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<\/a><\/p>\nIt usually takes many months, even years, to complete the editorial work on an edition and then to record on paper the editorial decisions in an \u201cengraver\u2019s model\u201d for the music typesetter. Yet the most time-consuming edition is hardly worth anything if the newly set music text is then teeming with wrong notes and accidentals due to copying errors.<\/p>\n
<\/a>An excerpt from an engraver\u2019s model and its corresponding 1st music galley proofs. Do you find the error? You can find the solution below.<\/p><\/div>\n
The reason why many musicians appreciate the Henle Urtext editions is not only because the musicologically-developed score texts are reliable and graphically designed with care, but because they are virtually free of errors.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Even wrong beam angles do not remain undetected.<\/p><\/div>\n
That\u2019s not by chance, for we pay extremely close attention to proofreading an edition. After the editor has finalised the text-setting model and the music-graphics setter has pulled up the first galley proofs, many months will still pass before the edition is ready for printing. Every score of our Urtext edition undergoes at least six proofreadings<\/span> by various proofreaders, and even more in the case of especially complex music texts (such as that of the Alban Berg string quartet<\/a>).<\/p>\n When the edition also contains individual parts, these are first extracted from the proofread score and then proofread another three times<\/span> (at least). Because as convenient as creating parts is with the computer these days \u2013 at this step, many new errors or other shortcomings can arise: wrong transpositions, lost or misplaced indications, erroneous cues, poor page turns, and much more, like in this example:<\/p>\n Proofreading can be quite colourful...<\/p><\/div>\n Michael Sch\u00e4fer, pianist and professor at the Munich music academy, checks Rachmaninoff out especially closely\u2026<\/p><\/div>\n But that\u2019s not all: if possible, we also prefer to have musicians carefully play through our editions to test their practical usability (easy to read, practical page turns) and also to give us feedback regarding errors or problematic passages. Sometimes the addition of an explanatory footnote is sufficient to spare prospective buyers many a headache about an unfamiliar, but authentic reading.<\/p>\n Anyhow, almost all of our solo piano editions will be given new fingerings, a task for which we get experienced pianists and piano pedagogues. They, of course, also put the musical text to the acid test when creating the fingering and can thus detect one or the other overlooked accidental. For chamber music we also work with well-known ensembles; for example, the Armida Quartet<\/a> monitored the new edition of all the Mozart string quartets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>For these multiple inspections we are assisted by a select team of external proofreaders: trained musicians, music teachers and musicologists, who must also have a keen eye for the finer points of the music text and the rules of music engraving. What they do for our editions goes far beyond a mechanical comparison: they point out differences in parallel passages, notice doubtful passages and suggest improvements to the line\/page breaks or the optical design. The results of this \u201cintelligent reading\u201d are reviewed by the editor and taken into account to improve the music text.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>