Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Robert Schumann by Kurt HofmannReview by: Susan T. SommerNotes, Second Series, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Dec., 1980), pp. 322-323Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/939503 .

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MLA Notes, December 1980

Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Robert Schumann. By Kurt Hofmann. Tut-

zing: Hans Schneider, 1979. [xlv, 464 p.; DM220.00]

In these days of conglomerate rapacity where almost every music publisher in America has been swallowed by some larger commercial entity, this introductory account of the publishing history of Robert Schu- mann's works gives rise to some disturbing thoughts. What would happen today to the works of this great composer whose publica- tions with a very few exceptions were commercially unsuccessful until a few years before his death? Who could justify invest- ment in a career which would deliver a loss to corporate cost accountants at the close of each fiscal year? Even if his music received a hearing, could we realistically expect to see published copies in our hands and libraries? Yet no one would deny that the world today is richer for the faith of the many family- owned publishing firms which issued Schumann's music during his lifetime.

Not that Schumann's career was ever an easy one. The introduction to Kurt Hofmann's Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Robert Schumann tells a rather pathetic story of the composer peddling his music to publisher after publisher. All in all, twenty- five firms first issued Schumann's music. Breitkopf and Hartel was his favorite, partly for the high quality of their proof reading, and this venerable firm did publish twenty- nine of Schumann's compositions, includ- ing most of his significant instrumental music. Friedrich Whistling, whom Schu- mann sometimes had to remind to pay him, issued twenty-five works including versions of the Kreisleriana op. 16 and the op. 39 Liederkreis, and Kistner, the composer's first publisher, was responsible for seventeen first editions. The remaining firms, except for the notable absence of Schott and Schlesinger, read like an honor roll of German music publishing in the nineteenth century.

In format Hofmann's bibliography fol- lows the pattern of his earlier catalogue of Brahms's first editions (Tutzing, 1975). Arranged by opus number, with a parallel section for thirty one Werke ohne Opuszahl, each entry occupies two facing pages, one a fascimile of the title page, the other with further bibliographic data: pagination, plate number, date, size, further description of the title page and original covers if any, and

notes on criteria for determining the first issue and on the edition in general. These last are often extensive and provide much detailed but useful information not easily available elsewhere.

The publication of facsimile title pages is certainly the only sure way to convey accu- rate information as to the bibliographic primacy of certain nineteenth century mu- sical publications. It is not uncommon to encounter title issues which have wording identical to the original but which look totally different due to their newly designed borders and altered lettering styles. The use of coated paper in this Schumann bibliog- raphy, while it increases the weight (and I suppose the cost) of the book, permits clearer definition of the detail in the necessarily reduced examples than was the case in Hofmann's previous work on Brahms.

Coming from a family in the book busi- ness, Schumann was well aware of the eye catching value of an attractive title page in increasing sales. Probably mote than any other well known composer, Schumann took great pains with his many publishers to specify title designs and to commission particular artists to create them. One result is the profusion of delightful pictorial detail one may glimpse in Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Robert Schumann. From the delicate butterflies hovering around the title to his op. 1 Papillons to the gloomy vaulted crypt of his Requiem op. 148, the illustra- tions here present a rich gallery of nineteenth-century decorative art.

Hofmann is a collector with a collector's mania for the first appearance of a work and a comparative decline in interest as a publi- cation increases in age. While librarians and musicologists can only give thanks for the zeal and energy of men like Hofmann, James Fuld, and Cecil Hopkinson who have labored so long establish bibliographic de- tail of first editions, nevertheless most music catalogers will find the copy in hand to be some form of later issue, and those concerned with the musical text will still wonder if unmentioned alterations lurk beyond the title page. Many of Hofmann's notes here will assist the former, but the latter group may possibly be pleased to know that the bibliographic vein of Schumann scholarship still holds rich ore.

Considering the care which went into the compilation of this work, it is astonishing that there is no general index of the composi-

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Book Reviews Book Reviews

tions themselves, although there is a half hidden one of the vocal works. (This is one step better than the Brahms bibliography which had no index at all.) So if you are looking for information about the first symphony or the piano concerto, for instance, and do not already know these are respectively op. 38 and op. 54, you will have to use a second reference book to find this out. Perhaps if Hans Schneider contemplates second editions of these bibliographies (although at these prices one wonders if he will sell out the first) or, as one may hope, further publications of this type, he will take this into consideration.

SUSAN T. SOMMER The New York Public Library

Waltzes of Fryderyk Chopin: Sources. Volume 1: Waltzes Published during Chopin's Lifetime. Compiled and edited by Jan Bogdan Drath. Kingsville: Texas A & I University Publications, 1980. [xxiv, 319 p.; $21.50]

Whither facsimiles? A recent spate of photographic reproductions of manuscripts and printed editions allows the scholar to consult at home anything from the auto- graph of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to the manuscript score of Porsile's Spartaco. Wanting to be more than just a set of pretty pictures, each new publication, it seems, would serve a wider variety of needs, such as introducing manuscript studies, or tempo- rarily substituting for later research.

Jan Bogdan Drath tries to follow this trend in his compilation of the manuscript and printed sources of the waltzes Chopin pub- lished during his lifetime. Entirely satis- factory modern editions of Chopin's music do not exist, Drath notes, because past editors have chosen capriciously from the array of variants in the multiple original sources. Rather than let the "advanced Chopin student" (p. ix) languish with deficient editions of the waltzes, Drath offers a collec- tion of facsimiles of all available manu- scripts and first editions. What is the student to do with them? Well, the compiler does not say, but the drift of the scanty and awkwardly written preface is that from the reproduced documents one may create one's own edition or,perhaps, perform. The photographs (of generally acceptable quality, with a few

tions themselves, although there is a half hidden one of the vocal works. (This is one step better than the Brahms bibliography which had no index at all.) So if you are looking for information about the first symphony or the piano concerto, for instance, and do not already know these are respectively op. 38 and op. 54, you will have to use a second reference book to find this out. Perhaps if Hans Schneider contemplates second editions of these bibliographies (although at these prices one wonders if he will sell out the first) or, as one may hope, further publications of this type, he will take this into consideration.

