Scott Joplin, the “King of Ragtime Writers,” now in Henle Urtext. Interview with Joshua Rifkin

Posted on October 12, 2026 by Dominik Rahmer

Scott Joplin’s rags and other piano pieces belong among the classics of American music history and are played by young and old around the world. So it was long overdue for Joplin finally to appear in the familiar blue covers and be taken into the Henle Urtext canon.

One can really imagine no more appropriate editor for this project than the musicologist, conductor and pianist Joshua Rifkin, whose LP recording Piano Rags spearheaded a great Joplin revival in the 1970s. The Henle Verlag is immensely proud to be publishing together with Rifkin a two-volume edition of Joplin’s complete piano works. As a small foretaste of this publication now underway, individual editions of The Entertainer (HN 1727) and Maple Leaf Rag (HN 1728) have just been released. On this happy occasion we have conducted the following interview with him.

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25 Etudes, but not just finger exercises – Friedrich Burgmüller’s famous opus 100

Posted on September 14, 2026 by Andreas Pernpeintner

Every edition is different. The work itself often captivates. Sometimes, a particular source situation makes editing methodologically interesting. What really grabbed me as the editor of the Urtext edition discussed in this blog post is not just the outcome, but also the incredibly varied path leading there.

Friedrich Burgmüller, Lithography, ca. 1840

When I was assigned to edit the 25 Etudes, op. 100, by Friedrich Burgmüller (1806–1874), my first thought was: “Burg who?” Looking back, though it’s hard to believe, those standard piano pedagogy works called “Etudes”, “Instructor” (“Lehrmeister”), or “Melodious Exercises” hardly arose in my own piano lessons, and, in fact, I remained largely untouched by the Burgmüllers, Hanons, Diabellis, and Czernys. So, I approached the Burgmüller edition without any personal childhood memories, idealisation, or any bad experiences. And in the following months, I had many of those smaller and larger episodes that make the profession of editor so varied and rewarding. Continue reading →

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Summer Break

Posted on August 10, 2026 by publisher

“Southwards” – that’s the motto for many of these weeks – and likewise the title of the opening lied in the beautiful “Travel Album” compiled in 1841 by Fanny Hensel with her husband, Wilhelm Hensel, to commemorate their joint grand tour through Italy.  Wilhelm contributed for each lied a vignette vividly capturing the idyllic atmosphere of those days – and evoking a genuine holiday feeling. If you’re not yet quite in the holiday mood, why not flip through the album, available online and let yourself be inspired to explore new travel destinations! Continue reading →

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Culminating a great female composer’s career: Emilie Mayer’s Cello Sonata in D major, op. 47 – new in the Henle Urtext

Posted on July 13, 2026 by Andreas Pernpeintner

Those of us no longer quite so young will be recalling this. It was in the 1990s; people in Germany were paying with the last series of D-Mark notes, a petrol litre cost less than two marks, and TSV (Gymnastics and Sport Club) 1860 Munich played in the Bundesliga (Germany’s top football division) in light blue jerseys. The Henle Urtext editions were also already blue back then – and anyone paying cash for Henle’s 18 Mozart piano sonatas (HN 1 and HN 2), 60 litres of petrol, or an 1860s football jersey, might well have reached for a blue banknote, showing a woman’s portrait on the front and an old grand piano on the back. It was Clara Schumann who adorned the 100-mark banknote, known to everyone. But did all those recognising the 100-mark banknote from her image, also know who she was? Continue reading →

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An anniversary tribute 200 years after his death: Carl Maria von Weber’s Bassoon Concerto, op. 75, now available in Henle Urtext

Posted on June 8, 2026 by Dominik Rahmer

Just a few days ago we marked the 200th anniversary of Carl Maria von Weber’s death at only age 39, in London during the night of 4–5 June 1826. G. Henle publishers is honouring the great Romantic composer with an Urtext edition of his beautiful bassoon concerto, fitting perfectly within our growing catalogue of Weber’s works. Continue reading →

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Fanny Hensel’s Lieder on the Rise

Posted on May 11, 2026 by Annette Oppermann

249 of altogether 466 works listed in her works’ catalogue leave no doubt: the lied was central to Fanny Hensel’s compositional output! From the first extant composition by the 14-year-old – a lied written in 1819 for her father’s birthday – to the last, inscribed in 1847, the lied runs like a red thread through her entire oeuvre. It’s therefore high time that a volume of songs (HN 1610) was finally added to the anthology of piano works (HN 392) published by Henle publishing house decades ago!

