The death of truth and rise of the urtext hoax

[iumonito]

Dear fellow piano music lovers, students and scholars,

I saddens me to contemplate the DEPLORABLE level of sophistication, maturity, and civility, that the multifarious discussions we have been having about editions show.  Something must be done to remedy the rampant chaos, facism, and brutality that the present state of affairs affords us as a group.

To end the madness, let's first choose camps. 

1)
Those who believe the monopoly of the truth comes in dark green/gray, has big fat notes on creamy paper, and is is worth mortgaging a small South American country to afford to buy one of the three volumes of the Shubert sonatas (for example), please click above on the Henle bubble.

Should you want to also be known to be a Henle person, post below and state your reasons.

While you do, please also address the discrepancies among the various Urtext editions Henle has published of, say, Beethoven's sonatas.

Also discuss what part of the true text normalizes stems and eliminates the diversity of staccatto marks in Beethoven.  Justify rationally the addition of fingerings in situations in which the composer provided none, and make a principled distinction between those editorial enhancements and the addition of dynamic marks in, say, Schirmer's Czerny edition of the Well-Tempered Clavier, or of tempo marks in Schirmer's Kullack edition of Beethoven's concertos.  Cap this with an irrefutable exposition of how Czerny, who studied with Beethoven and was the teacher of Liszt, actually is never to be trusted, consulted, or even acknowledged to be an insightful musician with first-hand knowledge about what Beethoven thought of his music and that of others (except for Czerny's op. 299).

2)
Those who do not believe Henle is the Alpha and Omega of textual veracity, but who harbor in their heart a fundamental dislike for Hans von Bulow and Lindworth's notes on the Beethoven sonatas, and perhaps even for Ferrucio Busoni's and more recently Anthony Newman's and Ralph Kirkpatrick's editions of J.S. Bach, please mark bubble 2.

Give yourself extra points if you know how to spell Barenreiter, but are a little disappointed they re-issued Bach's six partitas with editorial enhancements in the form of fingerings.  Give yourself more extra points if you understand why the Dover edition of the Beethoven Sonatas is a better scholarly product than the first two Henle editions of the same, and even more points if you can explain the merits, but un-Urtext-ness, of Peter's Urtext under Arrau and Henle's most recent Urtext of the same sonatas with Perahia.

Substract all those points and then some if you are unfamiliar with the work of Dunn, Higgins and Holcman on Chopin's performance practices as to ornamentation.  Confess your sins if you do not improvise your candezas when playing Mozart concertos AND sonatas, and consider remedial Urtext Anonymous meetings and textual dependency rehab if you do not know what a lead-in is.  Punishment can be commuted for community service by collaborating in the translation of Czerny's Op. 200 (Cortot-like footnote, thank you Dr. Alice Mitchel for having seen this through already.  Whomever realizes your work exists and demostrates at least being able to get a copy may have their sentences suspended and no insurance points).  If you do believe Ekier was in a materially superior position to discern the best text of Chopin's works than, say, Joseffy and Mikuli and Fontana, please go to jail without passing go and read Michael Kelly, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 372 (Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized Dec 27, 2006).  ISBN 0195126475, 9780195126471.

3) and 4)
If you have read with pleasure 1) and 2), and only identified yourself with the little Barenreiter comment, you may need to consider the lower four bubbles.  Let's see: do you have more than one version of the Beethoven sonatas?  Even if you don't, have you ever consulted old editions to compare them with the fashionable one of the day?  You did know the refences to old editions of the Beethoven concertos and the works of Chopin described in 1 and 2 were in charge of people who actually were very close to the respective composers?

Give yourself extra points if you know what Tecla editions in London sells other than guitar music, and even more points if you play variation 13 of the Goldberg in tempo di giga and not as a Siciliano.  You shall be decorated with the Handexemplar prize and will get a free copy of every single book that purports to be urtext and yet it contains absolutely anything that cannot be traced to either and approved early edition, a manuscript, or even better a Handexemplar.  You may send them to the Holocaust Museum, as examples of the intellectual arrogance and self-rightgeousness that obliterated the wisdom of Nietzsche's Superman: one beyond good and evil, always capable of loving, forgiving, and embracing those further back in the path to Nirvana.  You also get a coupon for Amazon, to get James Grier, The Critical Editing of Music: History, Method, and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 281 p., August 28, 1996) (ISBN-10: 0521558638, ISBN-13: 978-0521558631  (Paperback)).

5)

OK, this is longer than a boa constrictor's fart, so let's fork it.  If you are into manuscripts and first editions, help me get started a site devoted to hosting memebr posting of PDFs of great works in manuscript or early editions.  Nils gets a palm for his dissemination of the manuscript for Liszt B-Minor Sonata.  Thanks Nils.  Let's do more and keep it in the silver area for the betterment of humankind/

(PS.  Pianostreet Urtext?  Really?)

