Beethoven original manuscripts4/8/2023 In other cases, for instance, with the Sonatas op. 22 dating from 1800, singularly extant for the first time is an engraver’s model of a sonata that is a proofread copy. The composer did not always comply with this wish, even in later years. Therefore, Beethoven was soon expected to submit copies by professional copyists, from which the music text could be engraved in the publishing house. From 1800 up to about 1806: Beethoven’s hard-to-decipher handwriting, his tendency, even in manuscripts intended for the publishing house, to correct heavily, more and more confronted publishers with unresolvable problems.But this can hardly compensate for the loss of the manuscripts. 31) in other cases, there exist prints that were corrected by the original publisher (e.g., op. In a few cases, Beethoven had printed compositions that were particularly erroneous reprinted in other publishing houses (e.g., op. For an Urtext edition, this means that we are dealing here with only one source for the edition – the first print. They got lost in the publishing houses, especially when these firms ceased operations. And since Beethoven had still not achieved his fame of later years, his autographs were treated less carefully. Proofread copies were therefore unnecessary, so they were not even produced. On the one hand, Beethoven obviously submitted his autographs to his publishers as engraver’s models. There are probably various reasons for this. Up to the turn of the 19th century: For sonatas composed before 1800, we have neither autographs nor proofread copies (with the exception of the Sonatina WoO 50, whose autograph remained with the gift’s recipient, Beethoven’s close childhood friend, Franz Gerhard Wegeler).The source situation can be divided in this respect into three genesis periods. So, what now is the status of the extant important manuscript sources, the autographs and proofread copies? Only the little Sonatina WoO 50, a gift of friendship, first appeared posthumously. Additional information beyond the table: All but one of the completed compositions listed were also published during Beethoven’s lifetime, mostly under his supervising eyes.This assumption is supported by the fact that from mid-1798 Beethoven first began to work in bound sketchbooks and hence in a more organised manner – extant from the prior period is simply unbound sketch material. The relative “confusion” of the genesis of the sonatas in the five years between 17 indicates less structured, focused work than in subsequent years.Furthermore, but this is certainly no surprise, the unfinished sonata in E-flat major Unv 13 suggests that especially in the first 30 years of his life, Beethoven probably composed other works in this genre that are lost today (thanks to the extensive inventory of sketches, his creative activity from 1800 is much more comprehensively documented).49 (!) are actually assumed to have been composed much earlier, that is, between sonatas op. 2, numbered today as the 1 st to 3 rd sonatas, are not the first Beethoven sonatas extant – which are the so-called Electoral Sonatas, composed over 10 years earlier. It is wonderful to see here that with Beethoven the system of opus numbers is not a watertight chronological series.Listed chronologically by genesis in this table are all Beethoven’s extant piano sonatas and sonatinas. Here is an informative table that I would like to discuss further below: But, alas, the situation for Beethoven’s piano sonatas is unfortunately not especially rosy. If the autograph is extant, and present are perhaps still other manuscript sources – for example, the engraver’s models for the first print, proofread by the composer himself, – then the goal of a secure music text is clearly a step closer. The composition’s music text is then available for the edition only in a more or less error-prone state. Editing a Beethoven work solely on the basis of a first print greatly challenges every editor of a scholarly edition.
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