![]() ![]() Observe that, among other editorial differences between this and the urtext and facsimile, slurs have been added to the eighth notes in the right hand in measures 1 & 2. Did an editor insert those slurs or was an alternate manuscript source used? The edition doesn’t say. These types of editions can be problematic because they may include alterations that reflect an editor’s style, opinions, or lack of precision more than a composer’s intentions.įor instance, consider this edition of the foregoing Mozart excerpt: Sometimes, pitches, articulations, and other elements are changed without notice. Often, no indication is given in the score as to the source of the music or whether an expressive or a technical marking originates from the composer or the editor. It’s taken from the Neue Mozart Ausgabe, or New Mozart Edition, published by Bärenreiter (as is the above facsimile):Ī performance edition presents a composition in a manner that an editor believes will facilitate a performer’s learning process, add expressive features to a piece, simplify notation and page turns, clarify technical execution, or make the music available at lower cost. The following is an urtext edition of the above excerpt by Mozart. No alterations are made to the music, but a composition becomes much easier for performers to read and learn. In an urtext edition (i.e., “original text”), a publisher engraves a primary source of the music, such as a facsimile, into modern notation. Here are the opening measures from an autograph facsimile of Mozart’s Variations K455 for piano (i.e., the original was hand-written by the composer): The 4 Types of Music Editions Type 1: FacsimileĪ facsimile edition typically presents a photographic reproduction of a composer’s or copyist’s manuscript or of a historical published version of a piece. I’ll also suggest ways in which we can avoid the pitfalls of faulty publications. ![]() This post describes the 4 main types of published music editions: Yet he was at the same time incapable of making a servile copy, however faithfully he may have followed the layout of the original.Have you ever performed a piece of music for a teacher or coach only to learn that the printed edition you’re using contains errors or odd revisions? One can recognize this even in the carelessness of the notation seldom did Mozart make more frequent use of the conventional abbreviations of his day. For a little fun, check out this 1948 essay by musicologist Alfred Einstein, cousin of Albert, on recent Mozartian discoveries of the day.Įinstein writes charmingly about a then-freshly discovered autograph of the “Prague Dances”, K. Here is a playlist of pianist Zoltan Kocsis performing from the manuscript at a private concert at the National Szechenyi Library earlier this month.Īnytime a new manuscript by Mozart turns up there’s bound to be excitement. Mikusi’s discovery confirms that the first edition is, in fact, correct. The score, which has now been authenticated as an original by top Mozart scholars, has been creating a stir in the world of classical piano performance where passages in the sonata’s minuet section have been altered over the years, under an assumption that its first edition contained errors Mozart could not possibly have written. It turns out what Mikusi had found was a rare manuscript copy of Mozart’s most famous piano sonata, Sonata in A, K.331, the one with the famous “Rondo alla Turca” finale. There, among some unidentified documents, were several pages in handwriting he recognized immediately: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s. For it is scarcely to be expected that mere chance should bring to light again the autographs of those larger works of Mozart’s whose loss is so distressing… -Alfred Einstein, 1948īalazs Mikusi was working at the National Szechenyi Library in Budapest recently when he stumbled across every musicologist’s dream. The harvest is small and unpre-possessing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |