Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Something odd with my Chopin Impromptu 66 music sheet!

I am learning Chopin's Impromptu 66 'Fantasia' but there is a problem with the music sheet that I downloaded from the internet.
It seems that the music sheet has a 'different' version on one part. Here is a link to an image of page 4 of the Impromptu:

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The 'B' part is played differently in all the recordings of this piece I can find. In other words, when I listen to the professional recordings of this piece, the pianists all play part 'A' twice, not the 'B' version where the C note goes up one octive and there are extra notes in the scale. So is this music sheet version a modified one and not authentic? Can anyone familiar with this piece help? Thanks!

try the edition at sheetmusicarchives and several other sites .. maybe this will give you a clue.

I really don't know the score of this piece so I can't give you an answer sorry.

Alleycat :

Karl Klindworth, (1830-1916), who studied piano under Franz Liszt, did a complete critical edition of Chopin's works. In the Fantaisie Impromptu Op 66, this variant is sometimes included as emanating from the Klindworth edition. I don't know what Klindworth's source was for this. I have heard this variant performed on recording, but I'm hard pressed to remember who the performer was*. There is nothing "wrong" with the copy you have, but this variant is not often performed as it may not be - in the light of more modern recent research - part of the original sources for this composition. Klindworth and Klindworth/Scharwenka editions can be found for sale occasionally on eBay, but I haven't heard of any modern publisher issuing them.

Klindworth also adds a low Db octave "grace note" at the opening of the Largo arpeggio figures in measure 41.

*Edit : Moura Lympany evidently uses the Klindworth edition of this work. On her CD "Best-Loved Piano Classics" (EMI Laser Digital CDZ 7 62523 2, 1988) she plays both the low Db octave and the Klindworth variation in question at measure 72.

*Edit 2 : Martini Tirimo: "Masterpieces in Miniature" (Kingdom Records, CKLCD2003, 1987), also plays the Klindworth variants.

By the way, this passage doesn't appear in the two versions (the original and the Fontana) that are commonly in print. It's the Fontana, by the way, that almost everyone plays, and if a publisher publishes just one of the two versions, it's usually the Fontana version that's published.

Regards,

Thanks for that info Bruce!
I had a suspicion that it may have been an uncommon variation.

Ah, too bad its source is not clearer, as personally I like this variation and it appears very much in following with Chopin's style.

That's a different edition that the one most pianists play. Just replace the 2nd thing you circled with the first. Also I believe that edition you have has a slightly different closing chord at the end.

Oh and as far as what Bassio said, the edition at sheetmusicarchive is also the messed up version.