I got Henle for the Bach and Chopin, I also use Cortot for the latter. I prefer to use pdf print outs for Beethoven sonatas; I have one volume of sonatas on Peters and it never fucking stays open. Itâs a real nightmare.
Randomly anyone have a nice pdf of the Partitas? Iâma learn the 6th soonish and the IMSLP version doesnât print well.
For Chopin etudes you cant go wrong with paderewski. Cortot is kinda fun to try, although i dont always like his way of excersizing your way through it. Beethoven of course Henle is best and f*cking expensive, if your in a big city try one of the used-stuff shops where you can find henle editions for almost nothing. Mozart i dunno, Peters is fine.
Or you can be a cheap ass and buy everything in DOVER
i disagree on henle, there are other less expensive urtext editions available almost always. itâs not as good of an edition as everyone thinks
WTC - ANY URTEXT EDITION! (ABRSM, Konemann, etc.)
Beethson - i prefer either Mugellini or Schnabel, Schenker is ok but has a few wrong notes
Chopets - paderewski
mozart - weiner urtext
WTC: There is a fantastic edition of book 1 by Giichiro Ichida published by Zen-On; see this topic, which contains some scans. It contains some of the most ingenious fingering that I have seen. Unfortunately, Ichida has not yet released an edition of book 2 (to my knowledge). Also, donât ignore Busoniâs 1895 edition of the WTK (Iâve uploaded it here); utterly fascinating.
Beethoven: I donât find any one edition definitive; but be sure to explore Von Bulowâs edition (for the same reasons as Busoniâs WTK).
Chopin Etudes: Badura-Skodaâs edition (part of the Wiener Urtext series) is fantastic. When studying these, always see what Godowsky has to say (in the prefaces to his individual paraphrases of each etude).
Chopin: Bases are covered pretty well between the Dover Mikuli, Paderewski, and Friedman
Thereâs a single volume, tightly formatted, 200-page complete WTC by Dover thatâs like 20 bucks. Still not as nice as Paulâs but its one hell of a deal, and quite convenient for travel.
seems silly that anyone would buy editions for fingerings; if youâre playing this rep shouldnât one by this point know the standard traditions of fingerings and be able to adapt them to a specific case for oneâs hands?
i think editions should be better chosen for fidelity to the composers manuscript, legibility, page turns, etc (although in the case of Schnabelâs beethoven edition itâs often interesting to have these myriad expressive suggestions)âŚ
Seems silly to me that you wouldnât at least want to look at some suggested fingerings by great pianists of the past, particularly Busoni and Schnabel, but thatâs just me.
Iâve always liked the Broder edition for the Mozart sonatas.
âfidelityâ to the composerâs manuscript is often a very tenuous and slippery slope (particularly with someone like Chopin who was constantly changing his mind).
is it? well, simply because itâs difficult does not mean it shouldnât be an objective i think, thatâs what scholars are for⌠and if not manuscripts, then editions published during the composersâ lifetime, etc. isnât this why we prize urtext in the first place? if you donât do this you end up with editions like Saint-Saensâs Rameau, Czernyâs Bach, etc., (and outside the piano rep, Haasâs Bruckner editions, etc) in which you have serious problems of people changing everything from dynamics and note values to notes themselves. (or instrumentation and form in Brucknerâs case!)
The entire cult of âurtextâ though is quite a misnomer. Composers often changed their minds between manuscript and first printings, and hereafter as well. I would trust say, the Schirmer edition (edited by some guy named Czerny) for example over any of the so-called âurtextâ editions out there because here we have a concrete example of someone who studied with the composer, and to boot, heard Beethoven himself perform these pieces in concert, which I find infinitely more authoratative than some nerdy musicologist, who often doesnât even play the piano at any competent level.
it really doesnât matter how good the musicologist is at the piano. if you dig a little deeper you realize that Beethoven wasnât a big fan of czernyâs playing. when czerny would play a piano concerto of his beethoven would compose him a cadenza rather than trust him to improvise his own. furthermore, itâs not exactly an obscure fact that performers at this time did not place a great emphasis on fidelity to the text, and just because somebody studied with whoever does not necessarily make them the best authority on their music, since they would often make âimprovementsâ of their own. all the circumstances should be weighed.
furthermore, czernyâs bach, as an example, is generally considered to be one of the worst editions. he habitually adds/deletes notes and thereby ruins some of the ingenious counterpoint.
All the Beethoven scholars Iâve talked to (Jacob Lateiner among the most vociferous) highly extoll the virtues of the Czerny edition with regards to the Beethoven concertos. Beethovenâs opinion of Czernyâs playing not-withstanding, once again I reiterate I trust the suggestions of someone who got it straight from the horseâs mouth, so to speak.
Yes, performers back in the day didnât really place a great emphasis on âfidelityâ to the textâŚperformers like Bach and Beethoven for example.
the type of fidelity weâre talking about is being taken out of context. for bach or any harpsichordist to improvise ornamentation or revoice a chord, maintaining the harmony in a cadence, is one thing. for someone to change the integrity of the counterpoint is another. furthermore, his performance tradition was based on people beginning with the score as an objective point of departure. when the point of departure is compromised, itâs my opinion weâre beginning to deal with a different kettle of fishâŚ
iâm sure czernyâs beethoven concerto edition is fine, but that doesnât change the bad quality of his bach edition, nor undermine the importance of weighing âurtextâ sources with other available information. and when weâre dealing with beethoven weâre already dealing with a less problematic medium than some other composers
I specifically did NOT recommend the Czerny for the Bach, and the type of performance practice youâre speaking of came directly out of thatâperformance, not the text (where scant few of Bachâs works were even published during his lifetime).
Please donât misunderstand me, Iâm all for trying to find the most honest possible rendition of what the composer intended that day he set pen to paper, and there is definitely value in the honest and thorough investigation of all sources when it pertains to such matters. There are just a myriad of examples where for instance, a composer changed his mind, and indicated as such, often in letters to colleagues about these changes. Are we then to still dogmatically cling to the dark grey editions and insist we âplay whatâs in the score?â Obviously youâre far too intelligent to think this way, but there are many, many musicians unfortunately who do (and teach at prestigious venues).
For any Medtner fans, I wanted to put in a plug for my friend, Satoru Takakuâs fantastic edition of the Op. 38 Forgotten Melodies first cycle, which includes a fascinating earlier version of the danza silverstra with a different coda, and alternate versions of the canzona serenata and sonata reminiscenza. Available from Zen-on.