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For pianists and string players, especially, the name Henle stands for reliable Urtext e\u00addi\u00adti\u00adons of their classical repertoires \u2013 since the publishing-house founder G\u00fcnter Henle was himself a pianist, the publishing house al\u00adso focussed in the early years on that par\u00adti\u00adcu\u00adlar literature. Yet in the meantime the wind instruments have likewise become firm\u00adly established in our catalogue.<\/p>\n
A short foray into our brass-ensemble repertoire\u2026<\/em><\/big><\/p>\n The first Urtext edition of a work involving wind instruments did not appear until 1972; it was Beethoven\u2019s Quintet for Piano, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn and Bassoon op. 16<\/em> By now, musicians are able to draw on reliable Henle Urtext editions for nearly all pro\u00admi\u00adnent Classic-Romantic solo brass works, be they Mozart\u2019s horn concertos or his Horn Quintet K. 407<\/em>, Beethoven\u2019s Horn Sonata op. 17<\/em> (HN 498<\/a>), the Trumpet Concerto<\/em> by Hum\u00admel (HN 840<\/a>), Schumann\u2019s Adagio und Allegro op. 70<\/em> (HN 1023<\/a>), or the Villanelle<\/em> by Paul Dukas (HN 1170<\/a>). And even the trombone has found a place in our catalogue with Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019s Cavatine op. 144<\/em> (HN 1119<\/a>), not to forget Beethoven\u2019s 3 E\u00adqua\u00adli for four trombones<\/em> (HN 1151<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u2026 and a new discovery<\/em><\/big><\/p>\n With Robert Schumann\u2019s Konzertst\u00fcck for 4 Horns op. 86<\/em> from the year 1849 which is short\u00adly to appear (HN 1138<\/a>), we are now closing an important gap in our Romantic wind repertoire. For our edition (edited by Ernst Herttrich<\/a>, our Schumann specialist) we did of course also consult the autograph from the Berlin Staatsbibliothek<\/a>, in addition to the first edition of 1851, and made an interesting discovery in it in the notation of the horn parts, a discovery that no modern edition has so far taken into consideration.<\/p>\n Schumann is known to have taken advantage of the new valve horn\u2019s technical potential and to have made use of a completely free chromaticism, just as if he were composing for voice or piano. His bold notation for horn is already obvious in the Adagio und Allegro<\/em>, written shortly before the Konzertst\u00fcck<\/em> \u2013 a passage in F-sharp major like the following would not have been thought of on the natural horn: Now, in the solo parts of the first edition (above all, in the 4th<\/sup> horn), these harmonic re\u00adla\u00adtions are often difficult to recognise by the fact that numerous notes were written \u2018more simply\u2019 for the player through enharmonic change, that is, by many times using f<\/em> (but not always consistently) instead of an e-sharp<\/em>, b-flat<\/em> instead of a-sharp<\/em>, g<\/em> instead of f-doub\u00adle-sharp<\/em>, etc. There was probably a pragmatic background to this because the horn play\u00aders of the time were used to much more traditional compositions for horn and were not familiar with these chromatic variants.<\/p>\n These \u2018re-spellings\u2019, certainly coming from the publishing house or the players in the o\u00adri\u00adgi\u00adnal performance, were indeed not cancelled by Schumann during his proofreading of the first edition; but whether he noticed them at all is debatable, or whether the technical effort of correcting them was simply too great and so there they remain. As a con\u00adse\u00adquence all the subsequent editions of the Konzertst\u00fcck<\/em> to date have kept this notation which originally was perhaps no more than a memory aid that the soloists entered for their own purposes into the first-performance material.<\/p>\n Since the initial reason for making the notation more easily readable should not matter at all anymore to present-day horn players, we decided to return to Schumann\u2019s original notation according to the autograph, which much more clearly reflects the respective har\u00admo\u00adnic relations and provides the player with valuable cues \u2013 an f-double-sharp<\/em> as a leading tone to g-sharp<\/em> is quite different from a g<\/em>, especially for such an intonation-sen\u00adsi\u00adtive instrument as the horn. Many horn players have confirmed our decision in this.<\/p>\n Outlook<\/em><\/big><\/p>\n What\u2019s coming up for the horn? The next editions are already in the making: In spring 2014 horn players will be able to enjoy an Urtext edition of Carl Nielsen\u2019s Canto serioso<\/em>, and Alexander Glazunov\u2019s enchanting R\u00eaverie op. 24<\/em>, is also in preparation. Of course, we as a publishing house are ever interested in feedback from experience and grateful for re\u00adquests for works that are still lacking from the repertoire. So, in case you as a horn pla\u00adyer also find a certain edition absent from the market, please write us a comment \u2013 this is your chance \u2026 !<\/p>\n Robert Schumann: Konzertst\u00fcck for 4 H\u00f6rner op. 86<\/em><\/strong>
\n(HN 222<\/a>). The first solo work for a wind instrument still had to wait another three years \u2013 the ex\u00adqui\u00adsite Clarinet Sonatas op. 120<\/em> by Johannes Brahms (HN 274<\/a>, soon to appear revised as HN 987<\/a>) were certainly a worthy d\u00e9but title. While our woodwind editions have shown e\u00adver-increasing growth in subsequent years, the brass entered the Urtext ca\u00adta\u00adlogue re\u00adla\u00adti\u00adve\u00adly late. The first step was taken with Joseph Haydn: appearing as single editions in 1991 were the Trumpet Concerto<\/em> (HN 456<\/a>) and the sole authentic Horn Con\u00adcer\u00adto<\/em> (HN 461<\/a>).<\/p>\n
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\nAnd also in the Konzertst\u00fcck<\/em> Schumann fully exploited the new chromatic possibilities of the four-part horn piece, for instance, in this lyrical insertion in the final movement:
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