The Nocturnes

Any attempt to produce an irreproachably authentic edition of Chopin’s works is beleaguered by the composer’s extreme reluctance to leave well alone. Even while he was preparing simultaneously the same works for publication in different countries he would alter and refine, so that, in his own lifetime, the various editions differed from each other in many details. Strangely, in such a fastidious perfectionist, he was an impatient and erratic proofreader and often delegated the task to his friend Fontana, who, himself, was far from impeccable in that respect. Still further problems are presented by the alterations he pencilled into the published copies of pupils, performers and friends. Rather than pepper the text with the entire array of differing versions, like some other editors, I have had to use my own judgment as to which was likely to have been most favoured by the composer and have drawn attention to alternatives in separate foot-notes. As source material I have relied mainly on the Wiener Urtext, the Henle Edition, the Oxford Edition and the Polish State Edition.

James Gibb