The term ‘historical edition’ may be applied to any music publication that is devoted to a past repertory. The class of historical edition most valuable for the study of original versions of past music is the ‘scholarly’ or ‘critical’ edition. Prepared on the basis of a critical evaluation of all known primary sources, this class of edition is designed to present the most authoritative authentic version of its contents, with editorial material clearly distinguished from the original. The scholarly edition may be contrasted with the ‘practical’ or ‘performance’ edition, which is usually produced from unstated or secondary sources and may incorporate additions or changes designed to help the modern performer.
Historical editions are subdivided here according to content. ‘Collected editions’ refer to those publications that present a complete repertory, either the complete works of a single composer (also known as a ‘complete edition’ or ‘Gesamtausgabe’) or those multi-volume series in which the majority of individual volumes present a unified musical repertory derived from the same or from closely related original sources (also known as ‘Denkmäler’ or ‘monuments’). ‘Anthologies’ refer to historical publications of selections and excerpts from a variety of musical sources; these are subdivided into ‘extended anthologies’ (containing five or more volumes published over a period of five or more years) and ‘small anthologies’
Facsimile series (not, strictly speaking, editions), in which sources are reproduced with or without additional editorial comment, are included under collected editions of music.
See also Anthology.
For a comprehensive list of historical editions see vol.28.
SYDNEY ROBINSON CHARLES/GEORGE R. HILL, NORRIS L. STEPHENS, JULIE WOODWARD
Until the second half of the 18th century music publications were devoted principally to new or nearly new works. When an older work was printed, it was almost certainly one that was sufficiently popular to have remained in the performing repertory of the locality of the publication: for instance, works of Palestrina were still printed in 1689 in Rome (RISM 16891), and Tudor church music was published as late as 1641 in London (16415). The awakening interest in music of the past which produced the first modern histories of music also led to the first true historical editions, and it is significant that early writers of music histories also edited historical music collections (Burney’s La Musica che si canta … nella Cappella Pontificia, 1771 and Martini’s Esemplare, ossia Saggio … di contrappunto, 1774–5). Paralleling this interest in the revival of forgotten music was the recognition that music of the past still in use ought to be presented accurately in its own terms, and editors began to search out original sources in order to produce authentic readings. Early examples of such editions are Boyce’s Cathedral Music (1760–63) and Arnold’s publication of the same name (1790). The same interest in an accurate musical text also led to efforts to produce uniform editions of the entire musical works of favourite individual composers. The first of these, also edited by Arnold, was intended to comprise the works of Handel, but was never completed (1787–97). Other early complete-works editions similarly remained unfinished: Mozart (1798–9 and 1798–1806), Haydn (1802–43), Clementi (1803–19), Beethoven (1828–45), Schubert (c1835) and again Handel (1845–58).
Apart from these unsuccessful attempts at complete editions, most historical editions of this period were small anthologies containing vocal polyphony from the 16th century onwards. Instrumental anthologies began to appear around the turn of the century in smaller quantity; they include Cartier’s L’art du violon (1798) and Clementi’s Selection of Practical Harmony (1801–15). By the early 19th century the success of the small historical anthology was such that more extensive publications and series began to appear, such as Latrobe’s Selection of Sacred Music (1806–25) and the Auswahl vorzüglicher Musik-werke in gebundener Schreibart, published in 16 volumes under the auspices of the Königliche Akademie der Künste in Berlin (1835–41).
A few early editors prepared anthologies with quite specific limitations, thereby foreshadowing the future development of the historical edition. Burney’s collection cited above presents only music performed in the papal chapel during Holy Week, and Vincent Novello’s The Fitzwilliam Music (1825) confines itself to works of Italian composers found in manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Museum. A geographically selected repertory is presented in Cichocki’s Chants d’église … des anciens compositeurs polonais (1838–9), and a special and cohesive repertory is singled out in F.H. von der Hagen’s Minnesinger (1838–61). The second volume of Crotch’s Specimens of Various Styles (c1807–9) may be considered the first history of music in examples.
Editorial criteria did not, properly speaking, exist during this early period. Each editor followed his own judgment, which was often tempered by an assumption that the integrity of the source could be superseded by his own more advanced musical knowledge. For instance, having made an agreeable piano accompaniment from a figured bass line, an early editor could see no reason to encumber his edition with the now unnecessary figuration. He was also likely to accept a single source as authoritative in attributions, and rarely sought out concordant sources. Furthermore, many aspects of early notation were clarified only by later scholars. For these reasons, early historical editions are useful today less for their content than as illustrations of the history of music scholarship.
