Chopin succeeded in doing something truly remarkable with his two cycles of Etudes op. 10 and op. 25, published in 1833 and 1837 respectively. Probably no one before him had composed technical practice pieces that at the same time reached such musical heights. Chopin’s Etudes are character pieces that are full of tension, written for the concert hall. The virtuosic works, including long-running hits such as the “Revolutionary Etude” op. 10 no. 12 belong to the pianist’s core repertoire. In addition to the two cycles op. 10 and op. 25, our Urtext edition also contains three Etudes without opus number, which Chopin composed for a Parisian piano method in 1840: wonderfully lyrical miniatures, which can hold their own with the 24 grand studies.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