6)

Was all that stuff above hermetic?  No clue what to get for your first copy of the Haydn sonatas?  A teacher just assigned you Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and a Rameau suite and darn it, you at least want to be learning the right text and not that of some incompetent editor (like Rimsky-Korsakoff, who indeed had no idea what Moussorgsky meant).  What should an honest, God-fearing folk should be playing, F-Sharp, or A?

Here are some pointers.  Please, please, please, if you take exeption with the pointers, do point it out!

Check IMLSP and similar text to see whether you can get an old edition to get started.  Then feel free to ask for information on the aesthetic and editorial choices of the various editions available to you.  That is a proper question.  Please avoid asking which one is better.  Hopefully by now you realize the answer is that you should study them both.  Learn as much as you can about what good musicians had interpreted the music to mean.  Then try to get your hands on an early edition or a copy of a manuscript).  The make a choice base not on which one is the true one, but on which one you think is more beautiful.

So, what edition of Ellington's Sophisticated Lady should I get. the one with the fingering added in?

[pianistimo]

before i read your entire message - i clicked 'it's too bad manuscripts....'

i think it's exciting to know what the composer actually wrote.  however, i agree with you that if the urtext price keeps going up and up - who's to stop you from writing out your own from the composer's manuscript.  (well, i might not have THAT kind of time)

anwyas, nobody wants to embarrass themselves by playing something that is obviously watered down.  (major parts of the bass left out - or chords easier to play).  you know you've gone off the beaten path if you've got levels of the piece (easy, medium, hard)

basically, the more you study music, the more you become aware of the idiosyncracies of each composer's type of writing.  some, ie chopin, are so complex that unless one is a VERY astute listener - the typical crowd won't even notice if a few notes are - well, not exactly as written.

i am, however - somewhat obsessive-compulsive.  if i know that the composer intended something - i'll really try to do whatever it is that is intended.  and poulenc probably gave his music to salabert for a good reason.  maybe he liked the publisher.  should we then ask another publisher to be so careful?  some publisher's just want money and don't care to fix mistakes because the proofreading is tedious to them. 

here's a book entitled 'virtuosi' - and it explains the 'ur' in urtext.  i thought it was helpful to read:  https://books.google.com/books?id=K2lA-nUvmNIC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=pianists+and+urtexts&source=web&ots=pb_I9dx-Qj&sig=ySJsSnymyAnv7QAPZRnkOGxuHgk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

[keypeg]

Thank you, Pianistissimo, for the link to an analysis of "Ur" in Urtext.

nobody wants to embarrass themselves by playing something that is obviously watered down.

This would reflect an attitude where the performer is concerned with himself and how he is judged by others or impresses others. 

I would rather say that you can't get the meaning of the music and can't do it justice if it's been watered down.  Something is missing, something is off, and in some way it doesn't "work".  In some ways it's actually harder to play because you're not transported by the original cohesiveness of the piece.  At least that's how I seem to experience it.

[Kassaa]

I have almost only Henle books, a lot of Paderewski Chopin books, I use both Henle and Paderewski when studying Chopin. I don't see the problem with added fingering, you don't HAVE to use them, and in Chopin Henle editions it's very clear which fingerings are from Chopin and which are not. Apart from that, they're very clearly printed and not more expensive than for instance a Boosey and Hawkes Rachmaninoff edition.

Good luck anyone on reading a Beethoven manuscript.

[general disarray]

I have almost only Henle books, a lot of Paderewski Chopin books, I use both Henle and Paderewski when studying Chopin. I don't see the problem with added fingering, you don't HAVE to use them, and in Chopin Henle editions it's very clear which fingerings are from Chopin and which are not.

Good luck anyone on reading a Beethoven manuscript.

Yeh, I don't see the problem with added editorial fingering, either.  What's the opposition to it all about anyway.  You can use it or not.  It saves labor.

And as someone mentioned above, it's helpful in sight-reading.  Scale stuff is often streamlined with helpful finger-number insertions that give you a quick clue as to shifts and twists in the runs. 

As to which editions are "better,"  well, I go with the one on my shelf.  What's a note here or there?  Chopin himself changed his mind with every edition!  

[welltemperedpianist]

Interesting thread, though I had a hard time choosing any of the poll answers, since they all seem so negative and sarcastic. 

