Attempt at re-dating Mozart’s three popular “Quartet-Divertimenti”, K. 136–138

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert

In conjunction with my Urtextausgabe of the well-known and much-played “Divertimenti”,  K. 136–138, just about to be published, it became clear that Mozart’s own, unusually vague dating at the head of his autograph, “Salisburgo 1772”, cannot be entirely accurate. I’m assuming, rather, that he was already working on the composition of these three works in Milan from the late autumn of 1771, only then to finish them in Salzburg at the start of 1772.  I’d like briefly to substantiate this hypothesis in this blog post. Continue reading →

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Bach’s harpsichord concertos and their autograph

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Norbert Müllemann

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

If you’re looking for a simple answer to the question about the source situation for Johann Sebastian Bach’s works, it is that the situation is neither really “good” nor “bad”. Bach’s compositions have come down to us in many and various forms: Sometimes these are admirable fair copies such as for the St. Matthew Passion or for the Inventions and Sinfonias (see our edition HN 589); some are extant only in copyists’ manuscripts, ultimately leaving open whether Bach actually composed the work in question (a famous case: the d-minor Organ Toccata BWV 565, see our edition of the Busoni arrangement HN 1479. Continue reading →

Posted in Bach, Johann Sebastian, genesis, piano + orchestra | Tagged , | 3 Comments

“My fingering may inspire to play in the right style” – Interview with Pascal Rogé

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Peter Jost

Pascal Rogé

To celebrate the French pianist Pascal Rogé’s 70th birthday on 6 April 2021, we asked him for an interview. He represents worldwide one of his generation’s best-known performers of 19th- and 20th-century French music, setting interpretative standards for this music in his concerts, master classes and CD recordings. For ten years now he has been collaborating with the G. Henle publishers to provide fingering for the piano parts of 18 Urtext editions – for works by French composers, of course, ranging from Saint-Saëns through Chabrier and Fauré up to Satie und Ravel. Continue reading →

Posted in Fingering, Monday Postings, Pascal Rogé | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Bartók Complete Edition and its offspring

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Annette Oppermann

Since one of the special features of the Henle Verlag catalog is the fact that composers’ scholarly Complete Editions also serve as the basis for our blue-cover practical Urtext editions, our Beethoven, Brahms and Haydn editions have been passing on this in-depth research directly to musicians. This has been particularly true for Béla Bartók since 2016: the Complete Critical Edition, launched five years ago, has given rise to nearly 20 Henle Urtext editions of Bartók piano works– but that’s just the start of it…. Continue reading →

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‘Finished in Vysoká at a nice little hour’– new finds in Dvořák’s A-major piano quintet op. 81

Posted on March 15, 2021 by Dominik Rahmer

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. Continue reading →

Posted in autograph, Dvořák, Antonín, first edition, Monday Postings, new source, Piano Quintet op. 81 (Dvořák), rhythm, sketches, tempo, variant reading | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Henle Library app is five years old!

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Norbert Gertsch

It was in February 2016 that our Henle Library app for iPad was born, after a gestation period of around two years, followed by a version for Android in June that same year. Five years have since passed, five years of a wonderful and lasting success story! But what’s been happening since my last blog entry about the app in May 2019? I’d like to have a quick look back and then forwards at the future …

Continue reading →

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Carnival 2021: The zoo is attracting a lot of attention in the animal and music world

Posted on February 15, 2021 by publisher

The animal world is also affected by Covid-19 and the resulting measures to contain the virus. Owing to the lockdown, zoos are closed to visitors. And what about the animals? They are simply bored. Continue reading →

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“Bozen this pigsty”. Why there’s no “Bozen string quartet” by Mozart.

Posted on February 2, 2021 by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert

When for the third and last time at the end of October 1772 the Mozart father and son came through the South Tyrolean city of Bozen [Bolzano] on their way to their Milan destination, Wolfgang was hungry and in a foul mood. How else to explain his coarse rhyme about this beautiful city: ‘Bozen this pigsty. || A poem by someone who was foxily-devilishly wild and enraged by Bozen.[:] If I should come to Bozen again, I’d rather beat myself in the private parts.’

From: Mozart, Briefausgabe [Letter Edition] Online, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg. (letter of 28 October 1772)

Continue reading →

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A fresh look at Bach’s piano partitas

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Norbert Müllemann

Johann Sebastian bach (1685–1750)

Many readers (and pianists!) will already have noticed that we are gradually revising our Urtext editions of the Johann Sebastian Bach piano works. Valid here, too, as with all the editorial department’s more recent revisions, is that the original Urtext available up to now is by no means either wrong or bad. The music text is revised only if research on the respective composer has brought to light new knowledge (for example, if new sources have emerged) or if the edition’s commentary needs updating to the latest scholarly state. A few years ago my colleague Annette Oppermann posted on the blog on the subject of “Revision”, to which I would implicitly like to refer. Continue reading →

Posted in Bach, Johann Sebastian, Monday Postings, piano solo, revision, Six Partitas BWV 825-830 (J.S. Bach) | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Camille Saint-Saëns – a portrait for the 100th anniversary of his death

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Peter Jost

Whereas in 2020 the music world’s focus was on Beethoven’s 250th birthday, we can salute another anniversary celebrant at the start of this new year: Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921), although as with that of his precursor, his actual anniversary date falls only in December. ‘But just a moment now,’ you, dear blog reader, will say: ‘Beethoven and Saint-Saëns – they’re not to be compared with each other!’ No, of course not, in terms of the substance of their works and its importance for posterity, Beethoven is, so to speak, in a different league than the Frenchman. It’s certainly undeniable, though, that Saint-Saëns is still one of the most underrated of composers. So, high time to turn the spotlight on him, illuminating a bit more closely his personality as well as his work. Continue reading →

Posted in Monday Postings, Saint-Saëns, Camille | Tagged | 3 Comments