Source folders in the publisher’s archive
Since one of my great privileges as Urtext publisher and editor is that I occasionally get to travel to the sources, my visits to the Library of Congress’s Performing Arts Reading Room have always been highlights of my working life. Amongst the elusive treasures in Washington, D.C., is the autograph of Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody.
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Perhaps – despite the anniversary year – I’m rather overdoing it with my blog posts on the Rachmaninoff topic???? However, the sales figures and almost daily email requests for further editions show us how enormously great the interest in Rachmaninoff’s music is, worldwide. Our catalogue is at least well stocked: published recently were the two piano cycles Morceaux de fantaisie op. 3 (HN 1491) and Six Moments musicaux op. 16 (HN 1492). And although Rachmaninoff very thoroughly proofread his first editions, to be found again whilst preparing these editions were some interesting details and errors still remaining to date in reprints. Continue reading
Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951)
Henle catalogue readers in the know are already aware that Dresden double bassist Tobias Glöckler regularly comes out with excellent new editions for his instrument. After classical solo concertos (Dittersdorf, Vanhal, Hoffmeister) and solo pieces from the 19th century (Dragonetti, Rossini, Saint-Saëns), he has now tackled one of the great Romantic concertos: Serge Koussevitzky’s Double Bass Concerto in F-sharp minor, premièred in Moscow in 1905 – one of the most important of all works in the bassist’s repertoire.
The piano reduction and study edition of the full score were published a few weeks ago; the conductor’s score and orchestral material will soon be available from the Leipzig Hofmeister publishing house. With these editions, double bassists worldwide will now have a reliable basis for dealing with this central work. Editor Tobias Glöckler describes in an interview how much this has so far been missed. Continue reading
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), photograph by Ferdinand Mulnier, ca. 1875
Our recently published new edition of Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet in E minor (study edition HN 7588 as well as Urtext parts edition HN 1588) offers a bit of a sensation. The editor, Verdi scholar Anselm Gerhard, Bern emeritus professor of musicology, discovered not long ago in the composer’s estate a previously unknown first version (included as an appendix in HN 7588 and available as a parts edition in the Henle Library App). We’ve asked Professor Gerhard for an interview about the story of that discovery and its consequences in assessing this quartet, Verdi’s sole major chamber-music work. Continue reading
Almost a year has passed since I last updated you on the Henle Library app. So, it’s now high time to bring you and our over 63,000 other active users up to date. A lot has happened, but I’ll start at the beginning:
In the Henle blog we have already published several posts on the Sergei Rachmaninoff topic (see here), but posting on him should certainly not be lacking this year. The composer is, after all, celebrating his 150th birthday in 2023, which calls for our special attention. For the anniversary year we shall publish not only several brand-new Rachmaninoff Urtext editions (for example, you can look forward to his Paganini Rhapsody and Third Piano Concerto), but we have also planned an extra surprise…
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Our attention was recently drawn to a passage in our edition of Franz Liszt’s Études d’exécution transcendante (HN 717), which has not yet been annotated in any known critical edition. Ben Yin, a piano student of Prof. Claudius Tanski’s at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, noticed while studying the notorious “Mazeppa” Etude (No. 4 of the Études d’exécution transcendante), that the outer voices at the first appearance of the theme (mm. 7 ff.) – unlike the middle voice played alternately by both hands – only incompletely fill in the 4/4-time measures: Continue reading
No, the title is not a typo. The recently published Janáček edition is, of course, called On an Overgrown Path (HN 1505). But an editor setting out in search of this work’s valid Urtext must truly go down labyrinthine paths. But let’s start at the beginning. Continue reading
War, energy shortages, inflation – alas, no end to the bad news as the year is drawing to a close. At least, though, the Covid pandemic has subsided in large parts of the world, allowing normal musical life with concerts and stage-work performances to resume. Let’s hope that the last restrictions will be lifted next year, downgrading the pandemic everywhere to an endemic that, willy-nilly, we shall have to live with. Continue reading
George Gershwin was tragically snatched from life in 1937, far too early at age 38, leaving us merely to guess what masterpieces for the classical music world, not to mention his many musicals, he would have left behind had he lived on into old age. On Broadway he had already achieved everything to be wished for. But with Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 the 26-year-old had only begun his journey into the spheres of Carnegie Hall. He had just 12 years left to write some of the most important orchestral and operatic works in American music history. A few piano works were still to be written and a single chamber work, the string quartet movement Lullaby (HN 1224). Continue reading