Urtext Edition

Haydn allowed about ten years to pass before composing a new cycle of string quartets after opus 20: the so-called 'Russian Quartets'. This is the first series of quartets that we know he wrote with p...

The volume opens with something unusual: opus 42 is a single work, short and surprisingly easy to play; Haydn described it as 'something small and with only 3 pieces'. The Quartets op. 50, including t...

These are the last of the nearly seventy quartets in Haydn's oeuvre. Originally he intended to write a set of six quartets, as so often in the past, but at the time they were written, in 1803, Haydn's...

A must for all ambitious string ensembles! Because due to recent source discoveries, the musical text of this classic in the Henle catalog could be optimized in numerous details. The thoroughly revise...

The string quartet is generally considered as the chamber-music genre of the classical era: invented by Haydn, elaborated by Haydn and Mozart, and brought to its compositional peak by Beethoven. All l...

Brahms had already composed over 20 string quartets (he confessed to a friend that he had burnt all of that 'stuff') before he finally presented his Opus 51 to the public. In the end only three surviv...

Spirited', 'dramatic', 'highly expressive', and 'masterly' are among the comments made upon Mendelssohn's String Quartets op. 44 nos 1-3. He wrote them in 1837/1838, at a very happy time: he had just...

Franz Schubert composed the song 'Death and the Maiden' in 1817, and in 1824 used that melody in the theme-and-variations second movement of his String Quartet in d minor D. 810. The song's popularity...

Mendelssohn's String Quartet op. 80 is one of his few 'autobiographical' works, a moving musical document of his grief over the death of his sister Fanny and his attempt to artistically process the pa...

We have now come full circle - this edition concludes our Urtext series of the complete Beethoven string quartets. The ending of this highly expressive work, at whose centre is the famous 'Cavatina',...

Attention, string quartet players: the long wait is over! Henle launches its series of late Beethoven quartets with op. 131 in c sharp minor and op. 132 in a minor, using the definitive urtext from th...

Attention, string quartet players: the long wait is over! Henle launches its series of late Beethoven quartets with op. 131 in c sharp minor and op. 132 in a minor, using the definitive urtext from th...

No music lover can remain untouched by the emotional quality of this work, composed in Schubert's last year. The monumental weight of the outer movements, the intimate lyricism of the 'Adagio', as wel...

On 18 May 2006 a manuscript was auctioned at Sotheby's that made chamber musicians prick up their ears. Shortly before his death, Max Bruch composed three works for strings which he was no longer able...

Although Schumann's first attempts at composing for this supreme form of chamber music in 1838/39 were only fragments, the three String Quartets op. 41 in a minor, F major and A major were written in...

No music lover can remain untouched by the emotional quality of this work, composed in Schubert's last year. The monumental weight of the outer movements, the intimate lyricism of the 'Adagio', as wel...

Divertimento in D major K. 136 (125a) - Divertimento in B-flat major K. 137 (125b) - Divertimento in F major K. 138 (125c). Urtext of the New Mozart Edition - Divertimenti in D major K. 136 (125a) - D...

The serenade flourished in Mozart’s era, but with Brahms the genre experienced a new surge in popularity in the 19th century. Dvořák’s cheerful and relaxed op. 22 came into being in 1875, during a ver...

Piano reduction by the composer

Published in early 1806, Kreutzer's '40 Études ou Caprices' for violin - there are 42 today - are the product of his years-long employment at the Conservatoire de Paris and are the most comprehensive...

Inspired by Béla Bartók's violin sonatas, Ravel planned his own sonata for violin and piano in 1922, but initially did not get beyond sketches. After several interruptions, the work was not completed...

Beethoven's Spring Sonata is one of his happiest creations. Violinists and pianists alike love its truly spring-like grace, inwardness, spirit and power. Early reviewers underscored the fact that the...

Ludwig van Beethoven's two Romances for violin and orchestra in G major op. 40 and F major op. 50 are rewarding solo pieces that demand virtuoso technique and artistic sensitivity. Their simple struct...

For decades Henle's edition of this masterpiece from the violinrepertoire has been de rigueur for all serious violinists. Now we are presenting it with a revised text reflecting the latest research fi...

Debussy had intended to write a cycle comprising six sonatas. However, as he was seriously ill, he was forced to conclude it with the third one. Whereas the Sonata for Cello and Piano and the one for...