The Complete Chopin – A New Critical Edition from Edition Peters isfirmly established as the most important ongoing scholarly edition of Chopin’smusic and is a must for any discerning pianist. The world’s foremost Chopineditors, under Editor-in-chief John Rink, bring their unrivalled collectiveknowledge to imbue the project with unique authority, drawing upon the latestinternational scholarship. The Complete Chopin prioritizes the needs of thepractical pianist and provides a beautifully presented performing text of eachwork based on a single principal source together with important variants,along with thorough critical commentaries and illuminating prefatory essays inEnglish, French and German.EditionPeters is now delighted to present Roy Howat’s new edition for The CompleteChopin of Chopin’s Trois Nouvelles Études. Originally published in 1840 in themulti-composer Méthode des Méthodes the Trois Nouvelles Études are Chopin’sleast overtly virtuoso studies, but arguably they are the most quietlysophisticated of all in terms of how they train the pianist’s sensitivity tosound, rhythm and texture. Debussy once said he had ‘worn his fingers down’playing the second of them. After 180 years it seems extraordinary that newdetails can still be found in the pieces, but Howat’s edition prints some forthe first time, notably a number of melodic variants in the first Etude, plusnotes in the second Etude that all previous editions ‘bowdlerized’. Actingliterally as a pivot in the second Etude’s structure, these authentic notes –sensitively restored here – alter our perception of the music’s texture andvoicing just as the piece takes wing on one of Chopin’s most breathtakingstrings of modulation. The edition also confirms some authentic fingeringstill unfamiliar to most pianists, including whimsical thumb ‘hops’ down theblack keys at the end of the third Etude. In keeping with the editorialprocedure of this series, the edition is based on a principal source, themanuscript Chopin carefully prepared for his friend Moscheles; in addition,some changes that Chopin introduced after publication feature here asvariants, allowing pianists to choose options in performance in full awarenessof where they come from. Authoritativecritical edition based on Chopin’s autograph restores Chopin’s original textand corrects important pitches wrongly presented in previouseditions Includesonly Chopin’s authenticfingerings Variantsclearly presented as ossias within the main text of eachEtude Prefaceby Roy Howat in English, French andGerman ThoroughcriticalcommentaryTheComplete Chopin is based on two key premises. First, there can be nodefinitive version of Chopin’s works: variants form an integral part of themusic. Second, a permissive conflation of readings from several sources – ineffect producing a version of the music that never really existed – should beavoided. Accordingly, the editors’ procedure is to identify a single principalsource for each work and to prepare an edition of that source (which theyregard as ‘best’, even if it cannot be definitive). At the same time,important variants from other authorized sources are reproduced eitheradjacent to or, in certain instances, within the main music text, in footnotesor in the Critical Commentary, thus enabling scholarly comparison andfacilitating choice in performance. Multiple versions of whole works arepresented when differences between the sources are so abundant or fundamentalthat they go beyond the category of ‘variant’.
