Urtext edition
Encyclopedia
An urtext edition of a work of classical music
is a printed version intended to reproduce the original intention of the composer as exactly as possible, without any added or changed material. Other kinds of editions distinct from urtext are facsimile and interpretive editions, discussed below.
Typically, an urtext edition will include a preface indicating what sources were consulted by the editor. In the case of manuscripts, or first editions that have become rare, the editor will indicate the scholarly library or other repository in which they are kept.
Where the sources are few, or misprint-ridden, or conflicting, the task of the urtext editor becomes difficult. Cases where the composer had bad penmanship (for example, Beethoven
), or revised the work after publication, likewise create difficulties.
A fundamental problem in urtext editing is how to present variant readings. If the editor includes too few variants, this restricts the freedom of the performer to choose. Yet including unlikely variants from patently unreliable sources likewise serves the performer badly. Where the editor must go farthest out on a limb is in identifying misprints or scribal errors. The great danger—not at all hypothetical—is that an interestingly eccentric or even inspired choice on the composer's part will be obliterated by an overzealous editor.
One other source of difficulty arises from the fact that works of music usually involve passages that are repeated (either identically or similarly) in more than one location; this occurs, for instance, in the recapitulation section of a work in sonata form
or in the main theme of a rondo
. Often the dynamic markings or other marks of expression found in one location in the source material are missing in analogous locations. The strictest possible practice is to render all markings literally, but an urtext editor may also want to point out the markings found in parallel passages.
One common response of editors for all of these difficulties is to provide written documentation of the decisions that were made, either in footnotes or in a separate section of commentary.
The musicologist James Webster
, basing his remarks on his study of two leading urtext editions of Haydn
's E flat Piano Sonata, H. XVI:49, suggests that players interested in historically informed performance
ought to play from a facsimile. The reason is that some markings made by the composer simply cannot be rendered faithfully in a printed edition. For Haydn, these include marks that are intermediate in length between a dot and a stroke (which evidently have different meanings for this composer), or phrase arcs that end high above the notes, leaving it ambiguous where a phrase begins or ends. In such cases, printed editions are forced to make a choice; only a facsimile can provide an unaltered expression of the composer's intent.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many famous performing musicians provided interpretive editions, including Harold Bauer
, Artur Schnabel
, and Ignacy Paderewski. In the days before recorded music, such editions were often the only way that students could obtain inspiration from the performing practice of leading artists, and even today they retain value for this purpose.
A compromise between urtext and interpretive editing is an edition in which the editor's additions are typographically
distinguished (usually with parentheses, size, greyscale or detailed in accompanying prose) from the composer's own markings. Such compromise editions are particularly useful for early music
, where the interpretation of the musical notation of long ago often poses difficulties.
The Bülow-Lebert edition to which Newman refers is a well-known interpretive edition of the sonatas.
Yet performers of classical music use the term "urtext" frequently, because they usually value urtext editions highly. It is plain that knowing the composer's intent is only the starting point in the preparation of an effective musical performance; a great deal of independent thought and practice is necessary as well. But most musicians today would judge that the process should begin with the most faithful version of the composer's intent that scholarship can muster.
Web sites of publishers who issue urtext editions:
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
is a printed version intended to reproduce the original intention of the composer as exactly as possible, without any added or changed material. Other kinds of editions distinct from urtext are facsimile and interpretive editions, discussed below.
Preparing urtext editions
The sources for an urtext edition include the autograph (that is, the manuscript produced in the composer's hand), hand copies made by the composer's students and assistants, the first published edition, and other early editions. Since first editions often include misprints, a particularly valuable source for urtext editions is a copy of the first edition that was hand-corrected by the composer.Typically, an urtext edition will include a preface indicating what sources were consulted by the editor. In the case of manuscripts, or first editions that have become rare, the editor will indicate the scholarly library or other repository in which they are kept.
Where the sources are few, or misprint-ridden, or conflicting, the task of the urtext editor becomes difficult. Cases where the composer had bad penmanship (for example, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
), or revised the work after publication, likewise create difficulties.
A fundamental problem in urtext editing is how to present variant readings. If the editor includes too few variants, this restricts the freedom of the performer to choose. Yet including unlikely variants from patently unreliable sources likewise serves the performer badly. Where the editor must go farthest out on a limb is in identifying misprints or scribal errors. The great danger—not at all hypothetical—is that an interestingly eccentric or even inspired choice on the composer's part will be obliterated by an overzealous editor.
One other source of difficulty arises from the fact that works of music usually involve passages that are repeated (either identically or similarly) in more than one location; this occurs, for instance, in the recapitulation section of a work in sonata form
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
or in the main theme of a rondo
Rondo
Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...
. Often the dynamic markings or other marks of expression found in one location in the source material are missing in analogous locations. The strictest possible practice is to render all markings literally, but an urtext editor may also want to point out the markings found in parallel passages.
One common response of editors for all of these difficulties is to provide written documentation of the decisions that were made, either in footnotes or in a separate section of commentary.
Facsimile editions
Urtext editions differ from facsimile editions, which simply present a photographic reproduction of one of the original sources for a work of music. The urtext edition adds value to what the performer could get from a facsimile by integrating evidence from multiple sources and exercising informed scholarly judgment. Urtext editions are also easier to read than facsimiles. Thus, facsimile editions are intended mostly for use by scholars, along with performers who pursue scholarship as part of their preparation.The musicologist James Webster
James Webster
James Webster may refer to:* James Webster , former Senator of Australia* James Webster , rugby league player for Hull Kingston Rovers...
