A high opus number can make a piece look late in a composer’s life. Publication history can complicate that impression, particularly when a work appears after its composer’s death.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s note on Chopin’s E-minor Nocturne, Op. 72 No. 1 describes an early composition published posthumously. The number therefore should not be read as a simple composition-order counter.
Build two lines in your programme notes
Record “composed” and “published” separately when reliable notes supply both. If one date is uncertain, keep the uncertainty attached to that event instead of borrowing precision from the other.
For a fictional example, a work written in 1820 and issued in 1850 has two useful dates. A listener exploring early writing would care about the first; someone studying its public circulation would also need the second.
Do not infer that a late publication was necessarily a revision, rediscovery, or deliberate withholding. Those are additional historical claims requiring evidence.
An opus number remains helpful for identifying a work, especially when titles are repeated. Use it as part of the identification, then consult a documented chronology when the question is how a composer’s writing changed over time.
Editorial illustration from this site’s image library; not documentary evidence of the example or object discussed.