ERIC SAMS:
MUSIC
REVIEWS
Schumann: Fantasy in C major op. 17, ed. W. Boetticher, Henle
Fantasy
in C major op.17, ed. H. Köhler, Peters
If
you just want a text, then either “Ur”
will do well enough. But Henle, though notably cheaper, is useless
for the textual scholar or student. In accordance with previous
malpractice, it refers us for further details to the editor's own
expensive and recherché publications about Schumann's piano works.
Thus the
Vorwort
is more like an
advert, while the dozen
Bemerkungen are mainly quite unremarkable. What is the
point, for example, of telling us that a tie omitted from bar
157 in the first edition
was duly restored in subsequent printings? A proper attention to
detail would have ensured instead that the English translation was
more accurate, and would have noticed something odd about a work
“drafted as early as June 1836” (p.iii) which was also “composed 1835-6” (p.2). The Peters
edition is fortunate in having secured the services of an editor
whose writings on the work in question actually appear in the
purchased copy; and very good they are too. The biographical material
is cogent, the textual comment exemplary; the
Revisionsbericht
sensibly collates the Clara Schumann edition. Here again however the
English version is itself in need of revision. So, perhaps, is the
text of both editions. Neither has collated (though the Henle editor
was apparently able to consult) the autograph sold at Sotheby's in
November 1977; and neither
was even aware of the final fair copy, with autograph corrections,
located in Budapest by Professor Alan Walker
(Music & Letters,
April 1979). Room may therefore
remain for a definitive edition of this altogether marvellous work,
including an explanation of its famous but mystifying motto from
Schlegel, which still seems to be in need of further Clarafication.
The
Musical Times,
Jul., 1981 (p. 486) © the
estate of eric sams
