The term musical notation encompasses all the marks, graphic symbols, verbal indications, etc. used by Chopin in his autographs. The notion of Chopin’s notation includes in particular the specific features of the composer’s musical script. Musical notation may also be understood as the entirety of the signs used in print by editors of Chopin’s works.

Chopin researchers, such as J. Ekier, W. Nowik, and J. Kallberg, used several criteria for the classification of autographs, such as intended purpose and appearance. Basically, autographs can be divided into sketches, fair copies (in their non-final or final version) and manuscripts serving as keepsakes for friends and acquaintances. The notation of sketches is unofficial, private, and shows the features that become much more conventionalized at the stage of fair copies following the rules of classical notation. Sketches represent the abbreviated, simplified, imprecise and disorderly way of writing, while fair copies are neat and complete, particularly those meant to be used as base texts for further copies or print. An intermediate form is represented by autographs in their non-final version (first redactions), although the boundaries between those categories are not clear-cut. Even Stichvorlage autographs and hand-written copies authorized by Chopin contain – apart from corrected fragments – deletions, new corrections and additions. Sketches are less useful for the determination of the final musical text, yet they are a richer source of knowledge about the creative process itself and the composer’s invention. They also capture the atmosphere in which a given work was written: haste, hesitation, spontaneity. They do not usually contain performance markings, rarely contain pedal markings, slurring or fingering (particularly in technically difficult figurations). In sketches for many works one can see ink blots and there are some hasty lines on the margins made when starting a pen.

Individual features of Chopin’s notation include verbal indications, letter or digit markings, graphic markings or mixed markings (i.e. combinations of the above). Some examples taken from a large number of verbal indications may be the following: ‘as at the beginning’, ‘up to here’, ‘like the second one’ (working autograph of Trio in G minor), ‘this should be sung in G’ (in a sketch of the My Enchantress song), ‘lower’ (sketch of Sonata in G minor Op. 65); tempo and character markings, for example: ‘In the peasant style, but not cheerful’ (autograph of The Messenger song); marking note pitch with letters e.g. d, es, ut, si (sketches of My Enchantress, Polonaise-Fantasy in A major Op. 61, Sonata in G minor Op. 65). In sketches of many works, subsequent variants are notated as 2gi [2nd], 3ci [3rd], verbal indications of the key appear, e.g. Fmajor, instead of accidentals. When sketching a piece of his music, Chopin used sparse, economical and reduced notation, often resorting to signs that helped him write things down quickly and facilitate transformations (such as | for repeating a chord, / for repeating a bar,  \   /  for repeating a quaver figure, \\   //  for repeating a semiquaver figure and many others). A typical device is marking the repeated fragments of works with digits or letters written into empty bars, with the same digits or letters previously used to mark certain fragments on their first appearance in the text.

The issue of chronological changes in Chopin’s notation may be viewed from two different perspectives: 1. evolution of notation in a single work – from the sketch to the fair copy and 2. evolution of Chopin’s handwriting throughout his creative lifetime. The first type of research is hindered by the fact that few autographs have survived, and many have been lost, destroyed or scattered. Only a complete set of sources for a given work could offer a full picture of the evolution of Chopin’s notation and the course of the creative process. The second aspect, i.e. changes in graphic elements of Chopin’s musical notation occurring over time, was analysed by J. Ekier, who took it into consideration in his research on the chronology of Chopin’s works. One of the changing features was, for instance, the way of putting note stems in relation to note heads.

Chopin was very concerned about the fate of his manuscripts, which were created – according to his contemporaries – in two stages, of which the first was a hectic outburst of invention, spontaneous inspiration, and the second was tedious elaboration of details, slow approach towards the final version of the work. However, the final shape of a composition is sometimes difficult to capture, as there are cases when Chopin made later redactions of his works on first editions, and also instances of writing variants in lesson copies. In a letter to J. Fontana dated 18 October 1841 Chopin wrote about his manuscript of Allegro de Concert: ‘For God’s sake, take care of my manuscript and don’t crumple or soil it or tear it (things you cannot avoid doing, but I must write about it for I do so love the tedious things I write). Get on with the copying out. […] I’d not like to give this spidery scrawl to any clumsy copyist. If I had to write these 18 pages out again, I’d go mad. Above all, don’t crumple the pages!!!’. Chopin’s chief →copyists, J. Fontana and A. Gutmann, were highly competent musicians, yet copies made by them still contain certain deviations from the originals that they were copying.

Chopin’s notation is one of the main problems of musical editing and it has a direct impact on establishing the final shape and graphic representation of the musical text in the editions of Chopin’s works.

Literature:

• Peter Wackernagel, Handschriften Chopins, Chopin-Almanach, Leipzig 1949, p. 125-133
• Oswald Jonas, On the Study of Chopin’s Manuscripts, Chopin-Jahrbuch 1956, p. 142-155.
• J. Ekier, Wstęp do Wydania Narodowego Dzieł Fryderyka Chopina, Warszawa 1974.
• Jeffrey Kallberg, O klasyfikacji rękopisów Chopina, Rocznik Chopinowski 1985 no. 17, p. 63-96.
• Wojciech Nowik, Notacja muzyczna Fryderyka Chopina – jej kształt, specyfika i funkcja, Rocznik Chopinowski 1987 no. 19, p. 93-103.
• J. Ekier, Ostateczny tekst czy ostateczne teksty Chopina? Zagadnienie wariantów, Rocznik Chopinowski 1988 no. 20, p. 148-157.
• W. Nowik, Od szkicu do tekstu ostatecznego, Rocznik Chopinowski 1988 no. 20, p. 157-161.
• M. Tomaszewski, Słowne oznaczenia charakteru, tempa i ekspresji. Zmienność w trakcie procesu twórczego, Rocznik Chopinowski 1988 no. 20, p. 165-169.
• Ewald Zimmermann, Harmoniczna ambiwalencja i trudności w ustalaniu ostatecznego tekstu, Rocznik Chopinowski 1988 no. 20, p. 161-165.