Beethoven seems to have considered putting in every similar slur to be redundant, fussy, and insulting the player's intelligence quite a different attitude from today. The first edition added the slur in measure 3 because it was felt (either by the editor or Beethoven himself) that one more slur should be added for insurance. Thus the slur he placed in measure two in the MS is apparently to indicate that all similar patterns in the introduction are to be slurred. Here is the first edition, which preserves Beethoven's notation, and which as a single visual experience I think is far more attractive.īeethoven sometimes indicates a simile by omitting markings that he felt were obvious. And the slurs are often too bowed and unappetizing.The typography is undistinguished and out-of-proportion, with some elements too small and others too large. The accidentals, particularly the sharp and natural are quite unattractive, the note heads seem too small. The G-clef looks squashed, as do the piano braces, in fact the entire visual picture seems squashed. The various elements are similar, but in every case the new version is inferior to the old. I got out my copy of Baerenreiter's Handel 8 Great Suites (1974) to compare. The engraving itself has none of the beauty that I recall from Baerenreiter editions of the past, which I found inspirational. In my opinion, Wiener Urtext is doing a much better job of preserving the original notation in its recent editions, as if it is finally dawning on some editors that these composers really notated their music exactly as they wanted it. All are modernizations of the stemming and slurring and in my opinion, none enhance the visual communication but detract from it, simply for the sake of conforming to the current engraving practice. 81a, I see in the second measure, 2 deviations from Beethoven's manuscript, in the third measure,4 deviations, in the fourth measure, 2 deviations, and so it goes from most of the measures on the page. When I looked at a sample page from the latest Baerenreiter edition of the Sonata op. So why then does Baerenreiter modify Beethoven's notation? They were interesting to watch.īecause of my recent intensive experience with the piano sonatas, I agree completely with the gentleman at the beginning of the second video when he says that Beethoven took great, even extraordinary care in notating his music.
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