Le edizioni delle musiche, dei facsimili e dell’epistolario di Fryderyk Chopin

What is the state of editions of Chopin’s music? What criteria characterise the two “new” opera omnia series of his music? Has our knowledge of his creative process improved compared to the past? What has been done so far to make his musical autographs accessible to scholars and performers? And what about the first editions of his works? Has our knowledge of his writings (letters, diaries, annotations on the scores) improved with respect to the past? These are the main questions posed by this article, which critically reviews publishing initiatives and research projects dedicated to Chopin’s figure and work on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth and is now presented in an updated version. The drafting of this sort of report on the state of health not only of research on the great Polish composer, but especially of [the?]* editions of his music, turned into an opportunity to reflect once more on the importance of the study of sketches and preparatory materials for the purpose of understanding the modus operandi of a composer whose creative process subsisted on the fertile alternation between rhapsodic improvisations and continuous and exhausting revisions of the sketches and early drafts of his compositions. A further theme addressed in the following pages is the need to develop critical editions of the composer’s works based on a systematic collatio and, above all, on a complete recensio of the currently known primary sources, for the benefit of interpreters and listeners, but also of those who intend to subject Chopin’s production to new analytical investigations today, which cannot but rest on solid and critically reliable texts.