Urtext

(Ger.). Ideally, an edited SCORE that claims to present the most authentic version of a musical work. The concept emerged in the early 20th century among German scholars, who reacted against the freestyle approach to editing that prevailed in the 19th century. The Urtext attempts to present the original manuscript as set down on paper by the composer.

Before the Urtext, editors treated the classics in a rather cavalier fashion, freely altering the notes and harmonies. JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH has been the favorite object of their unwelcome tamperings. There is the notorious case of an editor's adding a bar to furnish a transitional CHROMATIC harmony in the C major Prelude from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier. This bowdlerization was taken up by other editors, with the result that Bach's version had to be "rediscovered."

Editions of LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN's piano sonatas by Hans von Bülow and others handle the Urtext with little respect. On the other end of the spectrum, however, overly worshipful editors do not dare to correct even the most obvious of errors. Surely Beethoven's omission of an essential E♭ in the traditional chordal passage of the final section of the Appassionata cannot be treated as sacrosanct in publishing the work, but it is quite proper to publish a facsimile with proper documentation.

Yet one can never be sure, in editing modern works, whether seeming errors were not intentional. A copyist tried to "correct" some "wrong" notes in a manuscript of CHARLES IVES, who notated in the margin: "Do not correct; the wrong notes are right." On the other hand, when a respectful copyist questioned a misplaced accidental in the proofs of NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV's symphonic work, the great master retorted on the margin: "Of course it is an error. I am not some person like Debussy or Richard Strauss to write wrong notes deliberately."

But what if the composer changes his or her own Urtext? One has to decide whether to honor the composer's original authentic Urtext or to accept his or her later revision.