Chopin at the Source: Edition of Chopin’s Piano Concerto Scores for the 19th Chopin Competition

Fryderyk Chopin is the author of two piano concertos: the Concerto in E minor, Op. 11, and the Concerto in F minor, Op. 21. The first, chronologically, the Concerto in F minor, was written between 1829 and 1830. One manuscript has survived: the so-called semi-autograph Stichvorlage – a manuscript intended for the publisher – in which Chopin hand-wrote the piano part and some performance markings, while another copyist notated the instrumental parts; this manuscript is held in the National Library in Warsaw. The Concerto in F minor was published in 1836 by three publishers in close succession: by Breitkopf & Härtel in Germany, by Wessel & Co. in London, and by Maurice Schlesinger in Paris. 

The second in terms of composition date, but the first in terms of opus numbering, the Concerto in E minor was written in 1830. Unfortunately, there is no complete autograph of this composition – only an incomplete manuscript from Hans Wertisch’s collection, containing only unorchestrated fragments in a piano version, has survived to this day, as well as a copy of a fragment of the piano part of the second movement, held by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. The first editions of the Concerto in E minor were published in 1833 in Paris by Maurice Schlesinger and in Leipzig by Fr. Kistner. 

In conclusion, the earliest surviving versions of the arrangements of both works, closest to the composer’s own vision, are the semi-autograph Stichvorlage intended for publication by Breitkopf & Härtel – which served as the source for the remaining first editions – and the first editions of the Concerto in F minor and the first editions of the Concerto in E minor. 

Chopin sent his sheet music to three different publishers for financial reasons: this prevented them from reselling the material to each other, which would otherwise have been possible under the copyright law in force at the time. As a result, the sources of his music differ in certain notational details, due to errors, deliberate changes made by the composer himself, unauthorized modifications by publishers, and the proofreading process. Chopin was able to correct the French editions, which meant that he often sent the earliest manuscripts with the biggest number of crosses to the French publisher. From surviving accounts, it can be concluded that this process of refining an edition could be tedious and time-consuming, and the composer of the mazurkas was irritated by the arbitrary modifications introduced by the publishers, which he could no longer correct before printing. For this reason, the French first editions are considered to be closest to the composer’s intentions, as he supervised them until they left the printing presses. After Chopin’s death, numerous editions of his concertos were created, which incorporated modifications tailored to the changing tastes of the time, such as Johannes Brahms’s late-Romantic arrangement. In a similar vein, the National Edition, with original instrumentation changes by Professor Jan Ekier, was also devised. Today, these concertos are often performed from the sheet music published by the German publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel in 1879, and, according to the Competition organizers, this edition – with annotations by Professor Antoni Wit – is also the primary one used by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

One of the primary goals of the 1927 Chopin Competition was to restore the original text of his patron’s works, which led to the pre-war initiative of a new edition of the complete works (known as the ‘Paderewski Edition’), and after the war, a new source National Edition edited by Jan Ekier. While it is now considered standard practice for solo compositions to use one of the available editions based on Chopin’s original sources, for concertos this practice has not yet gained widespread acceptance and is employed particularly by ensembles playing period instruments, such as the {oh!} Orchestra led by Martyna Pastuszka. For this reason, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute launched an initiative to develop and make available to contemporary orchestras scores and orchestral parts that comply with current standards for preparing such materials, while also being based as closely as possible on the aforementioned primary sources – semi-autograph and first French editions – which Chopin himself wrote down, revised, and must have used.

In 2024, such an edition was prepared, and in early 2025, it was presented to the musicians of the Warsaw Philharmonic in connection with the finals of the National Chopin Piano Competition (February 1–9, 2025). The same materials were used by Sinfonia Iuventus in orchestral workshops organized jointly with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute for Polish participants in the 19th Chopin Competition, as well as by the Aukso Orchestra, conducted by Marek Moś, which accompanied soloists Dang Thai Son and Sophia Liu during the Chopin and His Europe festival. They were also used by the WarsawPhilharmonic Orchestra at a special concert organized as part of Chopin Week during the Osaka Expo, where soloists Krzysztof Jabłoński and Aimi Kobayashi were accompanied by the WFO under the baton of Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, eliciting applause from the Japanese audience and a standing ovation.

Presenting authentic Chopin instrumentation during the Chopin Competition offers an opportunity to disseminate the original sound among contemporary ensembles. In this way, one hundred years after the idea for the competition was formulated by its initiator, Professor Jerzy Żurawlew, one of its main goals can be fulfilled in actual performance practice.

This project also aligns with the long-standing strategy of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, which involves making the sources of Polish music freely available to artists, scholars, and music lovers, with the aim of reviving it for concert life and promoting it internationally. Over the past four years, at the dedicated portal http://polish.musicsources.pl we have shared over 25,000 musical sources and 8,000 digital transcriptions, and as part of the multi-year FERC program, there are plans to at least double this number.