Any of you who not only had a hearty laugh at our April Fools’ joke about Henle’s cleaned-up part, but also may even once have already had a go at a Reger sonata, will know that in the case of Max Reger – as with so many other late romantic composers – clearing out or cleaning up is in fact no joke at all. The extravagantly diverse ways that in scores at the start of the 20th century tempo, dynamics, articulation and expression were specified down to the last detail absolutely buried the music at times under the markings and were hardly consistent with any directive that a so-called practical Urtext edition ought then to present a music text more or less easy (and quick!) for the musician to read. 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
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How much verbal text can music tolerate?
A serious scholarly book publication can be recognized by the footnotes – and in a way this also applies to musical Urtext editions, because here too it is imperative to base the printed music text on appropriate evidence. Where and how this is done depends though on many parameters – amongst other things, on the question of how much verbal text the music or the practicing musician will put up with. Continue reading →