Fréderic Chopin’s stay with George Sand on Mallorca in the winter 1838/1839 was ill-fated. Yet Chopin still managed to finish his “Préludes” there which he had begun to compose in Paris. Today’s interpreter not only has to deal with numerous variant readings but also with corrupt performance traditions. The “Préludes” are the first edition to be completed in our comprehensive Chopin revisions; the editor has taken the latest scholarly findings into account and in the musical text brings to light “established” variants as well as others which are to be found in the sources. And there is another first here, too: the printed volume contains a shorter critical report – the extensive version with all the details can be downloaded.
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
