“As far as the Scenes from Childhood are concerned, I owe them one of the liveliest pleasures of my life.” These words were uttered by none other than Franz Liszt. In the evenings he often enjoyed playing part of them, not only for his little daughter Blandine-Rachel but also for his own pleasure. Even today, the “Scenes from Childhood” still raise the question as to whether they were written for children or adults. Schumann himself described them as being the reminiscences of an older person for older people, but did not deny that “several children’s heads were in his mind when composing them”. Ernst Herttrich has revised our well-loved edition, incorporating the latest scholarly findings. In the appendix he also takes a stand on the metronome markings which were taken over from an early print.
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