You might imagine that Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was available in a definitive version. But the current version has been proved to contain errors in many details, reason for Jonathan Del Mar to edit the work afresh from scratch, and to provide today’s musicians with a reliable basis to work from.

It might appear surprising that the Beethoven Violin Concerto could be in need of a new edition. Why do we need one?

The answer to this question lies in two fundamental points. Firstly, numerous questionable decisions had found their way into the version in the Beethoven Complete Edition (even the Critical Commentary, published after the death of the original editor, admits as much). Secondly, it is a fact that times have changed since 1973 and musicians are now demanding editions which respect more closely the performance ethic of the composer’s own time. In other words, there is no point in issuing a squeaky-clean authentic score with a solo violin part which perpetuates bowing patterns which stem from the Flesch- Rostal tradition. 

The new edition fulfils the requirements of today’s performers in both these respects. Where the score text is concerned, the main problem with the volume in the Complete Edition lies in the evaluation of sources. In certain places, a sketch was given precedence over what is without any doubt Beethoven’s final version (bassoons, cellos and basses in bars 329–332 of the Rondo); sometimes a handwritten addition by the publisher who could not make sense of what Beethoven meant was incorporated (flute in bars 28–29 of the Rondo). But more seriously, the Complete Edition favoured the embryonic violin part Beethoven sketched into his autograph score over what is known to be the definitive text in the Stichvorlage Abschrift. There, the autograph’s long, unplayable slurs are shown to have been systematically split up into practical groups, and this text was meticulously overseen and checked by Beethoven. Yet all of this was rejected in the Complete Edition in favour of the revised autograph text.

Having established the best text – over 100 corrections were made in the orchestral parts alone – we have presented it in the score and orchestral parts, and also in a clean Urtext solo violin part. In addition, a second solo violin part is supplied which contains fingerings and bowings which still respect as closely as possible the articulation which Beethoven wrote. There is one new note which has not been heard since the first performance in 1807, when Franz Clement would have played it according to Beethoven’s revised solo violin part (now unfortunately lost). This is in bar 463 of the first movement where, instead of the sterile and static eighth (quaver) note on the first beat, which was a misunderstanding by the copyist, the sixteenth (semiquaver) note figuration continues uninterrupted, as Beethoven intended.

In one further respect, our new edition marks a departure from all previous ones, which will be immediately apparent throughout the score from the first page to the last. For the first time since 1808, the Solo/Tutti markings are presented as they are found in the sources; they have hitherto been misunderstood ever since. And for the first time ever (for in Beethoven’s lifetime no score was published at all) our score respects the performance practice of Beethoven’s time in recognising the violinist’s important role not only as soloist, but also as director, who therefore needs to be able to play as much of the Tutti first violin part as is either necessary or desirable. This Tutti line, therefore, is now included in the solo part in small type (in the score and parts) as a period instrument soloist would require and expect.

Jonathan Del Mar

from  [t]akte 2/2009