Beethoven Piano Sonatas (edited by Artur Schnabel)

[fredbucket]

I realise that there is already a thread for the music of LvanB, but I want to keep this thread separate since it is a bit more specialised. There are a number of editions of Beethoven Piano Sonatas in circulation, but this edition has not been seen before to my knowledge, and so I thought that denisons of PP would like to see this one.

Artur Schnabel, 'the man who invented Beethoven' died just over 60 years ago, and this edition was published in 1935 so we are safely out of copyright. It is a very personal edition, with much of his own rather unique markings and interpretations. I will, in the fullness of time, be posting more, but let's just start with the No1...

beethoven - 32 sonatas (ed. schnabel) preface.pdf

beethoven - op. 2 no 1 sonata in f minor (ed. schnabel).pdf

Additionally, I'm going out on a limb a bit and posting security protected files which can only be viewed and printed, but not modified. This is in response to a number of reports of uploads to PP being sold (i.e. not free) on other sites. These files are not to be uploaded anywhere else without my permission - my aim is that PP users in the main should benefit from these and that is why the URL is on the front page of each sonata.

Please keep this thread on topic

Regards
Fred

[alfor]

For those crazy people who like to spend money on well-bound paper sheet music, they are still in print:
http://www.musikhaus-dassler.de/suche.h ... +beethoven

(Edizione Curci - which I assume your scans are from!?***
=reprint of the original famous "Tonmeister-Ausgabe" published by Ullstein Verlag)

***In fact an Ullstein- licensed edition by Simon & Schuster, New York, from 1935 (two years after Artur Schnabel had left Nazi Germany!!!)

[fredbucket]

(Edizione Curci - which I assume your scans are from!?
=reprint of the original famous "Tonmeister-Ausgabe" published by Ullstein Verlag)

I don't know which was the original. The preface suggests that the American edition is the original, although that may be publisher's licence

Regards
Fred

[fredbucket]

Here is the A major sonata Op2 no2. Is it just my impression, or are Schnabel's tempo indications very fast?

beethoven - op. 2 no 2 sonata in a major (ed. schnabel).pdf

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment

Regards
Fred

[Caprotti]

As far as I can remember, Schnabel's indications of tempos were famous because they were following the composer's own indications (reported by Czerny and checked with the new Maelzel metronome ?), and because he followed those fast tempos in his recording of the cycle. Among the few pianists that applied more or less those tempos I'd quote Pollini, who expressed many times his high consideration of Schnabel's performances.

[pianojay]

Here is the A major sonata Op2 no2. Is it just my impression, or are Schnabel's tempo indications very fast?

beethoven - op. 2 no 2 sonata in a major (ed. schnabel).pdf

Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment

Regards
Fred

Now this is what I call an exciting series! Thank you!

[fredbucket]

As far as I can remember, Schnabel's indications of tempos were famous because they were following the composer's own indications (reported by Czerny and checked with the new Maelzel metronome ?)

Some of those were a bit unreliable - like the op106 speed of 144

Regards
Fred

[alfor]

Originally published in Germany as part of the the so-called
"TONMEISTER-AUSGABE" by VERLAG ULLSTEIN (one of Germany's foremost publishers of literature).

The "TONMEISTER-AUSGABE" was a (non-Urtext!) edition of the classics edited by some of the most famous artists of the period:
Beethoven by Artur Schnabel and Frederic Lamond
Bach by Edwin Fischer (reissue Edition Wilhelm Hansen)
Brahms by Eugene d'Albert
Clementi, Händel & Haydn by James Kwast
Mozart by Carl Friedberg
Schubert by Conrad Ansorge
Mendelssohn & Schumann by Moritz Mayer-Mahr
Liszt by Moriz Rosenthal
Weber by Bruno Eisner
Chopin by Leonid Kreutzer

One should point out that Schnabel's edition is not fully pedalized (although - besides some ingenious fingering - contains some most valuable hints for pedaling, for example in the first mvt. of op. 28)

The Beethoven edition was intended to encompass the complete solo piano works, but I am not sure whether it was ever completed.
Artur Schnabel edited the sonatas (published beetween 1924 & 1927; reissue by Edizioni Curci-Milano, still in print today), the Diabelli Variations and possibly some other works. Frederic Lamond edited Variations, Bagatelles, Rondos, Andante favori, etc..

I attach a sample of op. 111 plus the two final promo-pages of Frederic Lamond's edition of the Variations op. 34.

Schnabel Beethoven Tonmeister sample.pdf

[fleubis]

As far as I can remember, Schnabel's indications of tempos were famous because they were following the composer's own indications (reported by Czerny and checked with the new Maelzel metronome ?)

Some of those were a bit unreliable - like the op106 speed of 144

Regards
Fred

Fred many years ago I heard a tale about Beethoven's Maelzel metronome being checked for accuracy and found to be running somewhat fast, but have never been able to confirm the accuracy of this story. If it was running fast, it sure would be nice to know how much faster, so we could start subtracting the difference from Beethoven's markings.

[fredbucket]

Fred many years ago I heard a tale about Beethoven's Maelzel metronome being checked for accuracy and found to be running somewhat fast, but have never been able to confirm the accuracy of this story. If it was running fast, it sure would be nice to know how much faster, so we could start subtracting the difference from Beethoven's markings.

If you check the original editions, I think you will find that Beethoven did not specify speeds (my apologies if I'm wrong here). I always thought that the speeds came from Czerny.

Regards
Fred