Study case
This Study case contains two pieces that were played from different editions. The first piece is the sonata for Violin and Cembalo in c minor BWV 1017 by J .S. Bach. The first movement Lento and the second movement Allegro are played from three different editions. The violinist (Shin Sihan) was asked to sight read these two movements and play as much as he could what was written in the part.
These recordings contain editions of Henle, Bärenreiter and an unknown edition picked randomly from the internet.
Unknown edition
The biggest difference that is audible is between the unknown edition and the two Urtexts. Especially the fingerings are different and not fitting in the contemporary view on how Bach should be played: High positions and harmonics are the most obvious differences in sound. When you look into the score it is more clear what the differences are between this edition compared to the Henle and Bärenreiter edition: More written out ornaments and articulation remarks are added. Also bowings and dynamics have a more important role in this edition. All this has to do with the fact that this edition is a performance edition from a period with another 'zeitgeist’.
Bärenreiter & Henle
Listening to the Henle and Bärenreiter it is more difficult to hear differences between the recordings. However, looking at the two Urtext edition there are definitely some differences. It starts already with the key it suggests the piece is written. Bärenreiter wrote this sonata with two flats and the edition by Henle has three flats. In sound it does not make any difference but the perception when reading the music could be different. Also a few bowings are different but not in a very obvious way. The question is how even two Urtexts differ from each other. As explained before, an Urtext is based on different sources and manuscripts. Of this piece different manuscripts survived over the years and both publishers had perhaps different resources and made different considerations to choose for a certain manuscript to be the main source to work from.
Prokofieff with Boosey & IMC
The next example is the beginning of the violin concerto no. 1, op. 19 in D major by Sergei Prokofieff. Next time it is the author (Tim Brackman) playing the beginning of the first movement from two different editions. Both editions are performance editons which means that these two are edited by violinists. The Boosey edition was edited by Jozeph Szigeti and the IMC edition was edited by David Oistrakh. Because Prokofieff died less than 70 years ago, all the right of the Berne Convention are still valid. In this case it means that Boosey has in most of the European countries the right to sell their edition and IMC has not. They sell their part for example in the United States were the Boosey edition is not available. I got the IMC edition anyway because until a few years ago, the United States had other agreements concerning the Berne Convention. So, eight years ago IMC could sell this edition in The Netherlands. Nowadays the United States have the same agreement as Europe and therefore IMC is not allowed to sell Prokofieff anymore here, because the rights are in hands of Boosey. The differences here are completely based on the performance practise: bowings, fingerings and articulation. However, the dynamics are the same in both the editions.
The difference in the editions changes the color of sound: Szigeti goes up in a higher position on the a-string and Oistrakh chooses to go to the e-string earlier (1 bar before number 1 in the score. See PDF’s). Unfortunately with this particular example we cannot make a choice between editions (because of the rights). However, with a lot of other composers it is possible to choose an edition based on the violinist who edited the piece. It could be that after 2023, 70 years after Prokofieff’s death, the IMC edition will be available again. Or that Urtext publishers are interested in the work of Prokofieff and start making Urtext editions.
