The French Bach cult, which began in the early 19th century, reached an initial highpoint around 1850. Charles Gounod, still largely unknown at the time, also studied Bach’s works intensively – his chorales, motets, and the preludes and fugues of the 48. He is said to have improvised his expressive, cantabile melody over the famous broken chords of Bach’s C-major Prelude BWV 846 from the 48 at a private performance in 1852. This arrangement would later became world famous when underlaid with the text of the Ave Maria. Several instrumental versions of it were initially published in 1853, including one for solo piano by Gounod himself that is presented here for the first time as an Urtext edition.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