A second phase in the development of historical editions may be said to have started around the mid-19th century, characterized by the publication of large collected editions in which completeness became the rule rather than the exception, and by publications in which the criteria of modern editing began to be established. The new phase was first apparent in collected editions of single composers. In 1851 the Bach-Gesellschaft issued the first volume of a critical edition of Bach’s complete works, inaugurating an era of vigorous activity in complete editions that lasted until World War II. A very large number of these were published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, with initiation dates as follows: Bach (1851), Handel (1858), Palestrina (1862), Beethoven (1862), Mendelssohn (1874), Mozart (1877), Chopin (1878), Schumann (1880), Grétry (1884), Schubert (1884), Schütz (1885), Lassus (1894), Berlioz (1899), Schein (1901), Victoria (1902), Haydn (1907) and Brahms (1926). Other sets attaining completion or substantial proportions during this period are: Purcell (1878), Sweelinck (1894), Rameau (1895), Obrecht (1908), Josquin des Prez (1921), Scheidt (1923), Monteverdi (1926), Monte (1927), Musorgsky (1928), M. Praetorius (1928), Lully (1930), Byrd (1937) and Pergolesi (1939), as well as several smaller complete presentations, such as Adam de la Halle (1872) and Machaut (1926). While some series failed to attain their goal of completeness (such as the Lassus edition of 1894–1926, which ceased before publishing any masses, and the Haydn edition of 1907–33, abandoned after 11 volumes), most are at least reasonably complete, and many remain the standard reference editions of today.
Collected editions of other kinds also first appeared during this period. An early example of the new type which became a model for later publications is Chrysander’s Denkmäler der Tonkunst (1869–71). Two features of this edition that have become standard in later large-scale publications are the preparation of individual volumes by different editors, coordinated by a general editor, and sub-series (in this case, the complete works of Corelli, proposed, but not completed in this series). Eitner’s more extensive Publikationen älterer Praktischer und Theoretischer Musikwerke (1873–1905) shows the same tendency to completeness within individual volumes or sub-series. Less praiseworthy is his double numbering system (volume and Jahrgang), a practice used widely in later collected editions and one that has created confusion for both librarians and researchers.
The repertory of collected editions is generally limited, often to a specific geographical region. Denkmäler deutscher Tonkunst, initiated in 1892 by a committee of German musicians including Chrysander, Brahms, Spitta, Joachim and Helmholtz, with the support of the German government, was the first major national series. It was soon followed by the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich (1894), also supported by government funds, under the general editorship of Guido Adler. So predominant did the geographical orientation of series become that many bibliographic lists of historical editions observe a subdivision by country (as in the excellent listing by Basso cited below).
Multi-volume anthologies, even those not attempting to present complete works, sources or repertories, continued to appear, exemplified by the well-known publication of Maldeghem (Trésor musical, 1865–93). This and other anthologies remained for decades the only modern sources of a sizable body of music, particularly the Renaissance repertory, not then available in complete works or collected editions.
Apart from these more scholarly publications, a tremendous growth in music publication to fill the needs of amateur music-making became evident in the second half of the 19th century, after the introduction of wood pulp paper and a period of expansion for the middle class. One or more major publishers in each country (e.g. Breitkopf & Härtel, Ricordi and Schirmer) created millions of inexpensive copies of original works or arrangements. Transcriptions of whole operas for voice and piano, for example, were issued simultaneously with first performances. Such publications are exemplified in the first half of the 20th century by various multi-volume series edited by A.E. Wier.
The growing awareness in this period that a modern edition should mirror the composer’s intention in terms of his own time rather than repaint it in terms of the editor’s time is demonstrated by the development of more sophisticated techniques of editing. Although the individualistic and intuitive approach continued to be used, particularly in peforming editions, editors increasingly felt it important to indicate original notation (such as ligatures and continuo figures) as well.
Because some works became so overburdened with editorial marks, professional musicians and serious amateurs began to rely on the new ‘Urtext’ editions, which provided close readings of the original source. Whether Urtext or not, editors often included commentary in prefaces, footnotes and sometimes in separately bound pamphlets (in German ‘Kritischer Bericht’ or ‘Revisionsbericht’). The need for supplementary material such as translations of texts in obsolete languages, evaluation of multiple sources, thematic lists of related works, performing problems, biographies of obscure composers, related music (e.g. the model of a parody mass), and facsimiles of original sources, varies with the nature of the music concerned.
A new phase in historical editions started shortly after World War II with a strong upsurge in the number of new publications and a renewal of activity in many dormant series. This growth can be attributed partly to the solid foundation laid by earlier historical editions, which had to some extent stimulated an interest in the study of historical musicology. Equally important were the advances in reprographic techniques, which enabled scholars to consult a variety of widely distributed sources by means of relatively inexpensive microfilms or prints, and publishers to produce editions and facsimiles more economically and reprint important earlier editions for wider distribution.
