{"id":5282,"date":"2019-02-18T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T07:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=5282"},"modified":"2019-02-18T08:09:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T07:09:56","slug":"bordering-on-the-modern-the-urtext-edition-of-schumanns-myrthen-op-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2019\/02\/18\/bordering-on-the-modern-the-urtext-edition-of-schumanns-myrthen-op-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Bordering on the modern \u2013 The Urtext edition of Schumann\u2019s \u201cMyrthen\u201d op. 25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Considering that specifically for 19th<\/sup>-century works the first edition is frequently the most important source for preparing the Urtext edition, we could pose the question of why we re-typeset our Urtexts at all \u2013 when the few errors there could often so easily be corrected by retouching the original print. But quite apart from the fact that in many cases the necessary corrections couldn\u2019t sometimes even be realised at all within the original layout, the little word \u201cmodern\u201d comes into play here, (also) to grace our Urtext editions.<\/p>\n

For a modern Urtext edition offers not only a music text supported by the current state of research, but also one presented in a standardised editorial manner that is up to date. Schumann\u2019s lieder albums provide an especially good example of this, for added to the purely musical notation is also a verbal text. The comparison of the 1840 first edition of Schumann\u2019s Myrthen<\/em> op. 25<\/a>, published in Leipzig by Kistner, with our brand-new Urtext edition makes the differences immediately clear:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Myrthen, excerpt from No. 13, left first edition, right Urtext edition
\n(click to enlarge)<\/p>\n

Besides correcting the first edition\u2019s two veritable text errors in measures 8 (\u201cNord\u201d instead of \u201cOrt\u201d) and 10 (\u201cin\u201d instead of \u201cim\u201d) our edition corrects the orthography (\u201cwand\u2019re\u201d instead of \u201cWand\u2019re\u201d) and formatting (such as the consistent distinction between centered syllabic hyphens and the continuation dash at the end of a word). Other differences concern the customary spelling modernisation in today\u2019s practical Urtext editions, for example, \u201cMuthes\u201d becomes \u201cMutes\u201d in m. 11.<\/p>\n

Hidden, though, behind this modernisation mentioned in only one sentence in the guidelines section \u201cAbout this Edition\u201d, are also always a few headaches, because of course these interventions \u2013 to improve readability \u2013 must not contradict Schumann\u2019s compositional intentions. So, for example, our Schumann editor Kazuko Ozawa<\/a> stipulates restraint, maintaining that Schumann\u2019s placement of apostrophes and commas, frequently altered with respect to the text models, should be retained. Even an outdated spelling of a word that sounds otherwise \u2013 such as, for example, \u201chieher\u201d instead of \u201chierher\u201d in \u201cWanderlied\u201d from the Kerner Lieder <\/em>op. 35 \u2013 would then obviously not be modernised, as this would indeed preclude Schumann\u2019s idea of sound.<\/p>\n

We at Henle have always done well in our Schumann albums with this guideline: From the Dichterliebe<\/em> <\/a>via Frauenliebe und Leben<\/em><\/a> (as Schumann\u2019s writing differs from the Chamisso model!) and the two Liederkreise<\/em> opp. 24<\/a> and 39<\/a> up to the Kerner Lieder<\/em>. But in the most recently-published Myrthen<\/em> we suddenly faced a problem: that is, concerning the letter \u201ch\u201d in Schumann\u2019s musical setting of the \u201cR\u00e4thsel\u201d. The \u201cRiddle about the letter h<\/a>\u201d, erroneously attributed earlier to Lord Byron, came from Catherine Maria Fanshaw and was sympathetically translated into German by Friedrich Ludwig Kannegie\u00dfer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kannegie\u00dfer\u2019s first lines contain the word \u201cFluth\u201d (\u201cFlut\u201d in modern German): \u201cUnd kommt es zur Fluth, so wird es stumm\u201c [And if it comes to a flood, it becomes mute]. Even if it is not heard, the original \u201cth\u201d in \u201cFluth\u201d must of course be preserved, so that the point of the text is understood\u00a0 \u2013 and not only the text: the sophisticated musical references in the lied \u2013 set, of course, in the key of B [\u201cH\u201d in German] major \u2013 are also only thus disclosed.<\/p>\n

In the end, Schumann even goes his own way entirely in musical invention, transforming the original poem\u2019s conclusion (\u201cIm Schatten birgt sich\u2019s, im Bl\u00fcmchen auch; \/ Du hauchst es t\u00e4glich, es ist nur ein Hauch.\u201d [It hides itself in the shadow, in the little flower too, \/ You breathe it daily, it is only a breath]) into a question that is answered purely musically:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Excerpt from Myrthen, No. 16, Urtext edition
\n(click to enlarge)<\/p>\n

We have therefore decided to adopt the lied\u2019s original orthography as an exception and hope that even a modern Urtext edition can handle this small anachronism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Considering that specifically for 19th-century works the first edition is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,287],"tags":[686,59,687],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5282"}],"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=5282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}