Chopin's Bb minor sonata: 150 year error

[faulty_damper]

I am wondering what you think about the repeat sign at bar 4 in the first movement.  It's found in virtually all current editions including Henle and Paderewski.  The original French and London editions got it right, except for the German one.  Even the Paderewski edition includes a copy of the first page of the manuscript and there is no repeat sign!  This error has been contained in virtually all editions for 150 years.

This repeat is clearly wrong.  Virtually all recordings, after the exposition, repeats at bar 4 even though harmonically it sounds wrong.  The last harmony at the end of the exposition is a dominant of Db.  A dominant of Db should lead to Db, not Bb minor at bar 4.  If repeated at the beginning, then the harmony would resolve, but the repeat at bar 4, doesn't.

I tried telling my friend about this because she was learning it but she was skeptical saying that the repeat is there so one should repeat there, not the beginning.  She also didn't think the dominant of Db needed to resolve to Db.  Bb minor sounds fine to her and she, and I assume many others, prefer it to go to Bb minor!  I even told her about the manuscript but still she was skeptical.

What do you think about this?  I know the teachers at my school, especially the self-appointed Chopin expert, would have a pompous field day.

[mrdaveux]

Hi there. Sorry I just saw your post... a bit late.

I agree that harmonically it makes more sense to repeat from the 1st bar.

Charles Rosen wrote something about it I don't remember where, but he said pretty much that the autograph of the sonata in Warsaw shows that the repeat sign applies to the first bar and not the fifth. I haven't seen the autograph, so either you trust Rosen (who is usually pretty accurate) or you fly to Poland to check yourself...

This nonsense repeat sign might be the cause that so many pianists just ignore the repeat and just right into the development (Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Samson etc.).

[desordre]

 Dear Faulty:
 There's nothing wrong about a Bbm following a Ab7. Never heard about deceptive cadence? Furthermore, it's usual in sonata form movements a big step backwards doing the repetion of part A. When you have a minor mode movement, the most common is to end the exposition in the relative (what is the case in this sonata: Ab7 is the dominant of Db).
 However, it's nothing wrong too about repeating from the beggining, or ignoring the repetition. If you have a repeat sign at m. 1 or at m.5 is up to the original source (Chopin manuscript) and, given this enlightment, it could not be considered the other way. But about doing or not the repeat sign is upon the performer.
 Best wishes!

[rebyan]

Uchida's recording has the repeated exposition from Bar 1. 

[counterpoint]

A third possibility would be to repeat from bar 9 - exactly where the first theme begins. And that would correlate to how the 1st movement continues after the repeat mark (then with the theme in the bass region)

[pianowolfi]

I have a polish "national edition" urtext edited by Jan Ekier from 1995. There is no repeat sign from bar 4. You have to repeat from the beginning. i think that this first motiv is important. Not only because I see a hidden relation to Beethovens op. 111 here but because this motif plays a role later in that movement, in the beginning of the development section. So it is not only introduction.

[ramseytheii]

With Chopin scholarship, it is always not so easy as looking at the manuscript.  He notoriously hated writing music down, was rather lazy about it, and also, was notorious for not wanting to deal with publishers questions.  When the publishers had two copies of one piece with substantial differences, and asked him how he wanted it to be, he responded, "I don't give a damn what you publish."
So just do what you think is right, whether it be repeating from the first bar, or skipping it altogether.  After all, we have to respect the composers intentions! >

Walter Ramsey

[faulty_damper]

Dear Faulty:
 There's nothing wrong about a Bbm following a Ab7. Never heard about deceptive cadence? Furthermore, it's usual in sonata form movements a big step backwards doing the repetion of part A. When you have a minor mode movement, the most common is to end the exposition in the relative (what is the case in this sonata: Ab7 is the dominant of Db).
 However, it's nothing wrong too about repeating from the beggining, or ignoring the repetition. If you have a repeat sign at m. 1 or at m.5 is up to the original source (Chopin manuscript) and, given this enlightment, it could not be considered the other way. But about doing or not the repeat sign is upon the performer.
 Best wishes!

"Modulating" into B-flat minor is not a deceptive cadence.  There is no such cadence in this instance.  In order for it to be deceptive, the harmonic motion must still lead to the resolution (d-flat).  And what occurs (repeat at m.5) is impossible; B-flat minor is clearly the tonic, not part of a deceptive cadential motion.

[captain cook]

It's kinda same question as about repeating the theme when going from the first book of Brahms-Paganini to the second.

Pianowolfi, I wouldn't trust Jan Ekier, he's very old and famous for being weird, plus look at what he did in Chopin's E-Minor Concerto. Do you like the C-Sharps instead of Cs? It's not in the autograph either...

Ramseytheii, totally agree with you. We have to take into consideration the composers' character and then what are we left with- our heart and intuition developed on hopefully good traditions.

Cheers.

[kriskicksass]

Pianowolfi, I wouldn't trust Jan Ekier, he's very old and famous for being weird, plus look at what he did in Chopin's E-Minor Concerto. Do you like the C-Sharps instead of Cs? It's not in the autograph either...

Don't doubt Ekier. They ask you to learn from Ekier or Paderewski scores for the Chopin competition in Warsaw. Add that to the fact that he's the editor of the Polish National Edition, and his word is basically gospel.

[pianowolfi]

Finally i would let my ear decide. But thanks to faulty_damper. Without him bringing this up I wouldn't have noticed that there are different options.