A Henle customer suggests corrections to the text of Max Reger’s 2nd Cello Suite. How do we as publishers respond to this?

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert

Today, a brief but we hope all the more valuable contribution for all cellists. You may also consider it a bow to the great composer Max Reger who died almost exactly 100 years ago (on 11 May 1916).

At the start of the 1990s, my Urtext edition of the “Three Suites for Cello Solo,” Opus 131c, together with the edition of the three violin suites HN 468, opened the series of our Reger works in Henle Urtext editions that have meanwhile grown very numerous. Reger’s manuscript of these three magnificent works has remained lost. The works were first published by the N. Simrock publishing house in July 1915, thus less than a year before Reger’s death. From our Reger thematic catalogue published a few years ago you can learn all the important information about the genesis and sources of Opus 131c. Here, exclusively for our blog readers, is the scan of the respective pages. Continue reading →

Posted in first edition, Monday Postings, Reger, Max, Three Suites op. 131c for Violoncello solo (Reger), Urtext, violoncello | 2 Comments

A “bad apple” in Camille Saint-Saëns’ 2nd cello sonata?

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Peter Jost

Saint-Saëns was likely far from the “genius thinking” of romanticism. Music being, he once stated, the art so to speak of putting together tones, and concerning his artistic production, he would then naturally produce works like an apple tree produces apples. This comparison may at first appear strange, but fully conforms to Saint-Saëns’ aesthetic, he who prioritized form and craftsmanship in composing.

Editors of Urtext editions benefit from this matter-of-fact view inasmuch as Saint-Saëns considered the conception of his works as usually determined from the drafting stage. Whereas many of his contemporaries still made sometimes far-reaching modifications in copies or galley proofs, he normally kept to the autograph version without changing any detail right through to publication. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, first edition, Monday Postings, notation, piano + violoncello, pitch range, Saint-Saëns, Camille, Sonata for Violoncello and Piano no. 2 in F major op. 123 (Saint-Saëns), variant reading, versions | Tagged | 1 Comment

“… more or less at the most extreme limit of what can be achieved on the piano”: Busoni arranges Bach

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Norbert Müllemann

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 →

Posted in Bach, Johann Sebastian, Busoni, Ferruccio, Chorale Preludes (Johann Sebastian Bach), Monday Postings, piano solo, transcription, variant reading, Vladimir Horowitz | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Henle Library app. Behind the scenes – part 2.

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Norbert Gertsch

In part 1 of this little “Behind the scenes” blog, I wrote about the demands of realising our Urtext editions in an app that made the most of the medium. I also discussed what this meant as far as the layout of the musical text was concerned and how we needed to be as flexible as possible. In today’s post we’ll be looking at a few of the additional functions and the presentation of the non-music texts in our editions. Continue reading →

Posted in Android, App, Digital, Henle Library, iOS, Monday Postings, Tablet | Leave a comment

A peek through the keyhole – Bartók’s “Allegro barbaro” as forerunner of the complete edition

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Annette Oppermann

With Béla Bartók, we have added a new composer to our 2016 catalogue – always a special event for an Urtext publisher, and even a double pleasure in this case: The first is that we’re starting this year a huge, 48-volume complete critical edition of this composer’s works; The second is that (initially) his piano works are to appear in the blue Urtext editions for the practicing musician.

Continue reading →

Posted in Allegro barbaro BB 63 (Bartók), autograph, Bartók, Béla, Composers, Monday Postings, piano solo, variant reading | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Trill of Doom – The pianist András Schiff’s revelatory study of Schubert’s final sonata

Posted on April 4, 2016 by publisher

By guest author Alex Ross[1]

“What other work is so full of silence?” (András Schiff)

The other day, I sat with Sir András Schiff, the Hungarian-born, British-based pianist, in a practice room at Walt Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles, contemplating a great musical mystery: the trill in the eighth measure of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-Flat, D. 960. Continue reading →

Posted in András Schiff, articulation, Composers, Monday Postings, piano solo, Piano Sonata B-Flat D 960 (Schubert), Schubert, Franz | Leave a comment

Confusion about ties in Chopin’s Scherzo in b minor

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Norbert Müllemann

That Chopin variants can be exasperating to an editor – who has to do everything possible to provide the musician with one valid text – is well enough known. The idea that we are not alone in our exasperation can, however, be comforting. This in any case happened to me when I began to prepare a revised edition (HN 1334) of the 1st Scherzo in b minor. I came across a document by the famous Chopin pupil and editor Karol Mikuli that shows considerable perplexity. Continue reading →

Posted in articulation, Auguste Franchomme, autograph, Chopin, Frédéric, Composers, Ferdinand Hiller, first edition, letter, Monday Postings, piano solo, Scherzo in b minor op. 20 (Chopin) | 1 Comment

Henry Vieuxtemps’s 5th Violin Concerto newly outfitted – Interview with Marie Cornaz and Ray Iwazumi

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Peter Jost

Among the just about one hundred compositions that the violin virtuoso Henry Vieuxtemps left to posterity, the 5th Violin Concerto in a minor op. 37 is certainly regarded as his by far best-known and best-loved work. It owes its popularity not only to its brilliant violin part, but also to its original form in three movements passing seamlessly without pause from one to the other. Continue reading →

Posted in 5. Violin Concerto in a minor op. 37 (Vieuxtemps), autograph, Monday Postings, piano + violin, sketches, Urtext, Vieuxtemps, Henry, violin + orchestra, Ysaÿe, Eugène | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Henle Library app. Behind the scenes – part 1.

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Norbert Gertsch

So when did the penny finally drop at the publishing house that Henle editions can be more than just print editions? In my case this happened in March 2011 when I gave a talk about what Urtext means at the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) conference in Milwaukee. And all anyone wanted to talk to me about was the iPad! Continue reading →

Posted in Android, App, Cloud, Digital, Henle Library, iOS, Monday Postings, Tablet | Tagged | 3 Comments

Carnival Quiz

Posted on February 8, 2016 by publisher

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.

So, just for fun in today’s blog posting we are zooming in on our Urtext catalogue since you’ll find several “silly” compositions stashed away even there. You want to know which ones? Continue reading →

Posted in General, Monday Postings | Tagged | Leave a comment