(19.9.2013) The 300th anniversary of Gluck’s birth, born on 2 July 1714 in Erasbach near Nuremberg, is being marked in many places this season. This starts on 3 November 2013 in the Bayer Kulturhaus Leverkusen with a concert performance of Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito with L’Arte del mondo conducted by Werner Ehrhardt, followed on 10 November by Frankfurt Opera with its first performance of the Prague version of Ezio (Vincent Boussard / Christian Curnyn). On 8 February 2014 the first performance of Atto d'Orfeo, the Parma version of Orfeo ed Euridice, will be given at Göteborg Opera. Laurence Cummings conducts using pre-publication material from the Gluck Complete Works, specially prepared for this performance by Gabriele Buschmeier. The director is David Radok. 

(1.6.2013) The Vienna Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag is proud to announce the start of the New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition. In cooperation with the International Bruckner Society and the Austrian National Library, all the compositions by Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) will be newly edited. The first volume is due to be published at the end of 2013. Each volume will be prepared by internationally renowned Bruckner scholars according to consistent editorial guidelines in keeping with today's standards. Furthermore the most recent findings concerning sources will be taken into account and an increased importance will be placed on questions of performance practice. The aim is always to present an authentic musical text. In addition to a comprehensive preface which includes information on the source material, the genesis and history of the work as well as on the aspects of performance practice, each volume contains a detailed critical report. All texts will be in German and English. Each volume will be published in a large format full conducting score and in a study score format.

(10.6.2013) This year’s new opera production at the Handel Festival is devoted to his first stage work, Almira, which the 20-year-old composer wrote for the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg – with clear references to Venetian opera, such as the characteristic mix of serious and comic scenes. His wonderful sense of melodic invention, to which he frequently returned,  is already found here. Due to the recent floods, the premiere of Axel Köhler’s new production has had to be postponed and will now take place on 21 June. Andreas Spering will conduct this first performance using the Halle Handel Edition.

As early as 1960, George Frideric Handel’s Dixit Dominus was published as part of the then comparatively new Halle Handel Edition (HHA III/1). Eberhard Wenzel edited this volume, primarily intended for practical performance use, and hoped back then in 1960 that it would “enrich the Handelian repertoire for church and concert hall by the addition of a valuable, interesting and strongly effective work”. This intention was more than fulfilled, and in the intervening years, Handel’s youthful, demanding Dixit Dominus of 1707 has become a quintessential staple of the Baroque repertoire.

Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag Wien is offering a new supplement to the Complete Bruckner Edition – a practical performing edition of the orchestral parts.

Gluck’s ballet Les Amours d’Alexandre et de Roxane is published in the Complete Edition.

(7.2.2013) The myth of Acis and Galatea from Ovid’s Metamorphoses occupied Handel throughout his career, firstly inspiring him to compose a large-scale Italian cantata in 1708, then an English masque in 1718. Less well-known, because it has only been available in fragmentary form until now, is his third setting of this subject dating from 1732, a serenata in two languages, English and Italian, rich in musical form and magnificent tone colours. This version is now being published for the first time in a fully-edited form as part of the Halle Handel Edition. It receives concert performances on 20 March 2013 in the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, and 25 March in the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with a distinguished line-up of soloists and the Basel Chamber Orchestra conducted by Paul Goodwin. The late version of Acis and Galatea receives its first staged performance in this edition on 14 June at the Goethe-Theater, Bad Lauchstädt as part of the Handel Festival Halle (Concerto Royal, conductor: Sebastian Breuning, production: Ute M. Engelhardt).