User Guide

• Contents
• Using CFEO
• Publication histories
• Source descriptions
• Publisher sigla
• Library sigla
• Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Bibliography

Both the Annotated Catalogue of Chopin's First Editions and the material derived from it in CFEO are based on accepted bibliographic conventions which have sometimes been adapted to suit the documentation in question. To gain maximum benefit from CFEO, users should consult the Annotated Catalogue, which provides detailed information about the criteria used to classify individual scores, the modes of description that have been employed, key terminology etc. The following discussion outlines the types of source information provided under that heading for each edition in the CFEO resource, divided into the following categories:

Publisher

The names of publishers within the source descriptions (and also on the Search page) have been standardised where necessary and may not correspond exactly to their presentation in given scores. This is because of the variable formats adopted by some publishers, e.g. Friedrich Hofmeister, whose name appears as 'Fred. Hofmeister' on the title page of Op. 1 (second German edition), 'Fréd. Hofmeister' on the title page of Op. 5 (German first edition), and as 'Fredéric [sic] Hofmeister' on the title page of Op. 51 (German first edition). Comparison between the source description and the relevant edition is therefore essential. See Historical background for general information about Chopin's publishers, along with the list of publishers of Chopin's music and associated sigla.

Place of publication

The name of the city in which each edition was published appears in its English form in the source descriptions – e.g. 'Mainz' instead of 'Mayence' (Polonaise in G-flat major, German first edition), 'Kiev' instead of 'Kijów' (Dwa Śpiewy, i.e. Two Songs, Polish first edition). Standardisation has occurred where necessary, as shown in the list provided on the Search page of the CFEO site.

Publication title

A shortened version of the title as published is usually given, but in a form that does not necessarily conform to its appearance in the relevant edition. CFEO does not provide quasi-facsimile transcriptions like those in the Annotated Catalogue , which makes use of specially designed typographical characters unavailable on standard web browsers. Furthermore, the short-title formats in CFEO's source descriptions do not preserve italics, small capitals or certain other typographical features, nor are line divisions or respective positions of blocks of text identified. Comparison with relevant title-page images and with the transcriptions in the Annotated Catalogue will therefore be necessary to gain the most accurate understanding of the published titles of the Chopin first editions.

By way of comparison, the title of the German first edition of the Preludes Op. 28 is given in CFEO under Source information as 'Vingt-quatre Préludes pour le Piano, Op. 28', whereas the quasi-facsimile transcription in the Annotated Catalogue appears as follows (in which | indicates a line break, while « and » denote respective positions on the line):

Vingt-quatre | PRÉLUDES | pour le Piano | dédiés à son ami | J. C. KESSLER | par | FRÉD. CHOPIN. | Oeuvre 28. « Propriété des Editeurs. » Pr. 2 Rthlr. | Leipsic, chez Breitkopf & Härtel. | Paris, chez Pleyel & Co | 6088. | Enrégistré dans l'Archive de l'Union.

Dedicatee

The names of dedicatees have not been standardised; thus, in the German first edition of Op. 10, the dedicatee is shown in Book 1 as 'J. Liszt', and in Book 2 as 'F. Liszt'. (The search function automatically takes these differences into account by locating matches for any string of letters entered into the box.) There may however be minor differences between the name of the dedicatee as found under Source information and in the actual score, owing to the policy on typography described under Publication title. Most of the dedications in Chopin's first editions are located on title pages. A number of works lack any dedication. For some opuses the names of different dedicatees can be found in the respective editions brought out in France, Germany and England.

Series title and number

Summary details of the series in which individual editions were published are given in this field or, where relevant, under Information on subsequent reprints. (See the Annotated Catalogue for full details.) For example, Wessel's Complete Collection of the Compositions of Frederic Chopin for the Piano Forte encompassed all the Chopin works on the publisher's list after its launch in June 1840, which explains why Op. 38 and subsequent publications have only a series title page (although the latter changed considerably over time). As for the French and German first editions, various series were created over the years, e.g. by Brandus, which, in late 1859, created the Edition originale. Œuvres complètes pour le piano de Frédéric Chopin series for which the STP in question was used almost 30 years, in four versions mainly differentiated by changes in the firm's trading name.

Plate number

Footlines (which appear principally on the pages with music text) contain such information as the plate number and, on the first and last pages of many editions, the name and address of the publisher. The essential information about plate numbers is given in this field and can be searched in the relevant pane on a flexible basis, i.e. by any single character or groups thereof. See Publication title regarding CFEO's policy on the (approximate) transcription of typography, which is also applied in the case of plate numbers.

