 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2017-08-30 12:28
I don't know what's your attitude toward sheet music. To me, a good edition is like a good friend that you can keep for a very long time. Luckily, for most standard clarinet repertoire, we now have the very good editions, eg, Henle for Weber, Brahms, Debussy etc; Bärenreiter for Mozart; Wilhelm Hansen for Nielsen. However, on the other hand, it is really annoying that some publishers, which have the copyright of some relatively new music, still sell the ancient editions for a very high price. Two examples here are: 1. Messiaen's The End of Time Quartet published by Durand. 2 Ligeti's Six Bagatelles published by Schott. In the first case, the music is plate engraved, whose readability is of course terrible compared to the digital ones. In the second case, the situation is even worse, the music is handwritten! I really don't understand why these publishers are too lazy to engrave these music again using notation software. And as musicians, we have to spend a large amount of money to buy these low quality sheet music.
Here I also list some my favorite editions:
Mozart Concerto: most people use Bärenreiter edition but here I recommend the recently published Schott one (Edited by Meyer/Wehle). In this edition, it contains a revised version for standard A clarinet and also some very useful editorial suggestions for articulation and dynamics (although it also unfortunately contains some errors).
Mozart Trio: Bärenreiter
Mozart Quintet: Breitkopf & Härtel. The only edition contains a Basset clarinet version.
All Brahms, Debussy, Berg, Weber three concertos, Saint-Saëns, Schumann: Henle.
Nielsen: Wilhelm Hansen.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2017-08-30 16:14
In the first case, the music is plate engraved, whose readability is of course terrible compared to the digital ones
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I strongly disagree with this statement. As an engraver myself (now done digitally but earlier with pen and ink) I strive to match the beauty of a good plate engraved edition, such as the Brahms Simrock edition of the Sonatas.
A good example would be the newer edition of Stravinsky's Three Pieces: This was set digitally and is, in my opinion, just horrible. The plate engraved version is a million times better.
Ditto for the Poulenc Sonata.
There are also some beautiful hand-written editions. Check out some of the Berg scores copied by Langenscheidt (sp?), such as the Chamber Concerto.
Of course there are some nicely done digital editions (Adams' Gnarly Buttons for example).
So, let's not make what my seventh grade English teacher used to call "glittering generalities".
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Author: Slowoldman
Date: 2017-08-30 17:38
Other than legibility, how do people judge a "good" edition? Why have certain editions become "preferred"? (Fewer dynamic markings, more dynamic markings, articulations???)
Thanks.
Amateur musician, retired physician
Delaware Valley Wind Symphony, clarinet 1
Bucks County Symphony Orchestra, clarinet 2 (sub)
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Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2017-08-30 18:21
Slowoldman, in my opinion, there are several things which make certain editions preferred.
1. With enough research. In other words, the editors should take all resources (e.g., original manuscript, first edition, composer's letters, composer's general style of notation) into consideration. Therefore, the edition can best represent the composer's intention. In theory, the editorial additions should be avoided but the case of Mozart's clarinet concerto is different.
2. With reasonable page turns. This is not easy and for this sometimes you have to add one blank page or a fold-in page. One bad example of this is Bartók's Contrast.
3. Some necessary cue notes. This is not only important for orchestral parts but also for solo repertoire.
Ideally, the edition should also contain a well written preface and a report to let the performer know the background of the music and what are the difference among different resources.
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Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2017-08-30 18:40
rmk54, you are right. It's like high definition does not necessarily mean the movie is better than some old movies. But if you use the new technology well, I believe it is definitely better. I also agree the editions published by Chester Music are not good (e.g., Stravinsky's Suite from L'Histiore du Soldat). Furthermore, some early digitally engraved editions are not good largely due to the limitation of notation softwares but the softwares have improved dramatically recently but unfortunately some publishers do not want to update their editions.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2017-08-30 20:18
Money, money, money. There is no money in adding labor to a printed work that already sells just fine.
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