Klarinet Archive - Posting 000228.txt from 2010/10

From: Jennifer Jones <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Urtext
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:56:00 -0400

That is the best kind.

Thank you for putting a stop to it.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Jones, Jennifer and Jen

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Dan Leeson <dnleeson@-----.net> wrote:
> It is called "an edition." =A0Nothing more.
>
> Dan
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jennifer Jones" <helen.jennifer@-----.com>
> To: "The Klarinet Mailing List" <klarinet@-----.com>
> Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2010 7:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [kl] Urtext
>
>
> So, what do you call the non urtext versions that catch on? =A0Kenny G?
> (Please correct me if I have constructed a bad metaphor)
>
> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Dan Leeson <dnleeson@-----.net> wrot=
e:
>> I waited until the discussion of URTEXT editions settled down, but now I=
'd
>> like to comment on the matter.
>>
>>
>>
>> The term "Urtext" is derived from the city of UR, thought to refer to a
>> city in ancient Sumer, today Iraq. The general idea is that Ur was the
>> place where everything, including civilization, began. And so, Urtext,
>> from the musicological point of view, means the text based on the origin=
al
>> manuscript.
>>
>>
>>
>> If the edition is not based primarily on the manuscript, it is not Urtex=
t,
>> even though it may be well thought out and intelligently done. Basing the
>> edition on an early printing is not sufficient to claim that the new
>> edition is Urtext. It may be an excellent edition in that a thoughtful
>> editor has spent considerable time thinking about what has to be done, b=
ut
>> it is NOT Urtext.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thus, there can be no Urtext edition of the Mozart clarinet concerto or
>> the quintet for clarinet and strings, even though some very well thought
>> out editions of those works are incorrectly advertised as such.
>>
>>
>>
>> Another layer of complexity is that an editor has a very big say about
>> what the original manuscript says. No autograph is so clean that there a=
re
>> no problems in preparing an Urtext edition. Every autograph has its own
>> problems and the editor is the authority in terms of what the composer
>> meant whenever an ambiguous passage arises. One hears an editor say, "I
>> know what the composer said, but I don't know what he meant."
>>
>>
>>
>> The finished product is a combination of (1) the manuscript, (2) other
>> sources in which the composer may have shed light on that same compositi=
on
>> (including music other manuscripts and even letters), and editorial
>> changes and interpretations made (with the best of intentions) by an
>> editor who may or may not be qualified to interpret the sources at his
>> disposal. For example, there were editors in the early part of the 20th
>> century who asserted that Mozart did not know anything about the lower
>> range of the clarinet, because he called for notes below low written e.
>>
>>
>>
>> And to complicate the matter even further, there may be an extant
>> manuscript of a work, but it is unavailable at the time the first edition
>> is prepared (from a set of performance parts, for example). So the first
>> edition takes on a patina that it may not deserve. Then, at some later
>> time, the manuscript surfaces, but what happens is that players have
>> become used to the piece in the first edition. And what this means is th=
at
>> performers will reject changes based on the manuscript because they
>> differs from what it is they are used to.
>>
>>
>>
>> The most egregious example of that phenomenon is the gran Partitta, with
>> musicians rejecting an edition based on the autograph because it presents
>> material that contradicts the first edition in notes, rhythms, content,
>> resolution of abbreviations, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> I gave a lecture on this matter at U. of Indiana, and it was entitled,
>> "Abandon ye all hope of ever getting an Urtext of K. 622."
>>
>>
>>
>> Dan Leeson
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>>
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