Anyway, "urtext" in most cases does not mean "original and unedited" but rather "most popular editions of work". For instance, take a look at any Bach by Henle - they include finger numbers (sometimes even finger "exchanging" which wasn't used in the time period), all the ornaments are compilations of "favorites/most popular" and in many of the "da capo" sections, they write out the entire ritornello. Of course, I'm just being facetious and showing how un-"urtext" it is, and it would be bothersome to not include fingerings, ornaments, and so on... However, it is tons better than other "editions" which goes so far as to include dynamics, pedaling, even tempo markings... So I'm not complaining with Henle.

[iumonito]

Good luck anyone on reading a Beethoven manuscript.

https://www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org/composer/brahms.html

https://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php//startseite_digitales_archiv_en

https://www.tecla.com/extras/1001/1001/1001note.htm

How can anyone not even be curious about these things?!

Hi WTP!  Negative?  It is too bad manuscripts are not more widely diseminated, a serious student should consult several editions.  Preachy, yes; negative, hmm, really?

Sarcastic, well.  Quijote had a better chance of accomplishing something practical.

And, BTW, I agree with your perception of what Urtext is (sort of, that's the whole point: I feel frustrated that there is such a widely accepted opinion that Urtext is really the only path to the true intention of the composers).  That is certainly what Urtext editions pretend to be.  They want to be the true text.  I say there is no such thing, and that our understanding of the gifts that the great composers left us is a process, rather than an object.

Henle, Steinway, and Linus' blankie: three things believed to be what they are not.

[pianistimo]

how did linus' blankie get into this?  oh.  yes.  the urtexts that have the front cover ripped off.  yes.  i have one of those.  it's henle's second book of the beethoven sonatas.  i still can't figure where the first three pages went.  typically they get shifted into stacks - but i've been looking through all the stacks for ages and can't find the pages.  it makes me realize i should have not only covered the books with clear plastic - but also bound them again.  paper bindings only last so long.

[Kassaa]

https://www.juilliardmanuscriptcollection.org/composer/brahms.html

https://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php//startseite_digitales_archiv_en

https://www.tecla.com/extras/1001/1001/1001note.htm

How can anyone not even be curious about these things?!

Hi WTP!  Negative?  It is too bad manuscripts are not more widely diseminated, a serious student should consult several editions.  Preachy, yes; negative, hmm, really?

Sarcastic, well.  Quijote had a better chance of accomplishing something practical.

And, BTW, I agree with your perception of what Urtext is (sort of, that's the whole point: I feel frustrated that there is such a widely accepted opinion that Urtext is really the only path to the true intention of the composers).  That is certainly what Urtext editions pretend to be.  They want to be the true text.  I say there is no such thing, and that our understanding of the gifts that the great composers left us is a process, rather than an object.

Henle, Steinway, and Linus' blankie: three things believed to be what they are not.

Of course I looked into some manuscripts, but those from Beethoven are far from readable: https://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=5090&template=dokseite_digitales_archiv_en&_eid=5057&_ug=Piano%20and%20orchestra&_werkid=58&_dokid=wm277&_opus=op.%2058&_mid=Works%20by%20Ludwig%20van%20Beethoven&_seite=2

[ryguillian]

Dear fellow piano music lovers, students and scholars,

I saddens me to contemplate the DEPLORABLE level of sophistication, maturity, and civility, that the multifarious discussions we have been having about editions show.  Something must be done to remedy the rampant chaos, facism, and brutality that the present state of affairs affords us as a group.

To end the madness, let's first choose camps. 

1)
Those who believe the monopoly of the truth comes in dark green/gray, has big fat notes on creamy paper, and is is worth mortgaging a small South American country to afford to buy one of the three volumes of the Shubert sonatas (for example), please click above on the Henle bubble.

Should you want to also be known to be a Henle person, post below and state your reasons.

While you do, please also address the discrepancies among the various Urtext editions Henle has published of, say, Beethoven's sonatas.

Also discuss what part of the true text normalizes stems and eliminates the diversity of staccatto marks in Beethoven.  Justify rationally the addition of fingerings in situations in which the composer provided none, and make a principled distinction between those editorial enhancements and the addition of dynamic marks in, say, Schirmer's Czerny edition of the Well-Tempered Clavier, or of tempo marks in Schirmer's Kullack edition of Beethoven's concertos.  Cap this with an irrefutable exposition of how Czerny, who studied with Beethoven and was the teacher of Liszt, actually is never to be trusted, consulted, or even acknowledged to be an insightful musician with first-hand knowledge about what Beethoven thought of his music and that of others (except for Czerny's op. 299).

2)
Those who do not believe Henle is the Alpha and Omega of textual veracity, but who harbor in their heart a fundamental dislike for Hans von Bulow and Lindworth's notes on the Beethoven sonatas, and perhaps even for Ferrucio Busoni's and more recently Anthony Newman's and Ralph Kirkpatrick's editions of J.S. Bach, please mark bubble 2.

