URTEXT EDITION?

[rob_the_dude]

HI, this may sound a bit of a stupid question to ask, but i'm learning Schubert's Sonata in A and Chopin's Nocturne No.1 for my ALCM and the scores i need are Urtext editions.

Q1. What does URTEXT mean
Q2. Are all URTEXT editions the same 
Q3. Can i use any edition in my ALCM exam 

THANKS,
ROB

[general disarray]

Roughly, pure and free of outside editorial intrusions and interpretations.

Ideally, URTEXT is what the composer actually intended.  This means you have to come up with your own fingerings, in most cases.  That ain't bad, of course.  Just laborious.

In my Schubert Henle Urtext, however, there are fingerings provided by an editor.  It's a beautiful edition, too.  I'd use that edition, if I were you.  No one can fault you for the choice.  Period.

[gerryjay]

dear rob:
general is correct, and i second the recomendation for the henle verlag edition.

just for your curiosity, urtext means "original text". its meaning comes from the search for the most original source of a given text (not only musical, btw). in music, however, the term is related to what general said: an edition free of outside editorial intrusions and interpretations. however, i must add something to that: since manuscripts, first editions, and so on (primary sources) normally have mistakes, and discrepancies, there are some amount of decision in the process. any urtext edition of chopin's mazurkas is an example, because it's barely impossible in that case to define what is the composer actual intention (given the variety of versions noted by him of some works).
notice that in the musicological field there are several debates about the role and value of urtext editions. anyway, in performance we normally prefer an urtext edition because of some editorial absurds especially from late 19th and early 20th centuries. prior to the mid of the 20th centuries, was common a free fancy approach to edition, not only with fingerings, but adding anything that seems to "lack" in the original composition: dynamics, agogics, articulation signs, metronome marks (this is particularly interesting: probably you have at least one bach with a metronome mark, in spite the fact that metronome did not exist in his time, and furthermore, baroque music can't stand a rigid pulse), and even some aditional notes (probably to enhance the poor original text).
a very important example of a non-urtext that survived its time is busoni's version of bach chaconne: it is everything but bach. anyway, it's a close picture of what turn of the century pianists thought about his music.

about your second question, there are no two urtext editions exactly alike. quite controversial, isn't it? but as you read above, it's easy to understand that. again, i'm not sponsored by henle, but it's quite an honest and straightforward edition. if you have that, you are ok.

about your examination, i'll answer with their words: do i need to use the edition of a piece specified in the syllabus?. anyway, a simple email to the information center can avoid a lot of headache.

best wishes, and good luck!

[faulty_damper]

Which Schubert sonata is it?  The "little" or the "big"?

If it is the "big", then Henle is not the best choice because the editors did not use the autograph of this sonata and made a crucial mistake in the second movement.  Instead, they just re-engraved the Breitkoff & Haertel edition, thus reproducing the mistake.   Baerenreiter's edition corrects this mistake.

[mikey6]

If it is the "big", then Henle is not the best choice because the editors did not use the autograph of this sonata and made a crucial mistake in the second movement. 

Which is?

[faulty_damper]

Which is?

Starting at m101, there is an octave tremolando alternating between C-C' that continues into the next measure.  In the B&F edition, the following measure (m102) continues this tremolando on C'.  This following 2 measures on C# continues this pattern.

However, according to Baerenreiter, the beginning of m102 starts on C, not C'; and m104 starts on C#, not C#'.

Henle made no effort to look at the autograph manuscripts for this sonata (or the other two sonatas D958 and D960) and instead just re-engraved from the B&F edition.  Most of the autographs of Schubert's sonatas are lost so any Urtext edition has no choice but to copy out of existing published editions.  Henle either assumed these late sonatas were also lost or they were just careless.

[rob_the_dude]

Thanks Everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

faulty_damper (great name btw!) - i'm guessing its the small sonata. Its D.664 anyway from Op.120, the one that  begins: dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum 

Thanks for your answers gerryjay and general disarray, stupidly i never found it on the LCM site (i blame the site designers).