An important trend in this period has been the reassessment of many older complete-works sets, leading in some cases to revisions of existing editions (e.g. the works of Purcell, 2/1961–, and Victoria, 2/1965–) and in others to the appearance of supplementary series containing material previously omitted (e.g. Hess’s 14-volume supplement to the old Beethoven edition and the Leipziger Ausgabe of Mendelssohn’s works). But the most important result of critical re-examination has been the commencement of entirely new complete editions under the direction of international committees of scholars, such as the new complete works of Bach (initiated in 1954), Handel (1955), Mozart (1955), Beethoven (1961), Chopin (1967), Corelli (1976), Rossini (1979) and Vivaldi (1982). Most of these new editions propose a broader coverage than their predecessors, including such material as the composer’s arrangements of other works, early versions, sketches, documentary or pictorial biographies, and facsimiles.
Numerous other complete-works series have been launched in this period for composers whose works have not previously been published in this way; these include the complete works of Telemann (1953), Schoenberg (1966), Hindemith (1975), Grieg (1977), Janáček (1978), Elgar (1981), J.C. Bach (1984), Berg (1984), Debussy (1985), C.P.E. Bach (1989) and Gade (1995). Many are extensive separate publications (e.g. the complete editions of several Russian composers published by the Moscow State Music Publishers), while others are embedded in other series, distributed over several volumes (e.g. the Morales edition in volumes of Monumentos de la Música Española published from 1952 to 1971) or in actual sub-series (e.g. the Berwald edition in Monumenta Musicae Svecicae). Extremely important in this last category is Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, a collected edition devoted mainly to complete editions of medieval and Renaissance composers whose extant output is generally small.
Activity in the publication of other collected editions has paralleled that in complete-works editions. A high proportion of these cover a specific geographic or chronological repertory: there are several new national sets as well as a growing number devoted to smaller local divisions, such as territories, counties or cities.
Three types of publication previously found only occasionally have appeared after 1950 in great quantity. The first is the edition that includes both editorial information needed by the scholar and that required for a modern performance, while retaining the relatively inexpensive format of the typical performing edition. Early examples of this type (such as Das Chorwerk initiated in 1929 and Hortus Musicus in 1936) are in this period joined by Diletto Musicale (1955), the various Recent Researches in Music series (beginning with those for the Renaissance and the Baroque in 1964), Le Pupitre (1967), Musica da Camera (1973) and Early Music Library (1987). A second type of modern publication which was rare in earlier periods is the extended series devoted exclusively to music theory (e.g. Corpus Scriptorum de Musica, 1950–) or translations (e.g. Music Theory Translation Series, 1963). The third type of publication that grew very rapidly in the 1960s with the increased access to primary sources, technical improvements in the industry, and the low cost of production was the facsimile series. Before this time, only Paléographie Musicale (1889) had attained substantial size. Examples of a field that has become dominated by a few major publishers, particularly in the USA, are Broude’s Monuments of Music and Music Literature in Facsimile (1965), Garland’s Italian Opera 1810–1840 (1977) and Renaissance Music in Facsimile (1986).
In the late 1980s several factors precipitated a reduction in the number of scholarly editions. In addition to the high cost of producing limited editions and fierce competition in the industry, libraries and academic institutions – the main customers for scholarly sets – have seen the withdrawal of governmental support for the arts in general and been affected by budget restraints. Reductions in the funding for acquistions of this kind (particularly with the shift in American colleges and universities towards ethnomusicological studies) as well as in the staff and student populations that would possibly buy such editions for themselves have led to delays in some series and the demise of others.
A comprehensive list of historical editions is printed in vol.28.
R. Eitner: Verzeichniss neuer Ausgaben alter Musikwerke (Berlin, 1871)
R. Eitner: ‘Nachträge zum Verzeichniss neuer Ausgaben alter MusikWerke … Berlin, 1871’, MMg, ix (1877), 40ff
G. Reese: ‘Maldeghem and his Buried Treasure’, Notes, vi (1948–9), 75–117
H.J. Moser: Das musikalische Denkmälerwesen in Deutschland (Kassel, 1952)
A.H. Heyer: Historical Sets, Collected Editions, and Monuments of Music: a Guide to their Contents (Chicago, 1957, 3/1980)
G. von Dadelsen: Editionsrichtlinien musikalischer Denkmäler und Gesamtausgaben (Kassel, 1967)
J. Coover: Gesamtausgaben: a Checklist (Buffalo, NY, 1970)
A. Basso: ‘Repertorio generale dei “Monumenta musicae”, delle antologie, raccolte, e pubblicazioni di musica antica sino a tutto il 1970’, RIM, vi (1971), 3–135
T. Georgiades, ed.: Musikalische Edition im Wandel des historischen Bewusstseins (Kassel, 1971)
S.R. Charles: A Handbook of Music and Music Literature in Sets and Series (New York, 1972)
M. Schönherr: Kompendium zu Band 1–120 der Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich and Band 1–27 derb Studien zur Musikwissenschaft (Graz, 1974)
H. Bennwitz and others, ed.: Musikalisches Erbe und Gegenwart: Musiker-Gesamtausgaben in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Kassel, 1975)
G.R. Hill and N.L. Stephens: Collected Editions, Historical Series, &Sets & Monuments of Music: a Bibliography (Berkeley, CA, 1997)