Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Incredible, but true: unannounced so far in this blog is the entrance last year in the Henle universe of one of the greatest of 20th-century composers – Richard Strauss! This is, of course, owing to a certain composer, “B”, whose 250th birthday we so extensively celebrated here that some things had to stand back. But now, finally, it’s high time to introduce Strauss to this forum. For this modern classic’s edition naturally presented the Henle editorial department with completely new challenges. Whilst my colleagues were dealing with instrumental music and, when editing duo sonatas and solo concertos, were settling questions of transmission and text in close collaboration with performing musicians, I, as lied editor, initially once had, totally banally, the agony of choice: where to start with the more than 200 lieder for voice and piano that Strauss bequeathed to us, each one more beautiful than the other? Continue reading
Even though recently the focus of attention owing to their anniversaries has been on composers like Debussy, Beethoven or currently Saint-Saëns, Antonín Dvořák seems to me to be the secret luminary in the Henle programme. Since 2015, no fewer than eleven new Urtext editions of his works have been published by our publishing house, amongst them, many large and central works of his oeuvre such as the late String Quartets opp. 96, 105 und 106, the Piano Quintet op. 81, the Piano Trio op. 65 and the Humoresques for piano op. 101. Our new edition of the Wind Serenade in d minor op. 44 (
The piano quintet is, so to speak, in the “super heavyweight class” amongst chamber-music ensembles: the piano’s powerful sonority encounters an equal partner in the string quartet itself, already constituting an independent ensemble in its own right. This combination offers a wide palette of timbres that allows an enormous dynamic range, progressing from intimate duets to nearly symphonic scope. 
