the performer’s pilgrimage to the sources ❧ 153
the keyboard works of William Byrd in the Musica Britannica series^3 is a very
satisfactory example of this policy.
The highest degree of complexity, both for editor and reader, is represented
by a variorum edition in which careful accounting is taken of all sources. Such
is the case in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe,^4 and to such an extent that some of the
Revisionsberichte take up more room than the text themselves. At some point
in the history of an important text, variorum editions became necessary, but
if the variants are printed in the same volume as the text, they often make
it expensive and bulky. Yet if printed separately, they often fail to fi ll their
intended function of supplementing the text.
In editing a musical text, it is essential to distinguish between that which is
absolute and that which is merely relative. Orthography, for example, is merely
relative. It lends itself to a translation which does not tamper with the absolute.
To translate a piece of notation from a C clef into a G clef does not represent a
falsifi cation of the musical text. But there are some forms of translation which
affect meaning. For example, in literary editing, modernization of spelling in
Shakespeare can eliminate certain former mute e’s in the English language
and alter the rhythm of the passage to such an extent that a sensitive editor can
well feel obliged to maintain certain archaisms of spelling and of orthography.
In music, translation into modern notation of those time signatures which had
connotations of absolute proportional value in relation to a tactus can repre-
sent a subjective alteration on the part of the editor. It can produce falsifi ca-
tion that is only further compounded by a reduction of note values.
The orthography of part-writing can be very troublesome. In such works
as are printed in separate voices, there often is no problem in transcribing
them into modern notation. And in transcribing four voices into two staves
of keyboard notation, there is usually little doubt about the direction of the
stems for indicating part-writing. But if one is transcribing from keyboard tab-
lature, or from almost any early eighteenth-century manuscript, one encoun-
ters the then prevailing habit of using separate individual stems in chords, and
one is obliged to make a translation into a modern equivalent that involves
a considerable amount of editorial conjecture about the exact nature of the
part-writing.
Beyond transmission of the text itself, the editor or the performer-editor
may have to face the problem of additions and supplements. There may be
passages left out or notes omitted; the binder may have cut off a few measures
of a page; missing accidentals may have to be written in or at least conjecturally
- Anthony Lewis et al. Musica Britannica: A National Collection of Music (London:
Stainer & Bell, 1951). The Byrd volumes (27–28) were edited by Alan Brown.
- Helga Lühning and Walter König, Johann Sebastian Bach: Neue Ausgabe sä mtlicher
Werke: Register zu den Kritischen Berichten (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1974).
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