The second edition naming the two composers, Bach · Busoni, on the cover is going to appear shortly in the Henle catalogue. Busoni’s famous arrangement of the no less famous Bach chaconne has already been available here for some time. To follow now are the 10 chorale preludes.
We must almost say 11½ chorale preludes, for added in our edition to the well-known 10 organ arrangements is, on the one hand, a second version of no. 1 (“Komm, Gott, Schöpfer”), now being made available for the first time since it was originally published in 1916; this second version, only part of which is a truly new music text, may count as “half” of a new chorale prelude. The transcription of the organ chorale prelude “Aus tiefer Not schrei’ ich zu dir” is, on the other hand, a completely new work. Our editors discovered the piece in Busoni’s estate (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin · Preußischer Kulturbesitz). The source can meanwhile be viewed digitalized; the work is now appearing, though, for the first time in an Urtext edition. Continue reading
Carnival, Mardi Gras, Fasching: Today, Carnival Monday (“Rosenmontag” in German) is also being celebrated in Munich – although somewhat less exuberantly than in Cologne or Mainz.
If the ideal goal of a critical Urtext edition may be said to be finding out and representing what the composer “actually intended”, then consulting all the relevant sources for the work, comparing them and evaluating their differences is above all its fundamental task.