Publication date

Where relevant, the publication date listed under Source information is accompanied by an indication in round brackets of its provenance – i.e. a particular register (e.g. of the Bibliothèque nationale de France) or reference source (see Bibliography for details). Where it has been impossible to include a copy of the first impression in the CFEO resource because no such score has been located, the date of the CFEO exemplar is given with an explanatory note regarding the first impression's unavailability.

It should be noted that innumerable problems surround the dating of Chopin's first editions; the Annotated Catalogue explores these fully.

Printing method

The different methods used to produce each edition are detailed in this field. They include engraving, lithography and, in the case of printed material, movable type. For example, in the volume of Posthumous Works brought out in 1855 by A. M. Schlesinger, the series title page and preface were printed, the decorative plate lithographed, and the music text engraved.

Annotated Catalogue code

Each entry in the Annotated Catalogue is designated by an edition/impression code comprising the following elements:

These elements are separated in turn by a dash (en-rule) and a short hyphen (e.g. 30–1-Sm). The relevant Source information entry in CFEO shows the edition/impression code for each score in the Online Collection.

The codes of individual works from multipartite opuses or from editions originally published in two parts or 'books' (Opp. 9, 10, 25, 28, 32, 48) contain an oblique after the opus number followed by the number of the constituent work(s) in question – thus, '9/3' in the case of the Nocturne Op. 9 No. 3. Reference is made to more than one work of this type by means of an ampersand (for two pieces) or hyphen (for three or more); thus, '9/1&2' for Op. 9 Nos. 1 and 2. The first editions published by Chrząszcz, Friedlein and Kocipiński without opus number are designated by codes comprising the opus numbers by which the constituent pieces are commonly known. The same applies to the editions of the Deux Valses Mélancoliques respectively brought out by Wildt, Wessel and Ewer.

The examples below illustrate the coding system used in the Annotated Catalogue and, as relevant, in CFEO:

Contents

The contents of each edition/impression are described in the eponymous field, providing information about the number of leaves, the physical make-up of the score (e.g. wrappers, advertisements, music text, blanks etc.), the pagination and content on each page etc. Where the printed pagination begins with '1', any preceding pages without numbering are designated by lower-case roman numerals in square brackets; conversely, where the actual pagination starts with a number other than '1', bracketed arabic numerals up to the first printed page number are assigned to the unnumbered pages before it, with lower-case roman numerals again in square brackets being used for any shortfall. Unnumbered pages at the end are given arabic numerals in square brackets, following on from the last printed page number.

Multipartite opuses have contents listings broken down by constituent pieces, in most cases showing the relevant key. Where multiple parts exist, i.e. in the case of chamber and orchestral works, these are detailed either in a consecutive list following on from the piano part, or under separate headings.

Displayed copy

Bibliographic information about the displayed CFEO source is given first by specifying the siglum of the institution or collection where the source is located (see the list of library and other sigla), and then the shelfmark. It should be noted that for the works with orchestra, the solo part in CFEO generally does not come from the library that furnished images of the orchestral parts. (For example, for the Grande Polonaise Op. 22, CFEO provides images of the piano part held by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and of the orchestral parts held by the British Library). Similarly, 'composite' editions have sometimes been assembled because the principal source lacked one or more leaves; e.g. pp. 5 and 6 of the French first edition of the Polonaise Op. 44 were supplied by the University of Chicago, while the remaining images came from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Location of similar copies

Cross-references are given to known counterparts of each CFEO score; these take the form of the library siglum followed by the shelfmark (so, for the German first edition of Op. 13, the displayed copy is A-Wn: S.H. Chopin 52, with similar copies identified at D-Bds: Mus. 993 and PL-Wn: Mus.III.82.719.Cim). The contents of these 'similar copies' might not conform precisely to those of the CFEO source, in that they may have additional or fewer blank leaves, an original wrapper (or a wrapper of a different colour), and so on. However, the music text will be consistent across the cited copies. The Annotated Catalogue provides further information in all cases.

Information on subsequent reprints

Summary details of the later reprints of the Chopin first editions as well as new editions bearing original plate numbers appear within this field. Such information has been drawn from the Annotated Catalogue , which for each Chopin first edition attempts to provide a comprehensive survey of the various impressions that followed on from the first, and to indicate their distinctive features (including dimensions, stamps, other annotations to title pages etc.) as well as their respective shelfmarks in the institutions and collections that have been investigated. The CFEO resource itself provides essential information about, among other things, the physical structure of such scores, the date of release and/or commercial availability where known, the publisher (which may be a successor to the original one), the series title where relevant, and whether or not the title page was modified or the music text 'corrected' (i.e. changed, whether rightly or erroneously).