In 1894 Johannes Brahms asked the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld to visit him during his beloved summer sojourn in Ischl, adding “It would be really wonderful if you brought your B flat clarinet with you, and if you were in no great hurry” – for the two Sonatas op. 120 were waiting to be rehearsed. The first performances were given privately directly afterwards and the press enthusiastically reported: “The sonatas [...] are wonderful and will cause a great sensation”. Henle's edition of this work, today part of the clarinettist’s core repertoire, continues the revision of Brahms’s Duo Sonatas following the text in the new Brahms Complete 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
