With the Ninth Symphony, a new chapter of publishing history began for Bärenreiter in 1996. Today, the editions by Jonathan Del Mar and others have become standard in the music world – and this will be the case for the 2027 anniversary year.

Beethoven’s works have only been in the spotlight at Bärenreiter-Verlag for thirty years; the scholarly-critical editions have made publishing history. The Beethoven editions were created independently from the Complete Edition project and from the very beginning, had two aims: they were intended to satisfy the highest scholarly standards and to be directly usable in practical performing situations.

Firstly, between 1996 and 2000 all the nine symphonies were published as full scores and parts. The project was initiated and undertaken by former Bärenreiter editor Douglas Woodfull-Harris and the British conductor and musicologist Jonathan Del Mar. Del Mar’s editorial work offered the musical text for such ground-breaking recordings as those by the Hanover Band (the first recording of the Beethoven symphonies on historical instruments) and Sir Simon Rattle’s highly-regarded symphony cycle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1995. Although there had been various scholarly-critical new editions of individual Beethoven symphonies in the 20th century, there was no complete edition. It was not only Charles Mackerras who claimed that “the need for scholarly Urtext editions is greater for Beethoven than for any other great composer”. So the interest in Del Mar’s work was correspondingly great: “It is high time that there was a reliable edition of this, the most celebrated of symphony cycles, and Jonathan Del Mar is the man to undertake such a valuable initiative”, Sir John Eliot Gardiner wrote to the publisher. For Bärenreiter-Verlag, who had not previously had any significant number of Beethoven works in its catalogue, the project was a challenge. With great speed and efficiency, all nine symphonies were published within just four years. Jonathan Del Mar’s editions were immediately taken up by musicians. Their immediate use in performances, by conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Colin Davis and Franz Welser-Möst, and for the complete recording by David Zinman with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, were the subject of lively discussion in the press. The public, who still had a certain unease about the new edition, were reassured: “The Ninth will sound the same, and so will the Fifth. Beethoven will still be Beethoven – only a bit more so.” (Associated Press, Jan. 1997). Since then, Del Mar’s edition has been regarded as indispensable for performances and recordings of the Beethoven symphonies worldwide, and is one of the most successful titles in the Bärenreiter publishing programme. After the publication of the symphonies, Bärenreiter and Del Mar turned to other genres in the same way.

All the sonatas and variations for piano and cello have been published, the complete string quartets and piano trios, the Violin and Triple Concerto, the Romances for Violin and Orchestra, the Septet, the complete piano sonatas (as Urtext and with fingering by Marc-André Hamelin) and the piano concertos, as well as the overtures to “Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus”, “Coriolan” and “Egmont”.

The Beethoven programme has been supplemented with editions by other editors: Barry Cooper edited the Mass in C, the “Missa solemnis” and the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte”, Mario Aschauer edited the “Diabelli Variations” and the “Bagatelles”, Clive Brown the complete violin sonatas, and the Piano Quartet WoO 36 has been published in an edition by Leonardo Miucci. 2027 sees the publication of Beethoven’s op. 16 in versions for quintet for piano and winds, as well as the piano quartet, also edited by Leonardo Miucci. In collaboration with Henle-Verlag, Bärenreiter-Verlag will also publish the opera “Fidelio”, beginning with Christine Siegert’s critical edition of Leonore 1805, as well as all three versions of the “Leonore” overtures, edited by Helga Lühning, and available on hire or sale.

Emanuel Signer
(from [t]akte 1/2026)
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)