The Oboe Sonata op. 166 was the first of three wind sonatas that Saint-Saëns wrote in his final year. Throughout his life he had been more familiar with keyboard and stringed instruments, so the composer this time found himself in rather unfamiliar territory. Yet he instantly hit upon the inflections and special characteristics of these instruments.
To ensure that the parts reflected the technical and tonal idiosyncrasies of each instrument, he asked advice of wind soloists of his acquaintance before publication. His Sonata op. 166 met with the highest approval of the oboist; a passage in a letter bears witness to this: “It went like clockwork”. We were able to consult the autograph for the first time for this 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
