Re: Henle piano template

[PMA]

Urs Liska wrote:
> "Urtext" is a fiction anyway in 95% of the cases. What would you
> consider "Urtext" when you have a manuscript, a fair copy, an original
> edition controlled by the composer, a personal copy of the OE with
> corrections, and another, later manuscript with other readings than the
> OE or the corrected copy?
> Or (as is often the case with Chopin for example) if you have an
> original edition and several copies of that edition with different
> additions by the composer (for example embellishments for different
> pupils)?
Fair enough, except that with fingerings by somebody centuries
after a composer's death, the term "Urtext" just hits like a slap --
as though the term "original" meant, oh, anything.  "Perfect" is
beside the point.
> I think there can't be such a thing like a perfect edition. ...

> > Perhaps I'd have interpreted the term less
> > strictly, had I not as a pianist counted on blank space
> > to scribble in _my_ fingerings.
> That's true. I have more and more got used to not write any fingerings
> at all (I usually find them simply distracting). And the less fingerings
> the editors printed the less black spots I have to 'mute' mentally. When
> I pick a copy from the time with my first piano teacher I'm usually
> shocked: He let me copy his fingerings, and that means that in
> complicated passages I have fingerings attached to nearly all notes! I
> really can't play from these scores anymore. I was quite surprised when
> I had a Bach score at the piano that I found it quite difficult, but
> after erasing all the pencil fingerings I could practically play it from
> sight again.
A hefty argument for printing _no_ fingerings -- except to report the
composer's suggestions, for whatever insight these might convey
(hand-differences in this regard notwithstanding).

PA