Brahms, Johannes: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel
for Piano
playing score
Köhn has drawn on every available source and incorporated the most recent musicological discoveries. With his fingering, a well-presented layout and optimum page turns, the volume meets all the demands of a practical performing edition.
A detailed foreword illuminates the work's genesis and sources while presenting valuable information on contemporary performance practice. This scholarly-critical edition of the 'Handel Variations' adds a central work to Barenreiter's comprehensive series of Brahms' piano music in Urtext editions.
-Urtext edition based on all known sources and the latest musicological findings
-With optimum page turns
-Informative foreword (Ger/Eng) and Critical Commentary (Eng)
-Includes fingering and su ggestions on performance practice (Ger/Eng)
"...remarkably faithful to the composer's intentions...state-of-the-art publication of a seminal Romantic work."
(International Piano, Jan. 2015)
The editor
Christian Köhn teaches piano at the Musikhochschule in Detmold. One of his specialties is the piano music of Johannes Brahms. Together with his duet partner Silke-Thora Matthies, he is a prize-winner of the Munich Competition and has released the world's first complete recording of Brahms's works for piano duet. In addition to the Serenades for piano four-hands, opp. 11 and 16 (BA 6570 and 6571), he has already edited many of Brahms's solo piano works for Barenreiter.
In the autumn of 1923, a young man produced the first music editions of his newly founded publishing house in his parents’ living room. He named his company Bärenreiter. In the spring of 1924 when Karl Vötterle came of age, he was able to register it with the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. At first, he mainly put out folk song collections, church as well as organ music including early music by Leonhard Lechner and Heinrich Schütz, at the time primarily known in specialist circles.
During the last months of the Second World War, the publishing house in Kassel was destroyed and once more a fresh beginning had to be made. With the start of the extensive German music encyclopaedia MGG – "Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart" – as well as numerous series of scholarly-critical complete editions such as the “New Mozart Edition” and the “New Bach Edition”, the visionary founder of the publisher created the basis for the further development of Bärenreiter. The musicological editions increasingly aroused interest abroad, and Bärenreiter found itself on an expansion course.
When Karl Votterle died in 1975, his daughter Barbara took over the helm, supported by her husband Leonhard Scheuch. Under their leadership, the catalogue grew significantly and the brand BÄRENREITER URTEXT was established. Finally, in 2003, their son Clemens Scheuch joined the publisher which today he is managing together with his parents. Thus Bärenreiter has remained a family business to this day and has become a company of international standing in the world of classical music.
