SKU: BA.BA06848

ISBN 9790006483303. 34.4 x 27 cm inches. Text: Svatopluk Cech.

Over the years Janácek’s uvre has increasingly received the recognition it so richly merits and performances of his works are becoming more and more frequent. This development is, however, offset by a manuscript tradition so disorderly that some of Janácek’s works continue, as before, to be played in versions which are heavily adapted, corrupt or otherwise contrary to the composer’s intentions. Thus, a critical edition of Janácek’s music is indispensable for scholars and performers alike.

This editon presents an authentic printed text based on all available sources for each work. In addition to the musical text, each volume also contains a critical report (Czech / German), a rendition of deleted or rejected versions, and a comprehensive appendix of facsimiles.

About Barenreiter Urtext

SKU: BA.BA05540

ISBN 9790006497126. 33 x 26 cm inches. Text: Franz von Schober.

In late September or early October 1821 Schubert and his close friend, Franz von Schober, vacationed in the countryside of Lower Austria. Their first stopover was at Ochsenburg Castle, which belonged to the Bishop of St. Pölten (a close relative of Schober’s), after which they moved on to St. Pölten itself. Roughly a year earlier, two stage works by Schubert had been performed in Vienna: the one-act singspiel Die Zwillingsbrüder and the melodrama Die Zauberharfe. The librettos were both written by the seasoned Viennese playwright Georg von Hofmann, who blamed the press for the indifferent reception the two works were given by the audience. Schubert and Schober now decided, it would seem, to write a grand romantic opera uninfluenced by the workaday world of the theatre and beholden solely to their own ideas of what an opera should be.

Not until 24 June 1854 was the opera finally performed in Weimar, under the baton of Franz Liszt. It only achieved success, however, in an arrangement by Johann Nepomuk Fuchs that was staged on many German and Austrian stages in 1881–2, allegedly with brilliant acclaim.

About Barenreiter Urtext