The New Editions of Beethoven's  Symphonies 3 (Eroica) and 4 

Authors

  • Bathia Churgin Bar-Ilan University Author

Keywords:

Beethoven, Henle, Study Scores, Gesamtausgabe, Beethoven editorial problems

Abstract

This study reviews the main authentic manuscript and printed sources for Beethoven's Third and Fourth Symphonies.  In addition it cites several passages whose slurs and even notes have been altered over time. Most striking are the slurs in the Eroica, first movement, for the new theme in the development and coda sections. While this theme usually appears with slurs of two plus two measures, in the copyist's score with Beethoven's corrections, the slurs vary in each presentation. 

Author Biography

  • Bathia Churgin, Bar-Ilan University

    Professor Emerita Bathia Churgin holds a Ph. D. from Harvard University with a dissertation on the symphonies of G. B. Sammartini. After teaching many years at Vassar College in the U. S. she came to Israel in 1970 to open the department of musicology (now called music) at Bar-Ilan University, a department she headed for  fifteen years.  She has specialized in music of the Classic period, in particular the music of G. B. Sammartini (1700/01-75) and Beethoven. In addition to many articles, she has published critical editions of twenty-five Sammartini symphonies, including all the early symphonies and an early overture (pub. 1968, 1984) as well as a set of 6 late string trios (pub. 1981). She compiled  with the conductor Newell Jenkins  the Thematic Catalogue of the Works of Giovanni Battista Sammartini: Orchestral and Vocal Music (pub. 1976). Her recent publications include Transcendent Mastery: Studies in the Music of Beethoven (2008; corrected ed. 2011); Mary Sue Morrow and Bathia Churgin, eds., The Eighteenth-Century Symphony (2012), Vol. 1 of the series "The Symphonic Repertoire";  critical editions of Beethoven's symphonies 3 (Eroica) and 4 for the Henle edition of Beethoven's collected works (pub. 2013), and the  Study Scores of Beethoven's symphonies 3 and 4 (Henle, 2016). A Festschrift in her honor was published in The Journal of Musicology, 18 (Winter, 2001).  

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Published

2024-04-23

Issue

Vol. 13 (2016)

Section

Articles