SUSAN T. SOMMER The New York Public Library

Waltzes of Fryderyk Chopin: Sources. Volume 1: Waltzes Published during Chopin's Lifetime. Compiled and edited by Jan Bogdan Drath. Kingsville: Texas A & I University Publications, 1980. [xxiv, 319 p.; $21.50]

Whither facsimiles? A recent spate of photographic reproductions of manuscripts and printed editions allows the scholar to consult at home anything from the auto- graph of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to the manuscript score of Porsile's Spartaco. Wanting to be more than just a set of pretty pictures, each new publication, it seems, would serve a wider variety of needs, such as introducing manuscript studies, or tempo- rarily substituting for later research.

Jan Bogdan Drath tries to follow this trend in his compilation of the manuscript and printed sources of the waltzes Chopin pub- lished during his lifetime. Entirely satis- factory modern editions of Chopin's music do not exist, Drath notes, because past editors have chosen capriciously from the array of variants in the multiple original sources. Rather than let the "advanced Chopin student" (p. ix) languish with deficient editions of the waltzes, Drath offers a collec- tion of facsimiles of all available manu- scripts and first editions. What is the student to do with them? Well, the compiler does not say, but the drift of the scanty and awkwardly written preface is that from the reproduced documents one may create one's own edition or,perhaps, perform. The photographs (of generally acceptable quality, with a few

foggy exceptions) are supplemented by a thematic catalogue, a short discussion of the kinds of sources reprinted, brief comments on each individual manuscript and edition, and a bibliography.

Two central flaws blemish the volume. First, it lacks completeness. This was partly unavoidable because permission was not given to reproduce some manuscripts. In one instance (the Basel manuscript of op. 64), Drath offers a transcription in place of the missing autograph; unfortunately his ver- sion suffers from numerous misreadings and omissions. But other lacunae as well as some curious choices of editions raise questions as to how exhaustively libraries were searched. Two editions elude Drath altogether; he prints French editions of uncertain date housed in the British Library when deposit copies of the same are available in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and he reproduces only later issues of many Breitkopf & Hartel editions. That later issues do not tell the entire story of a given edition is clear from a comparison of an early issue of the Waltz in A minor, op. 34 no. 2 (a copy of which is in the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago) with the later exemplar printed by Drath. Variants are found in slurs, phrase marks, accidentals, and, occasionally, pitch. How is our "advanced student" to appraise intelligently the original sources when not all are present?

Second, little attempt is made to evaluate the sources which do appear in the volume. Fully half the waltzes, for example, confront the student with two fundamentally different kinds of autographs: Stichvorlagen intended for public consumption, and presentation (or personal) manuscripts meant for private use. Are both types of equal value textually? Likewise sketches are placed alongside engraver's manuscripts and first editions. Surely the compiler cannot intend for sketches to appear in recensions or piano recitals, yet he writes that they are somehow "very useful in case of textual divergences" (p. xviii). Here the user is misled by the vague and meager commentary. For publishing facsimiles of the waltzes, Drath deserves a nod for further advertising the tangled state of Chopin sources, but for help in transform- ing these pretty pictures into useful musi- cological tools we must turn elsewhere.

foggy exceptions) are supplemented by a thematic catalogue, a short discussion of the kinds of sources reprinted, brief comments on each individual manuscript and edition, and a bibliography.

Two central flaws blemish the volume. First, it lacks completeness. This was partly unavoidable because permission was not given to reproduce some manuscripts. In one instance (the Basel manuscript of op. 64), Drath offers a transcription in place of the missing autograph; unfortunately his ver- sion suffers from numerous misreadings and omissions. But other lacunae as well as some curious choices of editions raise questions as to how exhaustively libraries were searched. Two editions elude Drath altogether; he prints French editions of uncertain date housed in the British Library when deposit copies of the same are available in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and he reproduces only later issues of many Breitkopf & Hartel editions. That later issues do not tell the entire story of a given edition is clear from a comparison of an early issue of the Waltz in A minor, op. 34 no. 2 (a copy of which is in the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago) with the later exemplar printed by Drath. Variants are found in slurs, phrase marks, accidentals, and, occasionally, pitch. How is our "advanced student" to appraise intelligently the original sources when not all are present?

Second, little attempt is made to evaluate the sources which do appear in the volume. Fully half the waltzes, for example, confront the student with two fundamentally different kinds of autographs: Stichvorlagen intended for public consumption, and presentation (or personal) manuscripts meant for private use. Are both types of equal value textually? Likewise sketches are placed alongside engraver's manuscripts and first editions. Surely the compiler cannot intend for sketches to appear in recensions or piano recitals, yet he writes that they are somehow "very useful in case of textual divergences" (p. xviii). Here the user is misled by the vague and meager commentary. For publishing facsimiles of the waltzes, Drath deserves a nod for further advertising the tangled state of Chopin sources, but for help in transform- ing these pretty pictures into useful musi- cological tools we must turn elsewhere.

JEFFREY KALLBERG University of Chicago

JEFFREY KALLBERG University of Chicago

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