Beethoven’s “Unfinished” (compositions)

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Norbert Gertsch

Ludwig van Beethoven is one of those composers among the great masters who left behind a very large quantity of sketch material. We can hardly tell how many leaves are extant, because not all of them are publicly accessible. My personal estimate would be about 5000 leaves. This material contains a magnificent stock of sketches for known works, but also much that is unknown. Continue reading →

Posted in Beethoven, Ludwig van, Duo Unv 8 (Beethoven), Duo with two obbliagato eye glasses WoO 32 (Beethoven), Monday Postings, sketches, viola + violoncello, violin + violoncello | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Scarlatti Sonatas, Volume IV – the ultimate choice

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Norbert Müllemann

Domenico Scarlatti

Though Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) was indeed born the same year as Bach and Handel, he occupies an exceptional position amongst Baroque composers. Playing his harpsichord music is a seemingly carefree joy: virtuosic, sensuous in sound and so not at all cerebral. Continue reading →

Posted in Monday Postings, piano solo, Piano Sonata K. 33 (Scarlatti), Piano Sonata K. 8 (Scarlatti), Scarlatti, Domenico, variant reading, versions, Vladimir Horowitz | Tagged , | 7 Comments

“You can count on me” – Debussy’s arrangement of “Minstrels” for violin and piano

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Peter Jost

Arrangements have on occasion already come up for discussion in earlier blog postings. The reason for revisiting this subject is provided by the just-published new edition of
Claude Debussy’s Minstrels in the version for violin and piano (HN 1246).

Although the French composer adopted a rather critical attitude towards such new versions for other settings – and in fact, all the more so, the older he became –, transcriptions from Debussy’s hand have survived in astonishing numbers. One of the lesser-known arrangements of one of his own works concerns Minstrels, the
final piece in the first volume of the Préludes for piano, published in 1910. Crucial in this case was Debussy’s friendship with the violinist Arthur Hartmann. Continue reading →

Posted in Alfred Cortot, arrangement, Debussy, Claude, Jacques Thibaud, Minstrels from Préludes (Debussy), Monday Postings, piano + violin, Préludes (Debussy) | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Christmas Blog

Posted on December 22, 2014 by publisher

Dear Reader,

We most warmly thank you today for your continuing interest in the Henle Blog. We also look forward to your visits in the coming year and promise interesting postings on musical questions concerning music texts.
Today we would like to encourage you- during the upcoming holidays – to take a closer look at the different textual and musical versions of one or the other advent- or Christmas carol. Continue reading →

Posted in arrangement, General | Tagged , | Leave a comment

“It’s all so wonderful!” On the new edition of Mozart’s string quartets

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert

A few weeks ago I began editorial work on a group of compositions that I have long been involved with and that I adore: Mozart’s string quartets. G. Henle publishing house will publish them complete in my new Urtext editions (parts and scores). Appearing at the end of 2015 as the first fruits of this painstaking labour will be volume 4: the “Hoffmeister Quartet” KV 499, as well as the three “Prussian Quartets” KV 575, 589 and 590. The rest of the string quartets in chronologically reverse order will then follow in the coming years. Continue reading →

Posted in Alban Berg Quartet, dynamics, G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings, Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, string quartet, String Quartet K. 589 (W.A. Mozart) | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Spohr and Crusell join the club – new Urtext editions for clarinet

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Dominik Rahmer

Musicians have long known that not only pianists and string players get to enjoy first-class Urtext editions from the Henle house – our catalogue also has on hand a rich offering for winds that we are continually expanding. The current year’s focus on the “Flute”, now just drawing to a close (see this blog posting), underlines the special attention that we are devoting to the woodwind repertoire (not to worry, we’re not leaving out the brass family). Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, clarinet, Clarinet Concerto op. 26 (Spohr), Clarinet Concerto op. 5 (Crusell), Crusell, Bernhard Henrik, facsimile, first edition, G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings, Spohr, Louis, Urtext | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Read the end first!

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Annette Oppermann

The new Catalogue of Works of Ludwig van Beethoven

Come on now, fess up! Haven’t you sometimes thumbed through the last chapter of a crime thriller or the dramatic denouement of a love story so that you’d know, already in advance, how it ends – even if, of course, this goes totally against the author’s wishes! What is taboo in belles lettres, though, is absolutely permissible in scholarly works. Yes, we might just as well tell all the readers of our brand new Catalogue of Works of Beethoven [HN 2207]: “Go ahead, take a look at the end!”   Continue reading →

Posted in Beethoven, Ludwig van, G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The new Catalogue of Works of Ludwig van Beethoven

Posted on October 27, 2014 by Norbert Gertsch

On 1 November 2014 G. Henle Verlag is publishing a massive two-volume book of just under 2,000 pages – a rare and therefore special event for our house that issues almost exclusively music editions. This is a new catalogue of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, superseding its predecessor of 1955 known as the ‘Kinsky-Halm’, anyhow, already also of around a hefty 900 pages. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, Beethoven, Ludwig van, first edition, G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings, Piano Concerto op. 73 (Beethoven), Piano Trios op. 70 (Beethoven), sketches | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The year of the flute – special new editions in the Henle catalogue

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Norbert Müllemann

For some time past the G. Henle publishing house has been setting for each calendar year sales-related scheduling priorities to be accompanied by special promotions and advertising materials.
We have proclaimed 2014 the year of the study editions (catalogue and video clips here) and the flute. Continue reading →

Posted in Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, facsimile, flute solo, G. Henle Publishers, Monday Postings, ornamentation, piano + flute, Telemann, Georg Philipp, Urtext | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Composing made easy? On Erik Satie’s ‘Nocturnes’

Posted on September 29, 2014 by Peter Jost

It was not without good reason that the label ‘outsider’ stuck to Satie. As of his earliest compositions he was in search of alternatives to the tonal harmony that was still the unquestioned convention when he began his training at the Paris Conservatoire (1879–87). This search runs like a red thread through all of his works, and was certainly absolutely independent of the stylistic orientation of individual works, reaching indeed, as we know, from echoes of the medieval and exotic to the then popular cabaret music. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, Monday Postings, Nocturnes (Satie), notation, piano solo, Satie, Erik, variant reading | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments