Edward Elgar spent the summer of 1918 in the countryside. In August he received reports of the approaching end of the First World War, and this good news so inspired him that he was able to finish an initial draft of his great Violin Sonata in barely four weeks. Writing about it in his diary, he notated laconically: “Wrote some music”. His wife Alice was more enthusiastic: “E. writing wonderful new music, different from anything else of his”. This magnificent music is now available in a Henle Urtext edition by the British violinist and Elgar expert Rupert Marshall-Luck. He has examined and evaluated the many sources according to all the rules of Urtext editing – the sketches, drafts, autograph fair copies, proofs and first 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
