To anyone who has played this, and some other etudes perhaps, there dawns the problem of fingerings and pedal marks again. I've only looked at it more in depth recently since I almost completely disregard all fingerings on the score (not recommended to anyone but bad pianists!)

Whilst disregarding the latter (not as meticulous and perhaps pointless as in the Black keys etude) I really fail to understand the fingering marked at Bar 15 and perhaps recurring in the Db section (might be wrong from memory): this are the huge arpeggios beginning with octave leaps.

Naturally you'd play an octave leap with 1-5 then turn your hand (3 etc... with the arpeggio's shape), it would be mad to do it any other way. This is how I have played it for years and, considering Chopin's method insisting on a natural position where the hand is most at rest, it seems the only logical and pain-free way. But it's marked as 1-1 (little finger and little finger again at the octave!) Only the second note in the arpeggio is marked as 1 and hence the hasty but only plausible conclusion.

I've seen some performers on youtube and some do make that odd jump so I assume it isn't just my edition. What's the sense in that since it's much easier to do it the 'normal' way? Have never seen an octave played with the same finger in an arpeggio...

I can't help with your fingering problem - this piece is way beyond my capabilities - but I felt I had to mention the co-incidence that a pupil of mine who took the Prep Test yesterday had part of this piece played as part of his aural test! Perhaps you need to consult his examiner!

Hi, my edition (alfred) has 5-1 fingering. I assume you meant this rather than 1-5?! Chopin is well-known for having different versions of his music (sometimes to suit particular pupils) so likely there are many different
fingerings too.

I don't understand your comment re: 1-1 being little finger to little finger as 1 is the thumb on piano music or am I misinterpreting your comment?

Thats right Staccato, CH has got his fingers and thumbs all mixed up !
For the record my copy of this (lilac Edition price 6d from about 1960) has same fingering as yours.

You're not mis-interpreting and I am a complete moron. I wish there was a way of deleting threads, please ignore this.

...and there I was, thinking that a whole new fingering system had been invented, and I had not been told.....

HA HA! Well, never mind, we all make mistakes :-)
Don't be too harsh on yourself!

The fingering of this bit of the revolutionary is very good in Cortot's edition. He leaps from 1 to 4 where the other editions leap from 1 to 5. The leap from 1 to 4 is both more comfortable AND more secure if you have a big enough hand.

Cortot had a habit of altering Chopin's fingerings, and I find most of his recommendations are inferior to those in other editions (e.g. he messes up Op 1 No 3 - the Paderewski edition is much better). This is one of the exceptions.

But the enabling exercises that Cortot recommends for each etude are very useful (though you'd have to be as weird as he was to do ALL the exercises in every key - and I doubt very much that he followed his own advice)