{"id":6971,"date":"2022-11-28T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T07:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=6971"},"modified":"2022-11-28T09:11:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T08:11:32","slug":"bartoks-string-quartets-from-the-score-to-the-individual-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2022\/11\/28\/bartoks-string-quartets-from-the-score-to-the-individual-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Bart\u00f3k\u2019s String Quartets: from the score to the individual parts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A quintessential feature of the Henle Urtext editions is the parts material optimally arranged for performance. This is particularly important with string quartets, since in concert they are usually played from the music (unlike the situation in solo or duo recitals, where performers often play from memory). For this reason, even in the age of digital music notation, our individual parts are by no means created \u201cby pushing a button\u201d, but quite the opposite: After the original editorial work has been completed and the full score has been typeset, this is where the work really begins in the interaction between music typesetter, editor and musicians, when we contact ensembles familiar with the repertoire, on the one hand, in order to clarify with them practical playing questions, and on the other, we carry out the so-called \u201cparts extraction\u201d, thus, the technical process of producing individual parts from the full score in several steps.<\/p>\n

Does all this sound very theoretical? Well then, let\u2019s take a practical look at the process using the example of our just-published parts edition of Bart\u00f3k\u2019s String Quartet No. 2<\/a>. As with many 20th<\/sup>-century works, just a glance at the score shows how different in density the notation of an 18th<\/sup>-century quartet looks as opposed to that of a 20th<\/sup>-century quartet:<\/p>\n

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J. Haydn Quartet Op. 76\/1<\/p><\/div>\n

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B. Bart\u00f3k Quartet No. 2<\/p><\/div>\n

Thus, indicated in Haydn, besides the so-called \u201cprimary\u201d pitch and tone-duration parameters, are only very sparingly such \u201csecondary\u201d parameters as tempo and dynamics; more precisely given is just the articulation. As is well known, these \u201csecondary\u201d details, so essential for performing a work, greatly increased during the 19th<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> centuries: In earlier 2022 \u201cString Quartet Year\u201d blog posts, regular readers have already been able to marvel at examples of the exuberant indications in quartets of a Berg, Zemlinsky<\/a> or Schoenberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bart\u00f3k, too, recorded many practical performance details in his full scores \u2013 and often revised his meticulous tempo indications, for example, even after going to press, as can impressively be seen from the long tables in the Complete Edition\u2019s Critical Report<\/a>:\"\"<\/a>The numerous, sometimes very detailed tempo indications take up a lot of space, horizontally. Vertically, the rehearsal numbers, but above all, also the sometimes very large ambitus of the individual parts prove to be a challenge for a handsome and yet practical notation, especially since also added are the footnotes on variants relevant to performance practice, so typical of our Bart\u00f3k editions.<\/p>\n

From the outset it was clear that in the first movement\u2019s upper parts we would not be able to manage with the three pages of the densely-printed first edition. Rather, sensible now seemed to be even distributing the first 70, Violin 1 measures of the first edition\u2019s single page over a double page, in this way preserving the good page turn at rehearsal number 10 and concurrently achieving an uncluttered layout with also enough leeway for cue notes and footnotes.<\/p>\n

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Violin 1, left: first edition; middle\/right: Henle Urtext edition<\/p><\/div>\n

The rest of movement I could then be very well distributed over pp. 4\u20136, with even a suitable page turn for page 5 located in measure 151. Page 6 with the remaining measures 152\u2013180 was left, however, quite empty, which is neither musically appropriate nor attractive \u2013 especially since here there were also no footnotes to be accommodated. Therefore, the music typesetter immediately suggested an alternative when sending us the so-called \u201crough layout\u201d (i.e., a 1st<\/sup> proof showing the music text initially apportioned only per page, but not yet configured in detail \u2013 as you can easily see in the illustration below): Page 6 could also be appended to page 5 as an extra page foldout, so that no page turn is needed and the text is better distributed \u2013 a solution that we found much more convincing.<\/p>\n

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Rough layout with typesetter\u2019s suggestion<\/p><\/div>\n

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Finalized music text<\/p><\/div>\n

We have such page foldouts in many of our separate parts, whether for chamber music or highly virtuosic solo literature, because they provide more leeway for a good page layout. But, they can only be included at a movement\u2019s beginning or end. Thus the performer can unfold the extra page before starting the movement, and then turn the leaf; only before the next movement starts, he also has to turn the extra page.<\/p>\n

In addition to page turns, cue notes are another aspect to consider when setting up the individual part \u2013 also and particularly in the case of Bart\u00f3k. The 1920 first edition almost completely dispenses with this. However, the work\u2019s music structure, rhythmically not uncomplex and with the constantly changing tempo, makes entries quite tricky in some places, so that here, seemingly, was still room for optimising. Indeed, we even considered whether in some places an additional stave with the melody-bearing part in small cue notes might be useful, as is quite common in other 20th<\/sup>-century chamber music editions (and also in Bart\u00f3k\u2019s later quartets).<\/p>\n

Our perusal of various quartets led to astonishingly various findings: Whereas in some of them cue notes were even considered superfluous in view of the piece\u2019s great degree of difficulty \u2013 definitely not to be sight-read \u2013 in others, additional small cue-note staves could be introduced in so many places that the separate parts would have become as thick as books…. \u00a0So, we had to gauge the situation, deciding on a middle course for this quartet: with considerably more cue notes than in the first edition, facilitating entries, especially in rhythmically-metrically intricate places \u2013 such as, for example, at the first movement\u2019s rehearsal number 10, where encountered are tempo changes together with syncopated figuration:<\/p>\n

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For the individual violin 1 part with cue notes, see fig. above<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In the second movement, too, we have fortified the passage interspersed with rests and fermatas between rehearsal numbers 19 and 21 with a few cue notes, as opposed to the first edition, and have additionally indicated the general rests \u2013 such as is customary in our parts editions \u2013 to facilitate musical orientation.<\/p>\n

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Violin 1, II. mov., above: first edition; below: Henle Urtext edition<\/p><\/div>\n

With these aids we would like to offer musicians the best possible introduction to the fascinating world of Bart\u00f3k\u2019s string quartets. As a matter of course, our Bart\u00f3k-quartet parts also provide another practical aspect, presenting a veritable compendium of performance-practice in the Comments<\/em> at the end of the edition, with information about Bart\u00f3k\u2019s \u2013 very precise \u2013 ideas on articulation, vibrato, glissando, muting. This, after all, is true in all the numerous Bart\u00f3k Urtext editions<\/a> that since 2016 the Henle Verlag has been publishing, based on the Complete Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A quintessential feature of the Henle Urtext editions is the … 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":[528,312,3,213],"tags":[579,85,659],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971"}],"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=6971"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6990,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971\/revisions\/6990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}