Dont worry, be happy – the first critical Urtext edition of etudes by Jakob Dont

Jakob Dont (1815–88)

Every violinist is most likely acquainted with them from violin lessons: the 24 Études et Caprices op. 35 by Jakob Dont (1815–1888) are even today an irreplaceable curriculum item. The reason for this is certainly that Dont was successful in finding a congenial way to combine targeted training for certain technical challenges within an appealing and melodious musical form. Dozens of various editions are on the market today, though all differ from each other – sometimes considerably.  What then is the “real” Dont? Continue reading

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More Climate Protection is Urgently Needed Now! #HenleVerlagForFuture!

For once – and absolutely exceptionally! – today’s post is not going to be about our beloved music, its texts or matters editorial, such as you are accustomed to reading in this blog. No, today I want to draw your attention to the strike day #fridaysforfuture coming up on 20 September 2019. This is the day when the whole world will again go on strike for more climate protection, for more specific decisions and concrete action towards a sustainable, liveable environment, instead of merely talking perpetually about it. Because we the employees of the G. Henle Verlag will join this strike, the publishing house will remain closed on Friday, September 20, 2019. Continue reading

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Summer break

Time flies! Summer has arrived and our blog is taking some time off, too. A good opportunity to relax at the beach with some light reading. Our authors will make good use of the rest period to think about new topics to write about. And you can look forward to signing in again on the 16th of September 2019.

Meanwhile, we wish all readers a fine and relaxing summer!

G. Henle Verlag

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An insightful correction in Mozart’s autograph of the String Quartet in C major K. 170

In a few weeks a long-cherished dream of mine will come true: This 2019 autumn we are going to publish Mozart‘s early Viennese String Quartets K. 168 – 173, in Urtext (HN 1121 and HN 7121). To be sure, the text that I’ve edited and our production team has magnificently typeset and printed will not be presented as any totally “new Mozart”, but in the end will feature in detail many, many improvements for the quartet-playing profession. Continue reading

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Froberger – retrospectively and prospectively

Title page of the Libro Quarto (1656). Source: http://data.onb.ac.at/rep/10040126

How time flies! – this hardly original realisation came to me as I began planning my new Froberger blog post a week ago, since I had the feeling of having just recently written the previous post on this topic. Not by a long shot! It was three years ago in 2016 when I introduced our edition to celebrate Froberger’s 400th birthday. But this cross section was supposed to be, so to speak, only an “appetizer”, an overview of the keyboard genres that Froberger employed time and again: toccata, fantasia, canzone, suite (Froberger would always use the equivalent term “partita”). The suites are without doubt his most famous works, and of these we have, of course, chosen for our edition of selected works the most popular one, the partita “auff die Mayerin” whose individual movements present variations on the popular folk song of that time. Continue reading

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What did the composer want? On a strange measure in Saint-Saëns’ Romance for Flute op. 37

Anyone who compares the edition currently on the market of Saint-Saëns’ Romance for Flute and Piano op. 37 from the original publishing house Durand with its first edition appearing in 1874 will quickly notice a striking difference in measure 102, at the end of the piece’s repeatedly varied main idea: Continue reading

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The other type of sources: Letters about Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei”

An Urtext edition – and not just only from Henle publishers – is generally considered to be based on a critical examination of all a work’s sources, which are then also described and evaluated in a commentary section and used to document the editorial decisions. Looking more closely at these Comments in our Urtext editions, you might think that these sources include only music manuscripts and printed editions. This is, of course, only half the story, for besides such primary sources, numerous secondary sources – be they reviews or programme booklets, publishing-house business records or the composer’s diaries and correspondence – also play a role in giving important information for the edition – for example, about the dating of a work or the authorisation of an arrangement. This other type of source is usually mentioned only very briefly in Henle’s Preface – but this should not belie the fact that finding and evaluating these sources can sometimes be more time consuming than merely editing the work. Continue reading

Posted in Bruch, Max, Kol Nidrei (Bruch), letter, Monday Postings, piano + violoncello | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Schumann revisited – about an odd accidental in the Fantasiestücke, op. 73

We report as a rule in our blog posts on current publishing-house work and interesting finds made whilst preparing our new editions. But even our older editions in the archives are by no means “forgotten”, but are repeatedly compared with the results of current research and then reviewed or updated as needed in the course of re-issues. A very recent example comes from Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke op. 73 for piano and clarinet (HN 416). Continue reading

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The Henle Library App – an update!

In February 2016, over three years ago, we launched the iOS version of our Henle Library app. A great deal has happened since then, not only as a result of what we ourselves have done but also due to Apple and the iPad itself. So, it’s time we gave you a little update about what has been going on! Continue reading

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“Wolfgang Amadeus Stadler”, Allegro for piano trio

 

It is extremely rare for us to be able to publish a real first edition. But this happened once again a few weeks ago with my Urtext edition of the three piano-trio fragments, K. 442 by Mozart (HN 1379). In the appendix to this edition we offer completely unknown music scored for piano trio: a movement in D major, a good 350 measures long, well constructed and fairly easy to play. The composer? Well, that’s the question. No, it is not by Mozart, though the unfortunate Köchel number 442 would lead us to believe that here is a Mozart three-movement piano trio, which never before existed. Continue reading

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