Especially since the current state of research on Fanny Hensel, née Mendelssohn Bartholdy, is practically ideal for an Urtext publishing house. The oeuvre of this composer – who, until the 1980s, was perceived merely as “the sister of” and thus vastly underestimated – has since been documented in a scholarly works’ catalogue; a large portion of the surviving sources in the Mendelssohn Archive at the Berlin State Library are accessible online; letters and diaries have been scholarly edited; and numerous studies on her life and work have been published. Last but not least, the online platform Hensel Songs Online, where tenor Timothy Parker-Langston presents transcriptions of all Fanny Hensel’s lieder, provides a comprehensive overview of the lieder. What more can be desired?! Continue reading →

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It Doesn’t Always Have to Be Blue – Bach in Yellow

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Norbert Müllemann

Facsimile editions from Henle publishing house have been a recurring topic on this blog. For today’s post, though, I’d like to focus on a facsimile project I’ve personally been co-supervising: Bach’s Flute Sonata in b minor.

As much as we editors are passionate about producing further Henle-blue Urtext editions (and that, of course, remains our primary focus!), we also enjoy occasionally launching special projects that bring variety to our daily routine. Facsimile editions are just one such special product, since we, together with our production department, get to be creative right from the cover design stage, which is why Bach is suddenly appearing in yellow instead of blue. And the other work involved in such a project also differs significantly from editing Urtext editions. From image processing to determining the book format and print space – all of this is developed and managed by the production department – these are processes and issues that we in the editorial department otherwise rarely encounter. Continue reading →

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Just a bit of Passacaglia?

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Andreas Pernpeintner

Last fall, I attended a concert in the Dachau Palace. Performed amongst other pieces was Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante in E-flat major for violin, viola, and orchestra, K. 364 (320d).  The two young solo string players were delightfully good, and it was clear that they wouldn’t be allowed to leave the stage without an encore. So, they both picked up their instruments again, and the violist also took the floor to announce, casually: “As an encore, we’ll play just a bit of Passacaglia.”

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Posted in arrangement, genesis, Halvorsen, Johan, Henning Kraggerud, instrumentation, Monday Postings, viola, Violin | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

“My obsession with improvement is a chronic, incurable affliction”. On Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Peter Jost

The Weimar years as of 1848 marked a profound turning point in Liszt’s life. This was owing, on the one hand, to his decision to live with Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, whom he had met in Kiev in 1847, and who subsequently exerted a great influence on him; on the other hand, to his abandoning of his career as a piano virtuoso and focussing on composing alongside his official duties as “extraordinary kapellmeister”. Encouraged by his experiences as a conductor, he devoted himself to composing in such new genres as the symphonic poem, but also to revising an array of works, both already published or even still unpublished. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, engraver’s copy, Liszt, Franz, Monday Postings, new source, piano + orchestra, revision, variant reading | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

New year, new luck: Welcome Sebastian Lee!

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Annette Oppermann

Sebastian Lee (1805–1887)

Do you love Lee? This question will likely be answered only by those amongst this blog’s esteemed readers who have ever held a cello between their knees. For, added to our catalogue at the end of last year was cellist and composer Sebastian Lee (1805–1887), who is famous today only for his pedagogical works. These enjoy, however, an almost unbelievable popularity – be it the Méthode pratique pour le violoncelle, op. 30, published in Paris in 1842 and presently still available, or collections of études such as the 40 Études mélodiques et progressive, op. 31 (HN 1519), composed for the Paris Conservatoire in 1843, which recently enriched our catalogue. Continue reading →

Posted in engraver’s copy, first edition, Lee, Sebastian, Monday Postings, new source, reprint, revision, versions, violoncello | Tagged , , | Leave a comment