ABSTRACT
Chopin’s works were almost always published simultaneously in three cities, Paris, Berlin, and London, and both the French and German editions are wrong. Unfortunately modern editors rely mostly on these two editions—somewhat irrationally, as Chopin did not like to read proof and often left the correction of even the Paris version to friends and students. The development may make one of Chopin’s most disconcerting statements less paradoxical. Delacroix, in his diary, reported that Chopin protested against the school of musicians who believed that the charm of music lay in its sound, its sonority. The opposition between structure and sonority in music is almost as misleading as that between line and color in the visual arts. The lyricism and the dramatic shock in his music are equally indebted to this craft. This is the true paradox of Chopin: he is most original in his use of the most traditional technique.
