Klarinet Archive - Posting 000301.txt from 2010/10

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Urtext
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 11:32:38 -0400

On 10/25/2010 07:18 PM, Dan Leeson wrote:
> But despite the importance of items 2 and 3, you could not ignore item 1.
> Even though 2 and 3 have things in it that may be more definitive, it is
> still the manuscript and would have to be consulted.
>
> There are few formal rules involved here, but the original manuscript is
> stilt the most important source.

That's a fascinating story, one I hadn't heard of.

I asked the question because several of my recent Urtext-edition
purchases have been of early-20th-century works rather than 18th- or
19th-century pieces, and hence they often have a much better paper-trail
of production, with not just the autograph manuscript but often
corrected proofs, and sometimes second or third editions with still
further corrections clearly traceable to the composer.

So, for example, the recent Baerenreiter edition of the Debussy String
Quartet follows principally a printed score with handwritten corrections
by Debussy, which was quite possibly final proofs for a second edition
issued by the original publisher, Durand.

Similarly the Berg Piano Sonata, which went through a number of
published revisions, each with Berg's involvement (though sometimes the
precise details of that involvement are not clear):
http://www.henle.de/katalog/Vorwort/0819.pdf

The whole situation is going to become VERY interesting when, 100 years
from now, musicologists find themselves digging through composers' old
Finale files ... :-)
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