{"id":6818,"date":"2022-07-19T11:23:03","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T09:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=6818"},"modified":"2022-07-19T11:26:48","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T09:26:48","slug":"from-the-first-to-the-second-vienna-school-20th-century-string-quartets-in-the-henle-catalogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2022\/07\/19\/from-the-first-to-the-second-vienna-school-20th-century-string-quartets-in-the-henle-catalogue\/","title":{"rendered":"From the First to the Second Vienna School: 20th-century string quartets in the Henle catalogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Henle is dedicating 2022 to a specific genre: under the motto \u201cHenle4Strings<\/a>\u201d we would like to spotlight our diverse range of Urtext string-quartet editions that might otherwise get somewhat lost in our huge piano-music catalogue. Did you know, for example, that George Gershwin did not compose only<\/em> for piano or stage, and that in our program we have a truly contemporary quartet composition from 2016…?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our blog has also already devoted two posts to this topic, with examples of the broad spectrum of our string-quartet editions: Whereas Annette Oppermann focussed on this genre\u2019s Viennese \u201cforefathers\u201d \u2013 Haydn\/Mozart\/Beethoven<\/a>, Peter Jost reported on Arnold Schoenberg\u2019s 2nd<\/sup> string quartet<\/a>, a foundational document of the musical \u201cModern\u201d.<\/p>\n

Schoenberg\u2019s quartet is not in this respect a lone outlier \u2013 we have recently published important new editions particularly from the 20th<\/sup>-century period. The most impressive of these is certainly the latest volume of the B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k Complete Edition with his 6 string quartets, exemplarily edited by the \u201cBart\u00f3k pope\u201d L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Somfai (HN 6206<\/a>). Our practical editions of individual parts are already underway \u2013 more details from my colleague Annette Oppermann will soon be channelled here….<\/p>\n

\"\"Representing the so-called Second Viennese School in our catalogue are not only quartets by Arnold Schoenberg: we have also presented a new edition of Alban Berg\u2019s<\/strong> seminal String Quartet op. 3 (HN 1000<\/a>). In view of this work\u2019s protracted genesis, an examination of the extant sources and critical edition was especially rewarding: composed in 1910 and premiered in 1911, the quartet did not appear in print until 1920, though Berg revised it again as early as 1925. The individual parts additionally led a \u201clife of their own\u201d relative to the score, showing countless small differences from it. These circumstances gave rise to numerous difficulties for the edition, described in detail by our editor Ullrich Scheideler in the edition\u2019s preface<\/a> and comments<\/a> section.<\/p>\n

A particular challenge from a practical point of view was the arrangement of the individual parts of the Berg string quartet: the first edition already contained not only numerous cue notes for orientation, but entire cue-note systems paralleling the main part:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We decided to go a step further and structure the parts as real playing scores, so that each player always sees the notes of the other players and thus the whole musical context:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

With this extremely complex composition, confronting performers even today with maximum difficulties, this form of presentation is, hopefully, a small help. Thanks to a particularly large paper format (25.5\u00d732.5 cm) and numerous fold-out pages, the part\u2019s good legibility and convenient page turns are nevertheless guaranteed \u2013 this video also gives a brief insight into this edition:
\n