The heart of Beethoven’s Quartet op. 132 is the “Holy song of thanksgiving”, in which Beethoven takes up old counterpoint techniques and Gregorian simplicity. In this unusually beautiful and well preserved manuscript, Beethoven generously makes the most of the space on its pages. The lavish four colour printing allows the composer’s occasionally unconventional manner of notation to come to life. It permits a unique insight into the creative process, which continued after it had been written down in the form of multiple additions and changes. The edition is rounded off with a preface by the pianist András Schiff, with whose generous support this valuable facsimile was made possible.
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