, basing his remarks on his study of two leading urtext editions of Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
's E flat Piano Sonata, H. XVI:49, suggests that players interested in historically informed performance
Historically informed performance
Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...
ought to play from a facsimile. The reason is that some markings made by the composer simply cannot be rendered faithfully in a printed edition. For Haydn, these include marks that are intermediate in length between a dot and a stroke (which evidently have different meanings for this composer), or phrase arcs that end high above the notes, leaving it ambiguous where a phrase begins or ends. In such cases, printed editions are forced to make a choice; only a facsimile can provide an unaltered expression of the composer's intent.
Interpretive editions
Urtext editions also differ from interpretive editions, which offer the editor's personal opinion on how to perform the work. This is indicated by providing markings for dynamics and other forms of musical expression, which supplement or replace those of the composer. In extreme cases, interpretive editions have deliberately altered the composer's notes or even deleted entire passages.In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many famous performing musicians provided interpretive editions, including Harold Bauer
Harold Bauer
Harold Bauer was a noted pianist who began his musical career as a violinist.Harold Bauer was born in London; his father was a German violinist and his mother was English. He took up the study of the violin under the direction of his father and Adolf Pollitzer. He made his debut as a violinist in...
, Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...
, and Ignacy Paderewski. In the days before recorded music, such editions were often the only way that students could obtain inspiration from the performing practice of leading artists, and even today they retain value for this purpose.
A compromise between urtext and interpretive editing is an edition in which the editor's additions are typographically
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
distinguished (usually with parentheses, size, greyscale or detailed in accompanying prose) from the composer's own markings. Such compromise editions are particularly useful for early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
, where the interpretation of the musical notation of long ago often poses difficulties.
Authenticity
Webster has suggested that many editions that are labeled "Urtext" on their cover don't really qualify:- The great majority of editions labelled 'Urtext' make many more changes than their editors admit. Publishers are partly to blame; they are afraid of doing anything that might seem unfamiliar or off-putting to any potential market. Indeed they want to have the best of both worlds; for example, the Neue Mozart Ausgabe claims to offer 'an unexceptionable text from the scholarly viewpoint, which at the same time takes the needs of musical practice into account.' Whether this is a pious hope or frankly based on self-interest, the fact remains that one can't serve two masters.
What editions are currently used?
William S. Newman suggests that in contemporary music teaching, urtext editions have become increasingly favored, though he expresses some ambivalence about this development:- The pronounced swing towards Urtext editions ... is a healthy sign. However, that swing may have gone too far from the student's standpoint. For example, I would almost rather entrust my students to the old BülowHans von BülowHans Guido Freiherr von Bülow was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard...
-Lebert edition of Beethoven's [piano] sonatas than to the Urtext, in which Beethoven's inconsistencies, especially in the matter of staccatos, slurs, and dynamic signs, can produce no end of confusion--almost, rather, that is, because the Bülow-Lebert edition ... went too far the other way, not only inserting numerous unidentified changes but also making various details consistent that were never meant to be.
The Bülow-Lebert edition to which Newman refers is a well-known interpretive edition of the sonatas.
The value of urtext editions
The very term "urtext" has fallen into disfavor among some critics and scholars, perhaps because it is perceived as overselling what an edition can accomplish. Plainly, the fidelity with which a printed edition can represent the composer's intentions must vary, and is never total. Moreover, the composer's intentions themselves are not completely well defined.Yet performers of classical music use the term "urtext" frequently, because they usually value urtext editions highly. It is plain that knowing the composer's intent is only the starting point in the preparation of an effective musical performance; a great deal of independent thought and practice is necessary as well. But most musicians today would judge that the process should begin with the most faithful version of the composer's intent that scholarship can muster.
List of publishers who issue urtext editions
- BärenreiterBärenreiterBärenreiter is a German classical music publishing house based in Kassel. The firm was founded by Karl Vötterle in Augsburg in 1923, and moved to Kassel in 1927, where it still maintains headquarters; it also has offices in Basel, London, New York and Prague...
- G. Henle VerlagG. Henle VerlagG. Henle Publishers is a German publishing house that specializes in Urtext editions of sheet music. The programme includes works by composers from all different periods, in particular composers from the baroque to the early twentieth century whose works are no longer under copyright. In addition...
- OKM Publishers
- Edition PetersEdition PetersEdition Peters, also known as C.F.Peters Musikverlag, is a German music publishing house, founded in Leipzig in 1800.From the 1860s it was largely run by members the Hinrichsen family, who were Jewish. The company was confiscated by the Nazis and administered by the "Trustee of Jewish Property"....
- Wiener Urtext Edition
- Könemann
- Breitkopf & HärtelBreitkopf & HärtelBreitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf . The catalogue currently contains over 1000 composers, 8000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on music. The name "Härtel" was added when Gottfried...
- Editio Musica Budapest
- SchottSchott MusicSchott Music is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe and is currently the second oldest music publishing house. The company headquarters of Schott Music was founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz, Germany in 1770.Established in...
- Carus-VerlagCarus-VerlagCarus-Verlag is a German music publishers founded in 1972 and based in Stuttgart.Carus was founded by choral conductor Günter Graulich and his wife Waltraud with the emphasis on church music...
- Boosey & HawkesBoosey & HawkesBoosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and wind musical instruments....
- PWM Edition
External links
- Comments on urtext editions from the C. F. Peters publishing house
- Comments on urtext editing by Patrice Connelly
- "The 4 types of music editions." Blog entry by Gerald Klickstein. Compares the same work in facsimile, urtext, and interpretive editions.
- http://www.musiklektorat.at/tf Urtext Editions of Guitarmusic
Web sites of publishers who issue urtext editions: