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The second volume of Schenker's "Erläuterungsausgabe," published in 1914 and comprising Beethoven's Piano Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110 in his edition based principally on two autograph manuscripts: (1) Königliche Bibliothek, Berlin (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Artaria 196), and (2) that at Schenker's time in the possession of the collector Louis Koch in Frankfurt, and later in the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, SBH 564, which contains the final movement only. He also consulted a copy revised by Beethoven in the Brahms collection of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna; two early editions, by Johann Cappi, and by Cappi et Diabelli (both described in some detail in Schenker's diary); and sketches by Beethoven. Schenker's text comprised his "Vorwort" (Foreword), "Vorbemerkung zur Einführung" (Preliminary Remark to the Introduction), "Einführung" (Introduction—Schenker also informally called this section "Analyse"), and "Literatur" (Secondary Literature). It is published by Universal Edition, Vienna.

Publication History

First Edition

The original edition was published in 1914, with publication number UE 3977.

Cover title-page: BEETHOVEN-SCHENKER | ERLÄUTERUNGS-AUSGABE | DER LETZTEN FÜNF SONATEN | SONATE AS DUR | OP. 110.

Inner title-page: DIE LETZTEN | FÜNF SONATEN | VON | BEETHOVEN | — | KRITISCHE AUSGABE | MIT EINFÜHRUNG | UND ERLÄUTERUNG | VON | HEINRICH SCHENKER | — | PIANO SOLO

Chronology: Schenker's Foreword is dated August 30, 1914. He had begun the search for autograph sources and photographic copies at least as early as February 1913, made a series of visits to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde for source-critical purposes between late September and late December of 1913 while working on the edition, and drafted and revised the sections of his commentary between January and March 1914. Proof correcting ran from late March to June 24; the edition went to press on July 30, and 494 copies were delivered from the printer to the publisher on December 21, 1914.

Second Edition

Chronology: This edition went to press on April 17, 1924, and 502 copies were delivered from the printer to the publisher on August 7, 1924.

New Edition

Edited by Oswald Jonas, and published in 1972, with publication number UE 26.304, this excises Schenker's polemical matter and commentary on the secondary literature, and replaces Schenker's edition with the 1945 revision by Erwin Ratz, with the effect that the scores contradict some of the textual argument in Schenker's elucidations.

Cover title-page: Beethoven | Die letzten Sonaten | SONATE AS DUR OP. 110 | Erläuterungsausgabe | von HEINRICH SCHENKER

Inner title-page: Beethoven | Die letzten Sonaten | SONATE AS DUR OP. 110 | Kritische Einführung und Erläuterung von | HEINRICH SCHENKER | herausgegeben von | Oswald Jonas


English Translation and Study

The recent English translation by John Rothgeb is likewise in four separate, small-format volumes and a website, of which this volume is:

Piano Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110, Beethoven's Last Piano Sonatas: An Edition with Elucidation, vol. II, transl., ed. and annotated by John Rothgeb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)

This edition follows the text of Schenker's original, thereby restoring all the material excised by Jonas in his 1972 edition. Explanatory and citational footnotes by Rothgeb incorporate some of the observations made by Jonas. Schenker's surveys of the secondary literature appear not in the print volumes but on the website. The score of the sonata appears neither in the print volume nor on the website.

Source:

  • Universal Edition Archive: Verlagsdruckbuch UE 3977

Contributors:

  • Ian Bent and William Drabkin

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Correspondence

Diaries

Lessonbooks