# Beethoven: copyist mistakes



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Fascinating article by Classic FM on mistakes found in some of Beethoven's great works:
''Uncovering mistakes in Beethoven's manuscripts''


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Interesting read. Thanks for posting.

When you think about all of the people and steps involved in publishing music, it's astonishing how few errors there really are. Start with the composer, many of whom had really lousy notational handwriting skill. Take that all but impossible to read manuscript and give it to a copyist who will add and make their own mistakes. Then on to the editor who may have suggestions for readability and make his own "improvements". Then on to the difficult job of engraving where errors become really expensive and difficult to correct back in the old days. Print a copy and send it to a proof reader (Brahms was great at this) and then back to the editor/engraver for corrections. Sometimes it was just easier to print an errata list and print it along with the score. Add to that producing parts from the score - there's another minefield just filled with mistakes.

I've played orchestral music for over 50 years and I can't think of anything that doesn't have mistakes of some kind. Breitkopf and Hartel in Germany was the publisher of so much, but despite their quality the scores and parts are loaded with goofs. Barenreiter and Simrock are just as bad. Novello in England - same issue. With so many people involved it's easy to understand. But what's not so easy is reprints from outfits such as Kalmus. There are well-known errors in Kalmus editions and why in the world someone doesn't make those corrections permanent is something I don't understand. Even big, well-known works by composers like Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, are chock full of mistakes.

Fortunately, MOLA (Major Orchestras Library Association) and the Conductor's Guild both maintain huge databases of known errors in printed music that librarians can (and should) use to make sure rehearsals go smoothly. I have the del Mar Beethoven symphonies in study scores, and they are clear and nice and hopefully correct. Do they sound different from other editions? Yes - sometimes, but some of those changes have been known for a long time. Felix Weingartner pointed out a lot of the textual issues and conductors have taken many of his comments to heart. 

I've recently played three of the Beethoven symphonies using the del Mar edition: 5. 7 and 9. Yes, the parts are easier to read, probably corrected some wrong notes and other errors, but then they went and did something that made matters worse: page turns and the number of pages. That's one thing the old do-it-by-hand printers understood - they made page turns natural and easy and they crammed a lot on one page. Those are two things performing musicians really need.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Typos, copyist's errors, engraver's errors, editorial discretionary errors, and even intentional errors (notes the composer left out because of instrumental limitations that he might otherwise have put in) -- and what to do about them -- are all things that separate the really serious conductor (or instrumentalist) from the dilettante. And that's one of those things the casual listener overlooks until something really obvious is brought to his attention.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

These days, in general, composers purchase notation software (eg Sibelius or Finale) and do everything themselves.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> That's one thing the old do-it-by-hand printers understood - they made page turns natural and easy and they crammed a lot on one page. Those are two things performing musicians really need.


I understand the page turns - but why is note cramming good?


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Presumably to minimise the number of page turns required and the facilitate the turns at a suitable moment in the piece.
I'm no musician so the above is just a guess on my part.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Malx said:


> Presumably to minimise the number of page turns required and the facilitate the turns at a suitable moment in the piece.
> I'm no musician so the above is just a guess on my part.


And it's a good guess. Of course, there's another part of the story: in older, real printed music page sizes were much larger than the standard 8.5 x 11 we get today, so while there were more notes on a page, the larger size page presented no difficulty.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

janxharris said:


> These days, in general, composers purchase notation software (eg Sibelius or Finale) and do everything themselves.


And that is NO guarantee that everything is ok. Some composers actually create two scores: one for the conductor and one for parts. The former is traditional: two flutes on one stave, two oboes per stave, 2 horns, etc. Even as good as some of this software is, generating parts is still tricky and the easiest way to deal with all the problems, add cues, etc is to create a parallel score just to generate parts. And too often the composer makes a change in one, forgetting the other and then there are problems. And too many composers just don't learn to use the software properly and create parts and scores that are horrible.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> And it's a good guess. Of course, there's another part of the story: in older, real printed music page sizes were much larger than the standard 8.5 x 11 we get today, so while there were more notes on a page, the larger size page presented no difficulty.


I think the MOLA has a minimum standard page size for parts: 10"x13"(?)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In Beethoven's time, music (even his) was often printed with errors. This was despite best efforts at galley proofing, composer's review, and so forth. Reviews of new music in the press, which were usually written from the printed scores, often included lists of errors found so that readers could mark corrections on their copies. There are several examples among Beethoven's AMZ reviews.

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

When manuscript errors are noticed, musicians will correct them to the best of their ability during rehearsals to rectify what appears to be an obvious mistake and so the work is playable, whether it’s Beethoven or anyone else. Even if Beethoven’s manuscripts aren’t exactly like what he wanted and the updated corrections are officially being made, most of his great works have still been played for almost 200 years because of the imagination and creativity of the performing musicians. It’s also possible that the composer may have made a notational error in the original manuscript. Is the publisher or are the musicians supposed to literally accept what might be an error should it sound terrible or highly uncharacteristic of the composer? Knowing what’s right is not always so easy, and nothing can be done automatically or by rote. Any corrections still have to somehow work whether the changes make the work sound more consonant or dissonant.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> When manuscript errors happen, musicians will correct them to the best of their ability during rehearsals to rectify what appears to be an obvious mistake and so the work is playable, whether it's Beethoven or anyone else. Even if Beethoven's manuscripts aren't exactly like what he wanted, they have still been played for almost 200 years because of the imagination and creativity of the musicians in an imperfect world.


Would this be practicable if the work is atonal?


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