże Jezuniu; the introductory figures of opp. 64/1 and 34/3 derive from Oberek melodic forms.
• Negative evidence handled explicitly. No autograph of the first page of op. 15/3; no traced source for Coeuroy’s Mathias-derived tempo claim; the figuration Lenz and Gutmann both claim for the op. 9/2 cadenza appears in no traced annotated score.

Quotes

“In general, Chopin’s musical editing is nowhere as constantly detailed as in the Mazurkas, where agogic punctuation, dynamics and articulation are indicated with extreme precision.” (p. 214)

“There is reason, therefore, to respect the distinction, and not automatically to reinforce a dynamic accent by an agogic one, as all too often happens.” (p. 214)

“Notated so precisely, this example gives a graphic idea of the deliberate rhythmic ambiguities which Chopin implanted in his Mazurkas.” (p. 215)

“With only a few exceptions, Chopin did not see fit to write down these ornaments: perhaps he felt it would corrupt their improvisatory character; perhaps he wanted to keep these light ornaments to himself; or perhaps he trusted his more gifted students to be able to reproduce them by ear.” (p. 216)

“all the other ornaments have in common the bel canto style, their performance consequently entailing tempo rubato as understood and practised in the Baroque era.” (p. 220)

“Given their complexity, it is not surprising that Chopin’s pupils noted down these ornaments (or that he wrote them into their scores).” (p. 220)

“since it was in the salons that his Nocturne too often ran the risk of being, in his own word, sentimentalisé.” (p. 221)

“Notes are mere notes, but music lives by whoever reads the notes, and you can hear at once if someone is just spelling out ABC or really speaking” (p. 224)

“These two special cases illustrate all the importance which Chopin attached to the study of his Nocturnes, with a view to the learning of pianistic declamation, the keystone of his teaching.” (p. 225)

“this version may be considered as an ossia, for small hands that would have difficulty playing the passage legato without stiffening or hindering the crossing of parts” (p. 226)

“Chopin’s reaction also demonstrates his refusal to dissociate technical agility from the cultivation of touch, the one being invalid without the other.” (p. 228)

“a fine specimen of Chopin’s logic, following the melody’s pendular movement and ensuring a perfect equality of tone, with the thumb on each minim” (p. 230)

“Never let the wrist fall on the last repeated chord in the bass” (p. 232)

“As for the little Waltz which I have had the pleasure of writing for you, please, I beg you, keep it for yourself: I should not like it to be made public” (p. 233)

Tensions and links

• Written text vs living tradition. The notes simultaneously argue that Chopin notated with extreme precision and that the essential things passed by ear. Mickiewicz’s verdict on Fontana — the man who copied Chopin’s manuscripts for five years yet never absorbed his playing — is the sharpest statement of the gap between the two channels.
• Concordance as authority, and its limit. Eigeldinger promotes a reading to “the composer’s will” when independent pupils’ scores agree, yet he also demonstrates that unrelated hands added markings to those same scores (the 4 mesures/tr in Dubois, the i due Ped. in Jędrzejewicz, the l.h. fingerings in Dubois) and that Chopin varied his own interpretations occasion to occasion. Concordance is therefore strong but not decisive, and he does not fully theorise where the threshold sits.
• Variants as freedom or as text. The ad libitum reading (ornaments are optional, improvisatory) sits uneasily beside the practice of collecting, publishing and cataloguing them as authentic Chopin. The op. 9/2 argument goes further and suggests Chopin used difficult ornaments partly as a filter against mediocre players — a defensive rather than expressive motive.
• Interpretation vs programme. He allows himself a Hamlet reading of op. 15/3 and a Slavic-supernatural reading of a Mazurka (via George Sand’s account of Chopin among ghosts), while insisting Chopin had no time for programmes. He marks the tension rather than dissolving it.
• Editorial scholarship on trial. Henle, Mikuli, Kobylańska, CW, Cortot, Peters, Pugno and Scholtz are each caught omitting or misreading something. Note 180’s correction of the Henle Kritischer Bericht (a pencil cross read as a cut) is the emblematic case: a teaching mark mistaken for a textual instruction.
• Links: this material is the apparatus for the Nocturne, Mazurka, Polonaise and Waltz discussions in the main text; the fingering and touch principles connect forward to the appendices on Chopin’s Projet de méthode and the annotated scores, and back to the earlier notes on portando (pp. 113-15, note 82) and Oberek rhythm (pp. 145-6, note 169).

Open questions

1. Section boundary correction — this unit covers no appendix material. PDF pages 214-233 are entirely the closing stretch of the editorial Notes section: the continuation of note 172 (Mazurka accentuation) through note 206 (the private Waltzes), followed by one unnumbered footnote on Mme Mauté and Debussy that ends the apparatus. PDF page 234 contains only the “OceanofPDF.com” watermark and is otherwise blank. The word “Appendix” appears nowhere in this range as a heading — only as a cross-reference inside the notes, and those cross-references point forward: note 184 (p. 221) refers to Appendix III below at pp. 257-61, and note 191 (pp. 225-226) refers to Appendix III below at pp. 264-6. So in the book’s own pagination the appendices sit at roughly pp. 250-270, well after the “List of Chopin’s pupils” that begins at PDF page 235. Conclusion: Appendix I (“Sketch for a method”) and Appendix II (“Annotated scores”) are not in pages 184-234 at all; the coordinator’s structural scan was wrong, and the pipeline still needs a unit assigned to the appendices somewhere after PDF page 235. Whoever was assigned pages 184-213 will have found the same thing.
2. Eigeldinger’s criterion of concordance is applied case by case; how many independent pupils’ scores must agree, and does agreement in a hand that is not Chopin’s ever count?
3. Several markings are explicitly “not in Chopin’s hand” yet are preserved and discussed. What status do pupils’ own annotations have as evidence of what Chopin told them — a record of the lesson, or of the pupil’s misunderstanding?
4. If Chopin deliberately withheld ornaments so gifted pupils would supply them by ear, what does a modern performer without that oral lineage owe the text — the bare printed version, or a reconstructed ornamentation?
5. The distinction between short and long accent rests substantially on Ekier’s editorial reading plus one corroborating instance. How securely can the two signs be separated across the whole corpus, given engraving inconsistency?
6. Chopin’s own variability of interpretation is invoked to dismiss a doubtful tradition (Coeuroy/Mathias) but not to relativise traditions Eigeldinger accepts. What distinguishes a variant reading that counts as authentic latitude from one that counts as unreliable testimony?