The first volume of Schenker's "Erläuterungsausgabe,"
published in 1913 and comprising Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 109 in his
edition based on Beethoven's autograph manuscript. The latter was at that time owned by
the Wittgenstein family in Vienna (having been in the possession of the family of its
publisher, Schlesinger, until purchased at auction in 1907 by Wittgenstein, subsequently
acquired by the Library of Congress in Washington), together with unpublished notes by
Gustav Nottebohm supplied by Eusebius Mandyczewski at the Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Schenker examined the manuscript at the
Wittgenstein Palace on November 12, 19, and December 6, 1912. Schenker's text comprised
his "Vorwort" (Foreword), "Vorbemerkung zur Einführung" (Preliminary Remark to the
Introduction), "Einführung" (Introduction—Schenker also informally called this section
"Analyse"), and "Literatur" (Secondary Literature). It is published by Universal Edition,
Vienna.
Publication History
First Edition
The original edition was published in 1913, with publication number UE 3976.
Cover title-page: BEETHOVEN-SCHENKER | ERLÄUTERUNGS-AUSGABE | DER LETZTEN FÜNF SONATEN | SONATE E DUR | OP. 109.
Inner title-page: DIE LETZTEN | FÜNF
SONATEN | VON | BEETHOVEN | — |
KRITISCHE AUSGABE | MIT EINFÜHRUNG |
UND ERLÄUTERUNG | VON | HEINRICH SCHENKER | — | PIANO SOLO
Chronology: Schenker's Foreword is dated September 1913. He
had submitted his manuscript of the work on February 5, 1913; proof correcting of the
letterpress and music engraving (with assistance from Aaron
Mittelmann) ran variously from April or May to mid-August 1913. The edition
went to press on August 26, 1913, and 503 copies were delivered from the printer to
the publisher on September 24, 1913 (though in his diary Schenker records receipt of
his first copy on September 20).
Second Edition
Chronology: Schenker was notified in January 1922 (OJ 3/3, p.
2411) that a new edition was due. His diary for February 4, 1922 records: "Corrections
to Op. 109, mainly removal of foreign terms that should be
replaced by German terms that have the same meaning and roughly the same number of
characters" (OJ 3/3, p. 2413). The copies of the first edition in which these proposed
changes (e. g. "Abänderungen" in place of "Modifikationen") were entered survive as OC
Scores/26 and 27. Ultimately, the verbal changes were not made, but those to the
musical text were. This edition went to press late in 1922, and 510 copies were
delivered from the printer to the publisher on January 13, 1923.
New Edition
Edited by Oswald Jonas, and published in 1971, with
publication number UE 26.303, this excises Schenker's polemical matter and commentary
on the secondary literature, and replaces Schenker's edition with the 1945 revision by
Erwin Ratz with the effect that the scores contradict some of the textual argument in
Schenker's elucidations. .
Cover title-page: Beethoven | Die letzten
Sonaten | SONATE E DUR OP. 109 | Erläuterungsausgabe | von HEINRICH SCHENKER
Inner title-page: Beethoven | Die letzten
Sonaten | SONATE E DUR OP. 109 | Kritische Einführung und Erläuterung von | HEINRICH
SCHENKER | herausgegeben von | Oswald
Jonas
English Translation and Study
The recent English translation by John Rothgeb is likewise in four separate,
small-format volumes and a website, of which this volume is:
Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 109, Beethoven's
Last Piano Sonatas: An Edition with Elucidation, vol. I, transl., ed. and
annotated by John Rothgeb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)
This edition follows the text of Schenker's original, thereby restoring all the
material excised by Jonas in his 1971 edition. Significantly, it incorporates numerous
annotations made by Schenker in his personal copies of the first edition (now in the
Oster Collection, Scores/25‒28). Explanatory and citational footnotes by Rothgeb
incorporate some of the observations made by Jonas. Schenker's surveys of the secondary
literature appear not in the print volumes but on the website. The score of the sonata
appears neither in the print volume nor on the website.