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Hi!

I'm beginning my way through Bach and want to acquire a decent edition of Well Tempered Clavier, as well as Inventions & Sinfonias. I found a thread from 2006 about best WTC editions. Henle and Bärenreiter were mentioned as solid editions for Bach's works.

I've seen many Henle editions and am totally in love with their quality of sewn cloth bound series. I always consider sheet music as something that will go with me through live, and therefore like "good looking" and well-made editions. However, it's not something I value more than a good editing, source/performance commentary and authentic sources.

I've read that Bärenreiter is backed up by Bach-Archiv and Bach Institute (I can't remember the whole name, sorry) and they are issuing BWV with new editing and musical research.

Could it mean it would be a better investment than Henle, considering Henle is in cloth and Bärenreiter is paperback? Are the differences important?

And one more question, from usability standpoint - does Bärenreiter stand flat and is easy to play from? I wasn't able to see any of their editions and am going to order online.

With Mozart, it was said many times Bärenreiter is the way to go. Same goes for Beethoven, when Henle is perhaps the most often recommended edition. With Bach I can't find any bias towards one of this editions, and am therefore really undecided

The one important factor to consider is that I'm not, and will never be a professional performer - I won't be doing historical readings and striving for historical accuracy, I just want something solid for my piano journey with Bach on the table.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,
Mateusz

keyboardklutz recommended the Peters edition to me very highly. I still haven't gotten off my arse and gotten it. I use the Busoni...sans his sometimes ridiculous fingerings.

My friend uses Peters for WTC and loves it too. One more to consider - sigh.

I think the big dif is in the extent to which specific fingerings are recommended - Henle tends to be more minimal than Peters.... All very Ur-text if that matters to you.

Rant alert!!

I have yet - alas! with only one exception - to find a volume of Peters that I can work with, their fine editing notwithstanding. There is only one in my collection, new or old - and I have several - that stays open well on the piano and that is Vol II of the WTC. All my other Peters will lie flat on the music stand only if I press the open pages down or if I fold the volume back (I hate to do that to good bindings!); they will lie flat, that is, until I turn the page. Then, the page begins to flip back to the one I had succeeded in keeping open. Each time I turn the page of a Peters edition I have to either stop playing and press the pages down or fold the volume back; if I can't stop I have to peer sideways at a page that remains only halfway open, ready to waver one way or another in the slightest breeze. If I swipe at the half-open page with my hand during a rest, it just springs back to the half-open position.

I know I'm the only person in the entire music world that has such problems with Peters, but with more than a dozen in my collection that all show the same problems, I have had to learn not to buy Peters unless I have to.

Henle, by the way, is not exclusively cloth bound. All of their editions exist in paper covers and not one of them, I am happy to report, has ever been reluctant to lie flat on the music stand, no coaching or fighting required. I have more than 20 paper-bound Henles - not counting many slim volumes that are slim enough to be staple-bound - and, old or new, they wear well and they are eminently user friendly! My edition of the Bach WTC, Vol I is probably older than most contributors here on Piano World and is still in fine shape. Well yes, truth be told, I don't play Bach every day, but the volume has been used over the decades.

I have the two- and three-part Inventions in Peters (50 years old and still won't lie flat!), Henle, fairly new, but open and ready to read at any page, and the two-part Inventions in Alfred Masterworks (excellent for detailed writing out of the ornaments above the staff),

Regards,

Thanks Bruce for your report on Peters and Henle! Do you have preference with Henle in terms of paper/cloth bound? Most bigger sets are available in both bounds. It's really a good news that paperbacks lie flat without fighting. Do cloth bound do the same, or maybe even better?


Regards,
M.

Mati :

I have never indulged in the purchase of cloth-bound Henle editions. I have had such good fortune with Henle's paper-bound volumes, both in usability and durability, that I have never felt the need for cloth-bound, elegant though they would be in my collection.