Give yourself extra points if you know how to spell Barenreiter, but are a little disappointed they re-issued Bach's six partitas with editorial enhancements in the form of fingerings.  Give yourself more extra points if you understand why the Dover edition of the Beethoven Sonatas is a better scholarly product than the first two Henle editions of the same, and even more points if you can explain the merits, but un-Urtext-ness, of Peter's Urtext under Arrau and Henle's most recent Urtext of the same sonatas with Perahia.

Substract all those points and then some if you are unfamiliar with the work of Dunn, Higgins and Holcman on Chopin's performance practices as to ornamentation.  Confess your sins if you do not improvise your candezas when playing Mozart concertos AND sonatas, and consider remedial Urtext Anonymous meetings and textual dependency rehab if you do not know what a lead-in is.  Punishment can be commuted for community service by collaborating in the translation of Czerny's Op. 200 (Cortot-like footnote, thank you Dr. Alice Mitchel for having seen this through already.  Whomever realizes your work exists and demostrates at least being able to get a copy may have their sentences suspended and no insurance points).  If you do believe Ekier was in a materially superior position to discern the best text of Chopin's works than, say, Joseffy and Mikuli and Fontana, please go to jail without passing go and read Michael Kelly, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 372 (Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized Dec 27, 2006).  ISBN 0195126475, 9780195126471.

3) and 4)
If you have read with pleasure 1) and 2), and only identified yourself with the little Barenreiter comment, you may need to consider the lower four bubbles.  Let's see: do you have more than one version of the Beethoven sonatas?  Even if you don't, have you ever consulted old editions to compare them with the fashionable one of the day?  You did know the refences to old editions of the Beethoven concertos and the works of Chopin described in 1 and 2 were in charge of people who actually were very close to the respective composers?

Give yourself extra points if you know what Tecla editions in London sells other than guitar music, and even more points if you play variation 13 of the Goldberg in tempo di giga and not as a Siciliano.  You shall be decorated with the Handexemplar prize and will get a free copy of every single book that purports to be urtext and yet it contains absolutely anything that cannot be traced to either and approved early edition, a manuscript, or even better a Handexemplar.  You may send them to the Holocaust Museum, as examples of the intellectual arrogance and self-rightgeousness that obliterated the wisdom of Nietzsche's Superman: one beyond good and evil, always capable of loving, forgiving, and embracing those further back in the path to Nirvana.  You also get a coupon for Amazon, to get James Grier, The Critical Editing of Music: History, Method, and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 281 p., August 28, 1996) (ISBN-10: 0521558638, ISBN-13: 978-0521558631  (Paperback)).

5)

OK, this is longer than a boa constrictor's fart, so let's fork it.  If you are into manuscripts and first editions, help me get started a site devoted to hosting memebr posting of PDFs of great works in manuscript or early editions.  Nils gets a palm for his dissemination of the manuscript for Liszt B-Minor Sonata.  Thanks Nils.  Let's do more and keep it in the silver area for the betterment of humankind/

(PS.  Pianostreet Urtext?  Really?)

6)

Was all that stuff above hermetic?  No clue what to get for your first copy of the Haydn sonatas?  A teacher just assigned you Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and a Rameau suite and darn it, you at least want to be learning the right text and not that of some incompetent editor (like Rimsky-Korsakoff, who indeed had no idea what Moussorgsky meant).  What should an honest, God-fearing folk should be playing, F-Sharp, or A?

Here are some pointers.  Please, please, please, if you take exeption with the pointers, do point it out!

Check IMLSP and similar text to see whether you can get an old edition to get started.  Then feel free to ask for information on the aesthetic and editorial choices of the various editions available to you.  That is a proper question.  Please avoid asking which one is better.  Hopefully by now you realize the answer is that you should study them both.  Learn as much as you can about what good musicians had interpreted the music to mean.  Then try to get your hands on an early edition or a copy of a manuscript).  The make a choice base not on which one is the true one, but on which one you think is more beautiful.

So, what edition of Ellington's Sophisticated Lady should I get. the one with the fingering added in?

tl;dr — this is total decadence.

gtfo

[cherub_rocker1979]

But manuscripts often have many errors.

[richard black]

I'm quite a fan of Henle. Never mind the Urtext (schmurtext) bit, they are very smartly printed and intelligently laid out on good quality paper with an invariably good quality binding on them. For all of that, plus the usually quite helpful notes in the foreword/appendix, I am happy to hand over premium $ for them.

And actually I could say much the same for Bärenreiter and Wiener Urtext.