{"id":1597,"date":"2013-12-09T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=1597"},"modified":"2015-06-15T08:24:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T06:24:03","slug":"why-facsimiles-actually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2013\/12\/09\/why-facsimiles-actually\/","title":{"rendered":"Why facsimiles, actually?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blue Urtext editions certainly amount to the lion\u2019s share of our catalogue, but, in\u00adci\u00adden\u00adtal\u00adly, we do also still produce a completely different kind of music edition; these are facsimiles, that is, literal reproductions of especially significant manuscripts. Often e\u00adnough we even stock both for a work, so that many people may ask: Why do we actually need the facsimile if, after all, we have a reliable Urtext edition that gives a scholarly e\u00adva\u00adlu\u00ada\u00adti\u00adon of just this source and hence offers the musician the optimal foundation for per\u00adfor\u00admance? Andr\u00e1s Schiff, in his preface to our facsimile edition of the Schubert Piano Trio in E-flat <\/em>major just now in progress, makes a strong argument for this which many musicians will surely agree with: \u201cGood printed editions are essential but manuscripts are irreplaceable […] only through them can we feel really close to the creators of the works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as we respond in a special way to the autograph of a Goethe poem or the first page of a Kafka story, so we also respond to \u201creading\u201d Chopin\u2019s famous Polonaise in A-flat major op. 53<\/em> (HN 3221<\/a>), or Beethoven\u2019s late String Quartet Op. 132<\/em> (HN 3222<\/a>), in the dis\u00adtinc\u00adtive handwriting of their creators, full of nuances. Here, we react with different feelings and insights than we do to the standard score appearance of a modern Urtext edition. This goes not only for deletions, corrections, and paste-overs in such working ma\u00adnus\u00adcripts as Schumann\u2019s Waldszenen <\/em>(HN 3217<\/a>), or Liszt\u2019s Rigoletto-Paraphrase <\/em>(HN 3219<\/a>), giving us a view into the composer\u2019s workshop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Schumann, Autograph Waldszenen<\/p><\/div>\n

Even the vehemence or elegance of the tidily-inscribed Mozart String Quartet in F major K. 168<\/em> (HN 3209<\/a>), or Debussy\u2019s enchanting L\u2019isle joyeuse <\/em>for piano (HN 3224<\/a>), tell us a lot about the character of the music.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Debussy, Autograph L\u2019isle joyeuse<\/p><\/div>\n

A song such as Feldeinsamkeit<\/em> by Johannes Brahms (HN 3207<\/a>), who made a present of it to the banker Wilhelm Lindeck after specifically notating it on ornamental paper, reads entirely differently from his heavily-revised manuscript of the Fantasien op. 116<\/em>, for pi\u00ada\u00adno (HN 3210<\/a>). Comparing the two facsimiles lets us immediately discover how varied the functions of an autograph can be.<\/p>\n

\"Brahms,<\/a>

Brahms, Autograph Feldeinsamkeit<\/p><\/div>\n

But, isn\u2019t everything on the Internet today? Yes, certainly in recent years a really in\u00adcre\u00addi\u00adble number of manuscripts can be downloaded without charge in excellent individual scans from the Internet \u2013 whether from collections like that of the Bonn Beet\u00adhoven- Haus<\/a>, from national catalogues like Gallica<\/a> or simply over the universally popular plat\u00adform imslp<\/a>. But even with these, there\u2019s a world of difference from the facsimile: Because we go all out in the printed edition in order to come as close as possible to the original in format, colour, layout and binding. And many times can even re-produce only <\/em>a facsimile edition the original: if, that is, the source to be facsimiled no longer exists as an entity.<\/p>\n

So, it is, for example, with the autograph of Schubert\u2019s Violin Sonata in D major op. 137<\/em>, No. 1; on back page left blank, the composer began at once to write down a song. When he wanted to pass this on, he separated the song page from the sonata \u2013 which means that from then on, the end of the sonata went its own way with the song. But that\u2019s not all: the rest of the autograph did not stay together either, but was even divided up in the 20th century between two successors of the publisher August Cranz. Only in our fac\u00adsi\u00admi\u00adle edition published in 1988 (HN 3208<\/a>) could the three parts of the autograph be once again reunited \u2013 and so Schubert\u2019s original writing could be restored.<\/p>\n

These and other details of the heritage are described, incidentally, in the part of the fac\u00adsi\u00admi\u00adle edition that is just about as important as the images: the commentary. Besides tel\u00adling the reader about how the work originated and was handed down, it also furnishes a guide to the manuscript itself: whether it be to explain Mozart\u2019s skeletal notation for lar\u00adger works like the A-major Concerto K. 488<\/em> (HN 3216<\/a>), or to analyse the\u00a0various layers of writing in Beethoven\u2019s later Piano Sonata op. 101<\/em> (HN 3211<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Well, we try with our facsimile editions to produce far more than beautiful images \u2013 we try, that is, to provide the opportunity of reading and studying a work or composer in a very special way, so that the reader can come closer to and develop a (still) greater ap\u00adpre\u00adci\u00ada\u00adtion for the beauties of his art. For me, that\u2019s the best reason for a facsimile \u2013 but per\u00adhaps you see it totally differently? Then, write us a commentary for the blog \u2013 that would be great!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The blue Urtext editions certainly amount to the lion\u2019s share … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,30,317,3,24,285,421],"tags":[653,7,63,4,13,647,44,28,52,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}