In the larger volumes of Henle I have the Mozart Sonatas, (2 vols.), and volume II of the Schubert Sonatas. Most of my other Henle editions are slightly smaller, such things as individual volumes of the Chopin Nocturnes, Ballades, Scherzi, Impromptus, two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Bach Partitas, Beethoven Bagatelles, and several editions that are slim enough to be staple-bound : some Grieg Lyric Pieces, various Brahms Opp., some individual Beethoven and Mozart Sonatas, etc.

Again, thick or think, Henle serves well and wears well in my experience. That said, I must add that I treat all my scores with great respect[1]; none of them ever serves as a coaster or as a place mat nor is ever jammed indifferently into a backpack.

[1]Except, of course, when I'm cursing at Peters for, once again and as usual, not lying flat!

Regards,

That's really great news for me. I was looking at cloth-bound Henle's being afraid that paper-bound editions of larger volumes might not be as durable as they should. Granted I am an amateur pianist and my sheets will be used moderately and not as heavy-duty workhorses, and granted I treat my sheets with great respect as you do, I am pretty sure paper-bound Henles (or Barenreiters in that matter) will serve me well.

You've made many very precious points for my sheet music search, not only for Bach, but also for other works. Thanks again Bruce!

Now, I am back at the dillema... Henle or Barenreiter - this time both paper-bound. I am beginning to consider tossing a coin, or buying both. Perhaps the former, as the latter would be most expensive and wouldn't grant my anything more than knowledge. I am pretty sure I would appreciate any edition, be it Henle, or Barenreiter.


M.

I have some plastic covers for my Henle paper bound editions (Like Bruce, I have never found it necessary to invest in cloth bound Henle). The covers provide excellent protection without compromising the wonderfully fine way the Henle editions lay on the music desk.

My vote is also with the Henle. The only Barenreiter edition that I have is of the Schubert Early Sonata's. And I was might peeved when it arrived and I discovered that there was no Barenreiter edition of the later sonata's other than as individual pieces.

Mine are all paper bound and lie flat too. I also have issue with the Peter's editions and have replaced my Chopin nocturnes and Bach WTC because of the problems they gave me!

M

Bruce, slightly OT, but does this mean that your complete Schubert Lieder (salivating with envy as I type) doesn't open flat? (the three vols I have are second-hand, and mine lie flat - someone else no doubt has done the flattening work for me).

(I join the chorus in praise of Henle, though my Peters 2-pt inventions - stapled - have beautiful print to read. A treat for my ageing eyes!)

No way my dearest mate, that simply won't do. Okay I'm a Henle person all the way (excellent fingerings), and I admit I have not seen the Busoni edition. HOWEVER: there is nothing 'ridiculous' about Busoni. If his fingerings seem weird then there must be a reason for that. It is not to be casually dismissed. Nothing about Busoni is casual.

Subsequent 'great' pianists, Horowitz, Rachmaninov, Freidman, Argerich, probably don't come within a mile of Busoni. Busoni's talent and intellect must have been on a par with the greatest thinkers on the planet.

Why I love him so much.

I know. I love Busoni's transcriptions. I don't mean that the man himself was ridiculous. Not by a long shot. But a couple of instances of his fingering in Invention No. 8 simply don't make sense based upon the phrasing. They work, but I don't agree with them in context.

BTW, I believe Schirmer publishes the Busoni editions.

No, fair friend, the seven volumes of Schubert Lieder I have do not lie flat on the music stand. I am sometimes obliged - even though I have used the recommended careful "flattening technique" we have discussed in the past for new volumes - to hold them open with paper clips, with heavy spring-clips or with other volumes or, in the event of a Lieder with a page turn, to photocopy the required pages.

The oldest and one of the more cherished, Volume I, has, in spite of loving care bestowed upon it over the years, finally split between pages 76 and 77, so whenever I want to play the last two pages of Auf dem Flusse this Peters lies flatter than a pancake run over by a steam roller - but only, of course, at pages 76-77.

