Which Publisher's Editions you prefer for Organ pieces?

[Ntalikeris666]

Title says all.

[Contratrombone64]

Depends entirely on the country of the composer really. For Bach I like Barenreiter. For English, Novello. It's a rather open ended question really.

[jhnbrbr]

Years ago I started to learn the Dorian toccata from one edition from the public library and then bought a different edition from the music shop and was horrified to discover some of the notes had "moved". I always feel safe with Widor and Schweitzer as editors, but this is purely a gut feeling.

[Krummhorn]

When I began my organ study, my teacher insisted that I get the Dupré editions. I have those for Bach and Mendelssohn. I also have the Schweitzer editions for a good number of Bach pieces.

[wljmrbill]

I use Widor-Schweitzer and mostly editions from Schrimer's Library of Music Classics. Some of Dr. WIlliam C. Carl"s compiled and edted music, some Gentry and Yunity Mujsic Press.

[dll927]

Somehow this raises a question: why are there differences? If a composer's hand-written (?) versions are used, there should be no problems, unless they were awfully messy in their manuscripts, in which case, how did they expect anyone to follow them?

It might as well be a question of, do you prefer vertical or horizontal orientation on the pages?

I have Shirmer's edition of Franck's three chorales and of Boellmanns"s Gothic Suite. The Franck has three or four places where there are comments about the notes as written being impossible to play. Did Franck do that?

What about poor Anton Bruckner? Not only did he revise some of his symphonies, but there were at least a couple of later "editors" who got involved in making changes. How is a conductor supposed to know what to do?

[Ntalikeris666]

Somehow this raises a question: why are there differences? If a composer's hand-written (?) versions are used, there should be no problems, unless they were awfully messy in their manuscripts, in which case, how did they expect anyone to follow them?

It might as well be a question of, do you prefer vertical or horizontal orientation on the pages?

I have Shirmer's edition of Franck's three chorales and of Boellmanns"s Gothic Suite. The Franck has three or four places where there are comments about the notes as written being impossible to play. Did Franck do that?

What about poor Anton Bruckner? Not only did he revise some of his symphonies, but there were at least a couple of later "editors" who got involved in making changes. How is a conductor supposed to know what to do?

Well, that would raise a good question. I guess, that indeed, that if the manuscripts exist and are intact there should be no problem. But if the manuscript was not written by the composer himself (see the last works of Bach , where he had one of his brothers right for him) and maybe changes have been done, or if the manuscript is unclear, publishers take these manuscripts and decide whats better (for their opinion) to be done.

By the way, personally, i prefer horizontal orientation for organ pieces. But thats personal opinion. My Bach Books are all horizontally oriented, though other more modern pieces are vertically. My Clerambault copies are also vertical.

[dll927]

Widor is a case in point. An organist named John Near did considerable resarch on Widor's "organ symphonies" and, I believe, published an edition of them. Widor himself made revisions and corrections, and there were several versions of some pieces.

But in such a case, one would assume that the final version the composer left would be the standard to go by.

That still doesn't explain why Bruckner had such problems.!!

[Contratrombone64]

Bruckner's problem was he was never quite happy with his symphonies ... hence a couple of them have three versions. The Romantic has at least three and good luck finding a mini-score that is the same as a recording.

[dll927]

I guess that must be true, but at some point, one has to leave well enough alone!!

BTW, Bruckner was a church organist, but he left very little in the way of organ music. It is said that he is more popular in German-speaking than in English-speaking countries, and his symphonies have been accused of a certain amount of "sameness", but I've also read that some feel there should be a fourth "B" -- Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner.