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Karasowski gives the date of the first complete edition of the Chopin works as 1846, with Gebethner & Wolff, Warsaw, as publishers. Then, according to Niecks, followed Tellefsen, Klindworth Bote & Bock Scholtz Peters Breitkopf & Hartel, Mikuli, Schuberth, Kahnt, Steingraber better known as Mertke's and Schlesinger, edited by the great pedagogue Theodor Kullak.
If Fontana, Wolff, Gutmann, Mikuli and Tellefsen, who copied from the original Chopin manuscripts under the supervision of the composer, cannot agree, then upon what foundation are reared the structures of the modern critical editions? The early French, German and Polish editions are faulty, indeed useless, because of misprints and errata of all kinds.
Xaver Scharwenka has edited Klindworth for the London edition of Augener & Co. Mikuli criticised the Tellefsen edition, yet both men had been Chopin pupils. This is a significant fact and shows that little reliance can be placed on the brave talk about tradition. Yet Mikuli had the assistance of a half dozen of Chopin's "favorite" pupils, and, in addition, Ferdinand Hiller.
Simon Richault, of Paris, the publisher of the first- named edition, which appeared in 1860, says in the preface to it that Tellefsen had in his possession a collection of the works of Chopin corrected by the composer's own hand. As to the violoncello part of the Polonaise, it was printed as Franchomme always played it with the composer.
He died of consumption, otherwise he would have become celebrated." I do not know in which year Gunsberg died. He was still alive on May 11, 1855. For on that day he played with his fellow-pupil Tellefsen, at a concert given by the latter in Paris, a duet of Schumann's.
The Klindworth reading of this troubled poem is the best though Kullak used Chopin's autographic copy. There is no metronomic sign in this autograph. Tellefsen gives 69 to the quarter; Klindworth, 60; Riemann, 69; Mikuli, the same; Von Bulow and Kullak, 60. Kullak also gives several variante from the text, adding an A flat to the last group in bar II. Riemann and the others make the same addition.
Riemann phrases the study with a multiplicity of legato bows and dynamic accents. Kullak prefers the Tellefsen metronome 80, rather than the traditional 96. Most of the others use 88 to the quarter, except Riemann, who espouses the more rapid gait of 96. Klindworth, with his 88, strikes a fair medium.
"The first comprehension of the piece," says Schumann, in speaking of the German edition of the Tarantella, "is, unfortunately, rendered very difficult by the misprints with which it is really swarming." Those who assisted Chopin in the work incident to publication more especially by copying his autographs were Fontana, Wolff, Gutmann, and in later years Mikuli and Tellefsen.
In his notes to the F major study Theodor Kullak expatiates at length upon his favorite idea that Chopin must not be played according to his metronomic markings. The original autograph gives 96 to the half, the Tellefsen edition 88, Klindworth 80, Von Bulow 89, Mikuli 88, and Riemann the same.
O'Meara, many Polish ladies of rank, Delphine Potocka among the rest, Madame Streicher, Carl Mikuli, Madame Rubio, Madame Peruzzi, Thomas Tellefsen, Casimir Wernik, Gustav Schumann, Werner Steinbrecher, and many others became excellent pianists. Was the American pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, ever his pupil? His friends say so, but Niecks does not mention him. Ernst Pauer questions it.
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