That said, however, each time I want or need to play through a Lied, at least I have two of six other volumes to choose from to hold open the volume currently being used. Does that make them useful three times over? But, then imagine the fumbling for a page turn! <Sigh!>

Regards,

Gosh. In that case I'll keep hunting down the other 4 vols in second-hand copies. I guess, like the Dover bindings, that older=better. Who is responsible for what has happened to bindings!?!? Some glue manufacturer?

Hi Mati,

I have experience with Bach in Henle, Barenreiter and Alfred. With WTC and the Inventions I have to say I am biased towards Alfred simply because of the amount of assistance and detailed notes that are given regarding ornamentation, sources, etc. In addition, they are comb-bound so stay completely flat on the piano! I would definitely recommend checking them out (edited by Willard Palmer for the Inventions/Sinfonia and WTC I, Judith Schneider for WTC II).

However, back to Henle and Barenreiter. The advantage of Barenreiter for Bach (and Mozart, for that matter), I guess, is its 'status'- all the Barenreiter volumes come directly from the NBA (Neue Bach Ausgabe = New Bach Edition) which is the most up-to-date complete Urtext edition of Bach's entire works. The binding and paper quality is excellent, so no problems there. Incidentally, Henle is (slowly) publishing the New Beethoven Edition, so that is partly why they are so highly recommended as one of the the best Beethoven Urtexts around.

Henle is excellent as well- obviously this is not the NBA Urtext but it is still absolutely a top-quality edition. One of the problems with Barenreiter is that because they are a 'pure' Urtext taken from the NBA no fingerings are included, which can be frustrating. Having said that, I do believe there they are now bringing out a few volumes- including the Inventions- with fingering.

For a lot of my Bach now I use Barenreiter, but you can just as easily go with Henle as I did for the Goldberg Variations. Henle have brought out newly revised editions of WTC so they are very up-to-date as well with good fingerings by Andreas Schiff, a well-known pianist who plays a lot of Bach. As Bruce said, don't bother with cloth unless you really want to- the paper versions are just as good.

Hope this has helped. Do look at Alfred but really it's a matter of personal preference- all these three editions are very good and have much to offer.

Andrew

I couldn't find Alfred anywhere, they do not seem very popular in Europe - or at least I wasn't able to find them to buy online yet. If I do, I will try checking them out, thanks!



That's why I started considering Barenraiter in the first place...



Do you mean those fingered by Perahia? Henle has so much Beethoven I am a bit lost. There is an old Wallner edition of complete sonatas, then very pricey Schmidt urtext edition with no fingerings, and finally these fingered by Perahia and edited by, if I remember corectly, by Gertsch & Perahia. The first two are complete, the latter is work in progress.



For my purposes that should make little difference, I suppose.



But that is another case. As an amateur I am not yet capable of finding my own reliable fingerings easily. I often do with success, but I as often need help from my teacher...



...so having some fingering suggestions by a pianist would be a really great thing. Noting that WTC has been updated by Henle lately, it will perhaps be the way for me to go.

I think I will get Barenreiter with fingerings for Inventions & Sinfonias - Henle didn't revise them yet, and I will use the opportunity to check out Barenreiters quality and print (as I said I have never seen them live). I will be able to judge this editions from quality standpoint by myself for future buys.

I might add Barenreiter's NBA edition of WTC later on to my collection of sheets too, and have best of the both worlds, but I am leaning towards an edition from which I coud actually play without being totally frustrated by superclear urtext.

Thank you very much for your detailed description! That helped a lot!


Best wishes,
M.

I have two sets of the WTC Peters Edition. The latest set (2 volumes) I recently bought at a charity shop at 50 pence (sterling) each volume. I felt very sad to find that such fantastic works with so much intelligence and talent put into them was sold for a mere 50 pence!!. What is wrong with bloody humanity................w

Henle. And you can buy them in paperback.

The other way of looking at this is that "bloody humanity," in its collective generosity and wisdom, left this for you to buy for a song and appreciate more than they ever could.

Cheers!