The new edition of Handel’s opera “Scipione” reveals two different performance versions of a work which carries an explosive political subject in a musically shattering form.

What better present could there be for a composer than making his works available in the best possible form? 4 September 2024 is the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth. A season full of performances of his works awaits. And several of these will be memorable first performances, as Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag Wien is preparing new editions of the much-discussed versions of the Bruckner symphonies. These include the annulled Symphony in D minor of 1869, the first version of the Fourth, the Sixth, Seventh and the Adagio of 1887–1889 and the second version of the Eighth.

He was the master of the refined chiaroscuro: Gabriel Fauré, who succeeded in composing some of the most popular tunes in fin-de-siècle French music: the fine subtlety of his sumptuous, yet serene “Pavane”, for example, which exists in numerous versions, the ethereal “Pie Jesu” from his Requiem, the “Masques et Bergamasques”. In 2024, with the 100th anniversary of Fauré’s death on 4 November, Robin Tait’s scholarly-critical new edition enables an appraisal not only of his most popular works, but also rediscoveries, such as the incidental music to “Caligula”, “Shylock” and “Pelléas et Mélisande”, orchestrated versions of his “Ballade”, “La Naissance de Vénus”, “Madrigal”, several “Mélodies” and “La Passion”, and the prelude to his major operatic work “Pénélope”.

It is over seventy years since the publication of the first volume of the Complete Works of Christoph Willibald Gluck. Now the edition, which made many works accessible for the first time, is almost complete. A preliminary assessment.

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux was an outstanding success, though initially in the reworked version of 1754. The performance material for this work is now available. The volume from the Complete Edition will follow.

Opera or oratorio? There is still uncertainty about the classification of Handel's "Semele". What is certain is that this full-length work is filled with musical gems and lends itself well to staged performances due to its fast-paced plot.

During the fasting season in Handel's London, dramatic works were not allowed to be performed. This prompted the composer to revive an Italian oratorio he had composed thirty years earlier in 1737 and enrich it with choruses.