These two short, unpretentious sonatinas in G major and F major were published during Beethoven’s lifetime in ca. 1807. Since then they have become firmly established in the repertoire for beginners due to their striking beauty. However, it is very unlikely that they were actually written by Beethoven, and for this reason they do not have opus numbers but instead are listed in his catalogue of works as “Anhang/Appendix 5”. Walther Lampe provided the fingerings for this Urtext edition; Lampe was a piano pupil of Clara Schumann, and in turn taught Günter Henle, founder of the music publishing company. Henle described Lampe as an “outstanding performing pianist”. Moreover, he was one of the leading piano pedagogues of his time.
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